Trip Report 7/13 - 7/20

This is my trip report from a trip to Vegas a few

weeks ago. It was part business part pleasure. I met

my dad, brother and sister out there for the weekend

and then I had a conference start on Tue.

Departed the 505 (NM) on Southwest Friday afternoon. Flight

was full but had an “A” so I got a window. I usually

prefer an aisle unless going to Vegas when I prefer a

Window so I can see the strip on arrival. Sat next to

a girl who was going there for a BMX competition. I

hope she won. I finally have an airport story as Kenny

Thomas was on our flight. Most of you probably don’t

know who he is but he is a legend in New Mexico

basketball as he was the UNM center for several years.

He got drafted into the NBA by Houston and now plays

for the Sacramento Kings. Not many people recognized

him which he probably appreciated. I assume he was

playing in some summer league tournament while in

Vegas. New Mexico doesn’t have any pro teams so

college players are all we have to pull for. The short

list of Athletes off the top of my head that have ties

to NM athletics are Brian Urlacher, Kenny Thomas, Michael Cooper

(Lakers), Maloof Brothers (they own the Kings and the

Palms), Johnny Tapia (Boxer) and Bob Frazier (he

fought Ali). I’m probably forgetting some but that’s

all that I can think of.

The first few days four of us crammed in one room at

Bills. Got a rate of 99$ for Fri. and Sat. which I

thought was pretty good. The rooms are pretty basic

with the exception of the Flat Screen TV. It’s amazing

what a TV like that can do to improve the room. Bills

is a great location. The casino is small, I didn’t see

any $5 blackjack all they had was $10. They also do

not have a poker room. Managed to get settled and down

to the lobby in time for Big Elvis. For a free show,

in my opinion, this is the best free show in Vegas and

possibly better then some shows that charge a fee.

Some people on this forum have complained his voice

isn’t that good and doesn’t sound like Elvis. I say

those people are crazy, I doubt you could find anyone

in Vegas who sounds more like Elvis then this guy.

Those people are probably Beatles fans. I say you are

either a Beatles Guy or an Elvis guy. I am an Elvis

guy and the Beatles fans can go hang out at Love (8^)

My dad’s birthday was a couple of months ago so we all

chipped in and got him tickets for Danny Gans as that

is who he said he wanted to see. I sort of rolled my

eyes when I heard that but if that’s who he wanted to

see I would help make it happen. Tickets were $100

each. We had pretty good seats for the Friday night

show and had him an aisle seat. I wasn’t expecting

much but I must say Mr. Gans is extremely talented

with all his impressions and the show was funny in

parts but not worth a $100. He has a good backing band

with horns and is pretty energetic but just not my

thing. My dad enjoyed it so that’s all that mattered.

Saturday we headed to the Rio to watch the World

Series of Poker main Event. At that point they were

down to 75 players (out of over 6000 who each put up

$10,000 to enter). It was free to get in and watch

and pretty cool. The only pros left (that I

recognized) were Huck Seed, Gus Hansen, and Scotty

Nuegyn. We saw Huck Seed get knocked out, I think he

won the main event in the late 90s. We stayed for a

few hours where they got down to 52 players and then

they took their dinner break. Milwaukee Best Light was

the sponser and they had a bar in the back where they

were giving out free Milwaukee Best Light’s in a can.

That was awesome, obviously the beer isn’t usually my

first choice of an adult beverage, but it was free, cold

and plentiful. They were obviously filming and I can’t

wait to see it on ESPN in a few weeks. I think the

person who got knocked out at 55 earned like $180,000

– not too shabby. We thought about going back later

that night but never made it. Instead we went to the

Wynn for their buffet.

Many threads about Buffets on here but I think the

Wynn is the best if you like Crab Legs. They have

these huge Crab Legs, which are all you can eat, they

slice them open so you don’t have to peel them. The

rest of the buffet is also good but I don’t think it

is any better then some of the other buffet’s in

Vegas. I think the crab legs are what sets this buffet

apart from the others. It is pricy though as it costs

$40 with tax per person, then you should leave a tip

at the end so probably $45 total. After this we went

to Harrah’s and played the $50 No limit 11:00pm

tournament. There were three tables. I played for a

couple of hours and made it to probably to 16th place

before getting knocked out which is well out of the

money. Ended up going all in with Ace/King versus pair

of kings before the flop. Can you say dominated? One

interesting note there was one guy who finished 50

something in the World Series Main Event a couple of

hours earlier and he was playing in this $50

tournament. He just won over $150,000 and was at

Harrah’s playing. Someone asked him what the hell he

was doing there and he responded that he anticipated

playing in the main event until 2 or 3am but instead

got knocked out early and he just felt like continuing playing

poker as that was what he had planned on doing. I

imagine the competition at Harrah’s was not quite as

good as what was going on over at the Rio for the

World Series. Interestingly enough he didn’t make it

past the first hour of the Harrah’s tournament. I know

he wasn’t lying either because I remember seeing him

play at the World Series earlier that afternoon when I

was there watching.

Sunday I checked out of Bills and moved to Harrahs

where I would be the rest of my stay. That afternoon

we went to Imperial Palace and bet on the ponys. I

made one bet for $2 on a trifecta (where you pick the

correct horses to finish 1,2, and 3) and ended up

picking correctly and won $140 on a $2 bet. I don’t

have much experience on horses but I was told that

doesn’t happen very often. The drink service was

prompt and the Horse part of the Sports Book was a

nice setup. I cannot recommend the rest of the sports

book for watching Football, Baseball, etc. There are

much nicer places to do that.

My family left Sunday night so I was on my own the

rest of the week. Most of the week was my conference

so I’ll just hit the highlights.

Subway and Starbucks. Dang they are expensive in

Vegas. A sub that costs 5$ at home costs $8+ in Vegas

and Starbucks Coffee at home is $1.80 and Vegas $3.

I tried the $20 trick Harrah’s. Again much discussion

on this but I am a firm believer in it. I think this

is the best bet you could place in Vegas. If you lose,

you are out $20. If you win, you are going to be in a

fat suite during your stay. I have gotten the fat

suite before with the $20 trick so I continue to try

it. This time I tried and she said she upgraded me to

the Mardi Gras tower. I was getting a rate of $70/nite

(during the week). I have never stayed at Harrah’s so

I have no way of knowing if this was an upgrade or not

but probably not. The room was pretty small but it did

have a large TV and another TV in the bathroom. I had

a view of the Pool but really nothing else. I probably

lost this time on the $20 trick but I will continue to

try. One thing about the room I did not like was the

Air Conditioning. It had some type of motion sensors

so that if you were in the room, there was no problem

and the room did get cool. But if you left your room,

I guess the Air Conditioning automatically turns off

so whenever you returned it was pretty hot although it

did eventually cool off. I am sure this is a great

invention for conserving energy and all that but I

prefer to have control over the temperature and keep

it whatever I want during my stay. Al Gore would

probably disagree with me though. One night I was

trying to go to sleep and could hear the bass from

what I guess was Carnival Court outside. Unless you

get a good rate, I probably wouldn’t recommend

Harrah’s. It is a great location though.

Played a lot of Poker during this time. Mainly 2-4

Limit. I earned my first comp this way. At Imperial

Palace every hour you play poker they give you $2 in

comps. I eventually had enough for a free buffet at

Imperial Palace. You might be thinking, that’s cool,

so you actually paid $100 for the buffet based on what you lost at the poker table. Not so. I ended up doing very well at the Poker table and this

was honestly a free buffet. You would think the

Imperial Palace buffet would have Chinese food given

the theme of the hotel but they didn’t. The buffet was

like JFG coffee – Just F***ing Good. If you have to

pay for the buffet, I can’t recommend it. They don’t

even come around and give you your drink like they do

at most buffets. Here it is self service.

I also played at Flamingo 2-4 Limit Poker. There was

one guy here who obviously was a good poker player but

whenever someone would suck out on him and win the pot

he would get all pissed and tell the player what a

stupid idiot he was and why he shouldn’t have won that

pot. For example a player went into the pot with Queen

3 suited in early position. Basic strategy will tell

you this isn’t a good starting hand in early position

as you could get raised before seeing the flop. If you

are in late position you can at least justify it a

little more because you probably won’t get raised. But

with Q3 suited even if you do hit your flush it’s

possible you could be up against a higher flush and if

you hit a Queen on the flop you have no kicker to back

it up. Anyway, this guy goes in with Q3 the “good”

player has Ace Jack. Flop comes with an Ace and a

Jack. So this guy has two pair and the guy with the Q3

stays in the pot to eventually hit the river to make

an inside straight with his Queen to beat the two

pair (no diamond flush draw by the way). The “good” player proceeds to berate this guy

and tell the whole table what an idiot this guy is,

etc. When this happens to me, and it does quite often

at 2-4, I prefer to congratulate the player and tell

him “nice hand”. The reason being that you don’t want

to discourage players like this, you want to keep them

in the game, and keep them thinking that they can

continue to hit inside straight draws like that on the

river. In the long run players like this are going to

lose their money. I see no sense making fun of him and

trying to run him off when a better “tight” player

might sit down who will fold the next time you have a

big hand and bet into him.

I had played 3-6 limit before but decided to try 4-8

this trip so off to the Bellagio I went. Man this

poker room is great. I was a little nervous, not so

much that I was afraid of losing my money, but I just

assumed the competition would be harder because of the

higher limits. At Bellagio 4-8 is the cheapest limit

game they have so even though it is double the stakes

from across the street what I learned is there are

people at these tables who are also not very good and

might not realize that a cheaper game can be found

across the street but they figure they will buy into

the lowest limit game at Bellagio and “give it a

shot”. I actually ended up doing really well here

winning over $100 and didn’t find the players to be

that much better than at the 2-4 game over at Flamingo

and Imperial Palace. With a $4-8 game even if you can

win 1 or 2 pots they are going to be large and you

should come out ahead if you play very tight.

Dang this is getting long so going to finish up here.

Was playing poker at Harrah’s later in the week and

the dealer said Scotty Ngueyn (poker pro) had come in

the night before around 1am. The dealer said he was

playing the 1-2 no limit cash game and when he

finished he tipped all the dealers working $20 each.

Apparently Scotty use to work at Harrah’s as a busboy

many years ago. The dealer said Scotty told him he use

to walk by the Harrah’s poker room on his shift dreaming of one day

having enough money to play the no limit game there.

Now he is a Poker legend and finished 11th in the

World Series Main Event earlier in the week, by the

way, winning over $500,000. I guess Scotty still

considers Harrah’s his home. I love those Rags to

Riches stories.

Gambling for the entire trip: Ended up winning $200

for Limit Poker. Lost at least that much entering the

No Limit tournaments. About even from playing black

jack and craps - if you count all the free drinks I

received during the trip and the IP Buffet (I believe

this is called Fuzzy math). And then my horse betting

mentioned earlier put me up $100 for the whole trip.

Always remember to factor in the free drinks when you

are calculating your win/loss for a Vegas trip. The

Venetian charges $7 for a Miller Light bottle so that

should help you some in your calculation.

To sum it up, I love this town and can’t wait to come

back. A week is too long (for me). I would say a Thur.

– Sunday trip is just right. Oh yeah don’t forget to

take Monday off, you will need it! Thanks to everyone

on here who gave me ideas. I hope someone gets

something out of my report.

Trip Report 7/13 - 7/20

Thanks for the TR, I appreciate the poker info. The guy who was whining at Flamingo is an idiot. If he was truly a ';good poker player';, he should know better than to think he%26#39;s going to chase people out of the pot at a 2-4 limit game. If you can%26#39;t handle that half the hands are going to be won on the river by people with crap in their hands, you don%26#39;t play low limit poker. %26#39;Nuff said.

When I played last at Excalibur, there was a guy who was complaining about the same thing, but he was doing it in a cheerful way so it wasn%26#39;t bothering anybody, and certainly never berated anybody.

Trip Report 7/13 - 7/20

Thanks for the report, I definitley want to see Big Elvis now. I am no expert, but from what little I do know, winning on a trifecta is tough, so congrats about that.

';Always remember to factor in the free drinks when you

are calculating your win/loss for a Vegas trip';

Where did you hear this? I just go by how much I actually lost gambling, which is usually everything I brought with me so it%26#39;s not hard to calculate, lol.

Thanks for the TR and the poker insight.

TXVegasGirl - Factoring in the drinks was mostly a joke. With the assumption that most people (including myself) usually lose when going to Vegas, by factoring in the drinks it can help you ';justify'; your losses.

Zamg...a bit of Lobos nostalgia. I went to HS with former hoops coach Dave Bliss and our class reunion is this weekend.Unfortunately he self-destructed at Baylor so I don%26#39;t expect that he will be in town for the celebration.

Those of us who knew him were shocked and disappointed by his actions as he really was a good person.Obviously he allowed his character to be compromised by the'; system';.

Very good TR you win some you lose some on the 20.00 trick.

What a great report and enjoyed all the poker info...and another Lobos comment. (I think) JR Giddens played for them last season...had been a Jayhawk, but I can%26#39;t remember if he was coming back this season. Do you know?

thanx for tr!