Big summer ahead for Bally's new WSOP-themed poker room

From Casino City Times:

Early on a Thursday afternoon in late April, the new World Series of Poker room at Bally's Atlantic City's Wild Wild West casino felt a bit empty. The 42-table room, which also features a large section for tournaments and an additional, closed-off "high limit" area, had six live cash games running. It was quiet.

To its credit, the WSOP room has remained fluid since it opened in late February.

"The traffic's been pretty steady," said Dan Morelli, who manages poker for Caesars Entertainment's Atlantic City properties. "We don't go dark at all, and our weekend tournaments are starting to gain some traction."

Check out the rest of the Casino City Times story here.

It would be nice to see the poker scene in Atlantic City come back to life, but a number of rooms have shut down over the last year, and the Pennsylvania market has taken a big chunk out of Atlantic City. Summers may be good because there are more people in AC, but it's hard to think that the casinos will ever bounce back.

WSOP National Championships to be played at Bally's Atlantic City

From Poker News:

The World Series of Poker Circuit, currently in its 10th season, will culminate at the new WSOP-branded Bally’s Atlantic City poker room from May 22-24, 2014 with the fourth-annual National Championship. The tournament will be recorded for future broadcast on ESPN, and will also award a WSOP gold bracelet to the winner.   

Read more from Poker News:

Rumor: Bally's changing Bad Beat Jackpot rules

I've heard a couple of rumors that once the current bad beat jackpot is hit at Bally's (which sits around 220K right now), the casino is changing the requirements.

According to this thread on the Two Plus Two forums, the BBJ will become quad Queens or better to be beat. Then, go down hand-by-hand.

By this account, it seems Bally's is trying to cash in on the craziness that was Caesars a few weeks back. Caesars filled the entire room with NL games and had people waiting on lists for, literally, hours. The BBJ got publicity in the local newspaper and gave some exposure to Caesars.

A high BBJ will draw in a crowd, but with such high requirements, who will be play there?

Harrah's Bad Beat Jackpot Hit

I know there have been people coming around looking for information on the Harrah's bad beat, well I am here to tell you that the bad beat was hit on Wednesday around 4 p.m.

I don't know exact details, but I don't think it really matters because that means the bad beat is less than 200K. Probably settled in around 35K or so. I guess that just leave Bally's as the only bad beat over 100K.

More Bad Beat News

Showboat and Caesar's have both hit since the last time I wrote, but Harrahs and Bally's are still going strong.

Harrah's is now pushing 200K. For those that dont know, it's aces full of jacks or better beaten, but you have to have a pocket pair in that situation, the same with quads.

At Bally's, it's quads or better beaten and the whole room gets a slice of the bad beat.

Atlantic City Bad Beat Jackpots

As far as I know, the bad beat jackpots at the Harrah's casinos are all above 100K with the Harrah's being the largest right now. Harrah's is around 180K last I heard.

I haven't been in any of the rooms in about week. Here are my rough estimates on where the bad beats are. If the bad beat is important to you , call each room. Some of the estimates are being conservative.

Harrah's: 180K
Caesars: 105K
Showboat: 123K
Bally's: 105K

Big Upcoming Tournament in the Resort

Here's a list of the big upcoming tournaments. The special ones, not the daily tournaments in Atlantic City.

Trump Taj Mahal
April 26 (today): 50K Guaranteed. 7:15 pm. $300+$40.

Borgata
May 4-6: $500,000 Guaranteed, deep stack tournament. $2,000+$150
June 9 and on: Borgata Summer Open

Harrahs
May 3: Ron Jaworski Celebrity Poker Tournament.

Bally's
Jun 18: $150,000 Free Roll. You have to play 60 rated hours in the month of May to qualify.
As a side note, the bad beat at Bally's rewards everyone in the room, not just the table of the occurrence.

Shady Poker at Its Finest

I go through poker sites daily to see if there is anything new or fascinating I need to know about. Eh, mostly because I get bored at work and need something to entertain myself.

So, here I am on the Harrah's poker site, where you can get a daily update on the Bad Beat Jackpot. Next to Bally's (the shadiest card room in Atlantic City) is an asterisk. We all know what asterisks mean -- problems.

This is what it says in the fine print though:

"*Bally's Bad Beat Jackpot is paid when a hand of Four Deuces or better, loses to a bigger hand at showdown. Both of the hole cards of the winning hand and losing hand must be in play. 30% of the jackpot is paid to the loser of the hand, 20% paid to the winner of the hand, and 50% is divided between all other qualified players in the room."

Every other Harrah's property is Aces Full of Jacks or better is beaten. The loser of the hand gets 50 percent, the winner gets 25 percent and the rest of the table gets the other 25 percent.

Why do the same rules not apply at Bally's? Is it because all of the shadiness that went on with this room when the bad beat was brought in. I think the bad beat was hit about four times in a week. I might be slightly off on that count, but I think I am fairly close.

I know for a while the Bally's dealers had to use shufflers and shuffle the cards once they took it out. Honestly, I haven't played in months. Ever since a dealer told me to muck my hand in another language.

I get he was being nice to me and trying to help out, but I like to hold up the integrity of the game and I am not trying to win with an unfair advantage.

A.C. Bad Beat Jackpots

The Harrah's properties and the Hilton have Bad Beat Jackpots in Atlantic City.

Here is a list of the current jackpots (as of Monday night).

Bally's: ~ 97,000
Caesars (Didn't answer the phone when I called): less than $20,000. It got hit at $130,000 and then $27,000 recently. It was reseeded to $10,000 just last week.
Harrahs: ??? Apparently it's too busy on a Monday to answer the phone. UPDATE: I was told the jackpot is around $53,000 by a reliable source.
Hilton: ~$27,000
Showboat: $30,363

I'm going to try and update the totals every Friday from now on. This way anyone who wants to come down on the week will know the jackpot totals.