i like to see lots of flops & you get way more premium hands with this structure

i was dealt AA's three times, QQ's once, JJ's three times, and 10's twice because i played for so long

AA's, QQ's, JJ's, and 10's all let me double up & being able to see a flop around 4:00pm pre-flop with 3 other callers let me also double up when i flopped a set with a baby pair & someone called my all-in with a premium pair

none of that will ever happen in a normal A.C. tourney unless you are on a great run of cards because it moves so fast

anyway, i like the structure because it lets me play more smallball while i wait for the opportunites to play longball

my point is that the structure awards patience

sure, it is a long day but worth the chance to win the big prize

i would have went farther if i had not went completely card dead & got caught on a semi-bluff in my last blind level

i will be back in 2 weeks

Trip Report
Sunday, February 19, 2012

Some co-workers told me about the official Grand Opening of the poker room and since I was off work on Sunday, I decided to try the room out with a tournament that looked like it would have a decent number of players and a nice enough structure.

I got a late start and didn’t get to the parking lot until about 11:40 for a noon starting time. I almost went the valet route but I read that the previous day’s tournament wound up starting late so I didn’t want to pay extra if I could get there on time.

I never went there when it was the Trump Marina so I didn’t know anything about the lay of the land. There was a lot of construction throughout the public areas, but I guess that’s to be expected. Although they had signage throughout the casino about the Grand Opening of the Poker Room, there weren’t any signs to show where the room was. I wound up asking a security staffer who pointed me to the back of the room.

Once I got to the back, I naturally got in a line of a couple dozen people. There wasn’t anyone around who was able to answer questions so I leaned towards the podium and asked a suit if I could register without a player’s card. I was told no, so I wound up having to head away to another part of the casino to get in another line first.

I got to spin a wheel to get up to $1,000 in slot play. I got $5, the first bad beat of the day. At least this means I can continue to successfully avoid slot machines without feeling any remorse.

Got to the poker line a little after noon. The tournament started a little late but still before I got over to my table.

The $40+10 tourney wound up with 89 runners, 70 of whom did the $20 add-on for 5,000 more in chips (myself included). I will sum up the tourney experience thusly:

1) The field was a pretty typical one for a holiday weekend in Atlantic City – a lot of weak players. Mostly all erred on the side of passivity though a few agro-types also reared their heads.

2) I mixed things up more than I usually do – by my nitty standards, this meant raising with suited connectors and smallish pairs relatively early in the tourney. This was generally met with disastrous results. I also smooth-called twice when I was three-bet when I shouldn’t have (once with AQs and once with 89s). I regretted doing it and deserved worse than the whiff on the flop-fold to a continuation bet that happened both times. I didn’t mind the former, but the latter was stupid.

3) That said, I got enough good hands (one nice hand pitted my AA against KK and someone who felt compelled to call both of our preflop All-Ins with Q9h because he claimed to be getting the right price – he wasn’t) and won several key races with all the money in pre (88 held up vs. AK and QT in a three-way; AQ took out Jacks) and I did make a few successful steals and bluffs that I went deep into the tournament.

4) Most awesome hand: Lady min-raises from UTG+1 while I am in the BB. It folds around to me and with a QT of Clubs, I have to call. Flop comes QTx with two hearts. I check, she bets, I make a decent raise. After a delay, she goes all-in and I snap call. She turns over AK, no hearts. “I thought you were on a draw,” she said. Whatever…

Dealer burns and turns… A Jack! Nooo! This gives her Broadway and I am sick. But a lovely 10 of spades on the river saves the day and vaults me to 2nd chip position.

5) (I have to admit that I yelled “That’s what I’m talking about” when the ten hit. I realize I did this in a $50 buy-in tournament. I am sorry.)

6) I wait until the last of the small stackers get eliminated and immediately offer to chop. Lady in the hand above is a huge chip leader with more than me and the other guy, who in the last couple of hands overtook me for 2nd. The payout was $1900 for first, $900 for second and $500 for third.

I suggested that the lady take $1600 but 2nd place guy said it was too much. She says “I’d chop for $1300” and he suggests she take that and he get $1100 and I take $900. Guarantee me second place money? **** yeah!

I left after getting the buffet (decent value at $17.99; my friend got a free one by being in a lucky seat in the cash games which they drew once per hour) so I didn’t play any cash games.

My friend, who busted out pretty early on, did. He told me that the uncapped buy-in didn’t make much a difference. He bought in for $200 and ran it up to $1100. He was the play was really, really soft. Again, given the quality of the tournament players plus the fact it was a holiday weekend means I was not shocked to hear this. Also, it was all $1/2 with one table of $2/4 LHE. If you wanna play Stud or higher hold ‘em, at least as of now, the Gold Nugget won’t be for you, unless you wanna buy in for ten thousand at the $1/2 game for ****s and giggles.

My friend’s favorite hand (he was not involved in it): A woman who was drinking so much red wine her lips were purple liked to raise to $100 blind. One time she did this, she got two callers. She shipped her last $300 on the flop – and got both of them to call her. She had the nut flush draw. It hit. She won a $1200 pot. Can you say juicy game?

Anyway, now with my thinly veiled tourney brag out of the way, here are my impressions of the room:

NEGATIVES

· The smoke. I am not overly sensitive – I used to smoke myself and second-hand smoke never bugged me much even after I quit. But the areas near the wall where the smoking area of the slot machines is were definitely stinky. My wife could smell it on me when I got home. And even in the other parts of the room, my eyes were watery and weary the whole time I was there.

Maybe since they outlawed smoking everywhere and I am not exposed to it that much these days, I got more sensitive. But if you know for a fact you are sensitive to smoke, this room will hurt. In fact, they moved the final table from there to the back because a couple of women in the tourney complained loudly that they didn’t want the final table there.

· Some very raw dealers. I am very patient with raw dealers – and they had one girl who deals at Delaware Park who was good – but a couple of them were really slow. This was exacerbated by the lack of shuffle machines (even in cash games, I think). Given how many AC dealers have been let go the last couple of years, I was surprised that they had to bring in rookies. But I am sure they’ll get better.

· They don’t use Bravo or the Bravo tournament clock. No average stack listed on the board, no payouts either. You could figure out the average stack since it did list the breakdown of entrants and add-ons but the payout was on a single sheet of paper that they would NOT leave at the final table for reasons that I still don’t understand.

· Beer choice limited to Bud, Miller Light, Coors Light, Corona or Heineken. I drank Bud for the first time in I don’t know how long and I still feel dirty.

· Tournament chip colors are atypical – black is not $100 but $5,000 and the pastel beige $100 chips looked a lot like the dull $1000 chips. This led to some dirty stacks and really unfortunate betting sizing by some people.

POSITIVES

· The floor staff was on top of things. When we had a rookie dealer at the final table, he was standing over him like a hawk making sure that he didn’t screw up.

· They gave out free food a couple times during the tournament. It was just sandwiches and deli tray stuff but it’s still a nice touch.

· The room itself is beautiful. Plenty of room between tables, the tables themselves are really nice and the area has a look to it that makes it look like what could be a high-stakes room in a casino with a much bigger poker room.

· Tourney structure was nice for a cheap buy-in. You probably get a little more play here than at a lot of the other rooms especially with the add-on that goes to the prize fund.

· They already were giving players stuff. Aside from the free buffet every hour, they had high hand jackpots (no bad beat yet) and I think the comps are $1.50 an hour which is a lot these days.

My overall impression was that the Golden Nugget is a work in progress. If you have issues with smoke, you will probably have issues with the room until/unless it takes care of the ventilation. But if you are looking for profitable low stakes fun and don’t have the cash to afford supper, you can get free food and get your uncapped money in good most of the time. It ain’t the Borgata or even the Taj Mahal, but the Gold Nugget allows us low level grinders to play in a nice looking room.

that is a great review & i agree with everything that he said

i wish i had played on Sunday because too many good players showed up on Saturday

i thought the Saturday field would be around 60'ish, i was wrong

I agree with all of the positive reviews about the room. I played in the Saturday tournament and it was absolutely hands down the best structure for the money you will find at any casino, not just in Atlantic City but throughout all of the Northeast.

The room is very nice, the decor is high end, with flat screens everywhere, comfortable chairs a nice little sitting area. The room most resembles Aria in Vegas.

The tournament was run ok considering 100+ more people showed up then they were expecting, 30 minute levels fantastic, new chips, beverage service was fast and efficient. I busted in 24th place - 6 from the money. After playing for almost 11 hours it was tough to go out the way I did. I was above average in chip stack with about $275k. There were 4 limpers I am on the button with pocket Queens I make it 4x to go. BB jams, limpers fold and it's back to me. I'm thinking I would probably make that move if I was him in that spot with top 10% of hands. So I tank for a while and end up calling. Of coarse the BB woke up with AA and has me covered by $11k, just like that I am out.

If anyone would have folded in that spot , please let me know what your thought process would have been. I am still conflicted with my final decision to call being so close to the money.

Ok, now the NEGATIVE parts of the room. The smoke is absolutely horrendous. I am not that sensitive to smoke but from the minute I walked into the room I could not breath properly, after 2 hours my eyes were red and watery, and I was getting light headed. I have never been affected this bad by 2nd hand smoke ever. On breaks the only place to actually escape the smoke cloud is in the bathroom. Guys must have thought I was weird leaning against the wall texting in the bathroom but it was the only place to go for clean air. It was so bad when I got home I had to throw everything I was wearing including my hat and book bag into the washing machine.

Another thing about the Golden Nugget as a whole is that they have to open fast food options, a quick pre made sandwich shop or something. There was no place to go to get a quick bite to eat. On the 30 minute dinner break you had a choice of only sit down restaurants!!! In 11 hours of play I had only 3 pretzels !!! One of the reasons I specifically love Borgata is because of the fast food court they have downstairs.

In conclusion, the room is very nice, great ambiance, pleasant staff and efficient drink service. I honestly don't think I could go back until the smoking situation is fixed, it really was just awful. If they can fix that the room would be an excellent place to play when you are in A/C.

Thanks for both of these reviews, sounds like it could be a pretty good room, and would have checked it out on my next visit, but the smoke is a deal breaker. Hopefully management reads the boards and can move the smoking areas around the room further away.

i heard a shift manager in response to smoke complaints say that a large enclosed area near the poker room is currently being renovated into a bar/lounge and that there will be 5 large ventilation fans on the roof above that area to try & get rid of most of the smoke that comes from the slot areas near the poker room

he also said that bar/lounge is going to open later this month or early next month

that should help because it is pretty annoying smelling like an ashtray when you leave

smoking is one of my biggest drawbacks ... i hate leaving somewhere and smelling like smoke. it's one of the things i dislike about Parx as well - the bar that is in the center of the room allows smoking and it tends to waft toward the room. at least it did last time i was there.

Hey NYC Native
I'm pretty sure I was sitting to the right of your friend on Sunday. The drunk lady was two to my right. It was unfortunate that neither of us could take advantage of her bets because we had too many people to act after us. Your friend was certainly having a great day. He took a lot off me with a boat over my king high flush

I agree about the chips too. It's great that they're clean and legible, but I made a real bonehead play inn Saturday's tournament because I'm used to blacks being 100. I had a decent stack, about 38K around the third or fourth level. I meant to raise 1,800, and actually said "raise 1,800", but unfortunately had already pushed 3 black chips out instead of the 100 chips. I had AKo, so it wasn't the worst possible thing that could happen, but the button called me with 66 and it held up. I pretty much tilted after that and went out pretty early. I did pretty well at the cash table that day though, so not so bad.

The 120+40 add on they had was great, structure good and it played very well.

My only negatives about spending the day in the poker room was the smoke and the cash game action was kind of weak. But its great that 1/2 NLHE has uncapped buy in. Very cool.

Hey, good to see you here! Glad that everyone made money!

How many runners do you guys think will run in the morning feb25th?

Did someonesay they are doing these tourneys for the next 4weeks

i cannot make it this weekend, but please post the turnout for today's noon tourney

i am still debating whether or not to play in next weekend's tourney because of the smoke & too many damn people might show up again

Who's got word on yesterday's numbers?

76 players, miniscule overlay of around $155. 8 paid. 4k for 1st (40%). 1st week, 1st was approx 33%.

Really think they need to adjust payouts. Anything greater than 25% for 1st in a large field tournament is not going to be highly regarded.

wow only 76 players? maybe ill play in that next weekend instead of friday 11pm showboat...

FWIW, the TD said that if this event continues to be well received they would make it a regular Saturday guarantee.

Have they been running more consistent cash games since the first tournaments?

did they start using the exhaust fans to get the smoke out?

while first place does seem a little too high of a percentage of the prize pool, that number of runners still makes it a good tourney for me, i will be down next Saturday

anyone know how long it lasted? thanks

If you can play noon at the GN, don't waste your time at the 'Boat.

The structure at the Boat is way too fast. Don't get me wrong, for what it is, it's not bad. It's basically a DS turbo.

The GN structure is the best in town for the money.

He actually said, "for as long as we're open." Or something close to that.

I thought that was a strange way to put it.

Is the noon tourney the only one? Thinking of heading down today and I am looking for a decent 4pmish tourney to play in plus I haven't seen the room yet.

how many runners showed up for the noon tourney yesterday? with the smoke smell & the WSOP Circuit at Caesar's i played there yesterday

anyway, if management reads this, do not give up, your room has a lot of potential, just get rid of the smoke smell with exhaust fans & understand that your "grand opening" has a lot of competition right now from area poker rooms that all seem to be trying to up the ante on each other right now with tournaments

they have one full 1-2 nl game @ just past midnight, Sunday night... would like to see more game reports...