A.C. -- brief trip report, plus Borgata review.

[VarlosZ]

I just got back yesterday from a 9-day trip w/ the family. We started out at a motel across the street from the Tropicana, then moved to the Borgata halfway through. I played 4/8 hold 'em at the Trop, 5/10 at the Taj, and 6/12 at the Borgata, as well as two tournaments at the Taj.

From the Monday Taj tournament ($100+$20, 5000 starting chips, no rebuy/add-on), I'd like some opinions on the following hand:

Blinds are 50/100, I have 3500 in chips. I'm dealt JJ in 3rd position. The first two players limp in, but the table has been pretty loose to this point so I'm not too worried about slow-played monsters. I raise to 700, it folds around to the CO who thinks for a second and pushes (w/ about 5500), everyone else folds. Now what?


I only played 2 nights in the Borgata card room, but both nights the quality and the atmosphere of of the tables changed pretty dramatically as it got later -- the tables went from friendly and weak to nasty and solid.

I should note that on Thursday I sat at a phenomenal 6/12 table. Of the other 9 people at the table, 3 were solid, 4 were fish, and 2 aspired one day to evolve into fish (swimming around without gills, eating sand, bumping into things, etc.).

For the trip, I lost $185 playing two tournaments, but won $486 in ring games, giving me a total profit of $301.


A note on the Borgata: a beautiful, comfortable hotel, with excellent restaurants and a pleasant casino and card room. The pool is very nice, if a bit small.

However, it is not a good place to bring kids. It's not near the boardwalk (or, for that matter, anything other than the highway), so you can't just kick them out the door and go gamble. There's no Cartoon Network or Nickleodeon on the TV. You can order old Nintendo64 games on the TV, but at $7 an hour (for obsolete games) it's not really a child-entertainment option -- in fact, I'd rather it wasn't an option at all, since its presence ensures a ton of whining about wanting to play video games.