This is a short report of my 4 days in Vegas this past weekend with some of my major highlights.

Hotel Accommodations

Checked into the Venetian on Friday morning intending on using the poker room rate and had a fairly quick problem free process. I have played at V many times but never for my entire trip until now which is why I choose to stay there this time with my group of 8. I really like the property, especially the food court on the casino level, but as should be expected it is pricey. The rooms are great and very convenient to the poker room and all other amenities.

Where things went bad for me was upon check out which I will post separately as well. I played about 23 hours during my 4 night stay and the guy rooming with me played slightly more so on the day of check out I went to the poker room to have them call my play into the front desk to get the poker room rate which went quickly and problem free until I actually went to check out. At the front desk the poker rate was not what was not as published on the Venetian website or in confirmation emails to me from the poker room. This was not accurately corrected until the third attempt and my statement that I could produce an email stating what my rates should be. The other issue that I really saw was that out of our 4 rooms in our group each group had different rates! All-in-all we got it straightened out and our bills were correctly adjusted but it took between 20-30 minutes and a lot of frustration on both our part and the poor girl at the desk who had to keep interacting between us and casino marketing. It left a really bad taste in our mouths at the end of a great trip and what we found out in talking to others in the poker room this issue is NOT uncommon; in fact, we had another player at our table on our last day dealing with the same problem while she played at the table.

Poker Play

As said, I played about 23 hours over 4 days (18 $1/$2NL, 5 $4/$8LMT) losing about $500 on NL almost entirely on the first day, first session and winning just over $500 on LMT over two sessions. We played at all times morning, afternoon and night and found the play fairly consistent with the toughest going at night for NL. There is an over whelming amount of local players that are mostly solid and aggressive so if you are not comfortable with this then beware. Our group is used to this style of play and it worked for us pretty well as I think we were targeted as tourists and we would be played into aggressively and we waited for good holdings to play back into them and win. Best hand off the trip was for my friend…all money goes all-in with a cocky local (waiting for his $2/$5 table and acting a bit of a dick) with both showing Aces, flop is three diamonds and as you can guess the four diamond comes on the river giving my friend a quick double up about 10 minutes into a new table.

I played two night sessions for fun and to sit with another friend who only plays LMT on Friday and Saturday night. I was shocked to see how soft this game was. The $4/$8 LMT game seemed to play like a $2/$4 game where there was 4-5 all the way to the river with slim holdings or missed draws. This was by far the softest LMT action I have ever played in Vegas (other than $2/$4) by what appeared to be much more recreational players than the $1/$2NL.

I also played Saturday afternoon from about 2 – 6 p.m. at Mirage for the first time. I had always heard what a great room this was and with the new manager I definitely wanted to try it out to see if Mirage might be a property I would stay at when I come in the Spring with my family. Boy was I disappointed! The room itself is worn and old feeling. The location is great but needs updating with new tables, comp system, etc. The biggest turnoffs to me however were the dealers and waitresses. At least half the dealers were slow, cranky, and negative about everything from the management, waitresses, other dealers and the players. I expected a class group based on other reviews but my experience was poor. I did win money and I didn’t find the competition to be that great so it wasn’t that but I almost felt as though the room sucked the energy right out of me. There were some good dealers which was great but they tended to be the younger ones that moved the game along, dealt quickly and didn’t have a poor attitude.

Lastly, for shits and giggles a group of six of us went down to O’shea’s to get a table of $2/$4 Omaha8 going. It took about 30 minutes but we were up and running with just our 6. Shortly, thereafter we would have a player or two jump in and out but it was mostly us for about 4-5 hours. Essentially we were simply paying for the use of the table and dealers but we had a really fun time and the dealers, who had great personalities, seemed to like dealing the game because they said they really never get it going and it is a nice change of pace for them.

Sports

I won’t bore everyone with my horrible weekend at the sportsbook but I will thank Michigan State for the $200 I won when they beat Michigan and South Carolina, who I didn’t bet, for beating Alabama and putting the Buckeyes in first place.

The best moment however was when my $200 parlay on the Jets and the over came in during the final minute of the game with an always predictable Brett Favre interception for a touchdown. Payout on that bet $720 which looked BLEAK at half time when the score was 9-0 Jets.

Summary

Overall, it was a great time with lots of sportsbook and poker, we barely made it outside while there. The checkout process at Venetian gives me pause to stay again just because it felt as though they are trying to cheat players on the room rates which should be VERY straightforward.