Doors Lock at 11:30 PM

New Year's Eve, 2013 (Part 1)

In all the times I’ve been to Vegas, I’ve never been there for New Year’s Eve.  I’ve spent almost every Christmas there for a gazillion years, but always left town at least a day or two before the ball dropped in Times Square.

Until this year. Or last year, I guess.

I decided to be in Vegas when 2013 turned into 2014.

It never made any sense to do so before.  NY’s Eve is a busy time in Vegas, and a busy time means an expensive time.  The room rates go way up for the couple of days leading up to New Years Day.  It would have pretty much blown my yearly Vegas budget to go there for New Years.  Instead, I could make multiple visits there throughout the year.  One of the reasons I always went during Christmas time was that it was pretty much the cheapest time to go.  It’s slow there leading up to Christmas and therefore cheap.

Back in the day, when I was going to Vegas every Christmas with my pal Norm, I was playing table games, not poker.  That was another reason to avoid Vegas on New Years.  For busy weekends, and holiday weekends, they always jack up the minimum bets on the table games.  I started souring on Vegas when they stopped offering $2 blackjack and $2 craps.  Norm and I weren’t willing to play for a $5 minimum bet, and for New Years Eve we were told we’d be lucky to find a $25 minimum table.  Way too rich for our blood.

That’s one of the nice things about poker.  They don’t change the minimum bets on weekends and holidays.  In fact, now that I’m playing poker, I prefer to be in Vegas on busy weekends and holidays—the busier the better.  The stakes are the same and the action is better.

But this year I decided to extend my Christmas visit through New Years.  I figured I had to experience it at least one time, why not now?

I did research and planned my day carefully.  I knew that not only would the Strip be closed to traffic at around 6:30 PM on NYE, but that all streets leading to the Strip (Tropicana, Flamingo, Spring Mountain, etc.) would be closed too.  In a perfect world, I’d have a room at MGM so I wouldn’t have to worry about getting there.  But your humble scribe is not a wealthy man, and the $500 or so a night that would have cost me was way out of my league.  I found accommodations that were considerably cheaper than that, you can be sure.  But this meant I had to drive to and from the MGM if I wanted to celebrate the new year with my friends there. 

I decided to get there early, real early.  At least three hours before they started closing the streets.  So much for doing any work that day!  And I knew I’d be more or less forced to stay there long past midnight.  Yes, there were back ways to escape before they reopened the streets (estimated time of re-opening: between 2-3AM) but if I didn’t want get stuck in major traffic it behooved me to stay there until past 2 AM.

That’s a long day of poker.  I wasn’t sure I really wanted to play poker for 12 hours.  My bankroll might not be able to handle that if I was running bad.

So when I headed towards the MGM, I decided to take my laptop with me. I figured I could maybe do some work there before I started playing.  My first thought was that I could set up my laptop right in the poker room and use the WiFi there.  I thought I could use an empty poker table as a desk. 

But that didn’t work out.  When I got there around 3PM, there was not a single empty table (they only have 11 these days).  I looked at the waiting list and there were only a few names on it, so I didn’t both to put my name in yet.

I went over to the Starbucks (one of three they have there—thank goodness they don’t just two).  I knew Starbucks always offers free WiFi, right?  More importantly, I needed access to a wall outlet as I had conveniently forgotten to take the laptop’s battery.

I have to admit that I don’t have a lot of experience with Starbucks.  In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve never bought anything at one.  You see, I don’t drink coffee or lattes or whatever else they make billions of dollars a year selling.  I assumed that in order to take advantage of their free WiFi, one had to be a paying customer.  And even if it wasn’t actually required that you buy something, it struck me as being rather rude and not at all nice to just take up a seat, a table and their electricity without buying something. So, innocently, I went to the counter and, after not seeing anything like this on the menu, I asked, “Do you have a diet coke or something like that?”

I think they wanted to call the police.  No, no, they told me, they don’t sell any soda.  “We’re coffee snobs, don’t you get it?  It’s Starbucks.  We only sell over-priced coffee drinks. You’ll have to go elsewhere for an overpriced soda.”

No, they didn’t say that.  They just told me they didn’t sell any soda and that if I wanted a diet coke, I could go next door to the Stage Deli.

Yeah, right.  I think they charge about four bucks for a diet coke at the Stage Deli and I didn’t really want a diet coke.  I just thought it would be polite to actually give them some business if I was gonna take up their space.  I would have paid $4 (or more) for a diet coke at Starbucks because I would have felt like I was paying for the use of their facilities in addition to the refreshment.  But it didn’t make any sense to go to the deli to get an overpriced drink I didn’t really want and bring it back to Starbucks!

Well, I had tried.  I found a table near an outlet and set up my PC.  I was curious to see if they would say anything to me about using their facilities without being a customer.  The place wasn’t especially crowded, there were empty seats, but it wasn’t dead either.  And after I got set up, they started rearranging furniture, replace tables and chairs with barstools and whatever it is you call a table that you need a barstool to sit at.  But at no time did they question my presence there.  If they had said to me that what I was doing was for customers only, I would have told them I tried to buy something but they didn’t sell soda.  But they never said anything to me.

It turned out they didn’t really have free WiFi.  I mean, not their own WiFi.  The only WiFi was the MGM’s own WiFi, which you can access anywhere on the property.  It’s free but slow speed.  Now, if I had been able to set up in the poker room, I could have accessed the VIP WiFi they have, but as soon as you leave the poker room, you’re out of their range.  The VIP WiFi is fast, but the regular WiFi is basic and really only good for getting email.

So, I logged into the MGM WiFi.  At that speed, I felt I really couldn’t do any actual work, so instead, I typed up a blog post (which I didn’t really need WiFi for at all, since I wasn’t planning on posting it yet).  So now it can be revealed, the blog post here was written on New Year’s Eve at a Starbucks in MGM.  I wrote that particular post because I knew I could write it quickly and without referring to my voice notes (hard to do at a Starbucks) since the story was still very fresh in my mind.

Despite the fact that no one was hassling me, all the rearranging of the furniture was making me uncomfortable.  I finished up the blog post and packed up my computer.  Now it was a bit after 4PM and I didn’t want to be lugging around my laptop all evening.  So I schlepped all the way back to the parking structure and put it in the trunk of my car.  That’s only about a 3 mile round trip walk (just a slight exaggeration).  I walked past the poker room on the way to my car and saw that there was now an unused poker table (too late) but there were still only a couple of names on the list.  Again, knowing I was in for a long night of poker, I opted not to put my name on the list just then.  Big mistake.

It couldn’t have been that long by the time I got back to the poker room from the parking, but  things had changed a bit in that time.  There was still an open poker table (maybe two) but there were now rather long waiting lists for the games.  There were about 4-5 names on the 1/2 NL list, and about half a dozen on the 2/6 spread limit game list.  And that was the game I wanted.

I’ve described that game in the post here.  Since that time, I’ve played the 2/6 a few more times but haven’t enjoyed it at all.  Unless you have an entertaining group of players, or at least one fun person like the lady I described in that post, it’s just too boring for me now that I’m used to NL.  However, knowing I was going to be playing poker all night and into the morning, I figured it would be “safer” to start out playing the 2/6 game for a couple of hours before moving over to the 1/2 game.  Safer for my bankroll, that is.  I didn’t want to lose a couple of buy-ins before it even got close to midnight. 

But as I said, in the time it had taken me to drop my laptop off, the waitlist for the 2/6 game had grown from one to six.  Still, I decided to get on that list only.  I figured I was in no rush.  I could just sit in the poker room and wait it out.  I had a nice time talking to various dealers and floor people who knew me (even though I don’t often play there during this particular shift). 

After about an hour though, I was still stuck on that list.  I was the first name, and any minute now I’d get called.  But since there was only one 2/6 game going, the list hadn’t moved very fast and there was no telling when the next person would leave.

Meanwhile, the list for the 1/2 game was empty, they had open seats.  Finally, finally, I just gave up and said the hell with it, I’d killed enough time, it was time to play some poker.  So I told them I’d take one of the empty 1/2 seats. 

I was given a choice of tables, and looking at the players, there didn’t seem to be much to choose from that way.  So I decided to take the seat that offered me the best view of the New Year’s Eve Slut Parade.  Having thoroughly enjoyed the Halloween Slut Parade and been totally denied any Christmas Slut Parade, you could be sure that I wanted to see what kind of crowd New Year’s Eve would attract.  I had a front row center seat to all the people that would walk by the poker room on this night.  Many of those people were heading to and from the nightclub for its New Year’s Eve party.  Some of those people were young, hot girls who were barely dressed. And some of those girls had apparently forgotten what I’m sure their mothers had told them years ago—“Always put on clean underwear when you go out, in case you get into an accident.”  Much later in the evening, I did notice a couple of young ladies who hadn’t remembered to put on clean underwear.  Or any other kind.  But more on that later.

I should describe what you can expect should you decide to spend a future New Year’s Eve on the Vegas Strip.  I already mentioned that they close the Strip to traffic.  At midnight, they have a huge fireworks show on the Strip.  You have to be outside, on the Strip, to see it.  I’ve seen my fair share of fireworks so I wasn’t all that interested, I didn’t feel the need to join the mob outside to witness it.  Especially when I saw the signs as I walked in the MGM this night.  See below.

Yes, they claimed that they would actually lock the doors of the hotel at 11:30 PM and keep you locked out until 12:30 AM.  Hours later, I mentioned this to my pal Abe, who didn’t see the sign and didn’t believe me. He actually mocked me for saying they would lock the doors.  Look, I don’t think they ended up doing that, but that’s what the sign said.  On my way out, I noticed the sign, over to the side and took the picture to show Abe.  But I forgot to show it to him before leaving town.  So here it is, Abe!  I wasn’t making it up.

Another sign I noticed starting a few days before the big night was that starting from 6PM on NYE until 6AM NY’s Day no beverage could be served in a glass container anywhere on the Strip.  They listed a Vegas city ordinance restricting this.  All the drinks—alcoholic or otherwise—served in all the casinos that night were served in plastic cups.  If you wanted a bottle of Corona with a lime, well, tough luck.  Even the sundries stores that normal sell bottles of beer, wine and the hard stuff couldn’t sell them during this period.

I knew the reason.  Years ago I heard from some people who were in Vegas for the celebration.  They told me that on both the Strip and on Fremont Street, at the crack of the New Year, people would toast and then smash their glasses into the street.  This was not only a mess to clean up but a safety hazard as well. One of my then co-workers reported getting cut on the foot by the broken glass.

So some time ago, they just banned glass from the area for the 12 hour period.  I assume it’s the same way on Fremont. 

I mentioned the Strip being closed to vehicular traffic.  It is opened—supposedly—to pedestrian traffic.  I say supposedly because at one point, taking a break from the poker, I went outside to check it out.  This was around 7PM or so when the Strip was completely closed.  I expected to see people walking in the middle of the Strip.  I expected to be one of those persons.  But at least at this hour, that wasn’t the case at all.  Getting off the sidewalk was a challenge (since its blocked off at the corner of Tropicana because they have overhead walkways) and when I did find a way to get on the Strip….well, it was only the right most two lanes that were available for walking.  In the middle of the Strip there were no pedestrians, just a bunch of police cars.  It appeared to be that way on the other side as well.  Furthermore, there didn’t appear to be a way to walk from, say, the MGM to the New York New York.  I suppose there must have been, but I didn’t see how.  I meant to have investigated further later but never got around to it.

Also, those overhead walkways were all closed during the celebration.  I assume the reason for that is two-fold.  One, it’s a great place for cops to be situated to see if anything nefarious is going on.  And two, they don’t want drunks either throwing things off the bridges—or worse, falling off—during the celebration.     

(OK, I'm gonna end part 1 there.  Part 2 heats up as we bring in the New Year and discuss everyone's favorite genres.  Are we discussing movies?  Hardly.  Will there be any discussion of poker?  Don't bet on it.  The next chapter is up and can be found here.)