Annual Trip to Atlantic City

The trip started off well enough. Sunghee and I left pretty much right after work on Thursday to meet my mom and sister. We followed them down and traffic was moderate. Once we were on the AC Express way I saw a deer on the side of the road. I woke up Sunghee for her to see. Then I saw another, then another, then 27 more before I stopped counting. I figured that they were decoys installed by the NJ highway department or something to keep drivers awake, but my sister said she saw them actually moving. The most deer I’ve ever seen in one day was 8 or 9. I must’ve seen 40-50 on that drive alone. We arrived at the Trop at around 1am and were sound asleep in our room (North Tower) by 2am. My mom and sister had gone down to play for a bit. I set the alarm for 5:30 so I could take advantage of the people still playing from the night before, but I would be (somewhat) rested. 5:30 came and I shut the alarm off and went back to sleep. Oh well. I did wake myself back up at 7:15 and got dressed and went down to play at 7:30. My sister was still there! She’d been up since 4am the previous morning. I played some 4-8 until 9am and cashed out +$48. I went back upstairs to wakeup my mom and Sunghee for breakfast and we finally got all going by 10:30 to pull my sister away from the poker table and to the buffet. The food was alright, but the service was pretty bad. It was raining pretty bad out so we stayed inside with my mom showing Sunghee the lures of the penny slots. After wandering around for a bit my mom and sister had gotten a new room and we moved their stuff to the South Tower. I layed down for a 90 minute nap and then we all piled into the WRX and drove to the Borgata.

The signs to the Borgata are very confusing. I kid you not the following three signs are right in a row “Borgata – Keep Left�, “Left Lane Ends� “Borgata – Next Right�. Then as we were driving towards it I was shooting for the center lane that said “Self Park Garage� but everyone else in the car was saying “Left lane! Borgata! Left Lane! Left! Turn Left!� so I turned left as I’m reading the sign “Left turn – Deliveries Only�. Well. We’re not making a delivery. After driving around for 10 minutes we got back to the right place. We went and got on the waiting list for 2/4 as this was Sunghee’s first time playing in a real game. Our wait was about an hour as they only had two 2/4 tables going due to a tournament. My sister got seated first then Sunghee then me at Sunghee’s table. The room is fantastic there and the chips do stick to each other, but aren’t magnetic. Pretty cool. Sunghee went broke in about and hour and I was +$16. My sister was up probably $60 at this point. They had given us a stack of red chips ($5) and my sister still had all her reds in two 10-high stacks and quite a few white stacks around them. It was time for dinner anyways so Sunghee and I hit the Mixx for sushi. I actually had the free range chicken and stir fried squash. It was very good. And we had a cute little booth. After dinner I gave Sunghee some odds lessons as to why she shouldn’t stay in with a pair of sixes with two over cards on the flop. The only way you can do that is if everyone was staying in with it capped pre-flop and on the flop. We hung out for a bit longer then headed back to the Trop. After having a drink at the Top of the Trop Sunghee played on some more penny machines and I headed back to the poker room, and man, was it packed. I decided to play some 6/12 and after two hours was +$400 but then the really drunk guy at the table went on a tear. He was getting mad at me because I was talking to another guy on my right about what hands he was holding. I was doing pretty good too. I guessed three in row at one point (A5, KT, JJ), so what happened next might have been him trying to “get me� or whatever. These two hands happened within the same orbit.

Hand 1.
Hero delt AcKc
Capped PF with crazy drunk guy and one other
Flop: 9cQcAs
I have TP/TK and nut flush draw (and back door Royal draw). Betting is capped three ways.
Turn: Jc
Hit my flush, one closer to the royal. Capped three ways (Yeah!).
River: 8c
Hmm. I bet, drunk guy raises. Third guy folds (set? JT?). I raise. Drunk guy raises. I call.
Results:
Hero: (AcKc) Flush, A-high
CDG: (Tc2d) Straight flush to the Q

Guy hit runner runner straight flush on me. A few hands later this beauty comes up:

Hand 2.
Hero delt KcKs
Hero raises. Drunk guy raises. 2 other callers. Hero caps, every one calls.
Flop: Kd3s3h
Hey, I flopped a boat! And I don’t slow play. Betting is capped four ways. The only thing that can beat me is pocket 3s
Turn: 3d
Nobody has pocket threes. I bet. Drunk guy raises. Everyone folds to me. I re-raise. He calls (?). Could he be betting crazy like this with a 3 in his hand?
River: 3c
Sweet. I now have four of a kind! I bet Drunk guy raises. I call.
Results:
Hero: (KcKs) Four of a kind 3’s (K kicker)
CDG: (A6) Four of a kind 3’s (A kicker)

Runner runner perfect again. At that point I was now down $80 or so from my initial buy-in (-480 from my high point) and was on major tilt so I picked up my chips and went to bed. I hope that guy made it home alive if he laid any more beats like that on other people.

The next day was actually sunny so we walked around on the board walk for a bit before moving to the Showboat. Then it was back to the Hilton to pick up our tickets for that night’s show, 38 Special. Hey, it’s comped. Then we hit the BBQ Buffet at the Hilton and it was as awesome as last year. I played video poker and everyone else played slots a bit then we headed over to the theater to await the southern rock of a band that’s been around longer then I’ve been alive, and I don’t know any of their songs. The non-comp seats were filled with bikers and people who were bikers 20 years ago, but now were clean cut and could still fit in their ratty jean jackets. Finally 38 Special took the stage, and, in a million years I’d never dreamed I would write this, but, 38 Special rocked. They really did. Awesome show. I figure if they’ve been around for 30 years, they must be doing something right. More power to them. After the show Sunghee and I headed back to the Showboat and played slots and video poker for a couple of hours before going back to the room (Orleans Tower). I took a bath in the fantastic bath tub. The bottom is all molded to your back and arms and it’s long and deep. Just great.

Sunday morning we packed up, checked out and hit the boardwalk for some breakfast / lunch. I got a cheese steak and Sunghee had a white pizza slice. I figured that I could go play poker at the Taj for a hour or two before we headed off to home, but as soon as we walked into the casino a man in a suit asked if we were married. “Um, no.� “Do you live together� “Yeah…?� “Oh great! We’re having an open house would you like a free cash gift and a three-day two-night vacation in Florida, Las Vegas or California for touring one of our rooms and taking a survey?� “Uh, ok�. We filled out some paper work and were directed upstairs to an office. Once in the office we found 5-6 other couples and were presented with more paper work and the alarm bell question of “Do you currently own vacation property?� I tell Sunghee that they must be trying to get us to buy a timeshare. And sure enough, about 10 minutes later “Randy� takes us off to another room telling us about Fairfield Resorts and points and stuff for 90 minutes. Truthfully it sounded like a nice plan, but we’re not giving you $27,000 without thinking about it for a few months, let alone three minutes. They did give $50 and a coupon for the promised vacation. After that we considered our vacation complete and hopped in the car and headed back to VT.

Oh wait, there’s more. It took us 2 1/2 hours to drive the first 100 miles and get on the Parkway due to traffic backed up from the tolls. I’m pretty sure that the SEMA show in town had something to do with it. Traffic was very heavy until we got onto 87 where it was stopped for about an hour due to an accident. We finally got home after driving for 10 hours.

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