Ten days in Vegas with my brother…our third trip to poker heaven. This time we stayed at the Imperial Palace because the room doesn’t matter and it is in a great location. I was however, impressed as I was expecting a dump but it was pretty comfortable. Not great, no amenities like a coffee pot but comfortable and had a balcony. Two negatives with the Imperial Palace (IP)…one, the elevators are extremely slow and packed to get to your rooms; second, screams in the night were constant as drunks returned to the hotel convinced that all hotel guests wanted to hear them scream for no particular reason. I am not going to try to provide details of most of what we did as it was ten days and frankly, I can’t remember what happened in what order. My brief comment on each one of the rooms we visited will be in Part 2 of this report. However, a couple of events for this part.

The Quads: A lot of poker rooms have promotions like extra $$ for high hand, aces cracked, etc. While at the Caesar’s Palace, I hit quad 9s for $50. That is not important but the way people sometimes will play during these promotions is interesting. While in one game at the Flamingo, they had an Aces cracked promotion for $100. The game was 1/2 NL. I was involved in a heads up hand where I flopped the nut straight. Other player who limped in preflop allowing me to flop the nuts bets every street and calls my raise on river (pot was now over $300 as each of us had about $150 in the pot). Guy has AA and is excited…I mean like he won the lottery excited because he had his AA’s cracked. Couldn’t bring myself to point out that he spent $150 to win $100. I saw a lot of this kind of play during promotion games. Just doesn’t make sense to change your play during an Aces Cracked promotion but everyone seems to get drawn into it.

The Burnouts: Hit the low limit, dumpy poker rooms to see the most depressing sight. Local burnouts that haven’t showered in days (or weeks) trolling for tourists who never played poker before. They have to troll for them because the burnout’s play is so poor, they can only feed on the scraps…like bottom feeders…catfish. Their bankrolls are minimal and they avoid you at the sign of any aggression. I actually felt sorry for some of them. Not worth the small action…they have a mouth to feed.

The Midday Pisser. About 11:00 AM, we are heading to the old strip on The Deuce (bus that runs up and down the strip). On top deck with drunk, mumbling dude behind us. When his half full beer can rolled by us, we figured he couldn’t read the “NO FOOD OR DRINK” sign at the door entrance or the bus driver just didn’t give a rat’s ass. Anyways, about half way to the old strip we hear the familiar sound of piss hitting a porcelain urinal…only problem, there is no urinal on the bus. Dude was pissing on himself in the back of the bus. We relocated to the bottom deck allowing enough room between us and the spot the urine would have dripped down the stairs from the upper deck. Noted the bus number (167) upon departure vowing to avoid that bus on any future rides.

Part 2 will provide my quick review of the poker rooms we played in.