Wednesday Night Trip Report: Trop AC

[Mattyspin]

Since the fiancé does PR for the Horizon Blimp, which flies out of AC on a regular basis, this past Wednesday was the first of many day-trips to AC I’ll be making this summer. I’ve never put together a trip report before, so please be kind on the responses. ***Cliffs notes at the bottom***

I leave the office at 4:30 (3+ hours early for a loan officer working on paying for a wedding and staying current on the mortgage [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]) and hit the GS Parkway (just 9 miles down the road) at 5:18. The heavy rains are now beginning to come down and there are already multiple accidents on Rte 3E, and in the Newark area of the GS Parkway. The Pink Chip game at the Trop can’t feel any further away right now, and my road rage is already beginning. The rains become heavier, and 1 hour into the trip, I’m only a good 19 miles away from my office in Fairfield, NJ. I settle myself a few times after some calming phone calls to the fiancé, sitting in the same traffic I’m in, and the remainder of the 3 and a half hour trip is spent without any hiccups; just stop and go traffic.

I arrive at the Trop at about 8pm and rush from the Havana Tower Parking Garage to the poker room, ready to mix it up in the Pink Chip Game. I’ve already been on the road an hour and a half longer than I wanted, and until the fiancé gets here, the only thing that’s going to keep me entertained is some mid-week, low-ish limit pokering. To my dismay, the biggest LHE game they have going is a single 4/8 table w/ an average pot size of $18 or so. Since the fiancé is about an hour behind me in traffic, I decide to jump into the (only) 2/5 game while I wait for her. If anyone here has played 2/5 at the Trop, I’m sure they’ll agree that the game plays pretty soft (mostly loose/passive geniuses that prefer a bigger game than the 1/2NL that the Trop spreads).

I buy $410 in chips and enter the game in the 6 seat. In the 1 seat is your typical 1/2NL “pro” taking a mid-week shot at 2/5 to see what kind of progress he’s made. He’s sitting on $300 or so, and rumor has it he’s 9 hours into the session. The 2 seat is occupied by a typical Trop 2/5 player, sitting on about $600 something in chips after supposedly going south for a couple hundred dollars after winning an $800 pot earlier in the day. Rufus, a Tropicana regular, is barely maintaining consciousness after losing his 3rd straight $100 buyin. Rufus is keeping the table entertained every time the player in the 4 seat needs to wake him up when it’s his action. Normally most players would complain, but considering how generous he’s been to everyone at the table, no complaints have been made. The rest of the table is a mixture of a couple Asian gamblers, a couple rich calling stations (normal home gamers who will call you down with 3rd pair, only to say “I thought you had it, I just had to see it”), and a guy in the 8 seat who lost the $800 pot to the 2 seat with a lower full house to a higher full house. One of the first things he said aloud when I got to the table was “it’s just not my night tonight,” and was he ever right.

About 2 orbits in the game, I’m realizing as good as this game should be, there’s very little postflop action. I pick up QQ in the CO and after a $20 raise from MP and a call from the guy to my right, I make it $70 and pickup the dead money on the table. A couple PF raises followed by continuation bets allow my stack to increase to about $500 or so when my next big hand comes.

I’m in the SB w/ 2 red Aces, and the tough luck 8 seat raises to $25 UTG. A MP player calls the $25, and I raise to $90, so as to not fool around w/ my big hand. Before the hand begins, the 8 seat has about $450 in front of him, so he 4- bets me to $190 (leaving himself w/ $250 or so). MP hitchhiker folds, and I calmly announce that I’m All-In. 8 seat now tanks it and asks me, “you have Aces, don’t you.” Having only driven down w/ $600 in my pocket and not wanting to dip into the ATM, I was more than glad to tell him the truth. “Yes, I do have 2 red Aces,” I tell him. “I’ll show you if you wish.” He asks to see them, and I ask the dealer if this will kill my hand even though we’re heads up (don’t want to fall for an angle shoot of any kind since I’m feeling iffy about being sucked out on as most leisure players on short BRs sometimes feel). I show him the AA, and he still thinks hard about mucking his KK, but hesitantly throws it in. 1/2NL wannabe pro pays the dealer $5 to show him and his friend in the 10 seat the flop, which revealed a K, only adding to the frustration of the 8 seat for the night.

The last noteworthy hand of the night occurs when I’m the 4th player to call a $20 PF raise from the 1/2NL “pro” on the button w/ 3d5d. The blinds fold, and a flop of 8h3h10h is lead out by the PF raiser for $30 (this pot is $102 after the rake). Folded to me and I make it $95 to go (literally stabbing in the dark at a pot that this pot with no business doing so), and it’s insta-folded. Amazing.

It’s at this point that my fiancé shows up and says she’s going to go play 2/4. A couple orbits later, I rack up $700 in chips and join my fiancé at the 2/4 table. One thing I hate about joining my fiancé at the 2/4 table after playing a bigger game at the Trop is how the dealers try and make a big deal over the difference in games I have decided to play for the night. Now, since my fiancé and I go to Trop somewhat regularly, we know most of the dealers pretty well and they are extremely pleasant to us, but announcing to a 2/4 table that we often play $7.50/$15 or that I play 2/5NL doesn’t make for a friendly game, which we like to look for when playing some 2/4 before bed. After hitting some draws and making some timely bets against the 2/4 n00bs, my fiancé and I decide to hit up Hooters before bed.

Thursday morning comes, and since the fiancé wants to stay in the hotel for breakfast so she can shower and change for work quickly, the Borgata breakfast buffet is out of the question. As a result, we waste $40+ on a stale omelete, dry pancakes, and near outdated milk. It is what it is, and at 8:30, I barely have it in me to complain. The fiancé goes back to the room to get ready for work and I drive home, +$250 after dinner and the breakfast buffet, and enjoy the rest of the week

***CLIFFS NOTES***
Drive to AC takes twice as long as it should b/c of a nasty storm
No Pink Chip Game going on a Wednesday night
I run well in one of the most passive 2/5 games I’ve ever played in
Trop breakfast buffet is horrendous, but I have no energy (or guts for that matter) to complain