Trip Report
by Douglas T. Anderson
Before I start let begin with the obligatory homage to Jazbo Burns for all his
great work, Thanks Jazbo!
The past few weeks have been a real downer for me both in my professional and
personnel lives (my company lost a major contract I was working on, and I
broke my right foot). Needless to say I was looking forward to going to AC,
and forgetting about my troubles for a while.
As the saying goes, getting there was half the trouble, ahhh fun. Depart for
AC from office Thursday. Its raining like the proverbial Cow pissing on a
flat rock. While this is usually just a pain, walking on crutches on wet
marble is an invitation to additional broken bones. With my usual grace, I
managed to fall once in the West Falls Church Metro station, and once in the
Philly AMTRAK station. BTW any DCers going to AC, AMTRAK runs $88 round
trip, not bad considering the tolls going by car are close to $30.
Upon arriving in AC I had my first of many good experiences at Resorts when
they loaned me a wheel chair gratis. Before I go on, let me echo and
re-inforce the comments others have made about the Resorts crew. Personally,
as long as Resorts is spreading a Holdem game, the Taj will never see my
shadow again. Repeatedly throughout the weekend one or more of the Resorts
employees went out of their way to help me, at one point, a poker dealer
Friday evening (around 8 PM) found me wondering around looking for some food,
and even though he was leaving the building, took the time to push me to the
Casino Cafe and make sure I got up the elevator. I believe this dealers name
was Shawn, I'm not 100% sure but he typified the staff at Resorts, helpfull,
courteous, and friendly. Keep up the great work!
My gambling, other then the physical harm I risked commuting to AC, began on
Saturday after the luncheon, the table was (from 1 - 10); Davles, Frank Irwin,
Dave Meeks, Me, Palmer, a Local, Jester, Local, Warren, and someone I
couldn't see. Almost as soon as the game started, a waitress passed behind
the table saying "Waitress, Coffee, Soda, Juice" to which Frank Irwin responded:
I'll have a Waitress.
After explaining to the waitress he really didn't want anything, the game got
underway.
I've noted some hands of interested:
Early Position with J8o, Palmer raises, I fold to see JJ8 flop.......Doh!
Warren plays A2h in late position, Heads up against Frank, river brings Warren
a wheel, and Frank a flush (67d)
I sit down at the Resorts Friday $100 buy in Holdem Game and make it to 3
tables before busting out. Nothing of note happened while I was playing. The
most important happening was when there were 3 players left, 2 locals and
sippy. Sippy is on the button and folds, local 1 goes all in, local 2 calls.
local 1 turns over Ajo, flop has a J in it, turn is X, river 5.....Local turns
over 55 to bust out local one on a rivered set. (the poker room resounded with
the cry of PRESTO from those of us sweating sippy).
Sippy busted out into 2nd when he went all in with A4d, flop had 2 diamonds
but never flushed. the winner caught a 6 to make a pair and take the tourney.
Way to Go Sippy!
The 5-10 Ring game at Resorto the number of ATLARGE attendees in it. If there
were less then 5, the fish count was high enough to make it profitable. My
first game (above) with 8 ATLARGE netted a -25 session, it was my only loosing
Holdem ring session of the trip, the others netted +100, +175, and +125
respectively making up for my stupid play in Pot Limit Holdem (-150) and poor
showings in the tourneys.
Speaking of tourneys, in the Holdem tourney I saw a total of 67 hands before
my ignoble death, of those I played in 8, winning 5 and loosing 3. The table
over all, of those 67 hands, 15 made it to show down and approximately half
never flopped (2 of my winning hands had no flop). My end came partially from
frustration, and bad luck, in late position I have 77. Raised T200, bringing
one player All in, a second, having only abt T250 left re-raises all in, I
think and call. Flop, turn and river are all rags, just not the right rags
and I get beat by K9o catching a 9.
Next hand, I have A3h, raise all in with T150 left. I get called and watch
as middle black cards pepper the flop, turn and river.
Loboc is busted, Loboc quits.
back to the ring games.
I decide to buy in to the Pot Limit game for $150 just to get the experience.
That was my first mistake, I should have bought in for atleast $300 or let it
pass by. One interesting hand I saw in PL. Peter Secor raises early position
called by someone my notes says was 'Bruce'. Flop A 8 X. Bruce raises, Peter
calls, Turn X, Bruce raises All In, Peter Calls, River K, Bruce flips over A8,
Peter shows AK and rakes.
About an hour in the PL game, Warren walks in to sit down with a hand full of
$500 and $100 chips from the Taj. Carol, the floor person, a true joy for a
poker room, walks over, takes his black chips and says "black chips from
another house always belong to the Floor person" and starts to walk away.
Warren looks at her in shock as she just took around $500. After the laughter
dies she brought it back.
One last comment and Ill close this over long report. A couple of months ago
a certain ex Taj floor person asked for advice on what to put into a poker
room. My advice, is some Saturday go play some poker at resorts and I think
you will find everything you need. In almost 60 hours of poker I saw one
argument, the dealer was 100% right and more amazingly was backed by the house
(a loud mouth player was told to either play cards with his mouth shut or
leave). They DO NOT change decks on request, but when ever a shift change
(p new deck is one of my pet peeves). Dealers were confident enough to listen
to advice from players when questions came up, and even took it on occasion.
All in all a wonderful experience, one I hope to repeat soon.
--
Douglas T Anderson
All Opinions expressed are my own
