Atlantic City on 6/29

I'm thinking about taking a trip to AC tomorrow. It's my day off, I got some money, and I've never been. I was looking online and The Borgata has a cheap NLHE tourney in the morning. As well, The Taj has one in the evening, so I'm thinking I can spend 60 bucks, gas, and food and make a day of it. Anyone have any last minute tips for me before I head out tomorrow for my first live tourney? Also, wish me luck!

P.S. -- if any of you are on the east coast near AC and have nothing better to do tomorrow.... Wink

I've been to Vegas dozens of times but never to Atlantic City. Good luck with everything, hopefully you'll have a good trip and do a little write-up when you return.

Ok, where to start.....

Well, I'm starting not to trust Mapquest as much as I used to. Their directions sent me thru hick towns in the middle of nowhere and every toll road it could find. On the way back (in the middle of the night) I just followed some signs and stuck to major highways. Skipped a couple tolls that way and saved like half an hour.

So, I got up around 5:30am (only 4 hours of sleep, a bit of a mistake, more on that later), hit the road for the 3.5 hour trip at about 6. With traffic and what not I made it to AC a little after 10. Overall, I like Vegas a little better. But AC's not too bad. Trump's name is on everything, and in BIG red letters.

The first Tournament was at The Borgata. It's an easy building to find, but it was hard to get into. The roads that go by place don't have turns or to go in. There's a ramp you gotta take off the road that goes to an overpass back over the road and into the garage. Once I parked and went into the Casino it took me a couple laps around the casino floor before I found the escalator down to the Sportsbook/Poker room. They make all the entrants in the tourney get one of the Casino Players Club cards. It was a $30 buy-in, $20 re-buy through the third round, and an add-on at the end of the third round for another $20. I heard so many yells of "REBUY!!" it sounded weird not to hear it after the thrid round. I didn't so well, got knocked out in the 8th round. I didn't mind too much, it was my first tourney, I was nervous and trying to figure everything out.

Next was The Taj Mahal. Since I still had a few hours to kill before the tourney I went out to the boardwalk right outside the Taj. First time I had been to the Atlantic Ocean and I must say, it looked just like the Pacific. The waves weren't as choppy, but whatever. So at this point I went and got The Taj Card since like The Borgata, you gotta have the players card to enter the tourney. Then I went and got a little something to eat, played some craps (and lost, really cold table), and played a little blackjack. The tourney started at 6:30 and was the same setup as the one at The Borgata. I did a lot better in this one. Not nearly as nervous as the first one. I was able to calm down and focus on the game and the other players. Out of 143 players I finished at 14th. Not too bad. I had a couple bad beats toward the end, started getting blinded off, and as the blinds are coming next hand I went all-in with Q5s, got called by a 69s, and lost to a pair of 9's.

Obviously I won't be getting a hand history or anything like that like we can get from the online poker rooms so one will be able to pick apart my play. However, here are few things I learned/noticed playing in these B&M tourneys:
- It's important to be well rested, especially for these big multi-table tourneys. As the tourney goes on and you start getting tired, your decision making becomes effected. It's not a major effect but it's there. When it was getting late, like 12:30pm and later, I was considering going all-in with stuff like Q8o after 2 limpers. I didn't do it, but I realized I was even considering it mostly because I was tired I wanted the tourney to end.
- In both tourneys, there was no ante until the fourth round. It was only the blinds in the first three rounds. The addition of the Ante changes the game a fair amount. Blind steals become much more lucrative. It goes from 1.5xBB to as much as 5xBB. It takes a bigger risk on your part to make the steal but if make a good enough read on your opponents you can usually pick the right spots to go for it. The other thing to remember with antes is that they take out the short stacks faster. So watch for them to make a stand a little sooner.
- This isn't really something I learned or noticed, it's just something that bugged me. In the tourney at the Taj, the two guys to my left were being real asses. Everyone is there to have fun and play poker. It's a $30 buy-in, there isn't a while lot on the line here, and these 2 were being a couple killjoys. One of them was dealer and the other was a regular. They were both trying to tell the dealer what to do and were messing with other peoples chips to make change and cut pots for side pots and split pots. At one point I thought the guy to my immediate left was about to get kicked out. The dealer told him to just sit there and let him do his job, the got pissed off and they got into a bit of shouting match, not too loudly, but I would call it shouting none the less. The floor boss came over, the three of them talked for a couple minutes, and the guy finally calmed down a bit. Him and the guy immediatly to his left just refused to let things go. They harped on anything that bugged them for like 15 or 20 minutes. I eventually busted out the guy to my left (which felt great, the guy was so freakin annoying) and the guy to his left was eventually moved to different table than me when they broke down our table. Other than those two, everyone I played with seemed like they were having a good time.
- The other thing I noticed is chip tricks, counting, and stacking. Not many people were doing anything fancy. I think that helped me in the Taj tourney, I was doing chip shuffles or riffles once in a while, kept my chips in well organized stacks and always knew pretty closely how much I had. It seemed like people were a little scared of me when I moved in. This made it a little easier to steal blinds occasionaly. But it also made it harder to get action when I wanted it. I almost felt like I had to fake tells so people would think I was bluffing and trying to buy the pot so they would call. Once the field thinned out this wasn't as effective since a lot of the people that were left knew better. Wink

Well, I've been typing this for like 3 hours off and on while watching The Tonight Show and Late Night with Conan from the past couple days. If I left out anything you want to know about or if I went in to too much detail about something, let me know. 8-)

EDIT: Forgot to summarize. Smile

I won enough at the second tourney to cover the first. So I about broke even as far as the tourneys go, but I lost about 100 at the craps table so... but I had fun so it's all good.

sounds like fun - good job on both tourney's! Smile

Yeah, very interesting. Good job.

{Moved from Miscellaneous Poker}

Nice job, Code. Thanks for the write-up!

I just started to get into Texas Hold'em. After watching the game on ESPN it really sparked my interest. So far, I have only played with friends and family at dollar limit tables.

Last week I went to mohegan sun and sat at a casino poker table for the first time. It was carribean draw (everyone against the dealer). I lost more than a hundred dollars in less than ten minutes. I realized that I need to texas hold'em in a casino.

I live near Atlantic City so I can take a trip out there. My questions are the following:

1. If you want to play texas hold'em, do you have to play a tournament?

2. What is the lowest limit table you can find in Atlantic City and where?

3. How do I find out more about tournaments (Rules and dates)

4. If people are only playing against eachother in texas hold'em, how does a Casino make money?

I would appreciate it if somebody answered my questions.

( This is me when I have a good hand= Embarassed

)

I can't believe no one's going to comment on the crypt keeper n00b.

dface, I've never played in AC, so I can't answer your questions about there specifically. However, I would recommend that before you go play there and give away more of your $, you spend some time reading here and finding out how the game works. I'm not trying to be a jerk, but if you don't even know the difference between ring games and tourneys, and don't know about rakes, then for your own sake you should NOT be going to a casino to play. You are what we like to refer to as a fish. However, since you made the effort to come to FTR to ask a question, I'll assume you might want to play to make some money. Therefore, learn about this wonderful game before you make another trip to the casinos.

Good luck and welcome to FTR!

Yea I know I am a fish or a newbie. But I think I know enough about Texas Hold'em in specific to play in a Casino. yesterday at a family game I had a 10-4 and the flop came 10-10-10. I barely flinched and because I had previously tried to bluff to steal a pot I decided I would bet more than usual. My opponent called and the fourth ten made him Sad

and made me Very Happy

I am not saying I am an expert because I know that if that was in a casino I probably would have given off like a thousand tells. But everything is experience. I think I'll try foxwoods 1/2$ games and stay away from no limit for now.

Thanks for the advice. I'm very open to future pointers.

Ok,

When you say $2/$4 limit tables. 2 and 4 dollars are the blinds I suppose but does that mean that the limit is 4 dollars? is the limit the big blind?

How does that work?

dface,

please don't take this the wrong way because i am seriously trying to help you.

you need to go into the "beginners" forum on FTR and get some basic information there. also consider reading "winning low limit holdem" by lee jones, or any other basic holdem book. all your questions will be answered.

i strongly, strongly recommend against you stepping one foot inside a public cardroom until you have a genuine understanding of the game. seriously. you will lose your entire stack in 15 minutes. i shit you not. from your comments so far, you sound like exactly the kind of opponent that the FTR regulars here dream about playing.

maybe you are just pulling our leg, throwing out every possible cliche that a true sucker would say. if so, good one. you got me.

if not, then please don't be offended. i am trying to save you money, since you had the intelligence to actually come in here and seek advice before taking the plunge. my advice is to read some more material and get a much, much better understanding of the game before risking a dime at a real game.

ChezJ

Codemachine, thanks for the write-up on the Taj in AC. In a couple of weeks (I hope - depends on the job situation) I hope to be driving to AC to try one of the Taj's weeknight tourneys. I enjoyed your write-up.

A couple of questions:
How many people were in the tourney total (if you know)?
What was the overall quality of play (from your observations)? I'm sure there were some really good players, were there any that didn't belong? Just trying to gauge what I'd be walking into. I think I can do ok, I'm just looking for analysis.

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Atlantic City on 6/29

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Atlantic City on 6/29