WEDNESDAY NOV 12
Checkout day. Up before 10am.
RIVIERA's Kiosk Checkout was easy.
Headed downtown to BINIONS to cash in
our comps in the gift shop.
The Real Deal playbill had a coupon for
"1 free book" from Cardoza publishing,
the guys who print Doyles and Daniels
books. The ad shows SuperSystem,
Caro's Book of Tells, Poker Tournament
Formula, etc. Being the gullable type guy
I am, I made the assumption that I could
choose from one of the books shown
in the ad. Wrong. The free books are
actually booklets on offbeat topics or
contain only rudimentry content.
AVERY CARDOZA, did you approve this ?
Do you realize how many people you are
going to piss off ?
Remember the potential prop bet with
Sonny involving the fruit plate from
Peppermills ? Gina and I thought it would
be funny to send Sonny a fruit basket.
We hit the Walmart Super Centre and bought
a basket, clear wrapping and fruit galore.
Along with a watermelon, cantaloupe, bananas,
bag of apples, there were a bag of lemons,
a coconut, and an onion...lol. Got a few strange
looks putting it all together on the trunk of
our car in the parking lot.
The Wynn employs 50 Full-Time pastry chefs !
Too long without food so we hit the
WYNN buffet. Gina earned 2 free buffets
earlier so we wanted to use them up.
Excellent food as before. Desserts are superb.
Tremendous selection. I love that they
have bathrooms located inside the dining area.
Most buffets, you have to leave and use facilities
on the gaming floor. Their bathrooms actually
have private rooms with real locking doors,
not just partial metal walls.
Headed back up to SLOTS'O'FUN to use our
$15 for $10 coupon. Crapped out and headed
next door to CIRCUS CIRCUS, to use the same
offer there. Half hour of play and left with an
overall +$7 in profit between Gina and I.
Woohoo !
3pm.
Went to the VENETIAN to cram some
poker in on our last day. Saw TEDDY
"The IceMan" ONROE. He holds the record
for most WSOP television coverage disproportionate
to his results. et up with high school chum ANDY
BRUINEWOUD and his wife GLORIA in the poker
room. They are vegas veterans and gave me
the scoop on what they saw of the WSOP
final table from inside the P&T Theatre.
Played at the V until 8pm (+ $76).
Headed to the MGM and left the fruit basket
for Sonny at the Bell Desk. Would have been
way funnier if we could have gotten into his room
and filled his room with fruit, but we didnt
have time. Dropped off the rental car and
headed for the plane.
Overall, great trip. Left + $1500 so I can't
complain. Bye Vegas, see you next time
(hopefully in a few months).
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.
FRIDAY NOV 7
Drove back down to the SILVERTON for
Lunch Buffet. Excellent as always.
Awesome desserts. Carrot cake and the
chocolate crusted pecan pie are A+.
Approx. $9.50 for 2 with ACG coupon.
Back third of restaurant was closed off
for slot machine storage. Explains why
the lineup was so long the other day.
At 1pm the Silverton poker room had
one table. Old farts pushing small pots
back and forth to each other.
The Bass Pro Shops inside the casino
always has some good deals. New Balance
running shoes $34.95. 1/2 price Tommy
Bahama shirts $69.
2pm.
Checked into RIVIERA. As a money
saving measure, they have kiosks for
self check-in. It was pretty simple,
swipe your credit card and it brings
up your room reservation on screen.
Downside, you couldnt select what tower
you wanted or offer a 'tip' to the staff to
upgrade you to a nicer room. Room 934
in the North Mediteranian Tower.
Nice pillowtop king size bed.
In room fridge, flat panel tv, dressing table
(no countertop in bathroom. Tall shower
faucet, plenty of HOT water with strong
pressure. In room safe for extra $3 a day.
More cowboys everywhere. Lots of SEMA
(auto industry) guys everywhere. Supposedly
130,000 people here for the convention.
Went to the WYNN to play $1/3 cash game.
They use $3 chips, which sounds good in
theory, but i don't like it. I won + $145
in the first half hour so i took that money
and bought in (late) to the 7pm $140+$20
deep stack tourny that Sonny & Tom were
playing in. Good structure, 1/2hr blinds
& 10,000 starting chips.
I didnt last more that about 20 minutes.
Only bad beat story in this entire report
( I Promise ). I raise with TT, villain (AK) raises,
I call. Flop is T 4 A. I bet, villain raises,
I push all in (started hand with $9400).
Villain hesitates only 3 seconds then calls
and rolls over AK. Yippee for me. Wait for it.
Turn is K. River is K. I lose. Good example
why I prefer cash games instead of tournys.
Tourny, I'm out and donkey continues.
In cash game, I rebuy and win my money
back from him. On the bright side,
the tourny was basically a freeroll using
other peoples money from the cash game.
Went back to RIV to freshen up before
heading back out. Walked everywhere
for the rest of the night so we could
get our drink on. Walked directly accross
the street to SLOTS O' FUN. Used ACG
coupon which got us a chili dog and
a Corona for free. That is one messy
chili dog, bring moist towelettes.
SlotsOfun was very busy place.
No service staff at the booth except
during day because of layoffs.
Had another coupon $15 in chips for $10.
Tables were too busy so saved for later.
They offer $3 Craps, $3 BlackJack,
and the min bet on Roulette is 50 cents.
No wonder this place is busy !
1:30am
Walked down to SAHARA, hoping to
hit a juicy cash game full of people
knocked out of the late tournament.
No $1/2 games going, only 2/4 Limit
and a single $2/5NL game. I sit down
at the $2/5 game, everyone else heads
for the casino floor. My cash game
didnt last long, broke up within a half hr.
I almost had the one guy convinced to
play heads up (the dealer agreed to deal it)
when his girlfriend arrived and that killed
my plan. It could have been good if there
were more players. Left - $10. Watched
PaiGow poker for a couple hours.
Sonny left Pai Gow to shoot some craps
and made a nice + $500 profit after a
young kid got on a hot roll.
6am
We walked down to the PEPPERMILL
restaurant which is right beside the Riviera.
HUGE portions, fair prices. Sonny, Gina
and I ate for $53, I was the only one who
finished my plate. Having been awake all
night gambling, its not that surprising that
conversation turned to prop bets.
Sonny spotted an item on the menu
called 'Fruit Platter'. Seeing how huge
our portions were, he figured that has
got to be a lotta fruit. Gina mentioned
that I dont eat fruit. Its not that I dislike fruit,
I'm not allergic or anything like that,
its just I'm not a big fruit eater.
Sonny suggested a prop bet that I couldnt
finish this fruit platter. I'm not a big eater,
but I have won a couple food bets in the
past (eating worms, crickets etc). I was
pretty close to taking the bet on a whim,
without even setting out a prize if I completed
the task. Sonny, trying to get a better idea
of what he'd have to offer as a prize,
asked the waiter "what exactly does
the fruit platter come with ?". HAHA !
It contains: 1 whole Pineapple, half of a
watermelon, a honeydew melon,
canaloupe melon, several bananas,
several apples, orange slices, grapes,
kiwis, etc. Plus a LOAF of Banana Bread
...LOL ! If I wasnt out of the country, I might
even try this just for laughs. But there's
no way I could make a real attempt at it
without spending some serious time
on the toilet afterwards. My body is
designed for protein, not fruit.
