I sleep in again and spend the day relaxing. By the late afternoon, Michael and I decide to head in to the strip. We wander around for a while and eventually head to the Caesars Palace buffet for dinner. For $29.99 apiece we’re treated to a nice assortment of roasts, asian dishes, salads, soup and all of the usual treats that are found at a Vegas buffet. In an unusual feature, every table gets its own seafood platter. I don’t normally eat seafood but I try the prawns (that’s shrimp for you Americans) and crab; hey, while in Vegas, I may as well try new things.

The food is quite good and I overdose on roast turkey and kung pow chicken. The service and desserts are disappointing though; our waitress only has four tables in her section, it’s a hassle ordering drinks and the empty plates pile up on all four tables until we start dumping them on an unused table, everyone else follows suit and the unusued table quickly has about sixteen (i’m not exaggerating) plates on it. She brings us the wrong drinks repeatedly and informs us that they’re out of the large glasses so we get kids sized drinks. Here’s my breakdown of the Caesars Buffet

Price: Average
Mains: Above average
Misc Food: Average
Desserts: Below average
Service: Abysmally bad, worse than anywhere i’ve ever seen

Fortunately, the dining experience is decent overall though due to the quality of the mains and at about 9pm; Michael and I are finally full and we head out for a session of low stakes gambling against the house.

First up is the wheel like object that they spin and you can bet on numbers. After about half an hour, i’ve made a net profit of $1 and I decide to move on to the roulette table. I break even exactly at roulette and find my way over to a $1 video blackjack machine. I luckbox my way to being up over four dollars at one point, before hitting a cold streak. I get unstuck though and finish the session with fifty cents profit… ship it! The 11pm $125 tournament is starting soon as Caesars and Michael and I head over to register. With my $1.50 in profit, i’ve paid for about 1.2% of my buy-in! Oh yeah, bringing down the house, baby! One dollar, fifty cents and a hell of a lot of double grey goose and redbulls for Michael and Becks for me, despite my house gambling bankroll being $20. Yes, I am a table games nit.

In the tournament, Michael chips up early when he flops top set and a guy decides to put 100bb or some obscene amount in with top pair while I struggle to get off the mark; I fail to make one pair or better at any stage (with the exception of 55 once which I had to fold preflop) but somehow I manage to chip up to nearly 7,000 by the start of 300/600/75, four hours later, by stealing blinds and antes, squeezing all in with random hands ranging from KQo to T6s over limpers/raises and generally bluffing like a madman without getting caught. I’ve seen AK once which I reshoved preflop without a caller and I think my next best hands have been KQo and A7s in over four hours. Still, with an 11bb stack as we start 300/600 with about a third of the field remaining, I feel some hope as if I double to near the average i’ll be in a solid position. I finally find myself involved in my first major pot with a caller at 300/600/75

Folded to me on CO, I open shove for 6600 with Ac 2c, folded around, BB calls and turns over Ah Jd. Before I turn over my cards, the nitty button who agonised before folding asks if I have kings. LOL, Donkaments. I flip my deuce first, much to his shock and horror. Anyway, that’s quite unfortunate. Can we get a two please, dealer?

Flop: 558

I don’t suppose we could have an eight on the turn?

Turn: J

River: T

I brick out and bust without having made a pair or better in a postflop pot at any stage of the tournament. I did witness two live poker moments which make the $125 entry fee worth my while in entertainment value, however.

Hand 1

Nitty woman raises to 300, shortstacked loose-passive guy calls, LAG on the button raises to 800. Nitty woman calls. shortstacked guy announces all in for 825 total. Button calls. Without bothering to look at her stack, nitty woman announces fold then looks on in horror and when people explain it’s only 25 chips more to call into a ~2500 pot. She explains that she didn’t look at his stack and just heard all in. Okay then. The board runs out and she says that she would have lost so it turns out the fold was correct. Cool.

Hand 2

After unknown preflop action (I think a raise and a call or one limper, I wasn’t paying attention since I wasn’t in the hand), a very tight, moderately aggressive guy in late position bets 400 when it’s checked to him and SB calls. The board is KT2 rainbow and effective stacks are about 9k. The turn is 9, so the board is KT29. SB now bets 1500. Tight guy casually throws QJ into the muck face up. the other guy tables T9 faceup and looks amused. I burst out laughing along with several other players. The rest of the table looks on in shock and someone tries to explain to him that he has the nuts. He replies with ‘no I don’t’ then looks at his cards and says something to the extent of ‘oh, crap, I thought I had QT’. We continue laughing at his misfortune as explains that he didnt look at his cards postflop because he didnt want to give away tells. He goes on to say that villain probably would have made a full house anyway and he only had 400 invested so it doesnt really bother him that he folded the best hand because he would have got sucked out on and he doesn’t want to play a big pot this early.

As I said… LOL, Donkaments.

Anyhow, I bust with about 30% of the field left without making a pair or better and Michael busts out shortly after with about 20% of the field left. We stop in at a restaurant at Bill’s Gambling Hall and Saloon for some late night snacks and then head home to play a penny stakes game.

We start off playing HU HORSE, Michael crushes me during LHE and Stud, I crush him during LO8 and Razz and we break even at Stud8. After a few rotations, we change the game to PLO and after hitting an obscenely good run of cards to take the chip lead, we eventually get the last of our very short stacks in with my 78xx against his 9x8h6h3 on a Jx4h5h6x board and he bricks thre river, giving me the first victory in what will become our multi-part series of penny home games over the remainder of the summer. We decide that we’re going to Excess, a club at Encore this Saturday night for my first Las Vegas clubbing experience. Michael goes to bed and I catch up on some writing, facebook and other internet stuff and eventually crash out at about 6:30am. I need to run as hot as I do in these penny home games in a donkament sometime. When you’re playing poker, flopping top set every third hand helps.

Stats

Cash Games: $0
Tournaments: -$125
Random Degenerate Gambling: +$1.50
Penny Home Game: +$1.20 (approx)

(By the way, I have pics for the blog now since I took some today, i’ll upload them when I purchase a USB since I didn’t bring one with me).