Low Limit Vegas Trip Report

[mikeca]

I am just a low limit holdem player. No NL experience, so I have avoided it so far.

Back Story (No poker):
We are thinking about remodeling the house and somebody told my wife it is a good idea to get a termite inspection. House was tented for termites 8 years ago. Of course they found some subterranean termites. They always do. So now wife says house needs to be tented again for termites again. Wife decides to do it Presidents week, because our 15 year old daughter has the whole week off from school. Wife decides the family is going to Las Vegas for the week. Go on Monday, come back on Friday. Daughter hates this idea. Would much rather hang out with her friends, but doesn’t have much choice. I don’t mind going to Vegas to play poker. So five days in Vegas with the wife and 15 year old daughter who doesn’t want to be there.

Vegas:
Monday flight is about ½ hour late arriving. Get luggage, rental car, and fight our way through Vegas Rush hour traffic to Paris Hotel. Arrive around 5 PM. Wife gets up sold to a view room with continental breakfast and appetizers in the evening. Room is nice, standard expensive hotel décor, although showing some age. It has a good view of the Eiffel Tower and Bellagio fountains. We head for the appetizers. They are pretty good, and we decide we don’t need dinner after the appetizers.

Head out to look for some poker. Check out the Paris room, no low limit going on Monday night and chairs do not look comfortable. (Note: I have circulation problems in one leg. Sitting on hard chairs for a long time is not good for me.) I head for the room where I have played before, the Mirage, mostly because in the past it had lots of low limit action and very comfortable chairs. Get seated immediately in 3-6 game. Looks like mostly tourists, but rather tight tourists. Two or three people seeing flops, small pots. I get a horrible run of cards, and don’t play many hands. Players come and go. Pretty soon the game is loose, with 5 to 6 players seeing most flops. Win a pot with AQo and 22 that flopped a set, and filled up on the turn. Get KK, but flop has an A, and it doesn’t hold up. Very dry spell on cards, seem to get 74o and 72o over and over. When I get a playable hand, they just don’t connect or get beat. Finally leave just before midnight -$69 for the night.

Tuesday, after we finally drag our daughter out of bed at noon, head for Hoover Dam. We take the tour, but daughter is bored to death. Head back to Vegas, and go to see Fab Four Mania, Beetles impersonators, at the Aladdin. Nice show. They claim to actually play and sing all the songs, not just lip sync. Have Beetles impersonators replaced Elvis impersonators in Vegas? Wife likes show, but thinks it was too loud. Daughter thinks it was ok, which means she liked it.

After dinner head out to look for poker again, with my wife in tow. Says she wants to go shopping, but wants to see me play poker for a few minutes. Check out Paris room again. Not much going on, and chairs still look hard. I head for the Mirage again. Get a seat in 3-6 game immediately, and wife pulls up chair next to me. I post in after the button and get AA. I raise. Guy at the table protests. He thought there was a rule against raising when posting into the game. Dealer tells him I can raise. Push it all the way, and no one calls my bet on the river. I take a good pot without a show down. Seems like a very good start, but after that the cards run cold again. I hardly play anything. Wife finally leaves to go shopping, then comes back. Says she is too tired to go shopping. I finally convince her to walk back to hotel and I keep playing. Game gets lots of really loose, bad players in it. If I could get some cards, this would be a great game, but the cards are cold. Few hands I play past the flop get beaten. Get AKs, but get rag flop with just one of my suite. I fold on the turn. I’m down around –10 BB. Then I win a big pot with QJo. Flop was Q high, and turn was a J. That gets me almost back almost to even. Then a round later I play 22 and flop a set. It beats two pair that called all the way and I am up a little. Two very loose women players are talking about leaving. One was doing really well and the other was almost out of chips. They are playing 80% of their hands. It is just after midnight and I decide it is time to leave. Cash out +$13 for the night.

Wednesday morning wife and I walk up the strip to the MGM, and I check out the poker room. Looks like a very nice room, with comfortable chairs, but at noon on a Wednesday it is dead. Back to the hotel to try to get daughter off the internet and out of the hotel room. Plan is to go to the Siegfried and Roy’s Secret Garden at the Mirage to see the white tigers and other cats. Wife closes cover on daughter’s laptop. Daughter goes ballistic. Apparently this killed a 45 minute download of some game or movie that was 2 minutes from finishing. We try to leave hotel, but wife and daughter are both mad at each other and arguing pointlessly. Daughter goes back to hotel room and refuses to leave. I take the wife out to try to calm her down. Walk down the strip taking pictures in front of Caesars. Then I take the wife over to the Venetian for the canal shoppes. Take some pictures along the canal. Get some Italian ice cream. On the way out I check out the poker room. It looks very impressive. Big room with very comfortable looking chairs, and at 3:30 PM on Wednesday it is packed. Seemed to be a lot of NL and high limit hold’m running. There was a 4-8 game with a short waiting list and an interest list for 2-4 with five or six names. Looked promising, but we had to get back to the hotel for appetizers.

Went to see the 7:30 Folies Bergere at the Tropicana. The 7:30 show is ok for my 15 year old daughter, no nudity. Later shows are topless. We drive, since daughter is lazy and our feet are sore from all the earlier walking. Tropicana is second rate hotel, but the show is a first rate old style Vegas show. Wife really liked the show. Daughter says it is ok, which means she liked it too. Wife decides she wants to drive up the strip and see the lights. I want to get back to the hotel and go play poker. Daughter wants to get back to the hotel and play World of Warcraft on the Internet. We drive up the strip to the Sahara, then turn around and drive back down to the Paris. By the time I get back to the room, it is 10 PM. Wife gives me hard time that it is too late for poker. I head to down to check the Paris poker room. Only 2-5 NL. I head for the Mirage where I am sure there will be limit games running. Get there at 10:30. I have to wait 2 minutes to get seated at 3-6. Game seems ok, then 3 women leave together and the game seems tight. Only 2 or 3 players seeing the flop. Not getting much in the way of cards so not playing much. Chop the blinds a couple of times. Some new players join and game loosens up. Get AKs and a K high flop. Take it all the way to the river, but beaten by a set of sevens. Get KJo in the BB and flop a straight. It gets beaten by a full house. Get an AQo in late position. Raise it and get 3 callers. Flop has a gut shot, and pick up the straight on the turn. Get in a raising war with the other tight player at the table. After 3 or 4 raises, I figure he must have the same hand. I call his bet on the river, and we split the pot. Really aggressive young kid joins the table and runs over it with aggressive play for about 15-20 minutes. I figure about half the time he has absolutely nothing, but he bluffs people out of pots with turn and river raises. I finally get some decent cards and take a couple of pots that he helps make big. One hand he bet the river, and I called. He mucked his hand without showing as soon as I called. I get AA in the BB and raise 4 limpers. SB checks and calls all the way and the AA holds up. It was now 12:30 and I figure wife is going to be wondering where I am, so I cash out +$19. Wished I could have stayed longer, since the game seemed to be getting good.

Thursday get up and go to breakfast. After yesterday’s fiasco, daughter doesn’t want to go anywhere with mom and dad. She says she just wants to stay in the room and play World of Warcraft. I drive the wife to the Fashion Show Mall to let her do some shopping and walk across and up the street to the Venetian to see if there is a 4-8 game running. It’s about 1 PM and there are only a few tables going and no limit games running at all. A couple of people on the interest list. I walk across the street to the Mirage again, and get immediately seated in a 3-6 game. There are two young kids at the other end of the table, must be just barely 21 and they look like bothers. They have about ~$400+ each and are playing very LAG. When the blinds come around they each straddle. Preflop they sometimes go 3 or 4 raises against each other. They each are playing about 75% of their hands. Occasionally one will fold preflop and the other does not. I’m card dead and don’t play anything. An older gentleman in a Hawaiian shirt joins the table. He looks a lot like David Sklansky, but with a lot more grey hair than his pictures. He knows how to play very well. Figure no way David Sklansky would be playing 3-6 at the Mirage. The two kids leave together and player next to me observes them combine their chip stacks to cash out. He complains to the dealer about team play. The dealer asks the player that looks like David Sklansky for his opinion. Is this really David Sklansky playing 3-6? The dealer certainly knows him and looks to him as an authority. He does get up every 10 or 15 minutes and walk back towards the high limit tables, so maybe he is just sitting in this 3-6 game while he is waiting to get into some high limit game. New players join and the game settles down. Finally get a 10-10, raise and get 5-6 callers. Flop is jack high with a 10. I bet and get raised by a real passive women player. Two pair? JJ? I call. I check/call turn. River is a K. I check/call. She has KK for set over set. There was one monster pot. I had KJs and limped in. It got raised. Eight players for a raise. Rag flop, checked to a late position player who bet. Everybody calls. Rag turn, checked to a late position player who bets and everybody calls again. River is a Q. Somebody bets, a couple people call. I fold. The player who looks like David Sklansky wins the pot with a pair of nines!! Pot was so big nobody could fold. Get another 10-10 beat by a QQ on rag board. I win some pots too. I had a 10-4o that I checked from the BB. I flopped an open ended straight draw with the 4. Call one on the flop. Checked around on the turn. An A came on the river to give me the straight and two people with aces pay me off. Got an A4d and limped in late position. Flop was J 7 4 with one diamond. I decided to call one here with 5-6 people in the pot and closing the action. Turn was a J and it was checked around. River was a 4. Somebody bet and a couple people called. I called. Nobody had the J. My fours full of jacks was good. I finally got a QQ and took down a medium pot in spite of a K on the board. Wife showed up and sat with me at the table a while. Game started to get short handed. One vacant seat and 2 or 3 people walking. I decide to leave and cashed out after about 2.5 hours -$18. If that really was David Sklansky, I guess I got off easy only losing 3 BB, although I don’t remember ever contesting a pot with him.

Drove back to hotel and found daughter in room playing on the computer. Went to dinner. After dinner wife tries to convince daughter to go somewhere, but she doesn’t want to go anywhere with us. So I go out to play poker again and wife tags along. We checkout Baileys next door. They have some tables of 3-6 going but wife points out chairs look hard. We walk to the Mirage again and get immediate seating in a 3-6 game. Just as I sit down, several players leave, and the game is now shorthanded, 3-4 players. I have never been good at shorthanded play, so I am not happy with this, but as it turned out the cards hit me. I win a lot of pots while we are shorthanded. I had K-10s in the BB. SB raised, and I called with the 2 other players. Flop had 2 spades and a Q. SB bets. I call. Turn is a J, giving me both an opened straight and flush draw. He bets and I call. River gives me the flush and I get in a raise. He is steaming. I think he had an AQ, although he only briefly flashed his cards as he mucked them. I also took down a good pot with QQ. Table fills up and I cut back to normal hands. Still run pretty good and take down a number of pots I can’t remember. Got another QQ that took a pot. Got a KK and raised, but no one called. Took down a pot with 10-10. Table had filled up, but was pretty tight. 2-3 players seeing most flops. I raised with 10-10, and everyone folded again. Time to start bluffing, but it was 9 PM and I wanted to take wife to hear some music before we leave, so I cashed out after 1.5 hours +$108.

Back at the Paris, daughter was still in the room reading a book. We went down to have some drinks and listen to the band in the lounge in the Paris casino.

Friday morning got up and headed for the airport. For the whole trip +$53, noise basically, but better than losing.

Looks like I need to learn how to play NL. It seems to be taking over. Mirage seemed to be the place for low limit. Probably the Bellagio is too. Wife asked me several times why I didn’t play at the Bellagio across the street. I had several bad experiences there a few years ago. Long waits for a seat and staff didn’t seem to care about low limit players. Have never felt that way at the Mirage. Is the Bellagio any better for low limit now?