AC Trip Report: First time playing decent stakes live poker (long)

[Warik]

I went to AC March 24-26 flying into Philly and being picked up by my buddy who lives south of there. We stayed for free at a Holiday Inn in Absecon cause his dad had rewards points or something. Sweet.

Anyway, on to the fun stuff.

I had never played decent stakes live poker. The highest I've ever played is the straight $2 no fold'em hold'em we have in South Florida at the Indian casinos. The prospect of playing a good live game was exciting. I did want to play some cards with my buddy for a while, though, so we started off at the Trop in the $2/$4 limit game. Friendly game with a couple of social people and a couple of fish. The bar service was surprisingly fast at the Trop, as I consumed about 10 Jacks & Coke in less than 2 hours. Sadly, they were mostly Coke.

After a decent win in $2/$4, I went ahead and played the $10/$20. The game was not as weak as I expected, but profitable nonetheless. I only brought $1k to for this trip and had already increased it by 25% the first night. We finished up around 3am and headed out.

The next day, however, was much more fun. We parked at the Taj and walked to Caesar's along the boardwalk. The plan was to play at Caesar's for a few hours, then the Taj, then the Borg. I absolutely loved the weather as it was about 40-50 degrees, which is half of what the temperature normally is in this blazing inferno of heat I live in.

We get to Caesar's and quickly leave after finding out that the list for $10/$20 had 2 names on it that had been on it for over an hour, plus there were no $2/$4 games running for my buddy. So we said screw it and walked back to the Taj (but not before having lunch at this place called Opa and being served by this hot Italian waitress).

We finally get to the Taj. He jumps into the $2/$4 game and I jump into the $10/$20. The game is shorthanded (about 5 people) and 2 more leave. One other guy doesn't want to play since it got so short and leaves too. The only guy left asks me if I want to play heads-up. I say OK. I got two sweet hands in the first couple of minutes and took $100 off him before one of the floormen came and took me to a main game that had opened up. It was right by the cashier, which was great, since I'd have a lot of cargo to take there later.

The $10/$20 game was super soft. Maybe only 1 or 2 other players who I had to watch out for. I NEVER saw the blinds chopped and it seemed like there were always at least 3 other players involved in my pots. Either live games are really as awesome as I have heard, or I ran really well, because I ended up taking almost 3 racks full of red over to the cashier after playing for a few hours.

I was so pleased that my buddy and I went up to this restaurant called Mia and ate a kickass meal, my treat of course, served by an extremely hot blonde Polish waitress.

Back to the poker room at 11:00 PM.

I have quite a bit of winnings in my pocket and have never played $20/$40 (even online), so I decided to give it a shot. I buy into the must-move with $1k. I'm incredibly nervous at first... not because I'm afraid I'm going to lose my ass, but because I've never played this game and am feeling uncomfortable. The first playable hand I get that I want to raise, I end up miscounting my chips and raising to $80. Doh! Some dude makes a joke about this not being a no-limit game and everyone seems to forgive me.

I don't forgive myself, however, as I'm down a rack after about 20 minutes. I'm about ready to ask to be moved to a $10/$20 game when the deck starts hitting me and I recover to my original buy-in. I decide to stick around and am eventually moved to the main game.

Main game's good except for 1 good player to the dealer's right. We ended up in a pot together maybe once, so his presence wasn't a big deal. This evening concluded with my buddy coming by to ask me how I'm doing and me telling him "um, you think you can bring me like, 3 or 4 racks?" and him going "holy [censored]."

I didn't end up needing the 4th rack, but filled the 3 up.

The next day before leaving we decided to play some $3/$6 and the deck hit me so hard it wasn't even funny. Despite the low limit, this is the most fun I had. The table was fairly social and I almost tripled up. We took off at around 3 PM to drive to Philly for some cheesesteaks and drop my ass off at the airport.

Overall it was a fantastic experience and my trip paid for itself. I'm hoping the next one will be just as fun and as profitable. I'm planning to head back there in May and hopefully stay at the Taj if I can figure out how the heck to get the poker rate (I keep calling reservations and they keep saying I have to talk to poker, which keeps saying I have to talk to reservations, grr... any tips?)

Does the Taj have the best games over $10/$20 in AC or would you guys recommend somewhere else? How much would you all suggest I take if I'm going to strictly play $20/$40 and maybe $30/$60 for close to 20 hours?