It’s that time of the week again. The time where Poker News Daily scours the Web and no Twitter feed goes unread as we search for all the juiciest gossip, tournament updates, and all-around nonsense we can find in order to bring you the latest Poker in Twitter update. In this edition, we’ve got down and dirty (literally) updates from the Borgata Poker Open and players reactions to the season premiere of “Lost.”
The Aussie Millions may be over and the poker pros in Mississippi escaped the fire at the Beau Rivage in order to make it home safe and sound, but the poker action is just getting going at the Commerce Casino’s L.A. Poker Classic, while the Borgata Poker Open appears to be in full swing. A number of pros made the East Coast trek for the $3,300 + $200 buy-in Main Event. Folks like Gavin Smith, Allie Prescott, Liv Boeree, Jason Mercier, Allen “Chainsaw” Kessler, Lee Childs, and Jeff Madsen all took part. Madsen and Childs are two of the 26 players still alive in the event.
Before we go into detail about who is left and the massive run Madsen went on as he took the Borgata by storm, we have a very important hygiene-related announcement. Apparently the Borgata ran out of hot water early in the event, which meant many pros had to either take frigid cold showers or go without one for a day. Much to the chagrin of players who opted for the latter option, the poker room was ungodly hot, which resulted in quite the stinky situation. Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul (@BeL0WaB0Ve) was one of the first players to notify the Twitterverse of the situation, posting, “Pretty fitting day…wake up and the hotel hot water pipe broke so no one could shower, get to the poker room and it’s 95 degrees here..” Madsen (@JeffMadsenObv) also chimed in: “Freezing cold shower water but don’t worry the tournament room is 110 degrees . awesome!!”
Players were not pleased and wanted some form of recourse. Luckily for them, Kessler (@allenkessler) was on the case and poker’s greatest bargain hunter was quickly able to find a sunny side to the situation. He quickly informed his peers via his Twitter feed: “A guy in the living room lounge at borgata said they are comping everyones stay that complains about the hot water. It may be another day.” In semi-related news, one of Kessler’s more recent posts was searching for a carpool buddy to the Philadelphia airport. Interested parties can likely just shoot Chainsaw a DM.
Kessler’s prediction about the hot water being an ongoing dilemma was correct, as a couple of days later, Jonathan “FieryJustice”Little (@JonathanLittle) provided an update on the water status, writing, “No hot water at borgata for 36 hours now. The poker room will certainly start to stink soon. Good thing I’m leaving in 2 hours.” The potential stink didn’t seem to concern UB.com’s Adam “Roothlus” Levy much though, as @Roothlus would rather have a chance to repeat his tournament Day 2 than get away from the impending funk. Day 2 came the same day Punxsutawney Phil made his yearly appearance and Levy could only wish his life were a little more like the movies: “Wish this actually was Groundhog Day the movie so I could go to sleep and play day 2 all over again. Busto.”
One guy who couldn’t help but have some playful fun at the Borgata field’s expense was Commerce Casino Poker Director Matt Savage. His Tweets on @SavagePoker needled at the pros all day as he wrote, “Nothing like a hot shower to start your day off right!” and “Left the hot water running in the shower for an hour after falling back asleep and it is still hot :-) sorry for the water waste!”
At least two players believed Savage’s Tweets were a genius brand of guerrilla marketing to convince players to head out West for the Commerce’s big tournament series. 2009 CardPlayer Player of the Year Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin (@basebaldy) wrote, “@SavagePoker u trying to rub it in to the hot-waterless borgata players? Way of saying they should be at LAPC I think.” Clayton “clayton27” Newman agreed, chiming in with this gem: “@SavagePoker maybe your next LAPC update should have a thermostat over your shoulder instead of Al Barbieri. Plus you could wear a scarf.”
The water woes didn’t seem to affect Madsen’s play or his good run. Throughout the past few days, Madsen has Tweeted about some of his amazing suckouts, including the brutal beat he put on Mercier holding J-10 to his pocket jacks. Boeree (@liv_boeree) posited her own theory about what is going on in AC: “@JeffMadsenobv You have not only out-lucked the Mercier, but you have absorbed all his powers too. It’s quite scary.”
When the poker community wasn’t abuzz about Borgata, they were all a-Twitter about the season premiere of ABC’s hit show “Lost.” Since we here at Poker News Daily are as obsessed with mystic theories and whether or not the Losties grand plan “worked,” we’re giving our Tweet of the Day honors to two “Lost”-themed tidbits from Alex Outhred (@alexpokerguy), who offered his thoughts on the episode, and Maria Mayrinck, (@Maridu), who was just trying to get her hands on the latest episode:
@alexpokerguy: “Despite the re-use of many parts of the LaraCroft TombRaider set, partII makes it clear that #Lost is gonna be illllllllll this year.”
@Maridu: “if anyone spoils #LOST for me I’ll karate chop yo face.#Itunes wtf? Make it available NOW you lazy bitches! What’s taking so long?”
