Very Painful Trip Report

Downtown 7/1 - 7/3

Hotel: Vegas Club

I had a South Tower room. Very basic, but clean and good sized. Definitely would stay there again.

Gambling:

Poker -- This is my primary game. I played at Binion's and the Golden Nugget. I looked at the room at the El Cortez and Plaza. None of these places has much going for it as far as game selection. It's all pretty much tournaments, 2/4 3/6 4/8 limit, and 1/2 no limit. If you're interested in shootouts, Binion's was starting a shootout pretty much as often they could. Buyin was $60 to win $520, one player payed. I decided the first day, I would wait and play my poker on the Strip. The Downtown places just didn't have the same vibe as the best Strip places do, you couldn't find a $6/12 or higher game, and although the players were generally weak tight there wasn't as much dead money in the pot as there generally is on the Strip.

Tables -- Typical downtown. Low limits, and I always had fun dealers. I particularly liked playing at the gate. My Pai Gow Poker and Blackjack winnings paid for the bath I took at craps. I only had one winning craps session and I tried everything. I couldn't even get a bet for the boys to work. The dealers appreciated my efforts, but their shift tip total did not.

Edit: The Vegas Club has a sign that says "The most Liberal 21 in Vegas" or some such. As best I can tell this refers to the fact that they have more of a game called "Liberal 21" than anybody. "Liberal 21" pays 2-1 for suited blackjack, even money on all others. I didn't do the numbers exactly, but I believe there are 3 times as many offsuit BJs as suited. I didn't play this game.

Slots -- I think I have finally succeeded in swearing off slots. I played couple just to so the VC would know I had actually played there, but otherwise I kept to the tables.

The Disaster:

Saturday afternoon as I was getting ready to head over to the Barbary Coast, I sprained my ankle rather gruesomely. I had to head back to the room and stayed there until I moved to Harrah's on Monday.

Strip portion to come later.

 

If you had said something like you took a ride on the Grain train and it de-railed on you...I think we all would've believed you a little more...

 

Very Painful Trip Report - Strip

7/4-7/5 at the Evil Empire, 7/6 at TI

Harrah's offered me 2 free nights for 7/4 and 7/5 so I took them up on it. I was supposed to meet up with a friend from here in Baton Rouge and two of his buddies from Ohio. They were staying at TI. I joined them for 7/6.

Because of my ankle, I got a wheelchair for the Strip portion of my trip. This wasn't ideal, but it was a lot better than my alternatives. Cost was $20 at Harrah's, complimentary at TI. I expected to pay for the chair, but score one for MGM/Mirage over Darth Vader and his minions.

The room at Harrah's was kind of small. The Vegas Club room was significantly larger. The bed at Harrah's was better than TI or VC. The TI room was about the same size as Harrah's, but had much nicer furnishings.

Gambling:

I didn't play anything but poker at Harrah's. There's no decent BJ or any Pai Gow Poker at a reasonable limit. The poker room is decent, but the only jackpot they have is a overall high hand of the day for a jacket. I don't want a Harrah's jacket, so I wasn't impressed. The Harrah's room is strictly low limit. They generally had $1/2 no limit or $3/6 limit. They tried to get a $4/8 game going, but it broke up within about an hour for lack of players.

One of my friends came over and wheeled me over to the IP where I played a little BJ and then some $1/2 no limit. I won a little at BJ, but as usual at the IP, I lost my buyin at the poker table. We also rolled through Casino Royale, but we couldn't find a legitimate BJ table or a PGP table, so we went on after a couple of $1 Michelobs.

On 7/6, after moving to TI, I played some poker at Mirage. Had a good $6/12 session, but just couldn't really get a good vibe for the players. It was pretty obvious that about 3 of the guys knew each other and played higher limit at least some of the time. They had a much more aggressive profile than the average Vegas 3/6 or 4/8 player, but played some really weak hands. I doubled up plus a couple of bucks, but never really got comfortable. Very, very strange.

Gambling at TI wasn't the greatest. They did have $10 PGP, but the only $5 blackjack we found was CSM. Still played a little bit of that, ended up about $20 or so. My friends aren't really big gamblers, so that was about it for them. We worked the video poker bars for some drinks, then hit the sack.
My guys were getting some static from the bartenders about not betting enough to get comped. I saw that they didn't tip until they were ready to leave. I was tipping as I went, playing $0.25 video blackjack, and had absolutely no problems for the same number of drinks.

Dining:

Pretty much stuck with the coffee shops at TI and Harrah's. The guys hit the Bellagio buffet their first night, the Mirage their third. They greatly preferred the Bellagio over Mirage. I had the lunch special at Kahunaville, which was a Hawaiian chili cheese burger. I learned I'm not a huge fan of Hawaiian chili.