Throwing some chips at the Tropicana

I love to play poker. My particular brand of poker growing up was seven card stud, but Rounders, The World Series of Poker, and the World Poker Tour have converted me to Texas Hold ‘Em. For awhile the rare trip to Atlantic City was spent playing low limit hold ‘em. Recently, however, I have started playing the 1 – 2 no limit game. I find this to be a far more pleasurable experience and will NEVER play low limit hold ‘em again.

No more tournaments!

Upon my arrival at the casino I played in an $80 dollar buy in tournament. This is something else I will never do again. The blind structure during the daily tournaments at the Trop goes up far too fast for anything but wild play and turns the tournament into a game of luck versus a game of skill. This was not the first tournament I played in AC and have found them all to be exactly the same. You may have one moment to get really healthy in terms of your chip stack and if you blow it, you are done. There is no chance to recover from a mistake because you will lose your chips to the blinds before you can blink. I had my moment and I blew it. Please be clear, this is not a bad beat story. This is yours truly knowing the right play and blowing it. I got timid in the face of a large bet (about 60% of my stack) and folded when I should have pushed all in and gambled on a very good draw. My money card fell on the turn and I was out of the tournament soon after.

I made a safe play to try and keep myself alive, but I should have made the aggressive play because the blinds were increasing at a breakneck pace. When the blinds go up so fast they become a player in the tournament it significantly decreases my enjoyment of the game.

Delusions?

The rest of the time I spent at the 1 – 2 no limit table with great success, winning around $400. I am a solid player, but not a spectacular one. Annoyed is the best player among the contributors here in The Cheap Seats, but I would say I am consistently the most disciplined. I realize the data sample is entirely too small to make a real judgment, but based on some observations I believe I could make a living playing cards if I wanted to.

Observations –

• I turned over three losing hands out of about 500 seen. This tells me I am getting out of hands when appropriate and not chasing cards.
  

• I got paid off on all of my big hands, save one. (In the 1-2 game the maximum buy in is $300, for my purposes pots of over $100 are what I consider getting paid off.)

• I lived by the rule “better to win a small pot than lose a big one,” and was extremely successful doing it.

• It is imperative that you sit at a table that has a style you are comfortable with. I played 4 sessions of 4 hours or more and was on the plus side in 3 out of the 4. In the 4^th the tone of the table was not to my particular liking and I ended up down for that session.
  I bet when I had something and I got out of hands when I had nothing. What I observed almost immediately last week is that bluffing at that level is a waste of time and in the long run will cost you money. If you have an especially tight table image you might be able to get away with it occasionally, but super aggressive, bet it up with any two cards play will just get you busted.

Conclusions -

Overall my latest Atlantic City experience was an incredibly positive one. The Trop upgraded our room to the new Havana Tower and we had a great view of the ocean, downbeach and marina areas of the city. The room was clean and comfortable and the water pressure in the shower was good. The staff was courteous and the dealers we efficient at keeping the action moving and appreciative of the tips they received. I highly recommend the Tropicana and will probably stay there again the next time I am in town to throw some chips.