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 Vegas Trip report
Cliff's Notes Vegas at New Years is crazy. I lost money playing 2/4 in the casinos. I drank alot and I'm still tired.
I headed out to Vegas last weekend for a bachelor party/New Years and a much needed vacation.
We got into town on Thursday at about 6:30 Vegas time and checked into our hotel. If your hotel has a kiosk at the airport, avoid the crazy lines at the desk and check in there. We (me, my friend Jay, and the bachelor, JR) checked in and grabbed a cab to take us to the Flamingo. When we got there, we hooked up with the rest of our group which was all a bunch of people that we hung out with in high school. There were 7 of us all together. We get up to the room, drop the bags, and then head back downstairs to eat.
After dinner, everybody wanted to start gambling. Couple headed to the craps table, couple more to the blackjack tables and I made my way to the poker room. The room was more of an area in the corner of the casino with about 8 tables grouped together. I got on the list and waited about half an hour and chunked a couple 20s in a nearby slot machine so I could get a couple cocktails while I waited. As soon as my name was called, the rest of my friends came over and said they were heading downtown. WTF? We all hopped in a limo and made our way down to the Nugget. We walked into Binion's and asked the floor lady if we could start a new 2/4 table since there were 7 of us and they kindly obliged. Very nice gesture by the fine folks at the 'Shoe. They put us on a table that was right under the "Gallery of Winners" wall where all the WSOP winners pictures were hanging. Nice little setting for what eventually turned out to be our own little home game with a rake unfortunately. We had a couple of dudes join our game from time to time but none of them stayed very long. Nobody in our group was a poker player except me and the play was bad. The dealers were cool and helped out my friends without making them feel like complete idiots. It got down to me and another buddy with a table full of strangers so we decided to pick up and see what everyone else was up to. I left the table up about 5BB.
We found the rest of the group, slammed a couple Red Bull and Vodkas, and made plans to head over to Olympic Gardens for the requisite bachelor party activities. Good scenery there, but those places are godawful expensive and seriously -EV :P $100 and 30 minutes later, we decided to head back to the Flamingo. Most of us walked next door to O'Sheas to play some blackjack since they had lower limit tables there. Couple of my friends hop on a $10 table and I wait for a seat to open up there and pull $125 out of a slot machine on my 4th pull while waiting. I get a seat shortly thereafter. We played blackjack and drank for a couple hours and I left the blackjack table with about $250 after buying in for $100. The bachelor left to go to bed during this time (I barely noticed he left) and we left the table at about 3:something am Friday morning and walked back to the Flamingo.
The poker room was still going with about 4 full tables, so my buddy Jay grabbed seats on seperate 2/4 tables. I got sat with a pretty fun bunch. Mix of college kids and 40 somethings. Plenty of table talk and really bad play. I drank a few more beers and then switched to Bailey's and coffee to keep my eyes open. I stood up at about 7am with $180 (+20BB) and called it a night.
Back up in the room, I was trying to get a couple hours sleep and everybody else was waking up and getting dressed so they could go back and start gambling. I woke up at about 11am and started calling cell phones to figure out where everyone was. I walked around on the strip for a couple hours and then finally went back to the hotel and got on the 2/4 list.
I sat through a couple hours of cold cards, won a couple very small pots, took a couple bad beats and lost about 20BB over a 4 hour session. We had all decided to meet back up around 6:30 ish to figure out what we wanted to do for New Years Eve. Only one guy in our group wanted to pay some outrageous cover charge to get into a club and the rest of us nixed that idea. Several of us went over to Barbary Coast for $12.95 prime rib. We got back and a few of us went over to O'Sheas again for blackjack.
By this time (9:30pm maybe), the streets were already starting to get crazy. The strip was closed to cars and they set up barricades for pedestrian traffic so the sidewalks were extended into the first and second lanes of traffic in the street. It took us about 20 minutes to walk to O'Sheas from the Flamingo. Once inside, we sat at a singe deck blackjack table and I dropped $100 pretty quick. I told my friends I was going back to Flamingo to play poker and would meet them there at about 11:30. When I left, the streets had gotten even more nuts and it took me about 30 minutes to make my way through the crowd and back into the Flamingo. They closed the casino to anyone without a room key and only had one set of doors open. I get back in and get a 2/4 seat immediately. Couple of my friends come back from O'Sheas and sit at the table with me and that's where we stayed when the clock struck 12. We watched the fireworks on the TV from the poker table.
They turned out a bunch of the lights on the strip for the fireworks show and about 15 minutes past 12, they were turning them back on. In the middle of a hand, the lights flickered a couple times and then it went black inside the casino. It took a couple seconds to register what just happened, and then the screams started. There was some light coming in from the front door and I saw the dealer lean over and cover the chip tray. The blackout might have lasted 5 seconds max, but it was pretty eerie. A couple of my friends kept stopping by to tell me that the elevators were not working due to the power outage so I wasn't about to give up my seat at the poker table until I knew I could bet back up to the room.
I played 2/4 for a couple more hours with a drunken indie flim producer who asked everyone at our table at least once if they wanted to be in his movie. I don't think he found a cast there. I had pocket pairs and top two pair busted more times than I wanted to remember. The observant guy at the other end of the table noticed that I was playing pretty tight came into every pot I raised preflop just for shits and giggles.
This hand basically put the nail in my coffin for the night.
I'm in MP with QQ, one limper in front of me and I raise. Observant guy(OG) mentions that I am "bringin the heat" and reluctantly calls. SB folds, BB calls, and limper calls.
Flop comes AA3. EP limper checks to me and I bet. OG calls. BB and EP both fold.
Turn is a 2 and completes the rainbow. I'm not terribly worried about OG holding a straight but I am worried about him holding a raggy A. I bet out, he raises. He has it. Maybe I can push him off the weak A with a raise here. I 3-bet him and he mumbles somethin about his weak kicker then calls.
River comes a 3. He makes his boat. I check, he bets, I fold. He proceeds to talk the hand up with his end of the table and I steam. Few hands later I put $4 in preflop with AJs and then go all-in on the flop. I lose and fight another crowd for about 20 minutes trying to get in an elevator to get up to the room.
I finally get up to the room at about 3am and hit the sack. We grabbed breakfast at the buffet Saturday morning and then took a cab to the airport.
New Years Eve in Vegas was a helluva lot crazier than I had anticipated, but I still had a blast. I'm still trying to get back into a somewhat normal sleep pattern today and I don't think I have a clear head.
My first B&M poker experience didn't go the way I wanted, but it was still fun actually sitting down and looking at the fish as opposed to playing online. Now it's back to the grind and building the bankroll again.
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Originally Posted by gutshot
