Sloppy Troppy - Atlantic City TR 5/30-6/2
Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty, and meet me tonight in Atlantic City
(I know all of 3 Bruce Springsteen songs)
Obligatory 2+2 TR pic
For the 2nd time in a month, I decided to take a weekend-ish trip down to Atlantic City, courtesy of Caesar’s Air Rewards. $229 for a 3-night hotel stay, round-trip chartered flight from Boston (no luggage fees), and shuttle to and from the airport isn’t too shabby (except that if I had waited another week, I could’ve booked the same trip at Harrah’s instead of Tropicana for $129).
Caesar’s seems to run these 5-8 times a year out of Boston, but I only do the ones that are Thu-Sun, Fri-Mon, or, in this case, Sat-Tue, so I miss minimal time at work and maximize poker time. I’m not interested in going there for a few weekdays and only playing 3-4 hours after working remotely (or taking a day off from work to grind all day with mostly OMCs).
Of course, I could just play at Encore Boston Harbor a few miles away (albeit I’ve been destroyed at $1/$3 there over the last 6 years), but it’s nice to get out of the city and live a little.
That and despite being what most would consider a nit, I have an obviously unsustainable 22bb/hr win rate at $1/$2 over ~100 hours at Harrah’s AC from these trips. Clearly, I’ve run well, but it hasn’t even been coolers, but more so catching absolute punts in unnecessarily large pots (like the time a woman jammed $600 into a $120 pot with K♣T♣ against my A♠K♦ on an A♦2♦3♦ flop).
So yes, more of that, please.
(I’m fully aware the Borgata is a much nicer poker room and far better run, but ultimately, I love the idea of not having to navigate around Euro hoodie Ipad backpackers and good regs).
The plan is drop my stuff and play as much poker possible on Saturday, sleep in, play as much of the afternoon and early evening on Sunday, get to sleep at a decent hour, work remotely Monday but sneak out a bit early to get 3-4 more hours before I have to get up at an ungodly 5:45am to have enough time to get on the shuttle bus leaving at 6:45am for our 9:10am flight back (and rolling into work at 1pm, since it’s our lone in-office day of the week).
The one thing that throws a wrench into the Sunday poker plans is that I signed up for a 48-hour, 500-word fiction-writing contest that runs from Friday at 11:59pm to Sunday at 11:59pm. It’s the 1st of 3 rounds, and each writer is assigned a genre, an action verb to use in the story, and an item to include. However, I got assigned romantic comedy, smearing, and a hoodie - and already had a story I was working on that fits all of this. So I’m hoping to draft a bunch of it in my Notes app while playing in what I assume is a slow Sunday game, then head back to my room to write, edit, and submit it a few minutes before the deadline.
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Day 1 (May 31st)
I know I should be taking the subway to the airport, but realistically, I only do so when Uber prices are >$50 (it’s ~45 minutes and 2 transfers on the train, fwiw, so not the most convenient with luggage).
Check-in is much shorter than usual, with half the number of people I normally see on these packed flights - assuming it’s because it’s following a holiday weekend, and that most aren’t degenerate enough to take 2 of these trips in one month like yours truly. If you’re under 50, these flights are great for helping you feel young again, since the average passenger age is ~73. It’s a 45-minute flight on the no-frills Sun Country airline, which only offers these chartered flights and flights to Minneapolis from Boston.
We board on time, and I’m delighted to find an empty middle seat between my aisle seat and the gentleman in the window seat (since these are all assigned seats for both ways, that means an empty middle seat on the way back as well). Less exciting than the last flight when I sat next to a handsy younger couple, complete with the guy wearing a “sucking tits and licking clits inspector” t-shirt, but I’ll take it.
These pretzels are making me thirsty
The flight is quite choppy, but I’m okay with the trade-off of a bumpy ride in exchange for no in-flight service and flight attendants bumping into my knees every 3 minutes.
We deplane and head off to our respective shuttle buses. I’ve never stayed at Tropicana before, and it’s been 20 years since I was even on the Boardwalk (every time I've been to AC, I've either stayed at Borgata or Harrah’s). I’m not a daytime beach guy, but I do like a good night stroll by the water (I’m such a stereotypical Water sign), so I was looking forward to that. We arrive and check-in to our respective rooms. I watched a few YouTube videos reviewing each tower, picked Havana, and while the room overall was fine (no stains, no bed bugs, no obvious mold), it's gotten its ass kicked a few times. Having said that, I won’t miss the beds at Harrah’s (or the tiny throw pillows they consider sufficient for sleeping).
I’m delighted to see a cage open outside of the poker room for once. Buying chips at the table is the nut low because I like to have 3-4 rebuys in bigger chips in my pockets to add-on or rebuy quickly, instead of slowing the game down and looking like a fish asking the dealer, “Please sir, may I have some more?” (and I’ve gotten pushback when trying to buy a few rebuys worth at the table to pocket).
Is it me, or does the Tropicana poker room look like the Backrooms? It feels like I’m playing inside of an aging banana. Speaking of aging bananas, my first table is full of overripe 70-somethings nitting it up. Once I saw an OMC check-raise an OWC on an AQ6r flop, get called, then check-fold AQ face-up to a turn bet while the OWC showed AA, I knew it was time to ask for a transfer.
Although I typically only treat myself to a massage when I’m up, the rule of masseuse availability in poker rooms is that when you want one, they aren't there or have 10 people ahead of you, so I'm getting one while I can.
5 minutes into the massage, UTG opens to $11, CO calls, and I defend 66 in the BB. Flop comes 456r, I check, UTG bets $10, MP calls, I raise to $50, UTG folds, and MP goes all-in for $65 total, with me calling. Turn 9, river K, and MHIG against A8o?
The very next hand, LJ opens for $11, HJ calls, CO calls, I 3! AA on the button to $55, HJ calls all-in (same A8o guy), and ooh la la, the CO backjams for $150, I call of course.
HJ has AJo, CO has QQ, and the board runs out a sweaty KT843, but I hold.
“Better thank your masseuse for that one!” the CO grumpily exclaims as I extend another 15 minutes to celebrate.
The table is still no good, so when I get my transfer, the QQ guy says to me, seemingly earnest, “Why are you leaving? You better leave my money here!”
I just stare at him and walk to my new table, where 4 of 8 people have to pick up their cards off the table to read them (not because they’re elderly and can’t see well), and 2 of them are in full Punisher/Back The Blue attire.
UTG (one of the Punisher people, who looks and plays his hands a lot like my libertarian ex-best friend) and 5 others limp, and I check J9o in the BB. Flop 9d 9h 2s, I check, UTG snap bets $40, folds back to me, and I call. Turn 3s, we both check (so much for a check-raise). River 4s, UTG bets $100 out of turn. I check; his bet stands, and I’m certainly not folding, but not totally sure how often a check-jam gets called by a worse 9, with worse folding and better calling. I swear, for better or worse, ranges are uncapped in this city. I just call, UTG says “you must have a 9”, and flashes KK as I show, and he mucks, oof. Yeah, he was probably calling.
An hour later, one of the nit regs notices that I transferred and that I'm not allowed to take over the max buy-in, so I’m forced to go south. I take this as a sign to find the shuttle and get over to Harrah’s, as this place is bumming me out. Naturally, the shuttle doesn’t show up for over 30 minutes, and I justify torching $20 on a 10-minute Uber to play a different $1/$2 game because hey, it’s a vacation, money isn’t real.
In for $300, out for $620 over ~3 hours
I get a seat right away, and, unsurprisingly, it is a much better game. Examples include me raising Q♣T♣ for $25 over a limp in a straddle pot, only the straddler calling, and then him just open-mucking on a 6♦7♦5♦ flop (the same guy would later call 2 barrels a Ts4s2h3h board against my AhKh, then pot a K♠ river, I find a hero call, and he just mucks before I can show).
He eventually leaves and is replaced by 2 Chevrolet car salesmen who are VPIP-ing in the high 90s. I’d be more excited for this if my UberEats driver wasn’t playing mind games with me.
- She keeps driving by the Harrah’s drop-off, then circling the parking garage at Borgata, and repeating this process 3x
- She won’t answer any messages
- She won’t pick up the phone, and her mailbox is full
I have no idea what the grift is here! Yes, a normal person would just cancel and get something to go at Harrah’s, but Taco Bell Chalupas serve the specific purpose of me being able to step away from a good table for 3-4 minutes to eat a Chalupa, come back and not miss my blinds, rinse and repeat over a few hours (as opposed to taking a dinner break, missing action, and a reasonable likelihood of the table breaking).
2.5 hours later, I finally get some Chalupas delivered, and of course, when I finally get back to the table after pick-up, both the salesfish are gone. Another guy sits down and finds a 100% VPIP over the next 90 minutes, but I get nothing better than 2nd pair to get in the mix with him. He is blasting off and is eventually berated by one of the mis-regs enough that he racks up and leaves (thankfully doubling off the mis-reg twice before that). Everyone else and I, besides the mis-reg, immediately rack up. I do not book a win, but the opportunities were there, so I can’t be too mad.
It’s the last time I plan to be at Harrah’s on this trip, so hopefully the games at Trop are a bit better on Sunday (if they aren’t, it’ll give me time to draft my essay before inevitably submitting it minutes before the midnight deadline). It has plenty of imperfections, but I just love being able to take a break, walk outside, and be right by the water, I guess.
In for $400, out for $314 over ~4 hours
Total: +$234
