Lottery Larry
08-03-2003, 11:12 PM
Trip Report and poker room survey- Las Vegas, July 2003
this is a diary of my recent week-long trip to Las Vegas in late July with comments about various things including many of the poker rooms in Las Vegas.
after missing our morning flight- sleeping through the alarm- we routed through Phoenix on American West airlines to get to Vegas. It was a balmy 108 degrees at the airport. my wife and i slept through the rest of the day into the next at the San Remo casino.
One amusing highlight of our boring first day was watching the local weatherman that evening and hearing him stating that it was going to be fairly muggy with a humidity level of 30%, which made both of us East Coasters laugh out loud.
The San Remo is a small dreary casino just east of the Tropicana. There was a desk that they called the “sports book” which was just a whiteboard on the wall behind the desk. The casino itself was fairly small- with no poker room! What was my wife thinking?- and is very loud when a band is performing in the lounge area. The boss had set the trip up as a surprise, was looking for the cheapest package. I told her that I will plan all future trips! The casino and rooms reminded me of what I’ve heard that some of the casinos Downtown are like- not that I’ve been downtown yet to make a comparison. One hint- take the Silver Tower, which is the one closest to the Strip, and get an odd-numbered room. This gives you a nice view of the MGM corner with NY-NY, Excaliber, Luxor, etc. The other side looks towards the airport.
I was a little upset that there weren’t fitted sheets on the king-size bed. Also, the iron we borrowed for an hour leaked, and the mini-ironing board -3 inch height, 30 inch length- was barely useful to iron. The staff that we talked to or interacted with indirectly were friendly. The housekeeping staff followed all of our written requests on various days. Room service our first conscious night was fast, but forgot to bring napkins or silverware- later on he realized it and brought them up, not that we needed them at that point.
THURSDAY- Early the next morning we walked to the Bellagio for their breakfast buffet, to meet some friends. Very nice breakfast buffet, $15 per person. Instead of traveling a short way down the hallway to the poker room, our friends wanted to see some of the other casinos. We crossed the street to see Paris. Nice décor, much smaller casino that I expected. I would think that a nine-figure casino would require a bigger casino in order to pay off the debt. I wouldn’t be helping, since they have no poker room. Our friends told us about the big tournament events going on at the Orleans. When I checked later, they were running various games with $200-300 entries, with second-chance $125 tournaments at 7 pm each night.
We traveled next to the Venetian. A very nice facility with beautiful paintings and canal rides- $12.50 a person, or arrange a private gondola for $50. the casino was much larger, but again no poker room.
After splitting up from our visitors, my wife and I settled into the Excaliber’s poker room. 11 tables, all low limit from what the desk informed me. The room runs $1-5 stud and $2-6 holdem- yes, spread limit. Max of 3 raises, heads up allows max of 5 raises. According to the desk, on weekends they occasionally spread $5/10 or $6/12 holdem. When we arrived at lunchtime, there was one $1-5 stud and one $2-6 holdem table going. We played until mid-evening, at which point there were 2 stud and 3 holdem tables going. Dealers were generally competent and mostly congenial. They didn’t seem too concerned with cracking down on minor infractions. Some of them would chatter a little too much with some of the regulars, holding up the dealing of the rest of 3rd street, but no one seemed to mind too much.
The Excaliber poker room has several bonuses for players. Every afternoon around 4:30, except for Saturdays, they have a small hot bar with a food item- we had a mild jambalaya with rice and brown rolls. According to some of the dealers’ comments, evidently this may be leftovers. It was just okay, but the price was right!
There is a bonus Big Wheel cash wheel that players get to spin when certain hands are held. In stud, if you have 4 of a kind, or if you have a full house beaten, you can spin the wheel for a chance to win $20-$300. In holdem, if pocket Aces are beaten, you can also spin.
There was also a bad beat jackpot, one for each game. Stud was $1600- four of a kind beaten- Holdem was $6000 for aces-full beaten. 40% for the losing hand, 20% for the winning hand, 40% split among the other players at the table.
All of this was funded by a rather brutal rake- 10% up to $5, plus $1 for the jackpot. This makes the Atlantic City rakes that I’m used to seem like a bargain. The stud players I faced were generally passive- I did a majority of the raising- which may be why I did well there. Oh, I also won $20 for a full-house beat.
The $2-6 holdem that I played later on had several very aggressive players, with a lot of raising pre-flop. Many of the bets were for the full $6. As a result, passive players were calling with hands that shouldn’t have, giving the raises and full-amount betting. I managed to fight off several bad beats and administer a few on my own in revenge, coming out a few bets ahead for the session after going down over 24 BB.
Three hands that were big ones for me- first, a $140 pot that an all-in player won, after sucking out on my flopped trips with a straight on the turn. Another player in that hand was overbetting his 2pair into my raises, so I made some money back on the side pot. Second, a passive woman called my preflop raise with 96s, called my bets of top pair Kings through the river, where she caught a river flush and did not raise me.
The third hand, I called several small $2 round-the-horn reraises from the two aggressive players on my right with 87s, along with one or two other players- i can’t remember. The flop of 964, turn A and river Ten resulted in a 3-way max capped pot on the river, with top two pair reraising me and then calling my cap. The middle two pair player called also, both were stunned that I could show down that hand- a bit of revenge well-earned, since those two players were very aggressive in trying to run over the table.
On the way out, I picked up my wife, who was playing blackjack at a single-deck table. They only paid 6-5 for a blackjack and hit soft 17, a nice ripoff.
FRIDAY- Taking bus route 301- $2 a person normally, the bill machine was jammed so we rode for free- up the Strip, we headed up to the Sahara for lunch. We were not pleased with the buffet. It was pretty dark lighting, floors were a bit dirty- tile floor around the food bars were sticky to walk on- and the food wasn’t very good. Walking back out, feeling slightly nauseous, we eyeballed the poker room- only one table was running at 11:15- and kept on to the casino. We turned in our $40 gets you $50 fake casino chips, which my wife managed to turn over into a small profit- paying for the crappy buffet. When she decided to go play some slots, I went to check out the poker room again, unfortunately for me.
The Sahara poker room has 8 tables. The floorman/brush/dealer was nice- the room was actually run in a very informal manner. They run $1-5 stud, no ante, and $1-4-8-8 spread limit holdem, one $2 blind. 3 raises is the max, except for games over $10? Unlimited raises heads-up. Rake is 10% to $2.50- I wasn’t sure if they were also raking a jackpot $1, but I assume so. There were several players bonuses there, the first being a bad beat jackpot, again Aces full in holdem ($6000 at the time) and four of a kind in stud ($2450) was in place, with a low $10 pot minimum and 4 players? to trigger the jackpot. One telling note about the “value” of jackpots- on the wall, they listed the fact that only 50% of the jackpot drop money went to the primary prize pool, 30% to reserves and 20% to other promotional funds. One unusual aspect of the 40-20-40 split- the 40% split among remaining players dealt into the jackpot hand is split among ALL tables of the same game. At the point that I was playing, that meant 14 people would have divided the $2400 portion of the holdem jackpot, a bit deflating. There was also some kind of best hand or something bonus, but the wall information wasn’t very clear on what it was or how it was won- it might have been $25 prize?
The Sahara room also runs $40 NL tournaments on Wed and Sundays evenings at 7 pm. There is one $20 rebuy for another $1500 in chips in the first hour- 20 minute levels. Paper said it starts at 25-25 blinds, then goes $25/50, 50/100, adds a $25 ante at level 4, then starts jacking up the antes and blinds. It colors up at Level 6 with $100 antes and $300/500 blinds. End of third hour it is $1000 antes and $2000/4000 blinds. I guess these tournaments don't last too long. Payout varies from 65%/35% for 11 or under, goes up at 32+ players to 50%/28/14/5/3%.
The 1-4-8-8 game I played in had several semi-maniac players- making it play pretty much at the 4-8 level, including one to my right that just seemed cursed for me. One of the first hands I had against him, I raised early with KK, called by several players, including SM, who had Q8 offsuit. 3 queens flop and cost me a reraise on the turn. This guy was very aggressive and would call down with almost anything, it seemed. It also seemed that he would have nut hands that only I would run into or get run down by. I had the pleasure of watching him blow through the stacks he had grown mixed with the agony of losing several buyins of my own.
So, after a washout afternoon, we moved on downtown to Fremont Street downtown- had to pay for the 301 bus this time. On the ride up there, we passed through some broken-down areas that looked as bad as some of Atlantic City. The Fremont Street Experience- as they call it- was a pleasant surprise. My wife was especially impressed by the electronic canopy covered area- it was pretty clean, unlike much of the Strip, and people were wandering around as if they were at a street festival. Several stages for bands were set up and there were small kiosk carts with various things throughout the area. We went to the Golden Nugget for their dinner buffet- $12 a person, crab legs, good food. I liked the Golden Nugget in general- looked like the class of the Downtown casino area.
After dinner, we crossed over to Binions Horseshoe. I was underwhelmed to say the least- this was the center of the poker universe? The room was in the back- 11 tables, plus 5 in a sectioned-off area- old, beaten up looking. There was another sectioned-off area with tables and no chairs back towards the back of the casino, which I realized later must have been the filming area for the ESPN WSOP 2003 specials that are on now. At 8:00 pm there were only a few games going- $1-5 stud, $4-8 holdem. They evidently spread regularly 1-4-8-8, 4/8 with a half kill, 4/8 Omaha, and some higher Omaha only? games- 6/12, 10/20. In addition, they were listing a no-limit holdem game, $1/2 blinds. There were posted signs stating that they were planning on starting to spread $2/4 and $8/16 holdem in August, as well as starting up monthly tournaments.
We came out from the games and watched the first of the overhead projection shows on the big canopy over Fremont Street- a 70’s to 80’s disco-themed music and graphics show. It was nice, but not all that spectacular. Going back in after the light show, I saw Becky Binion and her security guard talking to some people. The game that I was in was still about the tightest game of 7 stud that I’ve ever seen. The boss, however, was in a really action-packed game. Unfortunately, the dummy decided that rather than have her four 5s beaten in a bad beat jackpot room, she had to do it at Binions.
After a short while longer, we left the casino and wandered down the street to check out the Plaza. The poker room there had 4 poker tables and 6 Pan tables- one of each was running. It was funny watching these women pull out the cards from the Pan shoe with their pencils, not that I had any clue as to how the game was played. Poker they listed $2/4 HE, $1-5 stud.
We then waited for the 301 bus back home- a cheap alternative to a taxi, but one that took over an hour to get back down the the NY-NY/MGM corner. We continued on down to Mandalay Bay to check out their poker room. They were running $1-5 stud, $3/6 holdem and a few other games. At midnight, they had about 5 tables going. I can’t find my notes on the room, but I seem to remember about 9-10 tables. They had television screens with the progressive high hand bonuses for both games. The tables here were the nicest that I'd seen so far- they had a wooden track running around the table, just inside the bumper, where you could easily stack your chips. Very nice table to play at.
Early on in the $1-5 stud, one aggressive guy who had the largest stack donated a fair portion of his stacks to me and later my wife when he decided that he could run over the newcomers because he was king of the table at the time. My trips, and my wife's Aces-up, soon showed him the error of his ways and he left with a serious dent in his original fortress of chips
Later on, they combined another table with us, bringing over 3 aggressive players who decided that they could run over our more passive table. One of them knew how to play well enough, I wasn't sure about the other two.
Unfortunately, after I had wiped my wife out of the game- with a check-raise with ace-high straight on the river, among other hands- the gambling deities decided to punish me with others' suckouts. Two hands that I remember from the slide: one, a big pot when my straight that I began raising with on 5th was sucked out on by a full house by a guy who claimed he didn't even know what he had- as in, he didn't know if a full house beat a straight. At least he didn't raise me when he caught it.
After losing another big pot shortly after that, the last hand I was up against a poor player who was calling or betting with inferior hands. I was pretty sure he had Kings, I raised him on the river with a board Ace and a split pair of twos- The guy THREW HIS HAND AWAY when I said "deuces" then before the dealer got to his cards he grabbed his hand back and turned over. I guess he assumed Aces and heard that when I said deuces…. I was semi-pleased that it had almost worked. I left with $17 after that and went to bed at 3:30 a.m.
SATURDAY- The next morning, still sick in the stomach from the general bad fortune I was having- am I the only one who wasn't going to catch my draws or suck out on someone?- I tried to get my mind right. I was only down less than 2 buy-ins over the two days, no big deal, even though we'd been up 3 buyins after Thursday. The boss and I headed up the street, where I dropped her off at the Excaliber room. Turns out that someone had hit the holdem jackpot in our absence- which figured.
I took the interior walkway on the upper level towards the Luxor. Along the way I saw something interesting- I saw them in various places throughout the week after- a hydro-massager. You lay face-down in a machine similar to a tanning bed, while clothed. Within a sealed chamber, high-pressure water sprays worked their way up and down your body- I assume it would feel pretty good after a long poker session. $15 for 7 minutes, $25 for 15 minutes.
The Luxor poker room is a rail-separated area close to the main floor of the casino, near the shopping mall area. There are 6 tables, which are somewhat noisy as a result of their location. The rake was 10% up to $4, I don't know if they were raking extra for their bad beak jackpot, locked at $1000 each for holdem and stud, or their high hand bonus payments- $20 for four of a kind, $50 for a straight flush, $100 for a royal. The display on the wall said something about "high hands in holdem one card only $20" but I'm not sure what that was referring to. The room normally spreads $1-5 stud, $2/4 and $1-4-8-8 holdem.. The bad beat jackpot was aces-full, use both cards in your hand, for holdem and quads for stud. I found out later that a kicker wouldn't play and a four-board straight flush would counterfeit the jackpot hand.
The Luxor also has several tournaments. Once a week they run an $800 prize pool freeroll tournament- 12 hours of stud play, 10 hours of holdem play to qualify. However, not one of the floorpeople or the dealers ever informed me that I had to register my hours for tracking, so I never qualified for the tournament later that week- I couldn't talk my way in. It turns out that they didn't even run it- the players just divided the prize pool by their choice.
Monday-Friday at noon, 10:00 on Saturday-Sunday, they ran low buy-in tournaments limited to 38 players during the week and 29 players on the weekend. $19+6 gets you only $250 in chips, 15 minute rounds starting with $10/15 blinds and $15/30 limits. At stage 4 they are at $100/200, stage 5 is $100/200 blinds and no-limit betting. And I thought the Sahara tournaments were set to be fast….
There was a short delay to form up the $2/4 game I played in- not many players there. Once started, the play was generally passive and somewhat loose. It seemed that only I was willing to raise preflop with something other than AA-QQ. Often the flop would be checked through to me regardless of its makeup. However, when two young crazy Alaskans joined the table later, it got pretty wild. They were overly aggressive- one played somewhat better than the other, but his luck was a lot better also- and had everyone playing pretty passively- even Kings were slow pre-flop. I was still cursed, however and left in the early evening down another 1 1/2 buyins. While I probably loosened up a little too much against the players, I seemed still cursed with the 4-card draw flops that went nowhere, costing me too many chips to call along. I was drawing to winners, but the winners never came.
Very frustrated and somewhat on tilt, I picked up my losing wife at Excaliber and we headed up to the Monte Carlo room, since we were going to see the Lance Burton illusion show that evening. The Monte Carlo poker room was a walled-off room with 8 tables near a casino exit door. Decorated in a more upscale manner, it was a nice-looking room, if a bit crowded layout. Outside noise was minimal, though one table inside was talking a lot. The tables were an upgrade from Mandalay Bay- there were cupholders along with the wooden chip rail. Conveniently, a rest room was right next to the poker room. Cash on the table does NOT play, however, the first time I noticed running into this- to play, the cash had to be converted to chips before the hand was dealt, as if the cash wasn't really there.
According to the desk, they normally spread $2/4, 1-4-8-8 and 1-4-8-8 with a half kill. They also spread $1-5 stud and stud eight or better (no eight or better was going on). At 6:30 pm all but one table was running. After waiting 10 minutes, they formed up our $1-5 table. We only stayed for 25 minutes because of the show- I lost a few bets, my wife won one. The table was pretty tight and cold- very little talking, almost no eye contact from anyone. I was glad that we had to leave for our show when we did.
The rake was 10% up to $5, along with a "Progressive Super Board Poker Jackpot" 5% rake that was taken in 25-cent increments, up to $1 at $20. This paid for their long list of high-hand payouts, with separate lists for stud and holdem for 4 of a kind and higher. Supposedly they have an extra "designated payoff of the day" hand which "rotates through all 26 hands". A $20 pot is required in order to be paid the hand-bonus money, holdem must use both cards and stud may require a pair of the quads to be in the hole- brouchure wasn't very clear.
The Lance Burton magic show was very entertaining. One strange thing about the guy- it sounded as if he was trying to imitate Jack Nickelson during the entire show. There was a guest juggler/comedian in the middle of the show that was pretty funny. He did a trick with a bunch of kids and a birdcage that was really slick, and later "disappeared" a small boy in a white Corvette that Lance had appeared in from nowhere earlier. At $65 a ticket, the show was on the medium range of upper-level shows that I heard about- the Blue Man Group was $90 and Siegfried and Roy supposedly were well over a c-note.
After the show and some drinks, tired from our previous evening, we decided to make a shorter night of it. We wandered over to the Aladdin to check out the place and get dinner. The shops there are rambling and large. We finally catch a map near a "street" performance, decide to check out Lombardo's. Very good Italian food, somewhat pricey but not too expensive. I wanted dessert but couldn't force it in. Tired and full, we walked back to the hotel and went to bed.
SUNDAY- I couldn’t fall back to sleep at 9 am, so I got up and walked up to the Stardust- about a 55 minute walk, for those of you stupid enough to do the same thing. The heat wasn't too bad, especially with some of the sidewalk misters that I could go through, but I was still sweaty when I arrived at the almost-empty Stardust poker room at 10:30.
The poker room is near the sports book. There were 10 tables in a railed-off area, with only one $3/6 game going at 10:30 am, which had a list. Since it looked tight, I decided to take some notes and move on instead. The tables and chairs were plain, old and somewhat dull looking. They rake 5% up to $3, plus another dollar for the bad-beat jackpot- 50 cents at $10, 50 cents at $20 pot level. For stud, the jackpot was at four thousand that day- for holdem, 39 thousand! However, it required Aces full of tens, with both hole cards playing, in order to qualify for holdem. Stud was the usual- quads beaten. The bad beat was divided differently than other rooms- 50% to the loser, 25% to the winner, 25% to the table.
There was a 5-raise maximum in place here. According to their list they normally spread $3/6 holdem and $1-5 stud. I don't know if they spread any bigger games on weekends.
Thursdays at noon they supposedly ran a $2500 tournament. I don't know if it was a freeroll but it required 15 hours of play to qualify to enter. I moved on to the Riviera, which it turns out had torn out their poker room a few months prior
. So I crossed the street and entered Circus Circus. Surprisingly, the poker room was just inside the main entrance, to the left. 8 tables in a glass-partioned area, similar to a hockey rink in concept. There was a $3/6 game going at 10:50, along with one $1-5 stud formed about a half-hour later.
The room normally spreads 3 games- $1-5 stud, 3/6 holdem and $3/6 or $2/4 Omaha high. 3 raise max was the norm-just like back home! There were bad beat jackpots for each of the game types, supposedly split on a 50/25/25 basis. Stud was $874, Omaha was $13K and Holdem was a whopping $49K! Aces full of tens with a $10 pot was also the minimum here, which explained the huge holdem jackpot. The floorman informed me that the large holdem jackpot had killed off the Omaha game, so I shouldn't expect one to form. The Omaha jackpot hand was four jacks or better beaten, with two cards from your hand required. Stud was the usual quads beaten to qualify.
The room raked 10% to $4 along with the $1 jackpot fee. A sign in the back, while I was waiting to get off of the list, said that the jackpot rake was broken up in a varying way: from a jackpot level of under $20K- 60% went to prize pool, 40% went to "reserve" fund- to the jackpot level over $50K, where only 20% of the rake went to the prize pool!! 80% went to the reserve!!
There was also a drum at the desk where a $100 prize was given on the graveyard shift. Tickets were earned with a flush or higher and the player had to be in a live game when the drawing was conducted.
Even more so than before, play was generally passive and loose preflop and on the flop- because of the jackpot? I did more raising than most- I also flopped more draws that petered out than most, so I dropped another rack and a half during 8 hours there. Another frustrating, tilt-inducing session.
I picked up my also-deep-in-the-hole wife at Excaliber, we went into New York- New York to check the place out and get some dinner. Similar to Paris, the ceiling is very high and the casino is very well themed. However, it was a bit confusing wandering through, trying to find the restaurant we were looking for. Also, we were confronted by a saleswoman who tried to use free shows and such to sign us up for something. We eventually found Chin-Chin, an eclectic Chinese fusion restaurant that I highly recommend- the boss thought it was the best Chinese we ever had. Some hints- the Szechiwan dumplings are great, don't order the 2-person noodle soup unless you aren't eating anything else-it's that big- and the General Tso's was very tender, not hard and crunchy like it is most of the time at home. We were very unhappy that we couldn't take any of our leftovers with us, having no place to keep them. We ended the meal with dark-chocolate dipped fortune cookies. A very good eating experience overall.
After getting back to the hotel, we blew off some steam, along with some more money, in the San Remo casino. I remembered how much I missed playing craps- I shouldn't have bet on other shooters, however; I would have been better off sticking with myself- and how little I still wanted to play blackjack. Soon after dropping several buy-ins between us- strange how I always think of money on those terms, poker buyin amounts, now- I went to bed at midnight.
MONDAY- Okay, a brand-new week! The bad play and painful beats are behind us, I’ve declared. Since we hadn’t played there yet, we went back to the Bellagio for their buffet again, then headed for the poker room. The Bellagio has about 25 tables in their main area, with another 5 tables in a raised, sectioned off area in the back of the room. I don't know if those were high limit tables or not- a few players were back there. There were 6 games going live, with a number of the remaining tables set up for the $1000 +$60 tournament at noon. They were running several special tournaments over the next few days, with the winner getting $25,000 and the $300 entry into their WPT 2004 tournament (not sure if it was THE tournament or a satellite for the tournament, since the buy-in was so low). Besides 3 NL tournaments, they were going to have on one day a 3-draw lowball tournament $2500 + $100.
Because of the tournament, the floorman said there wouldn't be any open tables for a while, until the tournament freed them up. They had lists for $1-5 stud, $4/8 and $8/16 holdem. I don't know what games they were spreading on a regular night. Also i couldn't find any rake signs on the tables and the floorman was too busy to ask.
Since the wait was obviously going to be going on for a while, the boss and I walked up the Strip to see some of the other poker rooms. We stopped first at the Flamingo. There were 6 tables sitting in an open area, rather than a sectioned off area, in between the front slot floor and the rest of the casino in back. At 11:30 there were 3 games going. Rake was 10% to $3. I'm not sure if they were raking for it in addition, but there were a few high-hand of the day bonuses for stud- 3- and holdem -2. On the day before, Sunday, they had paid various amounts between $87 and $284 to the 5 players.
The room regularly spreads stud $1-5, $2/4 holdem, and $4/8 with $1/2 blinds. 4 raises was the room limit. I noticed that a few of the players chairs had wheels on them, seemed to be one or two per table besides the dealer's chair.
Since, once again, there were waiting lists and no obvious openings soon, we moved on to the Mirage. Here, there were 19 tables in the main area and 5 more in a railed-off area in the back, to the side of the keno area. According to the list, they were spreading $1-5 and $5/10 stud, $3/6 and $6/12 holdem. There was also a column for $5/10 Omaha high? There were two different rakes- stud was 10% to $5 max, holdem 10% to $4- I don't know why. 8 games were going on in the room at 11:40. The games that were going on contained very few tourists, it seemed, with little action, but I wasn't watching for long. The Mirage had no bonuses of any kind- no bad beat, no high-hand.
One strange rule that I ran into- money could play, but only in $100 increments. Maybe it wasn't so strange, but it emphasized the point that every poker room in town seems to have different rules, rakes and features.
Our $1-5 table took about 10-15 minutes to get formed up and started- they were short on dealers. I had little fortune going on here either, with players calling my big-pair raises with little pairs and then catching a second to beat me. For the most part, third street would cost $1, occasional raises to $2 by others, as opposed to my $3 and $4 raises.
After dropping most of my buy-in, I accidently went out the back of the Mirage. Spotting the looming tower of the Rio nearby- or so I thought- I decided to walk over the the Palms. 35 hot minutes later, I arrived at the Palms, which is having a Playboy 40th anniversary celebration in September according to their huge banner.
To me, the Palms looked like it needed a renovation, as an older casino. Surprisingly it is only 2 years old- I assume it was another casino that was renamed? They had wood floors in many areas.
The poker room is to the right of the main entrance, back next to the keno area- and a bathroom! There were 7 tables, normally spreading $2/4 and $4/8 holdem, $3/6 stud! Four games were going at 4 pm when I signed up for the $2/4. The rake was 10% to $3, with 3 raises maximum- not sure about heads-up. Also, money plays here in $20 increments, not $100.
While waiting, I saw the list of progressive high-hand payments, separate lists for each game type as usual. They also have the most liberal bad-beat jackpot I've seen. Aces full of anything beaten, possibly for stud as well. In addition, in holdem, you supposedly didn't have to hold ANY of the jackpot cards in your hand in order to qualify- I wonder how they would split it if the board was the full house beaten by someone's four of a kind? The floorwoman said that they liked to give their jackpot away, unlike the other rooms. The current jackpot level was $600, split 50% - 25%- 25%.
A few minutes later, I was seated in my $2/4 game. Again, very passive, very loose about calling raises. Often the turn would be checked around if no one raised preflop. I did a majority of the raising and I think I was the only one who ever reraised before the turn for the 2 hours that I was there! I started off well early, making $70 in my first 5 minutes, on my first go-round, on three hands in a row where I raised preflop with each of them and got callers all the way through the river. Some players caught some cards later to chase down some of my profits, but I finally left a game up half a buy-in, with a much needed boost of confidence as well.
While I was there, I also found out about the Boulder Station casinos- outside of the center of Las Vegas- and their linked progressive bad-beat jackpot. I was told that there are four card rooms that are linked together with a bad-beat jackpot that is reset to $100,000. Aces full of tens, both cards must play for holdem, quads with a pair for stud was what I understood the hands to be. The interesting part, other than the money, was that the loser got around 35%, the winner around 15% and the remaining money was divided among all of the players in the same game at ALL four cardrooms! Evidently a light at each seat that is dealt in goes off and the participants get a marker of some kind that they later use to claim their part of the jackpot.
I would have stayed there for a while, but I had to meet the boss shortly, so I took a cab back to the Mirage, finding out that she'd won a few bets at the stud table we'd been playing on.
We went back to Mandalay Bay for dinner. The well-rated buffet- Sea Side Buffet, I believe- was full and the line wasn't moving, so we left there and wandered on. We passed the restaurant with the 4-story wine vault, with the high-flying wire stewards, that I'd seen on the Travel Channel about a year ago. We went back towards the Shark Reef area, thinking we'd check that out, but it was $15 or so a person to get in. We decided to check out the Border Grill, which was back near the Shark Reef area. It turned out to be a half-hour wait, but an excellent choice nonetheless, regardless of the more pricey menu- actually, most of the restaurants that we saw in Mandalay were pricey or VERY expensive. The artwork was a bit funky, but the menu was a great mix of explosive and vibrant menu choices, and dessert was worth the over-stuffed feeling that we left with. My wife declared the Border Grill as her best Mexican food ever.
My confident feeling was short lived. After dropping off my wife at the Mandalay Bay poker room, and watching an older man and woman screaming their heads off about a $1000 Wheel of Fortune win on my way out- unless it was 5 figures or more, I don't know why they were so excited!- I walked over to the Luxor. Again, passive play through the flop, again, numerous rundowns of me by others, along with numerous 4-card draws that died. I left the room depressed again, down over a rack. Luckily, the boss had found a lucky penny and put it in her right pocket- which is why she hit a nickel slot machine for $200, covering most of our losses for the day.
TUESDAY- Checkout day. After stashing our belongings, since our flight out wasn’t until 12:44 am on Wednesday, we wallowed in our depression for a while, not sure as to whether we should switch flights and leave early. I had planned several times to take the free shuttle bus from San Remo or Tropicana and go to check out Sam's Town- I kept calling it Sam's Club after the wholesale chain that I belong to- because I'd heard good things about the casino, and they had a card room, and we had some Las Vegas Advisor and Casino Player coupons that we could use. Because the boss wanted to do some shopping, we decided to stay in the area instead.
After a generally blah food court meal- Little Caesar's at Luxor- I headed down to the Luxor's poker room again while my wife went into the casino to try her luck. I sat again at the same $2/4 game- Alaskan Boy was there, very drunk and being somewhat obnoxious as a result, but not in a malicious way. He was irritating many of the tighter regular players there, which suited me just fine. There was a little more aggression and more tightness to start, but the grim, quiet table dynamic soon changed with the arrival of the couple from Texas- who I had fun with building a fort with a flag and a drawbridge, using their chips at the opposite end of the table- and the just-about-to-be-married couple from Brooklyn. I'd played with the groom-to-be a few days ago, the bride-to-be was a lot of fun. Soon, along with Alaskan Boy, we had the table rocking and rolling with a lot of chatter, loosening up everyone.
I was also doing well. I was playing pretty well, my big hands were standing up, I even redrew out on someone who drew out on my flop and I was jumping up to a profit of 1 1/2 buyins… and then, the Black Hand of Death entered the room and touched my shoulder, telling me that she'd lost a bunch of money in the casino. She joined the $1-5 game in progress, but it was too late- the magic was gone. Now my hands were getting busted and my draws were drying up on the vine again.
After the BHD lost her buy-in, she went out into the casino. Losing some more money, she took her last $10, hit several black/single 17 combinations to stay alive, then hit two 17's in a row and returned triumphantly with over $300. I had slid back just to about even when we decided to leave, soon after the engaged couple (good luck, Donna and Mel!) had left to get dressed and paraded back past us on the way to the church, to our loud cheering.
We then traveled up the Strip to the Venetian and back again, stopping at several places to pick up gifts for our various babysitters back home. We also stopped at the Mirage and unfortunately we decided to eat at their dinner buffet. It was not very good for either of us- the food was barely average and didn't sit well in our stomachs. My wife rated it below the Sahara's lunch buffet, though I didn't think it was that bad. We stopped afterwards to check out the action at the Mirage poker room, but the tables were on a list.
From there we sucked it up and went back to the Tropicana/MGM Grand area. She went off to do some more shopping while I headed for the Luxor's poker room again. On the way she made me pick up a lucky penny and put it in my right pocket. Needing all of the karma I could summon, I did as ordered.
I went back to the $2/4 game again. The game was a bunch of regulars with a general passive bent before the turn, generally tight. I ran a series of hands early that had me blown up to twice my buy-in again. Then, the Black Plague of Death arrived AGAIN after having finished shopping and cursed my fortunes. While she was out losing most of her roulette-funded profits of the day, the battle between the karma of the penny and the cold touch of BPD slowly drained away half of my winnings.
We had to leave to get our bags, so we ended our trip and went to the airport- where our flight was delayed for a short period, of course.
Things I had wanted to do and didn't- get to the Sam's Town poker room, check out the action at the Orleans, enter any tournaments anywhere. Maybe for the next trip, ten years from now… and I'll make sure it matches up with BARGE then also!
I think the gods of gambling are mocking me. As I typed up this report, Scooby Doo was having an episode called "Reva Las Vegas" with a show production "Rats" and a casino "Newark Newark". Plus, my 5 year old son was busting me up at seven card stud yesterday and today.
Good night everyone.
this is a diary of my recent week-long trip to Las Vegas in late July with comments about various things including many of the poker rooms in Las Vegas.
after missing our morning flight- sleeping through the alarm- we routed through Phoenix on American West airlines to get to Vegas. It was a balmy 108 degrees at the airport. my wife and i slept through the rest of the day into the next at the San Remo casino.
One amusing highlight of our boring first day was watching the local weatherman that evening and hearing him stating that it was going to be fairly muggy with a humidity level of 30%, which made both of us East Coasters laugh out loud.
The San Remo is a small dreary casino just east of the Tropicana. There was a desk that they called the “sports book” which was just a whiteboard on the wall behind the desk. The casino itself was fairly small- with no poker room! What was my wife thinking?- and is very loud when a band is performing in the lounge area. The boss had set the trip up as a surprise, was looking for the cheapest package. I told her that I will plan all future trips! The casino and rooms reminded me of what I’ve heard that some of the casinos Downtown are like- not that I’ve been downtown yet to make a comparison. One hint- take the Silver Tower, which is the one closest to the Strip, and get an odd-numbered room. This gives you a nice view of the MGM corner with NY-NY, Excaliber, Luxor, etc. The other side looks towards the airport.
I was a little upset that there weren’t fitted sheets on the king-size bed. Also, the iron we borrowed for an hour leaked, and the mini-ironing board -3 inch height, 30 inch length- was barely useful to iron. The staff that we talked to or interacted with indirectly were friendly. The housekeeping staff followed all of our written requests on various days. Room service our first conscious night was fast, but forgot to bring napkins or silverware- later on he realized it and brought them up, not that we needed them at that point.
THURSDAY- Early the next morning we walked to the Bellagio for their breakfast buffet, to meet some friends. Very nice breakfast buffet, $15 per person. Instead of traveling a short way down the hallway to the poker room, our friends wanted to see some of the other casinos. We crossed the street to see Paris. Nice décor, much smaller casino that I expected. I would think that a nine-figure casino would require a bigger casino in order to pay off the debt. I wouldn’t be helping, since they have no poker room. Our friends told us about the big tournament events going on at the Orleans. When I checked later, they were running various games with $200-300 entries, with second-chance $125 tournaments at 7 pm each night.
We traveled next to the Venetian. A very nice facility with beautiful paintings and canal rides- $12.50 a person, or arrange a private gondola for $50. the casino was much larger, but again no poker room.
After splitting up from our visitors, my wife and I settled into the Excaliber’s poker room. 11 tables, all low limit from what the desk informed me. The room runs $1-5 stud and $2-6 holdem- yes, spread limit. Max of 3 raises, heads up allows max of 5 raises. According to the desk, on weekends they occasionally spread $5/10 or $6/12 holdem. When we arrived at lunchtime, there was one $1-5 stud and one $2-6 holdem table going. We played until mid-evening, at which point there were 2 stud and 3 holdem tables going. Dealers were generally competent and mostly congenial. They didn’t seem too concerned with cracking down on minor infractions. Some of them would chatter a little too much with some of the regulars, holding up the dealing of the rest of 3rd street, but no one seemed to mind too much.
The Excaliber poker room has several bonuses for players. Every afternoon around 4:30, except for Saturdays, they have a small hot bar with a food item- we had a mild jambalaya with rice and brown rolls. According to some of the dealers’ comments, evidently this may be leftovers. It was just okay, but the price was right!
There is a bonus Big Wheel cash wheel that players get to spin when certain hands are held. In stud, if you have 4 of a kind, or if you have a full house beaten, you can spin the wheel for a chance to win $20-$300. In holdem, if pocket Aces are beaten, you can also spin.
There was also a bad beat jackpot, one for each game. Stud was $1600- four of a kind beaten- Holdem was $6000 for aces-full beaten. 40% for the losing hand, 20% for the winning hand, 40% split among the other players at the table.
All of this was funded by a rather brutal rake- 10% up to $5, plus $1 for the jackpot. This makes the Atlantic City rakes that I’m used to seem like a bargain. The stud players I faced were generally passive- I did a majority of the raising- which may be why I did well there. Oh, I also won $20 for a full-house beat.
The $2-6 holdem that I played later on had several very aggressive players, with a lot of raising pre-flop. Many of the bets were for the full $6. As a result, passive players were calling with hands that shouldn’t have, giving the raises and full-amount betting. I managed to fight off several bad beats and administer a few on my own in revenge, coming out a few bets ahead for the session after going down over 24 BB.
Three hands that were big ones for me- first, a $140 pot that an all-in player won, after sucking out on my flopped trips with a straight on the turn. Another player in that hand was overbetting his 2pair into my raises, so I made some money back on the side pot. Second, a passive woman called my preflop raise with 96s, called my bets of top pair Kings through the river, where she caught a river flush and did not raise me.
The third hand, I called several small $2 round-the-horn reraises from the two aggressive players on my right with 87s, along with one or two other players- i can’t remember. The flop of 964, turn A and river Ten resulted in a 3-way max capped pot on the river, with top two pair reraising me and then calling my cap. The middle two pair player called also, both were stunned that I could show down that hand- a bit of revenge well-earned, since those two players were very aggressive in trying to run over the table.
On the way out, I picked up my wife, who was playing blackjack at a single-deck table. They only paid 6-5 for a blackjack and hit soft 17, a nice ripoff.
FRIDAY- Taking bus route 301- $2 a person normally, the bill machine was jammed so we rode for free- up the Strip, we headed up to the Sahara for lunch. We were not pleased with the buffet. It was pretty dark lighting, floors were a bit dirty- tile floor around the food bars were sticky to walk on- and the food wasn’t very good. Walking back out, feeling slightly nauseous, we eyeballed the poker room- only one table was running at 11:15- and kept on to the casino. We turned in our $40 gets you $50 fake casino chips, which my wife managed to turn over into a small profit- paying for the crappy buffet. When she decided to go play some slots, I went to check out the poker room again, unfortunately for me.
The Sahara poker room has 8 tables. The floorman/brush/dealer was nice- the room was actually run in a very informal manner. They run $1-5 stud, no ante, and $1-4-8-8 spread limit holdem, one $2 blind. 3 raises is the max, except for games over $10? Unlimited raises heads-up. Rake is 10% to $2.50- I wasn’t sure if they were also raking a jackpot $1, but I assume so. There were several players bonuses there, the first being a bad beat jackpot, again Aces full in holdem ($6000 at the time) and four of a kind in stud ($2450) was in place, with a low $10 pot minimum and 4 players? to trigger the jackpot. One telling note about the “value” of jackpots- on the wall, they listed the fact that only 50% of the jackpot drop money went to the primary prize pool, 30% to reserves and 20% to other promotional funds. One unusual aspect of the 40-20-40 split- the 40% split among remaining players dealt into the jackpot hand is split among ALL tables of the same game. At the point that I was playing, that meant 14 people would have divided the $2400 portion of the holdem jackpot, a bit deflating. There was also some kind of best hand or something bonus, but the wall information wasn’t very clear on what it was or how it was won- it might have been $25 prize?
The Sahara room also runs $40 NL tournaments on Wed and Sundays evenings at 7 pm. There is one $20 rebuy for another $1500 in chips in the first hour- 20 minute levels. Paper said it starts at 25-25 blinds, then goes $25/50, 50/100, adds a $25 ante at level 4, then starts jacking up the antes and blinds. It colors up at Level 6 with $100 antes and $300/500 blinds. End of third hour it is $1000 antes and $2000/4000 blinds. I guess these tournaments don't last too long. Payout varies from 65%/35% for 11 or under, goes up at 32+ players to 50%/28/14/5/3%.
The 1-4-8-8 game I played in had several semi-maniac players- making it play pretty much at the 4-8 level, including one to my right that just seemed cursed for me. One of the first hands I had against him, I raised early with KK, called by several players, including SM, who had Q8 offsuit. 3 queens flop and cost me a reraise on the turn. This guy was very aggressive and would call down with almost anything, it seemed. It also seemed that he would have nut hands that only I would run into or get run down by. I had the pleasure of watching him blow through the stacks he had grown mixed with the agony of losing several buyins of my own.
So, after a washout afternoon, we moved on downtown to Fremont Street downtown- had to pay for the 301 bus this time. On the ride up there, we passed through some broken-down areas that looked as bad as some of Atlantic City. The Fremont Street Experience- as they call it- was a pleasant surprise. My wife was especially impressed by the electronic canopy covered area- it was pretty clean, unlike much of the Strip, and people were wandering around as if they were at a street festival. Several stages for bands were set up and there were small kiosk carts with various things throughout the area. We went to the Golden Nugget for their dinner buffet- $12 a person, crab legs, good food. I liked the Golden Nugget in general- looked like the class of the Downtown casino area.
After dinner, we crossed over to Binions Horseshoe. I was underwhelmed to say the least- this was the center of the poker universe? The room was in the back- 11 tables, plus 5 in a sectioned-off area- old, beaten up looking. There was another sectioned-off area with tables and no chairs back towards the back of the casino, which I realized later must have been the filming area for the ESPN WSOP 2003 specials that are on now. At 8:00 pm there were only a few games going- $1-5 stud, $4-8 holdem. They evidently spread regularly 1-4-8-8, 4/8 with a half kill, 4/8 Omaha, and some higher Omaha only? games- 6/12, 10/20. In addition, they were listing a no-limit holdem game, $1/2 blinds. There were posted signs stating that they were planning on starting to spread $2/4 and $8/16 holdem in August, as well as starting up monthly tournaments.
We came out from the games and watched the first of the overhead projection shows on the big canopy over Fremont Street- a 70’s to 80’s disco-themed music and graphics show. It was nice, but not all that spectacular. Going back in after the light show, I saw Becky Binion and her security guard talking to some people. The game that I was in was still about the tightest game of 7 stud that I’ve ever seen. The boss, however, was in a really action-packed game. Unfortunately, the dummy decided that rather than have her four 5s beaten in a bad beat jackpot room, she had to do it at Binions.
After a short while longer, we left the casino and wandered down the street to check out the Plaza. The poker room there had 4 poker tables and 6 Pan tables- one of each was running. It was funny watching these women pull out the cards from the Pan shoe with their pencils, not that I had any clue as to how the game was played. Poker they listed $2/4 HE, $1-5 stud.
We then waited for the 301 bus back home- a cheap alternative to a taxi, but one that took over an hour to get back down the the NY-NY/MGM corner. We continued on down to Mandalay Bay to check out their poker room. They were running $1-5 stud, $3/6 holdem and a few other games. At midnight, they had about 5 tables going. I can’t find my notes on the room, but I seem to remember about 9-10 tables. They had television screens with the progressive high hand bonuses for both games. The tables here were the nicest that I'd seen so far- they had a wooden track running around the table, just inside the bumper, where you could easily stack your chips. Very nice table to play at.
Early on in the $1-5 stud, one aggressive guy who had the largest stack donated a fair portion of his stacks to me and later my wife when he decided that he could run over the newcomers because he was king of the table at the time. My trips, and my wife's Aces-up, soon showed him the error of his ways and he left with a serious dent in his original fortress of chips
Later on, they combined another table with us, bringing over 3 aggressive players who decided that they could run over our more passive table. One of them knew how to play well enough, I wasn't sure about the other two.
Unfortunately, after I had wiped my wife out of the game- with a check-raise with ace-high straight on the river, among other hands- the gambling deities decided to punish me with others' suckouts. Two hands that I remember from the slide: one, a big pot when my straight that I began raising with on 5th was sucked out on by a full house by a guy who claimed he didn't even know what he had- as in, he didn't know if a full house beat a straight. At least he didn't raise me when he caught it.
After losing another big pot shortly after that, the last hand I was up against a poor player who was calling or betting with inferior hands. I was pretty sure he had Kings, I raised him on the river with a board Ace and a split pair of twos- The guy THREW HIS HAND AWAY when I said "deuces" then before the dealer got to his cards he grabbed his hand back and turned over. I guess he assumed Aces and heard that when I said deuces…. I was semi-pleased that it had almost worked. I left with $17 after that and went to bed at 3:30 a.m.
SATURDAY- The next morning, still sick in the stomach from the general bad fortune I was having- am I the only one who wasn't going to catch my draws or suck out on someone?- I tried to get my mind right. I was only down less than 2 buy-ins over the two days, no big deal, even though we'd been up 3 buyins after Thursday. The boss and I headed up the street, where I dropped her off at the Excaliber room. Turns out that someone had hit the holdem jackpot in our absence- which figured.
I took the interior walkway on the upper level towards the Luxor. Along the way I saw something interesting- I saw them in various places throughout the week after- a hydro-massager. You lay face-down in a machine similar to a tanning bed, while clothed. Within a sealed chamber, high-pressure water sprays worked their way up and down your body- I assume it would feel pretty good after a long poker session. $15 for 7 minutes, $25 for 15 minutes.
The Luxor poker room is a rail-separated area close to the main floor of the casino, near the shopping mall area. There are 6 tables, which are somewhat noisy as a result of their location. The rake was 10% up to $4, I don't know if they were raking extra for their bad beak jackpot, locked at $1000 each for holdem and stud, or their high hand bonus payments- $20 for four of a kind, $50 for a straight flush, $100 for a royal. The display on the wall said something about "high hands in holdem one card only $20" but I'm not sure what that was referring to. The room normally spreads $1-5 stud, $2/4 and $1-4-8-8 holdem.. The bad beat jackpot was aces-full, use both cards in your hand, for holdem and quads for stud. I found out later that a kicker wouldn't play and a four-board straight flush would counterfeit the jackpot hand.
The Luxor also has several tournaments. Once a week they run an $800 prize pool freeroll tournament- 12 hours of stud play, 10 hours of holdem play to qualify. However, not one of the floorpeople or the dealers ever informed me that I had to register my hours for tracking, so I never qualified for the tournament later that week- I couldn't talk my way in. It turns out that they didn't even run it- the players just divided the prize pool by their choice.
Monday-Friday at noon, 10:00 on Saturday-Sunday, they ran low buy-in tournaments limited to 38 players during the week and 29 players on the weekend. $19+6 gets you only $250 in chips, 15 minute rounds starting with $10/15 blinds and $15/30 limits. At stage 4 they are at $100/200, stage 5 is $100/200 blinds and no-limit betting. And I thought the Sahara tournaments were set to be fast….
There was a short delay to form up the $2/4 game I played in- not many players there. Once started, the play was generally passive and somewhat loose. It seemed that only I was willing to raise preflop with something other than AA-QQ. Often the flop would be checked through to me regardless of its makeup. However, when two young crazy Alaskans joined the table later, it got pretty wild. They were overly aggressive- one played somewhat better than the other, but his luck was a lot better also- and had everyone playing pretty passively- even Kings were slow pre-flop. I was still cursed, however and left in the early evening down another 1 1/2 buyins. While I probably loosened up a little too much against the players, I seemed still cursed with the 4-card draw flops that went nowhere, costing me too many chips to call along. I was drawing to winners, but the winners never came.
Very frustrated and somewhat on tilt, I picked up my losing wife at Excaliber and we headed up to the Monte Carlo room, since we were going to see the Lance Burton illusion show that evening. The Monte Carlo poker room was a walled-off room with 8 tables near a casino exit door. Decorated in a more upscale manner, it was a nice-looking room, if a bit crowded layout. Outside noise was minimal, though one table inside was talking a lot. The tables were an upgrade from Mandalay Bay- there were cupholders along with the wooden chip rail. Conveniently, a rest room was right next to the poker room. Cash on the table does NOT play, however, the first time I noticed running into this- to play, the cash had to be converted to chips before the hand was dealt, as if the cash wasn't really there.
According to the desk, they normally spread $2/4, 1-4-8-8 and 1-4-8-8 with a half kill. They also spread $1-5 stud and stud eight or better (no eight or better was going on). At 6:30 pm all but one table was running. After waiting 10 minutes, they formed up our $1-5 table. We only stayed for 25 minutes because of the show- I lost a few bets, my wife won one. The table was pretty tight and cold- very little talking, almost no eye contact from anyone. I was glad that we had to leave for our show when we did.
The rake was 10% up to $5, along with a "Progressive Super Board Poker Jackpot" 5% rake that was taken in 25-cent increments, up to $1 at $20. This paid for their long list of high-hand payouts, with separate lists for stud and holdem for 4 of a kind and higher. Supposedly they have an extra "designated payoff of the day" hand which "rotates through all 26 hands". A $20 pot is required in order to be paid the hand-bonus money, holdem must use both cards and stud may require a pair of the quads to be in the hole- brouchure wasn't very clear.
The Lance Burton magic show was very entertaining. One strange thing about the guy- it sounded as if he was trying to imitate Jack Nickelson during the entire show. There was a guest juggler/comedian in the middle of the show that was pretty funny. He did a trick with a bunch of kids and a birdcage that was really slick, and later "disappeared" a small boy in a white Corvette that Lance had appeared in from nowhere earlier. At $65 a ticket, the show was on the medium range of upper-level shows that I heard about- the Blue Man Group was $90 and Siegfried and Roy supposedly were well over a c-note.
After the show and some drinks, tired from our previous evening, we decided to make a shorter night of it. We wandered over to the Aladdin to check out the place and get dinner. The shops there are rambling and large. We finally catch a map near a "street" performance, decide to check out Lombardo's. Very good Italian food, somewhat pricey but not too expensive. I wanted dessert but couldn't force it in. Tired and full, we walked back to the hotel and went to bed.
SUNDAY- I couldn’t fall back to sleep at 9 am, so I got up and walked up to the Stardust- about a 55 minute walk, for those of you stupid enough to do the same thing. The heat wasn't too bad, especially with some of the sidewalk misters that I could go through, but I was still sweaty when I arrived at the almost-empty Stardust poker room at 10:30.
The poker room is near the sports book. There were 10 tables in a railed-off area, with only one $3/6 game going at 10:30 am, which had a list. Since it looked tight, I decided to take some notes and move on instead. The tables and chairs were plain, old and somewhat dull looking. They rake 5% up to $3, plus another dollar for the bad-beat jackpot- 50 cents at $10, 50 cents at $20 pot level. For stud, the jackpot was at four thousand that day- for holdem, 39 thousand! However, it required Aces full of tens, with both hole cards playing, in order to qualify for holdem. Stud was the usual- quads beaten. The bad beat was divided differently than other rooms- 50% to the loser, 25% to the winner, 25% to the table.
There was a 5-raise maximum in place here. According to their list they normally spread $3/6 holdem and $1-5 stud. I don't know if they spread any bigger games on weekends.
Thursdays at noon they supposedly ran a $2500 tournament. I don't know if it was a freeroll but it required 15 hours of play to qualify to enter. I moved on to the Riviera, which it turns out had torn out their poker room a few months prior
. So I crossed the street and entered Circus Circus. Surprisingly, the poker room was just inside the main entrance, to the left. 8 tables in a glass-partioned area, similar to a hockey rink in concept. There was a $3/6 game going at 10:50, along with one $1-5 stud formed about a half-hour later.
The room normally spreads 3 games- $1-5 stud, 3/6 holdem and $3/6 or $2/4 Omaha high. 3 raise max was the norm-just like back home! There were bad beat jackpots for each of the game types, supposedly split on a 50/25/25 basis. Stud was $874, Omaha was $13K and Holdem was a whopping $49K! Aces full of tens with a $10 pot was also the minimum here, which explained the huge holdem jackpot. The floorman informed me that the large holdem jackpot had killed off the Omaha game, so I shouldn't expect one to form. The Omaha jackpot hand was four jacks or better beaten, with two cards from your hand required. Stud was the usual quads beaten to qualify.
The room raked 10% to $4 along with the $1 jackpot fee. A sign in the back, while I was waiting to get off of the list, said that the jackpot rake was broken up in a varying way: from a jackpot level of under $20K- 60% went to prize pool, 40% went to "reserve" fund- to the jackpot level over $50K, where only 20% of the rake went to the prize pool!! 80% went to the reserve!!
There was also a drum at the desk where a $100 prize was given on the graveyard shift. Tickets were earned with a flush or higher and the player had to be in a live game when the drawing was conducted.
Even more so than before, play was generally passive and loose preflop and on the flop- because of the jackpot? I did more raising than most- I also flopped more draws that petered out than most, so I dropped another rack and a half during 8 hours there. Another frustrating, tilt-inducing session.
I picked up my also-deep-in-the-hole wife at Excaliber, we went into New York- New York to check the place out and get some dinner. Similar to Paris, the ceiling is very high and the casino is very well themed. However, it was a bit confusing wandering through, trying to find the restaurant we were looking for. Also, we were confronted by a saleswoman who tried to use free shows and such to sign us up for something. We eventually found Chin-Chin, an eclectic Chinese fusion restaurant that I highly recommend- the boss thought it was the best Chinese we ever had. Some hints- the Szechiwan dumplings are great, don't order the 2-person noodle soup unless you aren't eating anything else-it's that big- and the General Tso's was very tender, not hard and crunchy like it is most of the time at home. We were very unhappy that we couldn't take any of our leftovers with us, having no place to keep them. We ended the meal with dark-chocolate dipped fortune cookies. A very good eating experience overall.
After getting back to the hotel, we blew off some steam, along with some more money, in the San Remo casino. I remembered how much I missed playing craps- I shouldn't have bet on other shooters, however; I would have been better off sticking with myself- and how little I still wanted to play blackjack. Soon after dropping several buy-ins between us- strange how I always think of money on those terms, poker buyin amounts, now- I went to bed at midnight.
MONDAY- Okay, a brand-new week! The bad play and painful beats are behind us, I’ve declared. Since we hadn’t played there yet, we went back to the Bellagio for their buffet again, then headed for the poker room. The Bellagio has about 25 tables in their main area, with another 5 tables in a raised, sectioned off area in the back of the room. I don't know if those were high limit tables or not- a few players were back there. There were 6 games going live, with a number of the remaining tables set up for the $1000 +$60 tournament at noon. They were running several special tournaments over the next few days, with the winner getting $25,000 and the $300 entry into their WPT 2004 tournament (not sure if it was THE tournament or a satellite for the tournament, since the buy-in was so low). Besides 3 NL tournaments, they were going to have on one day a 3-draw lowball tournament $2500 + $100.
Because of the tournament, the floorman said there wouldn't be any open tables for a while, until the tournament freed them up. They had lists for $1-5 stud, $4/8 and $8/16 holdem. I don't know what games they were spreading on a regular night. Also i couldn't find any rake signs on the tables and the floorman was too busy to ask.
Since the wait was obviously going to be going on for a while, the boss and I walked up the Strip to see some of the other poker rooms. We stopped first at the Flamingo. There were 6 tables sitting in an open area, rather than a sectioned off area, in between the front slot floor and the rest of the casino in back. At 11:30 there were 3 games going. Rake was 10% to $3. I'm not sure if they were raking for it in addition, but there were a few high-hand of the day bonuses for stud- 3- and holdem -2. On the day before, Sunday, they had paid various amounts between $87 and $284 to the 5 players.
The room regularly spreads stud $1-5, $2/4 holdem, and $4/8 with $1/2 blinds. 4 raises was the room limit. I noticed that a few of the players chairs had wheels on them, seemed to be one or two per table besides the dealer's chair.
Since, once again, there were waiting lists and no obvious openings soon, we moved on to the Mirage. Here, there were 19 tables in the main area and 5 more in a railed-off area in the back, to the side of the keno area. According to the list, they were spreading $1-5 and $5/10 stud, $3/6 and $6/12 holdem. There was also a column for $5/10 Omaha high? There were two different rakes- stud was 10% to $5 max, holdem 10% to $4- I don't know why. 8 games were going on in the room at 11:40. The games that were going on contained very few tourists, it seemed, with little action, but I wasn't watching for long. The Mirage had no bonuses of any kind- no bad beat, no high-hand.
One strange rule that I ran into- money could play, but only in $100 increments. Maybe it wasn't so strange, but it emphasized the point that every poker room in town seems to have different rules, rakes and features.
Our $1-5 table took about 10-15 minutes to get formed up and started- they were short on dealers. I had little fortune going on here either, with players calling my big-pair raises with little pairs and then catching a second to beat me. For the most part, third street would cost $1, occasional raises to $2 by others, as opposed to my $3 and $4 raises.
After dropping most of my buy-in, I accidently went out the back of the Mirage. Spotting the looming tower of the Rio nearby- or so I thought- I decided to walk over the the Palms. 35 hot minutes later, I arrived at the Palms, which is having a Playboy 40th anniversary celebration in September according to their huge banner.
To me, the Palms looked like it needed a renovation, as an older casino. Surprisingly it is only 2 years old- I assume it was another casino that was renamed? They had wood floors in many areas.
The poker room is to the right of the main entrance, back next to the keno area- and a bathroom! There were 7 tables, normally spreading $2/4 and $4/8 holdem, $3/6 stud! Four games were going at 4 pm when I signed up for the $2/4. The rake was 10% to $3, with 3 raises maximum- not sure about heads-up. Also, money plays here in $20 increments, not $100.
While waiting, I saw the list of progressive high-hand payments, separate lists for each game type as usual. They also have the most liberal bad-beat jackpot I've seen. Aces full of anything beaten, possibly for stud as well. In addition, in holdem, you supposedly didn't have to hold ANY of the jackpot cards in your hand in order to qualify- I wonder how they would split it if the board was the full house beaten by someone's four of a kind? The floorwoman said that they liked to give their jackpot away, unlike the other rooms. The current jackpot level was $600, split 50% - 25%- 25%.
A few minutes later, I was seated in my $2/4 game. Again, very passive, very loose about calling raises. Often the turn would be checked around if no one raised preflop. I did a majority of the raising and I think I was the only one who ever reraised before the turn for the 2 hours that I was there! I started off well early, making $70 in my first 5 minutes, on my first go-round, on three hands in a row where I raised preflop with each of them and got callers all the way through the river. Some players caught some cards later to chase down some of my profits, but I finally left a game up half a buy-in, with a much needed boost of confidence as well.
While I was there, I also found out about the Boulder Station casinos- outside of the center of Las Vegas- and their linked progressive bad-beat jackpot. I was told that there are four card rooms that are linked together with a bad-beat jackpot that is reset to $100,000. Aces full of tens, both cards must play for holdem, quads with a pair for stud was what I understood the hands to be. The interesting part, other than the money, was that the loser got around 35%, the winner around 15% and the remaining money was divided among all of the players in the same game at ALL four cardrooms! Evidently a light at each seat that is dealt in goes off and the participants get a marker of some kind that they later use to claim their part of the jackpot.
I would have stayed there for a while, but I had to meet the boss shortly, so I took a cab back to the Mirage, finding out that she'd won a few bets at the stud table we'd been playing on.
We went back to Mandalay Bay for dinner. The well-rated buffet- Sea Side Buffet, I believe- was full and the line wasn't moving, so we left there and wandered on. We passed the restaurant with the 4-story wine vault, with the high-flying wire stewards, that I'd seen on the Travel Channel about a year ago. We went back towards the Shark Reef area, thinking we'd check that out, but it was $15 or so a person to get in. We decided to check out the Border Grill, which was back near the Shark Reef area. It turned out to be a half-hour wait, but an excellent choice nonetheless, regardless of the more pricey menu- actually, most of the restaurants that we saw in Mandalay were pricey or VERY expensive. The artwork was a bit funky, but the menu was a great mix of explosive and vibrant menu choices, and dessert was worth the over-stuffed feeling that we left with. My wife declared the Border Grill as her best Mexican food ever.
My confident feeling was short lived. After dropping off my wife at the Mandalay Bay poker room, and watching an older man and woman screaming their heads off about a $1000 Wheel of Fortune win on my way out- unless it was 5 figures or more, I don't know why they were so excited!- I walked over to the Luxor. Again, passive play through the flop, again, numerous rundowns of me by others, along with numerous 4-card draws that died. I left the room depressed again, down over a rack. Luckily, the boss had found a lucky penny and put it in her right pocket- which is why she hit a nickel slot machine for $200, covering most of our losses for the day.
TUESDAY- Checkout day. After stashing our belongings, since our flight out wasn’t until 12:44 am on Wednesday, we wallowed in our depression for a while, not sure as to whether we should switch flights and leave early. I had planned several times to take the free shuttle bus from San Remo or Tropicana and go to check out Sam's Town- I kept calling it Sam's Club after the wholesale chain that I belong to- because I'd heard good things about the casino, and they had a card room, and we had some Las Vegas Advisor and Casino Player coupons that we could use. Because the boss wanted to do some shopping, we decided to stay in the area instead.
After a generally blah food court meal- Little Caesar's at Luxor- I headed down to the Luxor's poker room again while my wife went into the casino to try her luck. I sat again at the same $2/4 game- Alaskan Boy was there, very drunk and being somewhat obnoxious as a result, but not in a malicious way. He was irritating many of the tighter regular players there, which suited me just fine. There was a little more aggression and more tightness to start, but the grim, quiet table dynamic soon changed with the arrival of the couple from Texas- who I had fun with building a fort with a flag and a drawbridge, using their chips at the opposite end of the table- and the just-about-to-be-married couple from Brooklyn. I'd played with the groom-to-be a few days ago, the bride-to-be was a lot of fun. Soon, along with Alaskan Boy, we had the table rocking and rolling with a lot of chatter, loosening up everyone.
I was also doing well. I was playing pretty well, my big hands were standing up, I even redrew out on someone who drew out on my flop and I was jumping up to a profit of 1 1/2 buyins… and then, the Black Hand of Death entered the room and touched my shoulder, telling me that she'd lost a bunch of money in the casino. She joined the $1-5 game in progress, but it was too late- the magic was gone. Now my hands were getting busted and my draws were drying up on the vine again.
After the BHD lost her buy-in, she went out into the casino. Losing some more money, she took her last $10, hit several black/single 17 combinations to stay alive, then hit two 17's in a row and returned triumphantly with over $300. I had slid back just to about even when we decided to leave, soon after the engaged couple (good luck, Donna and Mel!) had left to get dressed and paraded back past us on the way to the church, to our loud cheering.
We then traveled up the Strip to the Venetian and back again, stopping at several places to pick up gifts for our various babysitters back home. We also stopped at the Mirage and unfortunately we decided to eat at their dinner buffet. It was not very good for either of us- the food was barely average and didn't sit well in our stomachs. My wife rated it below the Sahara's lunch buffet, though I didn't think it was that bad. We stopped afterwards to check out the action at the Mirage poker room, but the tables were on a list.
From there we sucked it up and went back to the Tropicana/MGM Grand area. She went off to do some more shopping while I headed for the Luxor's poker room again. On the way she made me pick up a lucky penny and put it in my right pocket. Needing all of the karma I could summon, I did as ordered.
I went back to the $2/4 game again. The game was a bunch of regulars with a general passive bent before the turn, generally tight. I ran a series of hands early that had me blown up to twice my buy-in again. Then, the Black Plague of Death arrived AGAIN after having finished shopping and cursed my fortunes. While she was out losing most of her roulette-funded profits of the day, the battle between the karma of the penny and the cold touch of BPD slowly drained away half of my winnings.
We had to leave to get our bags, so we ended our trip and went to the airport- where our flight was delayed for a short period, of course.
Things I had wanted to do and didn't- get to the Sam's Town poker room, check out the action at the Orleans, enter any tournaments anywhere. Maybe for the next trip, ten years from now… and I'll make sure it matches up with BARGE then also!
I think the gods of gambling are mocking me. As I typed up this report, Scooby Doo was having an episode called "Reva Las Vegas" with a show production "Rats" and a casino "Newark Newark". Plus, my 5 year old son was busting me up at seven card stud yesterday and today.
Good night everyone.