Atlantic City Trip, Part I

Went to AC (Atlantic City) on an overnighter a couple of weeks ago. The main purpose of the trip was not poker but beach and sun. They were calling for temps in the 80s at the end of April so my brother and his son decided to get a room down in AC, something they seem to offer slots players that poker players don’t see much of, and then head down to Ocean City, about 15 minutes away, to spend a day sitting on the beach soaking up some sun. Ocean City is also the home of some awesome pizza by the name of Mac & Manco’s and while most of the boardwalk shops don’t open until after Memorial Day M&M keeps one place open all year not to mention opening others on weekends after Easter. My brother and nephew usually get days off weekdays, not weekends and so when things like this are planned I usually don’t get invited as I am working. Being as I am currently without employment at the time I was asked to join them and did so. As we were heading to AC poker was also on my agenda in addition to sun and sand. Water was still too cold to include surf.

We headed down on Sun evening after they both got done work. The weekend had been in the high 70s with even better weather promised so the signs were auspicious. Since the whole plan was my nephew’s I just went along for the ride. He even did the driving and we took his car, which later created a whole ‘nother clusterfuck as his is the only car without an EZPass. My brother took the pass out of his car and gave it to his son. Instead of attaching it to the windshield he tossed it in the console under the dash and of course it doesn’t register the first toll booth we go thru. There is a sign with a number to call if you think a toll wasn’t paid and I dial it up and learn that you can stop at the Transit Authority at the rest area within 48 hours, pay the toll and enclose the receipt in the envelope when the violation notice come in. As the rest area is behind us we decide we’ll stop on the way home and continue on our merry way. Made the trip home interesting.

We get to AC about 5:30-6:00 and head to Bally’s, where my nephew got the room. Get lucky at the parking garage and get a spot near the elevator. If you have never been to AC you won’t realize how rare this can be. Also important as the walk from the garage to the hotel proper is long enough, especially when you are traveling with a gimp, namely me. We get checked in although somehow my credit card winds up being used for security even though I’m only along for the ride. We get to the room and my brother, slot maniac that he is, heads right for the casino. I lay down on the bed figuring to rest a bit and watch some tube before heading to the poker room but the TV choices are very limited so I decide to grab a shower before playing some cards and my nephew heads out to find food saying he’ll meet me at the poker room later. Have never been to Bally’s before and have no idea where the poker room is other than the 6th floor. I take the elevator down, get out and see the sign for poker and ponies. I head in that direction and walk right past it. The entrance is offset at an angle in he same direction I’m walking and the ponies section is in front so I missed it completely until I felt I walked too far and turned around, then it was staring me in the face. Wandered in and wandered to the back to see what action was going.

There wasn’t a lot of action but there were a few tables running. Unlike most AC rooms which spread a $1-2 NL game Bally’s has a $1-3 and there were a few tables going. There were also a couple of $2-4 limit tables, a $1-5 stud game and an interest list for $3-6 limit. Being recently unemployed I could only afford about 2/3s a NL buy in and as I hate playing that without at least 2 buy ins let alone short I knew I was destined for the limit tables. As there weren’t enough players for $3-6 it was no fold ‘em hold ‘em for me.

I usually like limit as I usually come home winners in the 3 figure range and on bad nights my losses are usually under $50. This however was not to be a usual night. While I am used to loose, passive play at these tables I have never seen play like I did at these tables. Passive was hardly the word. I have no idea what the hell these people were even doing at the tables unless it was as my nephew said, that they were sitting there hoping to hit part of the bad beat jackpot. Bally’s bad beat doesn’t only pay the players at the table it takes place at but everyone in the room at a hold ‘em table and my nephew could have been right. These folks seemed to have no interest in winning pots. Check call was the order of the day even when someone was holding the nuts or near nuts. In one hand I flopped trip tens OTB and bet every street as it was checked to me. Had 4 callers on every bet and at showdown some woman had wound up flopping Qs full. Second nuts and this woman check called every street. Not check raise but check called. WTF? Another guy had PPAs at least 5 times and check called with them no matter what the board. No preflop raises, no bets, just checks and calls. I started to wonder what rabbit hole I had fallen down. OTOH, who says you can’t bluff at a $2-4 table. Twice I got away with bluffing with the hammer. Figured, what the hell, as strange as the night was going it couldn’t hurt to try. Won 3 times with it, 2 bluffs and a flopped 2 pair the third time. That and hitting quads were the highlight of the night however. Due to this strange play I really couldn’t make any money on my big hands and I was bleeding chips on my decent ones. Since no one would bet their hands I had to bet out my big hands and thus couldn’t get any raises or reraises in to build up pots so what normally would be big stack builders were decent pots at best. On other hands where I would flop TPTK or TP2K and it would get checked to me I would bet out every street only to have some one call me down with an over pair in the hole. Drove me frikkin nuts. Bet your damned hand will ya. Between that and my pot building bets and raises on draws that never hit I was bleeding profusely and the big hands that hit never got me the kind of pot that repairs the damage. BTW CK, the crubs never came, at least when I played them. I dropped close to $200 early on though I recovered about half of that later on. My nephew wound up doing a lot better winning close to what I lost. Never did really get a handle on the style of play though.

Another thing that puzzled the hell out of me was the play when someone would actually play a hand. I switched tables a bit in. Asked for a switch earlier but the floor seemed to forget me and it took awhile before I made the move. At the new table the play was a bit more what I was used to, though still really passive but some hands actually did get played. Now I am used to check calling at this limit as people chase but again I saw something I wasn’t really used to. You would have two or three checks to start a round then someone would bet and you would get the occasional raise and even reraise. As the action got back to the early players these people would call the 2 and 3 bets. WTF again? I understand check calling a bet but if you are going to check call 2 and 3 bets why the hell aren’t you just betting out in the first place? It’s a good thing we had a room because I don’t think I could have made it through the night without being able to drink these folks had my poor head spinning so much. At least the cocktail hostesses were prompt and friendly.

As far as the poker room at Bally’s itself goes I say it is menza menz. The room itself isn’t real large and there is nothing particularly fancy about it. It’s tucked in behind the racing book so it’s not obvious for bringing in the walk up trade. It is away from the casino floor so it’s relatively quiet though some of the NL players can get real noisy. It has a separate tourney section and runs some fairly low limit tourneys. Most of these however seem to be speed tourneys which I have no interest in playing. They are offering a $15K freeroll for those who put in at least 60 hours at the tables this month. Most of the floor persons were very friendly but I can’t judge their competence until I do some research. I’m not sure whether comps are $.50 or $1 an hour but either way I put in at least 30 hours my last two trips there. At minimum that’s $15 in comps. They also have a promotion where anyone who gets quads gets $20 in comps. I qualified for it once. However I looked at my comp account online and it seems it has only gone up $11 which means something isn’t getting reported right. I’m not that worried about the comps but I do want to make sure my hours are being reported properly in case I decide to go for the freeroll qualification. My nephew put in 10 ors at the tables our last trip down and when he asked the floor about his hours she told him 5.5. Definitely have to check up on them to see what’s going on.

Well this is getting a bit long so we’ll cut the boredom here and follow up on the beach and another night of poker n our next post. Keep those cards and letters coming and thanks for your attention.