Moose in Vegas Day 1 - Friday
Just got back from Vegas with MrsMoose or MM for short. Pretty snapped with 2 hours sleep but got used to that in Vegas so here goes...
Took 4 hours to get from Cambridge to hotel in Detroit through that bad storm Thursday night. Just glad we made it. Rodeway Inn - don't stay there. Worst motel I've ever stayed in for $53 bucks and I've stayed in some horrible places. Probably #2 or 3 in worst all time for me. Nevertheless, just glad to have a bed to crash in after the terrible drive in. Only good thing was that parking for a week was another $10 and they drop you off at the airport. Next I would probably stay in the Comfort Inn just down the road which also has a free shuttle to and from the airport.
Ok check in at the airport was great, printed my boarding pass from nwa.com the night before, checked the bags at the curbside drop off and walked right past probably 50 people in line at the check in and straight to security. Landed, had the bags in hand around noon and took a cab out to the Sahara, $18 with tip. Room was $45 per night plus $4 in surcharges. Room was a good size and decent enough, especially in comparison after the previous night. Good move #1 was a 10 ride pass for $20 on the monorail which directly connects to the Sahara and runs the length of the strip. Only about 15 minutes to go the length of the strip. Good move because it is the same price per ride as taking The Deuce which is a bus. However with a couple of dozen stops and all the street lights it takes about 45 minutes to run the length of the strip, which we found out after switching to the bus at the end of our trip when our pass ran out. Next time I would just stick to the monorail.
Good move #2 was heading to the Aladdin to the Todai Sushi restaurant. MM and I love sushi and this was by far the best we have ever had. 2 lunches with a $5 coupon from a magazine cost $30 with tip. AYCE rules!
First poker stop was the Aladdin, we sat at a 3-6 table. Nice room but a little bright and kind of lacking in atmosphere. They raked the pot $1 per hand for a high hand jackpot which maxed out at $599 for the various hands to avoid the tax man. Met our first local character Don, who basically lived there and knew everyone at the Aladdin. Only 2 tables going, ours plus a $1/2 NL. Guess he mostly played high limit poker and was just killing time at our table. MM had a nice laydown against him, which she may post later but mostly the entire trip pokerhand wise was uneventful, except MM did catch quad 5s on the last day. They serve fresh cookies at 4pm. Still stuffed from the AYCE so grapped a couple for a snack later during our Cirque du Soleil show. Had to get to TI to pick up our tickets for Mystere for 6 pm so packed it in after 2 hours, 3 Coronas each, me down $1, MM up $41 which was the start of a trend all weekend. On the way out, signed up for the players card, used a $25 match play coupon on BJ. I hit BJ and MM lost so finished up $37.50 on one hand each. Played out our free $5 slot play and got nothing.
Walked up to TI, picked up the tickets and had time to kill so signed up for another players card. Asked for the poker room...No poker!?! So hit the slot machines with our free $5 there, this time we were hot and cashed out $25.75. Whoo hoo! Good start to the trip. Still had over an hour to kill so walked next door to the Mirage to get in a few hands of poker. MM was starting to complain now because with the time change it had been a long day. The room was packed and had a huge list for 3-6 with no place to sit except of course at a slot machine, so I wandered the room a bit and found a beginners table. Most of the rooms we saw offered poker lessons for a hour or so each day but the Mirage ran a small table full time for 8 hours each day stocked with play chips and a dealer. So we sat down and played against the newbies which was hilarious fun. Basically we killed an hour reraising the others out of the pot and then battling heads up for bragging rights. Best thing was they would still bring us free drinks even though we were at a play money table. It was also great to play like that with a dealer to shuffle and deal for us. Sometimes we play heads up games at home and it sucks to keep reshuffling and deal again when someone folds early in the hand. It was a very nice room though and actually ran back into the same dealer 4 days later, who remembered us , even though we had only stayed an hour. So our names never came up on the list and we headed back to TI.
Mirage runs a variety of tournaments plus $70 sitngos and the room was always full. I would highly recommend playing there. Lowest limit they spread is 3-6. Chasing bad beat and high hand jackpots is fun but it is basically short term luck if you hit one or not so they are taking $1 from the pot for something that really just benefits the local players. Mirage doesn't run those and also starts the rake at $1, whereas Aladdin would rake in $.50 increments, so you keep getting $.50 cent coins in your pots which was annoying.
On the way out, noticed a free tramway back to TI so no walking! Whoo hoo! The Mystere show was great and for $60 bucks ea a good deal but we were so lagged by this point we were basically falling asleep by the end. Dragged ourselves back to the Sahara and that ended day 1.
Took 4 hours to get from Cambridge to hotel in Detroit through that bad storm Thursday night. Just glad we made it. Rodeway Inn - don't stay there. Worst motel I've ever stayed in for $53 bucks and I've stayed in some horrible places. Probably #2 or 3 in worst all time for me. Nevertheless, just glad to have a bed to crash in after the terrible drive in. Only good thing was that parking for a week was another $10 and they drop you off at the airport. Next I would probably stay in the Comfort Inn just down the road which also has a free shuttle to and from the airport.
Ok check in at the airport was great, printed my boarding pass from nwa.com the night before, checked the bags at the curbside drop off and walked right past probably 50 people in line at the check in and straight to security. Landed, had the bags in hand around noon and took a cab out to the Sahara, $18 with tip. Room was $45 per night plus $4 in surcharges. Room was a good size and decent enough, especially in comparison after the previous night. Good move #1 was a 10 ride pass for $20 on the monorail which directly connects to the Sahara and runs the length of the strip. Only about 15 minutes to go the length of the strip. Good move because it is the same price per ride as taking The Deuce which is a bus. However with a couple of dozen stops and all the street lights it takes about 45 minutes to run the length of the strip, which we found out after switching to the bus at the end of our trip when our pass ran out. Next time I would just stick to the monorail.
Good move #2 was heading to the Aladdin to the Todai Sushi restaurant. MM and I love sushi and this was by far the best we have ever had. 2 lunches with a $5 coupon from a magazine cost $30 with tip. AYCE rules!
First poker stop was the Aladdin, we sat at a 3-6 table. Nice room but a little bright and kind of lacking in atmosphere. They raked the pot $1 per hand for a high hand jackpot which maxed out at $599 for the various hands to avoid the tax man. Met our first local character Don, who basically lived there and knew everyone at the Aladdin. Only 2 tables going, ours plus a $1/2 NL. Guess he mostly played high limit poker and was just killing time at our table. MM had a nice laydown against him, which she may post later but mostly the entire trip pokerhand wise was uneventful, except MM did catch quad 5s on the last day. They serve fresh cookies at 4pm. Still stuffed from the AYCE so grapped a couple for a snack later during our Cirque du Soleil show. Had to get to TI to pick up our tickets for Mystere for 6 pm so packed it in after 2 hours, 3 Coronas each, me down $1, MM up $41 which was the start of a trend all weekend. On the way out, signed up for the players card, used a $25 match play coupon on BJ. I hit BJ and MM lost so finished up $37.50 on one hand each. Played out our free $5 slot play and got nothing.
Walked up to TI, picked up the tickets and had time to kill so signed up for another players card. Asked for the poker room...No poker!?! So hit the slot machines with our free $5 there, this time we were hot and cashed out $25.75. Whoo hoo! Good start to the trip. Still had over an hour to kill so walked next door to the Mirage to get in a few hands of poker. MM was starting to complain now because with the time change it had been a long day. The room was packed and had a huge list for 3-6 with no place to sit except of course at a slot machine, so I wandered the room a bit and found a beginners table. Most of the rooms we saw offered poker lessons for a hour or so each day but the Mirage ran a small table full time for 8 hours each day stocked with play chips and a dealer. So we sat down and played against the newbies which was hilarious fun. Basically we killed an hour reraising the others out of the pot and then battling heads up for bragging rights. Best thing was they would still bring us free drinks even though we were at a play money table. It was also great to play like that with a dealer to shuffle and deal for us. Sometimes we play heads up games at home and it sucks to keep reshuffling and deal again when someone folds early in the hand. It was a very nice room though and actually ran back into the same dealer 4 days later, who remembered us , even though we had only stayed an hour. So our names never came up on the list and we headed back to TI.
Mirage runs a variety of tournaments plus $70 sitngos and the room was always full. I would highly recommend playing there. Lowest limit they spread is 3-6. Chasing bad beat and high hand jackpots is fun but it is basically short term luck if you hit one or not so they are taking $1 from the pot for something that really just benefits the local players. Mirage doesn't run those and also starts the rake at $1, whereas Aladdin would rake in $.50 increments, so you keep getting $.50 cent coins in your pots which was annoying.
On the way out, noticed a free tramway back to TI so no walking! Whoo hoo! The Mystere show was great and for $60 bucks ea a good deal but we were so lagged by this point we were basically falling asleep by the end. Dragged ourselves back to the Sahara and that ended day 1.
Comments
Great read Moose.