bdk3clash does Vegas (featuring turnipmonster and others)

[bdk3clash]

In honor of turnipmonster's (hereafter known as Paul) upcoming wedding, his friends decided to throw him a bachelor party in Vegas. The lineup was Paul, 5 of his friends from his hometown in Raleigh NC, and me.

I was scared because I have heard some pretty fucked up storied about Paul's friends from Paul, and I think they were scared of me because Paul was laying even money on me landing in Vegas, heading straight to Bellagio and playing the $15/30 for 72 hours straight. Neither fear ended up being founded, as Paul's friends ended up being much less scary than I had expected, and I spent much more time away from the tables than everyone expected. (In fact, I probably put in less hours per day than I do normally.)

The four of us flying into Vegas from New York met up at Union Square at 10 AM. Well, that was the plan, as Jesse apparently slept through. Paul, trip organizer Dylan, and I hopped in a cab and left a voice mail for Jesse to meet us at the gate if he could.

The flight to Vegas was pretty uneventful after meeting up with Jesse at JFK. We landed around 4:00 on Thursday and met up with the other members of the group though apparently one of Paul's friends decided to bail at the last minute. We hopped in a cab and headed to Imperial Palace to check in.

Imperial Palace was totally fine. Good location, cheap rooms, and decent facilities. With a big group of guys it's a good choice, though it obviously isn't as nice as some of the other strip properties. The 24 hour diner was surprisingly decent and overall I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the place--it's well within easy walking distance to Mirage and Bellagio.

After we checked in we all grabbed a quick meal at the coffee shop in the Imperial Palace and headed over to Mirage. Paul was looking to play some bigger NL games and was a little disappointed to find that Mirage only had a $2/5 $500 max buyin NL. I don't even play no limit and I am officially sick of capped buyin games. I played $10/20 for a few hours and found the players generally pleasant. I also got to meet Ed Miller, who unprompted said "Fantaastic!" which made my trip. Clarkmeister was not in the hizzy.

Thursday night we headed over to Bellagio. Bellagio was a bit of a madhouse as the games are currently spread in a roped off area on the side of the floor since the poker room is still under renovation. There are no boards, only floorpeople walking around with clipboards, so checking your status on the waitlist was kind of annoying, though the floor seemed to be doing a good job of keeping games full.

I had what I estimated to be about an hour wait on Thursday night for the Bellagio $15/30 game, which would be my first foray into a limit higher than $10/20. (For this trip I decided to play games which I was way bankrolled for, as opposed to the games I normally play, which I am way way way overbankrolled for.)

While waiting for my seat I walked around to take in the action. Since the $25,000 WPT championship event started in a few days (today, actually) it was like a who's who of well-known poker players. (I hesitate to use the term "professional poker player" because I'm convinced many of them don't make money playing poker.) I'm not even going to list all the players I saw, but the only big name dudes I can think of that I didn't see were Phil Hellmuth and Daniel Negreanu. Paul and I saw TJ Cloutier headed straight to the craps table.

Most notable for me was seeing what appeared to be a very, very big pot limit Omaha game with Johnny Chan, Amir Vahedi, Sammy Farha, and several others with what appeared to be very, deep stacks. Upon first glance I thought the game was a $100/200 PL Omaha game, but when I looked at the actual chips in use it was actually a $1000/2000 PL Omaha game. Wow.

There was also a $300/600 (maybe $400/800) triple draw game with Greg Raymer (may have been part of a rotation) and a $3000/6000 LHE game going with Jennifer Harmon, who is way, way hotter in person than I had thought.

Paul was pretty quickly seated in a $10/20 NL game with shorter stacks than he had expected, and I eventually sat in a fun $15/30 table.

After a few hours we went and got drunk with everyone except me playing blackjack at Mirage (I think) before we called it a night. Well, I played $10/20 for a few hours and then called it a night. Most of the night was spent with this old drunk dude named Baltimore (who was from Charlotte, of course) who thought he was really smart for figuring out that pro wrestling is fake. He also thought the UFC was fake and I had a good time disagreeing with him. I think he's a local so some of you out there might know him. I like when people talk about other stuff at the table then poker, so when the conversation shifted back to "man you should have folded blah blah blah" I got bored and left. Way to scare off the action player, Vegas locals!

Friday morning I spent about 15 minutes staring at the girls sunning at the Imperial Palace's pool. We headed to MGM Grand at some point and I played in a $10/20 there. The room is very nice, with a great location. People that complain about the proximity to the bar that plays loud music are big crybabies. The floor seems to be trying hard, and they got $10/20, $20/40, and $40/80 games going Friday and Saturday, as well as a $5/10 NL game that Paul played in.

The UFC event was that Saturday, so I got to see a bunch of UFC dudes hanging around, including Tito Ortiz and Matt Hughes playing a $4/8 game. I'm a big UFC fan so I got a kick out of seeing them. Paul even played the $5/10 NL game with Bruce Buffer (Michael Buffer's brother), who does the ring announcing for all UFC events. I told him what a big fan of UFC and him (a half-lie) I am, and he thanked me and gave me a card for his website. He was also apparently trying to sell tickets to the table. Classy! I also saw comedian Doug Benosn (featured a lot on VH1's "Best Week Ever") and told him I'm a big fan.

That night we had dinner at a nice Japanese restaurant in some casino, can't remember which. Paul's friend Andrew took off his underwear for a bachelorette party, despite there being some disturbing stains in the front which he claimed were "bleach." We then headed to Olympic Gardens. I'm not a big strip club fan but the girls were way hot and they are definitely more, ahem, "hands on" than at other places I've been. Like they seem to actively encourage you to grab their boobs instead of pushing them away. Overall I'd highly recommend this place.

Saturday I woke up and again spent about 15 minutes staring at the girls by the pool. Then I walked to Bellagio and got on the $15/30 list but the line was pretty long. I walked over to MGM Grand (Mirage was pretty boring and I didn't really feel like playing there) and got on the $10/20 list and the $20/40 interest list. The $20/40 got going so I sat down to play my new highest limit ever. The game was really good with several obviously bad players and a few noticeably good ones. (I managed to introduce myself later to a young looking dude who said he lurked here.)

One interesting procedural error on my part occurred in the $20/40. I open-raised KJo from the CO. The button 3-bet, and I thought the BB called but he actually 4-bet. I said "call" and put my chips out before I noticed that the BB had raised and not called. I wanted to muck, and I suppose I could have called the floor over, and they might very well have let me fold, but I said call and that should be binding, so I called. (As it turned out I was up against JJ and AK, so it's a good thing the flop missed me.)

I played $20/40 for a few hours and then the game broke when the floor opened up a $40/80 and all the action players moved to it. I switched over to a very fun $10/20, watched Paul's friend Phil (who usually plays really high stakes) playing the $5/10 NL there get drawn out in the one hand of his I railbirded. I am such a mush.

After that we headed to my favorite meal of the trip, an Indian restaurant named Gaylord (snicker) at the Rio. I've only had Indian food once or twice in my life and ate way too much. My plan to play through Saturday night until our flight Sunday morning was thwarted by the sheer volume of delicious food I consumed at Gaylord.

Sunday morning we woke up and caught our flight. I had hoped I'd be able to hold out from dropping a deuce until I got home but instead I dropped the kids off at the pool 30,000 feet above the Midwest.

Viva Las Vegas indeed!

[nolanfan34]

Good report, good work getting a mention of strippers in there. And of course any thread with Bruce Buffer in it is good with me.

[ QUOTE ]
Friday morning I spent about 15 minutes staring at the girls sunning at the Imperial Palace's pool.

[/ QUOTE ]

That part cracked me up, were you up in your room doing this?

[bdk3clash]

[ QUOTE ]
Good report, good work getting a mention of strippers in there. And of course any thread with Bruce Buffer in it is good with me.

[ QUOTE ]
Friday morning I spent about 15 minutes staring at the girls sunning at the Imperial Palace's pool.

[/ QUOTE ]

That part cracked me up, were you up in your room doing this?

[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah--our room was on the fifth floor and we had a balcony.

[Sponger15SB]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Good report, good work getting a mention of strippers in there. And of course any thread with Bruce Buffer in it is good with me.

[ QUOTE ]
Friday morning I spent about 15 minutes staring at the girls sunning at the Imperial Palace's pool.

[/ QUOTE ]

That part cracked me up, were you up in your room doing this?

[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah--our room was on the fifth floor and we had a balcony.

[/ QUOTE ]

"Hey, that's a pretty girl down there!"

"Good for her."

"Geez, I wonder if she goes out with one of the Yankees!"

[Luv2DriveTT]

I hear Gaylord is very good, I want to give that a try next time I am in town, I'm a huge Indian fan. Interesting you didn't like the Mirage, I felt the same about it as you. Not the most exciting place in Vegas, I think we are begining to see the final days of it's top tier reign. (but then again what do I know... I've only been there 3 times).

Nice report, did anyone pull the stripper trifecta?

TT [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

[sfer]

Josh wants to know if you thought Bellagio was weird.

[bdk3clash]

[ QUOTE ]
Josh wants to know if you thought Bellagio was weird.

[/ QUOTE ]
Huh? No, I didn't think Bellagio was "weird." Why would I?

[rogue]

[ QUOTE ]
I walked over to MGM Grand (Mirage was pretty boring and I didn't really feel like playing there) and got on the $10/20 list and the $20/40 interest list. The $20/40 got going so I sat down to play my new highest limit ever. The game was really good with several obviously bad players and a few noticeably good ones. (I managed to introduce myself later to a young looking dude who said he lurked here.)

One interesting procedural error on my part occurred in the $20/40. I open-raised KJo from the CO. The button 3-bet, and I thought the BB called but he actually 4-bet. I said "call" and put my chips out before I noticed that the BB had raised and not called. I wanted to muck, and I suppose I could have called the floor over, and they might very well have let me fold, but I said call and that should be binding, so I called. (As it turned out I was up against JJ and AK, so it's a good thing the flop missed me.)

[/ QUOTE ]
Hey! I was in that game [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] I was the guy who was demanding to have the floor come over when you wanted to pull your bet back, and the one you asked if I knew if clarkmeister had been in the room as I was cashing out. It definitely was a great game, but I had to leave because I had reservations at Circo.

[bdk3clash]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I walked over to MGM Grand (Mirage was pretty boring and I didn't really feel like playing there) and got on the $10/20 list and the $20/40 interest list. The $20/40 got going so I sat down to play my new highest limit ever. The game was really good with several obviously bad players and a few noticeably good ones. (I managed to introduce myself later to a young looking dude who said he lurked here.)

One interesting procedural error on my part occurred in the $20/40. I open-raised KJo from the CO. The button 3-bet, and I thought the BB called but he actually 4-bet. I said "call" and put my chips out before I noticed that the BB had raised and not called. I wanted to muck, and I suppose I could have called the floor over, and they might very well have let me fold, but I said call and that should be binding, so I called. (As it turned out I was up against JJ and AK, so it's a good thing the flop missed me.)

[/ QUOTE ]
Hey! I was in that game [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] I was the guy who was demanding to have the floor come over when you wanted to pull your bet back, and the one you asked if I knew if clarkmeister had been in the room as I was cashing out. It definitely was a great game, but I had to leave because I had reservations at Circo.

[/ QUOTE ]

Cool--which seat were you in?

[rogue]

[ QUOTE ]

Cool--which seat were you in?

[/ QUOTE ]
Um, 5 seat I believe.