How to win money, eat well, and still be miserable: A Vegas Trip Report - Hak

I was in Vegas 2/14-2/18, but our story actually starts at a lunch meeting last Wednesday over sushi:

Wednesday:
Me : God Dammit, I think I'm getting sick.
Co-workers: That sucks, hope you feel better by the time you go to Vegas

Thursday:
Me: *Lay in bed all day crippled by sickness and prays to feel better by Saturday*

Friday:
Me: *Feel slightly better so decides to skip going to the doctor* "Maybe this won't be so bad afterall"

Saturday:
Me: *Wake up feeling like death. Take every pill I can find and pray I don't die on the 5.5 hour flight to Vegas*


So I make it to Vegas, and, sadly, I don't feel any better. For the duration of the trip, I oscillate between feeling somewhere near passable and like I'm stuck in the 7th circle of hell. This means there's no rousing all night gambling sessions, no blindingly drunk degeneracy....nothing exciting. That said, I did a few things that may be of interest, so I'll share here. Since I'm still sick, I'm doing this bullet list style. Feel free to ask for more details if you're interested in anything in particular.

Places Stayed
Venetian (1 night): Not much to say, we stayed at the Venetian in their entry level suite for one night. It was fine; showed some signs of age, but nothing horrible. The lady at the front desk was a bitch.

Encore (3 nights): Beautiful property. Front desk was friendly. Gave her a $20 between my credit card and ID and asked if she could do anything to take care of us. She declined tip, but honored my request for a high floor with strip view. We stayed on the 60th floor with a nice view of both the strip, and the Wynn golf course. Overall, I really enjoyed Encore, the staff were well trained and polite, without being over-bearing, and the property is well-appointed. The few things I disliked:

-No premium booze while gambling without approval from pit. I was playing black chip Pai Gow, and asked, on separate occasions, for a GM, and a Belvedere and tonic. Waitress told me no go on either, and I had to have the pit "comp" the drinks.

-Ventilation in Encore suites is horrible. As far as I can tell, there is just one vent in the suites that blows air. This vent is in the far corner in the sitting area, near the windows. The net result is that the sleeping area stays very hot, and the sitting area is very cold. I can't imagine how bad this is going to be in the summer.

-Too much red. I realize they designed the casino to appeal to Asian folks, but, really...too much red. All the Asian staff I asked agreed.

Dining
L'Atelier Joel Robuchon One of my top 10 lifetime meals. This may be colored slightly by the fact that Robuchon was in the restaurant and stopped by and talked with us for a bit, but whatever. We had the Winter tasting menu. Highlights were the amuse; Foie Gras shot with port wine reduction and parmesan foam - a deliciously rich start to the meal, and the hangar steak with shallots - simple, but perfectly done. We started with one of my favorite wines; a 2004 Quintessa, and followed up with a Shiraz recommended by the sommelier. Service was a bit disappointed for a place of this caliber, but I think we were just unlucky, as all the other servers seemed to have it together. Total was $210/person after tip and drinks.

Okada We decided to check this place out after I read solid reviews in the Las Vegas lifestyle forum. Overall impression was, "meh". I get better sushi in DC. Everything was passable, but nothing really stood out. Total was ~$80/person with sushi and drinks.

Strip Burger Upon further reflection, eating outside in 50 degree weather while sick probably wasn't the smartest decision, but what the hell. We stopped at Strip Burger during happy hour when we got into town. $2 draft beers and mini-burgers seemed like a pretty decent deal. Recommend trying the chili cheese fries. I just had a forkful, but they were probably worth the year they took off my life. Would return.

Society Cafe Again, stopped here for lunch based on reviews in Las Vegas Lifestyle forum...don't see what the big deal is. Standard hotel lunch fare IMO. ~$70 for lunch for three with no drinks.

Encore Room Service Just mentioning this here because I really appreciated the work our server put into making our room service meal enjoyable. Food was so/so, everything seemed over-salted, but the server went the extra mile to ensure a nice presentation and overall good experience. ~$70 for dinner for two with no drinks.

Gambling
Because I was sick, and because I'm now playing black chip, I did all my gambling at the Wynn. This included some poker, and some Pai Gow. Here's the rundown

-10 hours of Pai Gow @ $150/hand (-$400). We had an awesome time gambling it up at Pai Gow, and were all running well (I was up about $1100), until one killer session where I dropped $1500 in about 40 minutes. Bounced back and forth after that, and ended up about even. Interestingly, 10 hours at $150/hand was enough for Encore to comp 2 nights of my 3 night stay.

-2/5 nl hold 'em @ Wynn (-$300). Not much to say, I dicked around in this game, which plays deep ($1500 max buyin). Game was hit or miss, but nothing to write home about

-10/20 limit hold 'em w/ half kill @ Wynn (+$500). This game was laughably soft. Pretty standard lineup of old timers trading chips back and forth. No tough spots, easy, enjoyable way to pass the time while hopped up on cold medication.

-5/10 nl hold 'em @ Wynn (+$4,000). For about 2 hours on Tuesday, this was the best game I've ever played in. I jumped in the game when it was getting started and played 6 handed for a while. Stacks were all around 1-2K, except for an older business guy named Jay who was playing ~$25,000. Then the game got unbelievably, indescribably, good. A young British dude named Nick shows up with 2x$1,000 chips and sits down. He takes one look @ Jay's stack and asks how much he's playing. Jay tells him about $25,000. This leads to a short dick waving competition about who has more money, which leads to Nick making a brief departure, and returning with $25,000. Nick is raising every hand in the dark, etc. and just generally there to gamble it up. I run good and build my $1K buyin up to $5K in a couple of hours.

Other Stuff
-ATV tour through the Valley of Fire. I skipped this because of my sickness, but my wife and her brother went and both had a blast. Will definitely be going next time I'm in Vegas

-Encore Spa. Highly recommended. We had a couples massage and "soak" which is code word for couples massage + "sex in a jacuzzi" afterwards. Both were completely worth the money paid. The spa itself is worth checking out for $30/day, even if you don't get a massage. Steam room + hot tubs + cold plunges + heated chaise lounges = awesome.

-Love. Saw this show for the first time. Different than the other Cirque shows, but well worth the time and money. I was pretty blown away by the sheer spectacle of the production, and the amount of work that went into the choreography.


Think I'll go pass out for a bit now, hope you enjoyed reading. Feel free to ask questions if you're interested in details.

UMTerp Tournament Results Feb 8th.

All,

Here are the results of the tournament for Saturday. I put a few of you that didn't play on this list too if I thought you'd be interested. Some of these details are going to be fuzzy or non-existent, because I lost that paper I was jotting stuff down on (shocker!), and I'm doing this from memory. At the very least, the final table order is correct though.

The structure worked well again, and almost everyone got plenty of play in the early going. We only had one bustout before the first break, and there were still 19 of the 27 players remaining at the second break almost three hours into the tournament. Holly was the chip leader pretty much from the start of the tournament to the final table - she cracked the 10K chip mark really early. She busted our defending champ, Jeremy in 13th or so, me in 11th, and when Jesse finished in 10th (I think Big Chris knocked him out?), our final table was set.

Big Chris never got much going at the final table, and finished in 9th. Groo has a fairly short stack to start the final table as well, and was our 8th place finisher. Then it seemed like we played forever until somebody else got knocked out. In the meantime, Damon had doubled through Holly at least once, was building quite a nice stack, and gained the chip lead. Daryl finished in 7th when his AcQx went up against Damon's J8 on a Qc Jc 4c flop. A jack hit the turn, the few remaining chips went in, and we were down to six. Joey became our bubble boy when Damon hit a gutshot straight against Joey's two pair to knock him out in 6th.

At this point, there were 54,000 chips on the table, and I'd guess Damon had well over 30,000. I don't remember anything noteworthy about the next three eliminations, but Brian finished in 5th for $120, Ben in 4th for $200, and Holly's run came to an end in 3rd Place for $285. That left us heads up with Peter, who nursed a small stack for most of the final table, playing a patient push/fold game, and Damon, whose strategy might best be characterized as "unabashed drunken aggression." Damon had Peter outchipped about 48K to 6K to start heads-up. Blinds were 600/1200. Despite Peter doubling up early to get his stack up to about 12K, Damon took down the title rather quickly when his 96 beat Peter's A3 on a flop that was something like 764. We ended at about 1:15, which I thought was pretty reasonable, considering the initially slow structure, and the number of players.

Final Table Results:

1. Damon - $610
2. Peter - $400
3. Holly - $285
4. Ben - $200
5. Brian - $120
6. Joey
7. Daryl
8. Dave
9. Big Chris


-UMTerp

Hak: Losing Money, Chelsea Prime, and The Most Miserable Man in the USA - Weekend of 9/15/2008

Disclaimer: Long

Howdy All,

Just back from my first losing trip to AC in a while, and thought I'd share the high-lights/low-lights with the fine people of 2+2:

Friday
The fog was thick, I left home late, and had to detour through Baltimore to pick up my wife, but still somehow managed to make the trip from DC to AC in just over 3 and a half hours...score! Arrive at the Taj to check into comped weekend room, but get denied when trying the ol' $20 upgrade request trick with the desk clerk. Clerk tells me they're all booked up, and she can't do anything. While disheartening, the girl really did seem like she wanted to help (and take my money), so, whatever, maybe they really were booked.

Quick flashback:
On our ride up to the casino, my wife decides that she wants to gamble a bit (which is out of character for her). So we agree that Friday night will be husband/wife quality Pai Gow and dinner night before we even get to AC. As we run back through the finer points of Pai Gow in the car (i.e. remember that the joker is only an Ace, or completes a straight/flush), I remind the wife that the only 100% sure way to beat the house at Asian pit games it through the power of positive thinking. So I tell her to spend some time quietly projecting sun beams and rainbows for the rest of the drive, while I do the same.

Jump back to Friday evening on the casino floor:
After dropping our stuff in the room, wife and I head to the Asian pit. While walking across the floor, I again reminder her, "positive thinking...rainbows, bunnies, puppy dogs, and murdering the house". Make it to the pit which is completely, 100%, dead empty...I guess people are in AC, but just not gambling??? That doesn't make much sense. Anyhow, the two of us sit down at an empty Pai Gow table and buy some chips. I play black chip and my wife plays green. We run good for a while and have two friendly dealers. The third dealer, however, irked me to no end. He came in and I banked after he has a strong first hand. Obv, I lose my bank and then the dealer starts berating me in broken english..."Why you bank...that no good...this my hand...". Ugh, whatever. I'm not superstitious when it comes to gambling, but I like act like I am when playing Pai Gow because it makes me feel like I fit in. At any rate, we lose a couple more hands and I give the dealer I hate a death stare and tell wife it's time to go, "This dealer is bad luck". We leave the pit up ~$350, and head off to eat. Here's my take on dinner...

Chelsea Prime
Type: High end steakhouse

Where: Chelsea

Overall: Mixed emotions on the dinner, but I think, overall, I'd rank the experience as good+, but not great. The only real standout was dessert, and the only real letdown was my salad. So, good+ it is...

Food/drink: Things started on a low note as I was a little disappointed with the lack of bourbon selection...when are people going to realize that bourbon is the new scotch? Meh, I settle on a Basil Hayden rocks and am pleasantly surprised to see it show up with a single large ice sphere in a low ball glass.



I've read that the shape of the single large cube does a better job of keeping your drink cold for longer than normal ice, and doesn't melt as quickly -> less watered down drink. Who knows if this is true or not, but it sure does look purty...so, whatever.

Anyhow, the food started off well with warm rolls, served with warm, easy-to-spread butter. So simple, yet so many places get it wrong: good for you Chelsea Prime. I had a Caesar salad to start, which sucked. The first time they brought it out there was about a 5-1 dressing to lettuce ratio. So I asked for a bit less dressing, and they happily obliged. Sadly though, the second go-round wasn't much better. Oh well, onto the steak: tasty. We ordered a porterhouse for two with a bleu cheese crust. Steak was perfectly cooked, but a bit salty. To be fair, this was probably due to the bleu cheese crust, which wasn't on the menu, but they served on request. We also had minted peas, which were quite good, I recommend them.

Dessert was unquestionably the highlight of the meal. My wife ordered something for us to split, and a plate of three small bites gets delivered:

-A home-made pumpkin ice cream and gingerbread cookie ice cream sandwich: A++
-Liquid chocolate and cinnamon shot: A+
-Bourbon-pecan mini-pie: A

Service: Started off poorly (took a long, long time to get wine and cocktail), but picked up from there. Overall fine, but not really anything of note.

Atmosphere: I wasn't alive to see 50's Hollywood, but I imagine it looked a lot like the Chelsea Prime, which was obviously the designer's intention. I thought the concept was well executed, and the overall atmosphere was great. Nice circular, white leather booths for two, and dark wood dominating the room. One odd stand-out was a servers table that was made to look like a bottle of Champagne sitting in an ice cooler. WTF? I'm sure my description is horrible, but this thing was sitting in the middle of the dining room and stuck out like a sore thumb...just weird.

Cost: ~$260 after tip for two, with 1 bottle of wine, 1 cocktail, salad, steak, side and desert.

FWIW, my new AC steakhouse rating is:
Bobby Flay > Chelsea Prime > Old Homestead

Get back from dinner well-buzzed and stop by the room to pick up money to go gambool. As we walk in, we can clearly hear the people in the room next to us jumping around with the stereo turned up to, presumably, 11. Ugh, damn you hotels and your thin walls. So instead of going back to play Pai Gow, the wife and I decide to have loud hotel room sex next to our neighbors as payback. Approximately 15 seconds later, we finish up, and I decide to go play some cards while my wife showers and goes to bed.

Play the 20 game for 6 hours (until 6:30 AM or so) and am completely card dead for 5.8 hours. Finish up tired, down $300, and wishing I would have just gone to bed with the wife hours ago.

Saturday
Wake up a take a run on the boardwalk through wind and rain. Then greasy lunch at "burger" and back to the room to send my wife on her way. One more round of loud-hotel-sex-against-noisy-neighbors-wall later, and my wife heads back home to make a prior engagement for the evening. Interestingly, Taj gave me free valet from my poker hours. This is the first time I've ever gotten free valet; not sure if it's just a promotion, or a regular thing.

Walk through the extremely packed poker room (At one point, I think they had almost every table going, and some tourney running off in the side area by the bathrooms). Make my way to the high-limit podium and get on the 10 and 20 hold 'em lists. I see a few people I know in the room who want to play 40, so I ask the floor to start a board with four names on it. They tell me they will, but never do...even after I ask them about it another three times: I guess this is one of the drawbacks of not being a "regular". So the 40 never goes and I sit in the 20 for a few hours. Run so/so and finish about even before getting up to play the $300 7 PM tourney.

By this time, a buddy of mine has made it into town, so I put up half his buy-in for the tourney and take 40% of his action. We end up seated at the same table, which is nice because it helps break the boredom. I rarely play live tournaments, and now I remember why: they are ****ing insanely boring. After an hour or so I lose patience and decide to try to either accumulate a bunch of chips quick or bust: I succeed in doing both in short order. Double up and then lose a big pot to some horrendous lady. Bust out a few hands later to the same lady: gg me. Luckily my buddy goes on to book a small cash, so at least I made a few bucks back.

Sit in a 10 game with a bunch of old timers while waiting for my 20 seat and raise about 90% of my hands. Unsurprisingly, I drop about half a rack of red in 30 minutes. Then I sit in one of the five 20 games that are running (Does Borg even get this many games?) and get repeatedly kicked in the nuts for the next 6 hours. 62o calls 3 cold from MP and makes a flush to win, AA < A rag about 3 times, etc. Running bad is a good reminder of how frustrating limit poker can be. Running into big second best hands over and over again is a reminder of why suicide rates are high among limit poker players. Anyhow, I lose a couple of racks and decide it's time for a break from poker.

Find my buddy and we play some Pai Gow while pounding drinks. Quickly loose $600 when my full house is no good, and three pair is no good, and two pair is no good. But I stick it back to the house when my A-high Pai Gow > their Q-high Pai Gow for a purple chip. Win a few more hands and put the Pumpkin I color up to in my pocket.

By this time it's about 6 AM, so, obv, time for drunken 1/2nl. Here's a little piece of advice to everybody...drunken 1/2nl seems like fun...but don't do...at least not at 6 AM. We have fun for a while until we scare off half the table by open raising to either $4 or $30 in about 90% of the hands. I lose a big pot when I try to move scared young guy off a hand with my flush draw. He thinks for literally 5 minutes before calling with trips, and then tells me, "yeah, I knew you had a flush draw"....RELOAD. Four hands later I open raise 68o to $20: a raise and three all-ins behind me, so obv. I call off $300 more. Somehow I fail to crack KK and AA...gg $600. Consider re-buying but decide that 8 AM = bed time. Head back to the room where I make my buddy sleep in the bed I sexed my wife up in and drift off to sleep...

Sunday
Wake up at noon feeling quite good and decide to play cards for a bit before heading back home. Some of the regulars get a 40 game started so I sit down to play. The game really wasn't all that good, but what the hell. Run hot for the first hour win about $1600 before I fail to win another pot for the rest of the afternoon. I rack up winning an amazing $60 American dollars.

Get lost trying to find my buddy's car in the parking garage and head back home. The end.

Odds and Ends
The dope-selling business is good outside of the Taj. I saw the same friendly drug dealer I see every time I'm in AC, and he told me business was good when I asked him after declining to by his weed for the 20th time.

Greek girls are hot. There was some Greek concert next to the poker room @ Taj Saturday night. Approximately 20,000 hot ass greek women in skimpy outfits decided to attend

The most miserable man in the United States. I've played enough live poker to see my fair share of angry, horrible, and miserable people. But nobody comes close...nobody is even in the same universe as this one guy who was at the Taj all weekend playing 20. I think his name is Mike? Anyhow, apparently the guy inherited a **** ton of money, and is a semi-regular in AC. Biggie must have been right when he said "Mo' Money Mo' Problems", because this guy is, without question, the most miserable person in the world. Every single hand he would yell at somebody or something: the dealer, the floor, a tourist, a regular, the cards, the table, the air. And not just a little, under-his-breath, rant either. More like a full-on, you can hear him across the room, yell. I really don't understand why somebody decides to play cards if it makes them feel so horrible, but whatever, this guy did. I'm not doing justice to how miserable he was...I don't know how he hasn't already had a heart attack and dropped dead.

I get scared of bodily harm for the first time ever playing cards. Playing 20 against the rail. Some old mobster looking guy comes up to sweat his buddy in the game. He's standing behind an Asian guy who, kind of rudely, says, "Don't stand behind me". The ensuing conversation goes something like the following, in progressively louder voices:

Old mobster guy says (OMG): "What the **** did you say to me?"
Asian Dude (AD): "Stop ****ing standing behind me"
OMG: "I'm not standing the **** behind you, you ****ing piece of ****ing ****"
AD: "OK, floor!!!"
Floor: "What's going on?"
AD: "I tell this guy not to stand behind me and he won't leave"
Floor (to OMG): "Sir, can you please stop standing behind this gentleman?"
OMG: : "OK, I'll ****ing stop standing behind you, but you better hope to God I never see you outside of this card room because I will break your ****ing neck. I swear to God, I will ****ing kill you."
AD: "Floor, this man just assaulted me...I want you to call the police"
[Chaos with lot's of swearing occurs]
OMG: [leaves room while yelling at AD]
Security

So eventually things calm down, but I'm honestly a little concerned for my physical safety at this point as I'm only sitting a few seats from AD, and who knows if OMG is coming back with a gun or whatever. In any case, it was clear to me that security was ill-equipped to handle the situation if it had escalated any further.

And that's about all I have to say about that....hope you enjoyed the read.

Hak at the Taj - Drug solicitations, Selling the rock, and drawing dead with AA: An AC Trip Report

Hey all,

I was working from AC for a few days this week, and got some time to play poker. Nothing of much interest happened. Except the following:

1) Three separate people @ the Taj asked me, "Do you have any rolling papers?". It was only after the second time I was asked that I found out this is slang for, "Do you want to buy some weed?". I guess the fact that I'm no longer hip to drug lingo is a surefire sign that I am, indeed, an old man.

2) We played 20/40 at the Taj for about 4 hours with two rocks. No, I don't mean two nitty old men...they were all sitting in the 10 game. For those who don't know the term, a "rock" is ostensibly designed to loosen up a tightish game. If everybody agrees to play w/ the rock, you take two big blinds out of a pot (like time from a time pot) and wrap them up in a rubber band. The winner of the pot now owns the rock, and has to put it up as a blind raise next time they're UTG. The next winner of the pot with rock posted now owns rock, and they're obliged to post it next time they're UTG...and so on (i.e. the rock stays in play, and just gets passed between winners of pots). Playing with two rocks is exactly the same, except you end up with twice as many blind raises.

So, on selling the rock...what's the right price to take if somebody offers to buy the rock from you? The generally consensus at the table is that it's worth about $25 (1.25 Big Blinds) in equity...

3) Some youngish guy playing the 20 game yesterday was there with his mom. She was really out-going and, honestly, really nice. She offered to buy the whole table pizza, and the young guy, obv embarrassed, kind of yells at her that everybody will get their own food. She ignores him, shows up with a large pizza anyways, and is actively recruiting people in the poker room to have a slice or two. Anyhow, it was odd, but refreshing, to see a genuinely nice person in an environment where such folks are rare.

4) I don't usually post hands in trip reports, but this one was crazy enough to write about. 20 must move game @ Taj.

I raise AA UTG and get 5 callers.

Flop comes 7 T J rainbow. I open and it comes back to me capped!! I call 3 in the face praying my 2-outer will actually be good.

Turn bricks off. I check, it comes back to me for 2 or 3 bets (can't remember exactly), and I fold.

River bricks and checks through. 4 people showdown the following hands:

77 (Flopped set of sevens)
TT (Flopped set of tens)
JJ (Flopped set of jacks)
QK (Flopped open-ended straight draw)

So I would have needed to go perfect/perfect to make quads for my aces to be good on that flop FWIW, this is the first time I've ever seen set over set over set...live poker is rigged.

5) Found out that the Taj comps $3/hour for playing 20/40

6) A 40 hold-em game got started @ Taj yesterday evening just as I was leaving

That's it. Thanks for reading.

UMTerp's weekend tournament

I included you on this email if you played on Saturday, or if I thought you'd be the least bit interested in the results. Everything went smoothly as far as I could tell, and I think everyone had a lot of fun. We'll probably do this again in a few months, either in late January or early February. I'll try to give more notice next time, as I know there were quite a few of you that expressed interest in playing, but had other obligations this past weekend. Again, for those who have friends that played, feel free to forward this email along to them.

We ended up with 18 players for a prize pool of $1,080. 1,500-chip starting stacks, for a total of 27,000 chips in play.

The structure worked as I anticipated, and nobody busted out before the first break over a hour into the tournament, so hopefully every felt like they got their money's worth. The tournament finally ended around 12:45, at the 400/800 blind level.

I think I got all these results right, though I may have flip-flopped one or two spots because I'm doing this from memory. The final table standings were as follows:

1. Jeremy ($460) - Jeremy won a few timely coin flips (which are detailed below), and never lost a significant pot that I can recall at the final table. His stack seemed to be moving in the right direction the entire tournament. Congrats to Jeremy!

2. The Who ($300) - The Who was the short stack almost the entire time at the final table, but patience was a virtue with this structure, and he rode his stack into second place and a nice payday. He couldn't overcome a ~23K to ~4K defecit heads up though, and succumbed to Jeremy after 10 or 15 hands of heads up play.

3. Pat ($190) - Much like The Who, Pat was one of the shorter stacks throughout much of the final table. He oulasted a few of the more aggressive larger stacks, and cashed in third place.

4. Damon ($130) - Although Damon came up short in his bid to become the first player that I'm aware of to finish a marathon and win a poker tournament in the same day, he did hang on to cash. Damon and Jeremy played the biggest pot of the tournament 4-handed at the 200/400 blind level, when Damon's JJ went up against Jeremy's AK all-in preflop. The winner of that hand would have had a commanding chip lead with a stack over 20,000 chips. The first four cards were no help to Jeremy, but a cruel ace on the river sealed Damon's fate.

5. Brian - Brian was actually down to about 150 chips in the second level of play after taking a brutal beat when getting all-in against Big Chris with AA against AK on a K43 flop. A king hit the turn to knock Brian almost down to the felt, but he almost came all the way back before being eliminated in fifth place.

6. Hogie

7. Jason

8. Aaron - The second big hand Jeremy won at the final table was very similar to the first. Jeremy's AK was all-in preflop against Aaron's JJ, but in this case, Jeremy didn't need any river heroics when an ace and a king came out on the flop. This one was for about a third of the chips in play, fairly early at the final table.

9. Peter

If anyone has any constructive criticism about the setup, the structure, whatever, let me know, and I'll consider incorporating it for next time. One thing a lot of folks did mention was the possibility of a small cash game on the side, but it simply wan't feasible his time given who was out early and the timing of the bustouts. It's possible we'll set something up next time. It's also possible we'll expand the tournament a tiny bit and start with ~24 players and three tables, though that depends on the demand. We'll see.

Also, thank you to a few folks that helped me run everything - Damon/Coop, who came through with a few players for me when I was running a bit short, Pete, who helped me deal the final table, and my wife A, who was a gracious host and had a good time playing her first tournament. See you all next time - thanks for playing!

-Phil

Hak at the Taj - Weekend of the 9/28/2008

Long ...but really…you’re at work and don’t have anything else to do anyways…and it’s the journey that counts, not the destination. Anyhow, proceed at your own risk.

Last Wednesday I had sod installed in my yard. It was an irksome day because the guy I hired for delivery showed up two hours late, and then the pallets of sod wouldn't completely fit on his truck, so we had to load a bunch by hand, which set the project back another hour or so. All the while, the guys I hired to do the installation are calling and complaining that they're at my house waiting to start work. We eventually get all the sod to my place, and installation starts at 2 PM. At about 10:30 PM, the landscapers finishing working by car headlight, and I have a nice new yard. So what's all this have to do with an AC trip report? Well, not much...except this: I could have saved myself a bunch of headaches by just paying a full service landscaping company to buy, deliver, and install the sod. But, after I priced it out, I realized that I could save ~$1,000 by buying sod direct from a farm, paying some guy I know with a delivery truck to deliver, and hiring some latino guys who work for a landscaping company to do the installation on the side. I knew I was setting myself up for a hassle, but...what the hell, if I could save a grand, I was going to do it. Flash forward to Saturday at about 3 PM. I've just busted out of a $1K USPC event at the Taj, downed about 7 vodka/Sprites and am putting a single purple chip in the "Bet" circle at a Pai Gow table. About 1/10th of a second after it's too late for me to pull my bet back, it occurs to me that I planned and sweated saving that $1,000 on my sod for about 2 weeks, but didn't think twice about spending the same amount to play in a poker tourney, and then betting half that much again in a single hand of Pai Gow. Without further adieu...

Moral Dilemma #1
Is it wrong to value "gambling money" differently than "real world money"?

At this point, you're probably guessing that I lost my $500 bet and went home heart-broken, but, sorry to say faithful reader, I've thrown you a curveball. I actually won my Pai Gow bet, had another 5 drinks to supress my inner monologue, and left the pit at the Taj +$200 with a $30 dinner comp my pocket, and a hankering for some pokers. But I'm getting ahead of myself, let me take you back again to earlier in the week.

On Tuesday night, my wife reminded me that her old college roommate was coming down to stay with us for the weekend. Now I like her roommate just fine and all, but wasn't thrilled with the prospect of hanging out with the two of them all weekend. Ever since coming back from AC a few weeks ago (chronicled here), I've secretly been trying to figure out how to go back for a weekend to get my gamble on because....hey, I won a lot of money playing cards last trip, there's no chance that I'll ever have a losing poker session again in the history of time. So anyhow, I tell...err...ask the wife if I can go up to Atlantic City for the weekend to play in the USPC $1K tourney. She waffles, and it's clear that she doesn't really want me to go, but says, "do whatever you want". So approximately 2 minutes and 15 seconds and a quick call to the Taj later, I have a room booked at the poker rate (crappy rate because tourney was in town) for a solo trek to AC. Which brings us to...

Moral Dilemma #2
Am I a bad husband for leaving my wife for the weekend to go gamble when I know she really wants me to stay in town?

Moral Dilemma #3
Does taking a solo trip explicitly for the purpose of gambling make me a degenerate?

At 3 PM Friday, I jump in my car, take a second to admire the new grass, and hit the road for Atlantic City. Luckily traffic wasn't bad, and I make the trip from DC to the Taj in about 3 hours and 20 minutes. I guess I could point out here, that I spent about 2 of my 3 hours in the car with the radio off, saying aloud, "I'm going to play well, I'm going to win money". I know this is unbelievably ghey, but it's been my mantra before playing cards for a while now, and it seems to help me focus/play well, so what the hell...

Check-in at the Taj, take a shower, a grab a quick bite at "Burger". Had slider burgers which were meh, but did a fine job of filling my belly with greasy goodness. Go play Pai Gow for an hour, talk to the floor about the up-coming presidential debates, and head to the poker room when the floor starts telling me how the media is purposefully presenting Sarah Palin in a bad light, and that she's really awesome.

Get on the list for the 20/40 Hold em game, and decide to sit in a new 10 game that's just getting started while I wait. When I get to the table there's 3 people sitting around with their thumbs in their asses waiting for, presumably 6 more players. I suggest we play short, and they all seem happy enough to get to gambling. And then a strange thing happens. One of the guys sitting at the table starts talking and it becomes obvious that, 1) He has a lot of money, and 2) He has no idea how to play cards. Let's just call this guy I Have Money But No Skills Dude (IHMBNSD). So I suggest we play 20/40 instead of 10/20. Amazingly, everybody agrees. So we start a new 20 game short, and IHMBNSD literally doesn't know how to play. He doesn't know when it's his turn to bet, he doesn't know how much to bet, Christ, he doesn't even have the right chips for the game (He's playing all green in a red chip game). So all the while I'm congenial and keeping the game going while some Taj regular and I bleed chips off IHMBNSD.

Moral Dilemma #4
Does the fact that I knowingly coerced a bad player into playing bigger for my own potential gain make me a bad person?

After a bit, I get called into the main game. After about 20 minutes, I look back at my must-move table and see that IHMBNSD has blown through his half-rack of green and gotten up...oh well. So the main game is standard. And by standard I mean, both remarkably good, and remarkably annoying. There are one or two tough spots, and then a bunch of gamble-crazy donators. And, of course, there are people who are pissed off...at least 3 at any given time. I should say that I think the 20 game has more grumpy, pissed off, really not at all good-hearted people per capita than any other game I've ever played in. FWIW, I think this is because when you play smaller, people are more casual about the game, and more or less just playing to pass the time and/or have fun. When you play bigger, people are more "professional" and generally don't invest the effort in getting too steamed over things at the table. But at the 20 game, you have a group of regulars who play more or less fulltime against each other, and it's like a soap opera. Regular 1 slept with Regular 2's wife...Regular 3 hates Regular 1 because he's a racist old man who doesn't like Asians. Regular 4 is a Russian dude who just hates everybody the same amount and throws his cards and chips every time he loses a pot. But I digress...about 3 hours into the game the floor has been called at least 5 times to break up squabbles amongst the table when the two guys to my immediate right start yelling at each other. When the floor comes over AGAIN to break up the fight, I decide I've had enough and make a big show of asking the floor to bring me 3 racks so I can leave. I wasn't really planning on leaving or anything, but in my head, I thought it was a good way to make a point to the regulars that fighting with each other drives the "tourists" like me out of the game. Anyhow, I don't know if my little display had an impact or not, but things seemed to settle down a bit for the rest of the night, and I went on to cash out up about 3.5 racks of red. And before I forget...

Moral Dilemma #5
Is surrounding yourself with arguable "low-lifes" really a good idea in the long run? Is spending a considerable amount of time in a poker room really a healthy life choice?

Oh, and remember my little mantra I told you about earlier? Well I lied a little bit. My chant was actually, "I'm going to play well, I'm going to win money, I'm going to win this tournament". Satisfied that I'd won enough money playing cash game to cover my tournament buy-in and expenses for the weekend, I head up to my room where I briefly consider getting spank-o-vision, but settle on just brushing my teeth and drifting off to sleep instead.

Wake up Saturday AM and get down to the card room in time to register for the $1K tourney. After a quick trip to the bathroom to wash my hands and say aloud in the mirror, "I'm going to play well, I'm going to win this tournament", I'm in the 6 or 7 seat at Table 24. Nothing much happens for the first 2 hours or so, and then I make a "questionable" play and get busted. The end.

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OK, so here's how I got busted. 5 or so limpers to me in the SB with Q5o, so obv. I complete. Flop comes 55x rainbow. UTG leads for the pot, and I raise. He re-raises and I flat call. Turn bricks and I check without much of a plan on what to do if UTG bets or checks. He bets enough for me to have to decide to fold and play with a shortish stack, or put all my chips in. So I don't think, and just push while saying, "Well, I guess I'm going home". He insta-calls with A5 and the board doesn't pair. GG me. Guess that mantra doesn't always work.

Needing a break before I start playing cards again, I head over to the Asian Gaming pit, start drinking heavily, and playing Pai Gow...but you already heard about that. The important items of note on this sabbatical are:

a) I won $200
b) I had many drinks
c) I gambled enough $$$ for the Taj to probably keep sending me free room offers for the next year or so

After a short walk on the boardwalk and a few bottles of water to sober up, I wander back into the poker room expecting to play some 20/40. But what's this...there's actually a 40 game running...at the Taj? I sweat the game for a while before deciding I'm sober enough and the game is good enough for me to jump in...so I sit back at Table 24 with two racks of yellow. We play 8 handed for a while and the game is so-so to good. One guy I've seen playing big at the Borgata wants to play bigger, as does a stuck Asian, but I tell them I won't as I'm not rolled to play anything bigger. They look at me like I'm an *******, but life goes on. Overall, the experience is much more pleasant than the 20 game...no yelling, no fighting...just a lot or betting. After a while, the Borgata guy tells us he's leaving up unless we play bigger, I again refuse, and he leaves on the next down. The game gets a little short when I see a guy that I played with in the 20 game the night before in the bathroom. Four things to know about this guy:

1) He won a tourney for $13K two nights earlier
2) He hasn't slept since
3) He smells quite bad
4) He is ABSOLUTELY horrible

So I recruit him to play.

Me: "Hey, what are you doing playing in that 20 game....we've got a 40 seat open...come play."
Him: "Oh really...40/80. OK, I'll play"
Me (To self): "Bingo"

Moral Dilemma #6
Does recruiting a horrible player into a game I'm playing solely for my own potential profit make me a bad person?

We play for a while and bad dude loses a bunch of chips and gets aces cracked 3 times before he leaves. Then a few other people leave. And all of a sudden we're playing 3-handed. And continue to play 3-handed for, oh, 4-5 hours maybe? I don't know, casinos warp my sense of time. In any case, I probably wasn't the worst player in our 3-handed game, but I probably wasn't the best player in the game either. Overall, this is what is probably called, "Poor game selection", but I haven't ever played short-handed live for a long session before and I may be a degenerate (See moral dilemma #3 above), so I decided to stay in the game after a break to chant, "I'm going to play well, I'm going to win money". We play 3-handed and all make it a point to complain to the dealer and floor about paying $4/down time while gambling, literally, thousands of dollars, and do A LOT or raising. Repeat..many, many raises were made, and probably 70+% of our hands got to the river. It was an interesting dynamic, and overall loads of fun. After going to the felt and catching a 2 outer to avoid re-buying, I decide to start drinking again...so long "Play well" mantra. But the devil juice seemed to be just the elixir I needed, as I ended the session up just shy of a rack of yellow. One last note on this session. Towards the end of the night, one of the players ended up being stuck pretty bad, and got a little pissed when I told him I was leaving on the next dealer change. As he continued to run bad, he started playing more and more aggressively, and getting progressively more pissed off when he kept running into the nuts. After a while, I got a bit annoyed and started needling him just for the hell of it. The night ended with me racking up and stuck guy trying to get the other player in our game to play heads up. Turns out the other player has to give his buddy a ride back to their hotel, so stuck guy tells him to just pay cab fair for his friend. At this point, the following conversation takes place:

Me: "Hey Stuck guy, if you want to play him heads up so bad, why don't you just pay for his buddy's cab fare?"
Stuck guy: "**** you, who the **** was talking to you anyways...you ****ing leave when I'm stuck so bad"
Me: *lol* "Good night"
Stuck guy: "Yeah good night, enjoy my money"
Me: "I will"
Stuck guy: "**** you...make sure you don't give the money to your wife...bring it back and play again"
Me: *lol* "I will"

Moral Dilemma #7
Does needling somebody who's stuck ~$4K just for the hell of it make me a bad person?

I cash out with an odd $60 left which I decide to use on one bet of Pai Gow so I can grab a night cap. Wander to the pit, and, WTF, all the Pai Gow tables are $100 minimum...at 4 in the morning...**** that, I'm not betting no $100 (Pause to appreciate the irony....good). Cursing those damn gamble-crazy asians, I make my way to the lounge and pay $11 for a GM. Sit down for a minute thinking that there should be some comical hookers to look at but, alas there aren't, so I down my drink and pass out as soon as I hit the bed.

If anybody is actually still reading at this point, please post a reply with the single word, "Infalable" in it. Why "Infalable"? Because it's a ****ing cool-sounding word...that's why.

Which brings us to earlier this morning. Last trip to AC I discovered that I really enjoy playing 10/20 on Sunday morning/early afternoon. The game is filled with old timers just there to pass the time. The game reminds me of the most enjoyable poker I've ever played; my old home game where we played $20 maximum buy-in and everybody had fun. We stayed up late drinking and bull****ting and nobody ever got too upset. In short, it was a social game between friends, and an all-around goodtime. But that home game has long-since broken up as we've all gotten older and married, and now we place maybe once a year instead of once a week, and we play for more money, and while we still get drunk and have fun when we get together, it's somehow not the same...maybe it's just because we don't play guts games with 5+ wild cards in them anymore, maybe it's because we all started taking poker a little too seriously, or maybe it's just because we got older...I don't know. But anyhow, for whatever reason, this old-timer 10/20 game at the Taj on Sunday morning reminds me of my old home game, and I enjoy chatting it up with the geriatric set, so I decided to make it a point to play whenever I'm in town. After a few hours of playing, I'm up $60 and head home.

Moral Dilemma #8
Should I be playing poker...
A) For the challenge
B) To make money
C) For fun
D) Some combination of all of the above
E) None of the above

The end.

Thanks for reading.

Hak at the Taj: 9/9/2008

*EDIT* - Bah...Would be nice if I noticed my post title got truncated.

Full title is:
Mirrors on the ceiling, A tropical storm, My wife, Good eats, and the difference between 10/20 and 20/40: An AC Trip Report

Ugh, I started writing a long trip report with flowery prose and whitty anecdotes, but just didn't have it in me to finish...so I decided to write a choose your own adventure Trip Report. Highlights below, let me know if you're interested in more detail on any bullet and I'll provide.

Enjoy...

AC 9/5-9/8 Choose your own adventure

Trip Report:
1) Took my wife to AC for the first time against my better judgement, and we both had a surprisingly good time.

2) New tower at the Taj is nice

3) Grand suites in old Taj tower show their age, but they have mirrors above the bed...so WTF

4) Ate at: Izakaya, Sonsie, Buddakan, Teplitzky's, and Bobby Flay Steak, in that order, chronologically. The dining experiences ranged from good to somewhere better than excellent,
but several ticks shy of sublime

5) Spent time at: Taj, The Chelsea, Borgata, the beach

6) Played 2/5 nl, 10/20 and 20/40 @ the Taj...won significant monies in each

7) Playing early Sunday morning (sober, after sleep) against old regulars is fun

8) I was the only non-local/regular in the 20 game at Taj...game was still awesome

9) Some guy in the 20 game @ Taj smelled insanely bad...even from completely across the table

10) The different between 10/20 and 20/40. I wasn't in either of these hands, but they were almost identical. In both hands, two people get to showdown with Top two pair vs. set. In the 10 game, the turn went check/call, and river checked through after a backdoor straight got there. In the 20 game, 3 people got three bets in on the turn, and two people showed down for 2 bets each when a backdoor flush hit the river

11) Saw the biggest stack of red chips ever in the 20 game @ Borg...easily over $15K of red and 4 ft. high

12) Waited for 30+ minutes on Sunday afternoon to get into one of the following games @ Borg: 5/10 nl, 20/40, 40/80. Gave up and went back to the Tag to play the 20 game

13) Used to book rooms at Borg...pretty sure I'm only staying @ Taj from now on

14) Beach was oddly crowded at 10 AM on a Monday morning after Labor Day

15) Tropical storm was over-rated...a little wind and some rain

16) I've seen the same random guy from Chicago at the Borg for four years running during the Borgata Open. 20-something guy, I played 5/10 nl with you a few times. You were watching Bears/Colts at the Gypsy Bar Sunday night next to your friend who was wearing a Bears jersey. If you're a 2+2er, shoot me a PM...otherwise I'll be forced to stalk you on Craigs List Missed Connections.

17) Drive back to DC from AC is much nicer when you've had some sleep and aren't either:
a) Still drunk from night before, or
b) Insanely tired and hung over