East Coast Trip Report

kewljason

Well-Known Member
I just finished what will be my last session of a six week stint on the east coast. (AC with two trips to Foxwoods) I have played 800-1000 hours in Atlantic City and Foxwoods each of the last 6 years, so I am pretty familiar with the games. I don't know if I have been spoiled by 3 months in Vegas over the winter or these games are deteriorating (hard to believe), but it was very difficult to find playable games on this trip. Foxwood was the worse, with this, manage to full policy. They refuse to open enough tables. They would rather have people standing around not playing for some reason. :confused: Oh you can find a seat at $25 tables, your chances of finding one with only one or two other player, (or three for that matter) where you can actually get in some decent hands per hour are nil. Now in fairness to them, both my Foxwood trips where mid week. It has been suggusted that they open more tables on weekends, but of course that comes with much more crowds.

Atlantic City boardwalk casino's seem to be following in there footsteps. Not enough tables open. They would rather have 4 tables open and full with 8 people milling around looking for seats than open 6 tables. I did play there both weekdays and weekends. The one exception in AC is, as everyone knows the big house in the marina district. This place is still playable and still nicely run. It has always been a misfit in AC. Let's hope it stays this way with whatever change in ownership is coming.

After racking up just over 2000 units in just over 18,000 hands during the first two months of the year in Vegas, my 6 week east coast results were a very pedestrian -15 units in roughly 5700 hands. This included a win in the one playable AC location of 258 units offset by losses of 273 units at 4 boardwalk locations plus foxwoods. I know this is a very small sampling, mostly rendering these numbers meaningless, but yet I find this breakdown, not at all surprising.

A couple thoughts on 'new' games in AC. I made my way to the far south end of the boardwalk twice to get a look at and play this much talked about and hyped 2 deck game (talked about much less now with the disappearance of one particular member...lol). The first occasion, there was too much heat for my liking. I didn't even play. Second occasion, I played for 15/20 minutes and actually had a decent win, but again, there really is a lot of attention from management. Too much for my liking, plus it's not as if it is some great game, countingwise. Very mediocre. The second 'new' game was the Resort's Retro game. $2-$20 blackjack with a 25 cent ante on hands of less than $10. I couldn't care less about this game, except that two 'retro' tables have replaced two regular tables, meaning at slow times there will only be 2-3 regular bj tables open, pretty much making what I personally have considered an underrated location, unplayable for me. Too crowded/not enough tables now. :(

I should mention that my -15 unit figure does not include a 4 grand win on VP while playing through casino cashback, so all was not lost. The 5700 hands played represents roughly 140 hours. Thats about 40 hands per hour. :eek::( far less than the 65-70 I average in Vegas, and this number would have been even worse if most of my play this trip hadn't taken place in the one good location that you can actually move around.

This trip was so bad that I attempted to rearrange my flight schedule and return to vegas early, but the airline would not co-operate so I stuck it out, which was good. I got to experience the east coast spring weather, visit with friends and catch 3 games of my beloved Phillies, plus got a break from Vegas, which hopefully will help my longevity. I will be returning east the end of june when summer starts to heat up the desert, but after this trip I think my blackjack play will be at a minimum probably getting a look-see at Pa and Delaware games. Keep me posted on what those games look like, but I am not expecting much.
 
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21forme

Well-Known Member
You may want to think about learning that game where they take the tens out, for times you're in AC. My last 2 years of play in AC was 80% that game and 20% BJ.

BTW, I responded to your PM a few days ago, in case you didn't see it.
 

aslan

Well-Known Member
kewljason said:
I just finished what will be my last session of a six week stint on the east coast. .......................................Keep me posted on what those games look like, but I am not expecting much.
You've got east coast blackjack down to a tee. lol I'll be back in Vegas myself in three weeks.
 

b jay cobbson

Active Member
Nice report...

...But you left out the food part. For some reason, your posting about A.C. reminded me of the Knife and Fork Inn in A.C. I don't know why. Think I'll go out and have a nice steak meal tonight.

Jay Cobbson
 

cc218

Well-Known Member
i was bored the other day so i looked through the PA Gaming Boards regulations for table games. looks like blackjack is going to the be S17, split up to 3 hands, no RSA. not sure about surrendering as it really doesn't mention it. for penetration it says something like, "the cut card must be placed at least 1/4 of the way from the back of the deck". I also didn't notice anything dictating number of decks or csm/asm.
 

aslan

Well-Known Member
I heard Delaware was going to have sports betting, too. Currently, AC only has track betting. What about PA?
 

ChefJJ

Well-Known Member
aslan said:
I heard Delaware was going to have sports betting, too. Currently, AC only has track betting. What about PA?
The sports betting issue has quite a good deal of Federal hangups. Delaware is one of four (if I recall correctly) states to be grandfathered in, Nevada obviously another.

Don't expect PA or NJ to offer sports betting unless the rest of the country can do it :mad:

good luck :joker:
 

ChefJJ

Well-Known Member
Very Thorough Report

Thanks for a look into your east coast exploits, Kewljason. Happy travels and best of luck to you back in the desert.

21forme - interesting tip about the "other" 21 game. Any recommendations on a solid reference book for this? Thanks.
 

aslan

Well-Known Member
ChefJJ said:
The sports betting issue has quite a good deal of Federal hangups. Delaware is one of four (if I recall correctly) states to be grandfathered in, Nevada obviously another.

Don't expect PA or NJ to offer sports betting unless the rest of the country can do it :mad:

good luck :joker:
Another great benefit of Federal intervention to make life better for all of us.
 
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