So, Saturday at 3 pm we left Bloomsburg in Natalie's car. We drove through Philadelphia which has a really nice skyline! Then after 2.5 hours we saw this sign:
The concert was at the Taj Mahal so we just booked a room for the night there. However, it cost a fortune - 450$ total for one night!!!
After the great dinner, we went to the ATM to get some cash and then signed up at the poker room. On the way there we had to walk through the whole casino and it was just huge! According to the website, there are 3,000 slot machines and more than 210 table games (roulette, blackjack etc.) and 70 poker tables - can't wait to go to Vegas where the casinos are even bigger!
By the way, this is what two (wannabe) high stakes poker players look like :)
*DISCLAIMER* The following might get a bit too much poker for some people - so just scroll down if this has no interest to you.
Poker
The lowest stakes was $1/$2 with a minimum buy in of $60 and a max of 300$. Beforehand, I had decided that I wouldn't lose more than 3 buy ins of what I normally play online = 600$ total. So, I found a table and sat down with 300$. Unfortunately, I didn't get the same table as Hugo but at least we could see each other and sometimes we would walk over and ask how the other was doing.
I started out folding a lot because I wanted to see how the table dynamic was and I didn't get any good cards anyways, so I really couldn't do anything else. However, the bad cards continued so I figured I would try to steal some blinds. The first time, this guy, lets call him Mr. Aggressive, re-raises me and I had to fold. A couple of hands later he just calls my raise and check-raises me on the flop where I have to fold. He shows me a total bluff. 15 mins later he does the same and later he does it again. Still, I wasn't getting any cards whatsoever, so I really couldn't do nothing.
Actually, I can sum up all my good hands from the +4 hours of play right here: 2xKK, 1xAQo, 1xKQo and 1x88 - that was it! I had no other pocket pairs all night, no good aces, no suited connectors - NOTHING!
Back to the story... After losing with some bad hands and bad bluffs, I was down to about 150$. Finally, I got my first real hand - a pair of kings. The short story is that I get my last 150$ all-in against another guy with QQ and doubles up to 300$.
Later I get KQo in the BB. Mr. Aggressive now tries to steal my blind again and I just call. Flop comes Qxx and I check-call his bet. Turn and river are blank and I decided to call him down after he had been bluffing all night long. Unfortunately he woke up with AQ this time and he won my stack of 300$ from me on that hand. Maybe I should have folded since he hadn't bluffed that big before. I think we had played about 3 hours at that time.
Anyway, I buy in for another 100$ and after literally folding all hands except a couple of blinds for a whole hour, I get kings in early position. I raise it big but somehow I get no respect and five people call me. Flop comes 235 rainbow. Since I'm first to act, I just check because I want to trap Mr. A somehow. As I predicted he takes a stab at the pot and I just call. I don't raise because he will only call me with something that has me beat already. The turn opens up for a flush draw but is otherwise blank and I check to him again. He puts me all-in. I really had a tough decision but I was short stacked. Preflop, he could have called with 22, 33, 55, 66-TT, suited aces and suited connectors. So either he had a hand or either he was bluffing or semi-bluffing. I ended up calling after a minute or so and he showed me A4, which means he had flopped a straight on me :(
I decided to call it a night at the poker tables because the deck was so cold. I really should have quit earlier but what can you do when it's the first time at a casino.
Roulette
Hugo had lost his 100$ too and we decided to head for the bar. The drinks were quite expensive though, so I figured it would be better and more fun to sit at the roulette and get free drinks :) I bought 140$ worth of chips and started out losing a bit. I sat next to a gentleman from Costa Rica who seemed to have a great time. He was kind of crazy though. He had a mountain of chips (about 2,500$) in front of him and he almost bet it all every time on the numbers. If you hit a number it pays 35:1. I asked him if he was up or down and he said he was down more than 9,000$ that night! But he just laughed about it and put 200$ on two different numbers and then smaller amounts on a lot of other numbers.
Hugo and me then moved to another roulette table because every spin took 10 mins at the old one because the guys at the table were betting so much. We found another table with only one guy playing. I started winning and had almost doubled my money. I guess I just should have quit because I ended up losing it all :( When I had about 50$ left I decided to put it all on red - no matter what happened that would be the last bet of the night since it was 4.30 in the morning. My overall bad luck continued and I ended up losing 540$ - I'm never staying or playing at the Taj ever again 'cause that place has just bad luck written all over it!!!
When I got up to our room on the 36th floor, we all talked for a while. The last time I looked at the clock it was 5.30am and we were supposed to check out at 12 noon. At 11.58 we were still laying in the beds! So we called to get at 'late checkout' which they accepted :)
In conclusion and even though I lost a huge amount of money, my experience hasn't scared me off from going back to a casino... Next time I'm just gonna leave the tables if the deck is cold for that long and of course I'm gonna win...
Well, that's all folks. I'm signing out with a picture from the lobby at the Taj
P.S I don't know who jinxed me beforehand - but if you feel like it was YOU, then you owe me a lot of money! :)
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