This club is literally around the corner from the more famous and larger Aviation Club, on the Champs Elysees not far from the Arc d’Triomphe. It’s a more upscale version and seemingly more private version of it.

Cercle Gaillon has the same official dress code as the Aviation Club – but they adhere to it more strictly. While the Aviation Club seems to use the “smart casual” rules to keep out lower-end travelers who didn’t know they needed to pack a collared shirt and dress shoes – while not discouraging the locals who like to play their poker in jeans and a t-shirt;
the Cercle Gaillon clientele all looked sharp and chic. There were women in long gowns and guys in beautifully tailored suits (though thankfully no tuxes that I noticed). They also had a curious rule against wearing a hat, except at the poker table. I guess they didn’t want to detract from the old west or new-TV ambiance of folks in cowboy hats and baseball caps, while still preserving the decorous mood of a high end private club.

The room’s furnishings were of the highest quality – similarly the décor. The bar looked like one you’d find in the most expensive and exclusive club or restaurant. The staff were dressed meticulously, if almost extravagantly.

It would make a fine set for a James Bond movie.

The poker, alas, was absurdly expensive.

Consider this. They spread poker of five different stakes – all of it no-limit or pot-limit. Some games were no-limit hold’em; others were half no-limit hold’em and half pot-limit Omaha. They did not charge time in any of the games, but raked them all – even at the highest level. Here’s how the structure worked.

All games were raked at 4%, which seemed very reasonable. Unfortunately, the maximum that could be raked was extremely high

The lowest staked game was a €100 buy-in game with €1/2 blinds. It had a €24 maximum rake. It went up from there:

€2/4 blind 100 buy-in: €36 maximum rake
€5/5 blind 250 buy-in: €50 maximum rake
€5/10 blind 500 buy-in €100 maximum rake
€10/20 blind 1000 buy-in €200 maximum rake

I played in a €5/5 half-and-half game. On numerous occasions during my three hours of play I saw the house slide 50 Euros down the chute. True, the pots on these hands were enormous. But even so, I just didn’t see how anyone could end up winning money in the long run when the house consistently took such major pieces of the action.

Even so, I enjoyed the games. The players tended to be loose – there to live it up, gamble it up, and drink it up. I seemed to be the only person who noticed the rake. I surely was the only one who commented on it. (I suppose that it was in bad form – still, I couldn’t resist).

A few other things about the room recommend a visit, though probably not a long session. The food is actually very reasonably priced. They offer an international menu that includes, among other things, sushi, pizza, sandwiches, and the like. They call restaurants in the area to bring you whatever you want. Everything is the same price for players: €7. That may not seem like a great deal, but compared to the many expensive meals I ate while in Paris, it seemed practically free.

I had one memorable hand in a series of losing hands during my trip. I was dealt A-K in the small blind. The cutoff raised the €5 blind to €20. I and a player after me both called. The flop was . I bet €80. One player called all in with €70 and the initial raiser in the cutoff raised to €190, raising it €110 more. I had about €50 more. I called the raise, hoping he had A-Q. I didn’t think he’d raise with it pre-flop, though. So I was confused. I figured he might have J-J – but if so why raise me now, since he’d surely take my stack by just slow playing it. I thought we might chop with AK each.

The turn was a blank. I checked and he checked. The river was a diamond – giving the board three to a flush. Once again I checked and he checked.

The all-in player had a flush. The cutoff guy had A-4! He raised in the cutoff with A-4. Oh, well.

I left shortly thereafter, having enjoyed the place, but reluctant to go back and pay the huge rake. Still, it is a beautiful room. Maybe I’ll go back just to hang out!

Cercle Gaillon
11 Rue de Berri
Paris, Île-de-France 75008
France
www.cerclegaillon.net
+33 1 45 62 08 33

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I first visited Sandia when it was a smoky hell of a place, back in the old days in the older casino that was little more than a Quonset hut. I’ve been back a couple of times since they moved into their picturesque, full-service casino on the other side of Interstate 25. Though this isn’t the equal of the biggest and best poker rooms in California, Nevada or Connecticut, it’s surely
as close as you will come to a major poker room in New Mexico.

Sandia is home to 15 modern comfortable poker tables – tables that are often full and loud and busy. There are well-cushioned chairs; there is excellent lighting, a well run board, new or relatively new chips and cards, and a bustling atmosphere that promotes action. Unlike other rooms in the area, you never have to worry about not finding a game at Sandia. If the room is open (and it is from 10 AM until 4 AM during the week and 24 hours on weekends) there will be at least a few games going.

The games include all of the low-stakes affairs that you’ll find in the other rooms – the $1/2 no-limit game and the $2/4 and $3/6 limit hold’em. But this room offers more. While I was there on a Sunday afternoon they were spreading $4/8 with a half kill, $10/20, and $20/40 limit hold’em. They also had a couple of $2/5 blind no limit games and a $4/8 with a half-kill Omaha-8 game. They never have stud – though they added, as all rooms do, that they’d gladly spread it if they had the players. A pot-limit Omaha game goes off sometimes, I was told, as well as a $10/20 Omaha-8 game, but neither was going while I was there on three different occasions during the week.

I played a total of six or so hours of no limit in the $1/2-blind game, and about three hours of $4/8 Omaha-8. I played at all hours – at 9:00 AM one day, 4:00 PM another day, and at 2:00 AM yet another. I found the five tables I played at during those visits to be very similar. Typically there were three or four very poor players, a couple of retirees grinding out the game timidly, and then a couple or so players who seemed to know what they were doing. (The only game with a slightly different line up was a $4/8 w/ kill Omaha-8 game – where all of the players but one were pretty awful).

Here’s an interesting hand of no-limit hold’em that I played. There was a brand new dealer (most seemed to be veterans). It was the second hand I played on my first visit – on a Sunday evening. I was sitting five to the left of the button and was dealt two Jacks. There were two folds after the big blind. I raised to $14; a guy did this on the previous hand and got one caller. I got three callers including the small blind. The flop was a king and two blanks. The small blind checked; I checked, the next player checked, but before the final player could act the dealer turned a nine. The last player objected, saying that he was going to bet. The other players said that he could bet if he wanted to. No one called the floor. No one seemed especially upset by any of this. The original objector whined and said it was okay – and let the fourth street card stand. (Nothing like “players get to decide what is done” rules). Everyone checked the turn to him. He bet $25. Everyone folded. He flashed us all a king and a smile.

Sandia has the same rake structure as the other casinos in the area – 10% with a $3 maximum. They also have a $1 drop for the bad beat jackpot which stood at $50,000 or so. You needed aces full of jacks beaten to qualify, with both hole cards playing. I got the sense that there were at least a handful of folks who were there for no other reason than to be at the table when the bad beat was hit.

They offer some player point promotions, awarding comps based on points earned at the table. But the points are so minuscule that it isn’t worth considering, on the order of a few cents an hour.

Sandia is home to a few weekly and some large special tournaments. They have sit-and-goes every Monday and Wednesday and then regular no-limit hold’em, pineapple, and Omaha tournaments on Tuesday and Sunday. When I was there they had a larger tournament than their weekly events – a $300 “Play with the Big Dogs” no-limit hold’em tournament. There were 134 players with a $25,000+ first-place prize. None of the other rooms have action like that.

A few other things to consider about this nice room: The high ceiling and lack of cigarette smoke give the place an airy feel. There are free drinks. And though the food surely isn’t free, there is a cheap snack bar near the poker room with hot dogs, nachos, soup and sandwiches for only a few bucks each.

They don’t allow reading at the table (which always strikes me as an insult to we poker writers) but you can listen to a headset.

All in all this is a very good room, clearly the best place to play serious poker in the area. I recommend it highly.

Sandia Resort & Casino
30 Rainbow Road NE
Albuquerque, NM 87113
505-796-7500
800-526-9366

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There have been a few changes. First of all, the room is now non-smoking, as are all of the poker rooms in New Mexico (except Sky City – which isn’t even in its own room). However, though players may not smoke in the room, they may smoke adjacent to it. Since there’s no wall or other barrier between the rest of the very smoky casino and the poker room, smoke drifts in.
I had the displeasure of sitting right next to the opening at the end of the room. Maybe this is an indication of my over-sensitivity – but it annoyed me.

The room spreads $2–6 spread-limit hold’em, $2/4 limit hold’em, and $1/2 no-imit. I played in the spread-limit and no-limit games for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon. I found them to be relatively sedate affairs – with a lot of calling, little raising, and a mix of mostly “calling station” locals and a couple of strong amateurs. Most of the serious players tend to hang out at the Sandia Casino on the other side of Albuquerque, where there are bigger games and more variety. But there were a couple of winning players in my game, and I was not among them!

The room has a $3 maximum, 10% rake, with a $1 bad beat jackpot. It was up to nearly $100,000 while I was there, requiring aces full of queens to be beaten with all hole cards playing in the hand. There are also two daily tournaments, at 2:00 and 7:00 PM. I always recommend that players call the room first to confirm, since tournament schedules change so frequently.

There is a four-raise maximum (as opposed to the three-raise max in most non-Las Vegas rooms these days). This came as an unpleasant surprise in the $2–6 hold’em game when I thought I was dramatically capping the raise on the flop when I had kings, only to have someone come over the top of me. The size of the pot seduced me into calling his bets all the way until the river. His set beat my kings up. Alas.

Sadly, there is no stud in the room. There used to be, back in the ’90s. But though the room manager insists he’ll spread stud if there’s sufficient interest, there just don’t seem to be enough stud players around to get up a game here. É Tu Isleta?

My experience in the room was disheartening. Without boring you with bad beats, let me just say that my aggressiveness with top pair pre-flop was insufficient to drive out hoards of callers — one of whom always caught up and won the hand I was in. And I wasn’t in many. The net result was that after three hours I was down $200. Ouch!

I tried drowning myself in food – my typical solace after a tough session. I was fortunate in that the menu was fairly inexpensive. There was a pretty good taco salad for about $4. Sandwiches were in the $4-6 range. Drinks were about a buck. Nothing fancy. But then, I didn’t merit anything fancy.

There’s a great entertainment center in an adjacent building. They have huge TV screens, a large bowling alley and many pool tables. Though of course I wouldn’t do this with my kids, I could see a poker-playing adult guiltlessly dumping his family next door. They’d be entertained for many hours.

The room is open 11:00 AM until 4:00 AM every day except weekends when it goes 24 hours.

Isleta Casino and Resort
11000 Broadway SE
Albuquerque, NM 87105
1-877-7-ISLETA

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Technically speaking, not every hand from Hansen’s Aussie Millions triumph is revealed. Hansen has omitted discussing hands where he folded without any preflop action. Still, that leaves 329 hands for Hansen to tell us about, the pertinent details of which he was able to preserve by recording himself with a portable tape recorder after each hand. Of those, Hansen designates 21 as “crucial hands” that proved especially pivotal when assessing his overall success in the tournament. He also appends a final collection of data describing his play in a chapter cheekily titled “Stats and Tips for all My Fellow Poker Nerds.”

What emerges is a remarkably consistent portrait of a player comfortable with taking a high percentage of flops and then exerting maximum pressure on his opponents. As one moves through the book, a number of common themes emerge, including the understanding of the significance of blind/ante structures, the difference between short-handed vs. full table strategies, the importance of zeroing in on opponents’ tendencies, and the constant need to remain aware of stack sizes and pot odds. The reader sees Hansen frequently taking advantage of others’ timid play during the first and last orbits of each level. One also comes to recognize how Hansen regards limping preflop as rarely a good idea, but calling post-flop with position to be correct perhaps more often than one would think.

In one of his “crucial hands” from Day 3, Hansen describes the thought process that resulted in his deciding to call a check-raise all-in bet from Paul Wasicka on the flop while holding only ace-high and an open-ended straight draw. Aside from taking the usual mathematical calculations into account, Hansen tells how he also considered the less-easily-quantified consequences of his folding. “If I fold this hand and Mr. Wasicka shows me a total air-ball, I will definitely lose some momentum,” he explains. “If he elects not to show his hand with a little smirk on his face, uncertainty will creep into my mind and it might take me a while to regain my composure and table presence.” This is one of several intriguing passages where Hansen tries to share how such intangibles often have as much to do with one’s decision-making as do one’s odds and outs.

Experienced MTT players will surely find much of interest here, including a number of hands worthy of lengthy poker forum debates. The book should also appeal to those with less interest and/or patience with such a dense collection of hand analyses, primarily because of the often playful, almost conversational tone Hansen employs. One finds humorous asides and sarcasm throughout the book, and unexpected flashes of wit work well to keep up one’s interest in the proceedings.

For example, when telling of one hand in which three players saw the flop, Hansen writes, “I lead out for 66k into a 118k pot, and before you can say ‘Phil Hellmuth’ they both folded!” — a funny reference to the Poker Brat’s much-cited penchant for making laydowns. One finds other, less-expected allusions sprinkled throughout the text, with Hansen showing himself capable of bringing up Garfield the cat, Allen Iverson, or Kingpin at any given moment. There’s even the occasional smiley face (as one might find in an online poker chat box). Most winning are those moments of self-deprecation, whether he’s making fun of his wild image or genuinely second-guessing his less than stellar decisions, such as when he tells of a Day 2 hand in which he called down with top pair, thereby letting his opponent catch up and pass him on the river: “I played this hand like a novice, a fish, an idiot!”

By the time we reach the final table with Hansen, we realize that while he has hardly played all 329 of the hands he describes without a misstep, he has made many, many more good decisions than bad ones. And nearly all of them have been informed by careful, strategic thinking. Hansen certainly enjoyed some good fortune along the way in the 2007 Aussie Millions, including when battling back (twice) from a 3-to-1 chip deficit when heads-up against Jimmy Fricke. However, after reading Every Hand Revealed it is clear that when someone subsequently asks the question “What was Hansen thinking?” one reasonable answer should be “A lot.”

Every Hand Revealed is due out in May.

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The poker boom of the last few years has been no different. Recent times have not been kind to poker, as the few films and TV portrayals of the poker world, such as the poker themed ESPN series “Tilt” and the pretty darn awful movie Lucky You, had poker fans crying in their popcorn.

The
buzz is also not great on the soon-to-be-released poker themed movie Deal, which stars Burt Reynolds as an old poker champion who backs and mentors an up-and-coming young poker star. According to imdb.com, Deal is set to open to limited release April 25th here in the U.S.

Lucky You, “Tilt”, and Deal (based on the trailers) seem to take the poker world very seriously. Whereas poker has become serious business in recent years, the poker world should not be taken too seriously, and a movie has come along with a tongue-in-cheek perspective on poker, and it’s a breath of fresh air.

The Grand is shot much like the poker world lives – fast, loose, and from the hip. This “mockumentary” on the poker world does not take its subject, nor its filmmaking, too seriously. Shot in a gonzo-style, documentary approach, The Grand feels very ramshackle in its flow, but delivers many laughs on its way to a predictable (but apparently unscripted) ending.

The plot is set around “The Grand”, a World Series-like poker tournament with a winner-take-all, $10 million first prize. Woody Harrelson plays Jack Faro, a casino owner’s grandson who inherits the “Rabbit’s Foot” casino in downtown Las Vegas, and runs it into the ground through a series of 70 failed marriages and enough trips to rehab where he winds up living in rehab “to save time”.

The Grand captures one thing about the poker world really well – the characters. The poker world is full of characters, and the film does a good job of pointing out some of the more ludicrous characteristics of some of the game’s heroes, without naming names.

The most entertaining character in the movie, in this reviewer’s opinion, is Harold Melvin. A monotone, socially awkward “math guy” in his late 30′s who still lives with his mom, Melvin will spew numbers and criticism at other players, while reciting his poker mantra, adapted from the 1980s sci-fi thriller Dune. At one point in the movie, Melvin (played really well by actor Chris Parnell) dresses Daniel Negreanu down for his play, noting to Daniel, “Should have moved in when your stack still meant something.”

No poker movie would be complete without cameos and small parts for poker players and poker-playing celebrities, and The Grand is no exception. Cameos include Negreanu, Doyle Brunson, Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Laak, Shannon Elizabeth, Robert Thompson as the tournament director, Jason Alexander, Hank Azaria, and many others. While not a cameo role, Phil Gordon plays a TV poker analyst, and has a fair-sized part. The most entertaining cameo, in this reviewer’s opinion, is movie director Brett Ratner’s (Rush Hour) portrayal of “Sob Story” Barry Blausteen, a player who tries to get his opponents to fold by telling them sad tales such as, “My mother has three months to live.”

Tons of poker minutiae and small inside jokes permeate the movie. The logo on the hat worn by casino titan Stave Lavish (played by Michael McKean) is nearly identical to a Wynn logo. Jack Faro’s grandfather is clearly supposed to be Benny Binion, complete with the big fur coat and cowboy hat.

Unfortunately, one thing about the movie which bugs me to no end, is that cheating played a part in the plot. ESPN’s short-lived series, “Tilt”, didn’t sit well with many poker players as it seemed to set poker back a few years by portraying rampant cheating as part of the ongoing plot. While cheating does not play a big part of The Grand‘s development, it did factor in the outcome. Sorry, Hollywood –- players don’t sneak aces out of their sleeves into play at the final table of a major poker event these days.

Overall, the good news is that The Grand is the best poker movie to come from the studios since Rounders. The bad news is that it doesn’t have much competition. For the hardcore poker enthusiast, The Grand will give you more than one good chuckle and is worth the price of admission. Will the public at large embrace the movie? My guess is that the deck is stacked against that happening.

Editor’s Note – our own Amanda Leatherman sat down with some of the cast to talk about the movie – here are the highlights.

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I drove up to Camel Rock from Bernalillo, just north of Albuquerque. For an eastern boy such as myself, this is a gorgeous drive.
I spent one hour or so passing high desert countryside with buttes and mesas and rock face and Indian pueblos along the way. I took in the scenery. The route is also littered with signs for casinos. Some, like Santa Ana and Cities of Gold, have poker rooms. Others, like the Hollywood Casino, do not. But Hollywood had a nice little diner-style restaurant where I stopped for some Indian “fry bread”. It was an Indian version of what we carnival and state fair attendees generally know as fried dough. For the $1.95 I was expecting something relatively small. Instead I got a piece of round fried dough the size of an entire pie plate. I confess that though I had already had breakfast, I ate it all. I used the honey they gave me for it, too. It was delicious. And even though there was no poker room, I got myself a nice free travel mug and $10 just by signing up for a player’s card while I was there. Not a bad deal.

I finally arrived at Camel Rock at 10:30 on a Sunday morning.

Camel Rock has a small room that barely fits three tables. It opens to a hallway that passes right by, separating it from a small snack bar. Unfortunately, though the casino itself was open, the poker room was closed and not scheduled to open until 2:00 PM — with a tournament scheduled at 3:00. No matter. I drove off to visit points west and north (ending up in the Colorado birthplace of boxer Jack Dempsey, of all places), only to return at 2:30, figuring to play a few hands before the tournament went off.

The room was not empty when I arrived. There were four staff and two players hanging around waiting for the 3:00 tournament. I asked if they would have any live action before the 3:00 event. “Before the tournament?” the room manager asked me, incredulously. “No, I don’t think so,” he concluded.

I made my way over to the Camel Rock promotions desk and got a player’s card. It came with $10 of slot play — but you could only redeem it after you played $10 on the slots. So I went to the nearest $5 machine, played the maximum two bets at one time, won $10, and cashed out $10 to the good. Sweet!

I walked over to the restaurant, located next to the poker room, to check out their menu. They’re open Monday through Saturday from 11:00 AM until 9:00 PM and then on Sunday from 9:00 AM until 2:00 PM for brunch and 3:00 PM until 9:00 PM for dinner. Their menu ranged from reasonable on the high end (a great seafood buffet on Friday nights with sushi, clams, Alaskan King Crab and the like for $16.99) to an enormous bargain on the lower end, with “green plate specials” for $7.00. I returned later in the day, after the tournament was over, and had a T-bone steak with all the trimmings for $7.77. By my plebian standards it was excellent.

The poker room is non-smoking but it abuts a large smoking area, so cigarette smoke wafts in. A sensitive nose would detect the cigarette smoke even without active smokers. When there are folks congregating outside the poker area it becomes very annoying to anyone (like me) who doesn’t like cigarette smoke.

The tournament itself was part of the Heartland Poker League. The League is two and a half years old and includes eight casinos. Competitors win not just cash but points that can be used to qualify toward regional tournaments with large fields, large cash prizes, television coverage, and great fame and notoriety to the winners.

Our event attracted 14 people. The entry was $80, with $60 going to the players and $20 going to the house.

Three hours after it began there were three of us remaining. We agreed to a chop. Seeing as they could only award points to the final two contestants, and seeing as I would not be playing in any other league events since I was returning to Boston that week, I agreed to officially finish third while they fought it out for the points. We each won $280. I also got a nice Heartland Poker Tour hat.

After the tourney I played some $1/2 no-limit with a $300 max buy-in. The house provides a $2/hour comp for players and rakes the standard 10% with a $3 maximum. There’s also $1 taken out of the pot for the bad beat.

In general, the level of play was pretty poor, though there were two players who seemed to know what they were doing. No one was too serious about either the cash game or the tournament.

The room itself was crowded, the lighting pretty poor, the chairs about average in comfort, the table, chips and cards relatively new. It was one step up from the truly crummy poker room at Cities of Gold Casino, about five minutes down the way from Santa Fe.

The main problem for me at Camel Rock would be making sure that there was a game when I wanted to play. I’d suggest calling ahead whenever you were thinking of playing there. I’d play again if I were in the area. And the area is so beautiful that I relish a return before too long. Oh, and if you can, try to be outside during sunset. It is truly a spectacular site to behold.

Camel Rock Casino
17486A – Hwy 84/285
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87506
(800) GO-CAMEL
(800) 462-2635

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What you may not know is that she is now a successful novelist, having just published White Knight, Black Nights. I’ve just finished it and I recommend it to all of you.

This is surely not a poker book, at least not chiefly so. Though it is set largely in Las Vegas and has a professional poker player as a central character – and introduces poker players as minor characters throughout – you will surely not become a better poker player by reading it. You will, however, be hugely entertained.

Isaacs presents a dramatic tale of discovery – of a woman’s discovery of her own identity as a writer and poker player. She does so by walking the reader into the well-described conventional world of an unquestioning woman, and then following that woman through dramatic and painful twists and turns until the woman is transformed, with some difficulty and angst, into a more aware and more confident, independent person.

Isaacs doesn’t end there. She also throws in some mass murder, general mayhem, and sexual addiction for good measure.

Isaac’s story rings of autobiography – at least in part. Writer, poker player, woman, and a Las Vegas setting seem to spell out the author’s fictionalized self. But Isaacs succeeds in presenting in full dress more than just her central character. She introduces us to a rich surrounding cast that is believable, complicated, and well drawn. The characters’ dialogue sounds authentic. Their experiences are interesting and poignant. They are multi-dimensional – enough to make their stories compelling.

I enjoyed a number of things about the book. It is written economically – with a straightforward, matter-of-fact style. I did not feel that the author was trying to impress or overwhelm me with an overly ‘literary’ presentation – a problem for many first-time novelists. I also liked the character development. These were not one-dimensional caricatures meant as simple placeholders for a plot. I cared about them and their foibles.

Most of all, I liked the poker and the familiar Las Vegas settings. I liked being brought into an ultra-luxury suite at a Strip casino. I liked the poker tournament action. I wished there had been more of this – as I’m sure that Isaac’s experiences could have provided a bookful. Perhaps she’ll treat us to this in her next offering. I can’t wait.

White Knight Black Nights
Author: Susie Isaacs
Mimi Mc Publications
November 2007
464 pages, $19.95

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Bally’s is not a superficially appealing room. First of all, it’s hard to get to, almost as if the casino wants to hide it away. It’s tucked away in back of the race book on the sixth floor of the casino. Nothing but the race book and a keno lounge is up there. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as there isn’t the typical noise of slot machines or craps-table shouting to distract the serious player. But the room is also neglected… the lighting is very poor. The tables are arranged haphazardly and awkwardly, around and behind
an intrusive board that obscures a player’s view of other tables. The bathroom is also bizarre – a maze-like array of mirrors and stalls. The poker room itself is non-smoking, but there’s smoking right outside the room and it tends to waft in.

Even so, the room management tries to do the best with a bad situation. They offer free non-alcoholic drinks and snacks that include, unique among poker rooms in Atlantic City, hot dogs. They also give players $1 an hour in comps – good for food or for a room. There is regular tableside food and beverage service, though the food service tends to be fairly slow.

The poker room has twenty tables; that’s not to say, though, that it’s a very big room. Though my last visit was on a Saturday afternoon of a holiday weekend, when one would expect a poker room to be at its busiest, only seven tables were going when I arrived. Three were limit hold’em; three were no-limit hold’ em; one was stud.

The room is a low-limit poker room but with some interesting variations in the standard fare. In addition to the standard $2/4 limit hold’em, Bally’s offers a $1/3 no-limit game, with a buy-in of $100 to $300. Also unusual in Atlantic City is $1-5 spread-limit seven-card stud with a $.50/player ante. Other places that spread this level of stud tend to spread it with no ante.

I played the no-limit game. It was a mix of older regulars and somewhat younger, but still not youthful, tourists. No one seemed very experienced at no-limit, with a couple of wild players present and the rest sedate and timid. The two guys sitting next to me were waiting to get into the stud game. They mentioned that late at night there was sometimes a $2/5 no-limit game – but they never played such high limits.

The stud game was filled with senior citizens. I didn’t see a player who looked under seventy. The limit tables had a mix of players, racially and demographically, but there were few if any players in their thirties or twenties. That’s very unusual these days. Most other casinos in Atlantic City were full of youngsters who looked barely old enough to play legally.

There’s a bad beat jackpot for both stud and hold’em. The former stood at $84,000 and the latter at $13,000 when I was there. You have to have quads beaten to qualify. The room also boasts regular tournaments. They had a no-limit one going off at 2:00 PM the Saturday I was there. There’s a regular schedule of weekly tournaments as well, but you’re best off to call in advance to see the latest lineup of games and tournaments, since these things change regularly.

The staff has been exceptionally friendly and accommodating to me when I’ve visited. They do this in spite of appearing overworked. Most are seasoned veterans who know their trade well.

The attached property, the Wild West Casino, used to run constant sit-and-go tournaments. This no longer is the case, as it was shut it down in early fall of 2007. Bally’s did not elect to pick up the sit-and-goes in its room. As far as I know, there are no regular sit-and-goes in Atlantic City (unlike at Foxwoods, which runs them constantly, 18 hours a day).

All told, the room had a sort of an old-fashioned, off-the-beaten-path charm to it, with its combination of dusty tables and older clientele. As a mid-limit stud player, I doubt I’d come by here much. But if I wanted a soft spot for low-stakes no-limit action, this would be a good place to develop my basic chops before I started to take on the tougher action in some of the other rooms. Even so, I might not be able to stand the lack of good lighting for very long. And I’d have to keep an eye on my diet – unable as I was to resist the temptation of free hot dogs while I played.

Bally’s Casino Atlantic City
114 S. Indiana Ave
Atlantic City, NJ 08401
(609) 340-2000

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I played limit hold’em for about an hour, winning $15. Half of the table was women who had never or only rarely played. The other half were men who weren’t much more experienced. It was the type of game with a lot of laughing, a lot of calling, and expressions of surprise if anyone raised. It was just the type of game for a limit hold’em duffer like me!

The room was well run – though a few things bothered me. There was smoking right next to the open front of the room – so it was impossible to avoid smoke coming into the room. I found that annoying and easily remedied just by having a smoke-free zone within ten feet of the entranceway of the poker room. Alas, when I left the room I smelled like cigarette smoke.

I didn’t care for the policy of dealers sharing their tips – as they did in this room. I prefer to be able to toke an individual dealer for skillful and quick work. Resorts has no say in this, however. Apparently, this is the law in New Jersey for any room with 15 or fewer tables. Curiously, though there was no financial incentive to be so, the dealers were as good as I’ve found them – skillful at dealing the game, funny when appropriate, and unobtrusive when there was action in the game. I’m not sure why the best dealers I found in Atlantic City (and perhaps in any card room I’ve been to) happened to be at the smallest and least prestigious room I’ve visited, but there you have it.

The house rakes the standard 10% of each pot with a $4 maximum. There is no bad-beat jackpot. Players earn $.50 an hour in comps if they have a player’s club card – which is easy and free to obtain.

I was lucky during my one hour of limit play. On my fifth hand I was dealt aces. I played them strictly by the book, raising the blind, and then coming out for a bet on each of the next three successive betting rounds. I got five callers before the flop, three after the flop, two on the turn and two on the river. They all laughed when I turned them over and raked in the largest pot of my session. That’s what I like: fun players who can enjoy the game even when someone else wins the pot!

The game was entertaining – made so by a dealer who kept the action lively and the players lighthearted. I’d come back to Resorts for low-limit action in the future. If I had a friend or two who had never played before, this is the place I’d take them in Atlantic City to introduce them to the game. Win or lose, I’m sure they’d leave with a fun memory.

Resorts Atlantic City
1133 Boardwalk
Atlantic City, New Jersey 08401
800-336-6378

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It was a beautiful, cloudy, windswept November morning as I walked down the boardwalk from the Hilton to the Tropicana – a five- to ten-minute stroll depending on one’s pace. It was refreshing to breathe in the salt air and take in the sights – helping me relax before my playing session. It’s one of the things I like best about playing in Atlantic City. It’s easy and invigorating to get the easy change of scene that comes from hopping from
room to room.

The Tropicana, known as the “Trop” to those who play in Atlantic City, was one of the first places (along with the Taj Majal and Resorts) to open a poker room when poker was legalized in New Jersey in the mid-1990s. The Trop’s poker room itself is set away from the casino floor – with two sections. They used to use one for smoking and one for non-smoking. But now they are all non-smoking – as stud games tend to congregate at the end of the larger room, while the smaller room tends to get the middle-limit games. There really is no high-limit action here.

The place was not what the players would describe as busy when I entered mid-morning on Saturday of the Veteran’s Day weekend. There were only eight tables going (out of 40 or so). There were five ‘flavors’ of poker games being spread: $4/8 limit hold’em, $2/4 limit hold’em, $1/2 no-limit hold’em, $2/5 no-limit hold’em, and $3/6 stud. This was the standard compliment. The only games missing were the $5/10 no-limit game that they sometimes get later on Saturday and a $5/10 limit stud game that usually goes as the day progresses. When I asked the floor if they ever get bigger limit or no-limit games the floor told me, “Nah, these are generally all retired folks playing little games”. I think he was mistaken about his demographics. But I’m sure he knew what stakes he spread. Later calls to the room never turned up anything bigger than $4/8 limit or $2/5 no-limit.

Unlike other poker rooms in the area, players at the Trop buy their chips at the table for the most part (though one can buy them at the cashier too if he prefers). The five dealers I saw while I was there were all extremely competent – quick, efficient, informative when asked questions, but not chatty or intrusive to the game. They’d announce action, keep their eye on the game, keep play moving, and answer any questions. In this they were the best dealers I encountered during my time in Atlantic City. They kept their own tips, as opposed to pooling them. It showed.

I played some $1/2 no-limit – the only game that had an empty seat when I arrived. There is a cap on the buy-in – no less than $60 and no more than $300. That’s pretty much the standard in public poker rooms these days – though a few places cap the buy-in at $200 or even $100. The days of midget stacks seems to have passed – fortunately.

Players are raked at the standard amount of 10% with a $4 maximum. Unlike many other rooms in Atlantic City, there is no bad-beat jackpot. I prefer that. I don’t like having money taken out of the pot for what amounts to a lottery. And when a player wins the money, it doesn’t stay on the table. It often doesn’t even return to the poker economy – as players take their enormous jackpot winnings (in excess of $100,000 sometimes) and spend it on things other than poker – like paying their bills or buying non-poker merchandise. (Geez, people, where’s your sense of priorities?) The one advantage to a bad-beat jackpot is that it tends to draw players to a room. But from what I’ve seen, players who come just for the jackpot tend to be rocks – giving very little action as they just try to stick around long enough to be present when the jackpot hits. They may keep an otherwise weak game alive – but they surely don’t contribute much to the bottom line of the serious player.

As in nearly all of the Atlantic City casinos, there is tableside waitress service, drinks are free (though only a real freeloader doesn’t tip at least a dollar per drink), and food can be delivered to the poker table – though it isn’t free. There are discounted poker rates in the hotel for players – though no one quite knew what they were. “You get about 20% off of whatever they feel like telling you the regular rate is,” one wag offered, not-so-helpfully.

The Trop runs regular poker tournaments during the week at 10:15 AM and 7:15 PM, with only the evening ones running on Saturday and Sunday. The Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday PM tournies are $100 — $15 of which is the entry fee, $85 of which goes to the prize pool. Though a 15% seems high, especially when live games are raked at 10% — it’s actually a little better than the 20% or higher that I’ve seen at most small tournaments in other casinos. Players get $10,000 in chips – with blinds starting at $25/50 and going up every 20 minutes. That gives the player about as much play as I’ve seen. The AM tourney is half the buy-in for half the stack. There are also $85 tourneys on Mondays and Thursdays and a $120 tourney on Tuesday and Friday night.

I had one especially memorable hand while I played at the $1/2 no-limit table. I was dealt K-10 suited in the cutoff. An early, overly aggressive player raised to $10. Two players called him; I guess they had typed him as overly aggressive, too. Normally, I toss K-10 into the muck with a raised pot. But the combination of my position, the number of callers in front of me, the type of player I read the raiser to be, and the fact that my cards were suited caused me to call. The button and the big blind also called.

The flop was the near-miraculous A-10-10 (suits didn’t matter). The early-position raiser bet $30. No one called in front of me. I raised to $90. The player after me called. The first bettor folded after a very long pause, saying “I’m folding a monster”. The turn was a queen. I did not think that the button would have played K-J for $90. I put him on an ace – maybe A-Q. I went all in for my remaining $200 or so. The button called me. The river was an unhelpful deuce. My opponent turned over 10-9. He was stronger than I thought but not strong enough to win; I stacked him because my king kicker played. Sweet!

Shortly thereafter I noticed that a seat had opened up in the $3/6 limit stud game. I left my no-limit hold’em game up a couple of hundred, and sat down to play some stud. Every player in the stud game had gray hair — those that had any hair, that is. Though I had just recently turned 50, I estimated that I was the youngest player by at least 30 years.

The structure was deadly. There was no ante, just a $1 forced bet from the low card, and then $3/6 limit. Or maybe it was just the combination of the structure and the style of play of the stud players that caused the game to be so dreadfully boring. I don’t write this just as an outsider. The players themselves were carping about how the Trop never should have switched the regular stud game from $1-5 spread-limit to $3/6. On the other hand, I imagine that when the game was $1-5 spread-limit the players carped about changing it to $3/6. It’s just the nature of being a regular poker player. We like to complain!

In any event, I played for about an hour. I must have seen fifteen hands that went the same way. The low card brought it in for $1. A player raised to $3. Everyone folded. Or, a little less frequently, but still common, a player brought it in for the dollar. Six players called. The dealer dealt fourth street. One player bet $3 and everyone folded.

As bad as the game seemed for the players, it must have been torture to be a dealer. I can’t imagine that they make much in tips in a game where the average pot is $1!

All of the players agreed that the $5/10 game, which wasn’t going when I was there but which they said would almost surely go off later on Saturday, was much better. It has a $.50 ante with a $2 forced bet.

Somehow, I managed to win $7.00 during my hour or so at this table. I had one contested hand – at least until fifth street when my two opponents folded– and I picked up a few forced bets and some loose calls on third street – who folded when I raised to $3. I’d like to say that the experience was pleasant — because the players were all so sweet – but I really was itching to leave.

The Trop is a smaller and more subdued version of the Trump Taj Majal, known familiarly as “The Taj” – a popular and busy room that attracts some of the young players that fill up so many poker games today. Even at full bore – on Saturday night, when I’ve visited in the past – The Trop is a pleasant place without the loud raucousness of the Taj. I always enjoyed playing $5/10 and $10/20 stud here at the Trop – and I’m sure I’d enjoy playing $1/2 no-limit, $2/5 no-limit and $5/10 limit stud here in the future. But sweet though those retirees were at the $3/6 no-ante game – I’d have to pass on that game during my next visit to the room.

Tropicana Casino and Resort
Brighton and the Boardwalk
Atlantic City NJ, 08401
1-800-THE-TROP

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