The Borgata

Before I write reports on Vegas and the WSOP like I said, I figured I'd go back and write about one of the older trips first. So this is our one-night trip to the Borgata back in May.

This trip involved myself, Gabe, and Vincent Kim, affectionately known as vk. We were spending the weekend up at vk's place in New York as a sending off for Geoff, since he was leaving for the Peace Corps soon, and we capped off the trip with a stop in AC for a night on the way back. Unfortunately Geoff and a few others present could not / did not want to go to Atlantic City with us. My goal with this report is to make them regret that decision.

So vk had to go to work on Sunday, so Gabe and I went ahead to the Borgata before him. Upon check-in, we tried to bring a cooler full of leftover beer up to the room. Unfortunately security stopped us and told us that we could only bring up 6 beers per person, and we couldn't have the cooler either. They actually had me pretty scared and I was like umm wait so are you gonna confiscate this?? They were like no just bring it over to the bellhop, take out 12 beers and leave everything else with them. So whatever, fine. So we went over to the bellhop, and there were two older women checking their stuff too. They asked us what we were doing and we explained the situation to them. They were like wtf, we'll take up some beers for you. And the whole time they were like "So the party is in your room, right??" Ha. yeah. So they took up some beers for us, and they jokingly told us that they'd come over at 2am. And, despite being a fair bit older than us, I thought one of them was pretty cute! Now if Gabe and I had ANY sort of game at all, we'd have maybe asked them what they were up to later, where they'd be partying, or seriously have encouraged them to come over as opposed to just laughing along like it was a joke. But alas, we don't. It also didn't help that the beers we happened to be carrying were cans of Miller Lite, and we had nothing else to go along with that. But whatever, there was business to take care of at the poker tables.

So we went down to the poker room, Gabe sat at his 2/4 limit game, and I sat at 2/5 no-limit. Now, those of you who have been to poker rooms with me, you know that NL cash games aren't my strength or preference... usually I play mid-limit games or tournaments. But as I was in WSOP training mode at the time, I figured NL cash games would be a good place for this, to try and get used to the deep stacked play of the WSOP. Anyways, I sat down with my $500, and actually managed to turn it into $1400 relatively quickly. The table wasn't all that soft, but there was just one huge donator who helped me out a lot, namely by being willing to call my pre-flop all-in with AJ against my KK, and both of us had just over a full buy-in at the time. What a rush that was -- even as a huge favorite the whole way, I was sweating every single card as I was staring at over $1000 in the middle of the pot. Fortunately my kings held up and I even rivered a set for good measure.

I think Gabe won in his game too.

So then vk showed up after finally finishing at work. It's probably about 9pm at this point. The three of us got some food, and then headed back down to the poker room for some shenanigans at 2/4 limit hold'em. It didn't take long for us to all get to the same table, and that's where the fun started. First of all, vk and I started ordering double JW Blacks. The best part was that after just two rounds, all we had to do was make eye contact with a hand raised as our waitress walked by, she'd nod, and our next JWs would be on their way. A+ for service.

The next part of the story revolves around Gabe. See, Gabe kinda looks like he's 13. Even though he is 21. And not 21 according to a fake ID, but truly 21. Well, Gabe got carded repeatedly that night. And this was nothing new, he got carded just for walking in the poker room at the Taj on a previous trip. But this time it just got completely out of control. He got carded signing up for a table, he got carded buying chips, he got carded taking his seat, he got carded ordering a drink. And then again and again and again. At one point the floor tried to stamp his hand to signify that he's in the clear, but the stamp wouldn't work!! So then a little while later, we're still playing, Gabe isn't even doing anything, and someone comes over to card him AGAIN. This time vk and I burst out laughing, as this is about the 10th or 11th time on the night. And THEN, the floor says they have to card the whole table now because vk and I were laughing!! ha.

Around 2am I run out of gas and head back up to the room. Apparently I missed a good 3-4 more hours of action though, including vk and Gabe playing craps, vk breaking a glass in the restaurant where they got a late night breakfast, and vk blowing cigar smoke in my face as I was sleeping.

Anyways, in the morning at check out, we went to the desk and asked them to tally all our comps and apply them to the room bill. I didn't expect it to be that much since you only get like $1-$2/hr at poker. But I did already have a reduced rate on the room for having played lots of poker, so the initial bill was like $60 instead of the rack rate of like $300. Then she added all our comps on top of that, spouted off a bunch of numbers, and handed me the final bill which said approximately $3 for the final total. Gabe was like, "Wait, what just happened?" And I said, "umm... I think you guys don't owe me any money for the room anymore." WHAT UP (almost) FREE ROOM AT THE BORGATA.

The End.