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:
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.
