Notes From LV - Late Night 10-20 at The Mirage
 

I took a short nap after the Super Bowl because I was a bit tired, and I only had one day left of my 8-day trip to Vegas. The Mirage, for whatever reason, is still my favorite place to play.

I walked over from the IP at midnight, and buy into a 10-20 game with a rack of red, as the 20 and 40 games were full with a list for each.

Eight hours later I notice the senior citizens making their way into the casino to play the slots, and a few poker players sitting at empty poker tables reading the paper and drinking coffee, and it's nice and quiet and peaceful, and pure poker at our table, not much gabbing - and I just take it all in and enjoy the moment -- of sitting at the Mirage in Las Vegas at 8 am having played all the way through.

Four hours later at noon, I'm in the BB and look down at A9o, and call a MP raiser, with one other LP cold-caller in the pot. I guess the Texan to my left, who kept needling me all night that I was too tight finally got to me.

Flop comes 972 rainbow, and I bet. The PF raiser folds, and the LP calls. Turn is a 3, and I bet. LP raises, I 3-bet it, he 4-bets and I call. River is a J, I bet, he raises, and I call. He shows a set of deuces.

I look down at my red stack of 150 BB's piled rectangularly in 9 towers of 66 chips each, and decide that I'm tired and played the hand poorly on every street.

I rack up, cash out, walk out past the white tigers, and back to the IP to check out and catch a taxi to the airport. It's back to L.A., land of the cantakerrous, loud mouthed, rude, totally uncivilized world of poker in Southern California.

The thought of quitting my job, moving to Las Vegas, and reading the morning paper with a cup of coffee at The Mirage, is like heaven.

Sparks

Re: Notes From LV - Late Night 10-20 at The Mirage
 

i think this would be better suited for the B&M forums.

Re: Notes From LV - Late Night 10-20 at The Mirage
 

You talk of pokerrooms like I used to talk of high school football practices - Dude, they both suck, we just like to convince ourselves that there is something poetic about it. Do you really want to sit in a freaking smoke filled pokerroom surrounded by GAMBLERS!!! Is there anything more repulsive than walking past all those idiots feeding their paycheck into a slot machine? Or anything more pathetic than those poor saps we take money from every day. Dude, I don't know what your dayjob is, but it has to be a better environment than that. Wait... you could own a strip club... yes, that would be even more depressing... what else... If you're a janitor, you still get to talk to your janitor buddies and hell, you're cleaning up the WORLD - that's gotta feel good.... You could be a drug dealer - having addicts come up to you all the time, that would wear you out, emotionally....

Poker sucks when you do it for monitary gain. But you do make money doing it, and sometimes you gotta do that. Don't get me wrong, I love poker and I love that it can be so complex, but... those poor fish. And who am I to be exploiting their very human weakness???

CSC

Re: Notes From LV - Late Night 10-20 at The Mirage
 

Sparks,

I am a Las Vegas local and play at the Mirage pretty frequently. For some reason I can't explain, I too feel like the Mirage is my favorite place to play. They may not always have the easiest games but there's just something about the feel of that casino that is pure Vegas. And BTW CardSharpCook, when you live and breathe poker, there IS something poetic about the poker room.

Re: Notes From LV - Late Night 10-20 at The Mirage
 

There is something truly beautiful about looking around at the world and realizing that for that one moment, you are totally happy.