My wife and I headed down to Vegas for a long weekend from 11/12 to 11/16 to celebrate our anniversary. She has never been a big Vegas fan, but the fact that her brother and sister and their respective significant others decided to meet us there convinced her to agree to the trip. I also had to promise that I wouldn’t leave her stranded while I went to play poker! I don’t get down there too often, maybe once a year, but I hoped a good trip would convince her to go more often.
We arrived around 2pm on Thursday and headed to the Signature at MGM. I got the room through VRBO.com for a very good price. I haven’t done that before and I was a little concerned that the upkeep on the room wouldn’t be good, but we were pleasantly surprised when we got there. Nice room, good view, quiet and non-smoking. Everybody always says that the distance to the Signature is a drawback, but we both like walking so didn’t think it would matter. I have to say that by the end of the weekend, it did become something of a hassle.
We wandered around the strip for a couple of hours until my brother-in-law and his girlfriend arrived. We met them at the West Wing Bar at MGM and had a cocktail – they have a 2 for 1 happy hour there, which is a great deal. We had dinner at Craftsteak and it was fantastic. We all ate from the HalfSteak menu in the bar. I can’t eat a huge steak anymore and the 8oz portions of meat were just right. Highly recommended. We toured the south end of the strip to walk off dinner, played a little craps and generally just relaxed. Walking through the MGM we saw a guy about 70 years old playing craps at a table by himself. They had ropes set up around the table so that no one else could play. Of course this made me a little curious so I walked up to the rope to see what all the fuss was about. I, being a low roller, didn’t recognize the chip colors this guy was playing with, so I leaned in and squinted really hard to see the denominations. He had a stack of probably 30 or 40 $1,000 chips on the rail and the table crew was stacking up the guys losses. I’d conservatively say he was into the table for 30 to 40k. He didn’t really seem to be having a good time. Around midnight, everyone else was ready to call it a night so I walked my wife back to the room (this is part of the reason that long walk became such a hassle), then headed down to the MGM poker room. I was a little tired so decided to just play a little 2-4. Nothing terribly exciting, just your standard no-fold-em. I cashed out about 2 ½ hours later down about $60 and swore I wouldn’t play 2-4 bingo any more. Losing a big pot to a guy holding Q2o will do that to you.
The next morning (Friday), everyone decided to take the poker class at MGM. No one else had played B&M poker before so it was worth it. After the lesson, we all sat at the same 2-4 table (so much for my promise). Every body lost a little except for my brother-in-law’s girlfriend who tripled her $60 buy-in in about 2 hours. She was pretty pleased with that since she had never played before. $60 per hour playing 2-4 limit…unbelievable. After brunch, we walked down the strip and stopped in to see Fat Elvis at Bill’s. He’s actually pretty good and draws quite a crowd. It was standing room only to listen to his performance. My brother-in-law started playing some blackjack so I bought into the game at Bill’s. I got no cards and ended up cashing out down about $30 after about 2 hours. I like the low-key atmosphere at Bill’s. It reminds me of a home game. Before we left, I ran up to Harrah’s to get a coupon for the Mac King Show the next day. On the way, I walked through O’Shea’s and had my first TBC sighting of the weekend. He was sitting at the poker table in the doorway, arms crossed, not looking too interested in the game. Needless to say, I didn’t stop to chat.
We made our way back to the south end of the strip, stopping at Paris for a meal at the bakery. On the way through Planet Hollywood, I checked out the new location for the poker room. It was fairly busy so I decided I’d head back there after seeing my brother-in-law and his girlfriend off on their drive to So. Cal and taking my wife to the room. I made it back to the PH at about 1100pm and bought in for $150. I wasn’t getting any cards for most of the night and when I did get cards, I didn’t hit anything. Since I wasn’t playing many hands I had a pretty tight image, which worked to my advantage on a couple of hands. One hand, I was down to about $75 and raised to $12 with pocket 9’s. I got two callers, but had position on both of them. The flop came J73 and they checked to me. I pushed and both folded. The second hand, a one of the better players at the table made an overly large raise to $25 after one or two limpers. I looked down at JJ and started wondering why he had made such a big raise. He hadn’t done anything like that all night so I figured he was trying to push out any kind of speculative hands. I slowly counted out a min-raise to $50 and pushed it in. He folded almost instantly, showing AK. I’m positive he put me on AA or KK, otherwise he would have called. Like I said, my image was ridiculously tight, so it worked out. I was happy with winning that smallish pot because I dislike playing JJ. My stack went up, then down, then back up to where I started. I played for about 4 hours and ended up cashing out for exactly $150. Oh well. It was fun. I actually really liked playing at PH. It is loud, but it has a real party atmosphere. Plus the scenery was nice. The dealers were hit and miss. Some were really good and kept the game going, others were overly involved in table conversations which led to errors such missing player’s actions. I also had my second, and last, TBC sighting. He walked through the poker room at one point and looked like he might sit down. He didn’t.
Saturday morning we got up late and hit the gym at the Signature for a short workout. It was much better equipped than what I expected. We hopped on the monorail to Harrah’s to watch the Mac King Show. It was really entertaining - and cheap. The coupon is for free admission for 2, but requires the purchase of two drinks. All told, the cost came to about $28, which we thought was well worth it for an afternoon diversion. After the show we played a little video poker just for fun then headed back to get ready for dinner at Fleur de Lys at Mandalay Bay. Excellent food, decent service. I was a little surprised at the level of service to be honest. Some of the younger staff were either too harried or just didn’t have the experience or training for that level of restaurant. Still, we enjoyed ourselves. Probably the funniest moment of the weekend came as we were eating. My wife suddenly stopped talking and said, “Jesus is watching over us.” I looked at her as if she was crazy and saw that she was looking up. If you have ever been to Fleur de Lys, you have seen the glassed in room on the second floor surrounded by wine racks. There is one table up there that I assume is for VIP’s. I looked up to that table and sitting at that table is Jesus himself! Well, poker Jesus at least, Chris Ferguson, in his trademark cowboy hat. The rest of the weekend we made jokes about having dinner with Jesus. After dinner went down to the Venetian to meet up with my wife’s sister and her husband. They are big video poker players, big enough that they get comped rooms at the Venetian. We hung out with them for a while and watched them play VP until I got antsy and went to play poker. I had never played at the Venetian before, but have always wanted to just because of all the positive things everyone says about it. My table was easily the most aggressive I experienced all weekend. Several guys were there to gamble, with wildly varying stacks and a willingness to put a lot of money into the pot; a couple of tight aggressive people that seemed to be locals; and the table captain - a younger mouthy guy who was sitting on over $1k in chips and bills. The captain was pretty much trying to run the table. Someone would make a standard raise and he would pop it to something like $60, $75 or $100, then would show trash when everybody folded. He was obnoxious, played a lot of pots, pissed people off…but was making money. If he ever got deep into a hand, he had the cards to back it up. There was a lot of potential to double up through him, but it never happened for me. I did, however, get to watch his downfall which occurred over the course of 2 hands. I don’t remember what happened on the first hand, but the guy to my left (an obese local who babbled endlessly) took probably $300 or so from him on one hand. The captain was steaming after he lost that hand. The very next hand, the large guy limps from early position. As usual, the captain makes a good sized raise and large guy calls along with one other. Flop comes J7J. Big guy checks, other guy checks and the captain, as expected, bets big. The big guy, who is still stacking the captain’s chips from the previous hand, nonchalantly looks up and says “All in.” The other player in the hand quickly folded. So the captain is out of his seat, moaning and groaning about what he should do. The captain had the big guy covered, but by less than $200. The pot was going to be something in the vicinity of $1100 if he called. After probably 2 minutes he talked himself into it and finally says, “I call.” They run out the board and the captain turns over QQ. The big guy turns over 77 for the boat. The only thing that could have made it better is if I had been the one nearly felting that guy. Poker justice doesn’t come often, but when it does it sure is fun to watch. I was really surprised he put that much money in with only a pair of queens. As for me, I went up and down for a while and after a poorly executed bluff with a busted nut flush draw, I cashed out, down about $60 from my original buy in. The V is nice, the cocktail selection is unbelievable (although it took over an hour to get my first drink), the dealers were good and the chairs are comfy, but I didn’t like the cavernous feel of the place. It was a sea of tables and people, with nothing really breaking it up. It’s not my favorite, but I can see why people like it. The ability to change tables at just about any point is nice.
We went back south on the strip and I put my wife to bed, then headed over to the Monte Carlo to try out that room. Nice room, but it was really quiet for a Saturday night. There were 2 tables of 1-2 NL and that was it. I was seated immediately at what turned out to be the most fun table of the weekend. There were a couple of 21 year old college guys there who were pounding beers like their lives depended on it. Luckily there were entertaining instead of obnoxious. The game was laid back, most of the dealers were fun and people were there to have a relaxing, non-serious game of poker. Probably the funniest part of the night was the fact that the air vent blows directly on the table I was sitting at, making it fairly chilly. The two college guys started complaining about the temperature so the dealer calls the floor and tells her they are cold. She goes into the back room and brings out two Snuggies – you know ‘The Blanket with Sleeves!’ One was royal blue and the other was zebra striped. Theses two guys happily put them on and wore them the rest of the night, all the while cracking jokes about them. Very entertaining. My stack grew by about 50%, and then I went down to even due to a guy flopping a straight to my overpair of JJ. Once again, I cashed out for almost exactly what I bought in for.
We woke up late the next day and head up to the Venetian to meet the in-laws. My wife and her sister headed to the spa, my brother-in-law hit the machines and I wandered down the strip. Harrah’s had a few tables going, but it was like a funeral in there. The IP had their tournament starting and one table of 1-2, but there were something like six or seven names on it already so I left. The Flamingo was also fairly quiet. There were one or two NL games going, but they were full and it just isn’t the most appealing room. Ended up buying in a Bill’s and played for about 3 hours. No real hands of note, cashed out -$15. It was almost getting annoying that I wasn’t able to get anything going at poker on this trip. At least I wasn’t losing much and I was having fun, so I guess that counts for something. Around 530 my wife called and said they were done at the spa and I needed to head up for dinner. When I got back to the Venetian and met the rest of the group, they all had grins on their faces. Turns out my brother-in-law had hit a royal on $5/hand VP for $6,700. Not bad. They bought us dinner at one of the Italian places in the big open square at the V. After dinner we went to TI to see Mystere. We absolutely loved the show. Some of the things they do are absolutely stunning. I would recommend it highly. We said our goodbye’s to the relatives and took the monorail back to the MGM where I went downstairs to play my last session. On the way to the poker room, Mr. Rich Guy was back at the craps table. This time, he was playing with $5k chips and he was down well over $125k. Unbelievable. I got seated right away and had an OK table. Nobody was too talkative until a guy sat down to my left. He used to deal poker and also at one time owned a shop in the Forum Shops. Nice guy. He and I chatted the rest of the time I was there. The table had mostly medium sized stacks, one big stack with about $6-700, and one big time donator who reloaded twice while I was there. About 1-2 orbits in (I had played maybe 2 or 3 hands by then) and looked down at AA. Long story short, donator cracks them with Q10 after calling my flop bet with nothing but a gutshot. Luckily he played his straight passively so I lost the minimum. After that I went on quite a run, hitting two-pair a couple of times, stacking the donator with JJ, and stacking another guy with my TPTK/nut flush draw. It made up for all the rest of my break-even/minor loss sessions of the trip. I cashed out +277 after a little less than 3 hours. By this point it was almost 4am and I had a late morning flight so I headed to bed.
We had a great time, although I don’t think I have convinced my wife to make Vegas a regular destination for her. That’s ok…I think some buddies are working on a guys trip in the spring! Thanks for reading, hope this isn’t too long.