Trip Report - Las Vegas - DAY 1/2
When my wife and I were deciding where we wanted to go on vacation this year, we knew that we were probably going to go to see my grandmother in California. Even though my Grandma is 84, she is very active for her age. She had spoken to us about picking us up at the airport, but said that she would rather go the further distance to Las Vegas then try to go into the LA airport and back.
Talk about twisting my rubber arm :-). I had never been to Vegas before, and Jenna and I were more than happy to spend a couple of days in Vegas before heading to California.
DAY 1 - Travel
We arrived in Vegas at about 9 pm. By the time we picked up the rental car and got to the hotel we were pretty beat. We resisted the temptation to go straight to the strip, and headed to bed, looking forward to the next day.
DAY 2 - A Step back in time
As some of you know, just before leaving for Vegas I obtained a high showing in the FTOPS HORSE event. So, when I went to Vegas I looked for a live HORSE tournament. The only one that I could find on the net was at Sam's Town - well off the strip. I had the rental car, so getting there was no problem.
The website listed the time for the tournament as noon. I got to Sam's Town about 10:30 to check out the poker room. Well, when I walked in you could tell that the casino was old school all the way. I had a laugh thinking about what Jenna's aunt (a gambling addiction counsellor) would think of the signs that stated "cash your paycheck here, and you could win $10,000!!"
I get to the poker room and there was only 1 table playing Stud. I asked about the tournament and found out that they actually started at 2. So, I shrugged and got some chips for the stud game. The players at the table were so old that they would call a game with the Milton Rocks at the table the “kiddie game”. When I went to sit down one of the players actually said “are you sure you’re old enough to sit in this game?”
I played stud for about an hour – it is admittedly my worst one of the five in HORSE. I was down about $50, but felt OK with my play on this very experienced table. I moved to a $4/$8 limit hold ‘em table that had opened up. I played there until the tournament started and was up about $100.
I thought that the tournament would be bigger than it was. It turned out to only be a sit-n-go with 9 players. With a $100+$20 buy-in the prizes would be $450, $270, and $180.
Some younger players did come in for the HORSE tourney. There were 2 males and a female that were younger than I am, one guy about the same age, and then 4 older players.
It amazed me that 2 of the older players that entered the tournament were an older couple that had to have the qualifications for a low hand (5 unique cards 8 or better) explained to them multiple times, but still wanted to try a HORSE tournament.
The first levels of the tourney went slow, and I was down about 10% of my stack, but then when we entered the Stud Eight or Better round for the first time I scooped 3 pots in a row, and I had a double stack before the end of the second Hold Em round.
One of the older players went bust during the second razz round, and some of the other stacks were getting lower. I was able to grow my stack even larger during the second stud round when I had a 4 card flush showing 2 hands in a row. The first time I was called down and had the flush, and the second time I got the other player to fold on 7th street when I didn’t have the flush.
I scooped one more pot with a wheel in the second stud 8 or better round, and had 60% of the chips in play with 7 players remaining.
Players started to fall by the wayside during the 3rd Hold Em round. There were 5 left at the end of that round. The older lady beside me only had 1 big blind left at the end of the round, but the other opponents didn’t pay attention. In the first hand of Omaha 8 or better I turned a wheel and the nut flush and had one person call all in with a worse low, and another with a worse flush. When a brick came off on the river I had knocked 2 more players out and the lady beside me slipped into the money!
The lady beside me went out on the next hand. She was very happy that she got into the money considering her situation (BTW – she was one of the players that had to be helped at the start of the tournament!!).
Heads up play went back and forth for a bit, but the blinds were getting pretty high. We played until the last hand of Razz until my wheel beat his 6-4 low. I had won the tourney ;-)
TO BE CONTINUED….
Talk about twisting my rubber arm :-). I had never been to Vegas before, and Jenna and I were more than happy to spend a couple of days in Vegas before heading to California.
DAY 1 - Travel
We arrived in Vegas at about 9 pm. By the time we picked up the rental car and got to the hotel we were pretty beat. We resisted the temptation to go straight to the strip, and headed to bed, looking forward to the next day.
DAY 2 - A Step back in time
As some of you know, just before leaving for Vegas I obtained a high showing in the FTOPS HORSE event. So, when I went to Vegas I looked for a live HORSE tournament. The only one that I could find on the net was at Sam's Town - well off the strip. I had the rental car, so getting there was no problem.
The website listed the time for the tournament as noon. I got to Sam's Town about 10:30 to check out the poker room. Well, when I walked in you could tell that the casino was old school all the way. I had a laugh thinking about what Jenna's aunt (a gambling addiction counsellor) would think of the signs that stated "cash your paycheck here, and you could win $10,000!!"
I get to the poker room and there was only 1 table playing Stud. I asked about the tournament and found out that they actually started at 2. So, I shrugged and got some chips for the stud game. The players at the table were so old that they would call a game with the Milton Rocks at the table the “kiddie game”. When I went to sit down one of the players actually said “are you sure you’re old enough to sit in this game?”
I played stud for about an hour – it is admittedly my worst one of the five in HORSE. I was down about $50, but felt OK with my play on this very experienced table. I moved to a $4/$8 limit hold ‘em table that had opened up. I played there until the tournament started and was up about $100.
I thought that the tournament would be bigger than it was. It turned out to only be a sit-n-go with 9 players. With a $100+$20 buy-in the prizes would be $450, $270, and $180.
Some younger players did come in for the HORSE tourney. There were 2 males and a female that were younger than I am, one guy about the same age, and then 4 older players.
It amazed me that 2 of the older players that entered the tournament were an older couple that had to have the qualifications for a low hand (5 unique cards 8 or better) explained to them multiple times, but still wanted to try a HORSE tournament.
The first levels of the tourney went slow, and I was down about 10% of my stack, but then when we entered the Stud Eight or Better round for the first time I scooped 3 pots in a row, and I had a double stack before the end of the second Hold Em round.
One of the older players went bust during the second razz round, and some of the other stacks were getting lower. I was able to grow my stack even larger during the second stud round when I had a 4 card flush showing 2 hands in a row. The first time I was called down and had the flush, and the second time I got the other player to fold on 7th street when I didn’t have the flush.
I scooped one more pot with a wheel in the second stud 8 or better round, and had 60% of the chips in play with 7 players remaining.
Players started to fall by the wayside during the 3rd Hold Em round. There were 5 left at the end of that round. The older lady beside me only had 1 big blind left at the end of the round, but the other opponents didn’t pay attention. In the first hand of Omaha 8 or better I turned a wheel and the nut flush and had one person call all in with a worse low, and another with a worse flush. When a brick came off on the river I had knocked 2 more players out and the lady beside me slipped into the money!
The lady beside me went out on the next hand. She was very happy that she got into the money considering her situation (BTW – she was one of the players that had to be helped at the start of the tournament!!).
Heads up play went back and forth for a bit, but the blinds were getting pretty high. We played until the last hand of Razz until my wheel beat his 6-4 low. I had won the tourney ;-)
TO BE CONTINUED….
Comments
I went by the card room at the Rio. You would think that the casino that holds the world series of poker would have a really nice card room - but it is just the opposite. The card room there is very dinky and I wasn't impressed at all.
After the show I sent my wife back to the hotel room in a taxi so that I can check out some other poker room. I headed to where Rounders says is the mecca of poker - the Bellagio.
I sat down at a $5/$10 limit table at the Bellagio since I was feeling a little tired and didn't want to put my whole stack at risk in No Limit when I wasn't feeling 100%. Now, the Bellagio is a nice room, and my table was right beside Bobby's room and I was able to see in there (of course, noone was playing in there), but the atmosphere there was awful. Maybe people were being reverential to the room, but there was no talk at my table whatsoever. If the dealer did not say "raise" every once in a while it would have been 100% silent. I won about $50 in an hour and decided to call it a night.
On the way out to the car they had one of the new table games based on Hold Em. I'm sure that the odds are against you, but I though I would try it for a little bit. On the first hand I put $5 in the side bet area and hit pocket aces on the first hand! At 30 to 1 for the side pot, I won $150 for the side pot and $40 when I hit a full house for the main hand. I figured I couldn't do much better than $190 up, so I headed home for the night.
Jeez...can you run ANY better? Good TR so far Al..looking forward to more
Funny moment: When walking through the MGM Grand I ran into an old friend from high school that I hadn't seen in a couple of years. We were laughing about the fact that Vegas is such a big place that we both could have been there for a week and never ran into each other.
After walking around the strip for a while I convinced my wife (read: gave my wife some money for the slots) that I should play some poker at the Wynn.
The lowest No Limit game at the Wynn is $1/$3. According to the dealers they couldn't get people to play $1/$2, but people like $1/$3 because there is more action. The play is mainly in $3 chips which definitely screwed up some peoples' math. It was a fun table, and I was up pretty quickly. Unfortunately I ended up even when my wife was done her play, after 2 players got all in with me when they were on their flush draws and they hit it.
We went to see Spam-a-lot that night at the Wynn. Very enjoyable.
I thought that was going to be the end of my poker play, but more was to come :-)
I saw that a couple of years ago when they had it running in Toronto...very good show like you said..
For some reason I have a feeling it has something to do with Commerce and LAPC
Jenna and I realized that we didn't need to return the car right away. We left California at 10am and I convinced Jenna that we should go back to the Wynn so that I could play some more poker.
We got to the Wynn at 1:30, had some lunch, and I was sitting down at a $1/$3 game by 2. The nice part of the $1/$3 tables is that there is no maximum limit. I bought in for $300 at a new table.
I played for about an hour, taking a nice pot off of one gentleman with top 2 pair when he had top pair top kicker. On the next hand he raised, I reraised with aces, and he went over the top of me. I had doubled up in the hour at the table.
Then I heard the announcement "We are now starting a must move $10/$20 Omaha High Low with a half kill table - seats open".
Now, in HORSE, Omaha 8 or better is probably my 2nd favorite game (after Stud 8 or better), and I was up $300, so I thought I would try the game out live.
When I first sat down I noticed that all of the other players knew each other, so I figured I was up against a very skilled crew. I came to find out that I was very wrong.
Now for those of you that have not played Omaha 8 or better, you want to play hands that have a chance of "scooping" the pot (winning both the high and low pot - or the high pot if there is no qualifying low). I was surprised how many 1 sided hands I saw played, and if they hit the low hand they bet it hard even when I thought it was obvious that they were being quartered (winning half of the low half of the pot).
I even won a profit in 2 hands with a situation I have rarely seen online - I split the low half of a plot with one player, and the high half of the pot with another player!
Overall, I won another $725 in that game. $1,025 on the day was very nice to pad my wallet again before heading back to Canada :-)
It was nice to finally get to Vegas! I hope you enjoyed my report :-)
Royal Cup V is next!
No, my grandmother lives in the High Desert - a couple of hours from LA, and we decided that since we were going in and out of Vegas that I wouldn't try to get to any of the Casinos in California. I would like to see them at some point though.
I hated how you just kept winning
Congrats Al!
I know - I will admit I did get lucky to keep winning - and was waiting for someone to call me on it. The one thought I had out there is how skillful the crowd is that I play with from this forum - because I definitely don't do all this winning when I play with all of you guys/gals
Keep it up!
And by the way, last time I looked, you do do quite a bit of winning around here.... So maybe it's not variance, perhaps you are the next prodigy coming out of the KW area. lol... Great trip, Great report, and I bet you cant wait to go back...
We paid about $150 per night for the hotel. I know there are cheaper values around, but I let my wife do the booking since she is very particular about hotel rooms. At the Doubletree that cost also came with free buffet breakfast that we could load up on before hitting the casinos for the day.
The B didn't exist when Rounders was made; The Mirage was the Vegas casino referred to in the movie.