My First Atlantic City Trip (longish)

While the main purpose of this trip was to spend time with my parents, who I do not see too often, I could not take a trip to Atlantic City without playing SOME poker.

Bear in mind that while I have played alot online, my live play is limited to a weekly 'home' game with the same core group of people.

I did some research before the trip and based on post 5 of this thread http://www.cardschat.com/f10/best-la...tournys-81343/ I decided to go to the Showboat and maybe try my hand in the tourney there with its wonderful structure of 15k starting chips on Saturday. (thanks again AlienGenius for providing great info)

After thinking about it I realized if I were to go deep in this thing it would be at minimum a 7 hour time commitment, so I changed gears and decided to sit at a 1/2 table.

So I'm thinking hmm... 2 dollar big blinds, sit down with a hundred bucks, 50 BB's should be plenty. How wrong I was. Watched the first 8 hands or so, and every pot was on average about $60. The guy to my right was raising almost every hand to $10 preflop with usually 3 to 4 limpers before him, and they would almost always call. I start looking at stacks and most people have about $250 with a couple people in the $400 range.

After taking all this in I decide to be patient, gather more info and wait for a good hand. Eventually I get pocket 9's and decide to join the fray. I bet enough preflop to knock out a few limpers and end up heads up. Flop comes 2,3,7 rainbow.... perfect. I check raise him and he calls. Turn is a another 3. I bet half the pot, he calls. River is a J. I check, he checks(why?).... he turns over AJ.

So now my 100 in chips is about 40 at a table of big stacks. I decide to get ultra tight. Then, and don't laugh please, some guy goes bust and whips about a Franklin and get another 100 in chips from the dealer. You can do this?! Haha. I think about it a bit and decide if I am to have any chance of actually playing, I need more than $40 in chips. I toss a Franklin of my own over and have 140.

A few hands later I play what I felt was 1 of my 2 badly played hands of the session, playing an A9 with an A on the flop vs a guy who ended up having 2 pair. He was somewhat shortstacked and went all in on the turn, I call, hit a 9 on the river to win. I'm back to 200.

From this point on I can't really describe too well what happened. I never got AA, no KK, AK only twice, but 2 and half hours later I am standing up from the table with $613 dollars, would have been more but I dealer tipped about $25 over the session. I can remember some hands that just played themselves... like having 99 and the flop coming A,K,9. What a dream. Another hand where I had 33, the flop was 9h,8h,3s, a guy bets about half my chips, and after awhile I fold, another guy calls, its 99 vs 2 hearts and the caller made his flush.

I had so much fun, and felt like I only played 2 bad hands in the 3 hours.

Must. Go. Back.

Nice report. Wow on laying down a set, good read!