I have in DC visiting a good pal who is also a poker player. We decided we would spend the week being social rather than gambling 15 hours a day and this spent just one day at the card room and that room was Maryland Live. It couldn't have begun better as I dialed up the casino in transit to get us both on the $2-5NL list. We rolled in about 30 minutes later and got to sit next to each other at a new table. A baseball game was playing right behind the dealer's ear and the cocktail service was prompt unlike my recent experiences in southern California. It also looked nice. Half the poker rooms in Florida looked dinghy and some of the rooms in California look overgrown Moose lodges.
As a $2-5NL player I have a much better luck in rooms where they are playing higher stakes at other tables. Maryland Live was running a $10-25NL which meant there were fewer serious players stuck at $2-5. Still, this was a tougher $2-5 game than any of the Southern California casinos I played in May and tougher than my Florida games in Pompano and St. Pete. If I were 25 years old it would be tempting to become a congressional aid and spend my downtown playing poker on the side. This can't be more than 30 minutes from Capitol Hill although it will probably take a hit when MGM opens at National Harbor.
What made this game tough was younger and more serious players. I was down at least $350 before I came back to win $112 after about 6 hours of play. It helped that I was a new face and my early losses made the regulars see blood in the water. They had no trouble paying off my high hands when they finally arrived.
I would typically put this to the top of the list, but with National Harbor opening in December and so close to where my pal lives I might not make it back anytime soon.
