The Girl With the Magic Cleavage

As regular regulars have figured out, usually when I’m in Vegas on a Saturday, I enjoy playing a tournament.  It’s most likely the Binion’s $140 deepstack.  If not that, the Aria $125 is also a great option.

Before I got to Vegas for the first weekend of March Madness, I realized that I was going to be disappointed that first Saturday. As part of my day job with PokerAtlas,  I knew that neither Binion’s nor Aria were going to run their regular tournaments.  Binion’s had their Spring Classic going on, and on that Saturday they were running a $300+ event for a WSOP seat.  Too rich for my blood.  And Aria was in the middle of their “Race for the Clover” event, so that tournament too was over $300.  I just wanted a deepstack tournament with a $125-$150 buyin as usual. 

But I was out of luck.  One option was to play cash all day.  Not a bad idea for a Saturday filled with tourists coming into town to bet about a zillion college basketball games.  But I feared if my luck wasn’t good I might need too big a bankroll to last all day playing cash.  I kind of wanted a tournament to take up some time.  The best idea I came up was the $65 tournament at Treasure Island.  It had a $1K guarantee (since reduced to $750) and is basically the same tournament I played a few years back at the “Grumpament” (see here).

They had a great turnout this day.  Over 70 players, filling 6 tables. There was one cash game going on and the room only has 7 tables, so the room was max capacity.  It would have been a nice tournament to win—first place was over $1,500.  And the players at my table were really bad.  I should have crushed it.  But I didn’t.

The bad players were almost all calling stations.  They called you down with anything and would of course sometimes hit.  Since there were multiple players calling down their weak draws, somebody almost always hit something.  I need to learn how to play in games like that.  It seemed to me my best option was to wait to get a hand and then get max value for it.  Trouble is, I never made a hand.  So, not making any hands against these calling stations meant I busted out in the fourth level, barely after the first break.   

While I was approaching the TI parking lot, I noticed the Wynn across the diagonally across the street.  It had been awhile since I played there so I put the idea in the back of my mind of maybe walking over there after I was done at TI.  So when I busted so early, that’s what I did.

At Wynn, I encountered “The Girl With the Magic Cleavage.”  This gal comes to the table and that caught my interest, always nice to see a female join our heretofore strictly male table.  She was cute, dressed very conservatively at first glance, and actually seemed to be wearing a lot of clothing, perhaps hiding the fact that she might have been a pound or two overweight.  As she was getting settled in her seat I turned away to play a hand.  When I looked back over to her, suddenly cleavage had magically appeared.  I swear it wasn’t there when she first sat down.  Hmm…..Then as it turned out, based on the first few hands, it did indeed seem like the girl had magical powers…whether it emanated from her cleavage, I can’t be sure.

As she was getting settled in, the dealer asked if she had a player’s card.  She said she didn’t and then explained, “I just got to town.  First time in Vegas.”  A few of us welcomed her and then she added, “First time playing poker.”  Really? That would be interesting.  Did she mean first time playing poker ever or did she mean first time playing in a casino?

Well, it didn’t take long to get more information.  The dealer asked her if she was ready to get dealt a hand.  She asked, “Do I have to post?”

Ok, that put the lie to her claim that she’d never played poker before.  You must have played a poker –in a casino, no less—to even know to ask that question.  To even know what it means to post.  So I knew I had to keep an eye on her.  Truth be told, she never acted like she didn’t know what she was doing.

In fact, the very first hand she was dealt, she raised.  I don’t recall much of the action but she won a smallish pot at showdown and showed Ace-Jack for the win.

The next hand she raised again, to $9.  When it got to me, I looked down at pocket Jacks.  I certainly hadn’t figured out anything about magic cleavage girl, so I just called.  It folded to the table’s resident Crazian, who was one of the blinds.  He made it $40.  Now it was getting interesting.

I was eager to see how magic cleavage girl would respond.  If she had another hand like Ace-Jack, would she call a three-bet?  Well, she started counting chips and I realized she was going to re-raise.  She settled on $87 (total).

I had been card dead and those Jacks had looked pretty nice when I opened them but they didn’t look so good now so I folded without hesitation.  But the Crazian called and it was heads up.

The flop was low, and almost immediately, the Crazian announced “all-in.”  The girl had bought in for $200 and the Crazian had her well covered.  She didn’t waste any time calling.  He showed pocket 9’s.  She flipped over a couple of Aces.  The board bricked out and she had gotten a nice double up, second hand of the session.  How lucky for her….not only getting those Aces but getting them against a guy who would double her up with only an unimproved pair of 9’s.

Less than an orbit later, she raised again, had a couple of callers.  The flop was 8-3-3 and it was checked around.  A 7 came out on the turn, she bet and another guy shoved.  She snap-called.  She had the guy covered, but not by that much.  She showed pocket 8’s.  He showed pocket 7’s.  Another near double up.

It was quite a run for her.  I left soon thereafter so I have no idea how she ended up.  But if it really was her first time in Vegas, it was quite a welcome.

There’s nothing really to say about the lousy session I had there at the Wynn.  The session I had later at Caesars (this was the same night I checked out the new Slut Parade, see here) had only one interesting hand, my last one.  Before I get to that, I’ll talk about the guy playing scared.  There was a guy there who, when I had arrived to the table, had about $1,200-$1,300 in front of him.  I was only there a few minutes when I heard him ask the dealer, “I can’t take any of this off the table, can I?”  Of course, the dealer told him he could only take money of the table if he left the game.  He stayed, but the big stack obviously affected his play.  I was sure that this guy was just having the best run of his life and had never played so deep before.

This was the session that featured the aggro Brit who button straddled face up (see here).  I mentioned the Brit’s buddy who was also an aggro.  That guy became the nemesis of the guy who was nervous playing the $1,200 stack.  Soon after the aggro got there, the nervous guy bet $100 on a flop of 10-9-8, two clubs.  The aggro shoved for over $500.  The nervous guy tanked forever.  He had the dealer count the bet.  Finally he folded.  The aggro showed Ace-Queen, neither of which was a club.  In other words, he had air.  The nervous guy said he folded a set.  The nervous guy laughed awkwardly but I’m sure it was killing him. 

There was another time he folded to the same guy’s shove on the river.  The board had a King & Queen on it and also a possible straight.  He took forever to fold his pocket 10’s face up.  The aggro showed his pocket 4’s.  I’m pretty sure there was one more hand when the nervous guy folded to this same guy’s all-in bluff.

He ended up losing about 1/3 of his big stack, mostly by making his own (bad) bluffs that were called (some of them by yours truly).  But he wasn’t bluffing all in.

You know, one of the nice things about the Caesars poker room is the location.  There’s easily half a dozen other poker rooms within walking distance.  Once the guy got to the point of asking if he could take money off the table, he should have cashed out and gotten into another game with a normal buy-in in one of those other rooms.

My last hand, I was on my second buy-in (don’t ask) and I had about $190 left and was ready to call it a night, down to what I promised myself would be my last orbit.  I limped in with Ace-5 of clubs.  One guy made it $10, another guy made it $20 and another guy called the $20.  I was nearly done so I decided to call the $20.  All told, five of us saw the flop. 

It came down 7-3-2.  The 7 was red, the other two cards were both clubs.  I had the nut flush draw, the gut-shot straight draw and the steel wheel draw.  One guy bet $30, another guy called that, the big stack made it $90, the next guy called that.  I called.  The guy who bet $30 folded.  The guy who called the $30 shoved for about $160, the big stack shoved and of course I shoved too.  It was a monster pot.

The turn was a red 9.  The river was black 10, but a spade, not a club.  I had Ace high.  Damn.  The guy who called $30, then shoved had flopped a set of 7’s.  The big stack showed pocket 9’s.  Note, he had gone all in on the flop before he had a set.  He had also been the preflop three-bettor.  I didn’t see if the short-stack showed his hand.  I just left, totally defeated.

Tough day of poker when almost all of my blogging material came from hands I wasn’t in.

What Do I Have to Do to Get a Drink Around Here?

I’m afraid this post is going to be a rant and also touch on one of my pet peeves. Although it was mid-March and spring had barely arrived, it was unseasonably warm in Vegas.  Actually, the weather was just about perfect, but walking outside in the sun made me quite thirsty.  As it happened, I started noticing what might have been a sore throat coming on soon after I left my hotel (it turned out not to be anything serious, just “Vegas throat”).  So by the time I found myself seated at a 1/3 game at Wynn, walking over from TI, I was quite in need of some liquid refreshment.  Oh, and also, I had some medication I needed to take pretty soon.

After being there over an hour, I was still waiting for the cocktail waitress to make her first appearance at our table.  At one point I noticed one across the room but she never made it over to our table.  I asked the dealer about it.  He said they no longer have buttons on their Bravo system to light to ask for a waitress.  Not that that ever does any good, but it makes you feel like they have some interest in getting you served.

So I took to Twitter.  And to the Wynn poker room’s Twitter account, I tweeted, “Been at @WynnPoker for a hour and still no cocktail waitress. How embarrassing for you. Worst I've ever seen.”

I wasn’t sure what, if anything, would come of that, but at least it made me feel a little better to publically vent.  And let me make this clear:  The Wynn poker room is a fine room.  It is well run.  It is a very nice place to play poker.  And I know that the folks who run the room have absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the cocktail service.  There’s nothing they can do about it.  That’s handled by a separate department and the waitresses are all union.  The poker folks are at their mercy. 

My tweet didn’t get any response, no surprise.  At least from the good folks at Wynn.  But a couple of my twitter followers responded.  One was sympathetic.  But one, not so much.

The unsympathetic response came from someone I’ll call “Andr0us” since that’s his twitter handle. I know he’s a poker dealer (and sometimes floor, I believe).  Through my vast network of spies, I even know what room he works at, even though it’s supposed to be a closely held secret.  We’ve been twitter peeps for some time.  In fact, in the post here, when I referred to him (not by name) as one of my twitter peeps, he tweeted back to me that I had touched his heart.

As far as I know, I’ve never met him in person.  But you know, I wouldn’t be surprised if somewhere along the way, we have indeed been in the same poker room at the same time.  Honestly, it would surprise me if we hadn’t. 

Anyway, my twitter peep Andr0us tweeted to me, in a series of three tweets: “this is my view on poker room cocktails. Drinks are a privilege, not a right, the casino gives to the players. if you want a drink right away, you are more than welcome to go to the bar & pay for one... but if you want a drink for free, you have to be patient & wait as long as it takes.”

The day not having exactly gone the way I had envisioned, I was less than pleased with his thoughtful response. 

Ever been really upset about something—which may seem really minor to someone else but is just pissing the hell out of you—and had someone try to tell you that it was no big deal, or that you are wrong to be upset?  You have, I’m sure.  I’m sure you know how maddening that is. 

The last thing I needed right then was for someone to argue with me at that moment.  I’ll bet the other players at my table were wondering why there was suddenly steam coming out of my ears.

Calmly, cooly, I responded to Andr0us with the very first thing that came to my mind. I tweeted back, You're right u don't have bring us drinks. So put a f***ing water cooler in the f***ing poker room.” (Note, my actual tweet did not contain asterisks in place of the actual letters). 

He replied, “i agree with that. Place I work has a water cooler & coffee in the corner.”

I suppose I appreciated him agreeing with me, but he happened to bring up another pet peeve of mine.  My response was, “And as someone who drinks soda not coffee I'd still s.o.l. but I'm used to that. At least the water would help.”  Every office I’ve ever worked in offered free coffee to the employees.  Not at all helpful to me since I don’t drink the stuff.  And I’ve never worked in an office that offered free soda.  But I’ll save the full rant on that topic for another time.  

I didn’t hear back from him on that, nor did I expect to.  But I couldn’t stop thinking about it.  I was pissed to be challenged like that when I was clearly in the right. I would have expected nothing but sympathy for my plight.  But I spent the rest of my poker session thinking about it and formulating a better response.  You know, instead of concentrating on the poker game.

So here’s the thing.  We all know how the game is played, and dating back to the days when the mob was running Vegas, there’s been an unwritten contract between the casino and the players. It is understood that the casino will provide free drinks for folks while they are gambling.  This accomplishes two things for the casino.  One, it keeps the player playing longer instead of having to get up to fetch a drink.  And two, since most of the drinks people order contain alcohol, the casino hopes the players will get somewhat intoxicated, loosening their inhibitions and staying longer, and reaching into their pockets (or their ATM’s) and risking more and more of their money when they are no longer in full control of their faculties. 

I suppose I beat the system to some degree by drinking mostly non-booze.  Note: back when I played table games and not poker, I ordered liquor a lot more often, tho never to excess. 

But implied with that contract that they’ll serve you drinks until you get hammered is that they will come around and give you more drinks reasonably frequently.  It’s to their benefit as well as the player’s.

So getting a drink in less than an hour and a quarter doesn’t seem too unreasonable.

The other thing of course is that, what the heck do they charge for drinks in a Vegas casino bar these days?  I’ve heard various reports.  “Eight bucks for a beer.”  “Twelve bucks for a beer.”  “Fifteen bucks for a mixed drink!”  I dunno if these are accurate, since I don’t order drinks in Vegas casino bars. But I do know it ain’t cheap. And what would they charge me for a diet coke?  I have no idea, really, it’s been like forever since I ordered a soft drink in a bar.  Five bucks?  More?  Are you kidding me?

Well, it was nearly 90 minutes before a waitress came by to take our orders.  To be fair, at least she had a tray full of Fuji Waters with her to pass out as she took orders.  I grabbed one of the waters and ordered a diet coke.  I immediately took my meds which were now overdue.  And I would say I gulped down about 90% of the water in less than a minute. I was pleasantly surprised when she returned with my diet coke in a fairly reasonable amount of time.  But I did hear the waitress say—to no one in particular as far as I could tell—“I’m so tired.”

Of course the drink consisted of about three ounces of diet coke in a glassful of ice.  But that wasn’t so bad.  Remember, I like sucking on the ice.  But here’s the kicker.  The diet coke was resting on the portable cart that was behind my chair (no cup holders at the Wynn).  Not long after getting the drink, I was ready to take off.  I got up to grab a rack and started racking my chips.  I saw/heard the waitress come by yet again to take orders, and I didn’t order since I was practically out the door.  I stood up and went to grab my glass, which had a bit of watered down soda and a ton of ice, only to discover that the waitress had taken away the glass that I wasn’t done with.  Are you freaking kidding me?  I had waited 90 minutes for that drink and the damn waitress took it away before I was finished with it?  As I told in the post here, taking away my glass (even if it’s just ice) before I’m through with it drives me absolutely insane.  The waitress was AWOL for 90 minutes, then somehow manages to make three appearances at my table within a relatively short amount of time, only to take my glass away before I was done with it?  It took every ounce of self-restraint I posses to not start screaming and make a scene.

To add insult to injury, later in the evening, I was playing in another poker room.  Let’s call it Caesars.  Let’s assume that I had walked from Wynn to Caesars.  Let’s assume I was still damn thirsty.

The waitress came by fairly quickly.  I ordered a diet Coke.  Someone else at the table ordered a Jack & Coke.  When she came back, she went to the other guy first and gave him one of the two dark colored drinks on her tray.  “She said, “I’m not sure if this is your Jack & Coke, can you taste it?”  He did.  He handed it back to her and said, “That’s diet Coke.”  No, it wasn’t just diet Coke.  It was my diet Coke.  Which she could now not serve me.  She gave him the other glass on her tray and told me she would have to come up with my uncontaminated diet Coke.

I finally got my drink but this day it was a real struggle getting drinks.  And as I said, I think there’s an understanding that when people are gambling, they’re supposed to get a beverage within a reasonable amount of time.  Doesn’t have to be 10 minutes.  But nearly 90 minutes to see a waitress?  That’s unacceptable.

Caesars' New Slut Parade -- A Review

It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.

By “it” I mean, check out the newest incarnation of that scientific phenomenon that I respectfully call,”The Slut Parade.” 

Of course, that is a truly horrific assignment.  Observe the mass of humanity that would be lining up to go the newest and hottest nightclub in town?  You realize that most of those lining up are young, attractive young ladies wearing almost no clothing.  Copious quantities of bare legs will be displayed. Boatloads of highly toned buttocks concealed by the tightest of tight skirts will be flaunted.  And, most frighteningly of all, obscene amounts cleavage will be exposed to the naked eye.  And since some of these young ladies ignore the instruction their mamas no doubt gave them about always wearing clean (or any) underwear, it’s entirely possible a hoo-ha or two could escape.

Yes, it is quite terrifying to think about.  Nevertheless, I had to face the terror.

I knew my readers would insist on it.  My readers would want to know how the new Slut Parade stacks up against the old Slut Parade.

Sigh.  Sometimes, you just gotta take one for the team.

The new club is at Caesars.  I first heard about it last year, doing my job, being informed that the poker room over there was going to be closed temporarily and then relocated to make way for a major expansion of their old night club.  Conveniently, the new poker room is located near where the old one was, and thus very close to the club.

Then I learned that the new club would be run by the same folks who own the club at MGM, the Hakkasan group.  The new club is called Omnia, if you care to know.  When I learned that, I figured that the parade might just be moving there as well.  I figured that the hippest people would be more interested in the newest—and therefore most exciting—club.  And besides, by now, most of that crowd had already been to Hakkasan.  So I figured not only might Caesars become the best place for viewing such nice scenery, but that the view at MGM might no longer be as good, since the A-listers would be over at Caesars and MGM would be left with the second string.

That was just a theory and I had to investigate.  The new club opened just a week or so before my arrival in Vegas, and so, I was able to check it out my first Saturday night in town.

To fully compare, I of course had to check out the view from the poker room, so I played there Saturday night.  The layout of the poker room at Caesars is a bit different than MGM.  The seat I had though had an excellent view of the traffic outside the room, at least some of it.  I was facing the foot traffic that would be heading towards the club from the parking structure. 

Once the crowd started arriving, I immediately noticed a couple of issues with the Caesars’ version.  For one thing, all the tables are farther away from the crowd.  This might be good for concentrating on poker but it diminishes the view somewhat.  And more significantly, the Caesars room has an actual fence around it, instead of railing.  At least I think that’s true.  All I know is that as the people came in from the parking and headed to the club, I could really only see them from the waist up.

I hear you saying, “But Rob, isn’t that the view you like the most?”  Actually, despite some nasty rumors, I appreciate the entirety of the female form.  Besides, these fine young ladies went to great lengths to expose approximately 93% of their bodies.  If I don’t see their upper, upper thighs, their often bare midriffs, or their buttocks wrapped in impossibly tight cloth, I feel like I’m insulting them, that I’m failing to appreciate the time and effort they took to expose themselves to that degree.  I don’t want to be rude, you know.

There were probably some spots in the poker room where you could more easily look out the front of the room, which was more open and thus capable of providing a full head-to-toe view.  But these seats would have been even farther back from the traffic.  So as far as I could tell, there was nowhere in the poker room you could sit that would provide as good a view as many of the seats in the MGM poker room do.

Ok, so what if you got off your ass and walked over and by the line to get in the club?  I’ve heard that some guys like to do that, just to view the ladies.  I don’t know anyone like that, mind you, but that’s what I’ve heard.  So, solely to give you good people the best information possible, I did that myself. And you know what?  Once again, Caesars falls short of MGM.

The problem is that the area where they line up at Caesars is much more compact, and much more crowded.  The actual line to get in, where everyone is queued up, is about 4, 5, 6 rows deep. They’re kind of packed in like sardines. It’s much more spread out at MGM.  That means most of the folks in line are not really visible to passersby. There are too many folks around them, blocking the view. At MGM, you can see a much, much higher percentage of the people waiting to get into the club, and see most of them fully (as opposed to mostly just their faces at Caesars). 

There’s also just a lot fewer folks in night club attire just milling around, because there’s less room for them. 

Now, I know you want to know about the, um, “quality” of the crowd.  Is it a step up now from MGM?  And I honestly can’t say one way or the other.  For one thing, that’s highly subjective, isn’t it?  But also, well, again, there might have been some exceptional looking lovelies buried in that queue that I couldn’t see.  But I have to say, I spent more time at MGM than at Caesars on club nights, and there were plenty of fine looking ladies still over at the MGM.  And to the naked eye, it sure didn’t seem like their crowds were any smaller than before the new club opened.  Although, I did hear one player over there tell me that he heard their business was down considerably since the new club had opened.  But I didn’t really notice that.

Bottom line, there’s plenty of incredibly attractive women going to both venues, but, for my money, you get to see the “show” better at MGM.

The compactness of the area presented a problem for me when I tried to use the restroom.  The line for the club kind of blocks access to the restrooms that service the club crowd (until they get inside), the sports book, the poker room, and a bar.  These restrooms are now way too small. 

But that wasn’t the issue I had.  I was trying to get to the Men’s Room from the walkway in the casino, which took my right by the queue for the club.  There was a small, but direct path to it, although it meant walking through a pathway that was apparently roped off for the club line.  But at this particular moment, there was no one in that “line”, it was totally vacant space.  And it appeared to be the only clear path to the restrooms.  I started walking through there and was about 10 seconds or less from getting to the Men’s Room when one of the bouncers they had to control the crowd told me I wasn’t allowed to go that way, I had to go around.

Excuse me, but there was no around, at least none with a clear path.  But he meant to get out of the area I was already 25% of the way in, and walk behind the bar.  The trouble with that was that bar was crowded and there were lots of people standing behind people sitting at the bar, talking.  I would have had to get at least three or four people to move to go past them to get to the Men’s room.  But that’s what this idiot bouncer made me do.

Again…..I understand at some point, possible even 30 seconds later, they would be having people line up in the area I was walking through.  But at the moment, there was no one there and there was a clear path to the Men’s Room.  And I told the guy I wasn’t cutting in front of anyone, I just needed to use the Men’s Room, rather desperately in fact.  I would have gotten out of the non-existent line in a few seconds and then out of the way.  But the jerk insisted I back up and go around by the bar.

So I did that, saying excuse me to half a dozen people standing behind the bar to get a path to the restroom.  By now I was a little bit (or a lot) pissed (so-to-speak) and it’s entirely possible that when I got passed all those people, but was not quite to the Men’s Room, I may have stopped for a second and yelled to the bouncer at the top of my lungs, “Do you want me to pee on the f***ing floor?” 

Actually, I didn’t really do that, I only imagined doing it.

Or did I?

You guys can figure that out.  For now, I’ll just repeat that I think the “old” Slut Parade at MGM is still the best.  Newer isn’t always better.

Oh, and this.....oh the sacrifices I make for you folks!