All Hell (Altantic City Part 3)

There once was a hippy from Philly,
Who had a desire to be silly.
He ordered us shots
Then dragged a few pots
And proceeded to show us his Aces.

We last left our hero sat at a juicy looking $2/4 holdem table in The Taj along with fellow bloggers AlCantHang, -EV and Helix. All Hell was about to break loose...

Saturday 2nd April (Continued)

This part of the story has been much better told by others, but I must relate it for completness's sake and the outside chance of a new and interesting slant.

But where to start. This was 3 months ago, I failed to take any notes and Al had just handed me my second double shot of Soco to chase down the pre-lunch Guinesses. No wonder it's all such a blur to me now, I'm sure it was at the time, too.

I had sat down with a couple of racks of white, but it was soon clear from the ammount of blind straddling and capping to the river that this wasn't going to be anything like enough of a menacing stack, so -EV went back to the cage for an extra rack each, despite the fact that he already had about $500 in front of him. In the meantime Al softened up the harsh, matronly waitress and she was soon making direct trips between our table and the bar armed on each ocasion with a fortress of double Soco's.

I started well with a few solid hands being called down by middle pair and my pocket hooks hit a set on the flop to take down Al's cowboys, but soon enough the effect of blind riasing every hand pre-flop and on the flop took its toll. Then came the monster of all monsters when some dude decided to make a stand against our blind antics with a moderate top pair. Al and I got out of the way and -EV was forced finally to look at his hand when the guy lead into him again. Not a bad time to look down and find Aces then!

Despite all the blog-foolery that was going on, the funniest thing of all had to be the guy sitting on -EV's right. He didn't flinch - totally, silent and unmoved. The guy was a machiene. I'm gutted that I missed -EV's full-blown, WTP stare-down, but I was off grabing some pizza at the time. Apparently the chap finally cracked a smile, but by the time I returned he had regained his composure and I couldn't get a peep out of him.

Eventually our names were called for $5/10 Omaha Hi/Lo, but by the time we'd racked up and moved through the sea of confusion that also goes by the name of the Taj Poker Room they's already given away our seats. Al and -EV managed to get another one pretty quickly but I decied to go and sit at a $5/10 holdem table for a bit. I wasn't there for long as my name was called for a $2/4 Omaha Hi/Lo game. Al came over once I'd got settled into the Omaha game. The apparently innocent looking $5/10 O8 game that they'd been playing in was actually a crazy full kill game so was essentially a $10/20 game. A; took a few hits and -EV sccoped a few pots before they decided that the swings on that table were gonna be a bit more brutal than desired.

The party broke shortly after that as the CantHang clan made there way back to Philly and -EV and I headed back to the Borgata. That afternoon at the Taj had been some of the best fun I'd ever had and definately the best poker. I'm looking forward to the next blogger gettogether that I can make; it's a real shame I couldn't get to Vegas last month; the small matter of finishing my degree preveted me.

The rest of my 36 or so hours in AC were a complete blur. I must have slept briefly at some point, but I really couldn't say exactly when. Back at the Borgata, I gradually sobered up and hit up the $2/5 NL tables again. -EV had given up on the idea of driving home that night at was sat at a juicy looking $1/2 NL table. My table was also pretty lively and we played 6 handed for a large proportion of the night. We had some escaltaing side bets on what cards the flop would bring. They were all even money bets, but I managed to end slightly positive. My biggest scoop was when I double bet on both a 2 and a seven coming on the flop. Nothing like the nhammer for winning you a bunch of $!

Sunday 3rd April

The night and early morning passed remarkably quickly and before I knew it the moning influx for the 10am tournament had begun. One of the guys who I'd been playing with all night was heading over to the Taj for the $100+20 11am tournament and despite the Taj being a shit-hole and knowing full well that it would be -EV since I'd had a meer 4 hours sleep out of the last 48, I still decided to head along with him. I'd only played one tournament the whole time I was in the states and that was in NYC, I'd stuck exclusively to cash games in AC.

We headed down to the Borgata's valet to wait for his car and got chatting a bit. It turned that he was an undertaker and ran his own serive in Brooklyn. We talked a bit about life as an undertaker and how he got into that profession before his shiny sports car arrived and we zoomed off in the direction of the Taj... Slighrly surreal on a misty morning on AC running off no sleep.

After registration, a hearty brekfast was in order. Multiple eggs, pancakes, meat products and cups of coffee passed my lips and I started to feel slightly more human. "Strong enough to beat the world".

Soon enough cards were in the air and chips were being flung. I had one problem. I just couldn't keep my eyes open. I found myslef drifting off on several occasions. If it wasn't for the fact that I was hitting some monster hands, I'm sure my head would have hit the felt. I must have had at least five premium starting hands in the first hour, but I failed to get much action and reached the break with only an average chip stack. It was clear early on that the structure was gonna be fast. You might have thought that for $120 you would get a reasonable amount of time to play, but clearly not. Shortly after the break the field was small enough to fit us all into the tournament encolsure. We must have been down to about 80 players from the original 150. I managed to build my stack and was second chip leader at the table. I'd been pushing my stack around and had build up a nice aggressive image when I found the cheeky hilton sisters peeking up at me. One raise in front of me and I pushed all-in. The villan pissed and moaned for a bit about how he thought he was beat then called and fliped over KK. Talk about a moody! He had me slightly covered and I wasn't able to suck out so I duly bid my fairwells to the table.

I'd arranged to meet back up with the undertaker as he'd offered me a lift back up to NYC the following day but he was nowhere to be seen. He must have busted early from the tourney, but I couldn't see him at any of the cash tables either. Oh well. I was far too tired at this point to really care too much. I needed to crash.

My motel was only a few blocks from the Taj and I could have walked along the Broadwalk, but the taxi rank just looked too enticing. I got back to my room to find -EV sprawled out on the spare bed. Hmmm. I guess I must have given him a key! He was just getting up and heading back to DC. We bade our farewells and my head finally hit the pillow.

I guess I woke up some time in the evening and headed back over to The Borgata for one final session. Again I couldn't tell you much about any interesting hands, but I do remember spending most of the evening getting table transferes to follow this one crazy guy around the place.

I'd seen this guy around on other nights or, to be more precise, I'd heard him. He was gonna make damn sure he was the centre of attention and ideally he was going to do it by being as offensive as possible. From the attention he got from floor staff and because of what they let him get away with he was clearly well connected, but he wasn't you average fat and greasy mobster. He was thin, wirey and unshaved. If fact he could very easily have just crawled in from the streets. That assumption was soon dispelled when he reached into his pocket and fished out a bundle of what must have been about $40K in slot vouchers and probably a similar amount of notes. He didn't have any problem in throwing it around the table either, the only trouble was keeping him interested for long enough so that he didn't head back upstairs to "his" slot machiene. I managed to keep him onside and actually had some pretty funny banter going with him. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to have been dealing at his table. He made their life hell and they couldn't do anything about it. The floor staff wouldn't back the dealer up either; they just pandered to his every need. It hard to imagine that the amount of money he drops on the slots makes up for the number of players he pisses off when he comes and plays poker. You would have thought that the Borgata would be more concerned with customer relations than with one high-roller unless he's connected all the way to the top and who knows what goes on up there. Apparently he's the brother of the owner of the restaurant where the 'big don' was finally arrested, but who knows if that's really the case. It all sounded a bit Hollywood to me. It's hard to imagine that this pathetic winey asshole sitting on my right (bingo!) was anything more than what he appeared, but I kept in his good books all the same! Unfortunately, my onlt hand of interest against him was when he cracked my kings with his queens; we were all-in preflop.

Monday 4th April

I finished my session at around 4am and made my last trip back to the Super 8. I wasn't at all sad to be leaving. I was totally AC'd out and really looking forward to getting back to MissPink and some sebmlance of normality. Would you believe that it five days in AC I'd seen nothing but the inside of casinos motels and taxis. Yuk!

I caught the bus back to NYC later that morning and headed straight to JFK airport. I was a couple of hours early and manged to get an upgrade which was nice. It had been an amazing two weeks but by this point I just needed to get home.