08-13-2001, 11:59 AM
Ahhhhhhhhhh Vegas Poker. To understand my poker background, please read my previous post with a similar subject line.
A friend of mine from Dallas was also flying in and we were going to stay at the Golden Nugget. My flight from Houston was delayed 5 hours so I arrived in Vegas around midnight. Our original plan was to meet at the airport, go to the Nugget and check in, then come back to the Strip so I could play poker. Because of the flight delays, that didn't happen.
I get to the Nugget around 1 a.m. and we headed over to Binions. There was only 1 Hold'em table going and we put our names on the list. We watched the game for about half an hour and I noticed there was neither a single smile, nor word spoken, amongst the players. I recalled reading that the more profitable games are the happier looking games. We therefore took our names off the list and passed.
On Saturday, we went to the Mirage. Awesome, awesome, awesome. A new 3/6HE table opened and we sat down. In the 9 hours I was there, I experienced pretty much everything I've read about poker in my 3 months of knowledge accumulation. The dynamic of the game changed during the day from loose-passive to tight-passive--it was never aggressive.
There were several standout moments in my nine hours:
1. Drunken Don (names have been changed): a tall wild haired gentleman, who, when he initially sat down ordered a drink that had whipped cream in it. His next drink had whipped cream in it. So did drinks 3 and 4. All four drinks had different types of alcohol, so me and my friend started calling him the whipcream man and the three of us were laughing and having fun. Before long I was drinking coffee with whipped cream. We laughed too loudly however, and the dealer asked us to keep it down a bit. We laughed too loudly for ancient-crabby-smileless (ACS) guy who kept saying, "I came to play poker, not to have an earache" and left. I assure you, we were NOT being loud, especially in relation to some other tables. I had read about the ancient-crabby-smileless guys and now I was able to experience one.
Don's drunkenness and silliness took a bad turn about 6 hours into the game. ACS' seat was replaced by a non-descript person who told Don he should have toked the dealer more than 50 cents on the previous hand. Apparently, Don was a regular at Mirage and took great offense to non-descript's suggestion. Unfortunately, Don went ballistic. He told the player to fuck off, with a whole host of other expletives. The player stupidly increased Don's hostility by pointing out that vulgarity was not allowed at the Mirage and that he'd report him if he didn't stop. Don responded in kind. The dealer tried to calm things down and Don told her to shut the fuck up. She called the floorman who gave Don a warning. What sucked the most was that the game was superduper loose until this confrontation and did not recover for awhile. 25 minutes later, the person who made Don mad said something else and it got ugly again. Don got another warning. Since the player who raised Don's ire saw every single flop he was gone in about 1.5 hours.
Don's behavior disgusted me (not the drunken whip cream stuff, that was fun) and nothing was done about it. I had read about this too and was not remotely pleased about seeing it in person. Don actually appeared to be a decent player and might have been better but for the geometric progression of his drunkenness as the hours passed.
2. Do you know the way to Bad Toupee?
This guy sits down next to my buddy. It looks like he stole his head of hair from a dumpster. As with everyone else who sat down next to us, we tried chatting with Bad Toupee (BT) and he was initially polite. Not for long. He did a blind straddle and apparently didn't notice that 7 people called him. I had no idea what the purpose of a blind straddle was. His bet on the flop knocked out most people except for one caller and my friend. His bet on the turn knocked out one person and my friend stayed in. His bet on the river was called by my friend. He lost as he was bluffing all the way thru. He said "nice hand" and we moved on. Later in the day I asked him about the strategy behind the blind straddle, he looked me dead in the eye and said . . . NOTHING! He completely ignored me. We were two feet from each other and he completely ignored me. I asked him the question easily two hours after he'd lost his bluff and I was genuine in my query. Furthermore, he won a couple of his straddling pots. I have no idea what his problem was, but his actions also amused me.
3. Angry Ballsy Old Guy who Wrote Every Poker Book (we'll call him ABG for angry ballsy guy)
ABG sits down: a healthy looking 60something with a gravelly voice and mirrored sunglasses. He's tight aggressive and knows absolutely everything there is to know about poker. We didn't interact much until Drunken Don (from above) started talking about football. Don was a Broncos fan and apparently the Broncos and Cowboys were playing in a pre-season game. My friend (from Dallas) was offered tickets to the game. He assumed that, since he was offered tickets, the game would be played in Texas Stadium, since it would be fairly cruel to offer tickets to a game that involved significant air travel and not mentioning to the offeree that going to the game involved said air travel. ABG was from the Denver area and said that he just left from there and the traffic was nuts b/c of the opening of the new stadium. My friend relayed that he thought the game was in Dallas. ABG's feathers spread out and he challenged my friend to a $1,000 bet on where the game was being played. My friend said it was worth $10 to him, but not $1,000. Keep in mind that my friend wasn't challenging ABG, he was merely joining in the conversation. One thing I noticed at all the tables I played was that many people, if challenged in any way, be it polite and intellectually, or just conversationally, seemed to want to have a caged death match. Hopefully it was just the sample of people with whom I played. Anywhoo, my friend offered the $10 again, just to put an end to it and AGB practically called my friend a pussy for not accepting the $1,000 bet. The game WAS in Dallas btw.
ABG was not having a good run at the table. I was dealt AA and reraised him before the flop. There were 3 or 4 callers, who all folded to my raise of ABG's bet on the flop, which was ragged. A queen came on the turn and I raised ABG's bet again. He shouted that I should be wary of his Ace and I gently responded that I was just a gambler. A rag fell on the river and I don't know why, but I just called his bet. He turned over AQ, which lost to my AA. It was a nice pot and he left the table grumbling.
I could go on forever as I had many experiences in my brief foray into B&M poker. It was a wonderful time. I bought in for $200 and finished with $280 which came to about 1BB per hour. Had fun and only lost about $30 at the Monte Carlo as well. Monte Carlo had a very familial atmosphere and I liked that a bunch too. I could write an equally long report about my 4 hours there, but I will spare anyone who's made it this far. Going back in two weeks with my wife and I'm trying to coordinate time with her with time at the tables.
Thanks to all for their suggestions about where to play.
A friend of mine from Dallas was also flying in and we were going to stay at the Golden Nugget. My flight from Houston was delayed 5 hours so I arrived in Vegas around midnight. Our original plan was to meet at the airport, go to the Nugget and check in, then come back to the Strip so I could play poker. Because of the flight delays, that didn't happen.
I get to the Nugget around 1 a.m. and we headed over to Binions. There was only 1 Hold'em table going and we put our names on the list. We watched the game for about half an hour and I noticed there was neither a single smile, nor word spoken, amongst the players. I recalled reading that the more profitable games are the happier looking games. We therefore took our names off the list and passed.
On Saturday, we went to the Mirage. Awesome, awesome, awesome. A new 3/6HE table opened and we sat down. In the 9 hours I was there, I experienced pretty much everything I've read about poker in my 3 months of knowledge accumulation. The dynamic of the game changed during the day from loose-passive to tight-passive--it was never aggressive.
There were several standout moments in my nine hours:
1. Drunken Don (names have been changed): a tall wild haired gentleman, who, when he initially sat down ordered a drink that had whipped cream in it. His next drink had whipped cream in it. So did drinks 3 and 4. All four drinks had different types of alcohol, so me and my friend started calling him the whipcream man and the three of us were laughing and having fun. Before long I was drinking coffee with whipped cream. We laughed too loudly however, and the dealer asked us to keep it down a bit. We laughed too loudly for ancient-crabby-smileless (ACS) guy who kept saying, "I came to play poker, not to have an earache" and left. I assure you, we were NOT being loud, especially in relation to some other tables. I had read about the ancient-crabby-smileless guys and now I was able to experience one.
Don's drunkenness and silliness took a bad turn about 6 hours into the game. ACS' seat was replaced by a non-descript person who told Don he should have toked the dealer more than 50 cents on the previous hand. Apparently, Don was a regular at Mirage and took great offense to non-descript's suggestion. Unfortunately, Don went ballistic. He told the player to fuck off, with a whole host of other expletives. The player stupidly increased Don's hostility by pointing out that vulgarity was not allowed at the Mirage and that he'd report him if he didn't stop. Don responded in kind. The dealer tried to calm things down and Don told her to shut the fuck up. She called the floorman who gave Don a warning. What sucked the most was that the game was superduper loose until this confrontation and did not recover for awhile. 25 minutes later, the person who made Don mad said something else and it got ugly again. Don got another warning. Since the player who raised Don's ire saw every single flop he was gone in about 1.5 hours.
Don's behavior disgusted me (not the drunken whip cream stuff, that was fun) and nothing was done about it. I had read about this too and was not remotely pleased about seeing it in person. Don actually appeared to be a decent player and might have been better but for the geometric progression of his drunkenness as the hours passed.
2. Do you know the way to Bad Toupee?
This guy sits down next to my buddy. It looks like he stole his head of hair from a dumpster. As with everyone else who sat down next to us, we tried chatting with Bad Toupee (BT) and he was initially polite. Not for long. He did a blind straddle and apparently didn't notice that 7 people called him. I had no idea what the purpose of a blind straddle was. His bet on the flop knocked out most people except for one caller and my friend. His bet on the turn knocked out one person and my friend stayed in. His bet on the river was called by my friend. He lost as he was bluffing all the way thru. He said "nice hand" and we moved on. Later in the day I asked him about the strategy behind the blind straddle, he looked me dead in the eye and said . . . NOTHING! He completely ignored me. We were two feet from each other and he completely ignored me. I asked him the question easily two hours after he'd lost his bluff and I was genuine in my query. Furthermore, he won a couple of his straddling pots. I have no idea what his problem was, but his actions also amused me.
3. Angry Ballsy Old Guy who Wrote Every Poker Book (we'll call him ABG for angry ballsy guy)
ABG sits down: a healthy looking 60something with a gravelly voice and mirrored sunglasses. He's tight aggressive and knows absolutely everything there is to know about poker. We didn't interact much until Drunken Don (from above) started talking about football. Don was a Broncos fan and apparently the Broncos and Cowboys were playing in a pre-season game. My friend (from Dallas) was offered tickets to the game. He assumed that, since he was offered tickets, the game would be played in Texas Stadium, since it would be fairly cruel to offer tickets to a game that involved significant air travel and not mentioning to the offeree that going to the game involved said air travel. ABG was from the Denver area and said that he just left from there and the traffic was nuts b/c of the opening of the new stadium. My friend relayed that he thought the game was in Dallas. ABG's feathers spread out and he challenged my friend to a $1,000 bet on where the game was being played. My friend said it was worth $10 to him, but not $1,000. Keep in mind that my friend wasn't challenging ABG, he was merely joining in the conversation. One thing I noticed at all the tables I played was that many people, if challenged in any way, be it polite and intellectually, or just conversationally, seemed to want to have a caged death match. Hopefully it was just the sample of people with whom I played. Anywhoo, my friend offered the $10 again, just to put an end to it and AGB practically called my friend a pussy for not accepting the $1,000 bet. The game WAS in Dallas btw.
ABG was not having a good run at the table. I was dealt AA and reraised him before the flop. There were 3 or 4 callers, who all folded to my raise of ABG's bet on the flop, which was ragged. A queen came on the turn and I raised ABG's bet again. He shouted that I should be wary of his Ace and I gently responded that I was just a gambler. A rag fell on the river and I don't know why, but I just called his bet. He turned over AQ, which lost to my AA. It was a nice pot and he left the table grumbling.
I could go on forever as I had many experiences in my brief foray into B&M poker. It was a wonderful time. I bought in for $200 and finished with $280 which came to about 1BB per hour. Had fun and only lost about $30 at the Monte Carlo as well. Monte Carlo had a very familial atmosphere and I liked that a bunch too. I could write an equally long report about my 4 hours there, but I will spare anyone who's made it this far. Going back in two weeks with my wife and I'm trying to coordinate time with her with time at the tables.
Thanks to all for their suggestions about where to play.