Vegas trip report Dec-9-14 - part one

[NoRiverRats]

So there we were last Friday evening, the three of us standing in the lobby of the MGM trying to decide where to go. For those of you who missed the Crazy Canuck post a week ago, I christened my two buddies, Brown Gus (he's Pakistani, shaves his head, plays a little online) and Junior Jesus Senior or JSJ (his hair is half as long a Ferguson's but he's a few years older). Neither one of them had every played B&M before, neither had been to Vegas.

They want to play as low as possible ($2-4) and they wanted me at the table with them. I said no way, $4-8 was the place to play. They wouldn’t bite so I talked about the advice on here and we compromised on the $2-6 at Excalibur.

As we waded through the cowboy hats and belt buckles (Rodeo in town) we finally made it to the poker room. There is a list of about four or five names, we sign up and I head over to watch the action at the nearest $2-6 table.

When I regained consciousness….it took me a few minutes to figure out where I was and what just happened. The second hand I watched went like something like this, call, fold, fold, call, call, fold, call, fold, call, check (only one $2 blind in this game). Flop comes Q-K-A of spades. BB bets $6 all fold……..BB turns over…….J-10 spades. I think I whispered a silent “thank-you” to fellow posters who advised playing here, and to God before I hit the floor. As for our hapless hero, at least he got to spin the wheel(four of a kind and straight flushes get to spin a bonus wheel for up to $100, also you get to spin if your aces are cracked). I think he hit $20, the most common spot on the bonus wheel.

So we all get called to different tables and I sit down, request a table change, and hit 99 on my third hand in LP with several callers, I call and five of us see a flop with a 9 in it, I raise and am called to the river by two people and drag the pot. Nothing for the next ten minutes and we eventually all make it to the same table. I lose a hand to JSJ when his QQ flops a Q to my JJ, he’s pretty happy since he got two callers all the way(I folded on the turn because I have played 10 years of home games with the guy). Nothing really going my way but that’s OK, gives me time to watch my buddies play and answer some of their questions.

I finally get my bullets cracked buy a set of Ks and get to spin, yippee. I hit double the first spin, and hit double again, I turn to the cage and say “so does that mean whatever I hit next is quadrupled?” she smiles, shakes her head and says spin again. I hit $35 and walk away with my $70. Nothing much happens after that, I play my good hands hard, catch some cards and do OK, - every time I raise PF and bet on the flop I have a great hand, I get called down most times and end up showing my hand. I have a very tight image at the table. Despite that, when I call with my suited connectors with five people in the hand I never hit anything, big cards come and someone is always holding one of them. I lose some chips. Nothing much happens for a while when a new face joins the table, black dude wearing a bandana and Cowboys football jersey. A few hands later I raise in LP with AQs. Three callers including bandana guy. Board come A-junk-A. Check, he bets, fold, I re-raise, fold, he calls. Turn is junk he bets??? I raise he calls. River is case A, I bet he calls. I turn over quads, he looks at me, shakes his head knowingly. I whispered a silent “thank-you” to fellow posters who advised playing here, and to God as I rake the pot and go spin the wheel for another $25. Good times.

Naturally with players this bad, the suckouts were bound to happen but holy flying cards Batman did things go crazy for a while. KK cracked twice, QQ cracked and TPTK sucked out on a few times by flushes. I am not disappointed to see any of this, just frustrated that it happens all at once. Finally, after about two hours we decide we need to eat since its been about 8 hrs. since our last meal and the booze is making us loopy. JSJ ends up down about $40, Brown Gus plays well and is up $50 and I am up about $110 ($75 from my wheel spins, so you get the idea how much the suckouts hurt).

As we are walking Sherwood Forest in Excalibur, JSJ says “wow people are fat here.” I said yes but wait until we get to the Bellagio, where guests and working women are fat in all the right places…..Dinner is very slow in arriving, given there are only about 40 people in the restaurant that must hold about 250, but at least its edible. When JSJ gets his salmon he says, “now I know why they are fat” as he looked at his plate with the salmon sitting on top of a deep dish bowl of pasta – the salmon was what he ordered, the pasta was simply an option, instead of potato, but it ended up looking like the salmon was an appetizer with the pasta. As most of you know food portions are much bigger in Vegas than anywhere I can remember.

After dinner we head for MGM, all three of us got seated fairly quickly at different tables. I get called to three seat at table by the rail which turns out to be one of the worst table I have ever played at –and I mean that in a good way. What a great game! There was a guy in a black Bellagio jacket who I thought was a dealer – he donked off $200 in about two hours after moving seats about three times and carping about the dealer every now and then. He had a thick ethnic accent and I couldn’t understand anything but his very negative tone.

Then there was the middle age guy in a green golf shirt in five seat who studied his cards carefully, in turn, every hand. Guy looked like he knew what he was doing, very serious. But after two circuits of the table I didn’t know what the heck he was looking at for so long when the action came to him because he played almost anything, even calling two bets cold with 10-8o. He went up for a while but then tanked, rightfully so. I dropped about $40 in a hurry, getting rivered by a straight and a flush but finished up about $60 when time difference (3hrs.) and the booze made me too groggy to play well. Brown Gus lost a little but was still up for the day and JSJ lost a little more than at Excalibur and was down something like $60. All in all they were very happy, especially Brown Gus, who liked B&M much more than he thought. I had told him that $4-8 played like .50-$1 online and we both agreed at the end of the night that the online game was much harder than the games we just played.

A few thoughts – the Excalibur is a great place to play, friendly and efficient with awful players. Floor made a decision that I didn’t like that I will get to in part two of this report. Also, I didn’t like that fact that not all the tables were equipped with shufflers and the wood around the edge of the table sucks. I had played at MGM before, so knew the room, but I still don’t like the faux marble around the edges of their tables, I prefer and all felt tables. Also, smokers on the rail in both places are annoying as hell.

[theghost]

Excalibur is a fun place to hang with friends and play some cards. I usually started my days there (1-2ish) and moved on to another room after dinner (MGM or Bellagio, usually).

I was there in early November, and they were doubling all the spins (ie 35=70 and so on). No more?

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So we all get called to different tables and I sit down, request a table change, and hit 99 on my third hand in LP with several callers, I call

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you should raise this hand