Vegas, the Final Chapter
So I collected my 9th place money and headed to the center of the poker universe: the Bellagio.
If I hadn’t spent time at the Horseshoe over the few days before, I would have been shocked by the insane Saturday afternoon traffic at the Bellagio poker room. The list for $8-16 was fifteen players long, and the list for $4-8 went right off the page. People were getting on lists and waiting for hours, only to be away from the room when their names got called. A single seat in $4-8 would often require 10 names to be called before it got filled because of people leaving. I got on the $8-16 list and the NLHE list and sat down with a magazine to wait it out. It actually only took 15 minutes before I got called for the $8-16 game.
The table was fishy goodness. A husband and wife were sitting across from each other, both completely clueless calling stations. My impression of them was that they were rich and didn’t really care about losing. They were chatting about their plans for the rest of the day in between hands-a few times they both went to the showdown and mucked their hands when the winner showed his. Did they talk about the hand or ask each other what they had? Nope, they just continued their conversation without batting an eye. Where do you want to go for dinner? What show do you want to see? When is our tee time tomorrow? In addition to being juicy, corn-fed fishies, they were fun, friendly people; it was truly a pleasure to have them at our table. I played loose pre-flop whenever they were in a hand, calling with almost anything decent or drawy (suited connectors, etc.), even from early position. Pre-flop raises were rare, unless they came from me or one other player, who was on my right anyway.
They didn’t stay that long, which was a shame. When they left, I was pretty sure my name must be coming up on the NLHE list, and decided that since the table had just lost its two "best" players, I should probably make the move.
Then the two replacement players came over and sat down. I will call one "D" for Dmitriy (he had an Eastern European accent), and one "Einstein". D bought in for about $600-700, which seemed a little excessive for $8-16. They both posted right away (a good sign), and were both involved in the first hand:
I have black 99 in the BB. D raises UTG, Einstein calls, LP player calls, I call. Flop is Q-7-2 two hearts. I bet, D raises, and Einstein makes it three bets. LP folds, I decide that my two-outer isn’t good enough to call, and fold behind. D calls. Turn is the 3h. D checks, Einstein bets, D calls. River is another 3. Again, it goes check-bet-call. Einstein turns over K7o (no hearts), for 2nd pair. D mucks.
Um, what?
I had folded the best hand. But somehow, after watching our two new players in action, I wasn’t really that upset. The table had gone from gold to platinum. At that moment, my name was called for the NL game. I ignored it.
Einstein really had no idea what he was doing, and got the bet amounts wrong constantly. He also had some blatantly obvious tells, like asking "how much can I bet?" and "what is the least I can bet?" He always bluffed the river if it was checked to him and he had nothing. D raised (often) and limped (less frequently) every hand. Sometimes he was passive after the flop, sometimes aggressive. His aggressiveness was unpredictable; sometimes it meant he had good cards, sometimes he was bluffing. His passivity was more predictable, it always meant he had nothing.
I didn’t get cards for a while, and I was just sort of slowly bleeding. For about 30 minutes, D and Einstein were in every pot, and were taking turns catching MIRACLE cards and building up a mountain of chips. Then D’s girlfriend started coming by and pestering him every five minutes, and after her third visit he got up from the table to take a dinner break. At about the same time, the player to the left of Einstein picked up his chips and left the table.
The MOMENT his ass left the chair, I said "I want that seat!" I tried not to sound too eager. Now I had perfect position at the table-any time Einstein was in the pot, I was in right behind him with ANYTHING decent right down to medium unsuited one-gappers. All the money to be made in this game was post-flop money. Playing a lot of hands makes for a fun game, and when I started hitting, the pots I was raking in were very nice.
Einstein eventually starting giving his winnings back in big clumps. After a few orbits of doing so, he got up, still very much ahead. With D still at dinner and super-fish leaving, I decided that I really had no reason to stay and grind it out. I needed to get something to eat before my flight, and wasn’t going to settle for airport-quality food. Or at least I didn’t plan on it.
The session was a nice win, and could have been HUGE if I had hit a few more of my draws on $200+ pots. It made me remember why limit hold’em can be really fun and profitable-there are tons of players out there who really have no clue how to play this game.
Session Time: 3:10
Session Total: +240
Final Total: -643
So I had time to sit down for dinner, and decided that I would treat myself to a good meal. I started my lap around the perimeter of the Bellagio to look at the menus and see what I felt like. I asked an employee if the casino had a sushi restaurant, and was pointed toward Shintaro. When I looked at the menu, my eyes nearly popped out of my head. The lowest price for a piece of nigiri was $7. Um, no. I don’t mind spending money for a good meal, but if I’m going to pay $7 for one piece of sushi, it better be laced with something.
I continued my circuit, checking the offerings at each of the hotel’s restaurants. A steak sounded good, but I didn’t have to look much further than the price of the appetizers (they started at $12) before I nixed that too. Finally, I decided that I wasn’t going to sit down and pay a lot for a meal if I was by myself. If I had someone to dine with, that might be another story. So, feeling just a bit like a cheap-ass, I headed for the Bellagio snack bar. I would grab a quick burger and then take a long walk on the strip to enjoy the weather and do some people watching. I got to the snack bar, got in line, and looked at the menu. It was $8.50 for a hamburger.
Five minutes later, I was walking around on the strip looking for a place to grab some cheap food. This time I felt a LOT like a cheap-ass. Hey, that’s just too much for a burger. I was trying to take a stand against the price-gouging establishment.
I finally settled on a little crappy-looking pizza joint a few blocks down. Yes, it ended up costing me more than the burger, but it was a matter of principle. Plus, this place had outdoor seating, facing the strip. So what if I had to watch people with a big, ugly parking lot in between?
(Surreal Moment #2)
So I was sitting there, eating pizza, enjoying the weather, and watching people, when this car pulled into the lot in front of me, with hip-hop/dance music BLARING out of it. There was a young couple in the front seat, probably no older than 20 or so. In the back were three young girls, all different ages. The guy got out of the car and started fiddling around in the trunk. While he was doing this, one of the girls opened the back door and climbed out. I would guess her age at ten, but no older than twelve.
She walked about ten yards away from the car and toward the street. And facing the throng of people that was constantly walking by, she started dancing.
Now, this is strange enough as it is. I don’t see little girls just start dancing in the middle of a parking lot on a daily basis. But there was more to it than that; it was the way she was dancing that was really disturbing. To say she was dancing suggestively would be an understatement. From far away (which I wasn’t) any normal male would have taken notice, thinking she was some sort of stripper offering lap dances (or more) to anyone who was interested.
It’s sort of an odd/amusing story, but at the time it just made me sad. How could this girl’s big sister (or whoever she was) just let her put on a show like that at her age? I felt like I was seeing a tiny sliver of the life of a little girl who would be on Jerry Springer in a few years. What a terrible place, this Las Vegas, where girls become strippers before they become teenagers. Later, I told this story to a friend, and she pointed out to me that it probably had more to do with MTV, Bittney Spears and bad parenting than it did with Sin City. Of course that’s true-little girls can’t get into strip clubs.
Anyway, the spectacle only lasted for a few minutes, and then they all got back in the car and got back on the road.
There wasn’t much more to my trip. My flight was on time, and though it wasn’t a comfortable ride home, it was uneventful.
The trip was fun overall, but of my six trips to Vegas, I would have to put it near the bottom. Even though I ended on a positive note, I still lost more than I had on any other trip. I got bad starting cards on average, which generally doesn’t make for fun and action-packed table-time. There was also a LOT of assholery at the tables, something that makes playing live less appealing.
On the plus side, I got to bond a little with David and Matt. They are both nice/fun people and I was happy to have gotten to know each of them a bit better. I ate well (usually) and cheap (and not just on the last day). I also got a cheap room that I really didn’t deserve. I also met some very nice people at the poker tables, which makes playing live MORE appealing.
I play 99% of my poker online, and I can do it seven days a week, 365 days a year if I want. Since Chicago is a poker desert, I don’t have the option of playing in a decent cardroom on a regular basis. The point of traveling to Vegas is to play live at the table, and a big part of playing live is meeting and interacting with people. Since that part of the trip was, for the most part, really positive, I guess I should classify the whole experience as a winning session.
And now back to our regularly scheduled blogging.