The Downside of the Boom

By David Apostolico

Back in the 90's, the Tropicana was the only poker room in Atlantic City that held daily tournaments. The tournaments were spread across various games, so Friday was the only day that a No-Limit Texas Hold 'em tournament would be held. These tournaments typically carried a $100 (plus $20) buy-in, and would attract close to 150 people. Most of the participants were regulars, and just about everyone knew how to play.

With only one no-limit tournament a week to play, you could count on pretty solid play. Hardly anyone was willing to go bust early on without the nuts. Today, just about every casino in Atlantic City has a poker room and just about every room has at least one, if not two, no-limit tournaments a day. I rarely play low buy-in tournaments anymore, but I had the chance to do so, recently, at the 2nd Annual Poker Author Challenge at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City.

I took the opportunity to spend some time at the Taj playing a variety of games and talking to a number of people to write an update on the state of poker. On the plus side, the room was bustling, the games were juicy, and the players were for the most part upbeat and positive. In addition, if you are a No-Limit Texas Hold'em player, your choices are endless. Daily tournaments, around the clock sit-and-go's, and cash games for every bank account are available.

On the downside, I noticed the following:

• The daily tournaments have a super fast structure, and the play is so poor that the luck factor is maximized.
• With so much action, casinos make numerous mistakes.
• If you play Seven Card Stud, good luck finding a game.
• The decorum exhibited by a distinct minority is reprehensible.

Let me offer a few examples of what I witnessed. First, the tournament was delayed over thirty minutes as most seats were double, triple or quadruple booked. The Taj was alerted over two hours before the start of the tournament that they were assigning the same seat to multiple players, yet still couldn't straighten things out in time.

There seemed to be a trash-talker at every table who had to openly question the play of others, and make insulting and rude comments. Of course, as you might expect, anyone who disparages another's play usually can't play, himself. At one table, two players were going at it so hard that after one head's up hand between the two, one player stood on his chair screaming "Eat &%# and Die!" repeatedly. That display resulted in a rather lax ten minute penalty and that was only after an uproar from the rest of the players.

An hour later, another player was ejected for cursing out the tournament director and threatening to punch him in the mouth. The lesson seemed to be yell at each other all you want, but yell at an employee and we won't put up with it.

As for actual play, I saw players calling all-in pre-flop bets with Ace-rag when they still had plenty of chips to play with. I saw another call big bets on the turn and river when there were four hearts on board and the caller only had middle pair. I saw another player with pocket queens limp from late position when the blinds and antes were high. After giving the big blind a free look at the flop, the flop came K-8-2 rainbow. The big blind bet out and the limper immediately moved all-in. The big blind called with K-10 and the limper went on a tirade about the "bad beat" he had suffered. Needless to say, it was a challenge putting some players on a hand.

In the middle of the day, I had lunch with one of the other authors at the tournament who I respected a great deal. He lamented that he wished the poker boom had never happened. He thought that the learning curve of newbies was greatly accelerated by the advent of online play, and prevented them from losing a lot of money in the brick and mortar casinos as part of their learning process.

My takeaways are that the game is thriving, and that's a good thing. While the rate of new players coming to the game is slowing, it is still much higher than it was five years ago. There are plenty of bad players - especially at the lower limits and lower buy-in tournaments. Those games will prove profitable for solid players but if you choose to play them, be prepared for a large variance and to encounter some real characters along the way.

About the Author
David Apostolico is the author of numerous poker books including Lessons from the Felt, Machiavellian Poker Strategy, and Tournament Poker and the Art of War. You can contact him at thepokerwriter@comcast.net.

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