Weekend in Vegas
This was my first time playing Poker in Vegas. I played 2-4 limit during my stay. I started Friday morning at the Imperial Palace because I heard that there wasn't much competition. When I got there I found that between 8 am and 11 am they have a promo that if your AA or KK gets cracked you get $100 or $50 respectively. To my disapointment, I didn't get either pocket pair. I was up and then down and at 11am my stack was about where I started. The problem is that everyone there at that time is there for the promotion. At 11am almost everyone got up and left. So after my first morning I was even. I played at the IP's noon tourney ($60) and went out when I overplayed QQ.
I played at the Golden Nugget later that night for about 2 hours and left up about $10. I was impressed with this poker room. I had the impression that because it was downtown, it would be kind of run down and dumpy. I was pleasantly suprised that it wasn't. The seats were comfortable and the waitress was always keeping your drink full. I'd like to maybe even stay here next time out.
On Saturday morning I went back to IP for the AA or KK promotion. I put $100 on the table and walked out with $239 from 8 AM to 11 AM.
I had AA twice and it was busted once. I've never seen a $100 pot in a 2-4 limit game so the best way to play these are to just check-call to the showdown to keep as many people in as you can.
Saturday night I went to the MGM Grand poker room. It's a very nice room. I was up about $40 when a drunk maniac sat down to my right. He was raising with everything. I finally figured out that his buddy was at the other end of the table. They were there for a bachelor party. He was raising and re-raising everytime his buddy was in the pot. I made some bad decisions and was about $25 down when he finally busted out. Over the next 2 hours I built it back up and finished about $10 up.
While I realy didn't make any money, this was fun and a great experience and I can't wait to go back.
that is the only downfall of am playing at the IP, at 11:00am it's the running of the nits, they either head over to Harrah's to get log their bailout hours, over to bills for the A's/K's promo that runs from 11-1, or back to the nit cave for to repack their fannypacks for a night of nittiness
Nice report glad to see you had fun in your first vegas poker adventure
@minton
You have forgotten the rake.
Good report.
That whole thing at the IP is without a doubt weird! I wouldn't have believed the rush to get out of there at 11:00am if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. It is also kind of hard playing when no one will show any aggression with AA or KK. It took a while to get it through my think head but once I figured out what was going on I just refused to play when some of the uber-nits would bother to be in a hand and actually call a raise.
did they have any NL games going?? or was it just 2-4 limit? of course if your looking to get your A's and K's cracked 2-4 limit is the best game to play....
@fatb They seemed to get one table of NL most mornings on weekdays from what I saw a few weeks ago. I'm not sure how that game was, since I didn't play it or pay much attention to that table.
I had a comped room for most of a week at IP recently, and had nothing better to do at 8 a.m.than splash around at their 2/4 limit tables that time of day. I liked it just fine. They had 4 tables of 2/4L through the morning each of the weekdays I was there, and usually 1 table of 1/2NL for five games total most of that time. I saw nothing unusual at all about any of the 2/4 games during any of those four mornings, and nothing wrong with it at all that I could see other than the rake for anyone who is up and around that early and would like to play a small limit game. Reminded me of the midday 2/4 games they used to get at Excalibur a few years ago, only the players were more clueless. They were typical loose passive games (5/6+ to the flop) just like the average 2/4L game anywhere else, perhaps sometimes even a little looser and occasionally slightly more aggressive than average, such as the fellow who raised with Q8 and bet out every street into the field in a multi-way hand to showdown with no pair no draw before running out of money. They averaged about 2-3 locals and 7-8 visitors, with half the visitors coming from other nearby properties to find a game, ages ranged from "may I see your ID Sir?" to retirement, and the locals I played with were some of the loosest people at the table, calling to see a flop with K2 in EP and taking it to showdown against a raiser with second pair no kicker, for example. Fellow who did that, and saw 80%+ of all the flops, busted out and rebought twice before leaving on two days I played with him, and does that nearly every morning from what I understand.
You will get dealt AA about once every 7 or 8 hours on average, and its main impact seems to be to get the games going. On two of the days I was there I left IP in the middle of the day to go up to Venetian and Wynn, and IP had more games, bigger average pots, and very obviously more drop going down the hole than either of them with their 3-4 very tight games at that time. Change the rake and the only thing I'd be able to find fault with about that morning game would be the rep on AVP, which has nothing to do with anything I saw. Oh, and the coffee sucks regardless of whether you get it delivered by the waitress or buy it from the little donut & coffee place in back of the property.
thanks local rock,i may have to try out the early morning hours...just hope i can get out of bed that early cuase most the time i don't get to bed till after 3 am ...or maybe i could just stay up and take a nap in the afternoon....
@fatb
If you are staying at harrah's or IP that may be a challenge the carnival court is quite loud
It is fun to play with the nits during the aces kings cracked promos, they groan every time you raise a pot, which I did quite often
yeah that was kinda my thinking....and i do like to raise pre-flop..
if i'm tried i could sleep at a rock concert,so it being lound is not a problem..........last trip we stayed at IP and had a room that over looked the carnival court and i did't think it was bad at all.....
@minton Now that part of the legendary epic communal novel of Mythical Nit Lore is something I do believe is often true. They like to call. Cheap. And speculate what kind of drugs you're on if you enter the pot with a raise.
@xill28 By the way, you might like to know that the hotel rooms there are really very nice. Nicer than a lot of mid-range Strip hotel rooms. No real view to speak of, but very comfortably furnished. For lower rates the Four Queens next door also has very nicely remodeled, albeit smaller rooms. If you do decide to go that way, no matter what hotel it is be sure to ask for a room which does not directly face the ginormous loudspeakers of the "Fremont Street Experience" lightshow. That request is easily accommodated at check-in for anyone who asks in my experience.
Slipknot
fell asleep or passed out??
I was able to get a "suite" located away from the Carnival Court noise by using the patented Local Rock Zero Dollar Trick (LRZDT). It resembles the Twenty Dollar Trick much discussed with great enthusiasm on many Las Vegas tourist websites, with a slight variation. The variation involves the part about a piece of paper with Andrew Jackson's portrait on it.
It works like this...
When in line patiently waiting my turn for the desk clerk, I get out the two things I know that every hotel requires before they can check a guest into a room: my driver license and a credit card. Doing so before getting to the clerk saves time fumbling around for us both and also does the clerk a favor by making their productivity look good for the boss. In between the license and card (here's the special patented part) I cleverly and discretely insert...absolutely nothing. Having done what I can to make things easy for the desk clerk I then smile, compliment them, and ask very nicely for what I want, gently inquiring whether they happen to have it available for no additional charge, without demanding or acting as if I'm entitled to it. I get it about 70% of the time. I attribute the 30% of the time I'm told they can't do it to those times they are fully booked, and the 70% success rate to the proportion of the time hotels have unsold rooms of the type I want going to waste, but who knows, maybe it's actually my charm and good looks, and I really can't say for sure how my results with the LRZDT(tm) compare to the "Twenty Dollar Trick" favored by many others.
Anyways, like I said, I was easily able to get a room which was not facing Carnival Court noise, and a suite to boot, by asking. Nicely.