It was a quick weekend with my wife, staying at the palazzo, playing at the venetian. It began Friday morning, leaving on Delta from Atlanta ($212.00 plus junk round trip. Bargain.). Long flight, but thankfully I had my dvd player and Live Free or Die Hard. I laughed when they announced the in-flight movie, “The Jane Austen Book Club.” A plane filled with degenerate gamblers and they’re stuck with a chick flick. However, after sitting through 2 hours of Bruce Willis, I think I would have been better off watching Maria Bello. She looked good naked in The Cooler.
Although this was a weekend with my wife, she didn’t want to be on the same plane as me since we have 3 young kids. This way, if one plane goes down, then our kids aren’t orphans. Makes sense I guess, although she has no problem all of us being on a plane together. If we go down, I guess she wants the kids with us. Go figure.
Anyway, her plane was leaving in the afternoon , so I had some time to kill until she arrived. What better way to kill it than gambling.. After leaving baggage claim, I get on a shuttle to go get the rental. Dollar gets me in and out pretty fast, I hop into my PT cruiser (blah), then make my way to the strip. Take a right onto Las Vegas Blvd when I see smoke coming out from behind Mandalay Bay. My first thought was possibly Chris Angell was setting himself on fire at the Luxor. One could only hope. Or better yet maybe it’s the Excalibur going down in flames. Not to be. I found out on the radio from some female L.A. talk show host saying it was the Monte Carlo.
I had to see what was happening and try to play poker somewhere. Traffic sucked of course as I went down Koval which runs parallel with LV blvd. I eventually made my way to the Tuscany Casino, which is a couple blocks behind Ballys. I kind of wanted to check the Tuscany out sometime anyway just to see if it was decent for a possible stay in the future with the boys (all suites, their website looked decent). I finally saw some live shots of the fire on t.v. at the bar. It seemed like they had it under control. I then checked out the poker room and they had three tables going. I had to get a bite to eat first so I went in and got a steak sandwich from their café. Not bad. After I played blackjack for 10 minutes, finishing up about 150.00. Colored up and went to the poker room. Now they only had one full table running, so I went and played BJ for a bit more, giving back the money I won, plus another $75.00. That was enough of a stay at the Tuscany.
Originally I was going to wait until my wife arrived then check into the Palazzo, but I thought I’d check in now to avoid the rush, not knowing if hundreds of pissed off people from Monte Carlo would be trying to check in. (I know they’re different owners, just wasn’t’ sure how full vegas was this weekend). I made my way to the Palazzo and parked in their underground garage. Took the escalator up, and boom, I’m almost in the middle of the casino. Very nice.
Check in was smooth. I had two nights comp which was the bait I took to get me here. I was thinking of doing the $20.00 tip trick, but I chickened out. Christian behind the counter seemed to be working hard to find me a good room somewhere. 30th floor, golf course view (Wynn). Good enough. I really didn’t care, but I thought my wife would like the strip view (she loved the mountain view and the room). Of course the room was pretty much the farthest away from the elevators which sucked. The room itself was great, but at the end of the day, it’s just a hotel room.
Now it was time to check out the Palazzo. The casino itself was nice, but strange in that the ceilings are very high. I liked it, but it was different. One good thing was it wasn’t one where you get lost easy., If you stand in the center of the casino, you can see exactly where you want to go and you won’t get lost unlike a lot of floors. I would guess 90% of the shops in the Palazzo mall weren’t open yet, so that was a useless walk. Overall, there’s no wow factor for the Palazzo. It’s a casino and a mall. No eiffel tower, no dancing fountains. No lion Habitat. I never even saw Jay-Z’s 40/40 club (not that I cared). There was a nice looking statue and atrium by the front desk, and a decent looking waterfall that leads to the venetian, but overall nothing to write home about.
I then walked over to the Venetian sports book to check some super bowl odds, then I railed the poker room a few minutes debating whether to play or not. Decided to play some blackjack back at the palazzo before I went to pick up my wife. Finished up about $400.00, then walked 10 yards to the escalator that took me to my car. Again, very nice.
So I tell my wife, who’s coming in on air-tran , to meet me at baggage claim. She does. Along with her are the two people she sat between on the plane. It seems they were drinking some together while they were on the plane having a good time when she volunteered me to drive them to their hotels. Hotels. Plural. The girl was staying at the MGM and the guy was staying at Paris. So instead of taking the back roads back to the palazzo, I have to drive on the strip to drop off complete strangers. They didn’t look too much like axe murderers, so I obliged. The guy was a poker player and was giving my wife some tips on the plane. He was set to play the noon tourney at Paris on Saturday and was inviting me to join, which I strongly considered. They were both nice. He was even offering to give me something, but I couldn’t take it.
So we get into the palazzo garage, park, up the escalator and go to the room. Again, I loved this about the palazzo, not a huge walk between car and casino floor. I try to take a quick snooze while my wife gets ready to walk around and get some dinner.
I tell her we have reservations for the next night at Carnevino, which is probably going to be a great restaurant (marco Battalli). She hates the idea of spending $60.00 on a steak, so she wasn’t into it. That night we eat at the Grand Lux café in the palazzo (there’s one in the venetian as well). Nice place. I think it’s owned by the same company as the cheesecake factory. Calamari was very good. She said she would rather eat here the next night instead of the fancy joint. Fine. That would probably save me $75.00 or so. I could think of better things to do with $75.00 while in vegas.
The rest of the night we just walked around the Palazzo and the Venetian with me taking occasional stabs at black jack. By the end of the night I’m up about $1100.00. I should have headed straight for the airport then, but no…

We hit the sack pretty early on Friday since we were both beat. I woke up at 3am and headed down to play poker a couple hours before my wife woke up, hoping to catch a drunk, loose game. Not to be. I sat at an extremely tight table where a pot over $30.00 was a rarity. Played for 2 hours, lost $100.00.
I go back up to the room then we head to breakfast at the grand lux again. She loved her strawberry French toast, and my pancakes and hash browns were good. Of course how could they possibly mess up pancakes and hash browns (oh wait, they can, which I found out the next morning). After breakfast, we take the bridge overt to the Wynn. Of course it’s dead there because it’s only about 7am, but we’re still on east coast time. She was amazed at how nce the wynn was. I pointed out a couple hookers that were still working which grossed her out (welcome to vegas honey…), peeked inside the Ferrari store then headed to the venetian so I could play some poker.
While I’m talking to her about me playing poker today for a while, I’m trying to find out what she wants to do with her day. “there’s a mall across the street if you want to shop” “hmmm, I know, what if I instead learn to play poker today on your bankroll at the 1 / 2 table with you” “ummm, that sounds like a ummm good idea.” Why didn’t I introduce her to 4-8limit instead? Good question. One I’ve been asking myself often in the last few days.
So I buy in for $300.00 I give her $100.00 to get her feet wet. She does okay with it for a while, although she openly wonders if a flush beats a full house. As for me, on about my 4th hand I open raise pre with 8-10 suited. A couple callers. Boom. Flopped the flush. Get it all in with a guy after the turn, but of course the guy shows Q-Jspades. He also flopped the flush. Down $300.00 off the bat.
The worst part about playing at the same table as my wife was that of the two big hands that I won, they were both against her. I basically won the money back I gave her. On one I had pocket queens that turned into Queens over jacks full house, and she had a jack and queen in her hand. Another shortstacked lady was all in on the hand as well, so my hand sent her walking.
Forget what I said last paragraph, the actual worst part was being out of the hand and watching her just call, call, call when I knew exactly what the result was going to be. There was one hand where I could tell on the turn that a Chinese guy flopped the full house after his big raise. My wife just looked at me almost wondering what to do. Of course I couldn’t say anything other than “don’t look at me” but I was trying some jedI mnd trick to get her to fold, which she did. He showed pocket fours, full house. I forget what she had. Sorry.
No other real interesting hands. We sat at a reasonably fun table. The comedy focal point was a phillipino from WA state named Ed. He was telling us some extremely corny jokes in a drunken accent that nobody understood. The punch lines sometimes made zero sense. That made it funny I guess.
There was one drunk guy in seat 1 who kept falling asleep at the table. I guess the dealer took his cards once or twice. On the 3rd or 4th time he got pissed because he said he had a chip on it. She said it was over the yellow line (her space). That argument went on when a tall skinny old floor dude came over and tried to calm it down. The drunk guy wouldn’t shut up so the floor got a rack and told him he’s done, they don’t want his business and to go play at the Bellagio. Well done on his part. I did see the guy the next day at the noon tourney, so I guess he didn’t hold a grudge, nor should he have.
The only other dealer/player argument I saw was in my early a.m. was when a dealer and player got into an argument as to whether a missed blind or walking button should have been used. I’m not sure of the exact details or what the actual rule should be, but the player was being a bit nitty,, even going to the floor to tell him. I’m still not sure what the big deal to him was.
Anyway, at the end of our Saturday afternoon session, I finished down about $100.00, and my wife finished down $200.00 We then walked the strip for just a bit making our way down to Caesar’s for lunch at Spago. That wasn’t really our destination, but we were starving and couldn’t find a place that didn’t have a wait. Spago was able to sit us right down. I had a good roast beef Panini and she had a chicken salad sandwich which she said was great. I didn’t spot any celebrities talking movie deals, so I left the joint slightly disappointed.
We head back to the room where she crashes. I play a shoe of BJ, breaking even, then head to Von’s grocery to get some hydrocortisone cream. It seems that whenever I’m in Vegas and I walk the strip, my guys start to itch, get chafed, get a rash and irritate me greatly. This doesn’t happen in Chicago. It doesn’t happen in NYC or Philly. Only when I walk the strip in Vegas. I got another case of Vegas Balls (as my friend labeled it) and I wonder if I’m the only one who always suffers this. I head back to the room and rub that cream all around while my wife sleeps. Life is better now. Ahhhhh. Okay, too much info.
Anyway, my wife wakes up and we head to dinner at Grand Lux again (the one at venetian). A decent dinner. I had some sirloin and scampi combo plate and she had some pasta dish. Not great, not bad, but much cheaper than Carnevino where I originally planned to eat Saturday night..
Before we ate dinner, we checked out the poker room asking if we’d be able to get on the same table later, how busy they’d be etc…. The guy gave us a card with the poker room # on it, advising us to call just before we’re done with dinner to get our name on the list since they’ll be busier later. We took advantage of that, when we walked up we were at the top of a short list, but got sat right away. Nice.
We sat at separate tables originally. My table had 3 guys with good stacks to my right who seemed like the best players at the table. There was an empty seat to their right and I was thinking of getting my wife over to our table but I didn’t want these guys picking on her, so I let her play at another table for a while.
Nothing really interesting during the night. I finished down a couple hundred when 2x I remembered that AQ is not that great a hand, at least not as good as AK. Oh well. My wife lost another $200.00. She was bummed. Let this be a lesson to all of you. There is always the possibility that at a table some dumb guy is giving his wife money to learn how to play no limit. Easy money for all of you. We called it a night around 1am. The next morning I wake up early and head down for a couple shoes of BJ. Big mistake. A couple of big hands I bet had to be split then doubled, then boom, I’m down 1500.00. I never sat down and lost that much in one day. I never even lost that much in one week,, but I just tried to push too much. I head back up to the room in a foul mood.
My wife wakes up and we again went to the grand lux. My wife wanted to just have coffee then grab a muffin later. I ordered the pancakes with a side of hash browns. I guess the mistake was asking them to put cheese in the hash browns. It’s a simple request. One that is handled hundreds of times a day at any local Waffle House in America. After 15 minutes I’m wondering where my pancakes were, when the waitress comes up and asks if I wanted shredded cheddar or sliced chedder in the hash browns. WTF!! The cheese could be monkey shaped, I don’t care. It’s cheese. Put it in the hash browns and serve. It’s easy. Fifteen minutes later the busboy notices I’m pissed (normally the waitress would notice this, but she may have went to church or something. She was nowhere to be found). I explain things to him, the manager shows up and says they dropped the ball, meal on the house etc… I’m telling him I just want the pancakes asap since I want to play a satellite into the noon tourney (I was thinking the noon tourney was 550.00, like Saturday’s, but I was wrong. It was only 150.00 so no satties.) He offers the buffett, I quickly grab a link of sausage and muffin, go back to the table, finish up all pissed off that I might miss any possible satellite. As I’m getting up to leave a guy shows up with my pancakes, no hash browns. The waitress also finally shows up and says the manager took care of everything. I tipped her the full 20% of nothing and we left. Now I’m in even more of a foul mood.
I should have realized it was going to suck today when I looked out the window and saw it was raining. The few days I’m in vegas and I’ve seen a casino burn and I’ve seen it rain. I don’t know which is rarer, but both in one trip.
We make our way to the poker room to find out that the tourney is only the 150.00, which I decide to enter. We have about an hour to kill before the tourney, and again I try to see if my wife wants to go shopping. Noooooooooooooooooooo, she wants to play some more. I give her another $200.00 and I buy in for 300.00 I win about $80 before my tourney starts. I ask her if she’s going to go shopping now, you know, since we won’t be sitting at the same table, I’ll be playing the tourney, the mall’s nice, it’s close, it’s convenient. Noooooooooooooo, she wants to keep playing. Another $200.00 was to be kissed goodbye.
As for the tourney, $130.00 with $5.00 staff bonus, $15 entry. 108 entrants. 33% to first place, which I could really, really use today. The first table I sat at featured a drunk irish local to my left. I could barely understand him, but he was cool. He was talking about when he played the WSOP before the moneymaker era and how good poker was back in the day. He hates it now. Next to him was an Asian kid who at one time thought he was heads up against an all in when he flipped over AA. He didn’t see seat 1 was still in the hand. They play out the hand which he wins, but is penalized. He has to sit out ten hands. It’s still pretty early, so no big deal. After he came back he was pretty tight for about an hour, didn’t get cards then was out. While all this was going on, I was taking breaks between some hands explaining things to my now busted wife who was watching.
I did a pretty solid job of getting chips for the first few levels with a couple nice bluffs and playing position. I never had to put my stack at risk and after about 5 hours I found myself with a good amount of chips with only 2 tables left. My wife in the meantime was able to get our luggage from the room (late check-out of 4pm after talking to the casino host on Friday) , drop the bags off near the taxi-stand, get me some calamari from the grand lux. She even found me a table to put it on, and buttered my bread while I played. She’s a champ.

(disclaimer: I’m not 100% positive of the exact blind levels/pot sizes/bet sizes below, just going on rough memory)

So I had about 60k in chips (817.5K chips in play) which I got by stealing a lot of blinds and antes with solid raises in position, sometimes with absolute crap hands. So many of these players I could tell were just sitting, waiting, hoping to make the final table they didn’t realize what I was doing. Several times I got the pot and antes, which was around 4-5k at this time just by being aggressive. With about 16 left I got AK and ended up getting it all in preflop against a stack of about 10k and another stack of about 40k. The short stack had 66, the other guy had a couple suited face cards. One of them may have been a king, it was a blur and I suck at remembering this. Boom, Ace on the flop I’m in the lead, but runner runner spades gives the midstack guy a flush, and I’m back down to about 20 or so. Had that last card not been a spade, I would probably end up being one of the chip leaders with more than 1/8th of all the chips in play. Oh well.
I point out to my wife how I’m going to be playing now, just pushing on almost anything if no one else beats me to it. I did this a few times, with hands like A6s, K10, 88, and even once with 9-6 off. I showed the 88 after someone was accusing me of just pushing with anything. Not sure if that was correct or not.
They were paying top 9 and I probably could have held on to get there, but I wanted more chips to get in position for a much higher finish. After losing to that runner runner flush, I was down to about 20 or so and was able to work my way up to about 50 just by confidently saying “all in“ and pushing my chips over the line.. There was almost 5k in the pot before the cards were dealt each time and nobody wanted it.
The guy to my left was kind of wondering about the strategic soundness of pushing all in all the time. He was under the impression that everyone still had plenty of chips to play with. I’m looking at the clock ticking down to the next blind increase thinking he’s nuts. His M would be about a 3 when that increase came. He had no clue, nor did quite a few others at the table.
With about 55k my final hand came when I was dealt AQ suited and I open raised to 12k. (I think BB was 3k at this point). One caller from the big blind. Flop KK6 (I think, definitely two K’s). I slowly check and he bets 15. For some reason I didn’t think he’d bet if he had a K, I was wrong. I pushed all in, thinking I was ahead and he flipped over a king. Bad move my part, but oh well. I think I was playing pretty solid up until that blunder. I was out in 13th. I’m not sure if I should have just pushed preflop or bet after the flop, although I guess I would have been committed at that point anyway.
And with that was the end of my gambling weekend with my wife, introducing her to vegas without kids. The last time we were here together was in 2000 when she was a few months pregnant and we had our 18 month old daughter with us. What I thought would be a weekend of fine dining and a good show turned into a losing poker weekend and a horrific blackjack bender on Sunday morning. We headed to the airport, each for our respective red-eyes back to Atlanta, 2K poorer than I was when I showed up.

Cliff notes:

Went to vegas with wife
Palazzo - very nice, no wow factor
Venetian poker room- well run. Roomy
Don’t introduce your wife to poker via 1-2NL
AQ is the worst starting hand in poker, for me anyway
I came home a double loser in both poker and blackjack.