just returned from the showboat on june 24, 2008 and enjoyed myself immensely there. i hadn't been there in a year during which the casino moved and improved the poker room. spacious design with a window to the boardwalk and beach that reminds you that there is life outside of the poker room. the dealers were efficient and friendly, the tables and chips were clean, and the tournaments were run well -- although the tournament director at times forgot to bump up the blinds when the clock expired. then again, the buy-in for each tournament (11 a.m., 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. on this particular Tuesday) was only $65, which is a steal. there are a few beginners trying to wade their way through the sharks, but there are also some experienced veterans there, too. i generally found that the older gentlemen were just as sharp as the young guys. because i lasted a while in the tournaments, i never got a chance to play in the cash games. therefore, i can't comment on the action at thos tables. there are a few negatives. the casino is still in the process of applying for a food license. until then, you can't eat at the tables. a player convinced a local pizza joint to deliver to the poker room, but the employees would not let him eat at the table except during breaks. there are three windows to sign up for tournaments, but usually only one was open, which could make for long lines. if you play, bring a sweatshirt and/or pants because the a/c is cranked up to the max. finally, every poker room has its share of characters, but i never saw a fistfight until the one that exploded over in the cash-games section. aside from that, however, the showboat is an excellent place to play. i would recommend it.

The Showboat used to have this nice cozy room upstairs which felt homey. They've since moved ther poker room downstairs onto the casino floor. The room is much more spacious than it was, with the benefit of nice bay windows overlooking the boardwalk, but it's also much noisier. The cash games at Showboat are just eh, with the Borgata eating up most of that good action. But the tourneys are their huge strength. Showboat spreads, by FAR, the best daily tournaments in the entire city. The tourneys are deep stacked, with generous levels and NO ANTES. The Saturday night 11PM tourney, for $100 + $25 has 20 or 25 minute levels, starts with $15,000 in chips and blinds at 25-50. And it usually gets around 100 participants.

I spent two days in mid-August 2009 playing here. They were always spreading 1/2NLHE and 2/4LHE, and the one night finally got enough interest for a 2/5 NLHE, though it didn't appear to last more than a few hours. The min buy-in for 1/2NLHE was $60 and the max $300.

The room is big and never crowded, and is conveniently located by the main door off the boardwalk. It's smoke-free, and there's no smoking going on near it, either--in fact the casino floor is not really that close, though you can hear it. The cage and bathrooms however are just a few steps away. There are the usual flat-screens all over the walls, tuned to ESPN and the like. You can order food at the table, and the cocktail waitresses come by frequently to take drink orders or hand out bottled water. If you wind up waiting for a table, you can probably catch the little New Orleans show they do every few hours in the lobby right in front of the room.

The dealers are generally chatty and friendly but are also stern enforcers--they'll catch an attempt at a string raise and put an immediate stop to it, for example. This is good, but if you breach protocol accidentally (like when I tried to post the SB when I first sat down, when I needed to wait for the button) you can feel like a schoolboy caught in the hall without a hall pass. Some dealers are more fun and jokey and others are all business, but none seemed able to get cards across the far end of the table accurately so watch where your cards land. They also wouldn't count-down pot sizes, even on request, so keep track of the pot yourself if you want to know how big it is. The dealers rotate out every 30 minutes.

I played in one of the daily tournaments. I admit I have nothing to compare this to because I never played in a live tourney before; but I found it annoying that the blind levels on the board were for an earlier tourney, that the director was very poor at keeping the number of active players up-to-date (that earlier tournament, for example, showed 62 out of 64 players still in--even though they were in the 10th level!) I never did see what the payout structure was, how many places were ITM, what the blind structures were, and I have no idea where I busted out exactly. There seemed to be a fair number of tournament specialists playing, and although I guess 20 minute blinds with a deep stack is considered relatively slow, it still seemed to play like a turbo, with it being a shove-fest from the get-go. Again, for all I know, this is standard for daily live tournaments. If you want to play in one of the four or so they run each day, be sure to have a Harrah's loyalty card, as you cannot register without one.

As for the cash action: the tables were nearly always full, and there were at least two of each of their usual games; but never more than four. The longest I waited was maybe 20 minutes for a seat, and often there was no wait at all. This was on a weekend in the middle of August, which I imagine would be peak for AC action.

The brush desk was generally pretty unresponsive--they'll stand there typing into their computers for 5 minutes before looking up at you and acknowledging your presence. To add to the confusion, there are two desks, one facing outward into the lobby, and the other facing into the room. Both are often populated, and no matter which one you walk up to, they'll tell you to use the other one. But despite that bit of rudeness, they're usually pretty friendly and helpful--once they finally notice you.

The cash players were nearly all tourists. They may be AC regulars, but there didn't appear to be any flat-butted grinders who live in the room. Rather, there was lots of drinking, eating, sports talk, flirting, and goofing around. That doesn't mean the games were soft, however; the NLHE play was generally tight-passive, which is a hard game to get rich on. On the other hand, it's a hard game to lose your stack in, too, so you can spend a long time at a table on your buy-in. (The brief stint I had at the Limit HE table was quite different--that crowd was a lot looser, but, it's limit, so good luck. I will say that the players at the limit tables were very, very relaxed and friendly--this is purely a social thing for them for sure, whereas the NLHE players, even at their most relaxed, were more intense.)

To summarize: I found this to be a really laid back room that was welcoming and enjoyable, if not perfect. It seems a great place for low-stakes hold'em action for the average AC visitor looking for a quick seat at a table, a cold beer, some friendly conversation, and a chance to win a few chips.