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

Hak at the Taj: 9/9/2008 Cont

Not my pic, but our room setup was identical....

Was fun to flex my bicep in the mirror, American Psycho style, while sexing up the wife.

Also, a little back story on the rooms that may be of interest...

Rooms were comped for the weekend, and we were originally in the new Chairman's tower. The rooms in the new tower are very nice and clean. Modern design (i.e. W/boutique Hotel X/etc.). Only problem was that our room was directly above the tour bus loading/unloading area, and it was loud. So talked to the desk...they were over-booked in new tower, but offered me a grand suite in the old tower instead. Wife liked the idea so we moved. Consider the same scenario at the Borg....

Me: [calls]
Me: [waits]
Me: [calls]
Me: [waits]
Me: [walks]
Me: [waits]
Me: Hi [clerks name], we just checked into room XXXX and it's very nice, but a little loud, is there any chance you could move us?
Clerk: [looks]
Clerk: *Sigh* let me check
Me: Thank you very much
Clerk: [finishes]
Clerk: [checks]
Clerk: No, I'm sorry, we're booked. If you like, you can pay to be upgraded to some [insert] suite for $1.5K extra per night. Shall I go ahead and make the adjustment and bill it to your card?
Me: [shakes] Damn you Borgata...you've won again with your fancy marble and art glass and dining and good poker games....I'll get you yet .
Clerk: Are you done yet?
Me: Oh, sorry...yes, I'm done. No upgrade for me thanks. The noise will keep me awake, but that just means more time to gamble....thanks anyways.

The moral of the story is that the Taj, while older, at least makes me feel like they value the money I gamble with them and do their best to accomodate me. With the new tower, I'll likely stay there exclusively from now on.

Also, for mid-limit hold 'em players....Taj has a new offer for free room with (I think, but call to confirm) 6 hours of 20/40, 4 hours of 40/80 (Regulars swear this game runs from time to time, but I've never seen it), and I think also with some higher number of hours of 10/20.