Atlantic City, 1st weekend ever (long)

[winky51]

After moving to Baltimore and getting things settled I decided to take my 1st trip to Atlantic City. Hadn't been to a real casino since I was very young, so this was exciting. My goal was to play some tournaments and cash games.

I left at 10am Friday and arrived at about noon. I wanted to loosen up and play a tournament before hitting the cash tables. Its a fixed amount to lose and you get a feel for the players. I did a little research before going and found out the Taj Mahal, and Borgata are the best places to play cash or tournament. Unfortunately I was too late to both. So I went over to Ceasar's Palace and took a look. I knew they had a tournament at 1pm.

Ceasar's Palace: Nice place, lots of glitz and glamor. The poker room thought was small, probably 25 table. The poker room is a no smoking zone. It is located next to the slots where smoking is allowed. Soooooo that wonderful smell of [censored] just filled my nostrils with delight, BLEK!

Tables were used but not dirty, and neither were the chips from what I could see. They had several limit and no limit games upto 3/6 limit and 2/5 no limit. all the games were practically no foldem holdem. Players were inexperienced and young.

So I entered the tournament. 5000 in chips 20 minute rounds. After the tournament started I realized their rediculous blind structure. It sloped gently up but the antes were 25% of the big blind!!!! Also I found out it was a double shootout tournament. You had to win your table to make the final table. At the final table everyone got paid. Because of this structure I loosening up considerably after the ante's kicked in. It was right to call raises with drawing hands becuase the pot was SOOO huge preflop. Also if I was 1st in from MP3 on It was steal, steal, steal. The pot was worth the risk and once again I had position. Only after the antes went in did I go from the short stack at the table to the chip leader. Never had to go all in but once. For me it was the key hand of the tournament to gain me enough chips. Went in with the best hand and came out with the chips. The players were weak, loose, and inexperienced. There was one woman in her 40's though that actually had a concept of what to do, she was a decent player. In the end I managed to knock out 3 other players and win my table. I never got lucky, I just didn't get UNLUCKY. I always had the best hand in by far going in and they always held up.

Final table I assumed all my opponents were good and made a comment as we were waiting "Guess all of us here are really good or really lucky..." and waited for responses to get an idea who I had to watch. 8 players went to the table, 1st was $3140. One player was clueless but lucky, I called him horseshoe, he got a laugh out of it. Another player was a bit LAGgy and above average but didnt think beyoond his own hand. 5 players were basically typical players. 1 I actually had to watch. This guy knew what he was doing and played similar to Harrington. We all had 50k in chips with the blinds starting at 4000/2000 and 1000 antes. I went to work stealing blinds and reading opponents. The key hand at the final table came from one of the aggressive typical players.

He raises my BB from the SB and I call with Ac6c. He raised so little, compared to the pot, I could have called with anything almost.

Flop comes Ad As 7d. SB bets out about 1/2 the pot. I call figuring way ahead or way behind, probably way ahead.

Turn: Ad As 7d Ah, he checked I check the stone cold nuts.

River: Ad As 7d Ah Jc, He thinks for 2 seconds and pushed 40k all in, which it what I had. I thought I misread my hand for a seconds and checked it, yup quads. I called he fliped over.... nothing Q3o. ?!?!?!

After that I continued my regular play gaining chips and watched everyone else knock each other out. At some point when there were 4 left the good player and myself had an unspoken understanding. We both knew we were good and the 2 remaining (horseshoe was one) were short stacked. So we worked them till they were no more. We decided to chop and split the cash. What a nice start to my 1st trip [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I headed now over to the Taj Mahal for cash games. The Taj hosts a HUGE poker room with all the games and all the limits. At some tables players had stacks of $100 chips. It was something. High limit games were easy to find and always filled with players. The poker room was old in appearance needed an upgrade. The vertical stiff back chairs, while padded, started hurting my back after 1 hours. The chips were dirty and the tables worn. But the poker room was away from the rest of the casino and non-smoking. The bathroom was upstairs but it was nice to stretch the legs once in a while. I got my comp card 1st thing there [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I sat down at 10/20, thats what my bankroll allowed. The players were loose and weak, but not passive. The ones that seemed to know what they were doing really didn't know what they were doing, but they were better than the weak players. There were a lot of pots with 4-5 players to the flop. If there was a raise it was usually 2-3 to the flop. For me, I got very lucky early hitting some huge hands and racking up $600 in 90 mins. I gained respect fast and was able to steal some pots and blinds. At 10pm I called it a night after 9 hours of poker play, 3 at the cash games.

Next day I went to the Borgata to take a look at their poker room before heading back to the Taj. Well I never left. Confy seats with huge butt cushions. The backs were soft and reclined some. The room looked new and fresh. The staff was professional and the waitresses were well dressed and cute. This seemed like a poker room. They had tables up to 40/80 holdem, one games of 80/160 stud, and 10/25 no limit. They also had a Starbucks inside the hotel, YES!

1st thing I did is get my comp card. I sat down at the 10/20, at 9am, and signed up for the 11am tournament. 1st 30 mins there were 4-6 players and I racked up playing short handed, +$200. I usually play 5/10 SH on Party so this was cake. They players had no idea how to adjust. After 30 mins the table filled up and I couldn't pick up a hand to play. About 5 players at my table were weak, 3 players better than average with a good idea of starting hands and basic post flop play. 2 were good players. Overall I felt I was the better of all ten. I saw the 2 better players calling with hands they shouldn't preflop or trying to make a play on an obvious calling station. Occasionally they would call one of my raises UTG with a KTs or ATo calling all the way down with TP worse kicker. Overall the competition was stronger than the Taj. I mostly folded after my 1st 30 mins of success and and broke even after two basty bad beats. All I said was "nh". Next came the tournament.

The tournament was $100+20 freezeout. 5000 chips and a nice slooping blind and ante structure with 20 min rounds. After the 3rd level you could buy 5000 more chips for $100 as an addon and continue play. 10k in chips and a nice blind structure, I like it.

Once again I couldn't pick up a hand for a while, started having bad feeling about the day. There were 2 pretty good players at the table with me both to my left, one solid, one a little Sam Farha style. Another player was decent, 1 laggy calling station (if thats possible), and the rest average or worse. I managed to get some chips trapping the LAGgy loose player between myself and another player a couple times. I developed an image of tightness so I could steal the good player's blind. One of them flahsed KJ once on one of my steals from the button, wow. I read my opponents well and knew when I was a head or behind by the way the looked, their hands, they actions, their reactions to my jokes.. I loved it. I continued to get no hands and ended up at the 3rd level break slightly above the starting 5k (me 8k). Bought the extra 5000 and moved on. Got moved to a new table and once again zippo on the cards and now I was getting short stacked with an M of 10 (12.5k). Made a couple moves on limped pots (A little Kill Phil there) and started gaming some chips (17k). In one hand I moved in on a loose limper from MP1. By the look on his face he had crap and was trying to see a cheap flop with Ax or 2 unsuited paint. I got bombarded by trick questions as to my holdings by the loose gambling player. I just sat there staring into space thinking of large bouncing boobs forgetting that my hand was T8s. He folded after getting no answers. Yeaee! Even if he called I was 40% in a pot that jutified it.

Then something interesting happened...

A player was moved to my left and it happened to be one of the good players from my 1st table (Sam Farha style man). I was actually happy to see him because he knew that if I raised I had the goods, well that was my image to him. So this hand gets folded around to me in the CO. I look down at (JJ). I had already pushed all in twice to the annoyance of one of the players to my left, Mr loose gambler and he was just itching to play. So I figured just push and hope he calls with whatever crap he has, at worse Im 66/33. Well the good player to my left says "call" not ralizing I pushed all in. He was trying to limp in on the button vs the blinds with a weak hand, I knew it, he knoew it. He tried to get out of his situation, which he couldn't and upset with himself for being so stupid and not noticing my all in. He had a few more chips than I did. All fold and he flips over 22 vs my JJ explaining to me that he would have never called my all in with this hand, that image thing ya know, and it seemed sincere. There were 38 players left and I was already thinking about the next hand and the final table. What a nice feeling to double up and start attacking, until..... the flop comes A2Q blank, blank, and I am promptly knocked out of the tournament. The irony of playing so well and then getting knocked out by an accidental call. Ugh! They other player couldn't stop apologizing.. after jumping up and down in glee by his suckout. I just smiled and said "thats poker".

So I went back to the 10/20 table. I should have left as I sensed my mojo had left me. While waiting for the table to open I figured I'd play some 1/2 NL. Lost $100 in the 3rd hand with a straight flush draw + 2 overs that didn't get there. Got called to the 10/20 and played for about 6 hours more. Ended -$300 for the day in limit and -$120 in NL holdem. Cold cards and no good flops.

Well at around 8pm I decided to make the drive back to Baltimore with my winnings. My eyes and mind were starting to wander with the monotony of folding every 94s, 73o, J2o, K6o I got (remember cold cards). Also I know I can't play my "A" game for more than 8 hours with live play, and I was hitting hour 10. With 1 tournament win for over $2000 and 12 hours at limit at +$300, I was pretty satisfied.

Well it was all very, very exciting and fun. If I had to recommend a poker room to visit then the Borgata is it. It is new, clean, comfortable, and wonderful. Food and the restrooms are 2 steps away with LCD TVs everywhere. Also if you make reservations at the Borgata you can request a poker comp room. Not sure what the reduced price is but I know you have to play at least 8 hour a day. One bad thing is that the entrance is hard to access even though the hotel is in plain site. Damn entrance is not signed from the streets and the street access is from one side only that I saw. The competition seems harder than the Taj but not by much. Then again I was there only 1 day so don't take my word for it.

If you want larger stakes and softer play, go to the Taj. The Borgata is opening up an 80 table poker room soon and the word on the floor is that when its done the Taj players will come. Already there was talk of people moving to the Borgata for poker by the other players.

I typed this have awake at right after I got back so I wouldn't forget. So if the grammer and spelling is off... well deal with it, I'm pooped. Hope you enjoyed reading it.