Vegas Trip Report: Day 1
Hey all, thanks for the welcoming home! It’s nice to be back in the warm climate of South-Western Ontario!
After booking a fairly last minute trip to Vegas through Expedia.ca Jen and I were super excited to go. I was pumped to stay at one of my favourite hotel/casinos from the last time I was here, The Golden Nugget. We were flying out of Buffalo on Thursday morning at 9:30 so decided to drive to Buffalo the night before and stay at a hotel to avoid traffic and other complications. We also knew the hotels near by could store our car and transport us to the airport via shuttle whenever we needed. We end up booking with a Ramada just around the corner from the airport ($94.00/USD). We arrive and are greeted by an employee that seems less then impressed that we’ve disturbed her computer game. We eventually check in and by the state of the lobby, we have legitimate reasons to worry about the condition of our room. The room they give us is just outside the lobby, close enough that we can hear the bell go off when the front door of the hotel is opened. A guy in the room next to us is continuously clearing his throat “echmm, echmm”. We laugh it off but after 3 straight minutes of this we had run out of patience. We’re clearly not patient people. I go back to the lobby and ask for a room change as we had asked for one King sized bed and not two doubles. The employee at the desk now is a guy and he wasn’t impressed at all that I interrupted his cell phone conversation. They move us to the last room they have with a King size bed, a ‘business class’ room. The room hadn’t been vacuumed in weeks, had stains on the ceiling and in the bathroom. I didn’t sleep at all that night as we slept on the covers not wanting to look at what could possibly be under them. I was awake thinking of the movie ‘derailed’ and how the hotel staff is setting us up to get it. Jen got up to take a shower at 6am, a few minutes later I hear her say “Oh my God!”. She asks me to come to the bathroom; I come in to see “Murder” spelled backwards on the mirror. Yes, from the shining! We eventually check out wishing we would have never stayed at this place, what a dump! Of course, as I write this it’s kind of funny now but at the time it was not pleasant! Lol.
The shuttle takes us to the Buffalo airport and we fly from there to Atlanta. We have a nice breakfast and are getting increasingly excited to arrive. After our 3 hour layover we leave on-time for Vegas and arrive at 4:30pm Vegas time. After a brief scare with our luggage, someone took it off the belt for us and it was just sitting there, we catch a shuttle for the Nugget downtown.
The Golden Nugget is everything and more then what I had recalled. The new shark tank and pool are exquisite! They have a water slide that travels directly though the shark tank and a Jacuzzi tub that could easily fit all participants of a Bristol Street Friday nighter. We check in and are in our room by 5:45pm. Jen hops in the shower and I head downstairs to get a beer and some water for Jen. We decide that after some relaxing that we’ll head down and watch the Freemont Street Experience. Pretty neat to see for the first time, it was fun to watch everyone with their heads in the sky and how all the lights from the casinos turn off in unison. It’s about 8:30 now and we’re getting hungry, decide to eat at Lillie’s Noodle House in the Casino. Likely one of the best meals I’ve ever had! If you like Asian, Szechwan, Cantonese food there isn’t a better place from what I know. It’s a bit pricey but well worth it, meal came to $65 for the two of us with a drink each. Jen is getting tired now and I’ve got the itch to play poker. I decide to go and play for an hour or so and then hook back up with Jen in the room.
I hit the poker room 2/4 Limit table and start with $100. Within 2 orbits I feel I’ve got the table pegged. From my left, loose aggressive, weak passive, weak tight, LAG, solid, newbie weak and loose, LAG, and tighty to my right. I know that to win money at this table I’ll really have to pick my spots and not bluff at all, I’m going to get called as more then half of the players are calling stations. I saw a guy call down with K high on a straighted, flushed and boated board against two other players, announcing “K high”. I was going to get paid off if I hit. Most flops were being seen by a minimum of 6 players, usually 7. They also had a high hand jackpot, any quad minimum were getting paid at least $50 although some were up to $670 (quad 10’s). I saw a guy flop quad Kings and get paid $270 bonus for it. These types of jackpots made it extra tempting to play suited connectors to try and hit that straight flush.
I fold for a couple of orbits and then win a nice pot when my A9s turns trips and I get paid off by one player with two pair, I believe he was holding K5 from MP. I for some reason get a rush of arrogant confidence thinking that I’m clearly the better player at this table and forget the cardinal rule of never bluffing a calling station, let alone 5 of them! I raise from UTG with 97d just to see what would happen, everyone had been limping in and well, the jackpot for a 10 high straight flush was over $500. Poor reasoning I know….I get called by 4 other players and see a flop of 10 9 4. I bet the whole way down and continue to get called by 2 players with the board ending in 10 9 4 3 2. The weak passive player shows KK and the LAG shows J10, I lose to both and remind myself to settle down. I fold until the next time I’m UTG, I look down and see AQ and raise. I now get 6 callers to the flop of K 10 9. I fire out and get 5 callers. Turn is a blank; I fire again and get 3 callers. River is a beauty J, I fire and get called by weak passive and get raised by a female LAG, I re-raise making weak passive fold and female LAG calls showing Q9 for the lower straight. I tell myself that my 97d hand set this one up. One can only hope…I leave the table after an hour and a half up $40 however felt I could have paid for both our trips sitting there longer, the table was a dream. I saw two guys go through rebuys of $80 each in my 90 minutes there. I didn’t want to leave Jen for that long as it was our first vacation together and our first night in Vegas, I go back upstairs to find her passed out. I decide to do the same. The view from our 18th floor room was beautiful, the room was clean and didn’t smell. The bathroom was incredible! Our first night in Vegas was awesome and I was looking forward to continuing to school these tourist poker players….more to come!
stp
After booking a fairly last minute trip to Vegas through Expedia.ca Jen and I were super excited to go. I was pumped to stay at one of my favourite hotel/casinos from the last time I was here, The Golden Nugget. We were flying out of Buffalo on Thursday morning at 9:30 so decided to drive to Buffalo the night before and stay at a hotel to avoid traffic and other complications. We also knew the hotels near by could store our car and transport us to the airport via shuttle whenever we needed. We end up booking with a Ramada just around the corner from the airport ($94.00/USD). We arrive and are greeted by an employee that seems less then impressed that we’ve disturbed her computer game. We eventually check in and by the state of the lobby, we have legitimate reasons to worry about the condition of our room. The room they give us is just outside the lobby, close enough that we can hear the bell go off when the front door of the hotel is opened. A guy in the room next to us is continuously clearing his throat “echmm, echmm”. We laugh it off but after 3 straight minutes of this we had run out of patience. We’re clearly not patient people. I go back to the lobby and ask for a room change as we had asked for one King sized bed and not two doubles. The employee at the desk now is a guy and he wasn’t impressed at all that I interrupted his cell phone conversation. They move us to the last room they have with a King size bed, a ‘business class’ room. The room hadn’t been vacuumed in weeks, had stains on the ceiling and in the bathroom. I didn’t sleep at all that night as we slept on the covers not wanting to look at what could possibly be under them. I was awake thinking of the movie ‘derailed’ and how the hotel staff is setting us up to get it. Jen got up to take a shower at 6am, a few minutes later I hear her say “Oh my God!”. She asks me to come to the bathroom; I come in to see “Murder” spelled backwards on the mirror. Yes, from the shining! We eventually check out wishing we would have never stayed at this place, what a dump! Of course, as I write this it’s kind of funny now but at the time it was not pleasant! Lol.
The shuttle takes us to the Buffalo airport and we fly from there to Atlanta. We have a nice breakfast and are getting increasingly excited to arrive. After our 3 hour layover we leave on-time for Vegas and arrive at 4:30pm Vegas time. After a brief scare with our luggage, someone took it off the belt for us and it was just sitting there, we catch a shuttle for the Nugget downtown.
The Golden Nugget is everything and more then what I had recalled. The new shark tank and pool are exquisite! They have a water slide that travels directly though the shark tank and a Jacuzzi tub that could easily fit all participants of a Bristol Street Friday nighter. We check in and are in our room by 5:45pm. Jen hops in the shower and I head downstairs to get a beer and some water for Jen. We decide that after some relaxing that we’ll head down and watch the Freemont Street Experience. Pretty neat to see for the first time, it was fun to watch everyone with their heads in the sky and how all the lights from the casinos turn off in unison. It’s about 8:30 now and we’re getting hungry, decide to eat at Lillie’s Noodle House in the Casino. Likely one of the best meals I’ve ever had! If you like Asian, Szechwan, Cantonese food there isn’t a better place from what I know. It’s a bit pricey but well worth it, meal came to $65 for the two of us with a drink each. Jen is getting tired now and I’ve got the itch to play poker. I decide to go and play for an hour or so and then hook back up with Jen in the room.
I hit the poker room 2/4 Limit table and start with $100. Within 2 orbits I feel I’ve got the table pegged. From my left, loose aggressive, weak passive, weak tight, LAG, solid, newbie weak and loose, LAG, and tighty to my right. I know that to win money at this table I’ll really have to pick my spots and not bluff at all, I’m going to get called as more then half of the players are calling stations. I saw a guy call down with K high on a straighted, flushed and boated board against two other players, announcing “K high”. I was going to get paid off if I hit. Most flops were being seen by a minimum of 6 players, usually 7. They also had a high hand jackpot, any quad minimum were getting paid at least $50 although some were up to $670 (quad 10’s). I saw a guy flop quad Kings and get paid $270 bonus for it. These types of jackpots made it extra tempting to play suited connectors to try and hit that straight flush.
I fold for a couple of orbits and then win a nice pot when my A9s turns trips and I get paid off by one player with two pair, I believe he was holding K5 from MP. I for some reason get a rush of arrogant confidence thinking that I’m clearly the better player at this table and forget the cardinal rule of never bluffing a calling station, let alone 5 of them! I raise from UTG with 97d just to see what would happen, everyone had been limping in and well, the jackpot for a 10 high straight flush was over $500. Poor reasoning I know….I get called by 4 other players and see a flop of 10 9 4. I bet the whole way down and continue to get called by 2 players with the board ending in 10 9 4 3 2. The weak passive player shows KK and the LAG shows J10, I lose to both and remind myself to settle down. I fold until the next time I’m UTG, I look down and see AQ and raise. I now get 6 callers to the flop of K 10 9. I fire out and get 5 callers. Turn is a blank; I fire again and get 3 callers. River is a beauty J, I fire and get called by weak passive and get raised by a female LAG, I re-raise making weak passive fold and female LAG calls showing Q9 for the lower straight. I tell myself that my 97d hand set this one up. One can only hope…I leave the table after an hour and a half up $40 however felt I could have paid for both our trips sitting there longer, the table was a dream. I saw two guys go through rebuys of $80 each in my 90 minutes there. I didn’t want to leave Jen for that long as it was our first vacation together and our first night in Vegas, I go back upstairs to find her passed out. I decide to do the same. The view from our 18th floor room was beautiful, the room was clean and didn’t smell. The bathroom was incredible! Our first night in Vegas was awesome and I was looking forward to continuing to school these tourist poker players….more to come!
stp
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