July 25, 2004 Archives

I'm writing this midday Sunday. There hasn't been any sun or even the glimpse of the nighttime sky since we've been here. Sort of depressing.

As opposed to Las Vegas, this isn't a good place for Steffie. The hotel, beautiful as it is, is very kid unfriendly. We are removed from the Boardwalk and midtown Atlantic City, though that would make little difference.

Helaine took Steffie to the Boardwalk yesterday, but they stayed only a short time. She was disappointed by the whole honky tonk, sleazy, scene. Of course that's what Helaine and I like about it. More than anything, we enjoy the people watching, because there are characters of every sort.

We had dinner at the buffet at The Borgata with my friend Peter. I first met him in the early 70's when I was working in Cleveland. He was the first person I ever met who owned a calculator! He still has it. Later, Peter became my boss - the program director at WPEN radio in Philadelphia. We have been very good friends for 30 years.

The buffet is definitely a Las Vegas contender. There were carving stations and lots of interesting, well prepared, dishes.

A chef was making some spaghetti sauce, I believe using vodka. I tried to take a photo, but was too late. So she put some vodka in a pan so I could have a photo op. Very appreciated.

Unfortunately, she was on the high end of service employees who don't reach the same level as in Vegas. I'm sorry to do all these comparisons, but it's only natural. And, time-wise, from where I live in Connecticut, Las Vegas isn't that much farther away.

We had tickets to the comedy show at the hotel for 9:00 PM. I figured, since it was crowded, that I'd go down and register for poker before we went. That way I wouldn't have to wait as long. As it turned out, my name wasn't called until 11:30!

The comedy show, in the same room that Helaine and Steffie saw Rick Springfield the night before, was pretty good. There were three comics, "The Coach," Jack Fontana, and Pete Correalle.

We all agreed Pete Correalle was the best. In some ways he was reminiscent of Seinfeld. He was in control and laid back.

I thought Jack Fontana, an 'old school' joke teller ,was better than "The Coach," but I was alone in that impression. Either way, both were worse than great, better than bad. Entertaining, but not special.

Last night, the casino was as crowded as any casino I had ever seen. And the crowd was younger than any casino crowd I'd ever seen. Many of the women were dressed in that tawdry, slutty way that's OK for women, as long as they're not in your family.

I headed down to the poker room to wait out my table. When I say down, I really mean it, since the room is in the basement.

Like the main casino floor, the poker room was astoundingly crowded. I did get a chance to see what the floor people were carrying. They each have some sort of HP PDA with 802.11b access to the poker room system. So they can work the lists and do nearly everything that can be done from the podium.

I sat at a $6/$12 Hold'em table and slowly began to lose money. It wasn't long before I was down $100. But I was playing decently (though not as tight as I'd like)¹, so I figured I'd be OK.

My losses stabilized for a while and then I went down again. I had lost $130 or so when things began to turn. I won a few small pots. At least two times everyone laid down their cards to my bet on the river. I think I won because of my earlier semi-tight play. Then I won a few bigs hands.

By the time I went to cash in my chips, I had won $176. So, three sessions for $96, $5, $176. I'm happy.

As I walked through the casino, after 2:00 AM, things were still jumping. In the elevator, yesterday's Rear Window had given way to Lost in Translation.

¹ - It's reasonable to ask, if you know you're not playing right, why not just do it? The brief answer is, while you're at a table, you're always looking at the hands and evaluating them. But you're also there to play, which is what you don't do when you lay your cards down. This is less a problem on-line. Even though I can intellectualize the problem, I don't always act with my intellect.

When I came into the room last night, I was surprised to have over 150 emails telling me about comments posted on my blog.

They were all coming from the same place - a series of sexually oriented websites. The purpose was to get their address on my website so search engines would consider them more important. I suppose it works, which is why it's done. Here's an article from Wired which goes into more detail.

To me, that meant manually removing every spammy message. It was a pain until I figured out how to automate the removal. Even then it's dumb to be forced to do this.

There is a way to protect myself from this automated onslaught, and I'll implement it when we return to Connecticut. I'll also be looking to see if Google is willing to accept the names of these spammers, so their trick stops working.

We slept in pretty late. It was late enough that I missed my friend Barry, who decided to go back to Philadelphia early because of the bad weather.

My breakfast, at the Metropolitan, was strawberry pancakes. Not bad, but not special. Breakfast was fine.

Afterward Steffie and Helaine set out to see the new outlet stores. I headed to our room where the Phillies / Cubs game was in progress on TV. I wouldn't have stayed but Eric Milton was on his way to a no hitter.

Unfortunately, in the 9th the no hitter went bye bye. In fact, Milton was pulled with the score tied 2-2. I left to play poker and watch the end. By the time I got downstairs the Phils had won 3-2.

Poker had been pretty good to me. I had won all three times I sat down to play, so I decided to go up in stakes. I put my name on a list and in a few minutes was playing $10/$20 Texas Hold'em.

To me, this is scary territory. These pots can hold significant cash and require a significant investment. Right away I promised myself to play tight. Unlike the lower stakes tables I normally play at, there is no rake here. Instead each player is charged $5 every time the dealer changes (every half hour).

It didn't take long before I won my first hand. The afternoon went very well - not perfect. By the time I cashed out, I had made another $915.

This has been a significant poker event for me. Discounting the tournaments I played (because the payoffs are so concentrated in placing high), Las Vegas wasn't too bad for poker either.

I think I am now a good poker player. Not great. Not excellent. Just good enough to hold my own in mid stakes ring games. That's a heck of an accomplishment and I'm happy about it.

I'm going now to play a little more.