Moose in Vegas Day 2 - Sat
Ok Sat was a new day. Ready to play some poker. The first day with the jet lag and all it was disappointing to only get in 2 hrs of poker. Have to say MM was great on this trip - she would actually complain that we were wasting too much time and push to get in more poker time. 
So off to sign up for a Sahara players card. Damn computers still remembered me from 6 years ago but for some reason I guess the wife hadn't got a card yet so she qualified for all the new player bonus coupons etc. Still we both got $10 in free slot play loaded on our cards which we managed to cash out $2.50 for her and $6 for me. Throw in the 2 for 1 buffet coupons and we were eating virtually for free! Off to the champagne breakfast at Sahara which was $11.99 which included crab legs, made to order omelets, prime rib and of course champagne. The champagne was undrinkable unless you dumped it into a glass of cranberry juice and then it wasn't bad. But it wasn't a bad buffet, even had a greasy sausage for Wolffhound.
Ok so on my list of places to play were MGM, Aladdin, Excalibur, Mirage and Imperial Palace. We had tickets to KA at MGM that night so off we went down the monorail to MGM to pick up our tickets early and then walked across to Excalibur. Excalibur is supposed to cater to the low limit player with rules like 3 max raises (most places are 4 max) and no unlimited heads up raises. Also they have a wheel to spin for AA cracked and high hands that pays a min of $20. I sat at a 2-6 spread limit game and MM headed for a 2-4 table. After a couple of orbits I had raised 5 times, won the blinds 5 times and watched the house rake the pot $1 for the bad beat and $.25 for the house, so I had made a whopping $.75 - 5 times. Enough of this stupid rock garden and I moved to the 2-4 with MM. No casino we saw lets you smoke at the tables but every casino lets you smoke. Some casinos have better ventilation than others. MGM you couldn't smell the smoke at all but after 4 hours at Excalibur I felt like I had smoked a pack myself. At least 50% of the players were locals. 3-4 to the flop and not very aggressive. Very disappointing how small the pots were. We found ourselves wishing we were at Brantford 2-5, except for the free Coronas of course. Also as I said before the house would rake to the nearest $.25 - only place we saw that did this so you kept ending up with piles of useless quarters. Our goal was to exchange our all quarters as tips for more Coronas. Everytime our pile of quarters grew it was Corona time.
We also met character #2 - Mary. Every dealer and waitress in the place couldn't pass by our table without stopping by to chat with Mary. She spent summers in Reno and winters in Vegas. Pretty sad when the poker table becomes your social club. This was a problem at every 2-4 table we sat at all week. About 50% of every table was stocked with locals, mostly seniors who were just interested in killing time. They would never raise and check and call to the river or fold. I never saw so many sets and straights checked and called down in my life. The soft play was unbelievable. Great when you were behind but so tough to build pots when you were ahead. It was so rare to a have a pot capped on any street. We were expecting a lot looser and more aggressive play. We found the 3-6 was much better for eliminating a lot of the cheap locals. It wasn't looser but at least it was more aggressive and easier to build pots. Ended the day down $55 and MM down $25
So after about 4 horus and many Coronas later we had to leave for our 2nd Cirque du Soleil show - KA. $125 ea and our first disappointing show we have seen in Vegas. Last time in Vegas we saw the cirque show 'O' and also the 2 Queen's - Sigfried and Roy. Those shows were over $100 too but worth it. O was so good I would have paid $200 to see it. However we walked out of KA thinking that was the worst $250 we had ever spent. It was a well put on show with the most incredible stage that could move and rotate almost vertical but the plot was hard to follow with no humour and virtually no circus acts. Essentially it was just a bunch of battles between the characters on this giant vertical stage, which was interesting and obviously required a lot of skill but just not that entertaining.
I wanted to play at MGM but MM was still feeling jet lagged so back on the monorail up to the Sahara. MM went to bed and I headed for the tables at the Sahara. They basically only run 2-4 and 1-2 NL. I only saw a 2-4-4-8-8 spread limit game run once there all week. Most of their business is in the tourneys. $42 plus a $20 rebuy. 11 am - approx 50 players, 7 pm - approx 150, and 11 pm - approx 100, so good pots, with about 95% of the players taking a rebuy. I never played though, sorry Compuease. Each tourney takes about 4-5 hours to wrap up, with the 7 pm overlapping the 11 pm tourney by a couple blind levels. Anyways sat at the 2-4 table. $3 max rake + $1 for a bad beat jackpot which was at about $9200 and had everyone playing any A from any position hoping to catch a full house and get beat. Again about 75% locals at least. They also paid $25 if your FH gets beat by a higher FH and $25 if K high flush beaten by A high flush. This was nice because you could bet away with the K like it was the nuts and if you lost the $25 would cover you. They ran with a single $2 blind and only raked once it hit $10. 3 max raises but unlimited heads up. Good dealers and friendly atmosphere so all in all probably my favourite poker room. A couple of hours play and the pit boss will give you a $4 comp with no hassle at all. This was great for late night play as at 11:30pm the coffee shop ran several $3.25 specials like steak and eggs etc. The poker room had a phone so you could grab a comp, order your food and they would page you when the order was ready. The coffee shop was just across from the poker room and you could pick up your food and eat at the poker tables.
Met character #3, Pressie, a Filipino retired (big surprise) lady from California, who regularly came to play at the Sahara. Very nice talking to her and found out her sister is Minnie, a regular at Brantford who I have played with many times before. This is scary. I think I have to stop playing so much poker. Anyways at about 3:30 am our table broke and I left down $15, up many Coronas and up one $4 comp after about 5 hrs of play.
So off to sign up for a Sahara players card. Damn computers still remembered me from 6 years ago but for some reason I guess the wife hadn't got a card yet so she qualified for all the new player bonus coupons etc. Still we both got $10 in free slot play loaded on our cards which we managed to cash out $2.50 for her and $6 for me. Throw in the 2 for 1 buffet coupons and we were eating virtually for free! Off to the champagne breakfast at Sahara which was $11.99 which included crab legs, made to order omelets, prime rib and of course champagne. The champagne was undrinkable unless you dumped it into a glass of cranberry juice and then it wasn't bad. But it wasn't a bad buffet, even had a greasy sausage for Wolffhound.
Ok so on my list of places to play were MGM, Aladdin, Excalibur, Mirage and Imperial Palace. We had tickets to KA at MGM that night so off we went down the monorail to MGM to pick up our tickets early and then walked across to Excalibur. Excalibur is supposed to cater to the low limit player with rules like 3 max raises (most places are 4 max) and no unlimited heads up raises. Also they have a wheel to spin for AA cracked and high hands that pays a min of $20. I sat at a 2-6 spread limit game and MM headed for a 2-4 table. After a couple of orbits I had raised 5 times, won the blinds 5 times and watched the house rake the pot $1 for the bad beat and $.25 for the house, so I had made a whopping $.75 - 5 times. Enough of this stupid rock garden and I moved to the 2-4 with MM. No casino we saw lets you smoke at the tables but every casino lets you smoke. Some casinos have better ventilation than others. MGM you couldn't smell the smoke at all but after 4 hours at Excalibur I felt like I had smoked a pack myself. At least 50% of the players were locals. 3-4 to the flop and not very aggressive. Very disappointing how small the pots were. We found ourselves wishing we were at Brantford 2-5, except for the free Coronas of course. Also as I said before the house would rake to the nearest $.25 - only place we saw that did this so you kept ending up with piles of useless quarters. Our goal was to exchange our all quarters as tips for more Coronas. Everytime our pile of quarters grew it was Corona time.
We also met character #2 - Mary. Every dealer and waitress in the place couldn't pass by our table without stopping by to chat with Mary. She spent summers in Reno and winters in Vegas. Pretty sad when the poker table becomes your social club. This was a problem at every 2-4 table we sat at all week. About 50% of every table was stocked with locals, mostly seniors who were just interested in killing time. They would never raise and check and call to the river or fold. I never saw so many sets and straights checked and called down in my life. The soft play was unbelievable. Great when you were behind but so tough to build pots when you were ahead. It was so rare to a have a pot capped on any street. We were expecting a lot looser and more aggressive play. We found the 3-6 was much better for eliminating a lot of the cheap locals. It wasn't looser but at least it was more aggressive and easier to build pots. Ended the day down $55 and MM down $25
So after about 4 horus and many Coronas later we had to leave for our 2nd Cirque du Soleil show - KA. $125 ea and our first disappointing show we have seen in Vegas. Last time in Vegas we saw the cirque show 'O' and also the 2 Queen's - Sigfried and Roy. Those shows were over $100 too but worth it. O was so good I would have paid $200 to see it. However we walked out of KA thinking that was the worst $250 we had ever spent. It was a well put on show with the most incredible stage that could move and rotate almost vertical but the plot was hard to follow with no humour and virtually no circus acts. Essentially it was just a bunch of battles between the characters on this giant vertical stage, which was interesting and obviously required a lot of skill but just not that entertaining.
I wanted to play at MGM but MM was still feeling jet lagged so back on the monorail up to the Sahara. MM went to bed and I headed for the tables at the Sahara. They basically only run 2-4 and 1-2 NL. I only saw a 2-4-4-8-8 spread limit game run once there all week. Most of their business is in the tourneys. $42 plus a $20 rebuy. 11 am - approx 50 players, 7 pm - approx 150, and 11 pm - approx 100, so good pots, with about 95% of the players taking a rebuy. I never played though, sorry Compuease. Each tourney takes about 4-5 hours to wrap up, with the 7 pm overlapping the 11 pm tourney by a couple blind levels. Anyways sat at the 2-4 table. $3 max rake + $1 for a bad beat jackpot which was at about $9200 and had everyone playing any A from any position hoping to catch a full house and get beat. Again about 75% locals at least. They also paid $25 if your FH gets beat by a higher FH and $25 if K high flush beaten by A high flush. This was nice because you could bet away with the K like it was the nuts and if you lost the $25 would cover you. They ran with a single $2 blind and only raked once it hit $10. 3 max raises but unlimited heads up. Good dealers and friendly atmosphere so all in all probably my favourite poker room. A couple of hours play and the pit boss will give you a $4 comp with no hassle at all. This was great for late night play as at 11:30pm the coffee shop ran several $3.25 specials like steak and eggs etc. The poker room had a phone so you could grab a comp, order your food and they would page you when the order was ready. The coffee shop was just across from the poker room and you could pick up your food and eat at the poker tables.
Met character #3, Pressie, a Filipino retired (big surprise) lady from California, who regularly came to play at the Sahara. Very nice talking to her and found out her sister is Minnie, a regular at Brantford who I have played with many times before. This is scary. I think I have to stop playing so much poker. Anyways at about 3:30 am our table broke and I left down $15, up many Coronas and up one $4 comp after about 5 hrs of play.
Comments
Were you in Vegas or Branson?
Not once did I see any disputes that had to be settled by the floor. The dealers at the Sahara were good, the Mirage, even better. At the Sahara I saw the fastest dealer I have ever seen and while the dealers at the Strat were poor to mediocre, I met one who was by far the best overall dealer I have ever seen. He mentioned that he had won the dealer olympics at the WSOP and another dealer from Foxwoods who was playing at our table also commented on how great a dealer he was.
Thanks for the reports so far...but, were you in Vegas for only 2 days?
Great read so far.
There has to be a Forum trip to Vegas in our futures.
I'll spring for the all you can eat Breakfast sausage buffet.
please tell me the champagne came out of a tap just like at the IP...that's some quality stuff there!!!!!
good read so far.