Vegas Day 1

Day 1 in Vegas:

I worked half a day, and then went to the airport. Apparently Southwestern runs direct flights from Little Rock to Vegas just about daily. Of course the company paid for it, which is a great way to get here. I think the price was about $400 for a round trip, so a fairly doable rate. The plane was at about 75-85% capacity.

In total the flight took around 3 hours, but I made up 2 of it in time zones, so I left at 3:45 CST and got here at about 5:00 PST. I checked in, dropped off my bags, and then headed to the strip.

That is to say, I started walking toward the biggest buildings around. I got turned around, and more or less just followed the crowds. Getting to the strip was fine, but getting back was a problem. More on that later.

I walked up and down the strip, just checking out the casinos. There were several I'd never heard of. At around 7:00 I wound up at the Venetian, as it seemed nice, and I rememberd hearing the poker was fairly soft.

I asked about games, and it looks like all they were doing was Hold'Em. I put myself on a request list for Omaha, and got in a 1/2 NLHE game. The table had 5 occupants, and 3 people sitting out. They walked me over, and I caught the big blind while waiting on my buy in. The dealer kindly loaned me $100 in chips. My hand was K7, and it was called around to me. I checked through, and the flop came K high. I bet out, and took down the pot for about $5. I eventually remembered that you should tip the dealer, and about 3 hands later did so. I think that was the only time I tipped without getting any callers.

After that, I played fairly ABC poker while waiting for some cards. I took a couple of pots, and more or less kept my $5 up. The table was terribly loose passive, with 3 or more (of the 6 present) people to a flop quite regularly. Then everyone would check around and show their middle pairs to take down the pot. I don't know if they did this to beat the rake (there had to be $10 before the dealers took anything), but once I recognized it, I started playing harder. Sure enough, I started pulling down small pots.

I think the table picked up on it, or I just found some bad spots, because I started getting reraised postflop, and wound up down to about $75. I thought my table image was fairly loose aggressive at this point, so I tightened up and waited for some cards.

Boy did I catch some. I had a T8 or so, and the flop came TTx, and I eventually got all my money in by the end with 1 caller. He turned over a weaker Tx, but we chopped thanks to the board. The house really cleaned up on that one, as I took down less money than I put in.

Then I caught 22, and the flop came xx2, with an ace, and I got called all in, making deuces full, and more than doubled up to $200 or so. I eventually did a similar thing with 55, and pulled down about another $100 with that one.

My first day total:

-100 (buyin)
+358 (cash out)
----
+258 for the trip

Then I tried to get home. I got hopelessly turned around and lost, wandered through some less than great looking places, got back on the strip, hailed a taxi and got back to my hotel for $7.

+251 for the trip.