Let me start by saying that I really enjoyed my time spent in the Showboat’s poker room. It has a feel to it that’s hard to describe–a cross between a hunting lodge and a smoky New Orleans blues house. The fact that it’s literally across the hall from the House of Blues helps, and the music in the background is the best you’ll find at any casino world-wide.

There are two major negatives for Showboat though. The first is that it’s new–they opened the same weekend (about a month ago) that Caesars opened their poker room (my Caesars poker room review is here, and I’m appending an update at the end of this post). As such, many of the dealers are brand new and have no idea what they’re doing. The presence of shuffling machines greatly speeds things, but dealer errors, and general dealer slowness are both irritating.

The second problem is that they have a hard time getting enough people in the room to have many games going. Part of this is by design. Unlike Caesars, Showboat has done nothing (yet) to advertise their new room. They’re doing this on purpose to give their dealers a chance to get more comfortable, and to work all the kinks out of their operation. I heartily applaud this decision of theirs.

Did I mention that Showboat has the second-best looking cocktail waitresses in Atlantic City? No? Well they do. (The best looking, by a wide margin, are to be found at the Borgata).

I thoroughly enjoyed my time spent playing at the Showboat’s poker room, and I will definitely be back. Word-of-mouth already seems to be drawing people into the room, as it’s just a wonderfully nice ambiance. I wound up leaving eventually, because the room’s reputation had drawn a lot of AC’s best no-limit players. Fish coming to the table would leave broke in under an hour, and then it would be back to circling sharks.

Caesars Update: Two weeks since my original visit to Caesars, and I can honestly say they have improved significantly. The dealers have benefited from the 2 weeks experience, and they’ve added shuffling machines to the tables, greatly speeding the pace of play. The dealer with Parkinson’s is still there, but even he has become substantially faster and more competent.

Also, the action is quite good at Caesars. It seems to attract a large number of fish, and my biggest profits came from playing there. In my last session (I was in AC for six days), playing $1-$2 no-limit (max buy-in $300), I walked away over a $600 winner.

Posted by Beck in Poker, Reviews