Joker's Vegas Trip Report

[private joker]

A brief play-by-play:

My girlfriend and I arrive in town Tuesday afternoon and check into Treasure Island, where we're staying for one night. It's mediocre. The desk clerk looks at us and says, "One night? What are you going to do in Vegas for just one night?" I tell him, "What *aren't* we gonna do!" and then immediately regret it. I'm tired from the drive.

So then I tell him, "We'll be in Vegas until Friday, but we're only staying at this dump for one night." For some reason this makes him laugh. My girlfriend has comps for 2 nights at the Wynn for us, but I don't tell him this -- I make up some crap about working for AAA. This is all strained banter while waiting for the snail's pace check-in process to complete.

We head over to Bellagio and get on the waiting lists. There are approximately 241 names in front of us -- I'm on the 15/30 and 8/16 lists, and she's on the 4/8. We step back and take a seat to wait around, and within the first ten minutes of sitting there, I see T.J. Cloutier, John Phan, Minh Ly, Allen Cunningham, Evelyn Ng, Chau Giang, and John D'Agostino all walk past us. Only then do I realize the 5-Diamond Classic is going on with the WPT and that's why the side action is so heavy.

When I browse around the poker room, there's a table in the center (not in the private room) with three solid players: Doyle Brunson, Chip Reese, Phil Ivey. They have many thousands of dollars in chips, playing what I must assume is a small side game after all three were presumably busted from the tournament. What I don't know is what the hell they are playing -- they have about 8 cards each in their hands, and there are four face-down decks on the board in the middle. If anyone knows what this game possibly could be, go ahead and clue me in.

I finally get a seat in the 15/30 game, which is very juicy and from which I take enough money to spend on the rest of the trip. I am fortunate enough to flop top set and have opponents checkraising me. A guy who is so passive that he check/calls top pair whenever he hits complains about always getting drawn out on. A lot of people are bad at poker.

My girlfriend bats her eyes and gets us comps for the Bellagio buffet, and we eat dinner there (it's really, really good -- has to be the best buffet in Vegas) before packing it in for the night.

The next day we go downtown for some sightseeing, I pick up a Binion's souvenir chip (I collect a $1 chip from every place I play and I forgot to get one from Binion's a while ago) and eat lunch at some joint in the California Club. After some shopping at the Fashion Show Mall, we check in at the Wynn and the luxury begins.

It's the nicest hotel room I've ever been in, including the gigantic 2-bedroom MGM suite we stayed in during an April bachelor party. I mean holy crap. Everything in this room rocks -- from the light fixtures to the faucets to the TV to the cordless phones to the furniture to the closet to the robes to the electic drapes to the amazing King bed with down pillows and comforter. We're in heaven and it's difficult to get out of the room.

Eventually we go down for some poker action and I get into a decent but not great 15/30 game. I run into 2+2er DutchGirl who is about to clobber the 8/16. I get to chatting with some of the guys at the table and one of 'em is from SoCal, says he plays at Commerce. I asked if he plays the 20/40 there, and he goes, "No, mostly 100/200." So I ask what he's doing condescending to us lowly mid-limiters, and he says he's just waiting until there's enough interest in a 30/60. But during this conversation he tells us an amusing Commerce story that I believe, since it takes place at Commerce.

A wild gambooler at the 100/200 game has been spraying chips all night and is on crazy monkey tilt. He picks up AA and flops a set, only to lose to a wheel on the river. The dude flips out and produces a lighter, then proceeds to flick it and set the two aces on fire. The smoke alarm goes off and the floorman rushes over asking what the hell is going on.

"These," the player says, holding up the melting plastic aces in his hand, "are the burn cards."

The rich 100/200 SoCaler drops a couple racks and changes tables.

I rack up after a small win and take my girlfriend out to dinner at Craftsteak @ MGM (upon the recommendation of several 2+2ers), courtesy of the donks at Bellagio. I order the roasted red peppers appetizer (thanks Jason_t), Filet Mignon medium rare, with fries. She orders the Hawaiian prawns. We wash it down with a bottle of Penfolds Bin 707 Cabernet 2002. Great meal, great restaurant.

The next day we sleep in and get lunch at the Wynn's Zooza Crackers deli, then hit up the poker room some more. The girlfriend bats her eyes and gets us 2 more comps, this time for the Wynn buffet. I see the blonde hostess Shant mentioned and I approach her.

"Hey, do you know a guy named Shant (rhymes with font) who was here last month?"
"Oh yeah!"
"He's a friend of mine and wanted me to tell you he says hi."
"Oh, are you guys from the same town?"
"Yeah. Los Angeles."
"Oh, well I kept calling him 'Shant' (rhyming with pant) and he would say 'um, it's Shant (rhyming with font)' and I felt bad! So are you playing?"
"Yeah, I'm in the 15/30."
"Oh, well if you're ever playing the 8/16, make sure you come say hi."

I don't know what this means -- is she going to bump me up on the waiting list? Anyway, my game is not so good, so I head over to the Mirage to get in on the juicy 20/40 action there, and proceed to luckbox my way into winning nearly a rack in the first hour.

I pick up AKs in the BB and a tricky/strange player (who looks like Bruce Davison but isn't) opens from EP. Three players cold-call including the SB. I make it 3-bets, Davison makes it 4 bets, and only the SB folds of the 5 of us. We take an awesome flop of AK2 rainbow. Davison peels the flop and folds the brick turn, angrily tossing his TT face up into the dealer tray. Almost on cue, the dealer burns and turns the river, a T. I rake in a 14BB pot when one of the fish calls me down with A9.

After poker we go out to a late dinner at Hamada of Japan for some fantastic sushi (the spider roll and yellowtail sashimi are very good there), then call it a night. The next morning we slept in, checked out at noon, then used the comps for the lunch buffet, which is nice but not as good as Bellagio. The best thing I tried was the chicken curry. We drove back to Los Angeles this afternoon, both of us up in poker winnings for the trip and me very sad to say goodbye to that Wynn room. I'll also have to re-adjust to L.A.-style poker, a kind where opponents actually call your bets.