Vegas TR 9/12-17: (I was bombed and eventually found hook... escorts.)

[Obfuscation]

I enjoy reading these so I might as well contribute. Kinda long so I’ll break it up and might start a little slow but I promise there will be stuff about hookers, Cheetah’s, hookers in Cheetah’s, hot links and Asian Massage Parlors so hang in there:

Tuesday 9/12/06: Kiss the gf goodbye as she leaves for work at 8:00am and fire up a little MVP while waiting for 212-777-7777 to come pick my butt up from my place in Manhattan and take it to Newark for my flight. Consider cracking open my last Sol, but decide to wait. Board the plane where a 30 something couple with obvious brain damage begins going wack-O about not sitting together. The cute girl sitting to my right starts motioning that she’ll change seats to shut them up. NOOOOOO!!!!!! *sigh* Of course the two crazies sit right next to me and proceed to tell me their life stories over the next 5 hours.

The chick was actually decent looking with a great rack and low cut shirt but clearly had about 400,000 city miles on the odometer as well. “I used to dance at Scores.” “Oh really? Well, my name’s Obfuscation.” *sigh * Anyway, turns out they actually DID have brain damage. Seriously. They were both in an apparently horrific car accident about 2 years ago and both had brain surgery. *blinking* Yeah. So. Unbelievable. I think I feel bad. With semi-mixed emotions (and a semi in general) I continue to glance down Scores’ shirt every chance I get as the jittery dude leaves his seat mid-flight for about the 50th time.

Arrive Vegas and wait about 3 years for my bags. I knew I shouldn’t have checked bags but I can’t live without my Issey and that’s final. The huge Lance Burton head starting down at me seems to sympathize. Thanks Lance. The slots in the airport crack me up every time I come here.

Arrive at Alladin to check in and the place is a freaking disaster. You actually enter through what looks like the employee entrance. There is no lobby and there are 40 foot temporary walls cutting off what must be more than 50% of the entire place. Incredibly formless. It looks like they just have zero idea of what they want to do with the place. But whatever, the room was 59 bucks a night and is otherwise nice, plus good strip location.

Apparently Mike Tyson is training this week at Aladdin and there is a full on boxing ring on the mezzanine. Heelarious. I’d so want him to eat my children if I had any. I actually checked this out on Thursday and sure enough, Iron Mike comes into the ring (90 minutes late of course) and slaps around his trainer wearing the padded gloves. (Can you tell I know little about boxing?) His power and speed were remarkable however I was most impressed with the sheer quantity of snot rockets the man fired out onto the canvas, eliciting groans from the general assemblage. It was spectacular. He was blasting snot a good 12 feet without even winding up. Amazing. Even more amazing was the fact that he pays some 20-year-old kid to run around with towels wiping it up. The Sweet Science indeed.

In any event, I shower up and change and head outside to walk up to the MGM where I plan on beginning the Drunken Poker Tour. My buddies don’t arrive until Thursday so I’m ready to put in some serious time solo until then.

Arrive MGM after almost boiling like an egg. How the hell did anyone decide to drop a city on what is basically the surface of the moon, except boiling hot? The MGM room is pretty dead at around 4pm on Tuesday but it sure looks pretty nice. I want to settle in with some limit to get started. (Read: Get bombed) But all they have open is 2/4. Ugh. Whatever, I add my name to an interest list for 4/8 and 6/12 and sit down. Play 3 hands, winning one and downing one Corona and they move me to 3/6. Play maybe 20 hands and down about 2 more Coronas. Then they get the 4/8 going and I grab my seat. Nice.

Play for maybe 3 hours winning and losing the same 100 bucks it seems. Come across the following hand when I look down on the button to find 8[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]9[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. Call. BB raises and the 5 limpers call and so do I. Flop comes 5-6-7 rainbow and I’m ordering a pre-celebration Corona. “Oh, my action?” Call the flop bet with 3 players left. Turn comes a 4. Bet. Bet. “I raise!” The old grumpy-preflop-big-blind-raiser-dude raises and the young grumpy dude to my right raises. *blink* Er. Reexamine board. Nope. Still got the nuts. I cap with the very non-AC-like 4th raise. River comes an A. Rainbow board. BB checks. Young dude bets. “I raise!” BB calls. Young dude: “Looks like we’re gonna split this one.” And calls showing down his pocket 8’s while the BB shows….. A4? *dancing* Ship It.

Maybe 30 minutes later I cash out up maybe 10BB and head over to the Monte for the hell of it and decide I’m hungry. Grab a few beers at the Brew Pub over there and a steak. Not bad at all. Nothing outstanding but good solid food sitting at the bar watching a ballgame. Good times. Go check out the poker room and throw myself on the ½ NL list but there’s only one game going and looks like the most miserable bunch of slobs pretty much ever. After 5 minutes I take a pass and stroll down the Strip to make a series of nice drunk dials. I’m pretty schnookered after about a dozen or more bru-dogs and the air feels good as I ramble into the voicemails of at least 3 ex girlfriends like the baller I am. Who’s the man? This guy! *pointing thumbs at self*

Somehow the stroll takes me all the way past the Bellagio and half of Caesar’s. Planning on playing the Caesar’s tourney tomorrow, I skip them both and head for the (f***ing) Mirage. You can tell the Mirage is a few years old now but I kind of like how this casino resort is still 60% casino and 40% resort. Was sort of surprised to find only 3/6 going here and nothing higher so I buy into a 1/2NL game that winds up being a highlight. Absolutely crazy and drunken, shot-filled game. Seriously. This game had it all. Young internet sunglass dudes, middle eastern loudmouths, an Irish loudmouth (*whistling innocently*), a father and his son who was celebrating his 21st birthday and at least 3 crazy Asian dudes whose indifference to stakes was clearly the strongest part of their game. One of these dudes was multitabling Blackjack and No Limit at the same time. All 3 were literally bluff-pushing and getting snapped off left and right.

The shots of patron began to flow. The Middle Eastern dude who was pretty hilarious all around, orders all of us these huge (like 5-6oz, no joke) shots of Patron. The guy to his left claims that he can’t drink tequila and that even the smell makes him sick. So at one point when the anti-tequila guy was in a hand and deep in the tank, ME dude holds up his Patron and starts blowing over the surface of his glass at the guy. The guy’s like “AUGH!" And throws his hands over his face and it basically killed. Everyone was howling but luckily the poor dude had a sense of humor about the whole thing and laughed as well.

It was just such a great and fun game despite having the floor actually tell the ENTIRE TABLE to “Keep it down. Keep it down.” That particular experience has led me to the conclusion that bad floor decisions should definitely be met by loud BOOOOOS as they were here. But really it was fun. ME Guy facing a huge turn bet: “Whoa. Time.” *half a second later* “CLOCK!” *general howling* Pissy floorman. Wealthy cocktail waitress.

Notable hand. I limp in with treys, and then call a small raise to 7 and flop a set on a ragged board with a K. 21 year old bets out 20 with what seemed like a clear TPGK (given his pretty basic play thusfar) and crazy Blackjack multi-tabling Asian dude pushes for literally the 8th time. I call instantaneously (21 folds) and drag a monster as Asian shows… nothing. Like Q-8. “You got me. Lock it up.” As he heads back to BJ to rebuild his roll. What a great game. Somehow cash up about 380 and stumble into a cab to sleep it off. More later if you guys are still awake….

[Aces_up_North]

Good read, can't wait to read the other half

[deadbody]

we were promised hooker. Write more.

Good TR. hope to see it end

[DayTripping]

We've had a rash of great trip reports here recently. Nice job.

Also, why the Alladin? I agree the location is pretty good, but with all the renovations going on the place is totally dead and depressing. Didn't Flamingo have cheap rooms?

[Obfuscation]

[ QUOTE ]
We've had a rash of great trip reports here recently. Nice job.

Also, why the Alladin? I agree the location is pretty good, but with all the renovations going on the place is totally dead and depressing. Didn't Flamingo have cheap rooms?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I found some internet special for 59 bucks which was a sweet deal. Plus we were going to switch over to Hard Rock for the weekend but my buddy's comp fell through so we just extended for the sake of convenience.

[Man of Means]

Looking forward to part 2. Feeling tipsy just reading this.

[Obfuscation]

Second part:

Wednesday 9/13/06: Woke up with a pounding headache (go figure) but otherwise hanging in there. Munch on 3 Advil and get myself together at around 10am due to my Eastern Time Zone metabolism. Plan is to play the noon tourney at Caesar’s so I head over to register. At 11am there is only ONE shorthanded ½ NL game going which I found to be pretty amazing. Beautiful room although very isolated. I prefer the open-air approach of the MGM, myself. Went to the food court for a quick wrap before starting up the tourney.

Wish I could report something more interesting in the tourney but was pretty card cold the entire time. My big hands seemed to always miss the flop and didn’t really run into decent opportunities to make any moves. Did manage to double up once with A10 off a guy who just lost a huge hand and was clearly tilting but that was about it. I wound up going out early in the fourth level pretty quietly.

Everyone talks about how this is a great structure and it is, but the early hour and the lack of energy in the room made for a pretty dull afternoon, quite frankly. You could hear a pin drop in that place and everyone was overly serious. Frankly, my eyes were ready to roll out of my head if another person told a “Main Event” bad beat story. Some dink is a Bluff Magazine T-Shirt *chuckle* actually said something to the the effect of “My mind just hasn’t been right since the main event.” In this overly-somber tone as he looks around to see who’s listening. Good grief buddy, can it, will ya? Anyway, before busting out I discovered that Caesar’s serves Guiness. Oh yeah.

I bust out and sit in the 500max ½ game and stupidly start slugging Guins like its 10 minutes to closing time in Belfast.

Game is filled with maybe 5 decent players (which is of course a lot for casino ½) but I hold my own. I then take 2 absolutely horrendous beats at the hands of this old greek dude which crushes my whole session:

I call a raise to 6 with K3 of clubs on the button and promptly flop 2 pair on a rainbow board. Checks to me and I bet the pot of about 25 bucks or whatever. 3 callers including the old Greek dude who’s been drawing to any and everything the entire game and playing very passively. He also has been sucking out like a madman. On the turn a second spade falls and it’s checked to me and I make a fairly large-ish bet to 100. 2 insta-folds and then the old Greek dude leers at the flop, stews and then grabs a stack of 20 redbirds. I’m convinced he’s now drawing to the flush.

Of course the river is also a spade and Greek leads out for 125. Mother*****. I go deep into the tank and lay it down but the 10% of me that thinks I may have laid down the winner basically tilts me and I start leaking chips little by little. I’m down about 280 at this point and fairly drunk and decide to wrap it up soon when I get rockets in mid position. (Greeky was to my immediate right, btw). I raise it up, get 3 callers and the flop comes a ragged Queen high. I fire out bigger than pot sized bet, still tilty and content to pick up the modest pot. 2 insta folds but Greeky comes along for the ride again. Turn is a rag and I push my last 150 or so into the middle. Greeky calls me. River is a five and he turns over Q5 to crack my Aces. *siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh* Kill me now.

I bail down 500 but up about 10 Guins.

After this I go back for a snooze and then some dinner and then decide to take a stroll down the strip and walk into all the cruddy casinos I have never visited before. As you go down the Strip on the Paris/Venetian side the casinos stick out in the street so you will walk right into them unless you turn. Kinda funny. I browse through the Flamingo and Harrahs and O’Sheas and every other foul cigarette smelling casino of yesteryear along the way.

I eventually head into the much-touted Venetian and sit down for some mellow 4/8. Most boring table of all time. Old grouches taking 30 seconds to gather up and look at their hole cards. Half asleep off duty dealers and other locals. I wasn’t impressed at all. Seemed like it was some insider club amongst the regulars and it bored me to tears. Not many games going late on a Wednesday night either. Maybe if I had been up/sober enough for NL I would have had a different experience but overall I just wasn’t all that impressed with the Venetian. It reminded me of a retirement home.

I leave after maybe 2 hours and keep walking down to the Wynn when this drunk 20 something chick carrying a half empty glass of Gin and Tonic stops me and asks me what the club across the street was. Judging from the huge orange sign reading “TANGERINE”, I said “I think that’s Tangerine.” Immediately I’m thinking that I don’t want to talk to a hooker but suddenly it dawns on me that this was just some girl and not a hooker. Dressed too plainly, not ugly but not hot, not too much makeup and clearly from out of town, talking about this being her first time in Vegas and just a little too drunk etc. Honestly, I’m giving it a 20% chance she was a working girl but as I’m not inexperienced in these matters, I’m pretty confident that she was a normal chick.

So what happened? Uh… yeah. I fooked it up and turned her down when she asked me to go have a drink. Doh. 50 yards later, I turn and kick myself but won’t bring myself to chase after her. I am a complete moron. I mean, good lord am I dumb. Instead of having a drink with a reasonably cute girl who may want to have sex with me for free I wind up going into the….. turn away if you’re squeamish…. The Frontier. *shaking head at self*

Dude, I cannot believe anyone goes to this place. No exaggeration, you could smell the stale cigarettes from 20 yards from the front door. It was HORRENDOUS. I did a quick lap and got the hell out of there. Who the hell goes to these places?!?! Why are they still in business? Unbelievable.

Anyway, to make amends I go back and immediately flip open the yellow pages and order up an Asian massage therapist. *nodding happily* 30 minutes later some non-descript Korean broad is rubbing me down and moaning about wanting a 100 dollar tip. Um.. no. We settle on something a bit more fair and I have an underwhelming if ultimately satisfying time. I’m telling you, I don’t know where these Asian massage girls get their wonder bras but you could make a 2x4 look buxom with one of these things. So annoying. I’m giving this a C+.

Thursday 9/14/06: My one buddy rolls into town and we hit the buffet at Aladdin. As my grandfather used to say: “Well, the food’s not that good but it’s all you can eat.” I then go watch Tyson as he finishes up some last minute work before we go over to MGM.

At MGM, I make it a point to stay sober for 90% of the time playing ½ NL and as a result I have a great session feeding on 2 classic, classic, classic calling stations for a 600 win. Then as we are wrapping things up around 9:30pm, I declare a SHOT WAR on my friend at the other table. I ask the waitress if she would bring my friend a shot of Jager over at the other table. “We can’t serve shots here.” *redbird* “Oh, well. I guess I can just put an ice cube in it.” Atta girl. Near vomiting of my friend gives me a clearly successful first strike in the shot war as I sit back down to prepare for the return salvo.

Buddy tries to send me Jack but the scheme backfires when the waitress somehow turns that into… Gran Marnier… *chuckle* I stand up boldly and toast my friend as I slug down the booze/Gatorade and even chew on the ice. It was like his cannon exploded amidships. I fire back a shot of Patron and win the MGM battle. Cashing out again toasty and happy.

The rest of the night was sort of non-descript except for the hooker parade at the Wynn. What a pain in the ass to see 800 super hot hookers and have to reveal that you’re staying at the …. *ahem* Aladdin. I mean, it’s embarrassing even when they are specialists in making you feel like a stud. *sigh* “Oh honey, I love the way your hair is receding that’s so sexy and …. Um.. the Aladdin? Oh baby, I just don’t play that way. So sorry.”

Friday we went downtown and then hit the Palms and Cheetahs and other points unknown… tbc…

[MrWookie]

Aw, just as it was getting really juicy. Awaiting Part the Third.

[DayTripping]

I don't know, if some chick is walking down the street by herself in Vegas and just randomly starts talking to you and asks you to have a drink with her, she's probably a hooker. (I'm assuming you are no Brad Pitt). Even if she was a whore, though, it couldn't have been any worse than going to the Frontier.

[Obfuscation]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't know, if some chick is walking down the street by herself in Vegas and just randomly starts talking to you and asks you to have a drink with her, she's probably a hooker. (I'm assuming you are no Brad Pitt). Even if she was a whore, though, it couldn't have been any worse than going to the Frontier.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh agreed 100%

(Well, except that I am pretty fly, of course.)

But there was just something about her that seemed non-hookerish. I can't explain it.

Eh, she probably was.