ATLARGE, 2007 my trip report
by Asya Kamsky
I've been based in Chicago and it seemed not too far from Atlantic City,
at least compared with San Francisco, and I decided to try to get to all
2007 *ARGE events, so I made plans for my first ATLARGE.
I bought tickets into Newark so that I could visit my parents who live
in Central Jersey (exit 109) right on the way to/from AC. I got my
rental car and made sure that work only had me scheduled till noon on
Thursday as I had a 6pm flight from ORD and was hoping to make the
flight two hours earlier. Ah, no plans are safe when ORD ground control
is involved...
I finished my work meeting right on schedule in Madison Wisconsin and
showed up around noon for my 2:25pm flight to ORD ready to go standby
on the 1:20pm flight or rather the 11:10 flight which was delayed till
3pm... oh well, plenty of time to make the 6pm Newark flight still right?
The fact that all but two flights from MSN to ORD were cancelled should
have tipped me off to the fact that nothing would go as planned. By
4pm they had pushed the scheduled departure of the 11:10am flight (which
I got the last seat on) to 6:30pm "if it takes off at all" is what they
said. At this point, knowing I'd miss my 6pm flight I started worrying
about missing the last flight to NJ two hours later... so I decided to
rent a car and drive the 130 miles to ORD to make sure I got there
and got to AC before Friday.
That plan went pretty well. I got to ORD about the same time as the
flight I was holding a boarding pass for. Both were about 10 minutes
too late to catch the 6pm flight which was probably the only flight
that was only 40 minutes late out of ORD, everything else was at
least 90 minutes late. As was the last flight of the day which didn't
leave till close to 11pm and had me in Newark at 2am. Bad beat number
one, as making the 11am start the next day was in danger. I'm not a
big fan of limit, and I don't like stud and I'm not much for hi/low,
but I was going to play for the fun of it... Luckily ATLARGE doesn't
collect entries in advance so I'd be able to play it by ear.
I was rooming with Joan who wasn't getting there till the next day
and Tracy checked us into our room at the Showboat earlier Thursday night
so as long as I got to AC safely I just had to pick up a key and crash.
Even though it was raining heavily there was no traffic and I made it
to AC okay and was crashed out at 4:30am with no alarm set (on purpose).
I actually woke up at 9:40 and decided that I should sleep instead
of playing so that I could have more fun the rest of the weekend.
Good move! Too bad I didn't know about the 12:15pm NL tournie that
the Taj spreads, I only missed that one by 15 minutes or so.
It was good to see old friends and meet new people. I've only been
to BARGEs and ESCARGOT so there are a lot of non-traveling East Coast
ARGERs I hadn't met before. I can't remember any of their names
(except Joan and Tracy :) ) but give me a couple of more ATLARGEs
(and FARGOs!) and I'll get 'em.
I played some 5-10 limit and lost about $200. As I explained I lost
about $100 because of stupid things I did and I lost another $100
because of stupid things my opponents did. So we were even!!!
I also sweated Goldie for a while - man, that guy is a luck box!
He didn't even mention the hand where he was in a capped pot with
99 saw a flop of JTx, decided it was worth to stay in for another
small bet (hey, with me watching it would have been worth to stay
in for more!) then turned a set and rivered a boat. And got paid
off from two places!
The banquet was fun, I got to catch up with Jerrod and Michelle whom
I haven't seen since ... ESCARGOT banquet! Nolan was funny! Nolan
don't quit your day job! :)
Funny thing happened in the Taj card room at one point. I was
passing an Omaha table and recognized one of the players as someone
I was friends with about twenty years ago (for bridge players, this
was Robin Kay) back when we both played bridge a lot. Of course I
haven't played much since the early 90's and it turned out she
hasn't either and she now lives in AC and plays poker. Pretty
much all the time. Sure 'nuff she was there the next two days as
well... We caught up some.
I don't remember much else -- I did hang out near the pink chip game
which seemed like it was a lot of fun but there was a long wait and
I was pretty exhausted so I turned in early.
The next day was the No Limit hold'em event. We started out with
2,000 in chips and the blinds were 25-25 to start with so I was going
to last for a while! I won a few small pots and was a convincing
chip leader at my table with about 2,500 when I picked up two aces
UTG. I raised to 100 and everyone folded to this guy who showed
me no respect by reraising 300. I decided to push all in because
I had a feeling he had a legitimate hand he'd call with, and he
did, he had the other two aces. As we faced our hands someone at
the table said "Why even bother dealing out the cards for the board"?
The dealer demonstrated why by dealing four spades which was not
the suit of one of my aces and suddenly I had about 450 in chips
left as the blinds went up to 25-50. To make a long story slightly
shorter, I eventually got my chips in with a medium ace which got
called by a big ace behind me and IGHN.
Joan, Terrence and I went to get some food where we ended up with
a group of about six at the Rim Noodle Bar - not bad. After that
Joan and Terrence and I drove to Borgata which I heard a lot about
but hadn't been to. Last time I was in AC was probably in 1991
when the bridge nationals were there. I don't even know if any of
the card rooms we were in were there then. Anyway, Borgata is HUGE.
I mean the poker room of the casino is bigger than most California
card rooms I've been to! (like, not quite as big as The Bike, but
close to it!) That place was crazy. Apparently Saturday afternoon
is a very busy time for poker rooms in AC.
After getting back to the Taj I got on the ridiculously long list
for the $1-$2 NL game ($300 max buyin) but they had it going on so
many tables that it actually went quickly and I went from 30-something
on the list to sitting at a table in about half an hour. And that's
where I stayed till about midnight.
This game was fun. It was almost all young guys, not quite of the
cap and sunglass variety but close to it. It was a very lucrative game.
About +$600 worth of lucrative or so. And I never doubled up - I
did bust a few smaller stacks, twice my opponent went broke against
me with J8. Once it was by flopping trips against my boat the other
time it was by making the non-nut straight against the nut straight.
These guys were lamenting about their bad luck -- how can you not go
broke with those flops! I'm thinking "how about not playing J8?"
I was getting ready to leave and decided to play "just one more orbit"
and was rewarded by this hand. I'm in the big blind and the solid guy
on my left raises to $12. A couple of people call and a maniac from
middle position reraises to $30. The rest fold and I peek at two aces.
I make it even $100 and both call. The flop is T 4 2 rainbow and I
bet $200 which is what the maniac has left. UTG puts his remaining
$20 in with the resigned sigh of a man who was dealt a big but not
big enough pair and the maniac goes through contortions of a man who
wants to call but who's already bought in four times and doesn't want
to have to buy in again (or maybe has no cash left). Eventually he
shows a ten and folds. Probably had T9 from what I'd seen of him.
Sooted. UTG shows me kings, I show him aces, they hold up and I pick
up another $200 and change in profit...
I went by the hospitality suite and lounged around for a while with
Terrence. There was a lot of beer there, Goldie, but no one to drink
it! I was buy the hospitality suite earlier in the day while there
were a few people there, it was definitely under utilized!
On Sunday I slept in again, got up, got my crap, checked out, went
by the poker room and said good bye to friends old and new. I drove
up to Red Bank to visit with my folks before flying back to Chicago
uneventfully, in the sense that the flight was, of course, late.
I had pretty good luck with flights in 2006, so far 2007 has been
horrific to make up for that, I guess.
Thanks Goldie for a fun weekend, I look forward to being awake for
more of it next year!
