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View Full Version : Trip report for first time in Vegas


Jim H
12-04-2002, 08:12 PM
I have been winning(over $20,000) and placing in a lot of tour. in the last year so I decided to go to Vegas to play in the Bellagio tour.. I also wanted to play in some side games so booked into Vegas on a Sat. with the tour. on Mon.. I got a room at the Barbary Coast, which is just across the street from the Bellagio and only cost $43 for Sun. and Mon., but about $100 for the weekend. I would think this is about the cheapest place on the strip and is so close to the Bellagio. After checking in I went to the poker room to check out the action and started playing in a 15/30 game. I had been told to be careful of the 30/60 games because this is where the pros lurk. The 15/30 games were about exactly as I has expected, which was not to tough. I played all day Sat. with a break for lunch and won a small amout each time. I had decided to play a satellight (sp)and I did but they were raping the one table sats. for $150 a table so I only played two. I played a late night session of 15/30 and the game was a little tougher than the day games, but all you had to do was find the weak players and isolate them. It sounds funny, but this was easier done when there were a lot of Vegas player in the game because they are to tight and it seemed that they were just trying to win one or two pots and get out for the day. I ended the the day with three small 15/30 wins and paid for two sats. at $130 each so the first day was a success.

Sun. morning I took a walk through Ceaser's and saw all the statues, which was nice. I ended my walk at the far end of the Bellagio so decided to eat breakfast at the Cafe Bellagio. I do not recommend this place because the food was not that good and it cost a lot. I arrived at the poker room about 10:00 am and it was full so I got on the 15/30 list and observed the high limit section to see what was going on there. There was a full 80/160 game that had been going since Friday and would go through the whole time I was there. It had about 30 to 50 thousand on the table. At one time there was a three handed game of Chinese poker being played for $500 a point. I could not tell what the other games were.

I got into the 15/30 game and lost a rack, which took most of the previous days win. I took a break and watched football for a while. I looked around the room and saw a lot of the big names. David S. was in the 80/160 for a while, Roy Cooke was in my 30/60 game, Howard Lederer was one of the people playing the Chinese poker, Johnny Chan was in the back of the high limit section, but I could not tell what he was playing. The person that impressed me the most was Howard L's sister (Annie I think)who looks about 21 years old and was walking around with a purse full of bundled up 100's. There must have been $10,000 at least.

I went to the cage and paid my entry into the tour. for the next day so I would not have to stand in line later. I got back into a 15/30 game and won about $700 so I was back up and feeling cocky. I decided to give the 30/60 a try and as expected I lost a rack ($10 chips=$1,000), but I did not lose it the way you would expect with all the Vegas pros in the game. I lost because the game was so fast and I got caught up in the size of the pots and stayed with to many hands to long.

Here is what I observed of the Vegas players at the 30/60 level. There are no "fairly good" players at this level. The players are either very good or they are bad with a lot of money. When a Vegas pro gets a seat in a 30/60 game he/she immediately puts their name on the table change list. They start looking for the bad players and if a seat comes open in that game they switch to chase the bad player. This is no lie, when a seat opened up in a 30/60 game it took 15 minutes before the person could be called for the seat because the seat change list had to be gone through with each pro moving from table to tabler according to the level of bad players in each game. It actually reminded me of a bunch of male dogs chasing a bitch in heat. I can certainly see why there are so many low limit players at the other clubs in town. They started out at a high limit and got chased down by a bunch a dogs that never let up. I was only there three days and I could almost feel sorry for these people.

Mon. came and I played in the tour., which I have posted about in the tour. section. I busted out of the tour. and got back into a 15/30 game and got really lucky for as fast as I was playing. I won almost a $1,000, so I quit early and went to my room to watch the football game. For the trip I showed a small profit, about$750 net.

My over all impression was that even though I am a fairly big fish in my little pond at home, I would be a very small fish in the big pond called Vegas. One more thing, I did not see anything that looked liked partners in the 30/60, but I can see why someone would think that with the way the Vegas pros avoid each other and pick on the bad players so hard.

J_V
12-04-2002, 09:02 PM
I disagree with two of your impressions. The 30-60 game is filled with decent players, very few awful players, and few great players. And I like the Cafe Bellagio.