Seeing the Sights

The past two days have been loads of fun. At work, one of the guys, Brett, and I have been on the morning shift. This means we get to the Rio around 11am and have been sent home around 5pm. Not too shabby, right? Well, with all the extra free time in the afternoon, we have decided to go exploring and see as much of Las Vegas as we can.

Day one of our little adventure went as follows: We decided to head straight to the strip after work. We parked at Bally's, wandered through Paris, tried out the video poker at the Bellagio (unsuccessfully), and Caesars Palace before spotting a Cheesecake Factory in the forum shops and deciding we needed sustinence. Post-food, our degenerate tendencies kicked in and we decided to play some cards.

Caesars poker room is BEAUTIFUL! Each table is equipped with cushy swivel chairs for all the players and a nice footrail underneath the table to prop your feet up on. When I wasn't in a hand, I spent a lot of time deducing some way to steal one of the chair's with some elaborate "Ocean's 11"-esque scheme, but I couldn't figure out anything.

While the room was beautiful, the play in there was so solid that it became somewhat difficult to win much money off of everyone. I am going to have to eat my own words and admit I missed the excess of donkeys Caesars Indiana has to offer. Granted, I only missed one or two of them, not a whole table full, but it was definitely unusual to play in a smaller stakes NL game with a bunch of people who actually pay attention to player tendencies. Brett managed to rack up 30 bucks while I walked away with $85, so I am going to consider this evening a success.

Yesterday, Jill (I can't find her P5s profile, or I would link), Brett, and I were sent home around 5pm and we came back to the house for a little bit to eat, unwind, and watch some "COPS" (no cable here, so we take what we can get). Jill was exhausted and decided to stay in for the evening while Brett and I headed for the MGM Grand. "Headed" being the operative word here. After passing the Grand and eventually making a giant loop that took upwards of half an hour to complete, we finally arrived only to park, walk in the opposite direction through the parking garage, and make yet another big loop on foot. This trend of making a big circle in order to get to our destination continued throughout the evening.

Brett made a great call when he said we should video poker it up again. I had a machine that was hot hot hot and turned my $20 into $75 after hitting quad sixes three different times. Brett, who is not the seasoned video poker pro I am, did not fare as well and, in fact, appeared to be suffering from some VP tilt, so we decided to go play real poker instead.

MGM Grand's room? Not as nice as Caesars, but the granite inlay around the rail of the table was nice. Unlike Caesars, where I was surrounded by super friendly and talkative people, this table played $1/$2 in virtual silence. On top of that, I could get nothing going and it was getting late, so I played kinda bad and managed to lost $60. For those of you keeping track, that means I am only up $40 over two days, but I will take any victory, no matter how small.

If you want to read some more poker-centric blogging of my escapades in Vegas, you need to check out http://www.pocketfiveslive.com/ asap! Or, whenever you get a chance, considering we will be covering events for the next six weeks.

Viva Las Vegas!

I made it!

Yesterday, I arrived in Vegas at around noon. None of the other P5s crew was in yet, so I hung around our house (which is very nice) for a while until Court showed up in town. I met him over at the Rio and got to look around and get a feel for the place. It was kinda weird finally seeing what it looks like in person versus just seeing it on TV all these years.

When some of the other guys got here, we headed back over to the Rio again and this time I spotted one of the dealers from Caesars Indiana, Adam. I think I may have scared the crap out of him (granted, I did just scream "Adam" at him down a rather long hallway), but it was nice to see a familiar face here. The rest of the P5s crew seems very nice, but I get the impression a couple of them already have a bunch of friends out here, so I appreciate having people to talk to and hang out with besides the housemates.

I am trying to decide if/what to play. The bankroll is...er....minimal to say the least, but I can't help but want to play while I can. I am thinking if I can find a 5/10 limit game, I would like to give it a shot, but I have also been playing more 1/2 as of late. More than likely I will start in the limit comfort zone, but I am really hoping to improve my NL game over the next few weeks.

Not much else to report on considering we just arrived yesterday. Just happy to be here.

The only explanation I can think of? Alternate universe

I played at Argosy last night. It was, I am not kidding, no exaggeration, the worst table of limit poker I have ever encountered in my life. I was at the point of wanting to find the chimp that plays poker and starting up a game with him in an attempt to improve the quality of play.

I know, I know, we love the fish. Don't tap the glass. If you can't clean up at that table how do you ever expect to be a winning player? But again, I maintain, that I would rather play at the high stakes table in Bobby's Room, because at least I am dealing with human beings who don't make me wonder how they even remember to breath they are so ignorant. Not card ignorant. Just ignorant. There was a guy who would call the flop bet, someone would raise, we'd all call, then the guy would re-raise with......10 high. 10 hi. 10. Yeah. He can be the Donk of the Week this week.

While one would think this is easy money, I have a hard time putting 40 bucks into a pot with A high simply because the man I am playing against is batshit crazy and it might be good. I hope to God, if I can go to Vegas this summer, that i can try some 5/10 and play in a game that isn't full of people who confuse limit poker with video poker or roulette. We'll see....