Only Happens In Vegas
I write this blog on the front end of leg three of five in a work turned leisure turned tier point run trip. Seattle airport isn't particularly nice, less so when there is a strew of construction being performed and a severe lack of open lounges.
My convoluted route had me stop by LAX for an overnight which lent well to a visit of the nearby Hollywood Park Casino. It was busy, and the $1/2 game there certainly soft. They have bizarre buyin rules meaning I was only allowed to do off $100 at a time, but fortunately I found a way to do off 3 bullets worth.
I landed in Vegas where I was greeted with their toned down but still incorrect slogan of "What happens in Vegas, only happens in Vegas". My primary purpose of the trip was attending BetBash (a conference on sports betting) in order to accost people into handing over their accounts in exchange for attempting to make them a small fortune. However, by design, I had arrived a week prior to ensure the appropriate tithe had been paid to the local $1/3 economy.
The first game was at the Venetian - a friendly $1/2 game that quite literally culminated in the closure of the entire poker room forever. As somewhat of a cupcake connoisseur myself I was pretty dismayed by the sugar drowned lump I was given to celebrate such an event, but they did also produce what I presume was Lambrini to wash it down with.
The new poker room at the Venetian, or rather the shopping mall linking the Palazzo and The Venetian is lovely. There are three Caesar's sports betting kiosks in spitting distance for those wanting to lose at two forms of gambling at once. Sadly for fellow nicotine addicts who need to be within 5ft of a vaping area at all times, the room is useless. So I didn't play there despite it being genuinely really quite pleasant.
The rest of my $1/3 volume on the Strip came at The Encore where the games seemed to be juicy at all times of the day, there was no pissing rake up the wall with absurd high hand, hand of the hour, bad beat jackpot, or other such nonsense, and the bottled water appeared to not be recycled swimming pool water. The Encore remains one of a handful of venues in my database (of recreational play) where I am winning, that is if I had managed to walk past their restaurants and buffet.
The conference started off with a poker tournament at the Golden Nugget - $200+50 with it being unclear where the rake was going. I immediately got roped into a $500 last longer with a group of fellow hasbeens, fish, and no doubt some sharks. It was fairly irrelevant as I busted un-triumphantly in the early levels. It was a good excuse to mingle around the bar and the tournament was the perfect ice breaker for myself and my team before the effective main event of speed networking the next day.
For those that haven't done one of these before, you get 6 minutes to talk to 15 people back to back to back. It is extremely intense and taking a notebook would have been a fantastic idea. What essentially happened was I got a general gist for what the person did, and added their phone number if it sounded vaguely useful and if I remembered to ask. The next couple of days were a mixture of seminars (I went to 4 or 5 but found they weren't targeted at me) and meeting partners old and new.
I managed to fit a few more sessions in at the Golden Nugget in the downtime, including losing my biggest pot in Vegas where I somehow find 250BB each in the middle with 55 on 2346 against 33.
The final event was a black tie dinner and drinks which was great fun - a special shout out to our waitress who had no qualms in exchanging the left over bottles of wine on other tables for $10 and duly enabled myself and chums to go and do their proverbials on the dice table.
Prior to my absurd routing home (LAS-SFO-SEA-CLT-DUB...-EDI) I had the foresight of booking the Mandalay Bay hotel just opposite the airport. The hangover was substantial and I was absolutely delighted at the check in staff offering me up a room at 11am. I had fully intended to play the $300 Encore weekly as a last hurrah but the prospect of negotiating strip traffic on a day where the vice president is in town soon put paid to that and I settled for the $60 daily. My colleague ended up finishing 3rd, I got a good nap in, then won the nightly $100 myself for $1600 [1].
After a bit of a sweat with the first flight being delayed, I did manage to get into Seattle around 5:30pm, perfect for the Sunday nightly at (checks notes) Silver Dollar Casino Renton. It's a relatively tired room - the staff were very friendly and the regulars too albeit quiet. The Mariners were up 12-1 and no one at all seemed to care, but they did come to life a bit when I jested how good the DJ was when N*Sync came blurring over the tannoy system. I declined paying 5th when the structure paid four, and held out on a heads up chop much to the dismay of the staff and my opponent. I gave in eventually though after he very accurately pointed out how many more chips he had than me and that we could all get on with our lives.
I felt relatively comfortable making the 10pm 0.3 mile walk across to the neighbouring Fortune Poker Room but an additional couple of grand more in my pocket and I may not have risked it. These rooms are quite strange - seemingly in the middle of no where and people had clearly travelled to play. This reflected in the reg-fest I faced at the Fortune $3/5 table where people seemed to be making a good portion of their living from hitting high hand jackpots. I am a bit salty because having refused to straddle I did agree to an orbit of bomb pots - something that seems to have seeped into the modern game as they look for new ways to put robots out of their comfort zone. I did my absolute bollocks on them and lost back all the tournament winnings and more - the two main gems being getting in 95 on J95ss vs J5 and then not getting in JT on 789 before then getting it in on the 8 and A turn against AA and an alleged 77. It's an interesting game because the maximum bet/raise cap is $300 so by the time the river comes down there's a lot of betting 25% of pot for $300 despite stacks being considerably deeper.
All said and done I managed to lose in three cities, so I suppose it doesn't only happen in Vegas after all. A fantastic trip and a shout out to my girlfriend for convincing me to sit by the pool some days, and my colleagues for making the conference considerably more manageable.
If you are a serious sports bettor, get in touch and maybe we can do something together.
[1] What, you thought I was going to blog when I didn't win?
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