Jezebel
03-22-2004, 03:52 PM
A group of my buddies and I decided it was time to head out to Tunica, MS to check out the casinos. There were 7 of us total, but only 2 or 3 decent poker players. We have done the Vegas thing a few times, but had heard that Tunica was a much cheaper alternative. So after doing a little research, my buddy Pete finds a deal that includes roundtrip airfare, limo ride to/from the airport in Memphis, staying at the Hollywood for $270 per person. I'm a little skeptical about staying at the Hollywood since I've heard that their poker room is rather small, but I'm not one to buck the system. For $270 no way can it be a bad deal and this trip is more to blow off steam, than a serious poker trip. Lets go!!
Friday March 19th.
Our flight to Memphis is scheduled for 7am, so the day starts off extremely early. We all meet up at the airport and finally board. With this group I'm starting to wonder if I needed to bring some bail money as rowdy is an understatement. After the 1hr 20min flight we land in Memphis, and the limo is waiting for us with cold beer and player cards ready to go. After a couple of morning breakfast beers and the 45 minute drive to Tunica we arrive at the Hollywood. Check-in is not until 3pm, so they hold our bags and we head off for the casino. First stop is the craps table. All 7 of us descend on a $5 min craps table and start betting it up. The table went immediately hot and several of my buddies won $400 or $500 dollars parlaying $1 hard 8 bets. Mark threw like 8 or 9 hard 8's in a row. About halfway into that streak is when several of my friends started betting it and parlaying their winnings. I'm not much of a craps player due to my grind it out conservative nature and general distaste of neg EV games, so I'm only betting the passline and backing it with odds. Even so, I end up winning $80 in about 30 minutes due to the good streak. We all decide to quit winners and go check out the poker room.
The poker room at the Hollywood is 6 tables and they were spreading 3/6 hold'em with no small blind. The players here are primarily retired "locals" that have an RV and spend their winters down in Tunica to play poker. It is not exactly what I would consider an ideal lineup for a great action game, but I figure what the hell lets play some cards and drink some beer. This is supposed to be a fun trip, not business. The action during the day on Friday wasn't bad primarly due to the loose wild play of my non poker playing friends loosening up the locals. I thought about checking out some of the other casinos, but everyone else was content to hang out at the Hollywood, so I decided to stick it out. The rest of the day on Friday the games were fairly decent and started to pick up late afternoon. By 4pm or so they had 4 tables running and a list. One good thing about the Hollywood poker room is that it is not really a room, but a corner of the casino where slot players and others can come take a look and many that have seen the WPT on TV decide to give it a try. Many of these type players joined us on Friday afternoon/night.
Quite frankly, I don't really remember any memorable hand that I played, but one that my buddy Brent played will stand out in my mind for a long time. It was very late Friday night and we all had been drinking beer all day and night long. Brent decides to straddle UTG. I'm dealt AJ of clubs and raise 5 limpers, the button a crusty old local that has a tendency to tilt, raises it 4 bets. Brent pops it again without looking at his cards and I cap it. The long and the short of it is that Brent played the entire hand blind and capped every street with 6 players. I missed my draw and have to fold this huge pot on the river. The crusty button proudly turns over AK for top pair and makes a remark to Brent that he was going to teach him a lesson about playing like a maniac. Brent lifts his hole cards up to his very drunken eyes and slurs back to the local, "Well, you done a hellava job, cause all I got is a pair of sixes with a six kicker" and tables his rivered set. The local shot up from the table and was out the door. My buddy who does not play poker often, drug the largest 3/6 pot I have every seen and he played it blind. I hit the brick wall at about 4am and decided to hit the bed after being up for 24hrs straight.
Saturday March 20th.
I get up about 9am and decide after breakfast to check out some of the other poker rooms in town. Tunica has a shuttle that runs between each casino that costs a dollar. I hop on the shuttle and end up at the Grand. The Grand Casino is a much larger and newer casino and I'm impressed immediately. I get my players card and head up the poker room that is located upstairs. I immediately get seated at a 4/8 game. This game is playing just a bit more reasonable than what I endured at the Hollywood the night before, but not much. This game is played entirely with $1 chips so when you win a pot, you are going to spend the next three hands stacking your chips. With that many white chips in the middle on each hand, very few people fold because the pot is so "large". Truely ingenious to use all those white chips to help generate action. I play at the Grand until about 4pm, again with no really memorable hands, and decide to meet back up with my buddies at the Hollywood. Most of them are quite drunk in the Hollywood poker room that seems to be bustling with activity. I check and see that there is quite a list to get a seat at one of their 4 active tables. I ask my buddy Doby if he wants to go check out Sam's Town 10/20 game and he quickly agrees.
We make the short walk over to Sam's Town and head up to the poker room. They have a list going for the 10/20 game and we decide to take a peek at the table prior to committing to a list. A quick look revealed the average age in this game to be about 72. The theme of Sam's Town is the old west and many at this game look like they were around back when the old west was new. We decide that there is a good likelyhood that this game is a rock garden and choose to take the shuttle back over to the Grand and give their 10/20 a shot.
At the Grand, we put our name down for the 10/20 game and decide to get something to eat. Randy, the room manager comps us for their buffet based on my play from earlier in the day. Comps in Tunica are extremely easy to come by. After eating, I get seated in a 4/8 game while I'm waiting for a 10/20 seat. The first hand I win a huge pot with AQ after flopping a queen. Did I say these games were loose? /images/graemlins/grin.gif
I get seated at the 10/20 must move game and color up my whites and buy a rack of red. This is my first shot at 10/20, but I decide I will not play timid or with scared money. My second or third hand its folded to me with A9 clubs in the CO. I raise and its folded to the BB, who reraises and I call. The flop comes Jack high with two clubs. BB bets into me, I raise and he calls. Turn comes a 9 and the BB leads into me again. I decide to raise it again since I picked up a few more outs and I know that the poker gods would not make my first 10/20 hand a loser. River brings the K clubs and the BB bets into me again. I raise and he calls. My nut hand is good. Poker is easy at any limit when you're dealt the nuts /images/graemlins/grin.gif The very next hand I'm dealt pocket Aces and get to 5 bet cap against 5 opponents. The flop is Jack high, and I get checkraised by UTG. 3 players call 2 cold and I reraise and everyone calls. Turn is a rag. I bet and 3 players call. River is another rag, I bet and two players call. My aces hold up and drag the largest pot in my life. Man poker is fun!! I win a few other smaller pots and quickly realize that I have only been sitting at this table about 30 minutes, but I'm up just a tad over $800. Thats big money for me since I normally play 3/6 online and 5/10 live. I thought about racking up, but decided not to play the part of the nit. Besides I'm having fun and getting some good experience at higher play on someone elses money at this point. Doby and I finally leave when the must move table starts to get shorthanded about 2 hours later. Its one thing to play shorthanded at my normal limit, its quite another thing to play twice my normal limit shorthanded. We took our shot at higher limits and we both cashed a nice profit. Doby for about $150 and me for about $450.
We catch the shuttle back to the Hollywood. We eventually get into a game and I end up playing all night until we have to leave for the airport at 11am Sunday morning. After talking to some dealers, I learn that the Sam's Town 10/20 game is probably the loosest in town. I guess looks can be deceiving. Apparently, ST only spreads 10/20 on the weekends and these guys play it just like 4/8. Oh well, maybe I'll catch it next time. The reason for my marathon session at the Hollywood was that the game got extremely good by about 3am. The table was slam full of people that had never played poker before and decided to give it a shot. Every hand had about 8 people see the flop. It is the only game I can remember where I could raise the turn for value on most of my draws. The guy sitting to my left kept showing me hands like pocket 4s and showing extreme disgust that they were being sucked out on a AKT87 two tone board. All I could say was, "Yep, sometimes those pocket 4's just don't hold up". The table was starting to wind down around 6am and thats when Lyn, one of the dealers, brought in two boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts. Lyn is the man. Those donuts pumped everyones blood sugar back up and the game picked right back up. I left the game about 9am to go grab a shower and catch the limo to the airport, kinda sad to leave such a great game.
It was a fun trip and I'm sure I will be going back soon. I won just over $1,200 for the trip which is more than I had even hoped for. I wanted to check out Binion's but with so little time I'll have to catch it next time.
Friday March 19th.
Our flight to Memphis is scheduled for 7am, so the day starts off extremely early. We all meet up at the airport and finally board. With this group I'm starting to wonder if I needed to bring some bail money as rowdy is an understatement. After the 1hr 20min flight we land in Memphis, and the limo is waiting for us with cold beer and player cards ready to go. After a couple of morning breakfast beers and the 45 minute drive to Tunica we arrive at the Hollywood. Check-in is not until 3pm, so they hold our bags and we head off for the casino. First stop is the craps table. All 7 of us descend on a $5 min craps table and start betting it up. The table went immediately hot and several of my buddies won $400 or $500 dollars parlaying $1 hard 8 bets. Mark threw like 8 or 9 hard 8's in a row. About halfway into that streak is when several of my friends started betting it and parlaying their winnings. I'm not much of a craps player due to my grind it out conservative nature and general distaste of neg EV games, so I'm only betting the passline and backing it with odds. Even so, I end up winning $80 in about 30 minutes due to the good streak. We all decide to quit winners and go check out the poker room.
The poker room at the Hollywood is 6 tables and they were spreading 3/6 hold'em with no small blind. The players here are primarily retired "locals" that have an RV and spend their winters down in Tunica to play poker. It is not exactly what I would consider an ideal lineup for a great action game, but I figure what the hell lets play some cards and drink some beer. This is supposed to be a fun trip, not business. The action during the day on Friday wasn't bad primarly due to the loose wild play of my non poker playing friends loosening up the locals. I thought about checking out some of the other casinos, but everyone else was content to hang out at the Hollywood, so I decided to stick it out. The rest of the day on Friday the games were fairly decent and started to pick up late afternoon. By 4pm or so they had 4 tables running and a list. One good thing about the Hollywood poker room is that it is not really a room, but a corner of the casino where slot players and others can come take a look and many that have seen the WPT on TV decide to give it a try. Many of these type players joined us on Friday afternoon/night.
Quite frankly, I don't really remember any memorable hand that I played, but one that my buddy Brent played will stand out in my mind for a long time. It was very late Friday night and we all had been drinking beer all day and night long. Brent decides to straddle UTG. I'm dealt AJ of clubs and raise 5 limpers, the button a crusty old local that has a tendency to tilt, raises it 4 bets. Brent pops it again without looking at his cards and I cap it. The long and the short of it is that Brent played the entire hand blind and capped every street with 6 players. I missed my draw and have to fold this huge pot on the river. The crusty button proudly turns over AK for top pair and makes a remark to Brent that he was going to teach him a lesson about playing like a maniac. Brent lifts his hole cards up to his very drunken eyes and slurs back to the local, "Well, you done a hellava job, cause all I got is a pair of sixes with a six kicker" and tables his rivered set. The local shot up from the table and was out the door. My buddy who does not play poker often, drug the largest 3/6 pot I have every seen and he played it blind. I hit the brick wall at about 4am and decided to hit the bed after being up for 24hrs straight.
Saturday March 20th.
I get up about 9am and decide after breakfast to check out some of the other poker rooms in town. Tunica has a shuttle that runs between each casino that costs a dollar. I hop on the shuttle and end up at the Grand. The Grand Casino is a much larger and newer casino and I'm impressed immediately. I get my players card and head up the poker room that is located upstairs. I immediately get seated at a 4/8 game. This game is playing just a bit more reasonable than what I endured at the Hollywood the night before, but not much. This game is played entirely with $1 chips so when you win a pot, you are going to spend the next three hands stacking your chips. With that many white chips in the middle on each hand, very few people fold because the pot is so "large". Truely ingenious to use all those white chips to help generate action. I play at the Grand until about 4pm, again with no really memorable hands, and decide to meet back up with my buddies at the Hollywood. Most of them are quite drunk in the Hollywood poker room that seems to be bustling with activity. I check and see that there is quite a list to get a seat at one of their 4 active tables. I ask my buddy Doby if he wants to go check out Sam's Town 10/20 game and he quickly agrees.
We make the short walk over to Sam's Town and head up to the poker room. They have a list going for the 10/20 game and we decide to take a peek at the table prior to committing to a list. A quick look revealed the average age in this game to be about 72. The theme of Sam's Town is the old west and many at this game look like they were around back when the old west was new. We decide that there is a good likelyhood that this game is a rock garden and choose to take the shuttle back over to the Grand and give their 10/20 a shot.
At the Grand, we put our name down for the 10/20 game and decide to get something to eat. Randy, the room manager comps us for their buffet based on my play from earlier in the day. Comps in Tunica are extremely easy to come by. After eating, I get seated in a 4/8 game while I'm waiting for a 10/20 seat. The first hand I win a huge pot with AQ after flopping a queen. Did I say these games were loose? /images/graemlins/grin.gif
I get seated at the 10/20 must move game and color up my whites and buy a rack of red. This is my first shot at 10/20, but I decide I will not play timid or with scared money. My second or third hand its folded to me with A9 clubs in the CO. I raise and its folded to the BB, who reraises and I call. The flop comes Jack high with two clubs. BB bets into me, I raise and he calls. Turn comes a 9 and the BB leads into me again. I decide to raise it again since I picked up a few more outs and I know that the poker gods would not make my first 10/20 hand a loser. River brings the K clubs and the BB bets into me again. I raise and he calls. My nut hand is good. Poker is easy at any limit when you're dealt the nuts /images/graemlins/grin.gif The very next hand I'm dealt pocket Aces and get to 5 bet cap against 5 opponents. The flop is Jack high, and I get checkraised by UTG. 3 players call 2 cold and I reraise and everyone calls. Turn is a rag. I bet and 3 players call. River is another rag, I bet and two players call. My aces hold up and drag the largest pot in my life. Man poker is fun!! I win a few other smaller pots and quickly realize that I have only been sitting at this table about 30 minutes, but I'm up just a tad over $800. Thats big money for me since I normally play 3/6 online and 5/10 live. I thought about racking up, but decided not to play the part of the nit. Besides I'm having fun and getting some good experience at higher play on someone elses money at this point. Doby and I finally leave when the must move table starts to get shorthanded about 2 hours later. Its one thing to play shorthanded at my normal limit, its quite another thing to play twice my normal limit shorthanded. We took our shot at higher limits and we both cashed a nice profit. Doby for about $150 and me for about $450.
We catch the shuttle back to the Hollywood. We eventually get into a game and I end up playing all night until we have to leave for the airport at 11am Sunday morning. After talking to some dealers, I learn that the Sam's Town 10/20 game is probably the loosest in town. I guess looks can be deceiving. Apparently, ST only spreads 10/20 on the weekends and these guys play it just like 4/8. Oh well, maybe I'll catch it next time. The reason for my marathon session at the Hollywood was that the game got extremely good by about 3am. The table was slam full of people that had never played poker before and decided to give it a shot. Every hand had about 8 people see the flop. It is the only game I can remember where I could raise the turn for value on most of my draws. The guy sitting to my left kept showing me hands like pocket 4s and showing extreme disgust that they were being sucked out on a AKT87 two tone board. All I could say was, "Yep, sometimes those pocket 4's just don't hold up". The table was starting to wind down around 6am and thats when Lyn, one of the dealers, brought in two boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts. Lyn is the man. Those donuts pumped everyones blood sugar back up and the game picked right back up. I left the game about 9am to go grab a shower and catch the limo to the airport, kinda sad to leave such a great game.
It was a fun trip and I'm sure I will be going back soon. I won just over $1,200 for the trip which is more than I had even hoped for. I wanted to check out Binion's but with so little time I'll have to catch it next time.