OK, I finally have time for a brief and inartful TR. It is my 10th wedding anniversary. I was married in April at the Golden Nugget in a Spa Tower suite
http://www.goldennugget.com/accommodations/spa_tower.asp
with close friends and family… and Elvis in attendance. It was a really fun time for everyone involved, including the wife, I guess. She wants to revisit the GN on our anniversary. I give the nod and Nancy, as usual, plans and makes arrangements.
TRANSPORT
American Airlines out of O Hare with an FC upgrade on the return only. Both flights delayed and arriving almost one hour late. I guess I don't need to mention that air travel has become a terrible PITA.
Cabs in Vegas. It is cheaper and easier than a rental this trip. Only one long haul attempt, which Nancy quickly nixes.
DIGS
Golden Nugget: We arrive late in the evening and I'm beat --No sleep the previous night, working all day, travel and time change are catching up to me. No upgrade is forthcoming… no matter how many times Nancy waves her marriage certificate and casually mentions we were married here 10 years ago tomorrow;-) OK by me. The GN Gold tower rooms are fine. We stay 2 nights. Really, only one full day.
Of all the DT properties, the GN is the easiest on the eyes… and perhaps hardest on the pocket book. The pool is really nice and I spend much of our second day there. Closest thing to snorkeling in Vegas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUQgrwf3xMA&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
It is a little nippy, but with prime pool weather it looks small enough to get really crowded. During busy times I would pop for a cabana or retreat upstairs to the Hideout pool.
Treasure Island: Or is it TI? We spend the following 3 nights here. We arrive early as I want to get checked in and play the noon Venetian DSE tournament across the street. They have a room ready, high floor with a view of the pirate show, and even send up a bottle of champaign when Nancy mentions the anniversary. I'm beginning to think the girl considers our marriage certificate something of a coupon this trip.
The Pirate/Sirens show. Whatever it is called. I finally see it at street level. Usually I see this thing from about 27 stories up. There are cannon flashes and people diving into the water. I never really know what is going on. After watching the whole production up close I still don't know what is going on. Something to do with pirates who are alternatingly horny and angry. It seemed really funny to me and I couldn't believe I was the only one laughing. Pure cornball nonsense.
GRUB
Carson Street Café: Meh. Late night dinner after we arrive. They are doing some kitchen maintenance. Limited menu. I can't have my Loco Moco!
Binion's Café: Wakey wakey eggs and bakey. I like this place. An unpretentious old school diner pretty much in the middle of the casino floor.
Chart House: We do drinks and appetizers during happy hour in the lounge. Great place to suck down a mojito while watching the fish in a truly impressive aquarium that takes up the entire back wall of the bar.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teRCwRL0OBs&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
Binion's Steak House: Not a great steak house anymore, if it ever was. Good service and a nice view, tho.
GN Buffet: Meh. It was food.
Isla: A pretty good Mexican restaurant at TI. The sweet corn tamal is a little glutinous, but the carnitas with pickled red onion is good.
Gilley's: Pretty average. Barbecue doesn't have a lot of smoke flavor and the ribs are a bit over done… and they paper over the windows so I can't see the bikini bull riding for free! Can't quite forgive them for that lack of charity.
Noodle Asia: A casual Chinese place off the Venetian sports book and poker room. Good for a quick meal during the dinner break of a tournament.
Mon Ami Gabi: Nancy and I have dined here a number of times over the years. It's hard to beat the atmosphere, dining on the patio with the B's fountain show across the street. The food and service is been dependably good. It is one of Nancy's favorites and we wait for a table. I go out on a limb and try skate for the first time. Pretty good.
GAMBLING:
At one time…. When I was a younger man, the gambling world was a strange, alien one and Vegas was a Hunter S. Thompson colored wonderland of jaw dropping kitsch and over indulgence. A very different place from the urban grit of the Chicago streets I grew up in. And I found it wasn't that difficult to beat people who I didn't think I was supposed to be able to beat. It was an interesting ride for a while.
I guess at some point it got uninteresting. I was never a very good gambler, but I learned enough to make me wonder about the enterprise. After several years it began to seem venal and petty and pointless. It was all about me trying to work the casino for any advantage and the casino trying to exploit me with whatever weakness worked… ego, pride, greed, lust, ignorance, alcohol. They worked all the angles too. And if I happened to be successful it would produce nothing that would be of any worth to anyone else. Certainly the casino would not appreciate it. Heck, after a while winning even left me a little empty.
I was more likely to see people at their worst. A father neglecting his young daughter. A drunk staring at the empty felt and unsteadily fumbling in his pocket to bring a last crumpled up bill to the betting circle. A girl trying to work one last trick in at 6:00 AM. A guy on the phone outside the sports book begging a relative for more money. While I knew people in this world who were seriously bright, much smarter than I really, and other people who just had fun with it, gambling, like some other businesses, is a magnet for damaged people… People at weak and vulnerable points in their lives and others ready to take advantage of them. And I saw too much of that. I generated a little space between gambling and myself for a while. It was not a conscious decision. It just happened. A little notice to myself that this was a game and not a vocation for me.
VP: We'll start with the good news. Winding down from a long day of work and travel we plop down at the GN's quarter 8/5 bonus machines. Nancy is unwilling to go further before heading to the land of nod so I settle for 99%. We're grooving on the tunes from the cover band in the lounge nearby. Doink. I pop a royal on a 3 RF hold.
http://travel.webshots.com/photo/2045492860106618783esCmcO
Nice way to start a trip. A net win of about $1100.
Next day I scope out some progs. 4 Queens quarter DB is at twelve hundred. The dollar and bartop DB progs are nothing special. Dollar BP prog at the Fitz is approaching 6K. It is mostly a pool time day, but I hit the $BP and the quarter DB. Both at 100% plus. I hit a few quads, but it is a small net loss.
Mostly On the Strip I have nothing to do these days unless it is live poker. VP options are mostly too sad to contemplate. I'm not an action junkie and I just don't give much action on a game unless I have an advantage. TI has some 50 cent and up JB that requires $15 per point… this means a 99.5% game is giving only a small fraction of 1% in free play bennies. Very likely this is not exploitable even with marketing offers, but I give TI credit for at least putting in FP machines at this level… and it is something to do as the poker situation gets depressing. I scout progressives at TI also. Sometimes they get juicy enough to go positive even with a shorted paytable. I found a $ 7/5 BP Prog a couple of years ago on the Strip at about 10K (101.5%+club) and hit that bad boy. I find a bank with the quarter prog at about $1900. Best game appears to be 6/5 super aces… a very wild ride, but we are in the area of 100% with FP. In my poker down time I play them for a bit and hit aces for $500. On the last day I'm killing some time and trying not to think about poker when I hit a 50 cent royal on a JOB machine. Notice the masterful solitary high card hold.
http://travel.webshots.com/photo/2458418000106618783JtDcyO
So VP is a Hell of a success story. On very modest action --maybe 15K of quarter, fifty cent, dollar mix-- a $500 Super Aces hit, a $1000 quarter BP royal and a $2000 50 cent JOB royal net me somewhere shy of 3K. Anyone who knows vp understands that this is incredibly lucky.
Live Poker: I am such a freakin' shove monkey… I guess it is not that bad. I don't put near enough time into it to get really good, but I have slowly improved my game over the years. I don't need cards to win pots anymore… though it helps. I'm getting better at playing very deep early in a tournament. A fair amount of work playing and analyzing STTs has given me a pretty good grasp of ICM play. I can work a stack of 15 to 25 bb absolutely fearlessly, dragging pots with steals and resteals, keeping my stack relevant as blinds and antes increase. Some of my opponents have much more game than I do, but I am not dead money. I mean, I lost at everything this trip, but that doesn't bother me so much. It is gambling. I mostly play tournaments and the volatility is really high. Getting stacked before reaching the money happens on a regular basis. I don't mind losing my stack. I mind losing my stack stupidly and I played one hand so badly that it just kind of burned a hole in my brain.
I play the Friday DSE event at the Venetian. The field is very small. Maybe 130 entries and there should be 250 to 350. I hear the WSOP circuit event at Caesars is thinning the field a lot. In most of the tournaments I go deep in I double up by the first break or so. This ain't happening here. I struggle to keep up with the blinds and maintain a playable stack. About 5 hours in to the tournament I open raise AK off in the cut off. Button calls and BB, a good natured Asian dude on a depleted stack reraises enough to leave him committed. He's been aggressive and likes to gamble. I have him covered, but not by much. I go push/fold if I get it in and lose. I'm pretty sure he has a pair here. I know he's calling a shove. Only half the field has been eliminated and we are hours from the money… so no ICM considerations. Calling here is just the lamest line ever. I decide it is the perfect time to gamble it up and try to build a stack. Boom goes the dynamite. Button folds as expected and BB calls as expected. His JJ holds. I go push fold and run into AA a half hour later. IGHN.
I am up early and play a little cash game before the tournament on Saturday. 1-2 NLHE and I buy in for $200. I'm playing about $250 when MP raises to $12. LP calls and I call on the button with JJ. Flop comes AKJ in 2 suits. MP puts in a $25 bet. LP goes away. Board is drawy and it could easily have hit him hard. I raise to $100 and he calls. Turn comes rag, but puts another possible flush draw on the board. EP bets $25. Pot control? Whatever. I jam for the rest of my stack and he calls to reveal AQ sooted. He turned the flush draw. 10 hit's the river for broadway and he stacks chips. I don't make very much of that back before the tournament starts.
The tournament goes somewhat better than yesterday. 170 or so entries and my stack is nearly double what I started with by the first break. And the day turns into a grind. I'm never a monster stack, but I always manage to keep my stack relevant. Never below 15bb. I benefit from some wonderfully (for me) poor play from a couple of opponents and I win a couple of flips. I steal a bunch and double up several times. Past the dinner break, 9 hours into the tournament. I have a stack of 60bb. Close to 30 players left and the money starts at 18. Blinds go up in a few minutes and there are several micro stacks that are going to dwindle to near insignificance when the blinds go up. They are going to start busting quickly. Fold to a monster stack in mp who makes a standard raise close to 3bb, fold to the cutoff who calls. I have the button with 8 10 hearts. SB is absent and being blinded off. BB is a micro stack who has been playing a very tight push/fold. I call. BB folds. Flop comes Q 10 7 with 2 clubs. Checked to me and I put out a close to pot sized bet. MP monster check minraises. Cutoff folds. I tank for a few seconds and cut out calling chips. Turn comes 8 no club. Monster stack pots it and I jam… I am such a shove monkey.
The call pre on the button with sooted semi connectors is golden. I'm getting odds, I have position and if I get really lucky I can double up. Potting my middle pair when it is checked to me on the flop is acceptable. An argument could easily be made for the smaller half pot bet or a check. Everything after that is amateur hour. It is not a great time to play for my stack as we are probably going to hit the bubble by the end of the next level. The monster stacks' line indicates either serious strength or a bluff/semi bluff and if he was semi bluffing the 8 could have made his hand. If you aren't thinking too much my 2 pair might seem fairly strong, but there is a lot out there that beats me and given the line it is mostly a bluff catcher. Monster has me covered many times over and has been playing very solidly rather than overly aggressive or adventurous. The kind of stack size and player I want to have real cards if playing a big hand to showdown. To recap: wrong time, wrong hand, wrong stack, wrong opponent… Wrong move. He calls and I have 4 outs at the river. Over 9 hours of pretty decent poker wasted. IGHN.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyASsU1Wg4Y
Free Crap
Pickings have gotten kind of slim since my action decreased. I even paid for a room for a couple of nights, which in Vegas, is normally against my religion. So, a few hundred in free play, maybe $150 in food, 3 nights hotel about covers it.
Final Word
Well, I wrote the above a couple of weeks ago, but I've been too lazy to proof and insert links. Better late than never…. Marriage. Now that is a real gamble. Is it a smart bet? Is it positive expectation? Is there some max EV marriage strategy? Can one calculate a risk of ruin? I don't know. I know people who have busted out more than once. I know couples who look like they are unhappily playing the last few bills left in their roll. I'm not using any real strategy, but 10 years at this game and I'm still a winner. I guess I'm just lucky.
