It really was a great table. The average flop percentage was 43%, with one player seeing flops in the high fifties, four in the forties, and two in the thirties. Mostly passive before and after the flop, with the exception of one guy who liked to raise a third of the hands he played. Lots of bad cards being played by all–any ace, any king, low suited 3 and 4 gappers, etc. With an environment like that, surely there was money to be made by a guy who had read a couple books, raised his good cards, folded the junk, and limped with speculative hands in good position. Surely.

Yeah, right.

I dropped 20BB and then another 10 (money to be made, right?) until I had 10BB left in my account. Great cards failed to connect, junk hands flopped the goddamn nuts, runner-runner and gutshot draws materialized on the river, etc. Every story is the same, isn’t it?

Well, after a rocking performance like that, I decided to play a string of $10 SNG’s until the money ran out. It did.

What I had left over I threw away at a PL table. The thing that sucks about that one is that I’d been doing well until I tried to muscle out the BB with my flopped two pair. I didn’t ease off when the 3-flush and 4-flush appeared. I think some switch in my head was stuck. That hand didn’t clean me out completely, but it brought me back to where I started. The rest I squandered in a classic AQ vs. AK confrontation.

That was that. I knew what I was doing. I just didn’t care. I suppose that should worry me, being able to lose 20-25% of my bankroll without really feeling too worried about it. I think I’m actually more irritated that I spent most of my Saturday not doing my schoolwork and apps.

Anyway, with my Party bankroll out of the way, I put another $200 into Paradise and swept up 32BB in just under 2 hours/100 hands. Maybe I’m a crack smoker for extrapolating too much from my 1100 hands there, but I really do feel like I do better there than on Party (6800 hands in the last six months).

So for the time being, you’re not likely to see me at your favorite Party skin; StudioGlyphic’s going to Paradise.

I think I clocked a good 12 hours of poker today.

Played a lot of 1/2 on Party and managed to get a few big bets in, though the hourly was terrible. Or maybe it just felt terrible.

Later in the evening, JB and I went over to Hustler and played a few hours of 3/6. And I thought Party was bad. I never saw so many gutshot straights completed on the river. I myself suffered two bad beats from the same dude when I was the clear favorite all the way up to the river. I had a better hand, more outs, etc. Unfortunately, when I was finally able to beat the living hell out of him, I had to chop the pot with someone else who had the assrapers. I think there were over 20BB in that pot. It was crazy. The pot was capped preflop and on the flop between me and the other aces, and the other two guys happily called all the way to the showdown. Wow. Ended the session down 3BB, which isn’t bad when you consider that I was bad beated twice and had to chop once. I also won two pots proper, one medium and one small, when my good cards held up. JB lost quite a bit more, and we went to Carbon to drown our sorrows in whiskey and gin. Actually, I was really irked. There was a lot of money on that table, and I felt I deserved more than my share of it. I played pretty solid poker, but tonight it was mostly just a race to avoid getting sucked out on. Oh well. It will be better next time.

That irksome feeling drove me to fire up Party when I got home and play more poker. I sat down at a 2/4 BBJ table that was registering “flops seen” somewhere in the 50% range–just slightly tighter than my table at Hustler. This game also featured some really aggressive play. Lots of betting out and raising on every street, which made for some huge variance. At some point I was down 5BB, at another I was up 15. I ended the session up an even 7.5BB, which is okay by me. I have a feeling that I got more than my fair share of good cards, but I also suffered a couple setbacks when I clearly had the best of it preflop, on the flop, on the turn, or some combination of the preceeding. Funny how those miracle 2-outers can save a pirahna from being crushed.

Anyway, I’m up for the day, and you can’t really ask for much more than that.

Day 2 is here.

As I write this, I’ve just finished my second beer. I may have a third. Forgive me if things get incoherent.

Let’s get back to where we started from:

Today
Showers
High: 47°
Low: 42°

Eh? Showers? In the desert? Strange, but true, it sometimes rains in Vegas. What I didn’t realize was that the low temperatures combined with the precipitation down in Vegas would translate into Rain/Snow Showers up in the mountains.

Oh God.

By the time we hit Primm on the California-Nevada border, traffic was starting to get bad. I chalked it up to LA drivers who weren’t able to handle a little rain. It turned out to be icy/snowy conditions through the pass, bringing traffic to a near standstill. It took us four hours to travel from Primm to Baker. This normally takes one hour. For a good 10-15 miles, we were crawling along at 5 mph. Wow.

In fact, things got so bad that they closed the pass to traffic after we got through. CR, ER, EM, and D went down 95 to I-40 to try to get around the trouble, but there was snow all through the mountains, making travel very difficult. Highway patrol escorts were all around trying to help people down the icy slopes. It was that bad. Just think about what happens when North Carolina gets hit with their annual snowstorm. All hell breaks loose and the state virtually shuts down. Even now, I have no idea if these guys have made it back home or not. I guess I’ll find out in the morning.

JN and K played it smart and got a room in Primm. I once crashed at Whiskey Pete’s after staying up all night at the New York New York gambling and trying to drive home the next morning. Wasn’t going to happen. We got a room for $20 and crashed for a glorious four hours before heading home. I hope K’s running roughshod over Pete’s blackjack tables. Pete’s is the site for the last desperate attempt of the degenerate gambler to win it all back. Today we stopped by to use the facilities, and I had a look at the roulette tables, but the smell of desperation drove me away.

Anyway, getting back to me, I finally got home 9 hours after leaving Vegas. Unbelievable. I did, however, enjoy the Texas Beef Dip at Bun Boy, site of the largest outdoor thermometer on the way to Vegas (okay, in the world). It occurred to me that this might have been called a French Dip before the Bush administration. No French Fries on the menu either. 😉 Oh, but anyway, the Texas Beef Dip was pretty damn good. Slices of beef on a Texas roll (no way in hell is this a French roll) with melted cheese and beef juice (no way in hell is this au jus) on the side. Good freedom fries, too. If you ever need to do the LA-Vegas beef sandwich dip tour, just drop me a line and I’ll set you on your way.

So that was pretty much it. Saturday spilled over into Sunday, and Sunday was mostly a clusterfuck of traffic and aggravation.

Mostly. Being the degenerate gambler that I am, I played another few spins of roulette before and after lunch at the Tuscany and netted another $30 or so.

All in all, I had a great time in Vegas. I played decent poker, netting 3BB/hour; thrust most of the weekly regulars into live poker with pretty good results, thus adding several recruits for the local casino outings; had lots of booze and cigarettes; and paid for the trip with some unlikely success at roulette, allowing me to keep my poker earnings in the roll. Oh, and I’m never driving to Vegas ever again.

Thanks for plowing through this stuff. Not the most exciting of trip write-ups, I know, but I’m hoping to make more trips, and with practice, I’ll surely improve. I’m still not sure if my schedule will allow me to get out there for the Holiday Classic on the 11th, but if there’s any way to finagle it, I’m there.

Totals:

Poker: +$130
Roulette: +$220

On a geeky poker side note, should tips for drinks be paid out of your stack/roll or out of your wallet? JB thinks the line is drawn depending on whether whiskey is part of your game. He may have a point. Several people wondered at the number of whiskey neats I consumed. What that did for my table image exactly is yet to be determined.

Day 1 is here.

Wow, what a rough day. We all clocked at least five hours at the tables, but for yesterday’s biggest winners, things were terribly awry.

After eating at the Monte Carlo‘s lunch buffet, the superstitious among us wanted to return to Excalibur instead of trying a new poker room. So we went back and sat down with our chips at the 2-6 spread limit tables, this time with even higher expectations. I was getting crap left and right, and never had a hand worth raising. After a couple missed draws and several blinds, I found myself down a third of my buy-in. Of course, I’d also had three Jim Beans and a few bottles of water, so that ate into my stack a bit. There was only one pot I can remember winning, and that was with KQo in middle position. I limped with a bunch of callers and flopped top pair. I raised a $4 bet from seat 9 to $10. I don’t remember how many callers I had, but seat 9 folded to the raise. I bet both the turn and river and the calling station in seat 5 folded after missing his draw, or so he says. That was an okay pot, but still left me down. So with two-thirds of my buy-in left, I picked up my chips, filled my rack and decided to try out the $100 NL table. I was getting dealt the same crap I was getting at the limit table. I limped with a lot more hands, but never connected to the flop in any meaningful way. I got up down $20 and decided to take a break. Losing $20 an hour wasn’t really what I had in mind when I sat down. I needed a change in venue.

The spread limit game at Excalibur’s pretty odd as spread limit games go. With a $2 blind and no pre-flop raises, there’s usually going to be $10-16 in the pot on the flop. If the flop hits you, you’re best off betting the maximum. That means the pot’s giving 2.6-3.6 for any callers. Of course with the loose games your implied odds go up pretty high, but that’s still a pretty steep price to pay to see a turn. And of course you will be getting plenty of callers who will be making the mistake of calling you, so it can be pretty profitable. Of course, with the possibility of every round being bet at the maximum, the turn and river are just as expensive as the flop, which may have implications I haven’t realized. The obvious one is that your pot odds don’t go down as drastically. Someone’s incorrect flop call could be followed by a correct call on the turn, though the odds are still pretty bad for the loosey.

As for the other players, JB and ER were also having a rough time of it. JB mucked a hand at the showdown for a big pot early on and hadn’t noticed that the board had counterfeited the fish’s riverred straight. Conceding his half of the pot put him a little on tilt until his buy-in was almost gone. He took a little break to clear his head and jumped back into the fray with another buy-in. ER also faced a very similar situation to mine, and was down $20-30.

CR, on the other hand, was up for the day and the weekend, with double his buy-in sitting in front of him. What a monster. This was a nice thing for him after recording the only loss of the group on Friday.

EM had recorded another 10BB win before getting up and was ready to move on to another poker room. The others decided to stick with the Excalibur.

EM and I decided to give the Luxor poker room a try. They had 2-4, 4-8, and NL games going. I sat down in Seat 4 at a 2-4 table (felt a bit anxious after losing 10BB to cards and drink) and EM took Seat 8 at the 2-4 table next to mine. The blinds at Luxor were the standard half small bet, small bet blinds. They did, however, have this odd feature called the “kill.” If a person won a pot twice in a row, the game changed from 2-4 to 3-6. The two-time winner got a “kill” marker and had to post a $3 SB. Blinds were still $1 and $2, but it was $3 to call, and both blinds had to complete to play.

Luxor went well for me, but I happened to get lucky in two hands. Q4o in the BB flopped trips and, strangely enough, got plenty of action. SB checked, I bet, UTG+1 called, MP1 raised, I 3-bet, UTG+1 folded, and MP1 called. The turn put a two-flush on the board. I bet, MP1 called. The river put a three-flush on the board. I bet, MP1 folded, and the button remarked that I had to have had either the flush or the 4. I swept the pot gratefully and tossed my Q4 into the muck.

A couple orbits later, a newish player in Seat 3 won two pots in a row, and the next hand became a kill. With the increase in limits and the added money in the pot, this was the perfect time to play Big Slick suited in LP. There was at least one limper in MP before I raised to 2SB. The button called and the MP limper called. The two-time winner let his kill blind go. Flop came AKQ rainbow and I was pretty damn happy. Checked to me, I bet, the button raised, MP 3-bet, I capped, button called, and MP called, but not before he announced “raise,” to which the dealer informed him that the betting had been capped. I had put the button on AQ, but in the midst of the action, I couldn’t figure out if MP had trips or a straight. I’d discounted two pair because half the kings and queens were spoken for, so I guess I should have discounted the possibility of trips, too. Hearing him announce a raise he couldn’t make made me think he’d limped with JT. Oh, the humanity. I was determined to call this hand down to find out for sure. Turn brought a 9, which was unlikely to help anyone. MP bet, I called, Button called. River brought a glorious King, which was unlikely to help anyone but me. MP bet, I raised, Button mucked in disgust, and MP said “Don’t tell me you got the full house on the river.” I showed him my boat and he showed me his straight. As I swept the $100 pot, he said, “Nice river.” While I probably shouldn’t have responded, I said, “Well, you did call my raise with jack-ten.” I at least had the good sense not to comment on the shakiness of his call in the first place. He then said something about how he would have had me in NL, to which I responded that I would have pushed with top two pair, a point he conceded.

I ended that session up $67 and some change (hard to say how many big bets that is, since a lot of it came from that 3-6 hand), which netted me $10 for the day. EM won 7-8BB at her table and decided she’d had her fill. We headed back to the Excalibur and found the other three still grinding away. JB was up a bit with his second buy-in, giving him a net positive for the trip. ER was down a bit and still determined to finish up. CR had lost most of his earlier gains by playing crap cards. I’ve had a few sessions of win-tilt myself, where nothing short of my previous high will be sufficient, and I’ll throw good money after bad. It’s a harsh lesson to learn, but he recognized that he wasn’t doing any good at that table and decided to get up. But it was clear that ER and JB weren’t going anywhere, so CR stuck around to wait for them. EM and I wandered over to the bar where JN and K were playing video poker and drinking some awful concoction pretending to be a margarita. They happened to be sitting right under the air conditioning vent, so EM and I wandered over to the roulette table for some more -EV madness. I hit one of my numbers again and made another $70. I decided to wander away when I was at double my initial buy-in. Roulette is an evil, evil game. I recommend you stay away.

Some parts of Vegas have become very expensive. We were planning to go to a club that night and wanted to get a nap in before heading out, so we had to grab a quick bite before heading back to the Tuscany. My cheesesteak sandwich, fries, and large soda came to $16 at the Nathan’s in the MGM food court. Unbelievable. And the fries weren’t even that great. But when you’re short on time, the temperature’s in the forties, and you’ve only got the short-sleeved shirt you were wearing when you left that morning, $16 sounds almost reasonable.

By 11:30, all of us had gotten back to the Tuscany and were ready to go. First stop was Caesar’s, where we were supposedly on the guest list. Hip hop’s not really my thing, and the club was very loud and very hip hop. So I was not quite disappointed to find out that the guest list required one to be there by 11PM, not midnight. We headed over to Paris to kick back at the Tower Bar, only to find that it had closed an hour earlier. The bar in the center of the casino was open, but it was pretty full, and the odds of finding a table for eight people would have been not great. Probably 22:1, at least. Finally we decided to hit up Risque, the other club for whom we were supposedly on the guest list. The guy in the suit said he couldn’t find us, so we debated whether to wait in line and pay the full cover or not when some random guy walked up and offered us 7 comp passes for the club. Being the cheap, desperate bastards we are, we got in line with our passes. K stepped out of line and sweet-talked some other person into handing him an 8th pass, and we were set. Hip hop’s not really my thing, and… yada yada. But we were in, we were drinking, and a few of us were dancing and making the most of a drunken deafening experience. It was a good time. I never thought I’d close out a club in Vegas, but I’m starting to realize that the nightlife in Vegas kinda sucks unless you want to make a show of spending thousands of dollars in the desert on mediocrity. Actually, it sucks even then.

I’d said earlier that I wouldn’t recommend the Tuscany to anyone, but when we got back to our room, JB and I decided to hit up the cafe for some late night food. It turns out they have a $1 breakfast special between the hours of 2AM and 6AM, or something like that, and it was a more than decent breakfast. Considering it was only $1, I’d say that it was an amazing breakfast, and compared to some other Vegas meals, a positive $15 savings for me. Not bad. So would I recommend the Tuscany now? Actually, yes, yes I would. You’ve got all the Strip to choose from if you want to spend money. It’s much, much harder to find a place with a $1 breakfast.

Oh, and being the degenerate gambler I am, I played another few spins of roulette and netted another $30 or so, bringing me up to $70 for the day. Evil, evil game.

Day 3 is here.