Video Poker Forum

As stated last week, I went to Atlantic City on Friday, October 3 for a
scheduled 7-8 day excursion, which would be my first trip back to the
city-by-the-sea since ALL three closures (Trump-Plaza, Revel and
Showboat) had fully taken place and been implemented.   Needless to say,
I braced myself for an anticipated depressing experience and I was not
disappointed.I left Hartford early Friday AM, and reached NYC
(Port Authority) by 9 a.m.    I took a cab over to where I had plans to
meet and catch up with a friend from School....we met and had breakfast
at a well known place ("George's") near the financial district.  He
actually works for a bank and we discussed the ongoing saga of Atlantic
City and what it has meant for Wall Street and the Investment/Financial
community.   Specifically, we discussed the battle between the Trump Taj
employees union and Management (i.e. Carl Icahn) and whether or not the
Union will accept the drastic (draconian?) measures management insists
are needed to "save" the Taj from closing by November 13 and filing for
bankruptcy!   For those of you who do not know, the current management
of the Taj Mahal in AC is insisting that the union representing the Taj
employees accept management's proposal to discontinue ALL health care
benefits currently being received by Taj employees through the company's
health plan, and have the union arrange for health coverage for all Taj
Union employees under the Affordable Care Act (i.e. "OBAMA CARE")!     More on this topic later in this post.....After
breakfast, I resumed my trip to AC and arrived at the Taj around 1:30
pm.   While en route to AC, I received a text message from Billyjoe
announcing he was running behind schedule due to a flight delay to
Philadelphia.   We had tentative plans to meet up at Harrahs sometime
that evening just to introduce ourselves (he had a EARLY departure for
his cruise scheduled for the next morning Saturday October 4), and then
we'd meet up again when he returns October 11.    That was the plan
anyway.....After getting to the Taj, I relaxed and planned my
next several days activity.  I had almost $200 in free slot play at the
Taj, so I went down to the casino around 3 pm to start things off with
the free play.   The first thing I notice is how EMPTY the casino is,
considering it is a Friday and the weather was perfect.   It was DEAD.  
I went over to the 9/5 DDB Progressive 25 cent machines and saw that
the jackpot was at around $1400, and only 5 people playing the 12
machines....so I downloaded all 200 bucks of free slot play and went at
it.....less than 20 minutes later I was done....all 200 bucks free slot
play GONE.  Did not, could not, would not hit a goddamn thing......I
think I had maybe 2 full houses, a few flushes and that was
it......endless streaks of 2 pair, single pair and then NOTHING but
dead/dud hands.    9/5 DDB at $1400 jackpot is not the greatest ROI
game, but at the Taj it is about as good as you can find, with a couple
small exceptions.   One of those "few" exceptions though at the
Taj is a single machine sitting amongst a bank of 12 game kings
immediately Diagonal to the bank of Progressive DDB games I just
played......a single Game King machine with a whole lot of 99%-plus
games on it!   Sticking out like a zit on Cindy Crawford's face!    I
found 8/5 BP, 9/7/5 DB, 9/6 DDB (and for whatever reason, the STRAIGHT
FLUSH payout was set at a bizarre 275!!?!!   never seen that before!)  
There were also a lot of "weird" but friendly games/paytables, like a
Double-Double Bonus Poker PLUS game that offered 9/6, and a SUPER DOUBLE
DOUBLE game that was 7/5 on the paytable for Fullhouse and flush, but
that had its straightflush max coin payout set at 500 (100 was for 1
coin)!   I had to pull out my calculator but found that this Super
Double Double game was technically a 99.2% and not the 98% I originally
assumed!     Anyway, I plopped a couple hundred of my own money into
this machine, wondering why in all my previous trips I had never seen
this machine previously and guessing that they probably just recently
set these paytables.......or not?!??!     I could not be sure either
way......anyway, I started banging away.For about 45 minutes I
just ran in place, but the pattern was the same:  I'd get in the hole
about 50-60 bucks, and climb out of it back to even......go down again
about 80 bucks, climb back up to even.......down 70, then back to
even......NEVER was I able to get up more then 10 bucks during this 45
minute exerecise;   and then boom, I hit my first quad, 7s for 250!    I
then did my imaginary "Shock Wave Poker exercise" where I count off ten
hands to see if another quad pops up, pretending I am playing Shock
wave Poker with its 4000 credits for the second hand of QUADS within 10
deals......Nope, nothing doing....in fact NOTHING period.....After my
Quad 7s I went 21 hands in a row of NOTHING!   Zero value dud hands!  I wound up checking out of that machine up about 15 bucks.....I rested some more, ate dinner and headed over to HArrahs by way of Golden Nugget, where I first dropped in to see what the Poker Tournament schedule looked like for that week....I think I mentioned Golden Nugget is one of the better places to play N/L holdem tourneys, its low pressure, but good value for your buy-in.   While I was at Golden Nugget, getting ready to make my way to Harrahs to check out their poker action and say "Hi" to Billyjoe, I got another text from Billyjoe where he said he was running extremely late, was dead tired and could not meet up at that time, so I wished him Bon voyage and went about my business......Over the next day and a half, I lost about 150 bucks total playing mostly 8/5 Bonus Poker (99.17%) and a few hands of the least bad DDB paytables I could find at Resorts and the Golden Nugget.   On Saturday (oct 4) I played in a Golden Nugget Tournament and cashed in 5th place for about 450 bucks, then played $2-4 Holdem for several hours and won all of 40 bucks!!!   AGain, it beats losing and at GN you earn decent comps playing real poker.Sunday My Mom arrived but immediately was not feeling well and she wound up going home the next day.   My Gaming action from Sunday thru Tuesday Night was more of the same, decent success playing live poker and no success at all playing Video Poker.   I played VP everywhere that is left in AC with the exception of Borgata, had a lot of close calls with four cards to a royal but never hit anything, not even premium quads with the exception of one four aces at Ballys for 800 quarters.    Those progressive machines at Ballys and CAesars that are now server based are really really tough to win at.....it seemed every time I played one of them, I would dig a hole and then spend the next two hours trying to get out of that hole.....it was uncanny how that experience just kept replaying over and over.Sadly though, I had to cut short my trip because on Tuesday night, I called to check on my mom and she had to go to the ER that afternoon so I immediately got on the bus Wednesday and came back home.  She is doing better now, but it was a brief scare for all of us.   I would hate to think  AC made her Ill but that turned out not to be the case......All in all, My VP losses for the trip totaled about 800 bucks and my Poker playing netted slightly more than 1,000 profit so I was plus 200 for the trip.   This has been the case more often than not the past visits to AC going back over the last year.    If I completely STOPPED playing VP and focused solely on live poker, I would not earn the free rooms and comps, which I value as much for the convenience as the actual dollar value.....i.e. having a free room available almost always versus always having to make reservations and paying (which includes security holds and deposits on your cards etc.   Comps are valuable for their convenience in my opinion.)   Plus, I dont want to give up VP completely...aside from keeping my skills sharp, I remain hopeful I will one day be proven wrong that AC video Poker is different than other markets (i.e. Nevada)To be continued.......

Back to the whole TAJ MAHAL situation and their Unions versus Icahn battle to "save" the property from closure.....While I may have heard in NYC that the Union might ultimately give in to the TAJ Management's demands to ditch the company health coverage, when I spoke to a number of actual Taj Employees who are in the Union, they all ADAMANTLY denied that they will EVER give in to such a demand!   One lady whom I am well acquainted who works in the Taj's GO Cafe, told me that "We'd rather lose our jobs than have the Union give in to that demand, and the reason is simple:  The Union (Local 54)that represents the Taj ALSO represents other casino employees (Trop, Ballys/Caesars, and others) and if they can get us to drop our company issued health here at the Taj, then the other casinos will likely do the same at some point in the near future."     This is what she told me anyway, and that getting Obamacare for the Union employees is something that the Union leadership COULD DO in the future, but not in the short hurried time frame that the Taj Managment is forcing upon them.    Its all very frustrating and sad, and the hostility between the Trump Taj Management and the Union employees is palpable.I heard stories of management excess and incompetence at the Taj over the past 10 years that will make your head spin, as well as anger you to the core!   The sheer arrogance and greed of these top execs giving themselves massive bonuses by simply slashing costs and never putting a dime back into the property year after year is self evident when you simply look and walk around the Taj...it is an absolute dump now.   And last year's bursting pipes flooding the casino floor fiasco will be repeated this winter if we experience another similar stretch of bitter cold weather, so if the Taj somehow survives, stay out of it this winter!Here's the corker:  When talking with my friends in the GO Cafe in the Taj, I was there for my morning coffee and donuts (they had the best glazed donuts in my opinion.)  except this time, there were NO DONUTS!   Now imagine how disappointed I was (as well as about 200 other people that morning!)   The reason there are NO DONUTS??   The Taj Mahal has NOT paid the Donut Vendor in the last 60 days!!!    Can you friggin believe that???    How much do you think the Taj's Donut Bill is each month?  $1500 bucks??     When I heard that I was incensed....I know exactly what these scumbag A-holes "managing" the place are doing.....in anticipation of shutting down in Bankruptcy, they are pulling a typical deadbeat tactic......in the event they do shut down, the extra cash they accumulate by not paying certain "non-critical" expenses/bills will be available for their final SEVERANCE/Termination/Golden Parachute etc etc payments!    Later on I found out that maintenance had to send someone down to a shopping plaza for some WD-40 because the Taj Purchasing department stopped buying almost everything except "essential operational items" last month!And dont ask about the Taj SULTAN'S FEAST BUFFET.....totally GROSS, and Chairman's club, likewise.....First week of November, about 10 days before the November 13 deadline, I am due for one more "stay" at the TAJ in the Chairman's tower rooms (which thankfully are the ONLY parts of the Taj which have been kept up reasonably well over the years!)

  DaBurglar please don't state again that I am stalking you just because I am the first to respond to your forum post. I would like to point out some observations I mentally noted while I was reading it though. 1 - So in your first paragraph you are actually HAPPY that you had a depressing experience in your latest trip to Atlantic City? 2 - In your last paragraph you say that you would not earn the free rooms and comps that you do if you COMPLETELY stopped playing video poker. You have mentioned in prior posts that you were considering only playing video poker occasionally in Atlantic City because you were going to focus on your live poker game and you would play video poker only as a short change from playing live poker. My point returns to the comps because in paragraph 8 you state that at GN you earn decent comps playing live poker. Which is it? 3 - And this is the most important: in paragraph 4 you use a profane, offensive, VULGARITY. Did you really feel the need to write: goddamn?   Posting vulgarity in the forum is a breech of the forum rules. You recently posted that you would post no more in the forum. I know you attached a few "conditions" under which you would make a post but with this most recent forum rules violation it may be in your best interest to stick to your word and not make any more forum posts. This is the part now where you say that post was taken out of contest yadda, yadda, yadda. Video poker in Atlantic City stinks and is unfair yadda, yadda, yadda.

As stated last week, I went to Atlantic City on Friday, October 3 for a
scheduled 7-8 day excursion, which would be my first trip back to the
city-by-the-sea since ALL three closures (Trump-Plaza, Revel and
Showboat) had fully taken place and been implemented.   Needless to say,
I braced myself for an anticipated depressing experience and I was not
disappointed.I left Hartford early Friday AM, and reached NYC
(Port Authority) by 9 a.m.    I took a cab over to where I had plans to
meet and catch up with a friend from School....we met and had breakfast
at a well known place ("George's") near the financial district.  He
actually works for a bank and we discussed the ongoing saga of Atlantic
City and what it has meant for Wall Street and the Investment/Financial
community.   Specifically, we discussed the battle between the Trump Taj
employees union and Management (i.e. Carl Icahn) and whether or not the
Union will accept the drastic (draconian?) measures management insists
are needed to "save" the Taj from closing by November 13 and filing for
bankruptcy!   For those of you who do not know, the current management
of the Taj Mahal in AC is insisting that the union representing the Taj
employees accept management's proposal to discontinue ALL health care
benefits currently being received by Taj employees through the company's
health plan, and have the union arrange for health coverage for all Taj
Union employees under the Affordable Care Act (i.e. "OBAMA CARE")!     More on this topic later in this post.....After
breakfast, I resumed my trip to AC and arrived at the Taj around 1:30
pm.   While en route to AC, I received a text message from Billyjoe
announcing he was running behind schedule due to a flight delay to
Philadelphia.   We had tentative plans to meet up at Harrahs sometime
that evening just to introduce ourselves (he had a EARLY departure for
his cruise scheduled for the next morning Saturday October 4), and then
we'd meet up again when he returns October 11.    That was the plan
anyway.....After getting to the Taj, I relaxed and planned my
next several days activity.  I had almost $200 in free slot play at the
Taj, so I went down to the casino around 3 pm to start things off with
the free play.   The first thing I notice is how EMPTY the casino is,
considering it is a Friday and the weather was perfect.   It was DEAD.  
I went over to the 9/5 DDB Progressive 25 cent machines and saw that
the jackpot was at around $1400, and only 5 people playing the 12
machines....so I downloaded all 200 bucks of free slot play and went at
it.....less than 20 minutes later I was done....all 200 bucks free slot
play GONE.  Did not, could not, would not hit a goddamn thing......I
think I had maybe 2 full houses, a few flushes and that was
it......endless streaks of 2 pair, single pair and then NOTHING but
dead/dud hands.    9/5 DDB at $1400 jackpot is not the greatest ROI
game, but at the Taj it is about as good as you can find, with a couple
small exceptions.   One of those "few" exceptions though at the
Taj is a single machine sitting amongst a bank of 12 game kings
immediately Diagonal to the bank of Progressive DDB games I just
played......a single Game King machine with a whole lot of 99%-plus
games on it!   Sticking out like a zit on Cindy Crawford's face!    I
found 8/5 BP, 9/7/5 DB, 9/6 DDB (and for whatever reason, the STRAIGHT
FLUSH payout was set at a bizarre 275!!?!!   never seen that before!)  
There were also a lot of "weird" but friendly games/paytables, like a
Double-Double Bonus Poker PLUS game that offered 9/6, and a SUPER DOUBLE
DOUBLE game that was 7/5 on the paytable for Fullhouse and flush, but
that had its straightflush max coin payout set at 500 (100 was for 1
coin)!   I had to pull out my calculator but found that this Super
Double Double game was technically a 99.2% and not the 98% I originally
assumed!     Anyway, I plopped a couple hundred of my own money into
this machine, wondering why in all my previous trips I had never seen
this machine previously and guessing that they probably just recently
set these paytables.......or not?!??!     I could not be sure either
way......anyway, I started banging away.For about 45 minutes I
just ran in place, but the pattern was the same:  I'd get in the hole
about 50-60 bucks, and climb out of it back to even......go down again
about 80 bucks, climb back up to even.......down 70, then back to
even......NEVER was I able to get up more then 10 bucks during this 45
minute exerecise;   and then boom, I hit my first quad, 7s for 250!    I
then did my imaginary "Shock Wave Poker exercise" where I count off ten
hands to see if another quad pops up, pretending I am playing Shock
wave Poker with its 4000 credits for the second hand of QUADS within 10
deals......Nope, nothing doing....in fact NOTHING period.....After my
Quad 7s I went 21 hands in a row of NOTHING!   Zero value dud hands!  I wound up checking out of that machine up about 15 bucks.....I rested some more, ate dinner and headed over to HArrahs by way of Golden Nugget, where I first dropped in to see what the Poker Tournament schedule looked like for that week....I think I mentioned Golden Nugget is one of the better places to play N/L holdem tourneys, its low pressure, but good value for your buy-in.   While I was at Golden Nugget, getting ready to make my way to Harrahs to check out their poker action and say "Hi" to Billyjoe, I got another text from Billyjoe where he said he was running extremely late, was dead tired and could not meet up at that time, so I wished him Bon voyage and went about my business......Over the next day and a half, I lost about 150 bucks total playing mostly 8/5 Bonus Poker (99.17%) and a few hands of the least bad DDB paytables I could find at Resorts and the Golden Nugget.   On Saturday (oct 4) I played in a Golden Nugget Tournament and cashed in 5th place for about 450 bucks, then played $2-4 Holdem for several hours and won all of 40 bucks!!!   AGain, it beats losing and at GN you earn decent comps playing real poker.Sunday My Mom arrived but immediately was not feeling well and she wound up going home the next day.   My Gaming action from Sunday thru Tuesday Night was more of the same, decent success playing live poker and no success at all playing Video Poker.   I played VP everywhere that is left in AC with the exception of Borgata, had a lot of close calls with four cards to a royal but never hit anything, not even premium quads with the exception of one four aces at Ballys for 800 quarters.    Those progressive machines at Ballys and CAesars that are now server based are really really tough to win at.....it seemed every time I played one of them, I would dig a hole and then spend the next two hours trying to get out of that hole.....it was uncanny how that experience just kept replaying over and over.Sadly though, I had to cut short my trip because on Tuesday night, I called to check on my mom and she had to go to the ER that afternoon so I immediately got on the bus Wednesday and came back home.  She is doing better now, but it was a brief scare for all of us.   I would hate to think  AC made her Ill but that turned out not to be the case......All in all, My VP losses for the trip totaled about 800 bucks and my Poker playing netted slightly more than 1,000 profit so I was plus 200 for the trip.   This has been the case more often than not the past visits to AC going back over the last year.    If I completely STOPPED playing VP and focused solely on live poker, I would not earn the free rooms and comps, which I value as much for the convenience as the actual dollar value.....i.e. having a free room available almost always versus always having to make reservations and paying (which includes security holds and deposits on your cards etc.   Comps are valuable for their convenience in my opinion.)   Plus, I dont want to give up VP completely...aside from keeping my skills sharp, I remain hopeful I will one day be proven wrong that AC video Poker is different than other markets (i.e. Nevada)To be continued.......


   I wanted to paste it BEFORE you had the opportunity to remove the vulgarity in paragraph 4.

  DaBurglar in the bulk of corporate bankruptcy filings most payments made to vendors within a certain period of time prior to the bankruptcy filing are recoverable from said vendor by the court.    This wasn't discussed among the group at GO Cafe? Shocking....

One other thing I noticed (and so did many other people) on this trip to AC which, again, is my first since the complete shutdown of all three casinos last month (Trump, Revel and showboat).....it is truly depressing seeing these properties just sitting there, empty and vacant and dormant.   Ac has a real problem going forward if they cannot somehow do something with them......they kill the mood on the boardwalk, and next summer, if the TAJ goes as well, the steel pier will likely be shuttered, which in turn will put HUGE pressure on Resorts since they will be the only casino left on that portion of the boardwalk.     Its like dominoes......The shock and dismay when talking with employees in all the remaining casinos is palpable.....one dealer at ballys had a very good line when he said less than 3 years ago, when the state of new Jersey started the whole CRDA effort with the "DO AC" slogan capaign, this entire situation was inconceivable.....if someone had said we'd lose 5 casinos within less than one year, NO ONE would have paid any attention to him.    If somehow Revel is resurrected (as there appears a great chance), and if somehow TAJ survives, that will help.....but in my mind, the Trump Plaza is a really important spot, simply due to its prime, prominent location.

This post makes me very nervous. I am scheduled to stay at the Taj on 10/24-10/25. I can only imagine what the place will look like after another 2 weeks go by.

This post makes me very nervous. I am scheduled to stay at the Taj on 10/24-10/25. I can only imagine what the place will look like after another 2 weeks go by.Here's my advice:  if you are Chairman status DEFINITELY have them book you in the chairman tower....many Chairman status people used to forgo the Chairman tower because of the extra distance and effort it takes to get there in relation to the main casino and lobby.   They'd opt instead for the main (i.e. Non-chairman) tower....I used to do this until about 4-5 months ago.If you are not Chairman, ask to stay in one of the lower floors in the main tower...they receive more attention and therefore the rooms are a little more well kept (but you still might have issues.)  Not onyl that, in case the "shaky" elevators finally give out, you will not have as far to walk down in terms of stairs.And if you have not already figured, when it comes to your gambling in the Taj during this trip, ONLY play your free play and make sure you use up all your comps before you leave.....do the bulk of your gambling with your own money at places like Borgata, Golden Nugget, Ballys/Caesars, the Tropicana or Resorts.   At least they will be around for at least another 6 months to a year.And good luck.......

This post makes me very nervous. I am scheduled to stay at the Taj on 10/24-10/25. I can only imagine what the place will look like after another 2 weeks go by.
   JWF if you search through DaBurglar's posts you will see that he sings the same song over and over and over and over again.    Many people here have posted successful gaming trips to Atlantic City and they've also had a great time at whatever property they were staying at. Getting all worked up simply because there are none of the "delicious" donuts available doesn't seem reason enough for someone like me to get worked up. But then again; different donuts for different folks.

Keep up the good work Da