AC Trip Report, Borgata 15k Guaranteed

Went to Atlantic City last week to play in the Wednesday night 15k guaranteed at the Borgata. We were staying at Caesars (excellent rate, like $149 a night) so we took the #2 Jitney (for $2.25) to the Borgata around 5pm. If you haven't been to AC its basically a bunch of waterfront casinos on the boardwalk for like 5 miles and then there are one or two (Harrahs and Borgata) that are about 4 miles west of the boardwalk so you really can't walk from Caesars to the Borgata, not only because its a pretty long walk but also because the neighborhoods you would have to walk through are a bit rough.

Went to sign up for the tournament ($120 buy-in of which $20 goes to the house) and they make us get a player's club card just to register. They don't do this in South Florida. Anyway, we go to sign up (its free) and the registration guy gets all flustered because the machine can't read my Florida drivers license and it takes like a half an hour to get me registered and then he makes us go to another window to a different guy to have my son register; weird.

Anyway, once we got our players club cards we go stand in a 5 player line and get registered quickly. It is about 6pm by this time. We go get something to eat at Wolfgang Puck's place and when we come back to the poker room around 6:45 there's a line of about 50 people, so registering early saved us a significant wait.

The Borgata poker room is pretty big; 85 tables. It is also very well lit and has a goldish yellow look to it. Much brighter than most of the rooms I've been in. Once the tournament starts I begin looking around for the monitors which tell you tourney stats like how many players registered, how many tables are left, how much money is paid out to how how many places, etc. To my surprise I discover they don't have this sort of thing. Instead a guy writes the remaining table numbers on a white board in the back of the room. I find it interesting that probably the biggest East Coast poker room (certainly one of the most popular) is still in the dark ages when it comes to poker room computer equipment. My home casino (the Hollywood FL Hard Rock) has everything computerized including computerized poker tables (IE no dealer). I don't play the computer poker tables, but thats another story. But when I am in a tournament at the Hard Rock I can always look up and see how many tables are remaining, and what the payout is. I just found this very different. Actually, now that I think about it most of the Vegas casinos are much like the Borgata so I guess I just got spoiled at the Hard Rock.

Once the tourny starts I realize the players are probably a little better than in South Florida, but not a lot better. South Florida has a lot of younger (like 20s-30s) players who really don't have a clue, and a bunch of older players who could give a shit less, but there are also some pretty good regulars. AC players in general seem more serious and play a bit tighter. Obviously both get their share of boisterous drunks and knuckleheads, but in general I found AC players to be a bit more savvy, especially at the lower limit (2-4, 5-10) tables where in South Florida we call the low limit tables 'no fold'em hold'em' because down there it seems like you always see the river with at least 3-4 other players.

The South Florida poker scene is in my opinion very underrated. In Broward County alone, we have Hold'Em at all the pari-mutuals (dog tracks, harness tracks, Jai Alai) as well as 3 dedicated casinos (the Hollywood Hard Rock, The Coconut Creek casino and the old Seminole Bingo Hall) so a player can move around quite a bit and find a wide variety of games. We have a bunch of Pros in the area (Howard Lederer, Mike Mizrachi to name a few) and the poker rooms are usually more full than most AC casino poker rooms. For example, the ShowBoat in AC is probably smaller than my original home casino, the Pompano Harness track (also known as the Isle of Capri casino) and during the weekdays you will find about 10 live tables (limit, no limit, Omaha H/L, stud) at the harness track while at the ShowBoat in AC most weekdays you will find 3-4 live tables and all will be limit or no limit. Caesars Palace, where I stayed has about 30 tables but during the week your lucky if more than 8 are simultaneously active.

The 15k guaranteed tournament at the Borgata was a bit bigger and better than most similar tournaments in South Florida. It drew about 300 players (30 tables) and paid out to 27th place (3 tables). First place was 8k, second 4k, and I'm pretty sure it went down to 2k, then 1k from there. What I do remember is 27th place paid $109. I played very well and got bounced when there were 4 tables left. I was somewhere around 5th-9th place with about $62k in chips (you start with 10k unlike Florida where you typically start with $1500-$3000 in chips) and I got pocket queens on the button. The small stack at our table (about $27k) went all in from bad position and I called. He turned over wired twos and rivered trips. Two hands later I pushed all in pre-flop with pocket aces and the same guy called with Q-10 suited. Of course he turned a flush and my night was over, but I never mind going out like that cause I know that's the game and according to Helmeuth, players who go out on bad beats are always better than players who go out when they are dominated.

We got back to Caesars around 1am and played 2-4 limit until around 6am. I ended up losing about $60 to a bunch of young drunks. There were about 5 tables active; 3 no limit and 2 limit. The no limit tables were 1-2 and 5-10 blinds. Both limit tables were 2-4. After taking about a 4 hour nap and grabbing some breakfast at the Piazza buffet; an excellent bargain at $16 I might add, I took the Caesars shuttle to the ShowBoat (Harrahs owns Caesars, Harrahs, the ShowBoat and Ballys and they offer a free shuttle between the four casinos) and got in a $60 buy-in tournament (started at like 2pm but allowed alternates to join until 3pm) which had about 5 tables and paid to 5 places (like $1200, then $600, etc). I got bounced at the final table when my AK suited got whacked by a AQ off with a Queen falling on the river. My luck finally bottomed out when I returned to Caesars and went to sit at a 2-4 limit table. They told me I had to make my first purchase of chips from the cage not at the table and when I returned I saw everybody at my table screaming and yelling. Turns out quad ladies took out quad fives and gave the owner of the quad fives half of the $177k bad beat jackpot. The owner of the ladies got like $35k and the remaining 6 players at the table split about $35k. Since I was not dealt in the hand because I was over at the cage getting my chips (like they can't cash a $20 at the table) I got dick. Even worse than dick since they had to verify the win looking at the tapes so the table was dead for like an hour. I gave back my chips took my remaining $50 and headed back up to my room with my tail between my legs; humbled yet again by the poker gods from hell.