MGM Grand Poker Room Has Ambitious Promotions

My new column for Ante Up is now online and can be found here.

The issue should be in poker rooms around the country soon if it's not already there.

The Luck of the Irish

Well, I’m back in Vegas as I write this, and presumably, as you read it.  So there’s little danger of me running out of fodder for blog posts any time soon.  I did want to alert all my readers who plan to visit Vegas of a website that has a good map of the Vegas strip that may prove useful.  It’s on a site called LasVegasStrip.net and you can find the map here.  The nice thing about the map is if you click on the property it will take you directly to the property’s own website.  Check it out when you have a chance.

Last night I tried something a little different at the MGM poker room—I played 2/6 spread limit instead of my usual 1/2 NL game.  Just recently I mentioned here that my old 2/4 game had been replaced by this new 2/6 game.  The MGM is currently offering an additional promo for this game (as well as 4/8 limit if they ever get it going).  It’s a $100 high hand of the hour.  To encourage play, they are taking only a $2 rake (as well as a $2 promo drop).  Limit and spread limit players are still eligible for the other promos (described here), so it’s a pretty good deal.

The promo has worked for them as they are now having more 2/6 games going more regularly than 2/4 had been previously been getting.  I guess the promo was enough to get me to give it a try at least one nite, and last nite was the nite.

Good decision.  When I first got to the table, it was an absolute blast, and definitely reminded me of the good old days of 2/4 that I recently described.  There was a woman at the table who had taken her daughter to Vegas to celebrate her 21^st birthday.  Said daughter was there with her girlfriend, same age, watching her mom play.  Both girls were very attractive, albeit they were wearing rather modest dresses for Vegas.

The three of them were laughing and joking the whole time, and the good time they were having was contagious.

There was a off-duty dealer playing at the table, and he said hello to me as I took my seat.  Mom picked up on this right away, she must have already learned the player actually worked there.  She said to me, “Oh no, do you work here too?  Are you part of some conspiracy?”

I laughed and said I didn't work there.  Though sometimes I feel like I do.  I happened to be wearing a very green shirt, and she took note of that right away.  She asked me if I was Irish because I was wearing green.  Although I told her I was not, she called me “Irish” the rest of the night.  The guy to her right was from Canada and she called him “Canada.”  He finally took to calling the mom “Florida” since that’s where she’s visiting from.

She called her daughter “Blondie” because of her blonde hair.  She revealed to us that the daughter bleaches her hair blonde even though she is a natural blonde.  I resisted the temptation to pursue that information in a salacious manner.  Although the group was fun, they were not particularly risqué.

But the blonde daughter and her dark-haired girlfriend sat with Mom the whole time and were every bit as much a part of the game as if they were playing.  There was never a moment of silence at the table, which was ok because they were so much fun.

I was disappointed to learn that they had to leave soon to see a show.  There were jokes that the girls were going to a Chippendale’s show but Mom said no, it was one of the big shows on the Strip.  But the girls indicated they could be headed to Chippendale’s on another night and the mom was fine with it.  Perhaps the mom would join them?

The three of them were having fun with the attractive blonde woman next to me, a Southern California resident who also has a place in Vegas.  She comes to Vegas regularly and I know I’ve seen her before; she recognized me as well.  She never plays NL though, I think I’ve mostly seen her watching her husband play.  She mentioned being a neighbor (in L.A.) of Justin Beiber and one of the Kardashians.  The friend of the daughter indicated that she was a big fan of the Kardashians.  Ok, no one is perfect.

Mom seemed to be doing ok at the game.  It was clear that she had been playing for many hours before I showed up.  She played pretty much every hand and seldom folded—ever.  She paid me off when she was holding some fairly weak hands and stayed in.  Typical of the average limit player, I suppose.  She didn’t come to Vegas to fold.  Still she was doing ok and kept winning tickets to the 10PM cash give away drawing (flush or better).  Which was a shame because she knew she wasn’t going to be there for the drawing (and that’s required to win).  I dunno why she kept have her daughter—who she called her secretary—fill out the tickets.

A guy from Copenhagen came to the table.  He was young, blond, good looking I guess, and an exchange student living in San Diego.  He definitely got the girls’ attention.  He said he had just starting surfing so they called him “The Surfer.”  He suggested they all go to Chippendale’s together, although when I commented on him wanting to go, he backed off.

The woman next to me had teenagers who were with them and the Mom from Florida wanted the Mom from L.A. to have her 19-year old son meet her daughter, who was interested as well.  There was talk of all of them (the kids) going to Hakassan on Friday night.

Poker is a very social game, especially a limit or spread limit game. 

Sadly, the mom and the two cute, 21-year-old girls left for their show.  That’s when the poker got interesting, at least for me.  

Because it was limit, I limped in with Ace-9 off suit.  The flop was Jack-Ace-Ace.  I bet $4 and lady from L.A. raised to $10.  I called.  I checked a King on the turn and she bet $6 and I called.  I suspected she either had a bigger kicker than my 9 or a boat.  But she couldn’t bet enough to get me to fold.  I was happy to see a 9 on the river, giving me the boat, but I couldn’t help thinking she had a bigger boat than I did.  When I bet $6 and she raised to $12, I just called. 

She did indeed have a boat.  In fact, with pocket Jacks, she flopped it.  But I hit the bigger boat on the river.  Not only did I win the pot, but I took over the lead in the “high hand of the hour” promo.

The lady gave me a hard time—in a very nice, friendly way—about sucking out on her like that.  I apologized and because she was such a nice woman, I almost meant it.

At least we both got tickets for the 10PM drawing.  That was the first one of the night for me.

I won a bigger pot a bit later when I had 3-5 clubs in the small blind.  With almost everyone limping in, it was easy to call.  There was an Ace and two clubs on the flop.  I called a bet, $4 I think.  When I turned the flush, I bet $6 and my opponent called.  The river was a blank.   I bet $6 again and the woman who had bet the flop raised to $12.  I called, worried she had a better flush.  Nope, she just had an Ace and I took the pot.

I limped in with King-7 of spades hoping to catch another flush—and thus, another drawing ticket.  I did indeed flop the flush draw and called $4. Again I hit it on the turn, I bet and had two callers.  When I bet the river, I was raised and just called, worried about the Ace high flush.  But the raiser had a straight and the other player had a much smaller flush.  Another good pot.

A little bit after the full house, the woman’s husband came by to see how she was doing.  He was a big guy.  She said to me, “Why don’t you tell my big husband what you did to me.”  Gulp.  I explained it and he just laughed.  “That’s poker,” he said.  Indeed it is.

My boat held up as the high hand of the hour and I got paid $100 for it.  Nice.  But I didn’t get picked for the 10PM drawing.  Ironically, the big husband of the lady from L.A. that I had sucked out on did.  I just couldn’t stay lucky enough long enough to get one of my three tickets picked.

Still, I had a fun session, especially the early part with the family from Florida.  And I won some money.  Even without the promo money, I left up, so it was a good experiment all the way around.  I will say that I wasn't paying attention to the poker with the intensity I do at a NL game. In fact I was just playing the cards, not really playing the players.  Not intellectually challenging, but a nice break from "serious" poker while still winning some money.  A nice change of pace.

I suspect I'll try it again sometime.

"She's Too Skinny"

Now….back to my first poker session of my late October trip, a session I started describing here.  Picking up where I left off, I had pocket 7’s in early position.  I limped, another player limped and then a relatively new player, a woman, raised to $16.  She was playing with about $120 and I had her covered. I decided to call because I thought there the other player would call too.  I was right.  

The three of us saw a flop that was A-7-x, two hearts. I led out with a $40 bet.  The short stack called and the preflop raiser folded.  The turn was a blank, and the woman had less than $20 left, so I put her all in; she called.  I did not want to see a heart on the river, but that’s exactly what came out.  She flipped over Jack-8 of hearts (!) and took down the pot.  Don’t you love losing with a set?

I had Ace-10 of spades and limped in early position.  A regular, a total rock, raised to $10, a couple of others called and so did I.  This might have been one of those hands that I played differently because of the promo—I wanted to get a drawing ticket, so I played it because it was suited (see the post I linked to at the beginning for an explanation of the promos).  I wanted a flush, and if I had the draw to it, it would be the nut flush.  Besides, because I knew the player who raised was such a rock, I could put him on a rather small range of hands and would likely be able to tell if my hand was good as it progressed. 

The flop was King-Jack-9, rainbow, one spade (the 9).  The preflop raiser led out for $20.  I decided to call with my gut-shot and back door flush draw.  The $20 just wasn’t enough to make me go away.  Just the two of us saw the flop, which was a beautiful Queen of spades, not only completing Broadway for me but giving me the draw to the nut flush.

I decided to do something I rarely do….slow play it.  I checked.  I was hoping the rock would bet again and then I’d check-raise—or maybe just call and wait for the river to bet.

But damn, he checked behind me.  A red 5 on the river didn’t change anything.  I figured I had to bet to have any chance of getting more money.  I put out only $40 and he tanked for awhile and then folded.  That was the first of three gut-shots I filled in during this session.

In the big blind I had Ace-5 off suit.  Someone made a small raise to $7, there were several callers, so I put in another $5 to see the flop.  Ace high flop, I checked/called $15.  On the turn, a blank, I called $25.  The river was a 5 so I bet out $40, no call.

Next big blind I had Queen-Jack off and no one raised.  The flop was 10-9-8, two clubs.   I bet $10 and got four callers!  A low red card hit the turn and I bet out $55.  This time no one called.

I called a raise to $12 with pocket 10’s.  Just two of us saw the flop, which was Q-10-2, rainbow.  Although I’ve vowed never to do it, I slow played my set, just checking.  He bet $20 and I just flat called.  The turn was a blank, and I checked again, this time planning to check raise.  But he checked behind me.  Another blank on the river, this time I bet $45 and he called.  But he mucked when he saw my set of 10’s.

Then came perhaps the most interesting, if not profitable, hand of the night.  There was a brother/sister combo at our table.  The brother was sitting directly to my left, and the sister was sitting directly across from me.  She was cute, well-endowed and had a rather low-cut top, so that was definitely a plus.  Whether or not she was purposely going for the Jennifer Tilly effect, I don’t know.  Turns out they had been raised in L.A., not far from where I currently live.  He still lives near me but she moved up north.  He was there for a business trip and since he had a free room, he invited his sister down to share it so she could play poker while he attended his two-day conference.  He’s married (she’s not) so I guess his wife isn’t into Vegas.  The sister clearly was.

They were both very nice people and we had enjoyable few hours playing poker together.  I mentioned the football promo in the prior post .  The game was winding down at this point.  Only one person from our table had won a chance to draw for some cash—the sister.  She won $100 (the minimum).

In a straddled pot I raised to $12 in early position with Ace-King off.  Four people called, including the brother to my left.  The flop was King-9-6, rainbow.  I bet out $40.  Was that the right amount?  Too much?  What do you think?

My friendly neighbor to my left made it $80.  Shit.  It folded back to me and I went into the tank.

“What, do you have a set?” I asked him, and of course he said nothing.  He had struck me as a pretty solid player, and if he had ever bluffed before, he hadn’t shown it.  I was kind of thinking he wouldn’t have raised if he couldn’t beat top pair/top kicker.  That was my gut instinct, anyway.

I’m pretty sure I was going to fold anyway when suddenly, I heard them announce “Table 10, Seat 1,” as the winner of the next football drawing.  That happened to be my seat.  “That’s me!” I exclaimed. As I said, I think I was gonna fold anyway, but that made it even easier, so I folded and jumped up to claim my prize.

The game was almost over and this figured to be the last score.  As it had happened, most of the bigger prizes were still available.  Almost everyone who had won had only gotten the $100 prize. The one $500 prize and one of the two $400’s were still available.  I believe the Shift Manager told me that there was actually less than a 50% chance I’d only get $100. 

One of the nice things about playing in your “home” casino is that everyone is rooting for you in a case like this.  As I walked to the drum, everyone is encouraging me, telling me to get that $500 football, wishing me luck.  Of course, a few of my dealer pals are yelling, “We’ll split it, right?”

Well, I grabbed a football and opened it and it was $200.  Same as I got the previous month when I was selected (see here).  And just like the last time, I had won the prize on the last score of the game.

When I got back to my seat, I got back to thinking about the hand I had just mucked when I was picked.  As I said in the previous post, I think the hands where you never know if you made a good fold or not are the ones that drive you the craziest.

Since we had been chatting so amicably, I decided to ask my neighbor what he had on that hand.  He said he would tell me if I told him what I had.  Seemed like a fair trade.  I said ok.

“I had Ace-King,” he said.  My response was instant.  “F***, that’s what I had!”

“Really?” he said.  He was surprised.  He said I put out such a “big bet” on the flop like I wanted everyone to fold.  “It was a rainbow flop, why wouldn’t you want action?”

He said he would have bet $25 in my shoes.  I dunno.  It always seems like I get in trouble more from betting too little than from betting too much.

So he thought I was making a continuation-bet on a flop that missed me.  I explained that I thought a pot-sized bet there (or a little less) seemed like a pretty routine play.  We discussed it back and forth for a bit, but I guess I was a little disturbed I’d laid down the best hand—or at least tied with the best.  At least I had my $200 promo money to console me. 

He even said that maybe he should have just called and we could have got some more action from the other players and split a bigger pot than he won by himself.

Or let someone stick around and outdraw us.

Let me know if you think I bet too much on the flop.

A few hands later I got the dreaded pocket Kings, first time this trip.  Before it got to me in the big blind, someone raised to $7 and two people called.  I made it $30.  I think I would have—and should have—bet more, but I was still thinking about the guy’s comment about betting too much on the Ace-King hand.  The other three players already in for $7 called.  So it was a nice, bloated, $120 pot before the flop and I’m sitting there with my kryptonite hand.

The flop was Queen high and not too scary looking.  A pretty good flop for my dreaded Kings.  I only had a little more than the pot behind me, so I just shoved.  Any bet I make there commits me anyway.  I caught myself thinking, “I’m bound to get felted with KK sooner or later, might as well be the first time I get them.”

The next guy went into the tank.  He thought long and hard and kept saying, “I want to call.  I really want to call.”  But he eventually folded.  The next guy folded instantly.  The last guy, who was short stacked, put out the rest of his chips (about ½ my bet, give or take) and said, “O.K.”

We didn’t show.  The rest of the board looked harmless.  I showed my cowboys and he turned over Queen-6.  He had top pair, crappy kicker. I scooped up the pot and he took off.

Too bad.  It would be nice to keep bad players like that around.  Calling a raise and then a 3-bet with Queen-6 offsuit. Then calling a shove with top pair and no kicker whatsoever?  Damn, I wish he could have played longer.

Now as I mentioned at the outset of the earlier post on this night, this took place on the Sunday before Halloween.  As such, there were plenty of people in costumes (I think Hakkasan may have had a costume contest on this night as well)—though not nearly as many as on Halloween itself.  Of course, for a description of the Halloween festivities. see here.

My seat gave me a perfect view of the traffic getting to the club.  Some in sexy Halloween costumes, some in their slutty club-going dresses.  It was a pleasant view.  One of the odder costumes I saw was a girl on huge stilts….I think it was a costume from Avatar but I’m not sure.  It was somewhat sexy but she was so high up you couldn’t see her that well.

She was accompanied by a girl not wearing a costume.  And holding on to her friend for dear life.  It was clear she was having trouble walking on her stilts.  She appeared to stumble a few times and then, a bit after they got past my table, she had to stop to make some kind of adjustment in her costume.  Now from the angle I had, It looked like her friend had her face squarely in the girl-on-stilts’ crotch as she worked on her costume. It was pretty funny.

I didn’t mention it in my official Halloween post but there was another girl on stilts that night walking past the poker room.  That girl was apparently used to walking on stilts as she had no trouble walking to the club.  Not sure what her costume was supposed to be but it was elaborate.

Late in my session, my pal Ginger came to deal.  By this time there was a steady stream of pedestrian traffic in front of me that was getting to be a bit distracting.  The guys who were facing the dealer, and thus had their backs to the traffic, kept turning their heads around to view all the costumes and all the ladies parading back and forth.  My seat, as well as the dealer’s, had the best unobstructed view.

Ginger appeared to be noticing the people walking by but didn’t say anything until finally, a girl walked by in some kind of a costume I can’t describe (or remember) but she was basically wearing a rather tiny bikini (it might have been a jungle girl type of thing). She was very thin, and wasn’t particularly big on top.  I did appreciate her flat stomach though.  Anyway, out of the blue, as the girl passed us, Ginger said to me (though everyone else could hear), “She’s too skinny.”

“Too skinny, huh?” was all I could say.

“Yeah.  I prefer some more meat on the bones.”

O.K.  Good to know.  I mean, who knew Ginger had the same hobby as I did--checking out the babes.

A few minutes later a girl wearing just an ordinary club dress—meaning it was super tight—walked by.  This girl was definitely not too skinny.  I personally thought she was bit too not skinny to be wearing such a tight dress.  Just one man’s opinion.  But I dutifully pointed her out to Ginger and said, “How about her, is that better?  There’s meat on her.”

Ginger agreed.  “Yeah, yeah, that’s more like it.”

I’m sure I’ve pointed out before that Ginger is a very attractive woman.  She is also quite thin. So it was kind of surprising to me to hear her complain about another woman being too skinny.

I wanted to comment and I had to choose my words carefully.  Based on her comment about the first girl, I knew I couldn’t call Ginger skinny.  So after some careful thought, I said to her,  “It’s funny you feel that way, because you’re very slim.”  I thought she would be ok with “slim.”

She just kind of smiled and didn’t say anything.  Meanwhile, there were two guys on the opposite side of the table (one from Canada,, one from L.A.) who were definitely going to need neck and shoulder massages in the morning.  But they apparently heard this and one of them said to her, “Yeah, I was going to say the same thing.”

A bit later, a guy walked by wearing Speedos I guess and was bare-chested.  He had some paint on his chest and some kind of furry animal pelt type thing on his head as part of his costume.

Ginger noticed.  “Ah there…that’s for me.  I like that.”

So the Canadian said, “Really?  He looked kinda small in front.”

Ginger was still talking.  “Yeah…yeah.  I like that.”

The guy from L.A. “Oh, you checked out his penis size huh?  It was pretty small.”

Ginger was a bit aghast.  “I wasn’t talking about that!”  And then just cracked up.

The Canadian said, “Yeah….did you see that?”

Ok, I had to interject.  “That’s where you guys look?  Really? “ 

The guy from L.A. said, “Well, yeah, it was just right there.”

Really?  If it was that small, it wouldn’t have been right out there, would it?

Finally Ginger said, “Ah come on.  That wasn’t what I was looking at.”

That discussion ended right about then as Ginger was pushed out of—you’ll pardon the expression—the box.

I took that as a cue for me to quit the session myself.  I had played a long time and was a little bit ahead, about $50 (not counting the $200 from the football promo).  But in 7-1/2 hours of poker, while having a winning session, I had collected exactly zero drawing tickets.  Not a one.  That meant I had never had a flush or better the entire night.  I did have a bunch of straights.  I hit a total of three gut-shot straights and in every case, it came on the turn and the card I needed was a Queen.

I do think it is remarkable that I could play poker for that long, leave ahead, and never have gotten a flush, let alone a boat.

Before leaving the casino I did spend some time checking out the scenery a bit.  The most interesting costume I saw from this point on was a gal covering herself with a long, knitty beige wrap, a shawl maybe.  It didn’t tie and she was holding it closed in the front.  But it came loose enough for me to see that she was wearing nothing or almost nothing on top.  Then I noticed her opening the shawl to show off her “costume” to her girlfriends.  She wasn’t quite topless.  She was wearing something glued to her breasts that was made to look like whipped cream.  And where her nipples presumably were, there were cherries (or something artificial that were made to look like cherries).  On the bottom, she was wearing a pair of short-shorts with no particular design on them.

She had gotten her money’s worth from the plastic surgeon, so there was a whole lot of (fake) boobage on display when she showed off her costume to her friends.  I had to assume that when she got into the club, the shawl was going to go bye-bye and she would be walking around with just that fake whipped cream thing (barely) covering her tits.  That would get her some attention, to be sure.

The whipped cream on her breasts image reminded me of the scene from Varsity Blues where Ali Larter tried to seduce the QB by wearing a whipped cream bikini.   But I’m not sure if she was going for that since the bottom of her costume didn’t at all match Ali’s bottom.

Whatever, she was an interesting way to end a long day of poker and eye candy.

Remembering November 22, 1963

Do you remember where you were when you heard about that horrific event that took place on November 22, 1963?

It’s a rhetorical question.  If you were alive for it, and say, over the age of 4 or 5, you most certainly remember where you were when you heard that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated.  You remember how you heard about it, and you probably remember pretty much that entire awful weekend that followed it.

It’s one of “those” moments, where something truly horrendous happens in the world and takes you out of whatever is going on in your own life and puts you together with everyone in the country—or the world.   The JFK assassination was that moment for my generation.  I’m not sure what that moment was for the next generation.  I know the most recent one of “those” events was 9-11.

My parents told me that for their generation, their moment was when they first heard about Pearl Harbor being bombed.   

I realize some of my readers may not have been alive on 11/22/63.  For you, what you know about that appalling day in Dallas was learned in history class, or in popular culture.  I just hope it wasn’t “learned” by watching that absurd Oliver Stone movie.

But yes, although I was just a kid, I was old enough to understand what had happened and it is still with me to this day.

It was about three weeks after our entire family had moved to Los Angeles.  We had picked up and moved 3,000 miles away from my birthplace, New York.  So I was in a brand new school, in the 4^th grade.  I don’t think I had made any friends yet—that was always a problem for me—and I don’t think I had made much of impression on any of my classmates.  I was still just “the new kid.”

Our class was in a bungalow, away from the main building.  It didn’t really matter, though, because the lower middle-class grammar school that was three blocks from our new apartment didn’t have a Public Address system anyway.

It was just before noon, and right before the teacher—a woman whose name I can’t remember and can’t even picture in my mind—was about to send us to lunch, when there was a knock on the door.  An older student handed her a note.

The teacher read it and looked shocked.  She looked up at us and asked, “Does anyone know who the Vice President of the United States is?”

We hadn’t covered that in the three weeks I’d been in this class.  I’m not sure if we had ever covered it in my old school back east.

But I knew the answer.  I don’t know how I knew, but I did.  I guess even back then, I was a bit of a political junkie.

I raised my hand.  No one else did.  Just me.

The teacher called on me and I said, “Lyndon Johnson.”

The teacher said, “Yes, that’s right, Lyndon Johnson.”  There was a long pause.  Finally she said, “Lyndon Johnson is now President of the United States.  President Kennedy is dead.”

And with that, she dismissed us to our lunch hour.

(An aside:  We moved during the summer and I went to a different school.  Years later, perhaps in High School, or maybe in college, I ran into a girl who was in that class.  I barely remembered her.  But she remembered me.  The first thing she said to me was, “I remember that you were the only person in the 4^th grade who knew that Johnson was Vice President.”)

That was a lot to absorb for a bunch of 4^th graders.  We headed out to lunch and wondered what happened.  Everyone sat together and speculated on the news.  She had not said he was shot, just that he had died. No one thought that he had been murdered.  Most of the kids assumed it was a sudden heart attack.  One kid thought it might have been a stroke.

A stroke?  I may have known who the Vice President of the United States was, but I didn’t know what a stroke was.

You have to remember that this was long before smart phones, the internet, or anything like that.  In school we really had no communication with the outside world.  Oh, we could have conceivable brought in a transistor radio, but kids only did that during the World Series (which was played during the day back then) and that had ended a month earlier.

So we didn’t know the details.  We went back to class long enough to be sent home early.  No one was going to learn anything on that day.  We were all shaken.

I probably didn’t learn that the President had been murdered until I got home.  My mom had Walter Cronkite on the TV (we were definitely a Cronkite family) and we sat transfixed in front of the black and white television as each new detail, each new speculation, each new rumor or theory was revealed.  I think my dad came home early that day.

I know I spent the entire weekend glued to the screen.  My young mind could not understand why anyone would want to kill the President.  Today, my old mind can’t, either.

I was watching live when, right on national TV, Lee Harvey Oswald was shot and killed.  I had seen people on TV murdered before—on cop shows.  This was real.  Try to imagine a 4^th grader wrapping his mind around that.

After a weekend where pretty much everyone in the country sat in stunned, mournful silence, transfixed on the television set, somehow, everyone went back to work or school on Monday.

Eventually, we all stopped thinking non-stop about the events from fifty years ago.  But none of us will ever forget them. 

The Halloween Slut Parade

If you ever hear that I’m not in Vegas on Halloween, you’ll know I’m dead. 

If you ever hear I’m not at the MGM on Halloween, you’ll know that some other casino has opened an even more popular nightclub than Hakkasan. 

Now I’ve heard people say that, “In Vegas, every night is Halloween.”  There’s an element of truth in that, but the fact is, Halloween in Vegas is not like every other night in Vegas.

It’s better.

Much, much better.

So let me define what I mean by “better.”

There are more extremely hot girls, showing more skin, than on a regular night—even a busy Saturday night.

As I revealed in my Slut Parade post (see here) men—heterosexual men, anyway—actually enjoy seeing hot girls exposing most—if not all—of their bodies.  I personally did extensive scientific research to discover this fact, which was not previously known.  I expect to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize or the Nobel Prize or some other important prize for revealing this surprising, yet irrefutable, discovery.

It was only after I had done this extensive research that I realized that I too, being a heterosexual man, actually did enjoy glimpsing at hot girls wearing not a lot of clothing.  Until then, I just found girls walking around in short, tight, low-cut dresses annoying.

On Halloween night, Hakkasan had a “Sexiest Costume Contest.”  This is somewhat akin to a Strip Club having a “Most Naked Lady” contest.

I of course never entered Hakkasan, but I didn’t have to.  I saw many of the contestants on their way to the club.  Or lining up for the club.  Or coming in from the parking lot.  Or just milling around the MGM.

There were other costumes too, costumes that were not trying to compete for the title of sexiest.  But for some strange reason, the ones I mostly noticed all seemed to be designed to compete for the title of “sexiest.”

I did play poker this evening, but fear not, this is not a poker post.  The only big pairs I’ll be discussing will be ones that were only partially covered by some semblance of a costume.  I’ll discuss the actual poker from that night some other time.

As I arrived at the MGM early evening, I was just past the lobby, in route to the poker room, when I saw my first young lady wearing a costume.  There was a very attractive blonde girl in what can only be described as a Santa Claus bikini.  It was red with the white fringe and it was quite revealing.  The cute thing about it was, jutting out from her breasts were two little Santa Claus hats, like tassles.  This was way before the club was going to open and she was actually walking to the parking lot.  Maybe she had to go Trick or Treating.

I got to the poker room and got lucky in that they sent me to the table that is the closest to the aisle where most of the club patrons walk by.  If you get the right seat, you can see most of the club goers coming from and going to the club.  This is prime viewing area, to be sure.

Unfortunately, the open seat was seat 7, which would have my back to the pedestrian traffic.  But as I was starting to get settled in that seat, the player in seat 9 got up and left, so I asked the dealer if I could take that seat instead.  Seats 1 & 9 at this table have the absolute best view in the room for viewing the Slut Parade.  Not such a great seat for looking at your cards and concentrating on the game, of course. 

I remained at the seat for the next four hours, theoretically playing poker but spending most of my time watching the costumes go by.  Many of the dealers who came to the table (this is the favorite table of all the male dealers, to be sure), commented on how I had the best seat in the house.  Some of the male players did as well.

One of the regulars even asked how I had managed to get such a prime seat.  I told him I had reserved it at noon.

There’s a Facebook album on the Hakkasan page that has a bunch of photos from that night, taken inside the club.  You can find that here.  Frankly, that album does not do justice to the show I saw outside the club, either walking by the poker room when I was playing, or that I saw wondering around the casino when I took a break from poker.  There was just a whole lot of female flesh on display, in various and sundry ways.

Not all of the interesting costumes I saw were sexy.  One of the cleverest, but extremely simple, costumes was a guy wearing a business suit, a white dress shirt, and glasses.  The shirt was unbuttoned halfway down, and under the shirt was a Superman T-shirt.  So the costume was, Clark Kent in the middle of turning into Superman.  I really liked that.

I saw this guy on the way from the poker to the Men’s Room. Then, oddly enough, I saw a cute blonde girl using almost the same idea actually playing poker at a nearby table. She had the white shirt (either no jacket, or it was on her chair) and a man’s tie, completely undone, hanging from either side of the shirt.  She too had a Superman T-shirt underneath.  But was she supposed to be Superman or Supergirl?  The t-shirt was v-necked, showing a bit of cleavage (not much), so that would make you think she was Supergirl.  But it was a man’s shirt and a man’s tie, so maybe she was Superman?  A girl could dress up as a guy for Halloween, surely (or even if her name was Shirley).  I was a little confused, but maybe she was really Clark Kent/Superman and was just showing a little cleavage anyway, for the hell of it.  Why am I complaining about this?

But as I said, it was the sexy costumes that caught most of my attention. Surprise.  On another bathroom break, I saw a nearly topless girl.  I have no idea what the costume was supposed to be, but the girl was naked from the waste up, covered only by a small amount of something silver covering her nipples.  It might have been tape (as mentioned in this post), but it looked more like paint or make-up. 

 

So in essence, this was similar to the woman I saw a few nights later on Fremont St (see here).  But no, no, no, this was really not like that at all.

Unlike the woman on Fremont St, whose ginormous breasts looked awful so exposed, this particularly gal had absolutely the perfect breasts to display in such a fashion.  They were just the right size—and shape—to pull off this look successfully.  And they were definitely real. Unlike the Fremont woman, this gal was not going to accidentally knock someone to the side of her over as she walked around.  I believe the covering was star-shaped.  I have no idea what the costume was.  I can’t remember what she was wearing on the bottom.  But it worked for me.

I’ve included a couple of pictures I found on the internet below, similar to the girl I saw.  However, I think the closest example is the picture I included in the entry I actually posted on Halloween (see here).  The girl I saw in person had slightly larger boobs and was “wearing” slightly less paint on them.

Actually, a lot of the costumes were of characters I couldn’t identify.  I think in some cases, they were just made up characters, but I’m sure many were based on pop culture characters I’m just old to know about.  And I think a lot of folks just put some make-up on and some kind of cape or other costume-like bit of apparel and make stuff up.

One of the weird things was that I saw two girls at different times basically wearing nothing but a bra and panties.  I swear they were not bikinis, it really looked like bra and panties to me.  Although, if they were bikinis, I’m not sure what the costume was—“Girl looking for pool”?  But then, I’m not sure “Girl in bra and panties” is much of a costume either.  “Girl asking, ‘Where did I put my dress?’” Not that I’m complaining.

One of the gals was just walking in from the parking lot towards the club, with some guy not in costume.  She had some bracelet on (maybe that was the key to the costume) and as I was passing her, she had yanked the bracelet off and just threw it to the ground in disgust.  No idea what that was all about.  Maybe she realized she was overdressed—the bra and panties didn’t really need a bracelet.

The other bra-and-panties clad girl was near the club, trying, unsuccessfully it seemed, to get in it.  She was wearing a totally see-through, flesh-colored, knit cover-up over, well, basically her underwear.  Just a bra and panties, nothing else.

She was with another girl.  That girl was also wearing just a bra on top, as best I could tell.  It was an extremely low-cut push-up bra that pushed her already ample bosom up and out to an extreme.  And they way her tits were bouncing as she walked, I had to assume they were original factory equipment.  But she was not wearing panties on the bottom.  Oh, maybe she was, but I couldn’t see them, she was wearing a skirt (and not a particular short one—I guess she figured the push up bra was all she needed to get all the attention she could handle).  I have no idea what her costume was supposed to be.

Actually, although nothing like this was visible at MGM, I did hear about a couple of ladies who attended college Halloween parties stark naked.  You can read about it here.  One of them said her costume was “Naked Human.”

Oh come on.  If you’re going to go to a Halloween party in your birthday suit, be at least a little creative with the name of the costume. please.  I mean, why not call yourself Lady Godiva?  OK, you’d probably need a horse.  So call yourself  “Lady Godiva looking for her horse.”

There were lots of girls dressed as angels, with wings and halos.  One girl I saw with the wings was also basically just wearing bra and panties (and the wings, and the halo).  Everything was white.  Except she was wearing two pairs of panties.  Underneath the white, very lacy, very see-through panties was a pair of black panties.  If not for the black panties, she definitely could have been arrested.  Honestly, she really was no angel.

Anyway, there was a shitload of boobage on display, and from all sides and all angles.  But that wasn’t all.  A lot of the gals wore costumes that showed a lot of bare midriff.  I have to say, I find a girl showing off a flat stomach every bit as attention getting and as sexy as a girl showing a lot of cleavage.  Yeah, I said that.  Unfortunately, there were a lot of girls showing bare midriff that didn’t have the stomachs for it (so-to-speak).   Still, there was a lot more good than bad.

And of course there was a whole lot of leg and a whole lot of butts.  You see, many of the girls wore super-heroine costumes, or super-heroine-like outfits, and most of these were not very good at covering the buttocks (thank you!).  Some of the girls were showing at least a third of their buttocks and some as much as half.  I didn’t see any pure thongs (wonder if that would be allowed) but some were pretty darn close.

One costume I did recognize was a girl dressed up as Lady Gaga.  She was wearing something on her head that she was having trouble balancing.  A guy (dressed “normal”) was accompanying her and she was holding his hand as she walked gingerly to the club, as that headpiece was resting quite precariously on her head.  I know this will shock you but the outfit that this pseudo Lady Gaga wore was quite revealing in pretty much every area that a guy might be interested in.

There were a lot of girls dressed as Playboy Bunnies.  These were actually some of the least sexy costumes.  Shows you have times have changed.  Considered sexy in the 1960’s when they were introduced, they are rather tame by today’s standards.  Same thing—even more so—for a lot of girls who were dressed as Flappers (from the 1920’s).

Another popular category was jungle girls (this is where a lot of those bare midriffs came from).  Also, sexy nurses.  Who knew nurses could show so much cleavage?  And leopards.  A lot of girls dressed as leopards.  Some of those leopard suits were extremely skin tight.  I noticed.

There were even some jungle guys—Tarzan types I guess—showing off their bare (or painted) chests but I didn’t really pay much attention to them.

One of the “easy” ways out for the girls was to put on little cat ears in the hair, maybe pencil in some whiskers on their upper lip, and put a tale on their asses and go as a cat.  Many of these girls were just wearing their normal “Slut Parade” uniform except for the ears and the added tale.

There was one girl I saw in a “real” cat suit—skin tight, cut all the way down to her buttocks in the back, and showing a lot of side boob.  It was so tight in the front I could tell the poor girl was quite cold.  Or maybe she was just happy to see me.

I should mention that a lot of the girls didn’t dress up at all, and just wore their normal club-going clothes.  Which, as I’ve previously reported, is pretty attention-getting as it is.

In that category, there was a girl with perhaps the most risqué outfit of the night.  It was ridiculously low cut—down well past her belly button.  And wide open at top.  The “exposed” area was “covered” with a see through mesh.  That was presumably for modesty’s sake, but in reality, it was actually more to keep the entire dress from just coming totally apart.  As it was, the cut was so low in the front that you knew the young lady had had a very recent visit to the waxing salon.  If she had not, she would have been revealing her true hair color (although I think this gal was a brunette anyway—although I’m not sure my eyes ever got high enough to notice).

That’s about it for my Halloween Slut Parade report.  There actually were some very well-done, very elaborate, non-sexy costumes that were worth looking at—from both guys and girls.  It’s just that, the next day, the ones I described here are the ones I remember.

Odd, isn’t it?