US/Borgata trip report (long, lpc)

[nicky g]

Flew into Newark with my wife late on Friday night. Stay in Ny with family for a couple of days. Combined effects of having recently given up meat and the bizarre American obsession with breakfast/brunch as a social occasion led me to eat far too much egg-based food and feel nearly constantly sick for the first few days. Low point: no pizza or NY Italian food of any kind. WTF? Only two whiskey sours (I could live off these, even if they are a girl’s drink and you can hardly get them in the UK at all).

Off to AC on Monday. We wound up aiming for the 4 o’clock bus, a lot later than I had hoped but what can you do. The bus station was a zoo, with a huge line for the AC service, which surprised me given it was a Monday evening. Wound up catching the 4.30 as the 4.00 filled up. Bus arrived at the Hilton at around 6.45. We walked a long the Boardwalk to the Trop. Got lost in it. Thought “The Quarter”, with its fake sky, was pretty funny. Checked out the cardroom briefly, was bigger and nicer-looking than I expected from descriptions on here. Did seem sort of cramped though. Would have played but was hungry and felt we were better off spending all of our playing time at the Borgata. In general quite liked the cheesy atmosphere of the Trop, might try to stay there next time.

Wandered down to get a cab to Mike’s Baltimore Grill, on the recommendation of a thread here on 2+2 “restaurants in AC thread.” Thought I’d check with some attendants if it was close enough to walk to. “About how far would 2800 Atlantic Avenue be from here?” Much scratching of heads; attendant calls for back-up, and a confused conference ensues. Several people didn’t seem to understand that this was an address; a couple others genuinely didn’t seem to know what or where Atlantic Avenue was. “What is this 2800 Atlantic Avenue?” “A restaurant.” “Called 2800 Atlantic Avenue?” “No, that’s its address. It’s called the Baltimore Grill”. A collective : “Ohhhhhhhhhh, the Baltimore Grill!” It’s right around the corner. AC is a smaller place than I realise. We go to eat. We share a pizza with peppers. My thoughts: really quite poor. Terrible crust, reminded me of the pizzas you get in supermarkets here – a crispy hard outside layer and a spongy middle – there should be no layering to start with, never mind gross layering. Watery flavourless peppers. Still, had an enjoyable time. One whiskey sour, one beer.

Cab it to the sweet, sweet Borgtata. Ask for the highest up room they have. It turns out to be on the 4th floor. Damn them. On a Monday night? It seemed quiet, too. Booo. Humph. To the poker room. I’d prepared myself for a big wait, but we get seated almost instantly, at the same 2-4 table. The table is great, almost entirely loose passive or loose aggressive. First hand I post in the cut-off, get dealt J2o. A bunch of limpers. Flop is J22. Nice start. An EP guy bets, a few callers, I just call. Pretty dumb. Turn K. Checked to me, I bet, EP flop-better tries to check raise but gets called by someone on a string bet. River a Q. He bets, folded to me, I raise, he three bets, I call, he tables KK. Bah. Never gets much better; I get a bunch of AKs that miss in large pots (I had a maniac, and at one point two maniacs, to my right so every decent hand I got was three bet or capped preflop and I was betting and raising a lot post-flop to try to take them down but it never worked), one that makes top two pair but loses to a runner runner flush, a few flush draws and a nut flush draw and gutshot broadway draw. I flop a set of aces on one hand and wind up heads up against a terrible (twice she limps and then folds for one more bet) loose-passive player and win just about the minimum off her top two pair. KK wins the blinds; JJ is three bet but check folded to two over cards (including a king which as it turned out gave my wide a set). There are two hands I miss a few bets with, but otherwise despite my poor results I was quite pleased with how I played overall, considering I never play limit at home (ie online). My buy-in dwindles to dangerously low territory. I don’t really care and decide to simply play until I lose it and in the mean time get as many drinks off the cocktail waitress as possible. This proves to be not that many, as just after midnight the game breaks (!?), after just three whiskey sours and no beers at all. I decide to quit for a while. I am down 21 BB, my wife is up 15 BB (thanks partly to an early hand in which she made quad aces, which when shown prompted me to shoot whiskey sour out my nose). We go to bed. One thing I noticed was that not only was the crowd a lot younger than last time I played (18 months ago), but that there were a fair few number of young women playing, which was a first. Don’t know if this was a trend of a one off.

I wake up around 3 and we decide to head back down. We muck around for a bit, and get something to eat. Back down in the poker room there are two 2/4 games, no 3/6 games and no stud games (I would have played 1-5) going. A bunch of 1-2 NL games, but the room is really quite dead. I put my name on the list for 2/4; after a bout half an hour there is only one person ahead of me, but also only one game going. It looks fairly crappy and as if tit too might break soon. I give up and go back to bed, a bit disappointed; last time I was at the Borg the room had been packed when I came down late at night/early morning after a nap and I’d played till practically checkout time.

Next day they give us the room for $39 plus tax, which is cool. Hang out on the boardwalk a bit; I check out the card room in Bally’s; it’s much bigger than I expected, but dead and depressing. We have pizza from some random food stand; it’s surprisingly good. We walk on the beach for a while; the weather is beautiful. Walking through Ceasars’s I feel I’m in the scene at the end of the movie Casino with the endless flood of track-suited old people symbolising the rise of corporate Vegas; they’re everywhere.

Get the bus to DC. Pretty disappointed with my AC experience, which I’d been looking forward to forever. Didn’t get to play very much, didn’t drink enough whiskey sours or any beers, room wasn’t high enough, didn’t get to play any 1-2NL (I knew from the start I didn’t have enough cash with me to do this, but had planned on taking a shot with a short stack if I made any kind of profit, or was left with what I'd started shorlty before bed time, in the limit games). Ho hum. Next time.

Nice weather in DC, lots of eating out, lots and lots of whiskey sours and margaritas and Negra Modelos, buy a bunch of books and clothes (woo cheap dollar), see an exhibition, hang out with family and friends. Fly home, go to work, write a trip report to waste time, neglect to fix constantly changing tenses.

[TomBrooks]

It's interesting to read an AC trip report from a European point of view.

It was surprising to hear that the pizza would be like that in a place that was recommended.

[DemonDeac]

not that i would expect you to do this....
but if u wanted great pizza, you shoulda driven to Ocean City abouut 30-45 min away and gotten Mack'N Manco's. It's the greatest pizza in the world.
And yes, i would drive a hour to eat it cuz its that good