MGM trip report -Mom's weekend

[fishyak]

Since readers have different interests, I'll divide the report into 3, maybe four sections: Poker (of course), Food, Entertainment and possibly the ubiquitous, Other.

Arrived Friday about noon and our room is available - cool. Unpack - and I am off to the Poker room. "She who must be obeyed" aka my wife aka Trish heads off the small slots to lose $ and earn our next free room. My goal is to win back her losses.

Poker Section:

Overall, LHE is continuing to shrink and NL is continuing to grow. However, overall LHE play was deliciously awful. If possible, the level of play was worse than Commerce. My only warning. There is a group of kids younger than 25, who appear to use the room as their practice area for developing a LAG style. I recognized 3 faces from prior trips. (I am horrible with names, but my "facial recognition software" is very good.) There is even one red head kid who comes in after mid-night, allegedly drunk, wearing strings of Madri Gras beads, loudly and frequently proclaiming that he doesn't know what to do or how much $ to bet when. Well, I know its the 3rd time I've seen his act and I play at the MGM only 4 weekends/year. Someone recently posted about going to a poker table on the strip wearing the "disguise" of the hoodie, dark glasses, baseball cap (1/2 sideways, of course) and the 3/4 empty yardlong. Well, this kid was close to that, good for action at that table. He was winning and my recollection says that he makes a LAG style work for him. But DO NOT BUY THE BS.

For LHE, MGM spreads between 2/4 - 4/8. They tried but couldn't spread a 6/12 Sat. night. Between 4am and noon, you might not find a single limit game open. Sleep in.

Trip specifics:

First session 4/8. Overall result +$50. Two hands:

55 on the Button. UTG+1 Raises, 2 cold callers to me. I call. BB calls. 4 to the flop and 345r flop. BB bets, UTG+1 raises, I 3 bet. UTG+1 makes it 4 bets (by accident). 4 players. Turn: T. Checked to me I bet. 2 call. River T. Checked to me. Bet, one caller. I felt I had enough callers in front of me PF to cold call with 5's.

2nd hand: TT on Button. UTG (tight, decent player) raises, MP1 (same) re-raises, no other callers. Do I 3 bet or fold? Frond had a post with a similar situation not long ago. I decided to let this one go and was happy when the the flop was KJx. When the hand was over, I wasn't happy to see that UTG and MP1 had gone to war with the same hand, AQo, and my TT was good! lol.

Time for a dinner break, met up with Cactus Jack and his s/o Marilyn. That was fun and then back to the Poker Room where CJ & I could both get one a 2/4 table so that we could see each other's play for a while. CJ plays tight PF and believes in the Hawaii hand philosophy. Our table was classic LAP so I played a little looser but could not connect a hand with the board except for one loose call where I wind up cracking CJ's QQ with a straight! That one left a mark. LOL.

After CJ left, I had a long cold spell of no cards. AJ got no love from the board a number of times. I catch two sets that both lose, one to a flush, the other to a straight. Despite these setbacks, I play my few winners well and am down only $30. So I am up a whole $20 for the first day.

Sat:

2/4 is what's open. I am in Seat 1 and am so card dead I am showing the dealer all my "double down" cards. It was so bad the dealer is genuinely apologizing. I get desparate and play 84s suited from the button. 2 pairs! My only win in 2 hours. A 3/6 table opens and it is time to go there. WTF? This group is trying to play real poker. 3 people seeing the flop, etc. On the button I play 1 "bad" (outside SSHE guidelines) an hour. I play 56o that catches a 3rd 5 on the turn. Thanks, I needed that. Trip to date +$95.

Off to the Bellagio for lunch and some 4/8. The Bellagio room Sat. was packed. Took a while to get a seat at a 4/8 at a table that was just so-so. So locals and a couple of boderline LAGs that weren't stupid. My AA didn't hold up and I honestly prefer the MGM room to the Bellagio and since we had just bought tickets at the MGM to Chicago for that night, back to the MGM up just $40 trip to date.

Back at the MGM and 3/6 its a long slow grind. Few good hands. But with patient play and relentless value betting with top pair and sometimes even middle pair if I sensed weakness in a LAP table I log my first decent result of +137. Another short 3/6 after the Chicago show books another +$30 for the session and $207 for the trip.

Sunday: Get into a long 3/6 session where I am just being ground down. I've lost all my winnings and have gone slightly into the red when I catch JTs as part of the biggest pot of the weekend. 8 players wind up seeing a 4 bet PF session and the flop is KQx. Now I am opening ended but am drawing to the nuts, but there is a flush draw out there too. Turn is a blank, but still goes 8 players and 3 bets. I can't get off this monster pot, can I? I am praying for a black 9 on the river for the nuts and GET IT! I get bet into and get to RAISE! More calls, and then a quiet, not stupid player 3 bets and say, DAMN, there goes 1/2 my pot. That 1/2 was still enough to bet me back on the right track and I wind up losing only $35 for a rough session. I feel like I have weathered the poker storm. Sooner or later I should get some at least decent cards.

After a break, I want to keep playing so I get a 2/4 that looks and is genuinely deliciously awful. And NOW I get some cards. This is where fake drunk kid comes into play along with another "home boy." So the game is very loose to stay the least. And I have cards. And everyone keeps calling or even raising my bets. In two hours, I am up $161 and $333 trip to date. But I have to get SOME sleep before our last day.

Monday: I open the first LHE game, 2/4. I get hot, smoking hot and am up $230 at the top. Then the odds catch up with me and a catch a streak of 7 suckouts against me in a row. I haven't had much of a problem with that during the trip so I really couldn't complain when 3 people hit their 2 outters to beat me. But it did chop my winnings down to $65 for the session and $398 for the trip.

I read Swopes trip report and I believe that I netted about the same $ for a lot less stress at lower limits. Interesting. Now, its time to talk food.

FIAMMA's: Still recommend the Raviolini stuffed with short rib and the Fusilli. Dessert = Tiramisu and the Italian "donuts" whose name I forget.

Olives: Todd English's food is great, but we have had very inconsistent service at his other restaurant, Todd's Unique Dining, and now Olives in the Bellagio. The hotel was having computer problems and they warned you that if you wanted to bill this to your room, it would take about 20 minutes to get confirmation. Our service was so slow at lunch we were given free desserts. But the food is real good. The chestnut ravioli is fantastic. I had the Cubano panini which was huge and true to form for a Cuban style sandwich. I also tried the Fig-proscuitto flatbread. It had aged goat cheese on it as well and I am not a fan of aged goat cheese because to overwhelms everything else. Not my fav. But those chestnut ravs get raves.

L'Attoilier (sp?) - Didn't want to splurge for dinner there so after the Chicago show we hit it up for coffee and dessert. It's still a splurge but... our desserts were wonderful, artistic and sitting at the "sushi bar" lets you see the artistry at work. The dessert "tarts" are really a series of what you would call in the old school "petit fours" where are usually cute to look at and weak tasting. Here is was a series of slices, of raspberry, lemon coconut, pistachio, chocolate mousse and cinnamon tarts, each about the size of a classic petit four. The pistachio was great. The cinnamon was the smallest, but all it took was a small tidbit it will your mouth with the favor of the best cinnamon toast you've ever had, cinnamon, butter and sugar. Wow. And the passion fruit sorbet on my wife dessert, a frozen fruit cloud. So don't show up with a big appetite, but this ain't the drive thru either.

Mesa Grill - Sunday brunch - Had the Sweet Potato hash with poached eggs and chili sauce. Yum. And their margaritas rock, too. Walnut flan is a winner.

Had to chill out on the over the top food from that point forward on the trip. Next, entertainment.

Entertainment.

I had looked over the websites looking for music acts and hadn't found anything for Mother's Day weekend. We get to the MGM and find that Chicago is playing in their smaller Hollywood Theatre venue. This act had not been on my radar and apparently no one elses either. We were able to get good seats for the show the next day, Saturday.

Chicago rocked and the crowd rolled. 5 original members remain. Only one replacement player was a little weak on lead vocals, but otherwise the sound was good. Chicago has turned out 30(!!!) albums and lots of good music and they stuck to their hits which is what the crowd wanted. A "worth it" show. Chicago will be hitting the road with America this summer which, IMO makes it eminently missable. I hate the "Horse with No Name" thing so this was a much better deal in a smaller venue.

As to a fourth section, Naw. This report is bloody long enough. Enjoyed meeting Cactus Jack and his s/o Marilyn, thanks to this website. We are planning some form of replay later in the year. Hope you find the report useful in terms of picks and pans for your next Vegas outting.

[thunderbolt]

Great report my question is why you didnt try some NL at the MGM?

[Frond]

Good report mon!

[fishyak]

I am confident in my low limit game. I am NOT confident in my NL game. Also, I "know" that my wife is going to lose at slots ( 4 out of the last 5 trips) and I "know" that I am going to win at low limit HE (again 4 out of the 5 last trips).

I will work on my NL game at home, Commerce, before I take it on the road with confidence. I also saw a reasonably good LHE player get called to a Monday AM NL tournament in the MGM. Well, his seat hadn't gotten cold by the time he was back at 2/4. No one said a word about it or asked him a thing. No point. He had to have lasted less than an orbit. LOL.

[Frond]

I am surprsied at the small amounts of limit tables going in Vegas. I havne't yet played poker in Vegas, but for some reason I have this image in my head of Vegas poker rooms with lots and lots of tables going all over town. Just isn't the way it is I guess.

[Cactus Jack]

What's worse than you cracking my queens was you split with another fish with your cheesy straight. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Nice report. Maybe next time we can add some drunken debauchery? No? Oh, that's right, we're old. We'll just stick with the debauchery and leave the drinkin' to the younguns.

Best wishes to you and Trish. Fun people.

CJ

ps--I finished up $42--1 1/2 hours. Would have been a lot more if you donkeys hadn't gotten so lucky on that straight.

[fishyak]

Good times & two additional notes - one fun - one about slots.

Trish & I have noticed that slots payout is a lot looser M-Th. than Fri-Sun. Call it soak the tourist or attract the local yokel mid-week, the result is the same. My wife doesn't win as much during the weekend trips and you don't see others winning at slots as well. Any confirmations or denials?

Poker quip: One old MGM dealer was really rolling his eyes over the behavoir of the "drunk" red head kid above. As I was leaving he was sitting with a bunch of dealers and I asked him if he was all right. He looked at me puzzled and said: What do you mean?" I said: "Every time that kid pulled some BS your eyes were rolling so far back in your head I was worried you were gonna strain something!" Table breaks up. Geezer that I am, I go to bed.