From New York City to Atlantic City

Trip Report, Part Five

Wednesday 30th March

Fortunately, once I’d found my way back to Columbia, the security guard at the entrance to where we were staying was feeling lenient and wasn’t going to require that I was signed in by a Columbia student, which is just as well since it was 4am and neither did I want to wake the guy we were staying with nor did I fancy sleeping on a bench for the next five hours. I managed to clamber over the pile of prone gargoyles in his suite without disturbing them too much. I curled up in the remaining floor space and before I knew it, it was 10am and time to go busking up the Empire State Building. Great.

Last time I was in New York, with Miss Pink we’d given up on the idea of getting to the top when we were told that we’d be waiting in line for over 2 hours. On that occasion the line didn’t look too long, I guess there was just a maze of corridors to accommodate it, which we couldn’t see. This time, however, it couldn’t be contained and it spilled out almost a whole block. Frankly no matter how cool it would have been to busk at the top (I’d woken up by now) it wasn’t worth a four hour wait especially when there was shopping to be done.

Actually, I’m not quite sure why I’m making out that that’s an exciting prospect. I freaking hate shopping. But needs must: Miss Pink needed some presents and I hadn’t done any clothes shopping since I was last in NYC almost two years ago!Macy’s duly fulfilled my needs and two gruelling hours later a cross and tired Pink emerged carrying armfuls of bags.

We’d arranged to meet around lunch time in Central Park, which left me just enough time to get to the bus station to figure out how and when I was going to get to Atlantic City. I’d figured on partying with the Goyles till they headed off to the airport and then jumping on an early morning bus.Two companies ran regular services but it seemed that the last one to leave was at 1:30am. After that the next one was at 6:30am and I figured that AC would be an easier place to spend the night.

The rest of the day was spent chilling out. Everyone was pretty tired of sight seeing and shopping so we just hung out at central park, had some lunch and watched a crazy posse of break-dancers before four of us headed down to Greenwich Village for some more chilling. I remembered really enjoying the Village from our last visit and it didn’t disappoint. I’ll certainly be very happy if Miss Pink decided to apply to either Columbia or NYU.

The plan for our last night was good food and good jazz both of which we were lead to believe could be found there, so we’d arranged to meet at 8pm. I had to get back to Columbia in the meantime to collects my bags since I’d be heading straight from the jazz club to the bus station while everyone else would be heading to the airport (via Columbia) at around 3am. Bags were duly collected and eventually we had everyone assembled for ensuing merriment. It was a really nice last night and actually quite emotional. We’d had a great 10 days of singing and partying and we’d all got to know each other really well. They’d all clubbed together to get my some things for organising the tour, which was a really nice touch (thanks guys). Sniff!

Jazz was absorbed at ‘Smalls’ and some of the folks from Uptown Vocal came down and joined us. But all too soon it was time to gather up my bags and head to the bus station. I was actually pretty sad and not really looking forward to the next five nights. I was missing Miss Pink and would no longer have a bunch of really good friends to keep me company. In the back of my mind I knew I’d have a blast in AC and I had plans to meet up with several people, but it was still a bit daunting.

Thursday 31st March

The Port Authority Bus Terminal is a bit of a dive at the best of times, but it doesn’t get much worse than at 1am standing in a line for the bus to Atlantic City, tired degenerates and general low-lifers don’t mix too well. Thankfully the NYPD were out in force so I just laid low till they mopped up the pieces and till the bus was ready for loading. The journey afforded a much-needed couple of hours sleep and I awoke to the glare of AC’s lights. Bring it on!

The bus dropped us at Bally’s. Included in the $30 bus ticket was $20 of casino credit. Unfortunately it had to be used on the slots so I was no longer able to be proud of the fact that I’d never touched them, damn it! I managed to get $12 back, which covered me nicely for my cab ride out of that dump.

By now it was about 4am. I hadn’t been able to get a decent rate at any of the hotel-casinos so I’d booked a room at the Super 8 Motel. As check-in was almost 12 hours away there wasn’t much else for it other than to play some poker so off I went to the Borgata.

This is where the rest of the trip begins to merge into one long blur. Days were no longer a useful division of time and tiredness and hunger were not particularly informative landmarks as to how long I’d been there or how much longer I’d got left. But finally I came up with a system to ensure that I got back to NYC in time for my flight home. Every time that I went to bed I put a notch in the bedpost and by the time that there were 4 there I knew I had to check out. OK, so I jest, but the ease by which one day merged into the next was slightly alarming.

The Borgata was an impressive building and a welcome change from the grotty interior of Bally’s. There’s not much reassuring, however, about being confronted by a sea of slot machines and hunched old ladies at past four in the morning, even if you’ve just been hit with an artificial oxygen shot and feel ready to take on the world. The sea parted before me as and I shot superior ‘I’m a poker player, not a gambler’ type looks at the drowning swimmers. (I feel that I should apologise for my shitty metaphors, but I’m quite enjoying this, so I’m not going to!)

The poker room and race book are located together down an escalator at the back of one particular swath of slots and underneath the nightclub, Mixx, which can be something of a headache as I discovered on Friday and Saturday night. Still it was nice to be annexed from the slots and the race book wasn’t open at that time of the morning. It was holiday week and there were still plenty of games going on despite it being 4:30 on a Thursday morning. I signed up for a $1-2 NL game and was seated straight away. I bought in for the $300 maximum at the cage and received three stacks of red.

By 11am after a few ups and downs I found myself about $200 to the good. A couple of notable mistakes prevented me from being significantly up but another couple of good calls on the end ensured that it wasn’t a fruitless night. Generally the standard was beatable. It was not as loose/crazy as I’d seen at Foxwoods but if was better than at the Players Club in NYC. I guess 4am on a Thursday is hardly prime pickings.

One mistake that I remember in particular occurred against a good player. I open raised to $12 with KK, which seemed to be the smallest opening raise that was commonplace. I’d been too rock-like previously which is what left me open to exploitation by this good player. He was in the big blind and announced that he was making a loose call and that he needed a very specific flop. The flop came down 962 with two hearts. He stated, "that’s the one" and bet $50 into the $20 pot. Apart from the fact that as a generalisation if someone makes a statement like that, it’s more often true than not, he was too good a player to over-bet the pot without specific cause. I gave it far too little thought, convinced myself that he was either on a bluff or a draw, and raised all-in for a total of about $150. He called, asked if I had a big pair and turned over 96o. A modicum more thought would have allowed me to fold. My tightness up to that point allowed him to put me on a high pair with a reasonable degree of certainty (AK as a minimum) so there’s no way he would have bluffed into me or played a flush draw in that way. I think the biggest lesson I took from that hand was the importance of creating an image for oneself and repeatedly changing gears over the course of long live sessions.

I clawed my way back up to even over the next few hours and then made a good call in a $400 pot to put me nicely up for the morning. I open raised in MP with 99 and was flat called by a very good player in LP. Everyone else folded. I forget the exact flop but it had two hearts and left me with an over pair. I bet slightly less than the pot and was flat called again. The turn brought the 9h giving me top set but putting a possible flush on the board. As far as I recall there was no made-straight possible at this point. I bet $25, which was about half the pot and she raised me another $50 on top. I decided to call figuring that I was either way ahead or at least had a good draw and although - if she had the flush - I wasn’t getting the direct pot odds that I needed there was a good chance that my implied odds were a lot closer to what I needed to draw to the full house. I figured that it would be quite hard for her to put me on 99 since I had been playing so tight that evening so if she did have a strong flush and I filled up on the river then I should be able to take a decent amount from her. This, combined with the fact that I could still be ahead, made it a fairly easy call. The river was the Jc. I checked and she bet $100. This gave me odds of slightly better than 3-1 and after a while of umming and ahhing I decided that I had to call. She said “Good Call” and threw her cards into the muck before I could ask to see them. Whilst I’m happy with the call I wonder if I’d have be able to make it with only an over-pair, because its close to the same kind of decision once you get to the river. Although, I guess with an over pair (assuming one of them isn’t a high heart) the big decision comes on the turn and then it’s quite tricky.

Although check-in to the motel wasn’t until 3pm I figured that if I rocked up at about 11am they might be able to accommodate me. I just about managed to keep my eyes propped open until then before stumbling back up the elevators and out towards the taxi rank. The Super 8 Motel looked pretty minging from the outside, but it did the job. I dived straight into bed and despite waking up very disorientated at one point, I had a pretty good afternoon’s sleep.

Over the next few days I’d made plans to meete up with various people. Al was gonna be heading over from Phili at some point with Eva and Helix in tow and Pauly and FTrain were also planning on getting down from NCY. In the meantime, AL had given me -EV’s digits. He was apparently in AC already. It was just a case of tracking him down.

Once sleep and washing had been taken care of I headed straight back to the Borgata. I managed to blag a free 10 minutes of Internet access in their business centre before it closed. My next port of call was the buffet. I rang –EV and left him a message before devouring two plates of salad, three large steaks and a mountain of ice cream. When I called him again he was in the process milking some poor fish with his flush so I let him get back to business, but it was all that I needed to know and I headed in the direction of the escalators.

I’d told him that I’d be wearing my black ITH so I wandered round through the tables angling my hat in the vague direction of anyone who looked like a Kevin. Surprisingly enough this wasn’t particularly successful but thankfully -EV has some common sense and it was soon announced that ‘Pinky has a visitor at the desk’.

Kevin was a really nice guy and it wasn’t too long before we were sat together at the same $1/2 NL table. He’d just taken a nasty beat with AA against KK for his whole stack but it didn’t seem to have got to him too badly and we had some good banter across the table. This is where I regret not having taken any notes (I definitely need one of these from Maudie) because I can’t remember any interesting hands. It probably a good thing that Kevin and I didn’t tangle in any big pots. The only one that springs to mind is when I cold called his preflop raise with AQo. I don’t usually like playing AQ against a preflop raise but I had position on him and I figured that he’d probably put me on something better than AQo. Everyone else folded and he checked the flop of KKx. I bet out about ¾ of the pot and he thought for a second then folded The Hammer. He said he was close to check-raising me. Now that would have been some move!

We pretty much played together for most of the night although there was some table switching and Kevin went off to play some $6/12 limit for a while. I seem to remember ending up for the night but to be honest it was a bit of a blur by that point and I crawled back to the motel at around 8am.

I’m gonna have to leave it there for now, besides that’s quite enough for you to have to read in one go! With any luck the final instalment will not be too long in the making