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Trip Report, the Taj: First Casino Play

First off, thanks to all the thread responses and PMs I got over the last week or two in preparation for my first casino visit. Everyone's advice was useful and much-appreciated.

I went down to AC yesterday (Sunday, July 24) with a couple buddies from NYC. My two friends were playing in the 10:15 a.m. $100+$20 freezout tourney while I was going down to play some 2/4 limit hold'em. For those of you doing the math, we got on the road at about 7 a.m.

As a first-timer, I don't have much -- well, anything -- to compare to the Taj. The poker room seemed a good size, the floor people and desk all seemed solid and the staff were all very nice. I bought a rack of whites and put my name on the list for 2/4. I was seated almost immediately (one of the advantages of a Sunday morning start, I suppose).

I stayed at the same table for 7 solid hours.

The play was exactly what I was expecting based on what I'd read on this forum: 3-4 retirees, playing very passively and betting whenever they hit top pair (or two pair). A couple college kids, some playing solidly, some playing terribly. One or two wackos, talking up every hand. And one other two-plus-twoer (in a Bates t-shirt -- if you see this post, drop me a PM) who was fun to talk to.

The first hour or so I was pretty card dead. I made one dreadfully bad fold, expecting people to have hands on a fairly coordinated board but saw them show down bottom and second pair (I had checked from the BB with K-rag and my K paired and would have been a winner), but the rest of my play felt solid to me. I became known as "that check-raising guy" after a few hands in a row where I succesfully check-raised and built a nice pot for a couple winners.

That said, I felt I had slightly worse-than-average cards, but only slightly so. I saw high pocket pairs four times in 7 hours: A, K, Q and J each once. I saw AK twice, once suited, once not. I saw suited connectors maybe three or four times, and had AQo once. I did a lot of PF folding. I did not hit a flush draw the entire 7 hours (although I did flop one flush, more on that below), nor did I hit either of my OESDs.

The one flush I did hit, I hit on the flop. I came in with Q[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]T[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] and three spades fell on the flop, including K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]. I was in early position and check-raised the flop, trapping a lot of people for a second bet. I bet out on the turn and got a caller. A fourth [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] fell on the river, I bet, he raised, I re-raised, he re-raised, I called (fearing the worse after HIS re-raise) and of course he fliped pocket Aces, including A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] I suppose, in retrospect, I should have simply called his raise after the fourth [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] came, but...

My best hand of the session was my pocket 5s, that improved to a set on the flop and then quads on the turn. I pulled down a decent-sized pot with that.

Anyway, after 7 hours I finished (drum roll) down one SB. Yep, I had spent 7 hours at the table and lost $2. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

I would have liked my first casino session to be a winner, but after hearing that my two buddies were each down a few hundred (having both busted out of the tourney and gone on to lose more at both blackjack and limit poker), I didn't feel too badly.

Would I go back to the Taj? Sure. The dealers were all friendly (although one dealer would shout -- really shout -- 'RAISE' whenever anyone raised, scaring a few players every time) and I found the other players pretty tolerable personality-wise. One older guy at the table wouldn't shut up (every hand he would say "oh, I would have won that if I had stayed in"), but he was pretty harmless.

The chips have not been cleaned ever (I had read this in some post too) and, frankly, that's pretty off-putting. It also makes them hard to shuffle, since they really like to stick together. It furthermore makes it that much more important to declare your action loudly, since it is so easy to pull four off your stack when reaching for just two.

The hardest thing about the casino experience was staying focused on the game. I found it fairly hard to keep track of how many bets were in the pot (blame it on getting lazy from all the on-line playing with a running pot tally) and likewise hard to see what was happening on the other end of the table (I was in seat 4). Add to that the general noise of the card room and it did make it hard to concentrate. I think being able to keep track of the pot is the main skill I'd like to work on before my next casino visit.

Anyway, that's the report from this first-timer. I look forward to my next casino visit. Thanks to everyone on the forum for the pre-trip advice; it really helped me have a good time.