DRF's Vegas Trip and Room Reviews

[Diana Ross Fan]

MGM: Saturday 11:00 am. 4 hours of 1/2 nl.

The location is great as it gets a lot of passersby. The tables are a bit strange with a circle of rock between your arms and the felt. This makes it inconvenient to protect your cards while you squeeze them and I was constantly reminded to move my cards back where people could see them.

The dealers were good and featured Razzo. The Chip runners were swift. Best place to play? Nope. The game was barely worth sitting in. Almost every hand started with someone opening for 12 or 15. Usually there was only one caller and the pot was taken down by a ¾ pot-sized c-bet. Occasionally a couple players got it all in (such as when my full house ran into quads). But overall I would describe the game as rocky with occasional aggressive hands. Another noticeable thing was that my table featured 3 guys from Boston and a couple from NYC. We should have just driven to Foxwoods.

The highlight was watching the lion pups (kittens?) in a big glass bowl across from the room. The trainer was in there with no protection. A good practical joke would have been to dump red meat on him from above.

-140$. I have to learn not to call a 15$ opener with small pairs.

Mirage: 3-6 lhe. 10:00pm Sat night.

The room has great atmosphere with good lighting. The tables are a little close but that is true everywhere.

You have got to be kidding me. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] I flew 2,000 miles to play a tight passive 3-6 game on a Saturday night in Vegas. A “large pot” featured a raiser, caller and blind defender. Despite a diverse table, action was slow. None of my greasing methods worked, such as:

- Ordering Red Bull and Vodka for the entire table. They shook there heads and then I had to explain it was a joke.

- Singing R&B. They hid in their I-pods.

- Live Straddle? They folded and tossed me the blinds.

Yuck. I wouldn’t say I was afraid of any of them. It was a war between the TAGs and the rocks. The game was maybe worth 5$/ hour.

After the straddle steal, I took a stroll around the place. The 6-12 table was all white males. They were very quiet and after a couple hours I noticed that everyone was still there and had roughly the same stack sizes. The 10-20 table looked worse. Everyone seemed to know each other and respected each other’s raises. The 20-40 was more aggressive but nothing that made me want to play. The “action” table I saw was a mid limit O8, maybe that’s normal for Omaha though.

I couldn’t get a read on the nl tables. One friend said they were fine.

I finished +75. Great cards for me.

Rio: Saturday night 3:00 am. This was the day before the HORSE.

The convention center is awesome. Lot’s of tables and games. Ceiling is high which helps everyone’s attitude. The fake elegance of the Strip casinos is replaced with a sort of poker factory mentality.

Only a few drawbacks.

- No water fountains in the convention center and no cold water in the restroom. This is unacceptable. I don’t like relying on the occasional waitress for water.

- The play was interrupted way more than it should. Counting down the tray, and frequent deck changes slowed things down. I got fewer hands per hour here than anywhere else.

- They also had an absurd system of chip runners that allowed you to play with invisible chips that had not arrived yet. We wouldn’t people to wait 2 minutes would we?

The game selection was awesome. 4-8 10-20 and 20-40 for starters along with a host of O8, nl and bigger stuff. Heck even stud reared it’s aged head.

I sat down at 10-20 @3:00am. Wow. There was an old cowboy and a young Asian woman running the table. He must have had a crush on her because he played every hand that she did (and a few more). Any hand, draw, overcards, undercards and he came out raisin. Most of our pots were over 200$. Ahhhh. I can’t believe I wasted hours in a 3-6 game trying to get 1 bet per hour when down the road is a 10-20 that was at least worth 30$ per hour. An expert could probably have expected 2 big bets per hour under those conditions.

I have to relate a couple of unfortunate events.

1. The Asian woman left her chips at her table and she went over to play 4-8??

2. The bulky laundry bag someone had dropped in the seat on my left actually turned out to be a really quiet nit. He hooked up in a hand with the cowboy, capping it pf. When the flop came Axx the cowboy got busy capping the flop. umm sir, this man has not shown signs of life in 2 hours. Umm sir, there is an ace on the flop, the nit seems to like the ace. Notice how he is not afraid of your obvious bluffs sir. Please stop … sigh…

Well, believe it or not, the nit won that hand. Cowboy was out of chips, but LO!, he pulled out 8 friends named Benjamin. “Nice hand partner, change one of these so I can play the next hand would ya please?” he tossed a him a bill

The nit glared at him and threw it back. “No, I won‘t do it. It’s not my fault that you’re out of chips.”

Before I could get the chips out of my stack, the cowboy reared up “I quit, I don’t wanna play anymore” pocketed his Bens and left.

I whispered “Probably should have changed that for him.” That was a mistake on my part. If I could have the moment back I would have ripped his Cry-pod out of his ear and shouted “Next time sell him the damn chips you pile of nit [censored].”

Game broke up soon after, I finished down 15$. Stupid nits.


Coming soon. Diana Ross Fan goes to the Venetian.

[Force1]

[ QUOTE ]
- They also had an absurd system of chip runners that allowed you to play with invisible chips that had not arrived yet. We wouldn’t people to wait 2 minutes would we?


[/ QUOTE ]

Isn't 'playing behind' standard at all casinos?

[Diana Ross Fan]

First time I had seen it. I don't play with chip runners much.

[pig4bill]

This was your imagination. Every poker game in Vegas is loose and full of people that don't know how to play. Don't you read 2+2?