Here is my first trip report. Poker was not a big part of the trip for me, but it was the most profitable (and possibly the most frustrating) part of my gambling getaway weekend. Skip to the end of Day 3 for a quick summary of the poker highlights. The rest of the report covers our low-rolling exploits over the course of the weekend.

Before I get into the trip details, a little background info. I’m 37 years old and try to play in a home game once a month with my buddies from college and some friends of friends. The games are always great fun, with the focus being on having a good time as opposed to making any real money. About 5 years ago, four of us decided to head out to Vegas, and the past few years, 6 of us have made what is now an annual trip.

DAY ONE

We’re all flying out of Chicago O’Hare on Friday morning. A couple of guys head out early, three of us are on a 10AM flight, and one of us is flying standby. 10AM comes and goes and it is not looking good for the guy on standby. I’m asked to change seats before we board, moving back a few rows to one of the emergency exit rows (more legroom, I’ll take it). I accept the change and ask them to bump up my buddy on the stand-by list. He is 18th on the list for a full flight, and I get a look that says “yeah, right”) and I have my answer before the agent even says a word.

The flight is uneventful and lands right on time. We catch a cab to the IP, and ask the cab driver to stop off at a liquor store. She says she thinks she knows where one is at (thinks?), and we talk about what we’re going to get and how it’ll all be gone in a day or so. Says she’s been sober for about 8 years and we all congratulate her (at the same time for some reason I feel horrible). My buddies hop out of the cab and run into the liquor store and purchase the necessary libations, and before you know it we’re in and out of the check-in line at the IP.

We all love the IP and consider it to be +EV. My friends use +EV to mean entertainment value as opposed to expected value, so just about everything is +EV to them when it comes to Vegas. We each down a few drinks before heading to lunch and are already feeling pretty good about things. We go to the sportsbook and get some baseball bets down (all losers) and then start looking for lunch. We grab some lunch at the Mexican place at the IP, and it is delicious. About $5 for three mini tacos and unlimited chips and salsa. Someone asks for a round of $1 margaritas and then another guy asks for a round of tequila shots. The margaritas were way too sweet and the shots were room temperature, but once they were down we didn’t seem to mind at all.

One of my goals this trip was to play as many different tables games as possible. My plan was to make one wager at each table, and if that won, I’d make another and another until I lost a bet (not pressing the bets, just the minimum each time). If I lost the first bet, I’d walk away. This proved to be a really good strategy for me, and exposed me to a lot of different games I would normally not even consider playing. First up is the big wheel, which I fully realize has the second worst odds in the place next to the famous “I’m thinking of a number” game at some of the off-strip casinos. But there they are spinning it and it counts as a game, so I say what the hell and break out $5. My first spin I put a few bucks in a few spots and manage to turn the first $5 into $6, I then split that up onto a few numbers and manage to turn the $6 into $10. Finally, I split up the money a little bit more, three of my friends get in on the action, and we all put a buck on 20 and it actually hits. I’m inclined to stop before I give it all back, so we walk away up about $60 collectively after the first game. Off to a really good start.

Our core group had six guys, five staying at the IP in two rooms and one staying with his brother, who booked a suite at the Venetian. We don’t roll like that, but our buddy does not get to see his brother all that often, so we were glad he was able to hang out with him for a few days. We’re big fans of downtown, so we hop on the Deuce and head downtown. This is the earliest in the trip we’ve ever decided to go downtown, so right away we all know what we’re in for.

We cut through the Golden Nugget and a few guys in our group love playing PAI GOW, so they sit down to play. I probably have played the most cards of the guys in our group, but I’ve never played this particular game and decide to learn that game a little more before I jump in with a big $5 bet. Instead, I head over to the roulette wheel and decide to try my luck. Another great choice of games – maybe I should just give them $2.50 and then walk away ahead, if only in my mind. I put down five $1 chips on various numbers and once of my split numbers comes in. I do it again and another split number comes in. I play a few more times, and manage to get to the point where I’ve got a few numbers covered on the board and $25 in chips by my side. The next spin comes and I don’t hit anything, so again I pick up my chips after only a few spins and manage to go up another $20. I could get used to this.

To give you a sense of how we do it up, one of our favorite places downtown is a hole in the wall called La Bayou. But you have to say it in a special way. Kind of like how no one ever just says punani as a matter-of-fact normal word – they always say PU-NAAHHHH-NIIIII, that is how we all pronounce La Bayou. LAAAA BYYYYEEEE-YOOOOOOOOU-HOOOOOOO. Just typing it up makes me smile from ear to ear. So we go there and play some nickel slots and get a few trays of long islands, and get nice and hammered for about at $2.25 worth of gambling and about $10 in tips to the waitresses. Certainly +EV for this group.

Fast forward through some other tables game results. I won a few lost a few at casino war and broke even, did the same on regular blackjack and switcheroo blackjack (which I really liked). Eventually we all meet back together to head back to La Bayou to have a few more drinks before the ride home. Turns out there is a man down from our group. We have no idea where he went. He does this on occasion and it was not a real cause for concern, because he is a big boy. He had even warned us this was a distinct possibility before the trip. We didn’t want it to seem like we had ditched him or just left him downtown to fend for himself. We wait around and look around for about an hour, he was not answering calls or texts, so we figured he must be happy wherever he is. We found out later his phone had died, he decided to head home early, and on the way he stopped off at the Stratosphere because he saw a MCD sign. Let’s just say he was using slightly impaired judgment, Vegas style.

We get home just in time to get into the Rock House with a free coupon from the IP that gave us free admission and one free drink. If it’s free, it’s me. So everyone in the group heads over to the Rock House, which is right in front of the IP. All I can say is we had a blast people watching, and the talent working the bars poring drinks and dancing was as good as we saw our whole trip. It’s our first day there and it’s about 6AM Chicago time, so we call it a night and hit the hay.

DAY TWO

Day two (Saturday) we wake up about 8AM Vegas time knowing we have to get to the sportsbook and put some $ down on the college games. I have been picking the NFL against the spread since week one to try to calibrate how well I think I know things. Across the first 3 weeks of the season I was about 65% against the spread. I had not been picking college games, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from betting on them. I got on Illinois vs Northwestern (Illini did not cover), NIU vs Cent Mich (I’m an alum - NIU not only failed to cover and but lost the game outright) and finally Navy vs Air Force (Navy makes a great comeback to force overtime and then pulls my heart out in overtime). 0 for 3. Our group always seems to struggle in the early games, and then kill in the later games. Later in the day we made a great comeback with winners on Alabama (Roll tide!), Notre Dame, Wisconsin and Oklahoma. Saturday sports bets are about a wash for me, maybe I’m a little ahead.

Saturday night is where it really got interesting for a few other reasons. We spent some time in the afternoon at the pool at IP. Nothing great about it – just a big rectangular pool. Took in some sights at the pool and eventually decide to head over to Ellis Island for the rib dinner special. For those who have never had it, it is one of the highlights of our annual trip. A full slab of delicious ribs, cole slaw, a side of beans and garlic bread for something like $13. They also have a microbrewery that my friends seem to really like. I decide to try my luck at some blackjack and buy in for $20 just to kill some time before dinner. $5 per hand and I’m breaking even after about 15 minutes. On my last hand, I double down with 11, hit a ten to get to 21, walk away up a quick $10 and my awesome dinner ends up costing almost nothing. Hit and run is not my style, but I could get used to this.

On the way back to the strip we decide to stop at Tuscany Suites and Casino on Flamingo Road. One of my buddies had an offer from Group On for a $39 60-minute massage from their spa. We all took the bait on that one, but when we tried to schedule the massages, they told us they were fully booked until after we were out of town. What they didn’t tell us was that they only accepted a certain number of coupons per day, and were continuing to book massages at full price. This is against the Group On rules for the company selling the services, so we were able to get a full refund for everyone in the group. The Tuscany Suites and Casino was absolutely gorgeous. The casino was beautiful, the grounds were beautiful, and the people in the place were beautiful. I would definitely go back. While we were there we played some $3 craps. The crew working the table was fantastic. We had two people in our group who never played before. They gave some great lessons on how to play and gave the newbies just enough grief to have the rest of us rolling. At one point somebody threw something across the table and it was caught with one hand. One of our guys said “great catch”. One of the guys working the table says “I like to say great snatch, not great catch.” So the rest of the night all anyone could say was great snatch. This kind nonsense is right up our alley. After being up about $50, I get back down to even and decide to walk away and watch the rest of the Alabama-Florida game. ‘Bama is rolling (Roll tide!) and the fellas have since made a good run for about $50 a man, including the newbies. A great way to get them hooked.

One of our guys has a matchplay ticket for the Westin, which holds a special place in our hearts. On our first trip as a group we played $1 craps at the Westin during their happy hour (Mon-Thurs nights) and took them for about $700 between four of us ($1 to $5 at a time mind you). One guy in our group is called Shooter because of how hot he was with the dice that first trip. He must have rolled for about 20 minutes straight. The money was great, but the memories are even better. The best of them all is in the middle of his hot streak, Shooter, who had never played craps before, got a little carried away and over confident, throwing out some chips and asking the stickman to “give him a hard 5”. The whole table stops, it gets really quiet (at least it does when I retell the story) and the employee closest to him looks at him with all serious and says “Sir, it might be a while before you hit a hard 5”. We all just roll over laughing and Shooter doesn’t mind because a) I’m not sure he knew what the guy meant, and B) he is too busy stacking chips to care about anything else. So back to this trip. We hit the Westin and all sign up for a players card to get the match play. Everyone hit a winner with the match play, some on roulette, some on blackjack, and as a group we’re up about $100 in what we consider to be free money. We all sit down at a $1 Pai-Gow machine and tread water for about 45 minutes just shooting the breeze. Shooter was having a bad trip gambling-wise up to this point and he was not in a good place. One of our guys tells him about the promo Westin has going where they reimburse you in free slot play for half of your losses. Shooter gets in line and 30 minutes later he is ready to play off the “free” money. He decides to sit down at a dollar machine, and boy did he pick a good one. He hits for $40 a few times, and hits a big one for about $120 or so. We finally pull him away and he is once again all smiles. Just what the doctor ordered.

We decide to meet up with our buddy who is staying with his brother. We settle on Caesars, and on the way in get some free passes to Pure. We’re not the type to go “ultra-clubbing”, but it’s free and we decide to check it out. We are told the line starts forming at 10PM, and doors open at 10:30PM. I am willing to check it out, but don’t want to spend two hours in line waiting to get into a place where I have to spend $15 for a drink I can get for free in the poker room. So we wait in line and at about 11PM we finally get up to the front of the line and they herd us into the hallway. We produce our FREE passes, and the lady at the register says those are not free passes, those are discount passes. She says guys normally pay $30, but the pass gets you $10 off. In my head I immediately say to myself “HELL NO!” no way they are pulling that crap on us. I can’t emphasize strongly enough our objections had nothing to do with the money. The guy handing out the passes said verbatim “Would you guys like some FREE passes”. The passes themselves say “FREE ENTRY”. To wait in line for an hour then try to be suckered out of $20 per person just set us all off. We had all been drinking a little bit and we immediately hold up the entire line and explain to the young lady at the register that we are not about to pay $20 per person. She insists they are discount passes, there is nothing she can do and we should go talk to so and so at the door. So we back up, and that guy says he can’t help us either, go talk to PURE employee #3. By the time we get to this guy our group has worked up a really good lather. I let the group know I am absolutely not going to pay for entry under these circumstances, and we build a general consensus on the topic. So we get to employee #3 and the guy who was drinking the most starts off the discussion by exclaiming “There is no asterisk! There is no asterisk”. He says it like three times, and the bouncer or whoever he was has no idea what he is talking about. We later piece together our friend was trying to say there are no conditions at all on the card. It says free entry, there is not asterisk declaring a certain time, date or anything else that would in any way limit when we could use the pass. After a good 5 minutes of discussion the guy starts to tease us by saying “Do you want to get in or not”. He must have said it three times, which I found extremely frustrating. We didn’t walk away, we’re here talking to you, right? Obviously we want to get in. Our group says yes, and I look at the guy and say we not only want to get in, we expect to get in, and we expect to get in for free based on what was promised to us by the guy handing out the cards and the card itself. The guy says “You couldn’t have been told it was free, but I’ll let you in.” He then proceeded to stamp our hands and we were let in without further delay. Talk about a bullshit scam. They probably do that to hundreds of people a day, and most people pay because they assume they must have misunderstood and don’t want to be embarrassed and make a scene. Does this happen at all the clubs? Ridiculous. I’m not a high roller, but I’ve taken 5 trips in the last 2.5 years, staying exclusively at Harrahs’ properties (IP, Paris and Harrahs). Their customers deserve better treatment than that. I was upset at the whole ordeal for the next 30 minutes, but eventually let it go and we checked out the club. After all that fighting to get in, I’m glad I saw it and can say I’ve done it, but frankly, there was nothing that impressive about it. Drinks were a somewhat reasonable $10, so we had a few rounds and left after about 90 minutes. As we made our way back to the IP, my buddy with the asterisk comment fell in the bushes. He insists he was pushed, but there was no one around him. To his credit, he did not spill his drink despite laying on his back in the shrubs. Now that is someone dedicated to his craft. We eventually get back to the IP and as we’re passing the cab lines one of my buddies decides to head over to the Double Down Saloon. They are famous for their ass juice. He says it is actually not as bad as it sounds. Ha! I stick around the IP wondering how the hell they can keep going. I head over to Bill’s to play some blackjack switcheroo and electronic craps (bets are placed electronically, but someone still actually rolls the dice). I have to say the idea behind this is fun because you can place the bets and review the odds quietly and still have the excitement of watching the dice fly. But this stopped being fun pretty quickly because the game actually moves slower than a regular craps game. It felt like all we were doing was waiting. Get up about $50 and decide I have to get to bed if I’m going to get up for football on Sunday.

DAY THREE (finally some Poker content)

Sundays are our absolute favorite days out in Vegas because we are always there during the football season. Being from Chicago, we all made our obligatory wager on the Bears. They are failing to cover the whole game, get to the point where they are finally covering the spread against the Panthers with about 2 minutes left, and give up a meaningless touchdown with about 8 seconds left to tear my heart out. At least they won, but just once I’d like them to cover. We’ve been coming to Vegas as a group for about 5 years, and they have failed to cover for us every time. Hopefully sometime soon we’ll learn our lesson and stay away form that game. I’m sure when we do they’ll win by 30. We watched the first round games at the Rock House in front of the IP. Sat right at the bar and watched all the games on the big screens. Had the IP sportsbook right upstairs. It was a great little setup, so much so that we decided to watch the later games there too.

Eventually I got tired of watching all my losers come in, so at about halftime of the later games I made my way to the IP poker room. I was seated at a very interesting 1-2 NL table. A guy in the 2 seat had about $1500 on the table. A guy in the 8 seat had about $1,000 on the table. Everyone else was between $100 and $200. My plan was to just sit tight and see some hands, get a vibe for the table dynamic, and then dip my toe in the water here and there. I was not planning on playing a long session, just long enough to let my buddies watch the end of the late games until we moved on to the next thing.

I bought in initially for $100 and could not believe the way the chips were flying at this table. I watched the guy in the 2 seat drop from $1,500 down to about $300, and get back up to about $1,200 in the course of about an hour. He was very loose and aggressive, and would bet into any check with just about any two cards. Every bet was a big bet, to the point that everyone at the table knew he was buying most of the posts he was winning. He was even discussing the ebb and flow of his stack and seemed to accept that as an action player, it just had to be that way. There was an unspoken rule between the smaller stacks to sort of take turns taking on the big stack. He was in every pot, pushing just about everyone around. The other big stack was really solid, and I knew right away to stay away from him if I could. I splash around here and there and before I know it I’m down about $50 or so, but there was no way I was leaving this table after watching how loose and aggressive the big stack was. He doubled me up a couple of times calling my all-ins with an Ace high, or low pocket pair to my TPTK. I give a little back, get back to about my $100 starting stack, and decide to buy in for another $100 to make sure I had a decent stack should I get the opportunity to double up again. Right after I did that, the following hand happened.

The biggest hand I played came against the other big stack at the table, the guy in seat 8 who was TAG (the one I made a mental note to avoid). In my previous hour and a half at the table, he had rarely lost a showdown. He starts the hand with a monster stack, probably something like $800. I’m in early position in seat 4 with $200. I should note that the big stack in seat 2 was playing so many hands that it became very difficult to even see a flop because of the amount of his raises. I knew it was just a matter of waiting him out, and on the rare occasion he folded pre-flopped, the rest of the table tried to stay in the hand so we could play what I would call normal (i.e., non-hyper-aggressive) poker. Action is on the 2 seat and he folds, so I make it $10 with KJ of spades. A total of 5 people call, including the TAG big stack in seat 8. The flop comes KJ5, all clubs. I don’t like the clubs out there against my top two, so I make what I thought was a strong bet of $50 to take down what would have been a nice $50 pot. Obviously my big fear is that another club would come on the turn or river. The pot is now $90. I have $140 behind. It folds around to the 8 seat, and he calls. I tell myself if another club comes, I am done with the hand, but if a non-club comes, I’ll put it all in and hope to avoid a bad river card. Turn comes a harmless 2 of hearts, and after thinking about it for 30 seconds, I push my chips all-in. The TAG big stack makes the call and asks me if I have a flush. I tell him I do definitely do not have a flush, and he turns over his cards to show 36 of clubs for a flopped baby flush. I remember thinking well, I still have a couple of outs and then before I could finish my thought the dealer turns over a beautiful red king to fill me up. At this point I want to say two things. First, the guy handled it with class all the way, which I really appreciated. I’m the kind of player that will lose to a two outer for my whole stack and not even blink. I’m not a rich man, I just know sometimes that is how it goes and it comes with the territory. It is refreshing to see that there are still other people out there that know how to take a beat and can live with someone else getting lucky on them. He outplayed me and I got lucky, and this guy took it like a man, knowing in the long run, he’ll be stacking more chips than I ever will. My second comment is that boy oh boy, how good does it feel to be on that side of it once in a while? For the rest of the day I felt charmed and couldn’t believe that river card had bailed me out. I took a bath on the NFL games to the tune of about $150, and this pulled my day gambling right out of the crapper.

So about 5 more minutes go by and I have a chance to play a big hand and double up again. I have about $75 invested in the hand, but can’t remember the details. I chicken out, thinking I am probably beat, and right then my friends come by and let me know the games are over and we’re moving on. I yell at them for not coming over 2 minutes earlier, before I gave away a good chunk of my winnings. I cash out for +70, and am thrilled with the result given how my initial stack had been dwindling and the lucky king on the river that turned a flat session into a profitable one. I was the fish in shark infested waters and lived to tell about it – good for me.

One more poker story, and this one will confirm what some of you might have surmised already (and what those who know me will confirm) – I am an idiot. Classic beginner mistake, but the reason I am mad at myself is I have been playing poker in casinos for the better part of ten years (not often, but enough to know what I’m doing). I would expect someone from my home game to do this – not me. I still can’t believe that this happened. So later on Sunday evening my buddies and I made it Downtown. We love downtown, and love Sundays downtown. One of the draws is going to Binions and watching the dealers in jerseys and referee outfits. I know they do that kind of thing in a lot of places, but hey, we love Binions. So we’re at Binions taking in the sights and I decide to sit down in the poker room to play while the boys get completely trashed and enjoy their last night. I can’t drink like they do, so Sunday is a day of recovery for me. I sit down to play at Binions and it is close to midnight and they have two tables going. Again I sit down and marvel at the dynamic at the table. I sit down at one end of the table and at the other end of the table are three old ladies who seem lovely enough. One of them has had a voice that tells you she’s been smoking for 30 years and is clearly having a tough night. I’m pretty sure she had had a few earlier in the evening too. The other two (not seated together) eventually reveal that they know each other and are actually traveling together and love to just sit down and play some cards. My side of the table had about 4 players similar to me in skill level, but way, way tighter than I normally play. It was about the most perfect table I have ever sat down at. I knew where I was at at all times, and once I learned that the ladies on the other end would generally not fold their hand, I used that knowledge to my advantage. It is rare that I actually have that kind of realization while I am still playing. Knowledge really is power. Turns out if they had anything at all, they were never folding for a small to moderately sized bet. They would all call down with bottom pair or better, and usually fold to pot sized bets on the turn and river. OK, so with that background info, here is probably the dumbest thing I have ever done at a poker table. It is still early in my time on the table, and the villain in this hand has called several of my bluffs with less than stellar holdings. Actually at one point my end of the table was laughing because for a good forty minutes she made a point to call every single raise I put in. For a good stretch, she was actually taking a good chunk of money from me. We called her my arch nemesis (though friendly about it as the day is long). A few players fold to me and I make a raise to $10 with AK. Everyone folds except for one of the older ladies, who calls. Flop comes KKA. Wow. It almost took my breath away. I had bought in for $200 at this table, and have my stack built up to about $400. I have this lady well covered, who was buying in for $100 at a time (she went through about 5 buy-ins while I was there in about 3 hours). She might have about $150 in front of her. I check and she bets out $20. I call and don’t even remember what the turn was. It is irrelevant for the purposes of this story. I bet $30 and she thinks for a few moments and calls. Now I know she has to have something, otherwise, she’d be out of there at that price. My thinking was if I can get a call on the turn, maybe I could get the rest of the stack on the river if the pot was big enough. The big question is how much can I get out of her on the river. I doubt she’ll call an all-in, but maybe she would if she didn’t think I had a King. For a moment I actually considered the possibility that if she had AA for a better full house I might have to quit gambling forever, but I tried to quickly put that out of my mind by saying if she managed to have flopped a better full house, I would simply tip my cap to her, wish her a good evening, and have a pretty crazy bad beat story to take home with me. I really don’t play cards all that often, so this kind of hand doesn’t really come up. If I lose flopping Kings full, so be it. I don’t remember what the river card was, but it wasn’t an Ace, so I was not too worried about it. I go into my best acting job trying to make her think I have a really hard decision to make. Probably 20-30 seconds go by and before I know it the dealer says I have checked. The action moves over to the older lady, who instantly checks back to me. Before I know it she has flipped over her cards, and I can barely get the words “I didn’t check” out of my mouth before I see she has an Ace for top two against my full house. How could I be so stupid. The older lady says “Wow, that’s a nice hand”, and all I can do is say “yeah, thanks”. My side of the table just smiles and says they didn’t think I checked, but I just let it go – no point screaming like a lunatic over how someone interpreted something I probably shouldn’t have been doing. The only thing I can figure is that I like to shuffle my checks during the long pauses, and I must have done something the dealer interpreted as a check. I wasn’t mad at the dealer, I was mad at myself for not being disciplined enough to make sure my intent was clear. It was probably only $50, maybe $100 max left on the table, but it bothered me a lot, not because of the money, but because I could put myself in that kind of position in the first place. She was a nice old lady, and if that error helped her play longer than night, then that was OK by me. I for one learned a valuable lesson and hopefully won’t make that kind of mistake in a big spot in the future.

I fly with miles, stay at IP for crazy low (sometimes comped) prices, and don’t do anything really expensive. My goal for every trip is to win enough to pay for all of the expenses, so other funds don’t have to support the Vegas trip. Below is a summary of the trip details. Given the EV (entertainment value), I’d say the trip was a great success. I did not cover my expenses, but came pretty darn close for a fun three nights in Vegas:

Flight: Miles
Hotel: 3 nights at IP for $70 total
Various table games: +50
NCAA football: +20
NFL Football: -125
Pure: -100
Cabs: -75
Poker: +270
Food, drinks and other various expenses: -170

Net for 3 day trip: -200. Most certainly +EV. Can’t wait to get back.