Posted by NewsPost on 06-10-05

Trip Report: May 20-26 in Vegas

Warning, this is really long.
Summary: Poker tournaments at the Sahara are great fun, the Bellagio
poker room is great, celebrity sightings at the Bellagio, O, sightseeing


Friday, May 20
My fiancee, Liz and I introduced ourselves to Las Vegas for the first
time last year, when a pair of inveterate poker players were born.
Since then we've had to content ourselves with playing online, but I had
been itching to get back to the city of lights in the desert.

Finally, the day I had been awaiting so eagerly arrived. We were
departing Boston at 6:15pm aboard Song Airlines for a direct flight into
Vegas. Unfortunately, my Vegas state of mind took a severe beating
before we could even get on the plane. The morning we were due to
leave, the company I've worked for since October laid off 60% of its
workforce, reducing in size from around 175 people to 75, including a
personal friend of mine who had recruited me and served as my boss. For
whatever reason, I survived, but the day was emotionally exhausting. So
I was in an odd state of mind as we boarded the plane, as I felt a
combination of sadness about the layoffs, relief and elation at
surviving them, and guilt that friends of mine didn't. But, Vegas
awaited, and the Song flight attendants did their level best to ensure
everybody on that flight was in a good mood. We had never flown Song
before, but the combination of their marketing and cheap prices seem to
make them very attractive to young people. Add in our destination, and
the flight pretty much devolved into an airborne party. We had
literally eaten and drank the plane dry by the time we crossed into
Nevada. Unfortunately, the seatback TV system wasn't working on this
flight. Too bad, as it's nice to be able to track the plane's progress
across the US. We did get to see a gorgeous sunset that went on for
hours as we chased the sun.

The airport wasn't too bad this time; we had to wait a moderate amount
of time for our bags and for a cab. As we neared the front of the line,
one of the cabbies got into an yelling match with one of the people
directing traffic, with the cabbie threatening to kick the other guy's
ass. Well, as I said to Liz, guess whose cab we're going to get? Of
course we ended up with him. Our cabdriver was huge, around 6'4" and
definitely over 300 pounds. The driver's seat was adjusted all the way
back, and declined as well, leaving Liz extremely little room for her
legs. The radio was blasting heavy metal, and he seemed to have a moral
objection to speed limits. And did I mention that as we pulled away we
discovered the fiancee's seat belt was broken? The funniest moment
(funny since no one got hurt) occurred as we came screeching into the
Sahara's driveway, the cabbie nearly ran down a pedestrian, which he
actually seemed to feel a twinge of responsibility about. He waved at
the guy, who had jumped back onto the curb, and said he was sorry. Then
without pausing for breath, grunted out "But don't give _me_ a dirty
look asshole, cause I _will_ get out and kick your ass!" I had to
smother a laugh, as I found it hilarious that he took offense at the
poor guy he had nearly killed. Anyway, somehow we arrived safely, did
not get long-hauled, and bid farewell to the cabbie with anger
management issues.

We had made our reservations for 6 nights at the Sahara through the
poker room, and gotten the poker rate of $63 for the weekend nights and
$39 for the weekdays. This was our first time requesting the poker
rate, though it won't be our last. We were obligated to play only an
average of 3 hours a day between us, and they were very slack about
recording our hours anyway. We played more than the minimum hours
regardless, as we would have even without the poker rate. We thought it
was a great deal in these days of increased Strip hotel prices. We
checked in around 10:00 (or 1 in the morning by our internal clocks). I
hadn't really eaten all day, due to the aforementioned stress, so after
leaving our bags in the room, we dropped into the Sahara's mexican
restaurant for a quick bite. It satisfied the pangs, but that was about
it. Very bland, Americanized food, which, to be fair, is about what I
expected. Then we crashed in the room.

About our room, it was decent. We had 1261 in the Tangiers tower, with
a king sized bed and a view of the Stratosphere. The room was about
what you'd find in a Holiday Inn, nothing special, which was what we
expected. It did have a handicap accessible bathroom, which meant no
counterspace and a high toilet.

Saturday, May 21
Saturday morning we were up relatively early (or to be honest, I was--
too much on my mind to sleep in, which continued throughout the trip.)
We decided to start our vacation by checking out the monorail and
heading down strip. About the monorail: If you're staying at the
Sahara, it's wonderful. All of our trips out of the Sahara, save for
the Start or to downtown were on the monorail. We ended up using 2 10-
ride passes, for a total of $40. Very good deal, much better than
cabbing it. It is a long walk from the front of some of the South Strip
properties (especially the MGM, which quite a little hike), and the
casinos do their best to force you to walk through _all_ of their shops.
But if you're in good health and don't mind walking a bit, the monorail
is a great way to navigate. We ended up eating at Paris, in JJ's
Boulangerie. We each had a very tasty, relatively inexpensive croissant
sandwich for breakfast. Very nice.

Then it was off to explore a bit. We walked through Bally's, Paris,
Bellagio and Caesar's, saw the Atlantis animatronic show in Caesar's by
chance (won't feel the need to do that again), ogled the Bentleys and
Lambourghinis for sale, then hopped the monorail back to Sahara, because
it was finally time to start gambling. We joined Club Sahara, got our
funbooks, each placed a bet on the Preakness, then headed for the poker
room. They had 2 2-4 tables going, and were trying to start a 1-4-8-8
game. Liz was immediately seated at the new 2-4 table, but I wanted to
play the higher limit, so I put my name on the list. Unfortunately, 45
minutes later they still hadn't gotten it going, and my hands were
itching to handle some chips. So I settled for playing 2-4. Even
worse, we were stuck at the same table. Our table started off pretty
decent, with several calling stations, and a couple of decent players
who were off duty dealers at the Sahara. I pretty much hit nothing for
the first couple of hours, and was down around $20, but Liz was on a
rush, and was up $40, despite her set of kings running into a set of
aces (that was a big three way pot for 2-4). The table dynamic changed
when a couple of maniacs sat down. Normally I like playing with
maniacs, but I took a couple of beats, and decided to quit after I was
down $80. We lost our Preakness bets as well. We tried the Sahara
buffet for dinner. Pretty bad, but cheap. Then we walked to the Start
to check it out. The only full pay video poker we could find was at the
quarter level, but we did find Deuces Wild nickel machines with decent
pay tables. Played for a bit, then headed back to the room. For the
day, I ended up down $100, Liz was down $10.

Sunday, May 22
Sunday we wanted to play in one of the Sahara poker tournaments. They
run them at 11am, 7pm, and 11pm. $40 buyin, plus $2 add on plus a $20
rebuy during the first hour. So you end up with 3500 chips for a $62
buy-in. We decided to share the risks and the rewards, hopefully
increasing our individual chances of winning some money. We signed up
for the 11am tournament, and ate at the Caravan Cafe. OK breakfast, not
too expensive. The tournament was fun, got around 50 people, top five
places paid. Liz busted out in 18th, I hung on and took 5th. The same
guy busted both of us, and went on to win. He was an elderly Asian
gentleman, who was catching cards left and right. He crippled me when I
doubled him up with my pockets As against his set of 8s, then busted me
when I was getting short stacked and raised him all in with A-4 versus
his pocket 5s. It was basically impossible to blow him off a hand. For
5th, I won $145. After a $10 tip to the dealers, and covering our $124
buy-ins, we ended up profiting a cool $9 for 4 hours of play. It was a
ton of fun though.

We spent an hour by the pool, then took the monorail down the strip.
Ate at Fatburger, then got half-price tickets to Second City at the
Flamingo at the Tickets2Nite at the Coke bottle. We had to hustle to
get there, and arrived just before show time. The maitre'd gave us a
song and dance about some high-rollers not showing up for their front
table seats, and asked us what he should do? We took the seats, and I
tipped him $10. The show was very good, just as funny as the last time
we saw it. After the show we did some more strip sightseeing; checked
out Harrahs for the first time. Their poker tournaments looked
horrible, set up to be real crap shoots. Then it was back to the Sahara
for some more poker before bed. This time I was able to get into a 1-4-
4-8 game, but it only lasted a half hour before breaking when the 11pm
tournament started. So it was back to 2-4, where I quit up a little
after 3 more hours of play. For the day counting some video poker, I
was down $7, Liz was down $12.

Monday, May 23
Monday we tried the Sahara buffet for breakfast, which was pretty bad.
The omelets were OK, everything else was greasy, or cold, or just bad.
We lounged by the pool some more, then caught the 301 bus downtown. We
wandered around Fremont Street, checking out all the casinos we missed
last time, and ate dinner in the MSS brewpub. Pretty good beer (I'm a
beer snob) and I had an excellent $7 steak. Didn't see any full pay VP,
at least for Deuces Wild. We then wandered around some more, finally
ending up in Fitzgeralds, because I needed to use their restroom. When
I emerged, Liz had found a bank of nickel full pay DW and was already
playing. I settled in next to her, and proceeded to go on a roller
coaster ride with my $20, dropping down as low as $4 before cashing out
up a dollar after about 3 hours of play. Unfortunately, the machines
were true old school nickel machines, meaning coins out instead of
tickets. Both our machines ended up jamming during cashout, so we had
to wait for a slots attendant to come fix them, then had to scoop up the
dirty coins and take them to the cashier to get our $20 back. Yuck, I
much prefer the ticket machines. We watched a couple minutes of the FSE
before leaving, and were not impressed. I wanted to try a deep fried
twinkie or oreo, but didn't think it would have been smart after
subjecting my stomach to the Sahara's breakfast buffet.

Tuesday, May 24
We walked to the Start for their 10:30 a.m. craps lesson. The guy
teaching it was nice, but I'm still intimidated by the craps table.
Breakfast was at the Start's coffee shop, and was surprisingly good,
better than Sahara. Then it was back to the hotel for another hour at
the pool, then down the strip for more sight-seeing and the Bellagio
buffet. The buffet was excellent, we stuffed ourselves on crab legs,
venison, prime rib, lamb and sushi. It was also good to eat some nice
vegetables, which I had been craving all trip (Sahara's iceberg lettuce
salad wasn't cutting it). We had looked into the Bellagio poker room
before, but been too intimidated to try it previously. This time I
decided to take the plunge, and I'm glad we did. We were immediately
seated at different 4-8 tables. My table was pretty good, but I wasn't
getting any hands for the first hour or two, and was down a little from
the blinds, when the seat to my left was vacated and then taken by a
gorgeous blonde, who sat down with a lot of chips. My first impression
was that, gee, she's nice looking. On second glance, I thought to
myself, she looks just like...The guy next to me then asked her right
out "Is your name Cameron Diaz?" to which she replied in the
affirmative. Wow, she is even more beautiful in person, and a very nice
person to boot. Very down to earth. The Bellagio staff did a pretty
good job of keeping the gawkers away, although one or two guys did try
to flirt with her (what a joke, like she's going to go out with some
schmuck who chatted her up in the poker room). Anyway, the table got a
lot more fun then, as Ms. Diaz is pretty bad. She played around 90% of
the hands dealt to her, and dropped around $200-300 in the course of a
couple of hours. AFter another hour of folding (with Cameron Diaz at
one point consoling me by pointing out that I was smarter than she for
not playing the crappy cards I was getting) my luck finally changed, and
I went on a nice little rush. My biggest hand was a rivered full house
for my pocket J's that also put a three flush on the board and allowed
me to crack someone's pocket A's. Even better, I got to check raise the
river, when Ms. Diaz raised with what I assume to have been the flush
(or she was just being crazy again). Dragged a huge pot that time.
Cashed out up $183, Liz made $14. I only quit playing because my table
changed, and several people, who were clearly regulars, started speaking
in what I believed to be Arabic during the hands. I know I could have
asked the floor to stop them, but I didn't feel it was worth it to make
trouble, and I shouldn't have to anyway--it's the dealer's job to stop
that stuff. Judging by the gossip from other players, the quality of
the dealers at Bellagio has gone down markedly since Wynn opened.

We walked down the strip then, passing through NYNY, Excalibur, Luxor
and Mandalay Bay. We didn't play anywhere, just gawked at the sights.
Crossed over and checked out the MGM, whose poker room looked very nice.
The poker tables were ringed in marble, and the tables were hopping. I
might have to try playing there some time. We then headed back to the
room. The hike to the Monorail seemed to take forever, wow MGM is huge.

Wednesday, May 25
Used our coupon from the Sahara's fun book for $50 in chips for $40. We
played the passline and took the odds at craps. The table was ice cold
though. I managed to win only on bet, on the come out role, for $5 out
of my $40. Liz won another roll, for $10 out of her $40. Too bad, I
can see how craps would be fun, but we just couldn't get anything going.
Seemed like every shooter made a point, then crapped out immediately.
We decided to play another tourney at the Sahara. The 11:00am tourney
only drew 37 people this time, so only 4 places were paid. I busted out
around 20th, as AQ ran into a shortstack's AK and then I went broke with
AQ versus the big blind's JJ. Liz however, accumulated a monster stack
and proceeded to run over everyone on her way to the win. I did make
back most of my buy-in playing 2-4 while waiting for her to finish. She
won $750 for first place, so after a $50 tip for the dealers and
subtracting out the buy-ins, we each profited $288. Boy was I glad we
had decided to split the profits! Then we chilled at the pool for an
hour, before getting dressed for Cirque de Soleil's O. We ate (overate
actually) at the Bellagio buffet again (we had been planning to have a
nice dinner someplace, but we never got our act together to pick a place
and make reservations, so we ended up at the Bellagio buffet twice).
Again, it was excellent.

O was amazing, and confusing. I honestly couldn't decide where to look
at times, so much was going on at any moment. The acrobatics were
astounding. And now that I've been to a Cirque du Soleil show, any
desire I had to take acid and go to the circus has been extinguished.

After the show, it was back to the poker room for some more 4-8. The
only celebrity we saw this time was Johnny Chan, who was playing
threeway in the back room. It was amazing to contemplate the amount of
money being wagered back there. Again, my table was great, with a
husband and wife who had no clue and were terrible calling stations. I
swear the only hands they won all night were when they hit runner
runner. I was lucky enough to have them only catch once against me, and
the guy was so obvious when he caught his backdoor flush that I was able
to correctly announce his hand as I folded on the river. The poor
sucker next to me though just couldn't win. 3 or 4 times his high
pocket pair got chased down by the calling station wife. He was a young
guy, who might have still been in college, and he was playing with a
friend next to him. He started to get a little hot, and the friend was
unable to calm him down. I must admit, I took advantage of his tilting
to take a few dollars off of him. Unfortunately, I stayed too long at
the table, failing to leave when the calling stations were replaced with
some decent players. A few pots later, and I had gone from doubling my
$160 buyin up to cashing out only up $76. Lost a huge pot when I raised
with KQ, was smoothcalled by the button, flopped top pair, turned trips,
and lost to his well played AK. I should have known better, I know how
important table selection is. But a win's a win. For the day, I was up
$377, Liz was up $257, as she lost $32 at the Bellagio tables.

Thursday, May 26
Thursday was our last day, and we were scheduled to fly out of Vegas at
10pm. We checked out of Sahara and rode the Monorail to Bally's, where
we checked our bags. We decided to check out Paris' buffet for lunch.
It was very tasty, maybe a bit pricy, but we were feeling flush from the
poker winnings. Then it was back to Bellagio for our last poker fix. I
had to wait maybe a half hour for a seat. My table was great for the
first 10 minutes, then the floor moved 5 people off our table to a new
8-16 game. I thought that was pretty poor planning on her part, to have
put them all together like that so that our table was disrupted when
they moved. Anyway, there were two calling stations who were sitting
across from me most of the day. One of them had been on the most
incredible rush, and was up around $400 I think, mostly from making two
pair and flushes with hands like 64 and 52. He cooled off though, and I
was able to turn a nice profit at the table. The guy next to me was a
retired or semi-retired regular at the Commerce, and regarded himself as
a bit of a poker expert. He was a decent player, and apparently decided
I was as well. We passed a pleasant few hours discussing poker and
usually avoiding being in pots together. At 7:30 it was time to head
out. Cashed out up $205, Liz was up $68. Back to Bally's for the bags,
then a cab to the airport. Cab ride was quick, and amusing, as our cab
driver regaled us with stories of his son's poker playing, and
discussions about how bad most of the people playing currently are. We
were at the airport by 7:45, there was no line at all, and we were in
the terminal by 8. Last time we were here on a holiday weekend and it
took 2 hours just to get through security. It was too bad we had to
spend 2 hours cooling our heels, I wished I was back at the Bellagio's
poker room. Flight back was uneventful, got a little bit of sleep, and
this time the DirectTV was working, so we watched some of that.

One question for the group, what would you view as normal for a tip on
poker tournament winnings?

Gambling winnings for the trip:
Chris +$658.30
Liz +259.25

Room was around $290, flights totaled $414 for two round trips. After
counting food, we actually ended up around even for the trip (O tickets
were a birthday present, if we had paid for that we would have been
down). Given the amount of entertainment, there's just no place we
could go on vacation for so cheap. It was a great trip, and I already
can't wait to go back.

Chris Kollmann