Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Vegas Trip Day 1: Are We Drinking Yet?

Ah, the freedom from reality. No deadlines at work. No worrying whether or not your drooling on yourself from too much to drink. All the hot women love you for your sparkling personality. The excitement that your $1 bet could make you a millionare. Watching people bet your annual income on the roll of the dice or the turn of a card. Yes its VEGAS BABY!

The flight over to the adult Disneyworld was rather pleasant as me and the wife watched The Incrediables on the mini DVD player. Excellent film once again by the Pixar people. Champion Air still gives out snacks unlike tight-wad airlines like Northwest so we dined on goldfish pretzels and 7up. From my window seat I got a breath-taking view of the desert below since there was still daylight as we passed through Nevada (wish I had the camera to take a picture). We touched down around 5pm and was immediately met by a rush-hour like mob. Most of the people were heading back home after their weekend of debasement while my week was just starting! Getting the luggage was much easier as the construction of the luggage ports finally seemed to be done. After retrieving the luggage we decided to hail a cab for the most direct route to the hotel. Wrong. It seemed that 500 other people had the same idea and we waited in a Space Mountain snaked line for 30 minutes to finally get a cab. We told the nice middle-eastern gentleman to drive us to Treasure Island. Unfortunately for the first time in seven years of going to Vegas he took us through the tunnel and onto the highway just in time for rush hour (say bye bye tip). After the usual near meet-your-maker cab ride we arrived at TI groggy but ready for some Vegas fun!

Check-in was a breeze and the clerk confirmed my wife's spa appointment for the morning (which I was worried that they may have lost the appointment since I made it nearly a month ago). After not eating all day we unpacked our things into the room to head down to the Terrance Cafe for a quick bite. I had the Sirlion burger with BBQ sauce while she ate one of the biggest Reubens I'd ever seen. Now its been four hours in Vegas and I hadn't even had a drop of alcohol, this would need to be taken care of quickly. "Lets go play some slots" said my wife. So, after hitting up some penny slots for two minutes a very attractive waitress (are those uniforms a test or something? sheesh) came over to take our order. I started with Coronas while the wife got her usual Vodka Collins. After losing $10 and me getting three more beers we headed to the other side of the casino to check out their nightclub Tangerine (which hotel stayers get free admission to). But unfortunately it was closed so we played some Sherwood Forest penny slots and I was greeted with 2 more drinks (I switched to my usual rum and coke at this time). And the wife being not quite the degenerate gambler as her husband headed up to bed while I declared its time for some poker!

Since Treasure Island doesn't have a poker room, I've heard rumors that The Mirage does... so I took the tram connecting the two hotels and took in the action. I watched a $40/$80 game for about 10 minutes. Action you want? Action you get! Good god, I watched two hands capped by three people with a lowly pair a sevens winning one of them. Another hand, the mighty 32s defeated 62s calling all the way.... with a pair of threes and three paint cards on the board with no flush draws. Am I ready to call someone down with a pair of threes for $240? Nay. So, I went up to put my name down for $3/$6 and quickly a new table came together. Nice! No three hour wait like at Canterbury for low stakes. Even better is that once I sat down a waitress was waiting to bring me another rum and coke.

The table makeup was four locals all sitting in seats 1-4, one of them even check-raised on a hand! The horror! A petite good-looking asian girl in the 5 with me in the 6 (she played very tightly I even dropped top two on a hand to see her showdown a flopped broadway straight vs. 4 people betting into her with just a pair). A very nervous old guy in the seven seat, and a clueless tourist in a the eight seat made the entire table worth sitting at. I lost 7BBs that first night but I had a blast. Playing live poker rocks my socks. Its so much more enjoyable to chat with people and see the laughter after you tell a joke, or the expression on their faces after taking a beat.

There's only one hand I really remember from the night since I didn't play in many pots. I found TT one off the button with 2 limpers behind me and raised it up. Button dropped, Clueless defended, local #1 defended, one limper dropped, and the other called. Four handed to see a flop of A 9 4 rainbow. Stupid ace! The blinds checked, limper checked, I bet, Clueless calls, local calls (didn't like him calling), and the limper folded. The turn was a 7 completing the rainbow. Check, check, I bet almost expecting the check-raise from the local, Clueless calls again (I put him on Ace-rag at this point), the local looked down and apparently didn't like what he saw because he folded. Two players to showdown. The river was a 6 putting a possible, yet weird straight on the board. Since Clueless was rebuying several times and showing down almost any two cards I checked to get a free showdown, especially if he had the Ace-rag. He did check, and I checked behind to get the free showdown. I show my tens (the local wasn't too happy, maybe he thought he was outkicked?) and Clueless with a smile on his face says "You got me" as he turned over K2o. Wow. I wasn't sure how to react seeing he called me down with nothing but an undercard to the board, but hey I'll take it.

After playing for 4 hours, I limped back to TI with a belly full of rum to watch the games going on. What sucked was I wanted to gamble but the minimum on the tables was $15. Sigh. I had enough sense not to try throwing dice or playing Pai Gow for my stash while shitfaced (this won't be the same state-of-mind come June for the WPBT event). It was just as enjoyable watching the beautiful ladies cheer on their husband/boyfriends as they hoped for that point to be made or the dealer's bust card to come. Ah, it was nice to surrounded by the action and not snow.

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