Long Vegas Trip Report - Some Low Limit Poker

[kenberman]

Vegas Trip Report:

Flew out of Boston this past Thursday night. Got to the Rio around midnight to find they were doing remodeling to the casino/lobby. They had giant temporary walls everywhere…just when you thought the Rio casino couldn’t get more confusing..BAM!
Played craps…got drunk…went to Bikini’s…went to bad at 5am..and made it out of bed for the:

12pm Omaha H/L tournament at The Orleans Friday afternoon. (In my Vegas hierarchy of ‘Coast’ casinos, The Orleans ranks somewhere below Barbary Coast…but just above Gold Coast. All 3 rank below Terrible’s)

I was told to show up for the sign in by 10:30am…and I dutifully obliged. Too bad nobody from the Orleans was there. I hung around till about 11am, when the tournament manager finally showed up. He told me I could have just showed up at noon. Great, thanks for getting me out of bed an hour and a half early, guys. I played $2 craps for 20 minutes to kill time…and lost $40. That is difficult to do.

Looking around the tournament field of 80 people, I noticed I was the only guy under 70, except for the pistol-toting cop in the seat to the left of me. I asked him how many guys were regulars in the game…he looked around our table and said “well, at this table, 9.”

Not only was I the only sucker at this table, but it wasn’t even close. Still, I managed to hang around for a while, playing ‘Superman turning coal into a diamond’ tight. With about 30 guys left, my chip count was looking little thin…so I made my move and went all in. I ran into Quads. Bad time for my move. Good luck, guys.

I went straight to the pool at the Rio. Disappointing show of talent. I hung around there for a few hours, before deciding to take on the legendary 1-3 HE game at the Excalibur. Suffice to stay, my .25 - .50 home game is stronger than this game. There were a few first timers, a few drunken guys, and a few buddies from college with sunglasses on staring each other down on every hand. You know how they say that you WILL see 72o in a showdown in this game? Well, a saw a lady calling multiple raises w/ 72o. Raising pre-flop in this game does exactly one thing: it increases the money in the pot by a factor of your raise *10. I managed to win about $20 (for those keeping score, that is 20 * the Single blind of $1 in this game) in an hour, and left terrified.

Friday night we saw some legendary Vegas sights. I can’t talk about that here.

From the best I can remember, I had 2 sessions in the Excalibur HE game Saturday (if you haven’t figured it out by now, my gambling budget wasn’t very large). I played about an hour in the 1-3 game, and won $20. Later that afternoon, I decided to try to win some at the 2 to 6 game. This was just like the 1-3 game, except all the loose/passive players were now loose/aggressive. How do you beat a table full of L/A players? I guess I have to read Sklansky’s new book, b/c I couldn’t figure it out. I left when a guy in late position called a max raise of $6 into a $10 pot w/ K3s, and kept calling until he hit his backdoor flush. I muttered some incredulous comment about his pre-flop call, and the guy next to me replied, “He called b/c he was getting correct pot odds”. Speechless, I got up and left right there.

Saturday night I showed my buddies (Vegas 1st timers) the Venetian/Bellagio/Paris. Unimpressed, they demanded to go to Casino Royale, where we promptly stayed for 3 hours. It’s the only place I’ve ever been where buying drinks from the bar is cheaper than tipping waitresses for the free drinks at the tables. I was playing craps, but the guy w/ the stick (that’s the technical name) refused to call out the numbers on the dice, so I started doing it! Pretty funny. One guy even tipped me. You don't get that at Bellagio.

Sunday we decided to take it easy, and head over to Mandalay Bay for the buffet and shark exhibit.

I asked the cabby to take me to MB, which set off an entire “Who’s on first”-esque conversation. He needed to know if we were going to the casino or the hotel. Appararently, the hotel at MB is different than THehotel at MB, which is also different than the four seasons IN the hotel at MB. We finally just told him we were going to see the sharks, so he dropped us off at the casino. We promptly walked all the way through the casino, and through Thehotel to get to the sharks. What a disaster.

Fortunately, the sharks at mandalay were cool. So was the piranha tank. There was a guard there, making sure no one put their hand in tank. I asked him what they fed the piranhas, and he said "chicken, beef, pork...that kind of thing". So I asked him if they fed them live chickens. He said no. Then my buddy asked if they fed them fried chicken. He said no.

Finally, I asked him if it was a "feeding frenzy when you do drop the chicken in?” The guy said

"No, sir, we try to avoid that sort of thing".

I'm not sure if he appreciated our humor very much.

All in all, a good trip.

[RoyalSampler]

Haha, great read, thanks

[GoblinMason (Craig)]

I lol'd when you said you got tipped. Thanks for the report.

[Cooling Heels]

Glad to see I'm not the only fan of Casino Royale. It's too hot this time
of year to dress in black and walk in the blazing sun to the Bellagio.

Did you make it over to Slot's of Fun or the Ho? 99 cent Heinekens
and a good cast of characters.

Too bad they took the fun out of Binion's