It’s just another drive to work on Sunday for Mike Linster to Borgata for Day 2 of the $3,500 Borgata Poker Open Main Event. It’s his home casino, where he’s picked up a third of his career cashes, and while he doesn’t have six-figure score here, he’s built his career around the lessons learned in Atlantic City.
Linster’s lunch pail approach to a big event got him through on a single buy-in, while his competitors wore out the carpet to the cage building a $2.3 million prize pool with multiple rebuys.
Smooth sailing in rough waters
“I had some pretty decent table draws on Day 1,” Linster said. “Today’s (table) has been pretty tough while Friday was smooth.”
“I’m comfortable here and I know all the guys,” he added. “I have a good feel for how people play here. It’s a good atmosphere that’s well run and I’m really comfortable here.”
Linster won’t let the chance to play for $408,000 affect his focus. “I play one hand at a time,” he said. “Play every hand like it’s your last, be super focused. I try to get to the end of it that way and not think too far ahead.”
'The game is way harder now.'
Linster’s experience of 185 Hendon Mob cashes is written in his salt and peppered beard. Linster knows he must work a little harder than he used to when half his opponents look like they didn’t need to pack a razor.
He earned a few more greys the last few years the hard way – by becoming a single dad. He’s playing for a three-year-old son now, which takes up all his time as one can imagine.
Linster lit up talking about his life away from the tables. “We do a lot of fun stuff like fishing and playing sports,” he said. “That’s all I do away from this.”
“When I started the game was different, I was playing on feel and intuition,” he said. “It was all repetition, now you must study to keep up with these young guys. I needed to work on poker theory to keep up with them. When I incorporate my experience, it’s starting to work out. The game is way harder now than when I started.”
Poker can be a difficult game with difficult people. “Generally, in the Northeast, you get a lot of people with big egos. When I travel other places, people play more straight forward but for whatever reason, the Jersey and New York players love making hero calls.”
Linster laughed, “They’ll call you real light because of that, so I try not to bluff too much against the locals. They didn’t come here to fold.”
