You're riding a bus around Vegas, angle shooting for a $5 coupon and complaining about a dirty restroom at the worst casino on the strip?! Talk about low rolling, I thought I was bad.

Is this TBC?

some people just cannot be happy
Why go back with all the complaints?

I was once a waiter and i know how bad it is not to get good tip. Any kind of coupon i use will go toward tips in addition to my 15%. If i have to walk a mile to get that extra $5 coupon off for the tips, i will do it ! I m happy $5 means nothing to u but it means a lot to waiter.

I apologize if my hygiene complain offended u 2. I m just leaving honest unbiased truth of what i see/hear.

Day 2

Imperial palace offer double hours from 4pm-12pm and there's a nice 1.5k weekly freeroll on MON for 10 hrs of cash play (20 hrs of play will get double starting stack). Dealer bonus of $5 and there's around 4 tables which pays final table. Blinds goes up every 15 min and I see a lot of passive plays and limp folding to a huge preflop raise. I have never play these kind of freeroll b4 and trying hard to adjust to turbo tournament.

My questionable play occur when blinds up next hand. I hold 44 on cutoff with 20ish bbs and next blind level will cut me into 10-12 bbs. Folded to player on my right limp, I shove and ran into JJ of the
BB. Given what I know now, best play would b fold and wait for stronger hand just because everyone will be short stacks given the structures.

There's a nice daily slots freeroll from 11am – 2pm at the back of imperial palace. Top 5 win some slots credits ( 1st place pay $500 ). It takes around 5 min to play that slots. No luck at either freerolls, went Todai sushi buffet with my $5 OFF. It's been a while since the last time ate here. There's hot and cold station. Hot station for noodles and bunch of cook meat. Cold station is where all sushi.

Next casino on my list is Riviera. The last time I stay here was back in 2007 during main event and it's pretty slow here. Slots / table games dont seem to be getting enough players. Riviera is giving double hours from 3pm – 7pm and this is the ONLY safe bet if u want to play poker. Usually a group of players come in and play those 2x hours and gone by 7pm.

I put in 4 hrs and sure enough @ 7pm players start packing. There's a football squares promo, every straight and above get to mark a square on a white board for SUN/MON football drawing. It's 1 / 2 NL and plenty of shortstackers. And most of them knew each other. I would say literally all of them are here to nit it up for the freeroll hours. I dont recall any pot rake $3 during the 4 hrs. A lot of softplaying, players will check their flopped set down among themselves. Basically going after the squares is more important than getting value. Players check 2 pair hope to make full house to get a square etc, check flopped set/trips hope to make fullhouse.

I missed a very tempting bet for NOV 9. According to those players Caesars property is giving 6 to 1 for last hand WSOP high card win ( that means players cannot make a hand or board could not pair up either ). Riviera's betting odds was something like 40+ to 1. I was thinking of betting $25-50 but then I wont be in vegas to collect it. Few of those poker players drop some $ on it.

Spend the rest of the night at downtown golden nuggets slots and THAI food for dinner ( pad thai noodles )

** competition ** does not exist as everyone is playing for squares

** slots ** – 40

** poker ** – 14

** food ** – 52

@RiverSnail

Glad to hear other parts of trip went well RiverSnail. Looking forward to reading about the rest of the trip. The sushi buffets could be a good deal on the rare occasions that I'm in the mood.

The Mixed game was an ugly night poker-wise. But, as someone once said with a bit of a Texas drawl "That's poker, folks." Besides, I do enjoy screwing around some trips with the stupid games that nobody plays and it was good to meet a fellow AVPer.

As someone who has defended the IP on several occasions and has been known to nit it up and stay there, I have to second the complaint on the IP bathrooms. The men's room on the main casino floor was having some kind of plumbing problem in the back half; it smelled, more than half the urinals were out of service and later in the evening most of the floor was wet. Very nasty.

Dave

P.S. If you're interested, I posted a report on my trip as well.
viewtopic.php?t=16178
Not much good for me on the poker front, but a lot of fun in any case.

@RiverSnail

Actually, your best play might be to limp in that spot and try to set mine to double up. I'd only do this if the other players left to act preflop were being passive. But when they let you do it, trying to limp and hit can be really profitable in those turbo structures.

Dave

** + EV **

There's 2 free slots pull ( once / day but i heard locals are abusing it by doing more than once ), one on outside of PH ( Press your luck - whammies slots ) and one between Harrahs and IP ( Million dollar pull - literally pays 1 MIL if u hit the lucky combo symbol ).

Me and wife won some nice stuff

1) $25 dining credit to BATISTA ( 1 block east of BILLS ) - Checked out that place, decent price and meals comes with free house wine. ( gave them away to 2 canadian tourist who are waiting for their friends outside of the restaurant )

2) buy 1 get 1 free @ HUSH HOUSE A GO GO. OMG !!! if u have never been to this place, u really need to check it out. The serving portion is insane and i dont think me and wife could finish 1 order let alone buy 1 get 1 free.
We gave the gift cert away to a group that will certainly stand a better chance of finishing the food than me. ( there was a line during lunch hour )

3) $20 dining credit at PH/Paris/Bally

4) $50 slots credits

5) PH shot glass ( gave them away to a friend who collect it )

6) Hangover T shirt

7) Hangover cotton bag ( going to b my grocery bag - no more plastics )

8 ) fleece hand glove + hat ( comes in handy when it's cold to walk dogs )

I saw the long lines at PH for the Press Your Luck slot pull. Didn't fell like waiting. Never walked up past IP, or I might have waited for a pull for a million $.

Day 3

Had lunch and dinner @ Chinatown, a restaurant call island malaysian cuisine ( The most authentic Southeast asia food u could find – a block west of Decatur and spring mountain road ). Average price / dish around $10. Both the food and appetizers are AWESOME !!!

Back to Riviera for poker, was expecting the same group of players. True enough most of them from last night show up and since they are playing for squares I will push the action. If I have to guess my overall VPIP / PFR / CBET = 35/35/ 90% . It's much higher when I m on button, cutoff and hijack.
I decided not to call any raises ( only reraise or fold ). The result, I won a lot of pots pre and not so many post flops ( sticky shortstackers ). Players are not too happy after an hour into it, mainly because I spoiled their limpfest ( I keep hearing “damn it, I would have make flush/straight” - then gave me the ben lamb stare lol ).

It's about 7pm and I know players are packing soon. I decided to pull a huge bluff b4 they leave. I raise T8 hh ( with 200 behind ) from MP, rather tight player on my left reraise me ( had me cover ). I know this is my last chance to do it. Flop J67 dd ( sweet I have a gut shot as well ). Dont think I can rep anything from this board. I check call flop and blank turn. River is another diamond, just the nice scare card I was hoping. I lead river bet around 60% of the pot ( leaving myself around $50 ). He really thought for a long time (cutting out chips and make fake motion to move them in a few times – I think he is trying to get a read off me - While he was starring at me, I gave him the fake tell by pretending to be excited looking at which squares to put my name on). Good thing he gave up, phew.

After dinner I check out poker room @ Tropicana around 10pm, 2 tables were running. A 6 handed razz and a NL tbl. Judging from the look of it, everyone seem to be pretty competent at razz.

Walk over to MGM poker room, lots of players and actions. I saw player shoving 2nd pair and got call by 2nd pair worse kicker. Players are splashing, Seems like a good place to play solid TAG and win $ here.

Last stop of the night --> Monte Carlo on the other hand has completely diff feel from MGM, only 1 tbl of NL going & no shortstackers here. It's one of those intense game if I have to choose a word to describe it. Competition seem pretty tough here.

Need to pack up for early check out tomorrow, moving to the strip. Will definitely come back to this hotel.

** poker ** – 100

** slots ** – 50

** food ** – 69

( any good free pic hosting site I could post pic on here ?? )

Day 4

Left Plaza for Ballys, arrive around 11pm+ and they allow me early check in ( running very good @ check in early ). Room looks great @ North tower. Back to chinatown for lunch, me n wife has addiction to good authentic chinese food.

After lunch, hop from casino to casino slotting till 4pm +. Drop by Tropicana for the HORSE @530pm.
Guess I was a little too early for the game, jump in 1-2 NL while waiting. The game is VERY tight and a few shortstackers. Turn out most of them are here to put in hours for daily tournament freeroll. I ran into some familiar faces from Riviera cash games ( which I later learn they ONLY play @ poker room offer weekly/monthly freerolls ). Didnt record any interesting poker hands......there's none.

It's 6pm and still no players show up !! I was told the game been running every week and I was so looking forward to it. I opt to wait another 30 min by playing 3 handed NL. Finally players coming in around 630pm ( I would b extremely disappointed if no one show up – wed night HORSE is on my planned schedule ).

I played around 3 hrs, the entire table has exactly ONE fish.....”me”. Honestly, I think everyone play pretty damn solid and most of them seem like HORSE / Mixed game regular. I need to read up more on these games before my next visit i'll b back.

Trop room is excellent in term of taking care of players. Coffee, soda, water are provided at the back. Free meatball sandwich provided looks very very good. Also thx to sexton for showing me how to brew a cup of coffee with those high tech keurig machine I m so old school lol.

Thx Nick Gullo, he gave me a $25 restaurant gift cert to Strastosphere's Top of the world. I gave them away to my friend who married there. A very friendly floor manager and I'm sure Trop poker will flourish under your guidance.

It's 11pm for late night supper. A toss up between KGB ( harrahs ) and Burger Joint ( flamingo ). We ended picking the later. I picked the burger that says “spicy” and it didnt disappoint me one bit. Glad I didnt make it extra spicy phew. Portion size is decent and it's pretty good, so good that I decided to come back again for different burger.

I would definitely be back to trop for the mixed games ( the tougher competition makes it interesting ).

** poker ** – 125

** slots ** + 60

** food ** – 53

** OMG ** Originally I was planing to play 1 or 2 events @ Caesars poker classsic, but OMG the rake is way too high (imo). $100 + $30 !!! Really !?!?! The horseshoe poker classic at council bluffs cost $200 + $25. ( Even a big spender fish like me think the rake is on the higher end, wonder what u reg/pros think )

thx zzjitterzz , took me a while to figure it out how to post pic

The pix from Todai, look good. Have to add that to my list of places to try.