Las Vegas Trip Report -- Up to and Day One

Friday, May 20, 2005

The day that I couldn’t wait for finally arrived. No, that was not the departure day, but it was at least the last day of work for over a week. We were leaving Cincinnati to handle some things up at the Wife’s hometown and lake house.

Still needed to pack a few things, so I was a little rushed gathering my final things. No biggie … all the important stuff was packed. Took off and headed to Wife’s hometown.

Saturday, May 21, 2005

Had to handle a few things at the lake house. You know – simple stuff such as launching the boat, making sure the boat lift is operational, launch the wave runner, and get the house in order. Now, the weather hasn’t been the hottest in recent weeks, so the water wasn’t real warm. Let’s just say that I had to check for my manhood after the getting the wave runner back.

Left for Indianapolis and now it was only a matter of hours until takeoff. Ordered some of the best pizza and chicken wings I have ever had from Mickey and Bill’s Pizza. Let me tell … this place has the best wings ever! Absolutely huge and everything was a meaty leg, not itty bitty wings.

Caught some shut eye … as much as I could. Anticipation was building!

Sunday, May 22, 2005 – DAY ONE

Arrive in Las Vegas and boy are we ready. My friend Shawn couldn’t get out of the Gate before he gambled a little. Hit a $.25 machine and promptly lost $5. A sign of things to come?

The Wife wasn’t in sensory overload as much as I had predicted. She adjusted really well. Since we arrived at 9 a.m. Vegas-time, she wasn’t as impressed because all she had ever seen were photos with all the glitz and glamour of the neon lights. I told her the sun hadn’t gone down so don’t get upset yet.

First tour of duty was to check-in and get our rooms, except we knew that wouldn’t happen for about four hours. Shawn and I swing by to see the Flamingo poker room and all of its glory! Yep, all six tables! There was one limit game going at the time and we were curious about the daily tournaments. Got the info and then we had to appease the women. They had one thing on their minds … Thunder from Down Under POOL! I wasn’t against checking out the pool and boy am I glad we did?!?! The eye candy out there was amazing. Now this was a Sunday, so all lifeguards were working and slides from pool-to-pool were going. The lifeguards were worth drowning.

After playing cabana boys and finding our lovely ladies chairs kicking older ladies out of their chairs Shawn and grab some time for poker. We knew we could check on the girls in about five hours and they would never know how much time passed. Bought them each a yard-long Flamingo drink to keep them tidied over.

Head inside to sign up for the tables. Just opened up a new table and looking for two to three more people to fill it up. How appropriate! Unfortunately we had to sit right next to each other. Shawn being the dickhead nice friend he is sat directly to my left. Now Shawn and I have played many a home game together and I respect his play a great deal. We had an agreement going to Vegas that we would split any tournament table winnings, but not side games. Simple enough.

Bought in for $100 at a $2/4 game. I usually like to have 50BB for my buy-in, but I quickly surveyed the table and saw that is what most players had in front of them. Plus, this was my actual first poker room experience in Vegas. Start slow and gain momentum, right?

I didn’t grab my pad and pen before we checked our luggage, so I wasn’t able to take any notes on the hands doing this session, except for the one hand that I memorized. Watched Shawn blow most of his stack. I don’t know why he thought Ace high was good for a lot of hands. Maybe I won’t respect his game as much from now on. He got down to $20 bucks from his $100 buy-in when he was dealt KK. I don’t remember the position he was in or the flop. I know he ended up getting his last $20 in the pot with three callers and took down the almost $60 pot (minus rake) and he was back in the game.

Several hands later, after watching some guy catch Trip 3s with his monster 83s hand and win a nice pot, I’m dealt KK. Again, I don’t particularly remember my position in consideration to the button, but as you can probably tell, that didn’t matter much for these players. I remember that preflop it was raised twice before it even got to me. I sat there, and I’m sure I gave away a tell with a dumbfounded look on my face, thinking, “I’m sitting here with KK and it has already been raised twice?” Now, in a NL tournament, I would probably fold in that situation (unless it was these players in the tournament). I decide to cap it at $8 and three players see the flop.

3 3 J (rainbow)

I begin cussing in my head (you’ll notice I do this a lot on this trip) because I’m sure some dickhead, no, not Shawn (he folded already) had a 3. I decide that I’m going to fire away regardless. A bet of $2 is out there, I raised it to $4. Both players call. I begin to think that if I had the 3 I probably would have raised? Maybe not.

Fourth Street – 8

A bet of $4 is out there. I raise to $8. One folds. Down to two players.

River – 3

“Motherfucker. Rotten son-of-a-bitch!” Just screaming that in my head, not out loud. The Flamingo has rules against berating other players or screaming obscenities. Hellmuth won’t be playing there. Well, now I have the decision to make. I like the amount in the pot but I hate seeing that third 3 remembering that one of the players still in the hand played the 83s earlier.

Player 1 checks. Hero bets $4. Player 1 raises to $8. My poker face here wasn’t so good I’m sure. Hero raises to $12. Player 1 thinks for a few minutes making me think “I’m good!” Player 1 calls.

Player 1 flips J5. Hero flips KK!

The guy looked defeated (and he was). He flopped the highest two pair on the board, but I would have at least thought he might think the other 3 was out there too. He finally said nice hand and I scooped up the $89 pot. That got me to about +60 for the time being. I wasn’t going to be the guy who scoops a large pot and walks away either.

Unfortunately, I got a little lax after that and chased some flops and wasn’t very smart. I ended up giving a good amount of it away, some to Shawn when I had the best and gave him credit for a better hand … so I mucked. He played that hand well. About the last one I saw him play really well.

Some more time lapsed and we had to get up. That was the only pot worth mentioning. I ended up about $20 for the time being. High hopes were floating in my head.

Go check on the women and find them about 2½ sheets to the wind. Just about 3 sheets. They had a couple more of the Flamingo yard drinks and were feeling quite good.

A few hours pass until we grab a little bite to eat (nothing good to report there) and went to ‘O’ at the Bellagio. In time to pick up the ducats and get a good drink or two. Two rows from the top for $100 per ticket. Another $40 bucks for two drinks, a chocolate covered strawberry and bottle water for the Wife. I figure the theatre sits about 2,000 people. Tickets range from $100-300 (I think). Just doing a safe estimate that every ticket is $200 and every couple spends another $40 in drinks/snacks – that’s $480,000 per show. Two shows per night - $960,000 per night. They are dark on Mondays and Tuesdays, so that leaves five nights a week to make some money. By my calculations that comes to $4,800,000 per week. Not too shabby huh? For the year – $249,600,000. I know it took me two months advance to book my tickets. I would tend to think this isn’t the only way the Bellagio turns a profit.

About the show. I cannot go into too much detail because I was on visual overload. There was so much to watch. The performers were amazing. They did stuff that I didn’t think was humanly possible. The contortionists had me thinking dirty thoughts. It was amazing. Let’s just leave it at that. Oh yeah … I had a thought about that girl I met one night talking about going to Vegas to try out for a Cirque Du Soleil show. Man was she hot. I love gymnasts!

Left and we were about gassed for the night. I know. I know. Like I said, this wasn’t my typical trip. Normally I can go for two days straight with about 30 minutes of rest. But I didn’t feel like coming home alone.

More to come.