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Feb 22 - 27.....taking my first dive into the game
My first trip to Vegas for poker (mostly) and a lot of time to play. Arrived on Sunday, February 22, about 9:00 a.m. Beautiful weather for February. Catch the shuttle to the Gold Coast and check my bags waiting for a room. Check out the poker room which is stuck off to the back side of the check-in desk near the ice cream parlor but not so much. It is small, it is dark and it is manned by a couple of people who seem disinterested whether you come in or just walk on by. One table going of 2 $ / 5 $. The tournament is daily and 45 $ including an extra five for extra chips. Played it twice. Card deader than Paul Harvey. Seemed to set the tone for the trip but not enough to sway me from making another trip in pursuit of the elusive pocket rockets. Each time the Gold Coast tournament had 24 one day and 21 the other. Began with 3 tables each time and consolidated as people fell. No rocket scientists present but a fairly even crowd emotionally. Left in 15th and 12th place each time. Seemed strange you could not rebuy but someone could come in and enter up to 40 minutes after the tournament started. Not sure what the pay out was nor how many places. Don’t recall ever being told. Perhaps it was known by all but me. But it was cheap and somewhat entertaining.
Second stop, Orleans. 50 $ buy in with 10 $ add on for the “staff” which ended up with 59 players. 1st place was posted as being 949 $ and five places were paid. I figured loosely they took out about 8 $ per player for running the tournament with 42 $ going into the pot from the 50 $. VERY well run with monitors showing the number of players, average stack, time left in the blind levels, etc. Finished 24th or somesuch when pocket J’s wouldn’t hold up. Stacks would get VERY big very quickly at my initial table and playing from behind was educational. I’d do it again. Took 3.5 hours to get me out and who knows how long to finalize. But estimates were 5.5 hours when we started.
Next was the Flamingo, around 7:00 p.m. on a Monday. Yikes! What disorganization. Getting the chips, turning in the chips, getting service to those in need at the tables via the dealer YELLING to the chip girl / lady to PLEASE send over some chips for an active player rebuying…..etc. was thoroughly disconcerting. One note, a player to my left was gone approximately 40 minutes (went through 2 dealers who never saw him) and the floor picked up his chips. He had missed blind buttons in front of his stack and the floor counted the chips out carefully and the dealer nodded as to the total. The missing blinds were separate. He scooped them to the cage. (Don’t they go into the pot?) Sure enough, two minutes after taking them up here he comes “Where are my chips?” and we have another brief intermission as we reload his war chest and he gives his reasons for being absent “for just a short while”. The dealer had made the comment he was looking for free time for the free roll held weekly after 4 hours of play. 4 hours. And they thought he was walking around to get the 4 hours?? And what happened to his missed blinds? He came back in as a new player to the table would be concerning the blinds. I would skip this room unless others can comment this was an aberration to the usual flow of things.
Next stop was the Monte Carlo. 6 p.m. tournament which was 50 $ and then 10 $ added on at the table for a smooth cash contribution in return for additional chips. ONE table made it (earlier, while playing 1 / 2 NLHE, it didn’t make and money was refunded). A rather slow game but fun with only one table in play. Not much to report as to the action but if a card was dead during the deal, it ended up in my hand. Haven’t seen 10 – 4 as often since when I was a kid watching Highway Patrol with Broderick Crawford talking on the radio. And if it wasn’t 10 – 4, it was Jack – 7 os. Left with QQ losing to AK on the turn. But I would play both again as I like this room a lot for it’s lack of aggressiveness and profanity (above a normal talking voice it would seem). Played NL here and won all of 10 $ over the course of 5 hours of play on two separate occasions. Came in 8th in the tournament (Hey, I beat out one old lady who wasn’t especially little but had to be from somewhere near Pasadena)
Finally played at the MGM due to all the talk on this board about it being professionally run and good play. Correct on both points. Very well run room and competition was somewhat more challenging than any of the other rooms I’d played this trip (aggressive pre-flop, with raising rather than passive calling or minimal raising). Still a good room to play in and get honed on the game as a result.
Briefly, Imperial Palace was LOUD!! And somewhat cramped looking from the rail. Bellagio was too intimidating for my first foray, next time perhaps. Didn’t make it to Bally’s but plan to next trip. Walked by Bills’ and O’Shea’s and would do so again from the looks of both.
I had fun this trip. Had a good experience with my first time playing casino poker. Probably lost 450 $ to 500 $ over the five days at live games and having played BJ or craps most of my gambling trips prior, found this to be a great alternative and more mentally challenging and sociable. I was impressed with all the women playing as well which “softened” the game somewhat. Fortunately I had two nights free (mail-outs) from each of the hotels (Gold Coast and Orleans) and paid only 32 $ for my middle night at Orleans. I also got 50 $ from each for food in the mailout which didn’t make for great meals but made the price right overall. My airfare from Texas was 10 $ for security as we had a SWA ticket from our VISA miles which expired at the end of March. So even though I lost $’s, it was less than usually spent on a trip and gambling which also softened the losses. I like off strip as you can avoid the seemingly fast pace of the strip and blend in more with the locals(?) if that is possible.
I want to thank all the contributors to the board for all their experiences and tips. They were most helpful even if conditions were not as described when I played (who knows who will be sitting at the table until you sit down).
Nice report. Sorry to hear you had a bad experience at the Flamingo. I've always enjoyed playing there and never had the kind of experience you described.
Thanks for posting your experience for us. There were a few things I wondered about as I read it:@griffowitz Was it really some kind of 2/5 game or is it possible it was actually the commonplace 4/8 limit game there?
@griffowitz I don't have any comment on what is usual at the Pink Chicken these days, since it has been more than a year now since the last time I went in to play there, but I am confused about the description of the missed blinds. Did the floor take chips out of his stack to pay the for the blinds in his absence? That would be peculiar, no matter where they put them. Were you under the impression that the player had to pay for the missed blind buttons when he was racked up? The normal procedure is that if and when a player returns he pays for his blinds and returns the buttons (posts) if and when he takes a hand, but he doesn't pay for missed blind buttons if he leaves the game instead. Were you thinking he should put chips in the pot for missed blind buttons even though he got racked up? Or just objecting to him returning as a new player too soon afterward without posting? Or feeling that he shouldn't have had his stack picked up? I'm confused and maybe misunderstanding what you were describing.
Some houses set a time limit on how long they'll allow a "dead stack" to remain locking up a seat at the table (in my experience this doesn't work very well at all) while many others will not try to time someone's absence but instead have a policy such as picking up a player's chips when he misses his blinds for the third time, and a few others don't seem to do anything at all which can eventually kill off a game. I personally like places that use something clearly understood such as "three missed blinds and we count his chips and rack them up" so that everybody at the table knows what is going on and can be assured that the dead stacks at the table won't stay that way forever. It can be especially helpful when there are hours logged for freeroll promotions, because some people will start logging hours without playing if they can and it is no fun at all to try to win chips from a bunch of empty seats. I personally never much cared about the posting of blinds, but would rather not see my game die off for lack of bodies in seats while others are on a list wanting to play.
Thanks for taking the time to report what you did and saw.
sounds like u had a good trip other then your stop at the Flamingo....i didn't quite understand either what happen or what u thought should happen...i won't go into it cause the Local Rock pretty much sumed it up...and i agree with everything he said.......
Sorry about the confusion, I type / access at work. oops!
Ok. The guy to my left got up to leave (bathroom? smoke?) and left his chips. After a long while the dealer said to the floor, this player's been gone a couple of dealers already and I don't even know who it is. Maybe he's looking for some free time towards the free-roll. Floor came over and counted out the chips, put 4 or 6 dollar chips to the side, looked and the dealer and pointed to the chips announcing the sum and then fingered the 4 or 6 dollar chips and nodded. The dealer nodded also. He threw the missed blind buttons back to the dealer and picked up the chips in a rack. I assumed they were verifying to one another how much was being taken from the table should the player say he had left a different amount. The floor person took the rack to the cashier.
The guy came back almost immediately before the cashier could get the chips out of the rack (if she was going to at all) and asked what happened to my chips? And they proceeded to chat about how he had been gone a long time and no he hadn't, etc. etc. etc. So he sat back down (being dealt into the hand in play) and this is when the dealer was raising his voice (yelling) at the cashier to give the chips back to the player but she was chatting with another Flamingo employee and didn't react too quickly. So the game sat until she responded (not more than 20 or 30 seconds) and he could add to the pot. It was curious to me the blinds were not addressed when he returned to the game and that was MY assumption (possibly / probably incorrect) that the monies had been removed for missing the blinds so all was square. ? I just thought they had to go back to the pot in some form. But as I said, this was my first time to play in a casino and nuances / quirks of the game are still a bit foreign to me and forums such as this one can only enlighten. Hope this clarifies the situation and let me point out no one at the table raised a question as to the blinds or other issues in the player's absence, so my only question was the reasoning behind the separation of the chips upon removal.
A difference I noted later was at the MGM, you could be dealt into the hand while awaiting your buy in or re-buy and the dealer would say at the conclusion of the hand or when the chips arrived, the player owed 2 $ or whatever to the pot or to the winning player of the hand. No pause in the action and no fuss. So I saw how it could be done and how it was processed at the Flamingo.
And finally, all my observations were over maybe 3 hours or 4 in open play at the various stops. I will certainly go back to all the rooms visited and hopefully more on my next trip to ascertain whether my experience was an anomoly or routine.
@griffowitz
I don't know what they were doing that for either. Thanks for taking the trouble to explain again.