Dave D
01-09-2005, 01:25 AM
Hey Everyone, I got in earlier today from my trip to AC, thought I’d relate it and compare it to foxwoods, just for fun. So this is for last Friday from about 4 to 5 AM. I’ve been to foxwoods only about 7 times (4 times in Dec/Jan and 3 in the summer), but I think it’s still a reasonable comparison.
Drive from Boston to AC:
Not bad, took the mapquest directions. Took a little less than 6 hours, including a gas and food stop. Traffic was heavier than I would have liked, but probably made 70 the whole way.
How Borgata Compares to Foxwoods
First Impressions:
Looks newer, but that’s about it. Obviously much smaller, and the layout seemed more intuitive. I liked how there weren’t as many people smoking, foxwoods’ “aroma” of cigarette smoke is no fun, but whatever. The Poker Room itself is obviously much classier, but about 1/5 the size of foxwoods (?) or so. The waitresses were hot…but not as hot as I thought they’d be, especially since this was a Friday. I felt like the spray-on-tan-as-uniform as well as the black dress thing they wear would make even a really mediocre girl look good. There were only like 3 waitresses, one of whom had braces and looked like she could have been anywhere from 16 to 23. I still thought she was hot, but she wasn’t anything fantastic compared to the woods. Foxwoods girls have those smocks they wear which obviously aren’t as revealing, but they also generally have smaller boobs.
Only had to wait like 40 minutes for a 6/12 table, could have also gotten a 3/6 at roughly the same time.
Playing:
Firstly, its cool that Borgata is normal in that they actually bring out beer bottles… but you can’t get food at your table like you can at foxwoods. Seemed like the waitresses were only a little bit faster than at the Woods. The dealers weren’t any better than at foxwoods, cards were flipped up/misdealt at roughly the same proportion (I think possibly even more often) of the time. Maybe a little faster, but nothing spectacular. In fact, foxwoods dealers were on the whole more friendly/ talkative, heh and after about 2 am everyone but players were allowed to speak other languages (Spanish) than English.
No straddle! ‘nough said.
I was really disappointed with the players. I realize that maybe it was a fluke, one time isn’t indicative of every night. But, seemingly all the players were, on average, much better than at foxwoods. There were no LAGs really, generally more than 4 callers (in addition to me) to a flop were rare, I think I was the only one who ever capped, it happened maybe 3 times ever. I was there for about 12 hours, people came and went, and I know people were waiting over 2 hours for the table (some told me when they sat down) so there should have been a good mix with some nuts, but no.
Memorable Moments:
At one point the Dealer dealt me an Ace, and dealt me another one face up, exposed he took it back ( I wish you could say you want to keep it ) and later dealt me a replacement K. I won the hand basically bluffing with only the gutshot T heads up, but it was defiantly a first.
7 Coronas into the night or so I asked the guys next to me who they’d take the win the Super Bowl, the Patriots or the Stealers.
I was reminded about that several times, it was all in good fun. I don’t watch the NFL that much, the divisions etc confuse me…
In the first few hours I was there, there was an old guy, we’ll call him “denim shirt” who was constantly giving me, and one other guy beef for raising preflop, ever. Not something I hadn’t seen at foxwoods, I’m not sure if I’d call him loose passive because he would raise if no one else did after the flop/turn, defiantly called like 95% preflop and usually the flop. Anyway, so I’d been kidding around in a friendly way, particularly he didn’t like one of the dealers (she gave him bad cards or something) and I went on a little bit of a roll with her so I said stuff like “how could anyone not like her”. If I beat him (legitimately) he’d say stuff like “got lucky ya bastid” kinda under his breath, or even if he won. So one time I think I beat him (legitimately, our hands weren’t even close in strength) and he says
Denim: “hey kid, are you Italian?”
Me: “no sir”
Denim: “Jewish?”
Me: “possibly” (because I am, but usually people can’t tell)
Denim: says something to his buddy about how “they killed the savior, well known story” Generally sorta giving me a weird look and asks me if I know how old he is and says he’s 73
At this point it didn’t quite hit me what he’d just said, the whole line of questioning sorta was random and came out of no where
Me: “You’re 73? I swear you look 60 sir” (because he really did)
Denim: “I was born the same year as the war, do you even know when the war was?”
Me: (not bothering to do the math at the time but later realizing maybe he meant 63?) Yes…I know when the war was
I later asked the guy next to me if he said 73, and he confirmed it, and we spent some time trying to think about what war he was talking about. It was funny.
Later on Denim started giving a guy to my right who was about my age beef for raising also. This guy was def ultra tight, probably too tight, and said to Denim you know I had a hand b/c he barely plays. This touched off quite a heated exchange in which the guy next to me first started asking why he’s so angry, it’s just cards, and that he should calm down. Denim responded with comments like “I’ll show you some cards next time, don’t tell me what to do, etc etc. The guy next to me then decided to have some fun and started making comments like recommending an undershirt because the Denim looks to be chaffing, some Rogaine (although he had a lot of hair for an old guy, but defiantly had a bald spot). Anyway, this got to the point where the dealer called the floor before a hand started to calm them down. The floor actually came over twice in 5 minutes, and I got up (maybe shouldn’t have) and spoke up for the guy next to me, Denim shirt had been egging us on the whole time, I just chose to ignore him because I know I’m a better person than him etc etc Anyway, the point of this story is that I’ve never seen a floor called because of a straight up fight like that at Foxwoods, never. Denim guy hadn’t been drinking the entire time I was there (so at least 2 hours), so I don’t think that was a factor. But besides, foxwoods is a zoo, far more conducive to making people fight just because there’s so many people everywhere, it’s noisy etc. It’s only one time, but one of my friends says its not uncommon for fights like this to break out. Also, him asking me if I was Jewish, never seen that at foxwoods, and would be offensive if I cared what he thought.
Otherwise everyone was pretty nice, fun to talk to. It was also cool because there were TVs everywhere, and generally the atmosphere was nicer. Foxwoods is clearly gambling for the masses, it’s a Greyhound bus and Borgata is an Escalade limo with Spreewells. But I feel pretty indifferent over which I’d take, foxwoods has its own quaint charm. It’s kinda fun in it’s own way when there’s all these people around with stuff happening everywhere, I guess this is a personal thing. Foxwoods floor people are defiantly more “stern”, but fair though, just a little gruff about it, but then again, that place teeters on the brink of disintegrating into chaos like a Red Sox season so I’m not so sure how much I blame them. When Borgata expands its poker room, it may combine the best of both worlds, not too big but not too small.
Driving from AC to Winston Salem NC
About 9 hours, got lost somewhere in NJ getting to the Jersey turnpike from the Garden State/Atlantic City freeway or whatever it is, rt 233, so that cost me about an hour. I left Borgata around 6 (started driving, not left the poker room) and decided I’d drive it, and got in here around 3. Decided I was too cheap for a hotel room, no sleep for over 24 hours! Took a couple breaks and a 20 minute nap but that’s about it. Btw, the Garden State Parkway sucks, I probably dumped around $15 in different parts of NJ on the Tpk and the Garden State. Why don’t you just ask me for $10 once instead of once every 1500 yards… And I thought my state was bad.
Otherwise an easy drive pretty much for anyone from NC who wants to make the trip, it was raining pretty hard a lot of the way so that might have hurt my time a little. Hmm what else, saw a guy getting road head.
Sorry this is kinda long, getting back into the paper writing mood for the semester…
Drive from Boston to AC:
Not bad, took the mapquest directions. Took a little less than 6 hours, including a gas and food stop. Traffic was heavier than I would have liked, but probably made 70 the whole way.
How Borgata Compares to Foxwoods
First Impressions:
Looks newer, but that’s about it. Obviously much smaller, and the layout seemed more intuitive. I liked how there weren’t as many people smoking, foxwoods’ “aroma” of cigarette smoke is no fun, but whatever. The Poker Room itself is obviously much classier, but about 1/5 the size of foxwoods (?) or so. The waitresses were hot…but not as hot as I thought they’d be, especially since this was a Friday. I felt like the spray-on-tan-as-uniform as well as the black dress thing they wear would make even a really mediocre girl look good. There were only like 3 waitresses, one of whom had braces and looked like she could have been anywhere from 16 to 23. I still thought she was hot, but she wasn’t anything fantastic compared to the woods. Foxwoods girls have those smocks they wear which obviously aren’t as revealing, but they also generally have smaller boobs.
Only had to wait like 40 minutes for a 6/12 table, could have also gotten a 3/6 at roughly the same time.
Playing:
Firstly, its cool that Borgata is normal in that they actually bring out beer bottles… but you can’t get food at your table like you can at foxwoods. Seemed like the waitresses were only a little bit faster than at the Woods. The dealers weren’t any better than at foxwoods, cards were flipped up/misdealt at roughly the same proportion (I think possibly even more often) of the time. Maybe a little faster, but nothing spectacular. In fact, foxwoods dealers were on the whole more friendly/ talkative, heh and after about 2 am everyone but players were allowed to speak other languages (Spanish) than English.
No straddle! ‘nough said.
I was really disappointed with the players. I realize that maybe it was a fluke, one time isn’t indicative of every night. But, seemingly all the players were, on average, much better than at foxwoods. There were no LAGs really, generally more than 4 callers (in addition to me) to a flop were rare, I think I was the only one who ever capped, it happened maybe 3 times ever. I was there for about 12 hours, people came and went, and I know people were waiting over 2 hours for the table (some told me when they sat down) so there should have been a good mix with some nuts, but no.
Memorable Moments:
At one point the Dealer dealt me an Ace, and dealt me another one face up, exposed he took it back ( I wish you could say you want to keep it ) and later dealt me a replacement K. I won the hand basically bluffing with only the gutshot T heads up, but it was defiantly a first.
7 Coronas into the night or so I asked the guys next to me who they’d take the win the Super Bowl, the Patriots or the Stealers.
I was reminded about that several times, it was all in good fun. I don’t watch the NFL that much, the divisions etc confuse me…
In the first few hours I was there, there was an old guy, we’ll call him “denim shirt” who was constantly giving me, and one other guy beef for raising preflop, ever. Not something I hadn’t seen at foxwoods, I’m not sure if I’d call him loose passive because he would raise if no one else did after the flop/turn, defiantly called like 95% preflop and usually the flop. Anyway, so I’d been kidding around in a friendly way, particularly he didn’t like one of the dealers (she gave him bad cards or something) and I went on a little bit of a roll with her so I said stuff like “how could anyone not like her”. If I beat him (legitimately) he’d say stuff like “got lucky ya bastid” kinda under his breath, or even if he won. So one time I think I beat him (legitimately, our hands weren’t even close in strength) and he says
Denim: “hey kid, are you Italian?”
Me: “no sir”
Denim: “Jewish?”
Me: “possibly” (because I am, but usually people can’t tell)
Denim: says something to his buddy about how “they killed the savior, well known story” Generally sorta giving me a weird look and asks me if I know how old he is and says he’s 73
At this point it didn’t quite hit me what he’d just said, the whole line of questioning sorta was random and came out of no where
Me: “You’re 73? I swear you look 60 sir” (because he really did)
Denim: “I was born the same year as the war, do you even know when the war was?”
Me: (not bothering to do the math at the time but later realizing maybe he meant 63?) Yes…I know when the war was
I later asked the guy next to me if he said 73, and he confirmed it, and we spent some time trying to think about what war he was talking about. It was funny.
Later on Denim started giving a guy to my right who was about my age beef for raising also. This guy was def ultra tight, probably too tight, and said to Denim you know I had a hand b/c he barely plays. This touched off quite a heated exchange in which the guy next to me first started asking why he’s so angry, it’s just cards, and that he should calm down. Denim responded with comments like “I’ll show you some cards next time, don’t tell me what to do, etc etc. The guy next to me then decided to have some fun and started making comments like recommending an undershirt because the Denim looks to be chaffing, some Rogaine (although he had a lot of hair for an old guy, but defiantly had a bald spot). Anyway, this got to the point where the dealer called the floor before a hand started to calm them down. The floor actually came over twice in 5 minutes, and I got up (maybe shouldn’t have) and spoke up for the guy next to me, Denim shirt had been egging us on the whole time, I just chose to ignore him because I know I’m a better person than him etc etc Anyway, the point of this story is that I’ve never seen a floor called because of a straight up fight like that at Foxwoods, never. Denim guy hadn’t been drinking the entire time I was there (so at least 2 hours), so I don’t think that was a factor. But besides, foxwoods is a zoo, far more conducive to making people fight just because there’s so many people everywhere, it’s noisy etc. It’s only one time, but one of my friends says its not uncommon for fights like this to break out. Also, him asking me if I was Jewish, never seen that at foxwoods, and would be offensive if I cared what he thought.
Otherwise everyone was pretty nice, fun to talk to. It was also cool because there were TVs everywhere, and generally the atmosphere was nicer. Foxwoods is clearly gambling for the masses, it’s a Greyhound bus and Borgata is an Escalade limo with Spreewells. But I feel pretty indifferent over which I’d take, foxwoods has its own quaint charm. It’s kinda fun in it’s own way when there’s all these people around with stuff happening everywhere, I guess this is a personal thing. Foxwoods floor people are defiantly more “stern”, but fair though, just a little gruff about it, but then again, that place teeters on the brink of disintegrating into chaos like a Red Sox season so I’m not so sure how much I blame them. When Borgata expands its poker room, it may combine the best of both worlds, not too big but not too small.
Driving from AC to Winston Salem NC
About 9 hours, got lost somewhere in NJ getting to the Jersey turnpike from the Garden State/Atlantic City freeway or whatever it is, rt 233, so that cost me about an hour. I left Borgata around 6 (started driving, not left the poker room) and decided I’d drive it, and got in here around 3. Decided I was too cheap for a hotel room, no sleep for over 24 hours! Took a couple breaks and a 20 minute nap but that’s about it. Btw, the Garden State Parkway sucks, I probably dumped around $15 in different parts of NJ on the Tpk and the Garden State. Why don’t you just ask me for $10 once instead of once every 1500 yards… And I thought my state was bad.
Otherwise an easy drive pretty much for anyone from NC who wants to make the trip, it was raining pretty hard a lot of the way so that might have hurt my time a little. Hmm what else, saw a guy getting road head.
Sorry this is kinda long, getting back into the paper writing mood for the semester…