Just got back from a two-day trip to Atlantic City with my brother.  The Borgata poker room was less crowded than normal, and players at many tables seemed to be echoing the same sentiment that business had died down due to new rooms opening up in West Virginia, Delaware, etc.

While I love Borgata and want the poker room to stay as packed as possible with recreational players, there was a pleasant upside in that we were upgraded to a Fiore suite on the poker rate (without a bribe even!).  Panoramic view, foyer, and a desk in the bathroom ... big pimpin baby!

Despite winning a large pot early with 22 vs KJ  on a board of K 2 Q J, I pretty much broke even at 2/5 after I couldn’t get anything else going.  On the second day I settled into a 5/10 game that I had mixed feelings about.  On the one hand, several to my right was a huge donater who was stacking off right and left, raising blind UTG, and generally having fun.

Relatively early I raised to $65 with QQ after two limpers, he 3bet to $195 OTB, and I shoved for just under $900.  He shrugged and said he was here to gamble, then called.  Door card ace, rest blanks.  I flipped at the river, and he hesitated and shook his head a little which was awesome because I was expecting him to flip a goofy ace like A9s or something.

The donater then moved to my left, which I wouldn’t normally like, but he totally telegraphed all his moves.  In particular, if he was going to fold pre, he’d hold his cards in the air.  When he was going to play, he would put a chip on his cards.  And believe me, when he put a chip on his cards, he was going to play!  That chip meant you were welcome to raise to $100 and he was calling.

I’ll happily take a hyper-loose player on my left if he’s telegraphing, that’s really a huge edge to know your leftmost opponent’s intent preflop.  Eg Everyone folds to hijack who’s missed an orbit and put $15 in blind, and I’m CO and see button’s going to fold.  Blinds are pretty tight, so I make it $50 knowing without question I’m showing an immediate profit on the raise.

I said I was a bit on the fence about the table, and the reason was that there were several middle-aged regs (given away by their Borgata black-label cards and calling each other by name), and a couple of internet kids playing too -- including a kid in an A’s hat who was clearly an exceptional player.  I’m not a cash specialist and I’m looking to make money by exploiting weaker player’s mistakes, not trying to outplay regs.

So the session went well, but in the future I’d really like to see more recerational players in the game.   Our blogger Supergenius9 is now grinding that game so I’m looking forward to hearing his observations in the weeks to come.

Got back today around 4pm, Katie isn’t feeling so good, so after checking on her I’ve just been catching up on work ... and thinking about my next AC trip :)