Random Traffic Through Nick's Brain

For those of you who were put off by the high poker content of the last trip report you’ll be happy to hear that there is less poker in this one. At the very least, I brought my camera with me, so there’ll be some pretty pictures.

Some general notes:

• An abundance of fun fellow travelers means less time gambling, and more time just hanging out doing whatever.
• I was fighting some sort of low grade bug. All sorts of side effects, including being grumpier that even I am wont to (sorry that you had to put up with me guys), not sleeping well, and being slower both physically and mentally. It probably didn’t help that we were drinking like fish.
• Due to the inability to handle the lack of sleep, I didn’t write while I was there like I did last time.

Blah, blah, blah… on with the trip report.

The cast:

Me: looking to play lotsa poker, and push both my luck and limits. Dreading the heat in the 90′s.

Dina: looking for quality pool time, plus some time playing table games.

Smooth: some sports betting, and learn some poker, craps, and play some BJ.

Yumi: tied for the least interested in gambling. Quality pool time a must.

Jim: yo? Looking to be Jim.

Dan: ready to tear up the craps tables.

Erin: late addition, tied with Yumi in gambling interest. Quality pool and outdoor time.

Alma: there with us in spirit, if not in body. Couldn’t make it up from Phoenix. :-(

Cesar: drove in to meet us at the last minute from Phoenix-ish.

Flight there uneventful, other than the fact that Smooth & Jim were on the edge of their seats ’cause of the Sox game. Best part was when I was actually able to list all 50 US states. First time I’ve ever been able to do that. Left at 20:00 on Thursday, arrived before midnight. Tried to play Tichu on the plane, but that didn’t work so well due to seating arrangements. Erin met us at the airport in Vegas. One set of us took a cab to the hotel, the other went with Jim to pick up his rental car.

Checked in to Treasure Island and settled in. Dina & I, Smooth & Yumi have adjoining rooms. Jim, Dan, and Erin have an adjacent room. Off to FatBurger (open 24 hours!) to start the weekend off right.

Jim and I hit the 3-6 Hold’em table at the Mirage. This isn’t a poker story… it’s a story about people. I’d decided to play like a nut, but wasn’t really in the mood. Didn’t stop me from getting drunk on bourbon and whiskey. Everyone at the table was known by the drink they were drinking, there was Diet Coke (Jim) in seat 1, Coors (who I’ll get to later) in seat 2, Bourbon (me) in seat 3, Galliano, MGD, Corona, and 151 (151 proof rum and Coke).

No interesting poker, other than the fact that I was down about $116 after 5 hours of play from 01:00 to 06:00. Dina, Smooth, and Yumi literally watched from the rail behind Jim and I until about 03:00. The table was boring for the first half hour, until Coors sat down. He was high on gambling, having won about $3,000 at table games like “Wheel of Fortune”, and drunk. Smooth suspects he was coked up. He sat down, and started handing $10 and $20 stacks of chips to Smooth and Dina to play on roulette. He was taking coin flips at $5 a pop. He would tip the dealer very generously when he won a hand. He would tip the dealer even more generously when he lost. He’d throw chips to other players just cause. Those of us that were still sober were perking up… a drunk fish, literally throwing money away… who needs figuratively. Then, the real fun started.

His girlfriend drops by. Tall, blonde, dressed to distract, with a really nice set of T&A. She sat to the right of Coors, right beside Jim. She was very talkative, bubbly, and probably just as drunk and high as Coors was. She was definitely Jim’s phenotype, and could have passed for the cousin of one of Jim’s ex-girlfriends. As Coors drank more and more beers, he’d get sloppy, and drop chips on the floor. The blonde would bend over, giving both Jim and I nice views (albeit, of different ends). My fun for the next little while was watching the ever expanding puddle of drool in front of Jim. Jim was the only one at the table not drinking. He was probably also the only sober one at the table, a fact that the rest of us latched on to, and started needling him about. Being the friend that I am, I figured I might as well find a constructive way to get him to start drinking. I offered to flip with Coors for the temporary services of his girlfriend. I suggested that as an incentive to get Jim to drink, she could sit on Jim’s lap. Jim said nothing, but my tell reading skills don’t need no stinking speech sometimes. Mind you, Helen Keller could have read Jim’s tells on this topic. Coors was all for it, but just as I won the toss, the blonde complains that I should be haggling with her. I tried my best, but couldn’t convince her. Jim started drinking anyway. After a while, ready to turn in, she started trying to drag Coors away from the table. Again, Jim bit his tongue. While she sashayed away from the table, Galliano called Coors crazy for deciding to hang out with us instead of her. Coors, lewdly appreciative of her assets, shrugged like a man happy with his lot in life. I think he got a kick out of us finding her attractive.

Aside: At some point during the weekend, I was having a conversation with one of the cast, and mildly tangentially, they said “reverse cowboy”. I don’t remember exactly who said it, though I have my suspicions. Kudos though. “Reverse cowboy” is a good word.

Friday Morning

Time to start paying for going to bed late. First, I forgot to turn off my normal 08:30 alarm on my Palm Pilot. Then, Dina wakes up to get ready for her day, waking me up. Dina’s cell phone rings. Since Dina’s in the shower, it just keeps ringing. Then my cell phone rings. It’s Erin, looking to plan her day with Dina. Eventually, Dina leaves, and the phones stop ringing.

knock-knock-knock

High Female Voice: Housekeeping.

Me: grumble.

HK: Housekeeping.

Me: No thank you.

HK: Housekeeping!

Me: Come back later.

HK: Housekeeping!

Me: Go Away!

HK: Want me fluff your pillow?

Me: Thinking: This can’t be the way to run a hotel No thank you. Go away. Come back later.

HK: Want me to mark you off?

Me: Yes, mark me off. Come back later or tomorrow.

HK: Want me to jerk you off?

Me: Fuck off Smooth.

HK/Smooth: Yo, open the door.

Had breakfast / lunch at Kahunaville, the lightly island themed resto, with Smooth and Yumi. The oxygen bar looked interesting, but we never got to try it on our trip. As we were sitting outside by the pool, I spent part of lunch being a dirty old man, putting my zoom lens through its paces again, and taking pics of chicks in bikinis. Had 2 normal sized drinks, then one huge drink with dry ice at the bottom. Pretty cool, but too big for this early in the morning. Had to pawn it off on Dina when she got back from picking up the Penn & Teller tickets with Jim. Jim hadn’t slept yet. While the rest of us slept 4 days in Vegas, Jim slept two, very long, days (actually, Erin slept 3 days, but we’ll get to that later).

Time for the first serious poker session of the trip. I sign up for $10-20 Hold’em at the Mirage. There’s a bit of a wait, so I wile away about half an hour by winning $50 at Blackjack. The only other two times I play blackjack, I stop when I’m exactly even, and when I’m up $4 (up $5, minus $1 tip for the cocktail waitress).

At the Hold’em table, I wait for my blind to play. My first hand is KToKing and a Ten of different suits. Decent, but not great hand.. Someone raises, a decent number of other people call, and I call. The flop is KQ4. I have top pair, decent kicker. First to act, I raise. Some people call. The turn is a T, giving me two pair. I bet, and I get one caller. The river is a T, giving me a full house. The only hands that can beat me are KK and QQ. I bet, and get called. My opponent, flips up AA, thinking he has me beat. He’s steaming when I flip over my cards and rake in the pot. He’s grumbling about getting his aces cracked. I think he has to re-raise my flop raise if he wants to protect his aces. At the very least, he loses $10 less as I might check on the turn, fearing KK, QQ, or KQ. The session lasts from 12:15 to 16:05. I’m up $159. 2 big bets an hour, not bad.

Aside: There’s a lot of machinery behind the scenes to keep casinos running smoothly. A lot of the walls and floors were vibrating or humming. You notice these things when you start slipping into the hyperawareness that you sometimes need to play good poker.

Dan had suggested cocktails at the Rio’s Voodoo Lounge for sunset. It’s on the 52nd floor roof deck, overlooking the strip. Besides the beautiful views of the sunset and the desert, it’s nice watching the lights of the strip coming on. Smooth and I made our way there, realized there was a dress code, went back to the hotel, dressed, then back to the Rio. We asked one of the taxi drivers for a strip club recommendation. That was the closest we got to a strip club all weekend.

The Voodoo Lounge was an awesome experience. Great drinks (one of the best dirty Martini’s, and best Tom Collins we’ve ever tasted). Great view of our surroundings, and great friends. One of those experiences that make you realize that life is good.

Had supper at the Voodoo Cafe, on the floor below. Erin had to hurry, since she was off to see “La Femme”. Dinner topics included the usual, Jim’s love life, or lack thereof, and one of the cast’s purchase of a timeshare, which, in the light of day, seems like a decent purchase. Though the food was good, we all dined light, though drank heavily, since we didn’t have much time before Penn & Teller. We were all pretty sauced by the time the show started.

Our show was good. I liked the bottle juggling, the intentionally evident magic tricks were cool. Teller used the Hollowe’en-o-tron instrument that I first saw at the London Museum of Science, and is my favourite instrument ever. The bullet trick is baffling.

How does one say “Missed Opportunity” in Australian?

Jim went to crash. Erin and I suppressed the urge to dance in order to watch Dan, Smooth, and Dina play craps. It was a mistake, especially since the urge to dance occurs very rarely in male Varacallis. Mind you, it was the best craps table I’ve ever been at, mainly because some busty brunette with a corset like top was leaning on the other end of the craps table. Dan didn’t make any money, but he rolled enough doubles that some guy at the other end of the table made about $3,000 by betting $100′s on the hard ways. After one freaky run of doubles, the guy said to Dan “If you roll doubles again, I’ll hug you. Hmmm, maybe I’ll send you over a couple of girls instead.” Dan proceeds to roll doubles. No homoerotic display. No 3-somes for Dan. Though, he did tip Dan $50.

I really don’t like craps, or roulette. To me, there are no interesting decisions or anticipations. Even blackjack is more interesting, for no good reason. At some point, later in the weekend, I blew $100 on craps purely due to peer pressure. I felt moronic after doing it. I’m not sure I would have felt much better if I won $100 instead. What follows is a list of things which would have given me more enjoyment for $100 than playing craps:

• Giving the $100 to one of the cast, and letting them do with it as they would.
• Giving the $100 to Dina, and let her lightly whack me across the back of the head.
• Buy 20 $5 chips, throw/scatter them in the lobby of our hotel, and watch people scramble for them.
• Get us all about 3 shots of booze each.
• Four lap dances: $20 dollar door, $20 per lap dance.

Erin and Dina were asked to slap me across the back of the head if I bought in to play craps for the rest of the trip, or ever for that matter.

Cesar joined us when we got back to Treasure Island. I puttered around watching the gang play craps again. Put $61 through the $1 slots while the gang played. Never had a ‘winning’ pull.

By the end of the night, I was pretty pissed off at myself. I should have decided to dance, play poker, or gone to bed. As it was, I chose activities that had negative enjoyment for me, plus the self-imposed standing around and waiting irritation factor.

Saturday

Sub-par breakfast at Treasure Island. Only good thing 2 banana smoothies, each with a double shot of vodka. Not a bad way to start off the morning. The sugar and banana masks even two shots quite well. Smooth, the wimp, didn’t drink.

Dan and Erin went hiking again.

WTF did I do Saturday afternoon? I don’t remember. No notes in my palm. No gambling that I can remember. Can someone remind me?

Apparently, I have no record or memory of this, but I seem to have been playing poker at the Mirage. Dina thinks that I was up.

Feeling sick, so I took a nap from about 16:00 to 18:30. Wake up, get ready for Zumanity at New York, New York. Unfortunately there was a mix-up with our tickets, and we didn’t get to see the show. The casino looked pretty nice, with the non-gaming portions laid out like small New York streets. It would have been a nice place to hang out were it not for the buzz of the Yankees being in the World Series.

I walked from Treasure Island to the Rio, taking pictures of various bits of neon eye-candy on the strip. I think the Rio would be well served to beautify Flamingo Road between the strip and itself. Enticing tourists to walk over in the non-scorching season should make them enough money to cover their costs.

Puttered around the Rio until it was time to meet up with the gang at Hamada Asiana restaurant. We’re in a back room, all by ourselves, reminiscent of our seating arrangements in Rome. I’m not feeling that well, or hungry. Everyone else, it seems, is ready to go to town. Today’s large dose poison is a-la-carte sushi, at around $7 for 2 pieces of nigiri or 6 rolls. Yumi isn’t eating sushi. She has the teriyaki steak. I’m content with ordering salad, soups, soft shelled crab, and only a couple of orders of sushi. Mind you, one of them is raw shrimp sushi, which was pretty good. The best part was the deep fried shrimp heads that came with the raw shrimp.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself. We handed the waitress our order. Enough sushi was ordered to prompt the waitress to ask “You know that each order of nigiri is 2 pieces, and each roll is 6 pieces.” Upon hearing the answer “Yes, and two of us aren’t even eating sushi.”, she said that in the 5 years she worked there, no one had ever ordered that much sushi. As she was walking away with the sushi order, we quickly called her back to tell her the non-sushi part of the order. Babelfish says that is Japanese for pig.

Thankfully, by the end of the meal, I was feeling better. I helped clean the table of excess spider rolls, among other tasty things. The bill, to the right, came out to $691 for 8 of us. Not bad. In the group picture, note the empty plates and bottles on the table, what Smooth is holding, and what Jim is holding.

The ironic thing is that I wasn’t in the mood to spend much money or eat that much. Normally I’m the expensive one to eat out with. Guess I got a dose of my own medicine.

Erin, Dan, Dina, Yumi, and Cesar went to the designated post dinner activity: dancing at Bikinis. Unfortunately, dancing-mood-day for me was the previous day. I bowed out, despite the novelty of girls in bikinis dancing / gyrating in tanks of water.

Sunday

Sunday was sports day. But before we get into that, some alternate time lines.

Jim pulled another all-nighter, doing god knows what.

Erin & Cesar went to an after hours club. True to stereotype, a lot of people were sniffling, or rubbing their noses on the dance floor. Erin, a emergency vet by trade, eschewed sleep and decided to go hiking with Dan yet again.

The first story of the sleep deprived Erin was related by Dan. At a coffee shop, Erin orders 2 large coffees, Dan orders a small. With all three coffees in a tray, Erin is unable to determine which is Dan’s small.

The second is told by Erin. Outside the car, near the hiking trail, Erin realizes she needs to buck up and put on her hiking boots, so she starts talking to herself. Out loud. In Jar-Jar-ese.

Daniel’s waiting for me. Me-sa got to hurry. Me-sa must put on my boots.

Then, she wakes up to what she is saying, and yells:

I hate Jar-Jar.

The people in the car next to her look at her as if she is completely crazy.

Back to the sports. Cabbed over to Mandalay Bay with Smooth. Sports book was too crowded. We got crappy seats. I put $60 on the PatsNew England Patriots. NFL Football Team. to beat the DolphinsMiami Dolphins. ‘nother NFL Football Team., playing in Miami. I put $40 on the PackersGreen Bay Packers. NFL. to beat the RamsSt.-Louis Rams. NFL in St.-Louis. Made the former bet because I live in Boston, and am rooting for the Pats this year again. Made the latter bet because I thought that FavreGreen Bay’s Quarterback would wake up and play properly. Lost the latter bet.

As we’re watching the 1st quarter of the Pats game with a West coast start time of 10:00, we see that one of the horses is called “What’s Up Dog”. We decide to put $20 on the horse just for kicks.

For those of you not in the know, “What’s Up Dog” isn’t a veterinary reference. It’s a joke that we heard on the radio one morning, and lodged itself into Smooth’s brain for no good reason.

Joker: Yo. Could you pass me the updog?

Jokee: What?

Joker: Pass me the updog.

Jokee: What’s ‘updog’?

Joker: Nuttin’ man. What’s up with you?

Needless to say, our horse was a 7:1 underdog for a reason. It finished 6th of 6.

At the half, I’m getting a neck ache from looking at the screens. They have no TiVo. Pictures aren’t that crisp. All the extra TV screens are cool, but distracting. The Pats / Dolphins game isn’t the main game, so we’re not getting sound. I start thinking that I like Jim’s AV setup much better. All he needs is cocktail waitresses, a sports book, a few secondary screens, and TiVo for HTDV, and I’ll gamble my money away at his place instead of Mandalay Bay.

The poker room is right next to the sports book. I sign up for $4-8 Hold’em. I ask the floor to put the Pats / Dolphins game on the TV nearest me when I sit down.

The game I sat down at was a poker player’s wet dream. 9 ‘kids’ from Oklahoma, fresh off the flight, haven’t even checked in yet. Never played poker in a casino in their lives. Make that 8 kids, and one guy who’s slightly older. Maybe a young uncle, or older cousin? The blinds were weird, but perfect for the occasion: $1, $2. Possible UTG pre-flop actions were fold, call $2, or raise to $6. Against a table where I have the advantage, this means I play every flop.

Well, almost. The time I decide I shouldn’t play garbage like 95o9 = nine, 5 = five, o = off-suit, i.e. non-matching suits. the flop is 995, giving me a full house.

I was up over $200 at one point, but my holdings quickly got whittled down as Hands like AA, KK, or QQ would get called down to the river with the person hitting runner runner trips or something.

I was trying to appear to play as badly as possible. Don’t necessarily want to let the other players know that I’ve played before. I do what they do. I bet out of turn. I don’t realize it’s my turn. I bet the wrong amounts. I ask the same stupid questions they do. I’m distracted by the football game, as the Pats stage a come-back in the second half. May have fooled them, but not the dealer. When she sat up, she said to the incoming dealer “The sharks are in 1 and 6.” I’m the guy in the 1 seat. The older guy with the group is in seat 6. The others are oblivious to the dealers talking. The 6-seat and I glance at each other, exchange slight nods, and go back to playing the game. Maybe the dealer noticed that I was the only one tipping her.

The Pats game ends in overtime, with a 80+ yard bomb from Brady to Brown. Pats win. Contrary to expectation, the $126 on my ticket doesn’t mean that I collect $126. It means that I net $126. I’m up $76 for the day and the trip on sports betting.

Meanwhile, the guys from Oklahoma decide it’s time to check in. The game breaks up. I’m up $57 in about 2 hours. Pretty good.

There were all sorts of crazy hands. People calling with 9 kickers, no straight or flush draws. Most of these kids had no concept of how to determine hands, let alone play. The best illustration of this still baffles me.

Most everyone calls 3 bets to see the flop, as is the norm at the table. The flop is 944. There is a fair amount of betting, and 4 players remain. The turn is another 4. More betting, and by the time the dust settles, two players remain, the 4 seat, and the 7 seat. The river is an A. The players bet-raise-raise-raise-… At one point, after about the 8th bet, 7 seat asks if he can bet all his chips. The 4 seat seconds the motion. The dealer says that they have to do it one bet at a time. After the 14th bet, the 4 seat says “I’ll be nice to you.” and just calls. 4 seat turns over T4, giving him quads, the immortal nuts. 7 seat turns over K3, and looks expectantly at the dealer to see if he’s won. I’m flabbergasted. I have no idea what was going through 7 seat’s head. If it were a tournament, I would have called the floor to try and get them disqualified for dumping. As the $4-8 game is played with $1 chips, it took the 4 seat 3 hands to stack all his chips.

At the very least, that game made me appreciate how much worse a poker player I could be.

Smooth and I went to eat at the little Mexican joint in Mandalay Bay. On the way, we looked at the pool complex, arguably one of the best in Vegas. I was impressed. It looked nice enough that even I might spend time there. At the resto, who walks by but Colin Ferguson. Yumi, Dina, and I had been talking about him the previous week, since he’s on NBC’s new show Coupling. We were telling Yumi how we knew him from when he was in a comedy troupe in Montreal. Smooth and I chatted with Colin for a bit about nothing, then he went to catch his flight. I think he was happy to be recognized.

While we’re celebrity spotting, a story was told about Ben Affleck playing poker at the Bellagio on Friday night at some poker table that I was at.

Affleck buys in for $65,000 at the $5,000 minimum buy-in pot limit game. One hand, he makes a $5,000 bet on the river. His lone opponent takes a lot of time to think, counting and re-counting his chips. After a couple of minutes, Affleck, impatient, just mucks his hand, declaring that it was a bluff, conceding the pot to his opponent, who has yet to act.

I go to the hotel room, get dressed in my Sunday best for supper, and meet up with Jim at the Bellagio. He’s doing well at the $4-8 game. He locked me up a seat at the $15-30 game. In two hours, I first go up $400, then down to a net -$500. I’m not quite sure whether I was playing too loose, but I feel that I got a lot of good hands such as AKsA = Ace, K = King, s = same suits. where I’d raise, catch a flush draw on the flop, and not get anywhere.

Some specific hands and thoughts:

I have AQo in the small blind. Do I call 3 bets? I’m out of position, and I fear hands like AK, AA and KK. I’m only 50-50 against smaller pairs. I’m probably going to be playing against at least two other players. I folded. Interestingly in the post-Vegas poker-list analysis, Jim is advocating tighter play than Andy.

On this hand, the player 2 seats to my left, an older guy, Eastern European accent, sitting with a skanky twenty-something Thai girl, starts complaining to me that I’m taking too much time to decide on my hand. “Stop taking so much time. It’s just a couple of bets. This is why the game is slow.” The other players and the dealer quickly came to my defense, yet the old man kept yapping away. I quickly told him “I’ll make my decision when you stop talking.” It took him about 1.5 to 2 minutes to shut up, with periodic reminders from me that he was the one delaying the game now. All the other players were all telling him to stay quiet and let me think.

I think that it is a testament to my poker memory that I don’t remember what the board was for that hand. I’m slowly learning that once my hand is folded, the board doesn’t matter. What’s in other players’ hands may matter, but the board doesn’t.

I have crap in the small blind. With a bunch of players, I am getting odds to draw to almost anything. The one time this situation comes up, I call, but fold to a raise-re-raise behind me.

Aside, I moussed the hell out of my hair, and got something like 3 compliments on it from players and casino staff. Weird.

Supper is at Picassos at the Bellagio. It’s Zagat rating (/30) is 27 food, 29 decor, 28 service, $79 price. Youch. Dina, Dan, Erin, and I are the 2nd set of guests seated. It’s nice walking into a peacefully quiet restaurant. We have a nice view of the fountains from where we are sitting.

I didn’t realize what Erin had ordered, and when they brought her a dish with some foie gras the size of a large thimble, I was slightly worried about our choice of restaurants. Thankfully, one of the waiters showed up with a tureen, and proceeded to pour her split-pea soup around the foie gras, and my confidence was restored.

Initially, I declined to order the wine pairings. The only other time I’d tried them were at Harvest in Harvard Square, and I was unimpressed. After sampling Dina, Dan, and Erin’s food plus pairings, I changed my mind. The experience took wine to a whole new level for me.

The dinner is beyond my abilities to describe. Very good foie gras. I had pigeon. Dina had deer, which, oddly, was a bit to gamey for me. I think it was lingering illness.

Being served sparkling water prompted me to say “You know, this San Pellegrino stuff may be high class here, but they drink it like water in Italy.”

All in all, most expensive I’ve ever eaten, and probably in the top 5 in terms of tastiness.

After that, I sit down at another 15-30 game. I’m literally shaking. I was down $135 in about 80 minutes, mainly due to 2 mistakes.

UTG player raises. I have AJs in the small blind and call. There is an A on the flop. I know he has me out-kicked, but I call him down to the river anyway. I knew I had the correct read, but was too scared to trust myself. $50 wasted. Can no longer recall the 2nd mistake, but the fact that it was for $90 sticks in my head.

I made a bunch of small mistakes, like playing KTo and QJs too much. I also found that I was unsure how to play big face cards after a raise. The stakes were making me timid as well as cautious.

Good news is that I learned that I can play tight. I also learned that I have to be careful when picking 15-30 games at the Bellagio. I think there are too many pros there. The game is scary. That session was the most mentally challenging and exhausting session of poker I have ever played. Paying full attention to something for even 80 minutes is hard.

After that, off to Fremont street with everyone.

On the way, Jim tells what is, in my opinion, the best clueless newbie poker story I’ve heard. He can correct me if I get details wrong.

Some kid, fresh from winning a decent wad of cash at the table games, decides to sit down at the poker game. For the first few hands, he calls down to the river, no matter the betting, only to fold just before the showdown. Finally he has a hand he likes. He calls the river bet, and after the bettor turns his hand over, the kid turns over a beaten, crappy middle pair. Kid then asks the dealer to turn over the 3 burn cards. He thought, all this time, that he was playing against the house. The players eventually convince him that the game isn’t played that way. He leaves soon thereafter. Now, I can understand that this could conceivably be some sort of table game. How does one reconcile the fact that numerous hands have occurred without anyone else asking to have the burns turned over? Was he sniggering internally? “Pah! Amateurs! They’re not getting their maximum EV from this game. They’re not even asking to see the dealer’s hand!”

Watched the light show, watched the gang play craps. Played some blackjack for no net gain or loss. Played $100 worth of craps for no good reason. Again, someone slap me when I do shit like that. The downtown casino’s are pretty shabby. The people watching is still as interesting. No one was up for interesting activities after that, so off to bed.

Monday

Monday was catch up on poker day for me. First, though, another digression.

Jim was up pretty well on the weekend. He was doing crazy things like making $25 yo bets at craps. That’s $25 at 15-1 that the next roll of the dice will be an eleven. The real odds are 17-1. He was somehow up at poker, blackjack, craps, and whatever other games he sat down at, to the tune of about $1500. I was quite impressed when he left to catch his plane around noon, up on the trip.

As I’m playing poker, I get a call from Dina. “Guess who’s here? … Jim & Dan. They missed their flight.” Apparently, if you have bags to check, you need to be there 45 minutes early, not 30. They both got seats on our red-eye. At this point, Jim, Dan, and Smooth hit the Venetian craps table. Despite hitting a $50 yo, Jim goes down, about $1500. In addition to this, Jim’s ticket on the earlier flight set him back about $100. Possibly the most expensive 15 minutes for Jim ever.

Played 4 hours of $10-$20 at the Mirage. This limit at the Mirage is fast becoming my favourite, comfortable game in Vegas. Was up $265. Before I left, Andy said he wanted me to play so tight that he could hear me squeaking from Boston. I think they heard me in London on this session.

Since I wasn’t allowed to read at the table, I feared that the game might get a bit boring, and that I would loosen up. A couple of things helped me out. The cards conspired to help me. I got lots and lots of junk. Few hands were even tempting, let alone playable. Second, a grumpy rock sat down to my left, and provided good entertainment and a nice lesson in how not to play poker.

Hew would go on tilt when players’ crappy hands beat other players. You can’t be a rock and tilt when people outdraw you. You have to adapt. Muttering to yourself about others bad, but winning play is unproductive. Plus, you’re teaching me, the player to your right, exactly how to steal pots from you. Any hand that doesn’t hit an A, K, or maybe Q, I should bet into you. If you stay, you’ve hit a set or something, and I should be careful. Otherwise, I have you. Mind you, there’s no way I’m going to tell him this at the table. He wouldn’t have listened to a young whippersnapper like me anyway.

“There’s QJo again.” Another mutterance of the rock when he wasn’t even in the pot. In the absence of type 1 hands at the table, something has to win.

I was playing tight enough that I could take down pots by betting, no matter what I had. I would rarely get called down on the river. The one time I was, I was semi-bluffing middle pair, top flush draw, so I was never really busted.

Flipping a coin is great for your table image when you are playing fast and loose. It is even better for your table image when you are playing like a rock. It really, really confuses people.

After poker, grab our bags and head over to FatBurger, to finish the weekend off right. Airport, red-eye, home.

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