Memorial Crowds Flood Vegas

It is Memorial Day weekend and Vegas is gloriously flooded with tourists.

Traffic along The Strip is a case of pure torture. The sidewalks are moving masses of people doing their best to walk out in front of cars.

The mobs when the Bellagio Fountains and the Mirage Volcano erupt are screaming and well inebriated with no concept of allowing anything to pass by.

And the poker tables are full.

Last night (Saturday) I sat at poker nirvana. Four young guys (YG) who said they were from USC had brought their home game to the Mirage. All four were splashing huge bets. When they lost, which was often, one of their members would pop out a huge wad of $100 and restake his cleaned-out buddy. I love kids with silver spoons.

They also didn't tip normally. For those not in the know, Vegas dealers work mostly for tips. It is customary for the winner of the pot to push $1 or more to the dealer as gratitude to their winnings. I'll occassionally tip as high as $10 if I've stacked a monster pot. But while YGs didn't during their wins they sure they made up for it when it came for the dealer to change out. Their member in the 9 Seat would push a bunch of chips to the dealer. These were sizable piles of chips, one time it was about 40 chips, all mixed whites and reds. My rough guess was about a $120 tip to be shared by the dealers, and that was just the biggest tip.

The dealers were very happy with these guys.

Makes me almost want to become a dealer.

Almost.

Okay, not really but I was definitely glad for the dealers. Good for thse dealers too, because these well lubricated YGs were a handful, making wild requests, acting out of turn, getting into conversations and ignoring action in front of them. They were nice drunks, but their exuberance were like puppies with new toys.

It even rubbed off on me. For some reason I couldn't get my bets right. I was constantly tossing out undersized calls or making raises that were under the minimum raise for the time. The dealers were patiently getting my attention that they needed another red chip, or...

I ended up going to the old standby of calling my action just to make sure it was clear what I really wanted to do. It just sucks getting old.

The game also had a couple TAG locals in the mix so it was a very good and predictable table. It would have been better if I had caught better cards because when people are willing to call big pot raises with nothing but K high you have to have something. I snagged two big pots where my 2-pairs managed to avoid a bunch of straight and flush draws.What with the big raises and re-rases from YGs there were no small pots to be had.

In the end the YGs headed out for a date at Hakkasan and the table died a sudden death. It was a good solid win for me and I was happy.

I hope they are back Sunday evening.

A Smaller Mirage Poker Room Re-opens

With reports running that the Mirage Poker Room had officially re-opened on Friday morning I went by in the evening to check to see. I came away with some mixed feelings.

The old Mirage Poker Room had been getting a little threadbare, and it has definitely been given a once over. Everything is all new. It also now only has 12 poker tables and takes up less than half the space it used to. In fact, although everything is comfortable it certainly has a cramped feel to it.

The chairs seem a bit weird to me. They have broad backs and they  move well. You'd think they would be comfortable. I was having a twitchy back this evening, though and these seats didn't help that.

When I got there I could tell their Bravo system wasn't working well, or the staff still hadn't figured out how to use it. Dealers could scan you in table side so you could get credit for your play comps, but brushes were continuously calling over the PA system asking what tables had open seats. The Bravo display by the podium also showed only one table was playing 1/2NL but there was actually 2-3 tables playing that game.

I chatted with some of the staff and they mentioned that on Thursday it was basically an empty room, and that all the tables and systems had been flung together in a single 24-hour period. That explains why there were glitches getting worked out.

Poker-wise it was a glorious mix of creaky septuagenarians, Asian kamikazes and middle aged golf buddies going all in on Top Pair Medium Kicker. In other words it was 1/2NL grinder heaven.

Earlier I had gone a couple hours at a nitty table at the Venetian. It had been a frustrating session, with me trying to bully people who didn't know they can fold, and thus I walked away from that earlier session down $150 before I could do more damage to my bankroll.

But the golf buddies at Mirage were a great tonic. One went all in with AT on a ten high board and got snapped off by my pocket Kings. The other had Aces and lost a big pot to my 2-pair. Both mega-tilted and started spewing chips right and left. No hands really come to mind, but they did a lot of over betting on thin draws and paid the price.

I ended up $1050, for a net win for the day of $900. I have been spending most of my time lately at the Venetian, mostly because the rake is so good right now. But the games keep getting tighter and nittier and I think I need to move on. This weekend there are a couple of good conferences in town, so I think I'll be hitting some of the other rooms before the WSOP kicks off next week.

It has been a super week for me and I hope I can keep it going this weekend. Bet well all.