toastcmu's Blog

I finally decided to take a mental health day from work and go check out Harrington Raceway and Casino - from my place, it was just over 2hrs driving, so it makes for an easy day trip. They recently changed the table games hours to have them closed from 4am - 9am during the week. I arrived about 8:45 and noticed that a few dealers must have shown up early, as a few tables (Miss. Stud, i-table BJ) were up and running. I signed up for the players card, and they told me that if I got 20 points that day, they'd give me $20 in freeplay. Overall, I thought casino was a nice, medium size casino, with a small table pit area in the center, similar to Dover. One thing I noticed was their shufflemaster electronic blackjack machines where Hit Soft 17, which was a surprise. I eked out a whopping 0.50 profit there. By then, I noticed that the i-table was free, so I gave a try, since I had never seen one before. Interesting concept for sure, but with H17 and a CSM, it's not the greatest option. I played for about an hour and made $75, so I was happy with the end result. One player did have the i-table stand on a hand she wanted to hit, because she kept banging on the screen in frustration. The floor supervisor had to swipe and manually delete/enter cards for about 5 minutes to fix the issue - I'm surprised it doesn't cause more problems than benefits for the casino. Finally, I ventured over to the craps table, which finally had more than single shooter. Yay for $5 craps outside of Vegas!!! I played for a little over and hour with people, where we all were taking turns throwing the dice for 10-15 minutes a piece, hitting points, and making each other money. I even made a few bets for the boys which hit, making the crew very happy. I colored up for another +95, and collected my freeplay, which I actually turned into another $11. All in all, not a bad place, although it doesn't really get busy till about 11a-12pm. I did not get to check out the poker room, but noticed it was hidden far away from the action.

-B

Well, my work did their annual trip to AC, so I tagged along again - one big change is that we are large company, and we would usually get 5-7 buses from Va, and this year there were only 3 - and the 3rd bus driver told his bus that he had to leave early at 6pm, as opposed to the 8 hrs we got (12-8).

This year was to the Trop - we got $20 in slot money, which I turned into $15 on the JoB machines. Off to a good start. Took some time as they only appeared to have about 1/3 of the tables open before swing shift arrived (Pa competition?) - All the mins were $15 and up except for the carnival games.
Took a while for me to find a spot, but finally sat at a H17 (Boo, Trop used to be all S17) table - it looked near the end of the shoe so I told those there I would wait - good thing I did, as they all busted out with the dealer turning 20/21 every hand. I start the shoe with a dealer BJ - but it improved from there and I left up $40 or so.

I finally hit the Tiles table, my archnemesis, and survived 90 mins, but lost about 80, but it was only 3 bets (always a $25 min), so I don't feel bad.

One of my coworkers wanted to learn Spanish 21, so I brought him a cheat sheet, and we sat down at the table for a few shoes, it was a great table, with a young lady who had a chance to win the super bonus, but it wasn't to be. She was appreciative of the advice of not to split though, when she saw the reason why! I broke even on that table.

It was now about 5pm, and now the trop was completely full of people, so off to the tiles table - I played two spots, but the luck was not there. I even played banker this time, and the one time I get to play bank, guess what my hand was??? H6 L4 L6 L7. Damn, there goes any luck I had. I blow through 180 in no time, and call it a day.

Aside from the large amount of closed tables during the day, one thing we all noticed is the cut backs on CW - Before the evening rush, you would have to wait 10 mins or more for a drink. I can't imagine how long it would take during the night, as I didn't see any appreciable increase in the # of wait staff.

Well, my wife and I are off to AC next weekend, so hopefully my luck will be better - I think I'll be sticking solely to VP this next trip.

I went to Dover Downs the other day, and was playing Pai Gow for the normal "flea" amount of $20 a hand - the table was only going so-so, and was full, but I was teaching a co-worker how to play too. For the first time, I decided to bank against a full table, as a full on-gamble. One other gentleman had banked and gotten a 3 pair monster hand, so I figured I would give it a one-time shot. One player doubled his bet to $50, so I had to pull an extra $100 out of the wallet to cover all the wagers on the table.

When I finally look at the hand I was dealt it was the following: Ac Asp 7c Joker 8h 9h 10h !!!

After my shock and surprise, I set my hand and announced to the table that it didn't look good for them. I cleaned the entire table at once for about $160. My poor table mate left in disgust and I had to issue my apologies to his wife. She laughed it off. I did not tempt fate and bank again, and figured I'd wait for another time and day to tempt the card gods!

-B

I finally took the plunge and decided to dive into live poker today. All in all, I played tight for most of my time at the table (a little over 2 hrs). Unfortunately, I got burned on the turn - I had AK pre flop, the flop came out Q J 8 rainbow, I bet 23, river was J, which I checked, and turn Q. I got jaded after the river, and neglected to remember the full house, and threw another $45 in the pot, and my opponet flipped AQ. I can't complain, as I didn't throw many hands away like that, but that was 80% of my loss for the day.

Charlestown continues to take $6 time charge which some people complain about, but it is nice to see pots without a rake. They had 4 tables running when I showed up around 11am, and by the time I left, it looked like a dozen tables were going, including a 2/5 NL game that seemed to have about 3k a pot every time. All the players had purple chips and not in small stacks either. :)

On the way out, I threw my obligatory $10 in a double diamond VLT, and it rewarded me with a $50 payout to help stem the loss. ;)

-B

Just wanted to say a quick thanks to the Wiz again for teaching me Pai Gow Tiles - I went to Atlantic City recently, and played about 80% tiles at the Borgata.

Surprisingly, when I sat down at 4pm, the dealer informed me that he had been standing around for 4 hrs, I was the first person on a Friday night to even play! My Vietnamese friend who does not know how to play, sat with me, and the dealers were impressed that I was trying to teach him how to play. :)

One other thing that was interesting, the limits never changed all night on a Friday - $20 minimum. The Pai Gow Poker tables were packed at $40 minimums, but I was happily playing with the Asians with still 2 seats open. Around 2:30am, I decided that I would leave once I lost a $40 bet. Thanks to the Pai Gow gods, I didn't leave until 4:15am. 40, 20 split two hands, it didn't matter, I won or pushed each hand.

I was surprised that even the Borgata seemed emptier than I remember for a weekend (not that I was complaining).

One non related note, I was surprised to see Hollywood Charles Town did $5.66 Million in revenue for the first month of table games. Of course at $25/50/100 minimums, any casino would make money. ;)

-B