Holiday Hold ‘Em in Vegas
I just got back from a trip to Las Vegas with a couple of friends and my father over the Memorial Day weekend. We all had a great time playing poker, eating, and playing more poker!
The only down side of the trip was the incredible crappiness of our hotel, the aged Imperial Palace. Between the elevators that never seemed to come in less than 10 minutes, the early 80s-era rooms, and lack of amenities like a real concierge or in-room coffee (my dad’s lament), the IP is probably the second worst hotel/motel I’ve every stayed at in my life. The worst was a Super 8 outside of Baltimore with cigarette burns in the sheets…
We persevered and made a great trip out of it, regardless of the cancellation of our original red-eye flight to Vegas and the IP. The In-N-Out Burger off the Strip and other great meals at Ellis Island Casino (pizza), the Wynn (prime rib, burgers), and The Venetian (Noodle Asia restaurant) were great!
The poker wasn’t too bad either. Here are my results from a combination of 1/2 No-Limit and 1/3 No-Limit cash games from the weekend:
Highlights (and lowlights) include:
- Nearly falling asleep at the Venetian 1/2 table after a day of traveling and the Treasure Island 2 PM $60 tournament. -$150
- Winning $65 at Planet Hollywood despite the terrible piano-player — imagine Billy Joel songs followed by Metallica on piano, accompanied by a crowd of drunks singing along — and ultra-tight table. -$85
- A quick-hit for $225 at a Caesars Palace 1/3 game (more below). +$140
- Dropping a total of $300 at a Treasure Island 1/3 game in a little under two hours. And over $100 of that was to my trip companions on separate hands! -$160
- Reclaiming $115 at another Treasure Island 1/3 game. -$45
My trip to the Caesars Palace Poker Room was pretty short but it was very profitable.
I bought into a 1/3 NL table for $200, which was probably a mistake for various reasons but immaterial now. Once I sat down I was still without chips so I declined to buy the button. That annoyed a player two seats to my left because he wanted to live straddle and had apparently been doing that every round from under the gun. Next hand I folded something unplayable and did the same thing the hand after that.
On my third hand I was dealt pocket 9s and led out with a small bet and got two callers, Mr. Straddle and the Big Stack at the other end of the table. The flop was 9-7-3 rainbow and I put out another bet. Straddle folded and Big Stack asked for a count of my chips.
Confident in my set of 9s I breached etiquette by indicating that I’d call off my whole stack if he planned on putting me all in (an honest mistake).
The players — or is that wolves? — surrounding me called out exactly how much money I had before I even had a chance to count. Jr. Poker Professor #2 informed the table I had $162.
Mr. Big Stack pushed me all in and showed QQ. He didn’t improve and I doubled up to hit ~$425 (after a tip to the nice dealer) in less than 10 minutes.
Right after winning the hand I stood up, called over a chip runner for a tray, and announced “I’m out of here.” I did this for a combination of reasons:
- The two players to my right didn’t look old enough to be in a casino and were acting like junior poker professors the whole time, discussing other players hands. Mildly annoying.
- Mr. Live Straddle was another professor and told a ridiculous story about how his wife was a black belt and almost beat up another woman at the UFC fight at the MGM Grand because the woman inexplicably started kissing him.
- I didn’t like paying $15-20 to see a flop in a game that had $3 big blinds.
- I had decided to quit when — more like if — I doubled up or played for three hours.
- I like money and now I had much more than I started with.
My abrupt exit drew some muttered expletives from Jr. Poker Professor #1 ([donkey]-hole) and some incredulous looks from his buddy and a few other players to which I responded: “Hey, I don’t really care because I don’t live here.”
At the cashier’s desk the dealer, now on break, stopped by to tell me I had stunned the table. I sheepishly apologized and she assured me I had made the right decision to exit with my winnings. She congratulated me again and I went into the hallway to shove the hundred dollar bills into my wallet…