Vegas Recap - Day 3

Before hitting the hay, I said to myself, "Get up around 10." At 10:15 I was wide awake. My buddy was still asleep, so I waited 15 minutes. Then creeped out of bed, took a pillow with me, and brought the feathery fury down on his head. Similar to me the previous day, he woke up just enough, and threw his arms up to protect himself from the soft death from above. Ah payback.

Come 11am my phone rings. My golfer friends are getting off the course early because it's cold and raining. We head down for brunch at the Spice Market again around 12:30. Tasty stuff. Good crepes, good meat.

With just enough time left, me and the other poker player wander to The Venetian for the tournament. We sign up and take our seats just as it's about to begin.

My table consisted of Zeem, Don, Pebbles, Bayne, The Wife, and three others I didn't recognize. As I sat down, Don let out a cry of dismay as I took a seat 3 to his left - "Oh God no! Not Astin too!" It seems Bayne was directly to my left. Literal AstinBaynage in real life. Carmen got a picture. To cap it off, in the first orbit Bayne beat my hand with a rivered boat and I got pocket Aces two hands later, which I naturally had to show. Also, floating T8o behind Don, almost flopping the straight, and having Don afraid to bet into me because he knew I'd pull a donkey move like that was classic. The tournament was fun for the people more than the game. I went out in the high 60's or low 70's when I finally pushed my M=1 stack blind and caught nothing. I'd made a couple stupid moves to cripple me - doubling up Falstaff, partially out of charity for the organizer (granted, I thought my AT could be good against his low stack), and bet-calling with pocket 8's on a board with 3 sixes... into pocket jacks. I was a touch angry with myself, but what's done is done.

One story out of it was of the bitchy cocktail waitress. As anyone there knows, the drink service was terrible. Our table waited a good 10-15 minute into the tourney before we saw a waitress. After that it was over an hour before Don flagged one down. Some tables had been served 3 or 4 times in that span. So Don flags a server down and asks if she can take our orders. Please note everything she says is in a bitchy tone, and Don starts civil but ends up aggravated.

"This isn't my table"
"We haven't seen anyone in over an hour"
"We have 6 waitresses sir"
"Fine, but some tables have been served 3 or 4 times, which one is ours?"
"I don't know, but there are enough, and you have one assigned to you. Don't yell at me because I'm doing my job." *walks away*
"Nice attitude"
*turns back, drops empty bottle on ground, walks back 10 ft* "I don't appreciate you complaining about me, we have a lot of people in here and you'll have to wait until your waitress comes." *leaves*

5 minutes later the manager comes by:

"I don't appreciate you yelling at our staff and throwing bottles at them"

!!!!!!!

"WHAT?? I didn't throw any bottle at anybody. And everyone here will back me up that she yelled at me first."
"We have more help coming in"
"Good, it's been 1 hr 15min since we've seen a server"
"We have two large tournaments going on"
"You knew they were happening, and some people have been served 3 or 4 times since we last SAW someone."
"Well... um.. we have more help coming in."

The tournament was a GREAT structure to start with, with good chipstacks, and a nice room. The drink service was crappy and really the only major complaint. Still, it was 1000x better than The Orleans in June.

I did get to chat with Love Elf a bit, wandered the floor to chat it up with the others and wish everyone luck. Iggy stood up from his table, came over and said, "Astin. Hi, I'm Iggy... did I already meet you?"

"Twice so far."

"Oh shit."

Don pipes up with - "HA! I told you!"

That was the third, and final meeting with Iggy on the trip.

I then went to meet up with my other friends at the Casino Royale craps table, where I ended up winning a massive $35. If I'd left immediately after I was knocked out instead of puttering around for 30 or so minutes, I'd have likely been up a grand. I love craps, but my timing was all wrong this weekend.

From there it was dinner at Planet Dailies in PH... 1/2 lb burger is a lot of burger. We dropped of one of my buddies at the airport, with a whopping 40 minutes to spare before his flight left, and then two of us proceeded to the MGM on fight night for some poker while the 3rd walked The Strip.

No bloggers that I recognized at the MGM (perhaps still waiting for drinks at The Venetian? The tourney was still going on at this point - after 11pm), but lots of fish. I was jealous of my buddy getting a brand new table to play with, which he did quite nicely at. Me? I was put next to two local regulars, a halfway decent player, and a bunch of donkeys. Next to that annoyingly loud bar. Now normally, none of this is a problem. In fact, I played and won two hands blind, had fun with the few hands I did make, but generally folded a bunch. I paid for information once but never got to use it as I left before playing that particular donkey again (yes sir, your limp-call pre-flop with QTo is brilliant. As was your pushing of my pot-sized bet on the flop of Q66 that was $1 more than a minraise). But the most notable guy was this one:

Skinny white guy, I'd put him in his late 20's to mid 30's. Four layers of clothes on. Looked a little like Ichabod Crane. On his first hand he limp-pushed with kings. It quickly became obvious that he only played premium pairs, ace-face, and paint. He'd limp-push with aces or kings, push on the flop if he had overs, and would otherwise play very weak. If his post-flop bet wasn't a push, you could beat him with a raise. Totally played like he was an online multitabler.

Fine. Except he was also a dick. He gets to the river on T-high board, calling all the way. The bettor flips Tx, and he SLOWROLLS Jacks. Beat... beat... beat... flip one jack... beat... beat.. flip second jack. We were almost ready to throw something at him from our end. One of the locals speaks up, "Sir, you realize it's INCREDIBLY poor etiquette to slowroll in a live game? Or you do you not care?" No response. "You don't care. Okay." The dealer turns to us and says he hasn't seen a slowroll like that in a looong time, and it's been 6 months since he's seen anything close. This is when I noticed that this ass hadn't tipped the dealer ONCE, despite having 3 buy-ins in front of him. I played a couple more orbits and finally left. Called it an early night at 2am. I did regret having only seen the bloggers during the tournament though.