Vegas TR (really long)

[Dave D]

Vegas Trip Report

This trip report starts out with a trail of beats. I had just finished law school finals on Wednesday, had decided that I would try to hop on standby for an earlier flight the next day. A couple weeks earlier I had called USair and asked how booked it was, and they said 25 open out of 138, which is wide open (my stepmom works for United, I’ve flown standby all my life, usually it depends on the plane/route but anything better than 5 open is a lock to get on, I lost the standby benefit when I graduated college). Anyway, I call up Wednesday and they tell me that it’s now 2 oversold, both flights at 7am and 740 am. The flight I booked is at 8:19 PM so that’s why I wanted to get an extra day in. At the time I bought my ticket, the 8:19 flight was a lot cheaper than the earlier ones, but hopping on standby would be only $25. Anyway, I show up and Beat: can’t get on either the 7am or the 740am. So I take a cab back to my place and sleep.
I get back to Logan and get on my regular flight. Except this time there’s someone in my seat, which incidentally isn’t the seat that I had reserved on orbitz, but still was an aisle seat. It’s a mentally handicapped boy’s mom, so whatever I’m not gonna cry about it but she seemed really standoffish (maybe she’s used to people yelling about these kinds of things) and doesn’t understand that I just need to be told where her seat was so I can go there. Eventually the flight attendant comes over and says oh, your seat is right there (Beat: Middle seat), and I say ok whatever, and she says because I’m being so cool about it she’ll comp me a drink or a headset. As I sit down, Beat: I notice the guy I’m next to definitely has some kind of cold, he’s not sneezing on me constantly or anything, but I’m thinking if I get sick this will suck. Turns out I didn’t. During the flight, the flight attendant says they have bud light, I say ok give me that, and she gives me bud diesel, I’m not sure if this is a beat or a brag, but I’m happy to drink on the flight for free.
I get into vegas about 20 minutes early (I guess this is a brag) but 27offsooot’s flight from philly is delayed like an hour or something. Probably weather, as I know Boston didn’t have great weather either (it wasn’t raining, but it was supposed to suck the next few days) Whatever, I wander around looking for food and all I can find is Burger King, that’s definitely a beat. 27offsooot shows up and we proceed to checking into our budget baller super 8 motel, it smells like cigarettes everywhere (except the room) but otherwise it’s two clean beds. Then we walk over to Ballys, for what’s become a traditional 2/4 donkfest (second time been to vegas, second time we’ve first thing donkfested), which was awesome. I highly recommend doing this before any trip to excise the poker demons. I think it’s nice to relieve some stress, and in general makes you relax about the game, and it’s so much fun. We also insisted on ordering Long Island Iced Teas, the jury is still out on whether or not that’s a man’s drink, but we didn’t care, we’re in vegas.
There was a fantastic looking milf at the other end of our table, who didn’t understand why we kept raising her blinds. In fact, we started yelling at her that we were raising her blinds BECAUSE she told us not to. She had her cleavage out, it was awesome, but she smokes, which is a beat. We also had a crazy French guy next to us (complete with the absolutely stereotypical French accent) who kept TELLING US WHAT HIS HAND WAS, and people kept paying him off. The dealer never said anything, and we didn’t either, and he only lied maybe 20% of the time. He kept saying “I never lie” and it was amazing how everyone still paid him off. Other notable sights were at one time seeing a bald guy at the bar with two awesome black hookers. Welcome to vegas. We got up around 5 am I think, I can’t quite remember. I do know it was light out. I was stuck around 75 (about half what I bought in for) and 27offsooot was stuck more, kinda foreshadowing much of the trip for him.

“Day” 2

I get up around 11 for the noon Caesars donkament. In retrospect I realize that this donkament, despite everyone loving it’s structure really isn’t that good. The dealers aren’t that fast, and they don’t have shuffle machines. The dealers also have to stop and write stuff down once an hour or something. In general, it’s slow, and ends up being a pushfest late in the second hour anyway, just like every other lower end tourney, so there’s no reason to think this one’s better than others. Before this tourney started I donked around 1/3 for about 45 minutes, and managed to see someone hit quad 4s for the HH jackpot of 125ish. The tourney was nothing special, as I ended up going out around 50th with AT v 66 AI PF (his call was marginal, but correct, I open pushed in the CO, he had a reasonable stack, probably 30 bbs and I had like 9).
After the tourney I played some more at Caesars 1/3, booked a small win of like $50, and then called 27offsooot who had been studying (med school lol) and we went over to the B.
Ok, so honestly, the B, is maybe one level above foxwoods, maybe. I mean the poker room sucks. The chips are dirty, the room is too crowded, the chairs suck, the tables are a dirty poo brown, the floor are dicks, there’s no electronic registration, the drink service is sub par, the cocktail girls weren’t that hot, nor were their outfits. But I (and most people here) already knew that, and we were there because the players were supposed to be pretty bad. The only thing decent are the dealers, and even some of them were [censored]. I played 8/16 that night, and booked a loss of 300 or so. Sometimes the table was good, but half the time it was pretty nitty. Also, I now regret not flinging poo at the wynn more because they logically use $2 chips, and it’s far more comfortable. I’m sure the quality of play would have been substantially similar. Nothing amazing happens this night, not really.

Day 3- Saturday
We get up at 1 or so and we go for food at Caesars, they have an AMAZING Caesar salad at the salad place kinda near the sportsbook. I would eat that every day if I could no joke. Also I think the preakness was that day, I could hear the shouting from the sportsbook area even though I was inside the poker room playing 1/3 until the 3:30 donkament. That was kinda funny. Lol horseracingaments. The 3:30 donkament was worth it probably, I mean 7500 chips is a lot, even compensating for slow dealers and no shufflmasters. Otherwise the room is great, comfortable, fast drink service, and usually pretty full and not terrible but not great players. Not too many notable hands from the donkament, but here’s one:

I have 99 and had raised to 150 PF out of the BB, two callers including SB who had completed. I usually only like to play 99 for set value, and it was still early. Flop comes all undercards, with two flush cards, I bet out 300, 2/3 pot, SB comes back for a min raise. At this point I should have just folded, because the min raise is such a tell, especially here as I’d seen him do it before with a set, but I repopped to 2000 intending to fold to a raise. I forget stack sizes, but I had probably around 8500 before the hand started, and he had me covered. SB just calls. Turn brings the 10 of diamonds, for the flush. I bet out 3000, he groans and goes all in and I fold. This was definitely a mistake, as that 10 was probably the worst possible card for me and I should have just check/folded. I can’t remember why, I think the other guy in the hand might have been all in early for not a lot, but I ended up being shown a flopped set of 5s from the SB. I just wasn’t happy with my play here, whatever. I ended up going out right before the first hour when I pushed like 8 BBs with A9s against AQ.

After this we both ended up going to the B again, but this time I ended up playing 2/5. I don’t really remember much of the poker, except that I stacked, or semi stacked like 4 people. I also managed to flop a straight with K9 on a QJTr board and lose to a limped AK from an otherwise solid player. I can’t remember the action exactly, but on the turn I think he raised big and I stared him down and he was smiling and at one point said “drink service over here” and I just knew I was beat. Later in the night I raised with AQ PF, flop comes AQT, someone raised me big on the turn and I got away from his flopped straight as well.

I think I ended up leaving up around 600 on the night around 5am. At one point the table I was at, which had some awful players, had 2 hot chicks, one of which had a boyfriend who came over and made sure everyone saw his brick of 100s that he won at BJ. He said he got a 65k win at BJ, what a douche, just everything about him screamed douche. I have certainly never seen so much money in one place before though, and his girlfriend had some great cleavage and sucked at poker. The funny thing is, he totally had this attitude like he’d actually done something to win that 65k, like he’d earned it or something. Umm, no dude, you ran well at a –ev game, k thanks. The girl seemed like a total nice girl too, totally not the type of girl you’d expect to roll with this guy, which was interesting.
I also had some great conversation with a local guy around my age (23) about hookers and pricing. He started telling me about the world of cocktail waitresses and how there’s a very thin line between waitress, stripper, and hooker. Also he was telling me how to negotiate with them, where to find the best ones, and how much they cost. It was awesome, I love talking to locals about vegas.

Oh yeah, this happened around 1am at Bellagio. Drunk donk comes in and sits down directly to my left. Within about 20 minutes he claims the dealer sorta nicked the muck with his sleeve, and that as a result the other side of the table could see the muck. I thought just the way he said it, he sounded like he was making [censored] up and/or being drunk, and the other side said they couldnt see it. A really passive argument was had (no yelling just like i dunno what do we do here, i dunno) and eventually teh floor was called. FLoor ssays "the only thing that's fair here is to turn up the ENTIRE MUCK" and asks everyone if they agree. Everyone agrees. I had an OESD and now tried to process this new info. I ended up folding, not so much because of the muck, but because of hte betting. I just couldn't believe it, and have never ever heard of such a thing, flipping up the entire muck because one donk claimed the other side of the table may have seen part of it.

Day 4-
I got up again for the Caesars 12 noon donkament. Nothing too notable happened here. The players seemed unusually decent, and actually realized I was pretty tight. I ended up open pushing 44 with 9 blinds in the second hour and getting called in like 2 places. Not even close to winning that hand. After that we decided to check out MGM. Something about it I thought I remembered it being so awesome from last time (back in july, the only other time I’d been to vegas), but this time I realized it really isn’t that great. It’s like it’s never been modernized since the mid 90s. It’s still a nice room/casino, but it wasn’t how I remembered it. The marble on the table is just weird, but not bad once you get used to it. I think it’s a good idea in principle, that it’s easier to stack chips on a flat surface than felt, but the problem really is that just the back of the table needs to be taller. I sat at one 2/5 table, managed to run QQ into KK AI PF (he limp/reraised, I just pushed). Then I switched tables to one of the best tables ever. When I got there it was a gamboool fest with something like 850 avg stack on a 500 max buy in table. I got a couple hands here and there, but mostly ran pretty cold at the worst possible time. This hand happened: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...D=#Post10489140 and after that I realized that villain 1 was really really drunk and just looking to push chips around. He probably dropped at least 7k on the table, and was reloading probably 4 times an hour. It was sick, he was just looking to stack off as much as possible. The only real hand I got on him with A6s where I turned the nuts. He bet 150 at me, and I pushed for like 450 more. He thought about it for a little while and folded, but it was so close I could feel it. Basically it just felt like the whole table was taking shots at him, and it was almost an unspoken rule that nobody else was getting into fights with anyone else.
Eventually he left, and I was up to about 1500, even though I really didn’t have that many great hands. TP no kicker was good against the nut. Around 4am one of the other drunks at the table who sucked got lucky and hit with his 23 on a 226 flop and took me for about 250 when my K6s was no good (he was directly to my right, he never raised me). Another hand happens where I don’t make my draw against a shorty and I’m down to 1100, at which time I decide to leave because I’m so tired and the megadonk had left about 20 minutes ago (he’d said he was coming back, but it had been 20 minutes and he didn’t come back yet). Booking a 600 win there is good, but it could have been 2000 if I’d called with JJ in the hand I linked. Oh well, I’m new to NL, and this is the first time I’d been serious about it.

Day 5
This was our last day, and we decided to head over to the Wynn to fling some 8/16 poo. I really wish I’d been there more often that week. That room is perfect, except the drink service is a little slow and the tables don’t have cupholders. It’s funny how every room in vegas has a minor flaw, whether it be no cup holders or no auto shufflers or whatever. So me and 27offsooot decided to sit together because the room was pretty empty and they only had one 8/16 that we helped start. Someone at the other end of the table had some red wine, and we decided to order whatever he’s having, I guess it was house cabernet. It was good stuff, and ONLY A DOLLAR. I also decided to get a message at one time. This was my 4th one of the trip, two at Caesars, 1 at mgm, and this one. The girl at Caesars was the best (seemed like a latin American girl, definitely a strong accent) and another girl there was tied with the wynn girl, the MGM girl sucked, it wasn’t hard enough and she’d like go under my shirt and stuff. She had a pretty worn out face too, juts looks like she parties too hard or something.
The table wasn’t that great, fairly rocky, the 1 seat looked like a baller but sucked at poker. Then we got to talking and it turns out he used to date Vanessa Rousso, his name is Ross, I can’t remember his last name. It was cool talking to him because a really good friend of mine from college was Vanessa’s debate partner in high school so I’m pretty familiar with the part of florida she’s from and stuff. This guy was basically just donking around 8/16 for fun, and obviously wiped his ass with the kind of money on the table. It was great because he really pumped up some pots for me, and I was amazed to win an amazing amount of money with AK on a Kxx flop with like 4 people in, no one had sucked out by the river on TPTK. It had been capped PF at 5 bets. I ended up booking a $460ish win when we left.
I really wish we’d gone to Wynn more, I had forgotten about how great of a poker room that place is. Everything is perfect, and the waitresses are sooo hot. I’m not sure about the quality of the game, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was comparable to the B.
I mean honestly, even if the B’s game was slightly softer, I’d still rather play in comfortable place, after all I am on vacation.
Incidentally, there’s a regular there that I cant remember her name, but she’s a total GILF. She might have been 55 or so, but she looked great for her age, and moved to my immediate right for some reason. If anyone knows who this is, you know what I mean. Anyway, we left around 8, pretty drunk, I think I had about 2.5 big glasses of wine, 27offsooot had 3.5 (the waitress was obviously trying to get us wasted and take advantage of us, too bad for her we were leaving that night) or about a bottle she told him. By sheer stroke of luck one of the dealers mentioned that we really need to get to the airport 2 hours early. We probably would have gotten there 1.5 hours early anyway, but this made us leave at 8:15 for 10:45 flights, but we had to still get a cab, and then get to our motel to pick up our bags. Note to everyone, Monday nights are apparently the worst flying nights (that’s what the dealer told us) and the airport was indeed a mess. We ended up drunkenly trying to find a cab and walking back to the motel 8 from the wynn because all the cabs driving by were full. We got lucky and got one literally a block from the motel 8, but yeah, being drunk we’re kinda lucky we didn’t miss our flight.
The airport was a mess, usair’s check in kiosks were down, but we got bumped into a special line because our flight took off before 11pm. We got there at 9:10, and I had about 40 minutes before takeoff when I got to the gate, so it all worked out pretty much perfectly. One funny thing was that the person giving me the boarding pass offered the person ahead of me an upgrade to first for 150, but he didn’t want it. When I tried to take it, it took her about 5 minutes to figure out that it had actually been sold already. 150 would have been so worth it as I could have probably actually slept on the plane.
Anyway, on the trip after 345 for plane ticket and 160 for my share of the room, plus food and stuff like back rubs, and also about 590 in Caesar’s entry fees (two 130 buy ins and the 330) I came out about 100 ahead. Not great, but I’m happy to pay my expenses. My only regret is not being able to stay longer.

[27offsooot]

I may write a longer TR too b/c we mostly played at diferent tables, but some general comments first:

1. I had a ton of fun playing despite losing, losing and losing some more. I seemed to play at a number of lively tables, although i think my general drunkeness assisted in this. How the [censored] I lost 250 at 3/6 (not 2/4 as in ur account) I have no idea. The rest of my losses at 15/30 and 2/5 NL made more sense.

2. If u were at the Bellagio on Fri. and was wondering what was happening at the loudest 15/30 table ever, it was myself and two other decent young players (Dan and I forget his friend) being obnoxious and getting half the table to do Jager bombs every third orbit. We had big piles of chips and I was playing sane, but i think we got others to loosen up with our antics. I don't think Dan liked it when I c/r bluffed the turn with K high on a J226 board and got him to fold 88 and showed it down. I think he stopped taking me seriously after that.

3. My favorite beat of the weekend was going 10 bets (i called his ten bet) vs. a Bell regular at the 15/30 with 88 on a 865r flop and then putting in only 4 turn and river bets total after a turn 6. Of course he had 66. There were plenty of others (see point 1).

4. I don't know what the deal was with Ross. I disliked him at first and thought he was a fish. But then I started thinking he was a pretty cool guy and was knowledgeable on EVERYTHING. He was a good guy and I really enjoyed playing with him. I especially enjoyed showing down my three barrel bluff on an A high monotone flop with J high (I had J4o) after accidentally raising his bb in the CO with someone who had limped (i didn't see his limp). And then again showing down 89s after he three bet my UTG raise on a K54(5) board and he folded to my turn bet (after i c/r flop). He claimed to have 79s, but i don't believe him. I really regret not c/ring a four club board with like 3rd pair against him. He said he didn't have a club. We had built up a good pot when i called his steal raise (two others had called) blind and flopped a pair of 4s with 9 kicker on a 432 flop.

6. I agree with Dave completely about Wynn being much much better still. Although I did have some good interactions with the floor at the B for once. Still, OMG, 4 or so full glasses of wine + Zooza burger is so money at the table.

7. With that one 8/16 hand u posted Dave, was that the hand I was in? PF action when u open UTG, i get my 12 chips in the pot from UTG+1 in quicker than u get ur 8 in w/ 33. Some irrelevant bad player calls. Ross 4 bets (he had 33 too). U cap. Flop would've been A24 b/c both Ross and I had to call the 3 flop bets and turn bet. If it was another hand and I wasn't paying attention, then my bad.

8. Dave, please learn to put chips into the pile. I kept getting my 12 chips in b/f u could get 8 in. And again, please stop sucking out on me with ur f-ing 3 outters. "I know i'm going to win b/c u run so bad" is not an excuse to call on a KTx flop w/ A3 after i three bet u PF (I had Ajo). I told u sitting to my right was a very bad idea. Yet u still ended up, while I of course did not.

[mingorama]

Enjoyed reading this. Thanks.

[Dave D]

4. Yeah I disliked him as well at first, thought he was some random rich fish, but actually he was a really fun guy. It's too bad we had to leave cuz otherwise I would have loved to hang out with him more. He was indeed knowledgable about just about everything, despite never having gone to college (and I think he mentioned only having gone through 10th grade, but that might have been a joke).

6. I think that's the hand where you both had 33, but I thought I remember it coming down K high though, but I might be wrong. I know I was UTG, and I think you're right about the A high. I only think there was one hand where it was capped PF.

8. I'll only learn to put chips faster if you learn to count. You skipped number 5. Yeah, as I said at the table to the GILF, I'm a lightweight and was much drunker than I thought about halfway through our time there. It took a lot of mental energy to count chips. Although I generally do have issues with putting out the right number of chips, which is why I usually say my action as well.

I refuse to stop sucking out on you because you tilt so easy. Also, your range is any two, so I know A3 is ahead even on that flop. You got lucky that one time.

[NicksDad1970]

nice report

I loved the Caesars nooners.

[Wake up CALL]

Good trip report, my only comment is about your MGM description below.

[ QUOTE ]
After that we decided to check out MGM. Something about it I thought I remembered it being so awesome from last time (back in july, the only other time I’d been to vegas), but this time I realized it really isn’t that great. It’s like it’s never been modernized since the mid 90s.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes it opened in 1993 but in all practical aspects what you see there today all happened during the complete remodel in 2000. Not exactly any sort of rundown mid 1990's decor at all.

[27offsooot]

[ QUOTE ]
4. Yeah I disliked him as well at first, thought he was some random rich fish, but actually he was a really fun guy. It's too bad we had to leave cuz otherwise I would have loved to hang out with him more. He was indeed knowledgable about just about everything, despite never having gone to college (and I think he mentioned only having gone through 10th grade, but that might have been a joke).

6. I think that's the hand where you both had 33, but I thought I remember it coming down K high though, but I might be wrong. I know I was UTG, and I think you're right about the A high. I only think there was one hand where it was capped PF.

8. I'll only learn to put chips faster if you learn to count. You skipped number 5. Yeah, as I said at the table to the GILF, I'm a lightweight and was much drunker than I thought about halfway through our time there. It took a lot of mental energy to count chips. Although I generally do have issues with putting out the right number of chips, which is why I usually say my action as well.

I refuse to stop sucking out on you because you tilt so easy. Also, your range is any two, so I know A3 is ahead even on that flop. You got lucky that one time.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't tilt, I just drink more. It only becomes a problem when I can't read my cards anymore. But since i never won hands anyway with a SD, and only won hands that I bluffed at (somehow even with my image I had a >80% success rate, and can only remember one multi-street bluff not working), it really didn't matter too much what cards I had, only what cards I figured they had. Seriously though, I was playing tight in EP, and after I three bet your UTG open, i have to at least have decent cards. I only got ridiculous in late position. And I don't really bluff that much. Only when I think it's right to. Usually against nits.

9. It was nice meeting Brazillio and his two friends who are 2p2 (one of which was Stabn?). Too bad they play NL and we never played together. BTW, NL is way way too boring for me.

[BBMW]

The front of the casino, where the poker room is, was done even later than that. This is when the built the poker room and the bar on the outside of it. Actually, they've done a reasonably good job of keeping the MGM fresh, given that it's now one of the older major strip properties.

[ QUOTE ]
Good trip report, my only comment is about your MGM description below.

[ QUOTE ]
After that we decided to check out MGM. Something about it I thought I remembered it being so awesome from last time (back in july, the only other time I’d been to vegas), but this time I realized it really isn’t that great. It’s like it’s never been modernized since the mid 90s.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes it opened in 1993 but in all practical aspects what you see there today all happened during the complete remodel in 2000. Not exactly any sort of rundown mid 1990's decor at all.

[/ QUOTE ]

[thesilkworm]

I love reading these Vegas trip reports - really puts me in the mood for my first visit there in June (my first visit to the US in fact).

[Dave D]

[ QUOTE ]
Good trip report, my only comment is about your MGM description below.

[ QUOTE ]
After that we decided to check out MGM. Something about it I thought I remembered it being so awesome from last time (back in july, the only other time I’d been to vegas), but this time I realized it really isn’t that great. It’s like it’s never been modernized since the mid 90s.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes it opened in 1993 but in all practical aspects what you see there today all happened during the complete remodel in 2000. Not exactly any sort of rundown mid 1990's decor at all.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's not a top place to play. However, for example the bathrooms were pretty run down. Its still a nice place, just not as nice as I remembered it.