Wednesday, February 14, 2018

February 2018 Las Vegas Trip Report - Part III: Poker Extravaganza -- Orleans, South Point, Flamingo, Mirage and Harrah's

Tuesday, Feb 6 proved to be one interesting day. It began by my reading the note that had been slipped under my door earlier that morning:


As Dirty Harry would say - "Marvelous." I was paying a resort fee of $34/day AND $10/day for parking, yet I couldn't even take a friggin' shower when I woke up Tuesday morning. Great screw job, CET!

Tuesday was the only day that I ate at a Las Vegas buffet. It was not unusual in the past for my brother, thundering36, and I to do a few buffets on each trip. This trip, however, one visit to the buffet at the Orleans would be it. Food and service was very good, as usual. After brunch, I decided to play for awhile at Orleans. I had only played there once, maybe twice. Frankly, my session there was so far from being memorable that I remember very little about it. I was card dead and did a lot of folding. A guy moved to our table after having an altercation with a woman at another table. The brush came over and some f-bombs were dropped, resulting in at least a temporary ban for the offender. I believe I lost a little money there, but remembered that I have not had much fun playing there.

When I finished my afternoon session, I headed toward South Point Casino to meet friends Stacy and Miyuki at The Boulevard, a nice bar across the street from South Point. Stacy and Miyuki had both come to the 1st Annual TBC "Memorial" Meet Up last year in January. Stacy knows Tony very well from the TBC days at the Gold Strike Casino in Jean, Nevada.While the others ate, I just slurped down a beer (Thanks, Stacy!) as we had a great time talking poker and the past. Soon they were off to their bowling night and I decided to play for the first time at South Point.

I got a few cards early, but unfortunately the table started out being really tight. Soon TBC joined me at South Point and was seated at a different table. Since I was basically just treading water, I switched over to his looser and more aggressive table. It paid off when I got in a pot with a one-gapper and flopped an open-ended straight draw. I hit the straight on the turn and was able to more than double up.

After a profitable session at South Point, I drove Tony to a Walmart to pick up some food, then dropped him off at his super secret hotel somewhere in southern Nevada. Confident that I was not being followed by anyone looking to STEAL the famous sockroll, of course, I decided to play one more session of poker, u see. I hoped to get into a game at Bally's, but only one game was running and there were a few people already on the list. Instead, I went to Flamingo, another of the rooms that has never been particularly good to me. This session really turned out to be the capper for the night.

I bought in for $200. Before I could even sit down, the dealer noticed I was coming and dealt me two cards. Sweet! I looked at them without sitting down, only to find that in my first hand I had been dealt the dreaded Pocket Kings. There had been a raise to $10, so I bumped it up to $25. I had no idea how the table had been so I just made a good guess as to amount. I got two new callers and the original better also called. Therefore, the pot was right at $103. The flop was a rainbow Queen, 9 and 5 -- pretty sweet for my hand. The initial raiser checked and I bet $100. I was surprised to get a call from the guy on my immediate left. Had he flopped a set? The pot was now $303 and there were two of us left. I had $75 and he had about $50. The turn was a deuce and I insta-shoved. He called. I don't remember the river as I was pretty anxious to see what h had. After the river, I turned over my pocket Kings. He turned over 9-2os! WTF?????? Who calls a $25 pre-flop raise in $1/2 NL with that? I looked at him and he mumbled "I'm drunk." A few minutes later he said "I had to call." I said "NO - you didn't." I guess it didn't matter if we were talking about calling $25 pre-flop with 9-2os or calling $100 after hitting the flop with the 9 and a shitty kicker. A few hands later I pushed in with a straight draw and hit it, only to lose to a bigger straight. I went back to my room in Bally's one unhappy camper.

Wednesday had to be better than Tuesday, u see. After sleeping late getting something to eat, I headed over to a room that had been pretty good to me in the past: Mirage. My session there was one of those boring sessions where little worth writing about happened. I was down initially and spent most of the session trying to get back even. I finally did, then dipped again. Suffering from extreme boredom and beginning to get hungry, I cashed out with a loss. I had plans to have dinner with friend and uber-liberal Michelle (9ontheturn), but she was not feeling up to it and had to take a pass. Her text message was actually pretty funny: "It feels like there is an elf dancing around my sinuses and my throat feels like I ate steel wool." Ummm ... that sounded like a definite "some other time" to me!

Using some comps to defray the cost of dinner, I ate at California Pizza Kitchen in Mirage. As usual, great pizza and great service. After gorging myself, I decided to check out Harrah's or Bally's. Harrah's had immediate seating, so I stopped there.

I lost part of my stack when I flopped trip Aces with A-10. However, I was pretty sure that I was outkicked by another player and chose to fold rather than potentially lose my whole stack. One table donk chased and rivered me, and I finally was felted when I shoved all in as a 60% favorite and lost. Let's just say that Wednesday (which actually started with the brutal beat in the early hours at Flamingo) was a really crappy day for poker (with the exception of South Point) and just overall (with the exception of seeing my friends). Thursday would have to be better ... wouldn't it?

Coming in Part IV: Bally's, Cruisin' with Vegas DWP, TheTrooper's game, Red Rock and Pizza with grrouchie

2 Comments:

Blogger Lester said...

The guy that got 86'd was prolly Rob Porter. He's been banging Hope Hicks ya know.....

1:34 PM  
Blogger Ace said...

9-2o...sick

2:02 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home