Romes + Vegas!

Well, well... I did say a trip report was in order! This was a spur of the week trip and desparately needed vacation from working 60+ hours per week! Sorry for the lack of pictures, I'm hungover and not wanting to deal with all the uploading and copy/pasting links. I'll get them in there on one of these posts :p

All said travels went quite well. My direct flight was delayed about 20 minutes, but we made up for that time in the air. Added boost was the non-full flight so I got a window seat with no one next to me =).

For the first night I was staying off strip to take advantage of not only the free rooms but some good free play and good offers (essentially an RFB with the food amount for 3-4 days). I stopped at the local Walmart to grab a couple things (like a sweatshirt because it's cool here!) and got a text from RS about meeting up!

We both had some free play to run through a couple places and that went fine and dandy as I was playing 99% DDB to run it through and received quad deuces on the deal for a quick $400 at the dollar level! I do have a pic, but I didn't get close enough and it has my name/etc so I'm not posting it. I'll be sure to format my pictures better so they don't need editing, since I can't do that from my phone.

After that we wandered around a bit looking for some good games. Found one and ended up playin for 30-45 minutes making about $280. So we wander on, chatting about all kinds of interesting stuff when we decided to take down a game together. Well, that lasted about 20 minutes, 7-8 dealer 21's, and a "no more blackjack" later... Bye bye profits from earlier.

It was a lot of fun to hang out with RS and get on a game together. We need to do it again but in a better location :p.

Also my free play was part of a promotion I was doing with my partner, so half of that is his.

Trip Total: Even.

Good luck Romes!! Look forward to reading about the rest of the trip

Okay, so night one was fun and went "okay." Time to get some action in... My college buddy I haven't seen in 5-6 years is flying out tonight around 9pm so I have all day. Well, I give some good action (good for me) to the place that put me up. Played some BJ and Pai Gow, ending up about $275.... Lost $100 on a 100% (99.99) DDB VP game, won a little on a slot.

This year, for myself and my partner, had been about "land, air, and sea." I wanted to be able to beat a casino in every way possible. One of the easiest things to learn, that have already been discussed so aren't a big deal (especially because of the variance) is must hit slots. Well, I was about to eat and then I saw a must hit at 48.93 out of $50. The amount per penny was a bit stiff for $50 jackpot (2.50) but it was a play, so I pump in $200 and start firing away.

$300 from my pocket later I got "randomly lucky" enough to win the major jackpot (that I wasn't even targeting) for $89 and then the minor for $49.xx, but yeah, I was still down $300 from the play. These things are so variance they're tough to play =/. I want to swear them all off except the higher jackpots, but it's like mults on ultX... Can't just walk by it when it's sitting there!

So I get a comp and eat at the steak house, which I've usually never done, just pounded the buffets. It was a nice place and the food was pretty good. I should eat at the nicer places more often :p.

Mid-Day 2 Trip Total: Even

I run over to the strip to check in to our main hotel room as I have to head to pick up my buddy from the airport in about an hour. They have an okay double deck game but normally it's NDAS. Oh well, I'll hit it for a 30-40 minute session with a "polite" spread to try to make a little and give some action to my place... And what do I see? 90-95% pen. Probably the best PEN I've seen on strip at a DD game... Oh and of course on my first split I throw out a double down to "try" anyways, and they let it fly :). Now my mediocre DD game is one of the best I've ever played! I played for about an hour and took a decent little poke down of $280 (seems to be my number). But hey, I'm up and about to see my college buddy!

So a little about him... He's been to Vegas dozens of time as well, but kind of a 180 from my trips :p. He's well off and hits all the night clubs, strip clubs, and by the end of the night usually bets $1k-$2k on red/black roulette. He's also blacked out, woken up in a hotel room that wasn't even at the place they were staying with 3 separate canceled credit cards lol. So I figure tonight will be "fun" :).

On that note, a disclaimer. Every time I come to Vegas I have fun playing, but honestly it's kind of like working. We usually put in 30-40 hours (each) of play in a week when we come out here. This is my much needed "vacation" (hence why I was willing to travel anywhere in the other thread I posted). So I kind of planned on "gambling" a little for the first time in Vegas. Of course that still means basic strategies, etc, for the most part.

We start off with some craps, DP + DC and say bye bye to a quick $300. Move along to a carnival game of ultimate Texas hold'em, and bye bye another $500 while just betting 10-10 on the blind/ante =/. We played for a while and a lottttttt of drinks later head back "towards" our place, where I was jones'n for that double deck game so hopefully I could make some of my money back!

Never ceases to amaze me I'll watch drunk idiot after drunk idiot win $2-$3k playing any game in a casino, and playing AGAINST whatever basic strategy is for that game... Yet I just lose lose lose even when I venture out to other games and play perfect BS. Yeah, little rant, but you'll see why in a minute :p.

So I play the DD game much longer than I should, hours, and end up not seeing a positive count for about the last 30-40 min. I'm falling asleep at the table, drunk, and still counting/playing flawlessly enough to correct the dealer "accidental" miss pays to by bets (3 or 4 of them and I gave her a stern look on the last then they stopped). I wonder how many hammered ploppies get ripped off like that =/.

So here it comes, my big "gamble." I was down $325 more from the DD game, which brings me to about down $1125 on the night (playing 2% HE games, or less, and advantage in DD). The roulette wheel erroneously has 6 red numbers in a row... Let's be that drunk guy one time (and my casino should rate me well throwing some money around)...

...$200 on black... RED.

...$600 on black... RED.

Remaining all in (~$325) on black... Black! So still down $500 more on friggin roulette. Of course then I notice 5 odds numbers in a row (which again I know don't matter, but hey, I'm taking my ploppy "shot"). Stuff the $650 on even to be up like $50 overall if I win... ODD.

And thus ends my tail of trying to be a ploppy for a night...

Trip Total: down $2k

Some random (out of order) pictures:

Good stuff so far!

Lol at the roulette stuff. Sometimes even APS get bored and need to take a shot.

Definitely fun playing as well as just hanging out & walking around with Romes. Had a good time and some laughs, as well as learning a thing or two. Hope we can meet up again before you head out of town.

Nice honest post. Great stuff.

You were playing and having fun. Kudos for that. More fun than playing it correctly for profit. Pity you couldn't whup that DD's ass.

Quote: Romes

Some random (out of order) pictures:

I LOVE those machines at the MSS!!!

And the 4 of a kind scratchers.

Great report so far, hopefully it turns around tonight.

Just martingale that roullette, no one ever loses doing that.

Look at the size of those shrimp!!!! I SO APPROVE!!!!!

Quote: Asswhoopermcdaddy

Look at the size of those shrimp!!!! I SO APPROVE!!!!!

Why if it was just a small plate?

Quote: GWAE

Quote: Asswhoopermcdaddy

Look at the size of those shrimp!!!! I SO APPROVE!!!!!

Why if it was just a small plate?

Beat me to saying it. Look like jumbos until you appreciate the size of the thumb. Unless the OP has hands like Dr J. (whose hand I shook several times; he loves slots).

Recovering from the flu and catching up - enjoying this far but you need more winning!!! Go Romes!

Sigh. I take it back. You got jipped. Get yourself a buffet at the Aria.

Ha, while I do not have freakishly large hands, I do have larger hands, and trust me, the shrimp were JUMBO. Like bite in to just one and have a full mouth of delicious shrimp! These were definitely the largest shrimp I've ever personally had.


Day 3, feeling the pressure of another losing Vegas trip. What happened? I've been here dozens of times and always paid for my trip plus when I was just a low red chipper. Now my last 3 trips I've struggled to keep my head above water, and my EV has doubled or tripled. At least this was a very worth it trip... Ended up being $79 round trip flight and all comped rooms/food. I'll just have to ride through the year of tough variance. My partner and I are 250+ hours in on blackjack and down for the year overall recently. It's not counting comps but we're not playing for comps =).

So today was an interesting day. Had to get some food/water to reset for the day. Ran around on the strip looking for something that caught our eyes. Ended up playing some more UTH, and again, losing $300 betting 10-10. Hand after hand I had the best of it and got outdrawn =/, it happens (a lot sometimes apparently). Then a quick $200 loss DP + DC in craps.

I wanted to run over to MSS and flail some decent video poker, since that was about the only game I hadn't tried to win in yet. Hit those quad jacks, and almost quit on the spot, but it was a short session and I wanted to play more. Being down for the trip I forfeited the small EV of playing their 100.4% DB game for the more variance DDB game you see my pics from. Well, apparently that was an okay decision because as you can see the quad 3's with a kicker sure helped! I was in for $300 on the machine, so cashing out around $900 was a nice little win!

My buddy has a cousin that lives 10 minutes off the strip and he came out for the night (well, that was the original plan). We flailed some bar top VP in osheas while ordering lots of drinks. 6 drinks for $3.75 when the smoke cleared, so I'm finally counting that as a win!

Turned out his cousin has to leave like 2 hours after arriving "for the night" due to some new born baby change of plans from the mom. I played some more double deck at a decent game and ended up with a nice little session win of about $550. Heading the right direction!

At this point we were fairly shined up, and my buddy, whom is all about the club scene (both kinds of clubs) really wants to go to a strip club. I've been to 1 strip club in the last ~10 years of visits, they're quite -EV :p... But i knew it would still be kind of fun and he really wanted to go so we went to Palaminos (yeah don't spellcheck that). It was an okay club, little small I'd guess, but attractive and very aggressive girls. They'd come to "talk" then ask for the top dollar dance (something like a couple hundred) and try to settle in the middle (something like $125) within minutes. They seemed very off out if you didn't want a dance, even if you just got there, or just had one, or just didn't want one. For the little bit of attitude, I give this place 3 out of 5 stars. I managed to get away fairly cheap, but the moment we walked in my buddy went for a private dance/something with multiple girls. Got to imagine he dropped $300-$400 there. I should drop the rating to 2.5 out of 5 stars because the 10-15 ride back ended up taking 45 minutes (or more - started to pass out) due to the driver trying to take us to the wrong hotel. We did make some new friends on the shuttle to the club though. Just like zombieland, we called each other by either the city or state we gave for where we're from. Chicago was a little bit of a creeper, but a fun/funny guy none the less (and what else should you expect on a shuttle to a strip club lol).

Trip total: Down ~$1600 (just gaming)

Some more (out of order) pictures:







The walkway to the High Roller was done up pretty nice. I don't know why, since I like a nice snowy white Christmas, but I really liked being in Vegas and seeing all the nice holiday decorations. It was festive, pretty fun, and I think they did them fairly well.

Last day in Vegas! Down a bit, and instead of "trying to get even" I decide I'm going to try to chip away at the deficit and see how much I can get back.

After starting the day with some food we walk by a UTH game and by now my buddy likes it and wants to play. While -EV, we have been running especially horrid in that game, so I'm still hoping we can get some of it back. It didn't work out so well for him, but I actually had a couple 4x bets hold up with the best hand and in about 1 hour I cashed out up a big bad $80. I was up about $220 at one point, but alas, just kept getting the big bets in good and they didn't work out =/.

Being down $300 from the UTH game, my buddies plan seems to be to attempt to break even after losses with betting black chips on roulette. $300 on black for him, red, no good! After compounding the loss he wants to watch me play some more double deck, which I'm okay with since I could actually "expect" (EV wise) to make some money.

I sat to the empty table and didn't like how interested the younger PB seemed to be with me. He had 5-6 full tables but came to star at my lonesome DD game. The dealers first 6 hands (and I doubled on a couple of these since the dealer only had one natural 20):
1) 20
2) 20
3) 19
4) blackjack
5) 20
6) 6 card 21

Silver lining? I was eating small cards and after that 6 card 21 the count warranted about $100 bets. Then I finally won a few hands! Got 2 DD's in a row that won as well as a split. I was at about a 1-4 spread at this point and the PB was watching fairly intently, so even though I hadn't hit my max bet, when the shoe ended, I decided to "hit and run" being up about $175.

After having ALL losing session in craps, we decide to give that a go as well, figuring that game owed us some money! My buddy had a good role from the pass, and I had a good 4 bet roll from the DP + DC, finally. We ended the crap session up for the first time about $200 each.

I'm only down like $1300 at this point, a fairly good come back with plenty of hours remaining in the day!

At this point I had a high school friend message me to tell me him and his wife were in Vegas and wondering if I was still there. Since my buddy was leaving tonight and the show list was very limited, I decided to give my free show tickets to them as a nice surprise (they come to Vegas once every 5 years or so, so I figured it would help make their trip a bit more). We hung out, chatted, and both my buddy and high school friend wanted some craps action, so here we go again! Long story short, more of the same previously where every bet we make is opposite of what it needs to be =/. While we bought for more, we all lost about $100.

We parted ways with my HS friend and I took my buddy to the airport. I had to run downtown real quick, so now it's about 9:30pm and I have my last night in Vegas to myself... Time to actually make some money =)!

I figure my best edge and with large action would be poker. I get in on a decent 1-2-5 bring in Pot Limit Omaha game for $500. I figure I'll play here for 3-4 hours before heading to bed for my flight in the morning.

All was going fairly well. Some wins, losses, hovering at about up $100 when the big hand came almost 3 hours in... I have Qc-Js-6s-5c on the button with 2 weak players in the blind and 1 weak player called. They was surprisingly a few very good PLO players at my table... Usually everyone I see (and I mean 99% everyone) doesn't fully understand the game, but these guys were pretty good. Anyways I raise to spice the pot and get 2 callers.

Flop As-Qs-5d

So I flopped 2 pair and the 2nd nut flush draw. Not only that I didn't raise all that much and so I knew the ace was probably a good thing to bet as whenever you raise in Omaha people always think you have aces. So I pot the flop for $60, figuring I'd just take it down. One fold, the other guy hesitates and calls. This guy had been calling on poor draws all night. He hit a couple missed a couple but he'd been showing his draws like 7 high flush draw or bottom end straight draws.

I make the read that he's on weak spades, as about 10 hands before that stuffed hard on the nut flush draw when he had that. So at this point I'm confident my 2 pair are good and that spades could win me a nice pot since I have the 2nd nut spade draw. The turn is a blank, like the 8h. I fire the pot again, hoping he thinks I have a set... So either he folds and I get a nice pot already, or he "commits" to his worse draw and if it hits I felt him. I genuinely believe he wanted to fold, but he ended up calling. The river came out the spade (which did not pair the board), which honestly I was kind of hoping for because I thought that would be my big pot money card.

There's already about $450-$500 in the pot. At this point I know he has spades. Hell, I think he knows I know he has spades. I check to let him fire away, though I probably could have just shoved. He bets $300 and I only have a little more than $300 left. I did take a moment to reconstruct the hand and my reads, confirming I did not believe he had the K flush, so I shove my last like $25 over and he seriously looks dejected and doesn't snap call. I'm thinking, was he trying to bluff the spades? At this point at least I'm good! He seriously waits about a minute then calls...


...and he slow rolled the hell out of me. He has the K flush, aka the nuts. I guess I had a miss read, or maybe he would have played the smaller spades exactly the same. Either way, I'm busted and it's about 1:30am. Gotta get up to take the rental car back and my flight leaves around 9, so I'm done for the trip =/.

It was a pretty good and fun trip, just man did I lose in all the 2% or lower games (other than that big swing at the roulette wheel...). Funny enough I just realized, as far as blackjack this was a pretty good trip. I think overall I was up about $600-$700 in blackjack, but certainly not enough to overturn the other action.

Trip total: Down ~$1900 (from gaming)

Thanks for the TR Romes!
And the pics.

As long as it's more like a pillow fight than a life and death battle, the play can be fun even when you lose.
Time with friends is always good.
Next trip......

After paying for like 7/8 Vegas trips in a row, and now having 2-3 losing trips in a row, I'm tired of saying "next trip" =P... but yes, next trip lol.

I know what you mean, my last few excursions have been disastrous.
I've been reduced to playing a 'penny ante' game ;-(
Which of course I won, so should have been in the high limit room.
My timing sucks...

Couldn't lift your thumbprint off that shrimp pic BTW..
You're safe ;-). ..<edit> yea, bad joke....but just a joke!

I dont know for $2000 that nice white beach on that island sure looked nice

Just saying

Those $2000 nice white beaches on whatever island sound really nice.
But I think they start at more like 3K to 4K now, and go up from there.

Quote: coilman

I dont know for $2000 that nice white beach on that island sure looked nice

Just saying

Hah, you're absolutely right =P. I mean, it was a great trip, other than losing in every game we played.

$2k could get a single guy a week on a white sandy beach. Shiiiit, that might be my next vacation. Day drinking in the sun and getting in to trouble at night =).

Quote: Romes

Last day in Vegas! Down a bit, and instead of "trying to get even" I decide I'm going to try to chip away at the deficit and see how much I can get back.

I love the "trying to get even" game

Quote: aceofspades

I love the "trying to get even" game

It's a game we all play, and rarely win... but the dance is the dance, none the less =P.

Quote: Romes

Quote: aceofspades

I love the "trying to get even" game

It's a game we all play, and rarely win... but the dance is the dance, none the less =P.

Thanks for the TR, Romes, and sorry they kept so much of your money. Appreciated the detailed PLO bad beat; I like that game very much and play it a lot on Pokerstars. Trying to get up the nerve to try a cash game of it.

Quote: beachbumbabs

Quote: Romes

Quote: aceofspades

I love the "trying to get even" game

It's a game we all play, and rarely win... but the dance is the dance, none the less =P.

Thanks for the TR, Romes, and sorry they kept so much of your money. Appreciated the detailed PLO bad beat; I like that game very much and play it a lot on Pokerstars. Trying to get up the nerve to try a cash game of it.

It can be brutal live. There are so many bad players especially outside of vegas that it almost makes it tough to play. I have taken so many beats on draws that they shouldn't have been chasing. However I have won many big pots because they were chasing pots that they shouldn't have been chasing. The variance in this game is high. My favorite game is plo8, but it has all but disappeared around here.

Quote: GWAE

Quote: beachbumbabs

Quote: Romes

Quote: aceofspades

I love the "trying to get even" game

It's a game we all play, and rarely win... but the dance is the dance, none the less =P.

Thanks for the TR, Romes, and sorry they kept so much of your money. Appreciated the detailed PLO bad beat; I like that game very much and play it a lot on Pokerstars. Trying to get up the nerve to try a cash game of it.

It can be brutal live. There are so many bad players especially outside of vegas that it almost makes it tough to play. I have taken so many beats on draws that they shouldn't have been chasing. However I have won many big pots because they were chasing pots that they shouldn't have been chasing. The variance in this game is high. My favorite game is plo8, but it has all but disappeared around here.

That's my favorite too, PLO8. Love the split pot. Love the 2way hands. Great game. I play the 50K game on PS a lot, and I usually FT, have won it a few times. However, with play money....

Moved away from the 5K games because too many people just blast away with nothing. At least for 50K people value their chips a little more.

Quote: beachbumbabs

Quote: GWAE

Quote: beachbumbabs

Quote: Romes

Quote: aceofspades

I love the "trying to get even" game

It's a game we all play, and rarely win... but the dance is the dance, none the less =P.

Thanks for the TR, Romes, and sorry they kept so much of your money. Appreciated the detailed PLO bad beat; I like that game very much and play it a lot on Pokerstars. Trying to get up the nerve to try a cash game of it.

It can be brutal live. There are so many bad players especially outside of vegas that it almost makes it tough to play. I have taken so many beats on draws that they shouldn't have been chasing. However I have won many big pots because they were chasing pots that they shouldn't have been chasing. The variance in this game is high. My favorite game is plo8, but it has all but disappeared around here.

That's my favorite too, PLO8. Love the split pot. Love the 2way hands. Great game. I play the 50K game on PS a lot, and I usually FT, have won it a few times. However, with play money....

Moved away from the 5K games because too many people just blast away with nothing. At least for 50K people value their chips a little more.

I was going for supernova on PS the year it went bad strictly playing O8. I really miss playing the game.