Playing at Binions

We played poker at Binions on Wednesdsay, after eating a couple more deep fried twinkies at The Mermaid, naturally. They don’t seem to cater too much to the professional crowd now that The Strip casinos have taken over. Binion’s spread 1/2NL, 2/4, and a single table of 3/6, so we played 2/4 to avoid a wait. Even the tables and dealers seemed old fashioned. The dealers all looked like they’ve been in Vegas way too long and the tables had old, rough felt with no lines or marking or anything anywhere. I’m not sure I’ve seen any felts without at least a oval line to show you where to place your bets.

The Bellagio and the Worst Beat Possible

We figured we couldn’t leave Vegas without at least playing a little poker in the Bellagio. This involved bumping our game up to 4/8 limit, where our old high game had been 3/6. It’s only a 33% increase, but it felt like a lot, especially given my luck which was possibly the worst it’s ever been. The players were terrible, playing ridiculous cards overly aggressively, and I just haven’t been lucky enough to win when everyone calls to the river. It didn’t work out for me at Ballys and this was no different.

Bellagio makes me feel bad too. Sitting at their cheapest table and losing is kinda sad when you are constantly listening to them calling peoples names to play 100/200, 10/20NL, 25/50NL, and 50/100NL. I mean, holy sh*t, a wait list for 50/100NL? The minimum buy-in for 1/2 at Excalibur is $100, so maybe the min for 50/100 at Bellagio is $5000? With the very real potential of losing it all in any given hand. Wow. The kid to my left when I sat down, who couldn’t have been any older than me, stood up after only a few minutes to claim his seat at a 30/60 table. Wow, again. Also their dealers were mostly foreign born with less than a mastery of the English language, and their cocktail service was terrible. Besides for having crazy high stake games, the Bellagio poker room did not impress.

Now let me set the stage for the worst hand of my life …

Kings Cracked!

My normal poker game has been the aces and kings cracked early morning promotion at the Imperial Palace. From 8AM-11AM they pay you a $50 or $100 bonus if someone cracks your kings or aces, respectively, so Anand, a whole bunch of grumpy old regulars, and I go most mornings and play 2/4 limit. The bonus is pretty hefty and goes a large way in making up for the proportionally larger rake in 2/4. My running stat line is 16/13/3: 16 three-hour morning sessions, 13 times dealt kings or aces, and 3 times having them cracked. I don’t have the memory to keep track of kings and aces individually, but all the times I’ve been cracked it’s been kings. The dealer yells “kings cracked” when it happens, hence this post’s title. That’s $150 of bonuses on what I would guess is less than average luck when it comes to getting hands cracked. One guy got aces cracked three times and kings cracked twice all in one three hour morning session. I’m waiting for that.

Speaking of waiting, the promotion is doubly entertaining in that it changes the strategy. When you get aces or kings you just limp in, and check/call through to the river. You only need $10 in the pot to qualify for the bonus, so you can just sit back ultra-passive and hope people hit their inside straight draws and runner-runner flushes. You’ll never see so many people get mad about winning with aces or kings.

Plus, and probably more importantly, though less exciting than winning free money, the old regular folks play tight, and I’ve been beating them fairly consistently. It’s easier to win and less crazy for the ol’ bankroll when you aren’t playing with maniacal, drunken tourists late at night. On top of all this, every morning is it’s own little drama, Grumpy Old Men style. Lots of yelling, and card throwing, and ridiculous poker advice. I’ll probably try to describe some of them individually on this blog’s counterpart, but it would be hard to do them any justice.

Foray into No LImit

I finally played some no-limit for the first time on Tuesday. 1-2 No Limit at Imperial Palace to be exact. Standard strategy says you are supposed to buy in for the max, which is $300 and a great deal more than I’d be comfortable losing on a single hand. While the money is a bit out of my comfort range, the players are still terrible and there’s potential to make a lot of money with some patience, tight play, and average luck. That being said, I was dealt a plenitude of 6-2s and other stellar cards, and lost enough money to more than negate my record setting positive morning of 2/4 limit poker. This was a few days ago, but here are the hands I remember the best, roughly:

• I have 88 on the button and call a middle position raise to $5 to see the flop with four other people. The flop is something like J74, with one card higher than my 8’s and it gets checked around to me. With likely only the remaining jacks to worry about, I bet $15 into the $25 pot and take it down. I think this is was good play. Kinda risky I suppose, but someone would have to be playing a jack really poorly or slow playing a set to be ahead of me. And then I’d be screwed.

My Lucky Medallion Comes Up Big

We finally picked up our complimentary lucky medallions from Caesar’s Palace yesterday before playing some 2/4 at Imperial Palace. I think this gross oversight could be responsible for my not being a famous poker player yet. Hidden in my pocket, the medallion’s effect was tempered for all but the last several hands of the session, but radiating luck at even a fraction of capacity, it still willed me to victory. One fairly monster hand went roughly like this:

• I have J♥T♦, four or five people limp in, I follow suit in late position, and the blinds call. The flop is Q♣J♦5♥, giving me a fairly unimpressive middle pair with lowish kicker and crappy back door straight draw. In ultra-loose low stakes limit hold-em games the odds are right to try and get lucky (especially with a lucky medallion in your pocket), so i joined four or five other folks and called a $2 bet to see the turn card. T♣. Excellent! Someone would have to be pretty amazingly awful to have AK and not raise pre-flop, so that’s one straight combination I’m not overly concerned about. K9 and 89 for straights or QJ and QT for better two-pairs are possible, but not worth worrying about at this point. Someone bets, two people call, and I raise with everyone calling. Big pot. The river is the J♣, which is a fantastic card. It likely gives someone the flush they wanted while giving me an even better full house. The first guy leads out, next calls, the guy to my right raises, and I 3-bet. Only the guy to my right calls and he shows me the ace high flush. I could possibly have gotten one more bet into the pot if I had just called and let the other two players call behind me, but I think raising has more potential.

I Got to Spin the Wheel!

If you get a high hand or lose with AA at Excalibur, they let you spin a The Price is Right type wheel. The wheel at Imperial Palace (which comes into play differently) has mugs, t-shirts, hats, and other crap mixed in with the cash, but the wheel at Excalibur is all cash, ranging from $20 to $100. I was dealt JJ, flopped a set, and rivered quads to win a fair amount of money from a guy over-playing his QQ on a board showing an Ace. Plus my hand qualified for a wheel spin! Naturally I spun $20, with the flipper getting infinitesimally close to 85$ before giving up and settling on the lowest amount possible. Also notable is that this is only the second high hand I’ve hit since coming to Vegas (the other being the second day I played) and I managed to do it the one time I played at a casino that doesn’t have automatic progressive jackpot bonuses. At imperial palace you are guaranteed $40 and it can get much higher if no one hits the hand for a while. At Bally’s the jackpot starts at $60. I’ve played at those two places 25 out of 31 sessiosn, but managed to hit the high hand elsewhere. Doh. If I had spun $100 I’d probably have been better off being at Excalibur though, so that’s just fine. What was less fine is the rest of the poker for the night; I’d have needed quad jacks a couple more times to get back out of the red.

Back in the Green!

After a few bad sessions in a row and a decent sized break, I finally won big! I won … let’s see … bought in for …, came out with …, factor back in chips for cocktail waitress tips …, carry the one …, 2 bucks! Woohoo! Well, cheap entertainment and Guinness is always nice. Highlights:

• I have 2♦3♦ and the flop is A♣4♦5♦. Umm, yay. A straight and an open ended straight flush draw. Also, this was the very next hand after I almost hit another low diamond straight flush, but that was with something like 4♦7♦ and would have been a crappy no-bonus one-carder. Anyway, with the 2♦3♦ I got a flush but no straight flush and won the hand. A straight flush would have given me 150$ or so of High Hand bonus money since we were playing at Bally’s.
• I have Q♣K♥ and the flop is Q♥Q♦7♣. Yippee! Well, around 35$ of bets and raises later we have a showdown, and the other guy flips over … Q7 for the flopped full house. Ouch.
• I have Q♣Q♥ and raise from the button with the BB and three or so limpers calling. The flop is T♣5♥7♣. It’s checked to me and I bet with a couple people calling. Turn is a 4♦ or some crap like that; I really don’t remember besides that I was pretty sure I was still in the lead. Right as, or just after, the second guy puts his 6$ in to call my bet he says “you’re going to hate me.” Uh, okay. He’s been drinking a fair amount, so him telling me right out that he got lucky against me isn’t too surprising. Kinda odd that he did it before even seeing the river. The river: 8♣. It’s checked to me and I check and ask him if he hit some garbage two pair. The guy has something like J♣4♣ for the flush, meaning he told me that I was going to hate him before he even saw that last card that gave him the flush. Weird. I was actually too busy being confused to see exactly what he had. He might have had a pair or a straight draw too, but he definitely beat me on the river.

Come on Luck, Where Ya At!?

My bad luck carried over from two days ago, with me winning 2.5 hands in 3.5 hours playing 3/6 at Bally’s. Very, very not good. I’m guessing the problem was that I chose to wear a hat today; apparently it’s unlucky. Here were some highlights, i.e. mini-tragedies:

• I have K♥Q♦ in the BB and the flop is something like K♣6♣2♣. I bet, a couple people call. The turn is low non-spade and I bet with one caller. River is 8♣ (yay, another!) and I lose to someone holding the J♣.
• I raise with A♣J♣ in MP, two people behind me and the BB call, and the flop is J♦T♥4♣. BB bets, I raise, person to my left calls, BB calls. Turn is something low, BB bets, I raise again, person to my left calls again. I probably should have just folded when he led out into me again, but alas, how was I supposed to know they both flopped sets against my top pair. TT in the big blind, 44 to my left. Yay!
• I have T♣J♦ in the cutoff and limp. Five or so see the flop of 7♣8♣9♣, giving me the straight and a straight flush draw. The river is another spade, but not the six or jack, and I lose to someone who actually flopped the flush with K♣5♣ or some crap like that. People need to stop flopping flushes every time I have top pair or better.
• I get my highest pocket pair of the night, 9♣9♥, and the flop is K♦T♦6♣. I fold. Run of the mill hand, only notable in that within 3.5 hours of playing, I’d hope to get something a little more exciting than pocket nines.
• Three people limp, button raises, and I 3-bet from the small blind with A♥K♣. Two limpers and the button call. The flop is K♥J♣7♦, I bet and one limper and button call. Turn is the 9♣, I bet and they call. River is the T♥, I check, limper checks, button bets, and I pay him off to see his J♦Q♦ for a winning straight on the river. Not awesome.

Playing Poker with Momsy

I played 2/4 at Imperial Palace last night with my mom, Glen, and Anand. She folded the first two times she was BB instead of checking. Then two other times when she folded, she just said ‘fold’ and kept her cards, much to everyone’s confusion. Her and Glen both looked at their cards about 15 times per hand, holding them straight up on the table – I caught Glen’s neighbor checking out his cards a few times. I also got reprimanded about 6 times by various dealers for helping my mom during hands, which I actually wasn’t doing. I was just telling what she could do – not what she should do. It was about as frustrating as I imagined, but entertaining enough. Sadly, I lost the exact same amount of money as my mom, although to my credit, it took me a solid three times as long to do so. We all four lost money, for a grand total of 250+ dollars. Yippee!

The highlight of the night was the last three hands I played strongly preflop. In each of those three hands, the person I was against flopped a flush against my top pair or better. First I had JJ for an overpair, then AT pairing the top card ten, and the last time AQ with an Ace on the flop.  The odds of flopping a flush? 118 to 1. And it happened against me three times in a row. This is a stupid, stupid game.

The Mirage and Bad Players

We tried out the Mirage poker room yesterday. It was alright. Big, with some high limit games, good crowd, and tables whose felts were slanted inwards. My chips kept felling over after I sat down. And then they kept finding their way to the house and other players, as I only won one hand in the two hours that I was playing. It was a pretty miserable session, and I stood up, dejected, around midnight. I got two AQ’s that hit nothing on the flop and one KK that hit an ace and lost to A8o. Other than that, my cards were crap, which was too bad since some of the players there were terrible.