Vivek Rajkumar just won the Borgata Poker Open and a cool $1,424,500. This is coming off the heals of SirWatts's big win and Amit Makhija's 2nd place finish at the Legends - Amit is Vivek's roommate!



Vivek isn't a regular blogger on tworags, but we like to think of him as a friend of the site. He joined us last spring at the Commerce suite for a Laker game:


You're looking at two young millionaires! Who knew?

...and participated in the inaugural Bike Club/TwoRags SnG:

SNG Video

Congrats Vivek. Great playing!!!

So Podiman did us proud in the ME finishing in the top 100. Badgerpro also made a deep run and SirWatts finished just shy of the $$$. Now comes the WPT Bellagio Cup $15k tournament. This just in from the WPT site:

"Mike "SirWatts" Watson is putting the floor staff here in the Fontana Lounge to work, busting 3 players in 2 hands.

First, a player open shoved under the gun for his entire stack, Watson made the call from middle position, and another player calls behind him.

The under the gun player turns over A-6, Watson holds pocket queens, and the third player has pocket jacks. The board does not improve any of the three hands and Watson takes down the 350,000 chip pot.

After the hand, Watson explained that the player who moved all-in had been pushing several times over the past few rounds, so his large overshove was not very surprising to the rest of the table.

The very next hand, Watson is still stacking his large mess of chips when the player under the gun moves all-in for his remaining 24,800 chips. It folds around to Watson on the button and he deliberates for a minute before calling. Everyone else folds and the other player reveals K10 while Watson has AJ. The board comes out J53109 and Watson knocks out another one, increasing his stack to 412,000.

Watson resumes stacking his winnings as Tony "Bond18" Dunst is moved into one of the vacant seats and he is shocked to see his friend with such a large stack. Following behind Dunst to fill the other seats are Thayer Rasmussen and Glen "Choron" Chorny, making for a stacked table to play out the last five hands of the night. "


Looks like day 2 is about to end with 125 players remaining and SirWatts, Bond18 and Thay3r are all in the hunt. Good luck, boys!!!

Marc "Podiman" Podell was just busted in 100th place at the ME. After a tough day yesterday where little went right, he started the day short-stacked and received lots of help today in the form of big pairs but was rarely able to get action. He did double up a few times and was just under average at $1mm when he lost a few hands and went down to $650ish and then this hand went down as reported by PokerNews:

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Marc Podell opened with a raise to 60,000 before Tiffany Michelle made it 227,000 to go from the hijack position. The action folded around to Podell who moved all in for 433,000. Michelle made the call.

Podell: {10-Diamonds}{10-Spades}
Michelle: {A-Diamonds}{2-Diamonds}

The flop came {7-Diamonds}{A-Hearts}{K-Diamonds} to give Michelle a monster -- top pair and nut-flush draw. However the turn fell the {10-Clubs} to give Podell a two-outer for a set of tens to take the lead as the gallery roared. But in a classic suck-resuck moment, the roof of the Rio was lifted as Michelle hit the {3-Diamonds} on the river to complete her flush and eliminate Podell in amazing circumstances.

Michelle is now up amongst the chip leaders with three million in chips!

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It's a shame that a player sees to it to commit herself to a hand like A2 by RR so light against an early position raiser who is clearly only going to be raising with quality hands. Oh, well...

Marc has been at one of the two ESPN tables for the last few hours so he should get some TV face-time during the coverage.

Let's all send Marc a huge congrats for an amazing accomplishment!!!! Marc won approximately $50k in the event. It's unfortunate that all of his grinding and great play had to end this way.

Podiman, Badgerpro and Thayer are still alive with healthy stacks going into day 4. There are 474 left and all players are in the money. Podiman (Marc Podell) has $558,000, Badgerpro (Andy Schultz) has $193,000 and Thayer has $394,000.

We wish them all the best of luck today!!!

Actually, the title was just me having fun. Club One, Edmond's card room up in Fresno is very impressive. Ed invited me up this weekend for his WSOP sat. I really didn't need to spend 4 hours on a train and bus to venture into Fresno for a deep stack tournament when there are so many in Vegas (there last week) and in LA close to my house. But I had been wanting to visit the casino and see what's been keeping Ed busy for the past few months and the foreseeable future. I also wanted to visit with LakeofFire and his wife.

The room is very impressive. Ed manages about 400 employees which is a task in and of itself. The room has tons of tables, a nice bar restaurant, a horse betting room and a large banquet room. The operation runs very smoothly and Ed has done a great job of filling his staff with hot ladies whom aim to please. Great job, Ed!

So I loved the room. What about the games? I played a little $2/5 NL on Friday night and found the action to be fairly typical. The table was a bit tight for my liking but it was fun. One interesting hand. I raise from lp with A2s and the flop comes low with two hearts. I raise and get two callers. The turn is a 5 and it's check to me and I raise to $100. The SB goes all-in for 50 more so I call. I'm waiting for a heart to hit the river but no suck luck. Damn.

The guy turns over his hand and says "it's yours I only have a pair of fives." I'm pretty sick that I can't beat that and am going to muck my hand but look it over very carefully when I notice I actually rivered a straight. I was so focused on the flush draw that I didn't notice I hit a gut-shot. I suck! A player next to me thinks I was slow rolling but I said that I was sure I thought he had the higher straight so I was surprised he only had nothing. Lame response, don't you think?

The Tournament

I'll make it quick, because I only played 2 hands! We start with 10k in chips, blinds are 25/25. First hand I get AA. One limper, I raise to 125. Four callers. Flop comes three clubs. I bet 500, one caller. Turn blank. I bet half the pot, guy calls. River club, check, check. He has Q of clubs.

Second orbit. Two limpers in front of me, I limp with 65h. Button raises to 200. Three callers in front of me, I call. Flop comes 234r. Sweet! Checks to raiser who makes it 700. I call. Turn Q. Check to raiser, he makes it 1400, I raise to 4500, he pushes, I call. He turns up 24, river a 4. Bye, bye me. I was only a 92% favorite, I have to expect to lose with this sometimes... right?

I DID NOT break my blackberry as Edmond claims in his blog, but I did head up to my room for a few hours of America's Most Wanted, a little Pokerstars and to watch Cloverfield. Great movie if you haven't seen it.

So here's a hand that was about as bad as the 65s hand. I'm playing a step 5 on PS. I have been getting good hands and have been in pots with this one guy on almost every one. He has never seen what I have, but I'm sure he think I'm bluffing much of the time -- I had the near nuts every time I raised him. Then this hand comes up:

I have QQ and make standard PF raise and he calls. Flop comes Qs Td 2c. He leads out, I raise, he pushes, I call. He shows Tc9c. Geez. As I had guessed, he thought I was full of shit and is fed up. Turn club, river club, I'm now very short and lose soon after.

Well, at least I got to go back down to the club for some good fun with Edmond, LakeofFire, Lake's beautiful wife and the lovely woman at Club One. Two of Ed's managers get special thanks for showing me a good time. Thanks Su and Meemee!!!!!