the horseshoe

it has been a long time since I went to a new casino. last month I got a random phone call from Heather, where she explained that Harrah’s was opening a new (remodeled, I believe) Horseshoe near Chicago. I was jealous, and she knew I would be, hence the random phone call.

I had the oppotunity to go a couple last week and I can’t say I was dissapointed. The casino itself is Nice. I have only been to the Hollywood in Auraura previously and this place definitely blows it away. The worst thing about the casino was the fact that you have to pay for drinks, but I’m quickly becming accustomed to it with other indian casinos. It still sucks though.

Both nights I played I stuck with craps, for better or worse. The minimums were decent ($10 = nice) and I’m not sure what the caps was on odds, but I never exceeded it. My first night was marred by what were probably the worst craps dealers I have ever played with. We are talking worse than Resorts in AC.

The second night when I caught up with Heather we had a much better table, though the minimums were up to $15. We had an awesome exchange with some drunks kids that were at the table with us. I finally got to use my extensive knowledge of “Don’t tell mom, the babysitter is dead”. I knew that would come in handy at some point.

All in all the casino experience was good. I will definitely be visiting again next time I go to Chicago; and who knows, I might even play in their fantastic looking poker room.

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I actually do still play poker sometimes

And there’s proof. That’s right, last place of the winners is me (avoque). Overall I think I played pretty well. I only made a bad play once when I raised pre-flop with QJs and had someone push all-in behind me. It was probably too many chips to be calling and I was dominated by pocket kings so there was little hope for me.

For my bustout hand I pushed with a little more than 5 BBs with AKo in the big blind. Someone had pushed in front of me with K9s. Of course the 9 hits on the flop. I was sure I was going to get bubble boy honors, but slipped into the money.

AC for the pre-birthday weekend. There’s actually a chance I’ll play some poker while I’m there (if I can get away from the craps tables, that is.). Who hops the fives?? THIS GUY, that’s who.


Celebrating Jesus at the Casino

Easter weekend was surprisingly light in AC. I guess there are more devout C&E Catholics here than I expected.

I headed out once again with the same couple I went with on Chinese New Year. At the last minute, they talked a friend into going and driving with us. Now I’m not one to envy cars, but when the car is  BMW M5, you can’t help but envy its awesomeness. That car is sick.  Pair it with a crazy driver (crazier than Chinese New Year) and I really thought I was going to die. But I couldn’t help but admire the handling of the car. Unbelievable.

I learned a few things on this trip:

  1. 10/20 Limit is unbelievably soft.  Now I know why F-Train goes on about it all the time.  I had the best time I’ve had playing poker in over a year playing the 10/20 game.  I will hit it again soon.
  2. I find myself playing higher limits in the table games just to get away from the douche-iness that always seems to find its way to me at craps and blackjack tables.
  3. Deep tissue massage is where it’s at.  At the Borgata ask for Sue, she’s amazing.
  4. If you stay in your hotel room past 4pm you will automatically be charged for a second day.  Luckily I talked them into comping the room for me so I didn’t have to pay the $300 for a night we didn’t even spend in the hotel room.

Poker content?

Once upon a time I used to play poker constantly. Somehow while playing 5-6 games of soccer per week and holding down a full-time job I could still find the time to play 15-20 hours of poker per week. Moving to NY definitely changed how much I could play, but UIGEA is what really fucked it up for me. I pulled out almost every dollar I had in an online site, which was a good thing as I didn’t get my entire bankroll stuck in the Neteller mess.

A month ago, I decided to make an effort to start actively playing again. I randomly hit a limit blogger tournament and while I can’t dig up any hand histories, I do have this gem from the chat:

MiamiDon: thats limit with idiots
MiamiDon: most horrible play I’ve seen in weeks, KQ

I’m the idiot. If I remember correctly I spiked a jack to hit an inside straight and crack his aces. It actually got much uglier than that as I pulled a number of suckouts to stay alive for a while. Eventually I lost an all-in when I was ahead as the universe does have a sense of humor.

Today I decided to go back to the drawing board. Back to where I made money in poker to begin with. Limit poker. Low stakes. Today’s results were ridiculously good averaging somewhere around 20BB/hr. I don’t expect that to hold up, but it feels good to kinda get into the swing of things again. We’ll see where this goes.


Chinese New Year’ed

Or alternatively titled, “AC by way of Philadelphia”.
For my Chinese New Year AC trip I hooked up with some friends from work who happened to be going as well, which was awesome because they let me stay in their room on Saturday night so I didn’t have to suffer the late night Saturday bus ride back. To make it even better, we all chipped in and got a rental car, so I didn’t have to ride the bus at all.

Unfortunately, we didn’t do so well in the directions department (obviously not my fault) and we ended up missing the garden state parkway and took the nj turnpike the whole way. Our driver was a fucking maniac though so even with a stop for coffee we still made it in record time. Gold. I headed over to the Borgata and played craps, blackjack and poker until I couldn’t see anymore. Aahhhh home.

Saturday I decided it was time to get some value out of these comps and splurged on the massage/spa. Totally worth it. Not the best massage I’ve ever received, but good nonetheless. It probably would have been better if I weren’t already 6 drinks in. I do have to air a complaint about the spa though. The spa would be awesome if it weren’t for all the full frontal nudity. Seriously guy-getting-out-of-the-shower, I don’t need you to tell me how awesome the spa is while you are drying off your balls. In fact, I don’t need to talk to you at all. Save the conversation for a time when you’re wearing clothes.

I actually played poker with no success this trip. I really need to get my shit together and start playing more poker. And better poker too, this is getting ridiculous. I’m not even winning online anymore. Spanish 21 did me well this trip though, so I managed to squeeze out a winning trip for once.

I was actually disappointed at the Asian turnout at the Borgata this year. Last year I spent Chinese New Year at Caesars, which draws a much bigger Asian crowd. The Borgata didn’t even run any specials for it, likely because their customer-base generally consists of a bunch of kids pretending to be guidos. I love the Borgata, but I think I’m going to have to go back to Caesar’s for CNY next year.


Lake Tahoe x-mas

Oh yeah, I went to Lake Tahoe for x-mas. It is absolutely gorgeous there as you can see. I went with Jason, Balki, and Ezra. Here’s the trip in notable quotes:

“You are a bottle of jack away from closing that deal.”

“You need to start having sex with strangers.”

“I am a serial monogamist.”

“No matter what, Dan would tell you that he would have hit that.”

“Did you do that skiing?”

“I feel like every time I take a trip with you I lose a year off my life.”

“This place smells like strippers.”

“I want to see the crutches work their magic.”

“So, are you into guys or girls?”

“It looks like Montbleu only brought out the starters.”

“In chinatown they call that a ‘rucky nickel’”

“I don’t see myself staying away past six am.”

A more coherent write-up another time.


Craps for poker players

I play a lot of craps. If I start playing craps and I’m winning (or within a reasonable amount of losses) I’d rather keep playing than change games to get some poker in.

The Borgata is currently holding a big poker tournament (WPT Poker Open). To catch some of the action walking out of the poker room, the forward-thinking staff at the Borgata added an extra craps table in the secret smoke-free craps table spot outside the poker room.

That would be fine, I like to play poker, so having more poker players at my table shouldn’t be an issue, right? Wrong. I hate most poker players, and I didn’t even realize it. But it is definitely clear to me now

Craps rules for poker players

  1. No one wants to hear your bad beat stories. Most of the time they aren’t even bad beats. Some guy calling your all-in with a set of aces against your inside straight draw isn’t a bad beat, no matter where you are in the casino.
  2. Stop using “I don’t know how to play this game, I’m a poker player!” as your excuse for fucking up over and over again. You may think you are insulting craps for being -EV, but what you are really doing is making poker players look like jackasses to people that don’t play poker. Making a mistake is acceptable, consistently making a mistake is jackassery.
  3. Don’t talk about what constitutes a loss while the game is going on. To put it in poker terms, it’s like shouting for an ace when your friend is all-in with a pair of queens against AK. Craps is a superstitious game and we don’t need your retarded attitude fucking up the table mojo.
  4. Don’t argue with the dealers. Just like with every other game in the casino (including poker, fuck-o) dealers have no incentive to make you lose. In fact, they’re all hoping you win because that’s generally the only way you’ll tip them.
  5. Tip your dealers! Especially if you are too fucked up to understand how the game works, these people are helping you more than the waitress is. I’m not saying you have to tip a lot, but at a minimum, throw them a couple bucks when you cash out.
  6. Don’t walk away with an active bet on the table. I’m not sure why this happens all the time, because it seems like it should be common knowledge. 
  7. Color up when you leave the table. you’ll notice there are no chip racks at the craps table. When you are finished playing, tell the dealer you want to “color up”, he will instruct you to set your money down, the boxman will count it and give you larger denomination chips so you don’t have to walk around with 100 $5 chips.  This is true for almost every table game in the casino.

That’s it.  Good luck and I’ll see you at the tables (but if I do, please follow these rules or kill yourself, either is acceptable for me).


AC Slater and Friends

Another abandoned post, this time definitely from April 29th.

Last weekend I returned to AC with a clusterfuck of friends. Nine people total celebrating the end of bachelorhood for a friend. This was my first bachelor party, ever. I’ve always found the idea of them to be odd. Really, if I’m going to be married I hope I can still go out with just my friends when I feel like it, not just one last time before the actual wedding ceremony. But whatever.

It was weird being in AC with a bunch of people that I know. It didn’t really affect how my weekend went, it just meant I had someone I knew to celebrate with whenever the roll was hot. I have to say, AC is a lot more fun when you are there with friends, which I already knew from previous trips, but it was reinforced this weekend. I got a bit out of control though. I was the only one that didn’t sleep at all. Instead I just stayed up all night playing craps and getting drinks from a waitress that my friends had previously insulted – awkwardo. I probably wouldn’t have been able to make it all night, but I lucked into a chair at the craps table, which makes all the difference in the world. Plus it makes you feel like a high roller too. Double cool.

I actually did play a little poker when I first got to the Borgata, but it wasn’t very significant since it was a 2/4 limit game and half the players were in my group. I introduced everyone to my secrets to getting drinks quickly; pretty simple really: always order when asked and if you are empty when she comes by ask if she has anything on the tray to get rid of. That’s my secret, I know, it sounds complicated but I think you can figure it out.

Probably the best part of going to AC this weekend was that we all drove together, so we got the chance to hang out during the drive rather than having to deal with the usual greyhound crowd. Plus Anthony’s 300m is a fucking sweet ass ride.

Overall, a good time was had by all.

My experience, in numbers:

24 = number of hours spent in AC
3 = number of meals I had during that time (it really must be some kind of record for me)
36 = number of hours I went without sleeping.
23 = number of drink I ordered from the waitress (I kept count this time)
30 = number of minutes I spent in our hotel room.
3 = number of hopped nines I hit in a row (someone introduce me to the concept of parlaying, please)
2 = changes of clothes I took with me
0 = number of times I changed clothes. Also, number of minutes it took after we left before I started plotting my next AC trip.


AC – the two day adventure

I should really put dates on these blog posts when I start writing them, because it always takes me so long to get them out of the phone and onto my blog because I completely forget about them for weeks. I believe I wrote this on Sunday April 22nd. I can’t be positive.

I was itching to go to AC this weekend, so when I was looking for a hotel room, Heather turned me on to ebaying timeshares in AC. The deal was unbelievable – 240 for the entire weekend. The free room upgrade was icing on the cake. I stayed in a 1-bedrom suite that was larger than my apartment and included a Jacuzzi in addition to the shower. It fucking rocked, I took three Jacuzzi baths in the roughly 8 hours I spent in my room over two days (yes, I am a degenerate). I spent most of mytime at Caesar’s, since they comp me well and the addition of smoke free craps play just makes me want to play more.Friday I completely stuck to the craps action and that’s where I met my 70 year old doppelganger. Anyone who has logged hours at the craps table with me knows how much I love the nines (six-three in particular). As a matter of fact, I always set the dice to six-three before each throw. The old guy I met always sets his dice to five-four. In the four hours we were playing together we almostalways asked the dealer for the same bets after each roll. This is significant because though I have a strategy, I constantly change it up based on my feeling at the time. Unfortunately when anyone at the table except for the two of us was rolling I got killed. It was a horrible beating. Doppelganger Gus was awesome though, he wasn’t like the rest of the 70 year old fucks cussing the table all night, he was there to get lit up and have a good time, well, as much of a good time as a 70 year old man can have.

I finally gave up and went to sleep around 8:30 in the morning, with a phone call from the front desk at 9:30 in the morning asking me if I would like to “participate in their timeshare survey”. A special side note for all of you that might ever stay in atimeshare – they will generally leave you alone if you say that you are married, but your spouse is not with you. They won’t bother trying to sell you anything because your spouse isn’t there. I lucked in to this information, but it’s good to know for the future too.

Saturday I tooled around the city for a while, walked around the boardwalk and enjoyed the first day of nice weather since I got back from Austin. I finally settled back in to the gambling around 5pm. I started with a little craps and then headed over to the poker room to get some $1-2 NL in. I had some of the weakest players at my table with really deep pockets and they were completely lucking out when I first got to the table. After playing for a few hours I was mentally ready for a change but the poker player in me knew I wasn’t getting up from this table until the three weakest players were completely broke. They eventually did go broke, but they also kept re-buying until 5 am. I was still there. Unfortunately I didn’t get any of their money.

I learned something new about myself this weekend; I hate it when people announce a “re-raise” when there is no raise in front of them. You fucking retards, it isn’t a “re-raise” when the only action in front of you is a bet. That’s what the fucking “re-” is for. How hard is this, really?

Stop – hammer time
The guy sitting in the eight seat and I started chitchatting a bit about the players at the other end of table, both of us waiting for a chance to destroy them and take all of their money. He also was aware of the magic of the hammer, so having someone around who appreciated it,I played 7-2o the next time it came to me. I threw out a raise in early position with four callers. The flop came 7-K-2 with two diamonds I bet 3/4 the pot and had one player (new player) push all-in behind me, he was relatively short stacked and I suspected he thought his top pair was good so I instacalled and before we turned over our cards I said, “Youregoing to hate this hand”. He flips over his KQd for top pair and the flush draw just as the dealer throws out the third diamond, but he’s still a little unsure of his hand. The obvious seven comes on the river and I say, “Now you’re really going to hate this hand.” and I flip over the hammer. Without really showing any emotion he says, “Wow, this is the second time that has happened to me today; I should have taken the hint and left the first time.” Indeed.

In the 43 hours I was in AC this weekend, I ate twice and slept for a total of 8 hours. I can’t even begin to count the number of drinks I had. We’ll just go with “a lot”.

The rest of the night was relatively uneventful for me. I actually busted twice on two bad reads, first I got stacked when my pocket deucesturned a wheel only to find out that another player was holding 7-8 for the flopped nuts. Ouch. The second was just a really bad read after the winning three hands in a row, with pocket tens I bet into a queen high board. Unfortunately I was betting into a guy with KQ, not a lower pocket pair as I had suspected. Such is life. Though I’ve now had two losing sessions at 1/2 NL, I really feel like Im starting to get the game under control. Next time I go I’m playing for real.