MONDAY NOV 10
Up at 10am and out of the room by 11am.
Off to the SILVERTON for Lunch Buffet.
$9.63 for two. Their pecan pie tastes like
a giant butter tart. Played another session
at the VENETIAN. + $26
Recieved 5 comp tickets to the REAL DEAL,
a poker based game show that recently
opened up at the Venetian. Sonny, Ed, and
Tom were just finishing up tournament at
the WYNN so they joined Gina & me.
The premise of the show, two poker pro's
and 4 (somewhat) randomly selected audience
members play a game of holdem on stage.
The rest of the audience plays along on
computer touch screens.
The audience sees its hole cards and bets
or folds based on the flop, turn, river.
There are also mini contests throughout.
Pick 5 random cards from a deck of 52
and the top 3 people with the best hands
win a prize. The final hand, you randomly
select 5 cards and if you hit a royal flush
you receive $1,000,000 (over 25 yrs).
The two pros for this session were
TODD BRUNSON and JENNIFER HARMAN.
Jennifer was high energy and seemed
sincerely interested in being there.
Todd, no so much. VINNY FAVORITO
(I played poker with him on a previous trip)
was the MC and did a great job trying to
keep this contrived production seem natural
and moving along.
LACEY JONES co-hosted and did an
acceptable job. I was a little shocked
to see Lacey, who was voted "hottest
girl in poker", only 5 feet away. I guess
you can have skin as rough as T.J. Cloutier
and still be hot. I'm sure she's a nice girl,
she comes across as friendly... but I've
met hotter poker girls.
Back to the Real Deal...
One of the big flaws I found was in the
software. There was a serious time lag.
On a couple occasions, the live hand
was being dealt before action was complete
on the handhelds. I was able to fold on the
turn, saving myself a $16,000 wager
because I saw the dealer on stage deal
out the river which gave one of the players
a full house which beat my two pair.
If there were serious prizes at stake,
there'd be lawsuits flying. Prizes were decent
although not enough to make me drool.
Sony headphones, a portable dvd player,
autographed posters, books, a bunch of
$50 gift certs for V restaurants. I left with
a pretty good booty. Everyone left with a
RD hat & deck of cards because the crowd
won 5 or 6 hands. I made trips with one of
my random 5 card selections so I won a
poster autographed by the RD poker pros.
When I went to collect it after the show,
the girl says "oh you won the books ! ?"
I said, "sure ?!" She gave me autographed
copies of SuperSystem2 and Daniel Negreanu's
Power Holdem. Autographs include Harman,
Brunson, Laak, Esfandiari, etc.
Overall, I liked the show.
Would I pay $75 for it ? ... No.
If it was free, I would go again and again.
There were about 100 people in the audience
and some of them were people who actually
paid full price for the show, including 2 people
who paid $140 for VIP front row seats
(my freebee seats were in the 2nd row)
and they got to meet and take pictures
with the pros backstage.
Immediately after the show we headed
out to the GREEN VALLEY RANCH to take
a shot at the PL Omaha 8OB tournament
that we missed earlier in the week.
Had I known the structure and rake (30%),
I would have skipped it. We arrived
a little late but got on the list to be put in
as other players got eliminated. By the time
I got seated, it was late into the $100
blind level. Starting stack was $2000.
This basically gave me no play at all.
Example: 1st time I play my big blind
there are 4 players to the flop. Pot is $400.
Under the gun bets pot $400.
If I bet the pot ($1200) I have committed
65% of my chips to this hand and there
are still 2 people to act behind me
+ the original bettor. No wiggle room at all.
I finished 11th out of 36 by folding a lot.
Gina came in 9th and Sonny came in 6th.
On a positive note, I made + $ 80 playing
the cash game while I waited for everyone
to bust out.
This will be a less detailed TR than usual,
so it's not necessarily complete or accurate.
I just didn't take as many notes or pics this trip.
WEDNESDAY NOV 5.
Left London bound for Detroit Wednesday
morning. Paid $287 inclusive for my flight
on Spirit, it actually dropped after booking,
cheap enough that I didn't cry.
Arrived in Vegas without any problems and
headed for the Rental Car Terminal.
Alamo didnt have a car for us.
Actually, they didnt have a car for anyone..lol.
The place was nearly empty. They would just
offer you a car as one was returned. Not what
we ordered, but the Chevy Malibu they offered
us was acceptable, better than waiting.
It was a quiet car, a bit of a pig on gas..
but at $0.50/Litre ($1.80/gal) you can afford
to drive a guzzler down here.
(Paid $124/8 days + $27 gas).
5:30pm
Headed downtown to check in at the
EL CORTEZ hotel. Room 5567 in the
Pavillion tower. $15 a night w/ACG coupon.
Room was adequate. Bed was comfy.
Some minor complaints: No hot water on
second day, shower tub very slow to drain,
Traffic noise, big gap around door. It was
noisy because of the setup of this tower.
Its more like a motel. The hallway entrances
are outside the building. The floor material is
uneven tile, so the laundry carts pushed by
the maids make a racket in the morning.
But hey, for $15 a night, how much can I complain.
Went down to the ElCo casino floor and
played out $10 slot freeplay from the
ACG book. Burned through it playing
Turkey Shoot and Hoot Loot.
Every trip I like to hit a few different places
to eat and play poker. The first new casino
was the GREEN VALLEY RANCH located
south of the strip in Henderson NV.
Dropped my camera getting out of the car, oops.
Smashed the LCD display. Putting a positive spin
on it, it was my $120 "vegas camera" and not my
expensive Panasonic Lumix.
The 'Feast Buffet' was good, but not
exceptional. 2for1 ACG coupon, 2 of us
ate for $20. I wouldn't recommend it
at full price, there are better.
Features: crab legs, mongolian grill,
custom pasta station, prime rib, sliced
turkey and pork ribs. Overall rating 7.5 / 10.
Obama wins ! Plenty of mixed reactions
from players at the poker tables about
their new president.
Headed over to BINIONS to check out their
recently renovated poker room. Its a big
improvement. It's quieter, stylish-modern,
and essentially smoke-free. Rolling office-style
chairs that adjust up and down.
New tables, but someone wasn't thinking
too clearly. They ordered tables with 10
cupholders when they only ever play
games 9 handed. There was some confusion
about who gets which cupholder.
But at least it's an improvement over the
old tables with no cupholders and having
to use those crappy plastic ones that you
have to jam under the table's padded
elbow rest. It wasnt set up yet (the room is
that new) but a table-based player management
system is probably in place by the time I post this.
Now all they need to do is upgrade the
dealers & floor staff and this will be a top
notch room. Binions pays $2 an hour comps.
They record them with pen and paper so
its a little sketchy that you actually get what
you earn. heard a few stories of them not
accurately logging hours. Regular players
accumulate hours towards entry into a freeroll
(25hrs to qualify). Update: When I cashed
mine out at the end of the week, it was short.
This should be corrected when the new
card-swipe player mgt systems is installed.
Saw " The Duke of Fremont ". This guy is a
real character. I had actually seen him on a
previous trip over at the Golden Nugget.
He's always dressed in a fancy suit or tuxedo,
usually has a fedora and cane and walks
around like his shit don't stink. He comes
into the poker room and sits down at $1/2
and pulls $10,000+ in cash out of his briefcase
and puts it on the table. When I saw him do this
the first time, I thought it was a joke,
a casino promotion or something.
Usually he doesn't even play any hands,
he posts his blinds and folds, then disappears,
schmoozing around the casino until he returns
a half hour later to post his blinds, then
disappear again. At Binions, he never left his
seat. He actually played a few hands, not many
but a few.
I played fairly conservative poker.
I had been up or over 24hrs now, it's silly
to get too fancy. Finished the session + $90.
Hit the 'Lanai Express' inside the FREMONT
Hotel before heading back for sleep. Had the
2 item combo plate, spicey rice with orange
chicken and mongolian beef for $6.
Very Satisfiing
The PBR (Professional Bull Riders) were
holding their World Finals event this week
in Vegas, so lots of cowboy hats and
belt buckles everywhere we went.
