Do Poker Rooms Want Me to Play Tournaments?

My alternate title for this post was, “Poker Tournaments are Hazardous to My Health.”

Or maybe, "I guess I'm Not Healthy Enough to Play Tournaments."

Or possibly you may feel it should be, "I'm Too Big an Obstinate Jerk to Play Tournaments."

For this post, I have to get personal.  A lot more personal than I’ve ever gotten before.  I have to discuss my health.

I’m going to try to do this without making it sound like I expect poker rooms to cater to my own individual needs.  Or that I expect them to check with me before making out their schedules.  I’m not asking for special treatment here at all.  I think my concerns are not only legitimate but more or less universal.  But you tell me if I’m way off.  And I’m open to the possibility that I’m just being a stubborn dick.  Let me know.

The other way to look at this is to just say, well, unlucky me for having this condition and if it means I can’t play in the tournaments I want to play in, well dem’s the breaks.  A lot of people have it worse than me, I will certainly admit that.

So I’m not really complaining (although I am) as much as I am explaining while you’ll be seeing less tournament summaries from me in the future.

Poker tournaments were not designed for diabetics.  And yes, I am one. I don’t believe I revealed that here before (tho I think I mentioned it in a comment on another blog).  But that may help explain all the references I make to taking medication, not wanting to go too long between meals, etc.  Friends and readers have occasionally heard me say something like, “I have to eat now.”

I can’t believe it but it’s been over 6 years since I was diagnosed (Type 2).  It was a bad stretch for me—within a two month period, I received this diagnosis, my father passed away, and I was laid off from a really good job (a normal 9-5 job that had nothing to do with poker).  It was like getting hit with a ton of bricks over and over again.

Right now, my condition is treated with just oral medication.  And diet of course.

There are certain inconveniences. One is that I can’t go longer than 6-7 hours with eating. Whether I’m hungry or not I have to eat regularly (though honestly that isn’t usually a problem).  And the other issue I have is that I have to take medication before and after meals.  The medication I take before breakfast and dinner needs to be taken ½ hour before I eat.  Which is frustrating because, if I’m out and I happen to pass by a perfect place for dinner, I can’t just grab my dinner and go. I have to take the meds and then wait.  And I take medication after all four meals (including a midnight snack, something I never indulged in before). This medication has to be taken after meals mostly because it can produce legendary gastric distress if I don’t take it on a full stomach.  And it has to be spread out so I don’t take doses too close together.

When I’m home in L.A., this is not really an issue.  I have my schedule all worked out.  But when I’m in Vegas, everything gets thrown out of whack. So if you ever tried to have dinner with me and found me it a bit hard to schedule with me, now you know why.  This is why those football promos for the night games caused me a bit of grief, I should be having dinner right in the middle of the game.

An additional problem for me is that I have always been a bad eater, and a fussy eater. Even before I had to watch what I ate, most of what I liked to eat was bad for me.  Now, that has increased 10-fold, as you can imagine.  Fortunately I can still eat more-or-less anything I want to as long as I do it in moderation.  Back in the day, I used to love the Vegas buffets.  If I went to one now and ate like I used to, just one could kill me.

So if I’m in Vegas and want to spend the day playing poker, I have no choice but to plan (last minute lunch or dinner invitations can sometimes throw me into a tizzy).  As long as I stick to cash games, it’s not a problem.  Cash games have no schedule.

Tournaments on the other hand….

Now if I’m in Vegas I’m probably out late every nite.  This means I wake up later (as compared to when I’m home).  This means breakfast is late.  That means I should have a later lunch.

And the Vegas tournaments I want to play could start at 11AM, or Noon, or 1PM or 2PM.

Now you know why I like Binion’s tournament so much.  It starts at 2PM.  Plenty of time to have both breakfast and lunch before heading out to play in the tournament without missing a hand.

The Aria 1PM isn’t bad either, although honestly, that is a little harder for me to comfortably to make than being downtown at 2PM. But other similar tournaments on the Strip run at Noon or earlier, so that has been one of the plusses of Aria for me.  Fortunately, I stay very near the Strip and Aria is actually the closest casino to where I stay that has a tournament I want to play in.  So it’s very doable as long as I don’t mind starting my lunch at like 11:30-11-:45 AM.

You see, neither of those tournaments have a dinner break.  So it’s therefore really important to me to try to have a nice lunch before a tournament.  The place I stay has a kitchen and allows me to microwave stuff, which is fine.  It’s not only healthier but saves me a lot of money not having to have lunch out. Breakfast is not a problem, but I want to try to have at least one “good” meal a day while in Vegas—either lunch or dinner.  The other meal I can be deal with being crappy (a couple of hot dogs, a couple of slices of pizza, something like that).

For me, one of the requirements of a “good” meal is a salad. Lucky for me, I have always liked salad.  It’s probably the only food I like that isn’t bad for me—it’s actually good for me.  So I can pop a low-carb frozen dinner in the microwave, have a nice big salad, and then I’m ok if I can’t manage to have a decent meal for dinner—as long as it is enough food to keep me going and to fill my stomach enough to take my post-meal meds. 

This explains why I shy away from long tournaments that start at 11AM or even Noon—and many do.    No way could I have lunch in my room before an 11AM tourney, and while I can do Noon—man it’s awfully early to be eating lunch, especially if I woke up late and had a late breakfast, as I usually do in Vegas. It’s not just a question of not being hungry so soon after breakfast, it’s a question of spacing out my meds. And honestly, setting an alarm to wake up early in order to play poker kind of defeats the point of playing poker for me.

The tournaments I play go way past my ideal dinner time if I last that long.  And this is a problem.  Of course, I don’t always survive in a tournament long enough for it to be an issue. If I do, I have to figure out when I get something I can call dinner (and anticipate it).  When the break I figure is the one where I need to get dinner is coming up, I have to take the pre-meal med as the last level starts (assuming 30-minute levels).  Sometimes I take the meds and bust out that level, which really pisses me off, cuz then I have to eat soon instead of maybe taking my time to find a nice, inexpensive place. But that’s the chance I take. If I’m still alive at the break, I make a mad dash to get some food that I can purchase and shove down my throat in the 10-15 minutes I have.

At Binion’s there’s a deli right near the tournament area, but it closes at 8:00PM.  There’s a break at 8:30PM but I can’t wait for that one to eat, I’d miss the deli.  So I have to use the break at 6:30PM to grab a couple of hot dogs and stuff my face before play resumes. It’s too early really, but I have no choice. And I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to eat early when I’m very close to busting out—and then do so before the next break.  In other words, I could have waited to eat and then had a better meal that I wouldn’t rush thru. 

Aria has a pizza place nearby that I can get a slice or two from during a break and I’ve done that too.   Also, just in case, whenever I play in a tournament, I always have a bag of peanuts with me that I can eat in an emergency to keep my blood sugar ok.

It would make my life so much easier if these long tournaments that take 8-12 hours to complete would provide a dinner break.  But they don’t.  When the WSOP comes around, most of the series events around town do add a dinner break, which is really great for me.  Binion’s runs the exact same tournament but with a 30-minute dinner break, it’s wonderful.  But regular tournaments just don’t have the dinner break.

It’s not just Vegas.  I’ve looked into playing big events at Commerce or The Bike.  Buy-ins and structures similar to events I play in Vegas or even slightly bigger. And for their big series event (Commerce is about to start one tomorrow), they don’t put dinner breaks in most (if any) events—at least the ones I can afford to play in. So in some sense, that’s even worse tha Vegas because the big series events in Vegas do have dinner breaks (just not the regular tourneys).

I’ve asked the Tournament Directors there about this and they just say no, they don’t put in dinner breaks.  Some of these tournaments are designed to go 12-14 hours easy and no dinner break.  That just seems extreme to me.  Lunch would be an issue as well, because of the starting times—Noon at the Bike, 1PM at Commerce.  But 1PM at Commerce isn’t like 1PM at Aria, it takes me a lot longer to get to Commerce than it does to get to Aria when I’m in Vegas.

I don’t mean to be picking on the rooms I’ve named.  It’s pretty much the same everywhere. I enter a lot of tournaments into PokerAtlas and don’t see dinner breaks that often. They need to start tournaments early to finish within a reasonable time, and then they don’t want dinner breaks for much the same reason (and to avoid paying staff to sit there for an hour and do nothing.  I totally get that.

See, I’ve been getting the idea poker rooms just don’t want me to play tournaments. 

And then last month, I went to Binion’s to play in the 2PM Saturday deepstack.  I already knew that the long time TD there, had left to take a similar position at Aria.  I re-introduced myself to the person who is now completely running the room.  And when I told him I’m from PokerAtlas and Ante-Up and will be contacting him regularly for updates, he told me that starting in January all their tournament start times are moving up an hour.  The 8PM tournaments are moving to 7PM and the 2PM tournaments are moving to 1PM, including the Saturday deepstack. And I figured well, it’s a lot easier to get to Aria at 1PM than Binion’s at 1PM.  I’ll miss a lot of the dealers, but I thought I’d be playing at Aria Saturdays from now on.

And then, while I was in Vegas, the Aria announced that for three days of New Year’s Eve weekend, they would be running a $240 tournament at 1PM instead of the usual $125.  On my last Saturday in town, I played in that $240.  It was big success and the Aria asked for feedback and decided to run the $240 tournament on Fridays and Saturdays permanently.  I thought this was fine—I wouldn’t mind a slightly big buy-in for a better structure and a bigger prize pool.

Except, in making the change, it was decided to move back the starting time of the $240 buy-in on Fridays and Saturdays.  It’s not Noon—it’s 11AM.

Now I totally understand the reasoning for this.  The Aria poker room is really too small for the amount of business they do.  And Fridays and Saturdays are obviously going to be their busiest days.  By starting a couple of hours earlier, they’ll be able to free up tables for cash games earlier during their busiest hours.  Makes perfect sense.

I could make the 11AM start work…if they had a dinner break. I played in one of the Golden Nugget events last summer that started at 11.  The even had a one-hour dinner break.  I got there before the start, and figured I would have a “crappy meal” at the first break—1PM.  It was easy because the tournament area had a snack bar set up.  Then I watched the clock and saw that, as the first break approached, the blinds wouldn’t reach me before the break.  So I left early to get food before the rush hit.  I finished easily before the tournament resumed.  I could do this because I know I would have time to get a decent meal if l lasted to the dinner break.  Turns out, I didn’t.

But rooms aren’t going to put dinner breaks in for the reasons I’ve already mentioned.  I don’t blame them, I totally understand—it just doesn’t make it desirable for me.

It means I won’t be playing there on Saturday afternoons.  I guess I could play the $125 on Sunday, but I’d actually prefer playing the $240 on Saturday.

Now, I’m just talking out of my ass here, but for awhile I’ve been wondering if poker rooms running 12+ hour tournaments without a dinner break might be running afoul with ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act).  Diabetes is considered a disability.  Although the ADA was more designed to protect employees—not poker players. On the other hand, I’ve seen accommodations made for other disabilities.  The first time I played at Binion’s there was a blind woman playing next to me (see here).

And of course, there are certainly work-arounds. I know.  You may be reading this shouting things into your computer, or phone.  I could bring a lunch.  Dinner too.  I could get served food right at the table.  I could afford to do without a “decent” meal to play in a tournament once a week. It’s probably going to be only one meal I have to deal with unless I get a deep run.  I hear ya.

And maybe I’m just too damn inflexible.  Eating during the tournament is very distracting.  I know when I’m at the Bike eating lunch, I am not paying as much attention to the game as when I’m done. And if I ordered dinner, well that’s when tables are breaking and my meal might have to be moved from table to table while I was eating…what a pain.  No way could I order food and hope to do well in the crucial part of the tournament. Also, what if I order a meal and bust out before it arrives?  There might not actually be a place for me to eat it.  And while I could order food at Aria (and Bike and Commerce too, I believe), I couldn’t do that at Binion’s, no food service is provided for the tournament.

Because I’m such a fussy eater, it would be difficult for me to bring food to eat, especially since almost anything I’d bring would need refrigeration.  OK, get an insulated bag, make a sandwich, right?  Well, I’m no germophobe, but eating anything with your hands while playing poker is something I try to avoid.  I can’t think of anything filthier than poker chips.  Ugh.  And not sure what if anything I could bring for dinner that would last 7 hours.  At least that I would want to eat, with my fussy food tastes.

How about just showing up late?  All these tournaments have late enough registration so that I could eat first and then enter late.  But I’ve no interest in that.  I’m not Phil Hellmuth.  I think it puts me at a disadvantage to enter late, with essentially a smaller starting stack.

In fact all those workarounds to me put me at a disadvantage, missing levels or distracted by eating. I need all the help I can get.

I’m not interested in playing lower buy-in, shorter stack tournaments that turn into shove-fests by the third level. Those last only a few hours but they’re not my thing.

Now I know my own situation is not universal and also I’m especially inflexible.  But still, I can’t be the only person in the world who thinks a dinner break in a 12-hour tournament is necessary.  I swear, if I had no health issues and wasn’t thinking twice about what kind of food I was putting in my mouth, I would want a dinner break during a 12-hour poker tournament. I actually kind of think it’s inhumane to have a poker tournament go on that long without a reasonable dinner break. Am I alone in that?  Am I wrong?  Even people in perfect health need to eat more often than every 14 hours.

It’s frustrating to think that I won’t be playing many tournaments—and not the ones I want to play—for the time being.  During the summer, dinner breaks will be put in (at least in Vegas) and I’ll be back, I guess.  It makes me sad.  The thing is, this past trip, I played in three deepstack tournaments, played at least 8 hours in all of them, cashed in two of them.  I’m actually convinced that I’m a better tournament player than a cash game player.

But more and more, it seems that poker rooms just don’t want me playing their tournaments.  They’re certainly not making it easy to do so.

But again….it’s my bad luck (or bad lifestyle) to have this condition.  And again, I can’t expect poker rooms or any other business to build their business around my idiosyncrasies. 

Just a bad beat for me, I guess.  

Note: As with all my posts, the opinions expressed here are entirely my own, and don't represent the views of anyone else. 

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He Literally Played His Hand Face Up

They say you make your money in poker by taking advantage of other people’s mistakes.  But that usually means routine poker mistakes.  You know, like calling when you know you’re beat, an ill-timed bluff, chasing your draw without the proper odds (or giving your opponent giving you the right odds to chase).  The kinds of mistakes my opponents made on this night were a bit different.

I was playing at the Venetian.  I had played there two nights before with Prudence and her new fella Aaron—a story I’ll get around to eventually. And I liked two things about the Venetian making it worth a return visit.  First, I won.  Second, it was warm inside.  Too many places I’d played this trip were freezing cold inside.  The V was quite comfortable—warm, inviting, accommodating. And since the cocktail service was excellent, it was well lubricated. Now, some people complain about the scent at the V.  But it is what it is.

I bought into the 1/2 game for $200.  Early on, in the big blind, I had 8-5 off and there was no raise.  Four of us saw a flop of 8-7-6.  I bet $6 and got a call.  I bet $15 on another 8 on the turn and took it down.

Next big blind I had Ace-10 of hearts and just checked. Seven of us saw an Ace high flop, two diamonds.  I bet $10 and got one caller.  I bet $15 on a blank turn and got another call.  No call to my $25 river bet on another blank.

Now there was a guy at the table who was instigating most of the action during the early part of this session.  He raised preflop a lot, and frequently bet the flop (whether or not he was the preflop raiser).  He was pretty aggro.  Every now and again, he would make a huge bet on the flop or the turn—a shove of way more chips than the pot.  For reasons that will soon become obvious, let’s call this character “Oops.”

I had Ace-5 of hearts and raised to $10.  Oops and one other player called.  The flop totally missed me, but I c-bet $20.  Ooos called and then the third player made it $75.  I was done with the hand.  Oops tanked and very unhappily folded.

The very next hand, I had Ace-5 of hearts again.  I guess because of having been burned on the immediate hand before, I just limped in.  Oops made  it $12.  Three players called before it came back to me, so I called.  The flop was Ace-7-6 rainbow.

It checked to Ooops who immediate announced “all-in.”  As he said this, he pushed/spilled his entire stack out in front of him in a very aggressive manner. The shove was around $150 or so.  I had him covered by a bit.   But there was one more thing he did as soon as he finished pushing all his chips forward in kind of a mess.  He turned over his hand.  It was not an accident.  He did it on purpose, absolutely.  Of course there were still four players with live hands behind him to act.  The dealer kind of went “whoa…what are you doing?” and put his hand out to indicate that this was a major mistake.  Oops came to his senses and quickly covered his cards and turned them back face down.

Now I was in seat 8 and he was in seat 3, so I was about as far from him as I could be, and my eyesight isn’t very good.  But I got a good enough look. I was at least 97% sure he flipped over the dreaded pocket Kings.

Folks, one of the things this blog is dedicated to is how badly I play pocket Kings.  But even I don’t play them that badly.

Truth be told, the only thing I was 100% sure about was that they were both paint cards.  If it wasn’t two Kings, it might have been King-Queen. If it was K-Q, he had no draws, as I said, it was a rainbow flop. 

It appeared that everyone at the table had seen his hand.  The first two players to act folded instantly.  Then it was on the player to my immediate right, the last player left to act before I would close the action.

He tanked.  He said he didn’t see the cards that had been exposed!  He said, to everyone at the table, “What did he show, what did he show?”  And to my amazement, no one answered him.  A couple of people even said, “We can’t tell you,” or “It wouldn’t be right to tell you.”

That was the right thing to do, but I have to say, that may be the only poker table I’ve ever been at where no one who had seen the hand wouldn’t have blurted out what the exposed hand was. 

And after a few minutes, as everyone continued to refuse to tell him what the hand was, he finally said, “I can’t call….” And he mucked.

Of course, knowing I was well ahead of his hand, with no one left to act, I snap-called.  The board bricked out, he showed his hand again.  It was indeed pocket Kings.  I had him covered, he left.  I don’t know that he would have left if he had just been felted in a more standard way.  But I’m sure he was too embarrassed by keep playing at this table after what he had done.

The players around him said he was on tilt. The guy who had raised to $75 on the previous hand claimed it was his raise that had put the guy on tilt.  Really?  He was that sensitive?

Here’s the punch line.  As the dealer was pushing the very nice pot to me, the player on my right said he folded Ace-9.  He said he’d only seen one card and assumed the guy had an Ace to go along with the King.  Knowing that he had just given away the easiest pot he’d ever win, I think he felt almost as bad as the Oops did.  But you know, you gotta pay attention.

Note: Being last to act made it easy for me. Even if the guy on my right had seen the hand, he still had to worry about me.  I’m guessing though that he would have risked my having a better hand (after all, I had limped in and checked the flop) and called.  With my crummy kicker, I would not have been able to call him—and would have lost to him if I had.

For the next couple of hours, I was incredibly card dead.  I finally got the dreaded KIngs myself, in the big blind.  After a bunch of limpers, I made it $16 and no one called.  

A bit later I got pocket Aces. I raised to $8 and it was three way.  The key player here was a woman from Anchorage, so let’s call her Anchorage Girl.  The flop was 10-10-8, two hearts.  Neither of my Aces had the heart-shaped design on them. I bet $15 and Anchorage Girl was the only caller.  The Jack of hearts hit the turn and put all kinds of made draws out there.  My Aces weren’t looking very good.  It appeared to be a good time ask for a divorce.

But Anchorage Girl donked out a bet—a measly $10.  For the size of the pot, I couldn’t resist calling, even tho I thought my Aces were as worthless as my Kings usually are.  But I was ready to reconcile with those Aces when I saw the river card. A black Ace. Sweet.

This time, Anchorage Girl led out with a real bet--$50.  Ok,  I dismissed a straight flush and if she was playing flopped quad 10’s that way, she was going to get all my chips.  I raised to $125.  A call would have left her with about $50 behind and so I figured if she was going to call, she’d just shove.  I think that psychologically a smaller raise is more likely to get her to call then a shove (I had her covered by quite a bit thanks to Oops).

Well, she went into the tank.  That was nice, because if she did have quads (or the straight flush) she wouldn’t need a lot of time to think.  And she is thinking, and thinking, staring at the board, staring at me.  She had mentioned that she plays a lot of home games but this was her first ever poker session in a casino.  She had been playing pretty tight.  

Finally she took another peak at her cards.  She hesitated….the color kind of drained from her face….and then she mucked.  She said, “I misread my hand. I thought I had a flush but the other card was a diamond.”

Well damn…it would have been nice for me if she did have the flush, wouldn’t it have?  But she called my flop bet with a draw she didn’t have, and then bet $10 and $50 with a flush she didn’t have, so it wasn’t so bad for me.  And the tiny turn bet when she thought she had a flush was sure nice, as it kept me in the hand.

Later, after I had left the game, I ran into her in the casino and told her that she was lucky she didn’t have the flush there.  I hoped that made her feel a little better.  She was rather upset that she had goofed up like that.

A bit later I limped in with pocket 7’s and four of us saw a Queen-8-7 flop with two spades. A short stack led out for $20 and a big stack called. The shorty had less than $20 left.  I made it $80.  The shorty put his last $18 in and the big stack folded.  I caught an 8 on the river for the boat and the short stack didn’t show when I flipped over my hand.

I left the three-hour session up a bit over $200, thanks mostly to some unusual errors on the part of my opponents, for which I was very grateful.

(Edited to add, as you can see from the comments below the exposed KK hand created a bit of a controversy....should the player who acted before me been told of what the exposed hand was?  I did a follow up post where I asked "people in the know" to weigh in.  See here.)

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"You're a Bad Enough Player to Play Queen-9"

I’m getting lazy, I guess.  You see, if Chuck had done even one only slightly embarrassing thing this night—or if we had managed to get into a hand together, even—I would probably have taken the time to come up with a blog name for him. But alas, he really isn’t part of this story, except for the fact that he organized the game. Which means when I finally have a really outrageous tale about him to tell, which I hopefully will, some day, I might just use his real name when I tell it.  But for now, he’s safe. 

I’ve known Chuck for many years, long before I started blogging.  We were both active on the AVP forums and had many exchanges.  I’ve met Chuck in person at several AVP events over the years.  He came into town on New Year’s Eve.  Chuck is mostly a limit player but likes to dip his toe in the NL waters every now and again—especially when he can do so at The Linq where the game is $1-$1, not $1-$2. So and he and our buddy Don (recently mentioned here) were going to play some $1-$1 at the Linq, the night of New Year’s Day.

I put the word out about the game, hoping to get more friends and perhaps more AVP’ers to show up.  No other AVP’ers showed, but we were joined by “Inner Circle” member Alysia Chang. Alysia certainly needs no introduction to readers of this blog, but if you want one anyway, you can find one here. 

The most famous participant in this night’s festivities was Tim, aka The Trooper. But he actually had to be there, since he is in the employ of The Linq and was dealing there.  It’s always a fun time when Tim is dealing. There was a rather annoying player at the table (no, not me) who wouldn’t shut up.  He kept asking dumb questions that I’m pretty sure he knew the answer to—like why he had to post his blinds when he missed them but new players didn’t.  I believe Tim had dealt with him, I mean dealt to him, before.  Early on, he accused this player of having “diarrhea of the mouth.”  To make sure the player wasn’t offended, Tim said he was guilty of having the same ailment.

That joked tied in nicely with one of Tim’s favorite bits of schtick.  Whenever he puts a deuce on the board, he announces, “Look at that, I dropped a deuce on the turn” (or the flop, or the river, whatever). 

During the evening, Tim told me the story about a player acting out of turn before he (Tim) finished his action.  At the time, he wasn’t sure that he was going to mention this in his vlog, and I encouraged him to do just that.  So you can find that story, told as only The Trooper can tell it, here.  And of course, I am taking full credit for the success of that particular vlog.  Autographs available on request.

I needed Tim’s help in directing me to food.  My feeding schedule was all messed up this day, due to having been up until 4:00AM that morning.  So I needed to take a break and find some food.  He suggested The Nook, a snack place in the back of the Linq.  What he didn’t tell me was that, before one gets to The Nook from the poker room, one passes “The Nook Express” which is not at all what I had in mind.  The Express version is just a coffee place that has a few premade sandwiches that having probably been sitting there since this hotel was known as The Imperial Palace.  Fortunately I figured out there must have been a bigger, better Nook further towards the back.

The place had pizza, salads, sandwiches I guess…..it looked like the pizza was the safest bet for me.  So let me make a meal recommendation for those of you visiting Vegas in the near future:  Do not, under any circumstances, have the pizza at the Nook at the Linq. It’s not that it tasted bad, mind you.  It’s that it had no discernible taste whatsoever. It had absolutely no flavor at all.  I couldn’t taste the cheese, the dough, or the tomato sause.  It was like eating air. I suppose I should be grateful it didn’t taste bad, but honestly, it was really the most tasteless pizza—or pretty much the most tasteless food of any kind—that I’ve ever had.

But it saved me from starving and it didn’t make me sick, so I guess in that sense it was fine.

The other thing I want to mention is the weather….the weather inside that is.  Weather was an issue the entire trip, it was very cold in Vegas.  And even colder in some poker rooms and casinos.  The issue with the Linq poker room is that it is in the very front of the casino, right next to the doors that lead to the Strip (and also the Linq outdoor promenade or whatever they call it.  Despite having double doors, every time the doors would be open for someone to come in or out, a extremely cold blast of air would hit pretty much everyone playing poker. 

They tried to compensate by cranking in some nice warm air thru the ventilation system (a trick some other casinos haven’t mastered) but that created the situation where you were actually too warm as long as the doors were closed, and then you were suddenly freezing when someone entered or left the casino.  The contrast in temperatures was rather unpleasant, and I’m sure not really healthy.  I’m surprised I didn’t die a few days later.

Enough food talk, let’s get to the poker. With the big blind being just a buck, I bought in for $100. Early on, I had the most powerful hand in poker, the mighty deuce-four, in the big blind. I slow-played it by just checking my option and a bunch of us saw a flop of King-3-2.  Alysia bet $5 and I called.  There was another King on the turn and no one bet.  Another deuce hit the river and I bet $10, and no one called.  Alysia asked if I had pocket Kings (and thus, by the turn, quads). Since I won the hand, I dunno how she could think that.  I did not reveal my hand (until right now).

Then I found myself looking at a couple of Aces.  Before it got to me, Don raised to $5 (remember, both the small and big blinds are $1).  I popped it to $15, Don thought about it and then called.  We were heads up.  The flop was King-Jack-9 two spades, and I did have the Ace of spades.  I led out for $25 and Don tanked for quite a bit before folding. He later told me he had 10-8 suited (presumably not spades) and almost shoved over my bet with his draw.  Knowing what a tight player he is, I would have folded had he shoved and he probably won’t be too happy to read that here.  But to be fair today, prominent in my range was pocket Kings, and even yours truly is not going to fold a set of Kings there.

Speaking of the dreaded hand, I returned after my dinner break and waited a few hands until I was the big blind. And sure enough, my first hand was two red Kings.  A spewy player had raised to $10 in early position, I made it $30, he called and we were heads up.  The flop was 4-5-6, two diamonds.  With my stack ($100ish before the hand started) I couldn’t think of a bet to make other than a shove, so I shoved.  The other player tanked and called (he had me covered by a bit).  The Ace of diamonds on the turn gave me the nut flush draw, which I thought I made when I saw a red 10 on the river. But the 10 was a heart, not the fourth diamond.  No matter, the guy looked at my kings and just mucked without showing.

Of course, getting a nice double up with pocket Kings got everyone’s attention.  Alysia made a big deal out of it, as did Chuck.  In fact, Chuck tweeted out something to the effect that I can win with the dreaded Kings as long as I’m not playing at MGM.  But I’ve got news for you Chuck—my issues with KK go way behind the confines of the MGM poker room.

I noted my stack after I finished stacking, I had exactly $213.  Alas, I was not able to keep any of that profit as the evening wore on.

I want to mention a hand that Don and Alysia were in, because her play there had some effect on the big hand of the night between us.  To make a long story short (something I excel at, of course), Don raised preflop with pocket Kings and by the river, there was a baby straight on the board, also two 6’s. His Kings were still an overpair and he and AC were all in (don’t remember when they got it all in).  Alysia announced she had a 6 for trip 6’s as Don showed the Kings.  But when her hand was exposed, it turned out she didn’t have a 6 at all.  Instead she had suited connectors that made a straight (it was either 4-5 or 7-8, I guess).  She was embarrassed but more than willing to drag the pot.

Don was not at all happy.  The fact that she misread her hand seemed to particularly bother him (or perhaps her calling his preflop raise with a marginal hand did it).  But the truth is, whether she had trip 6’s or the straight, she had his Kings beat.

The rest of the night, long after Don left after another bad hand, Alysia kept referring to herself as a bad player for not being able to read her hand.  She said she should have looked again.  Who knows, maybe if she had looked at not seen the 6 she thought she had, she wouldn’t have realized she had a straight and mucked?  She might have played it differently, somehow.  At one point she said, “When you’re playing suited connectors, it’s easy to forget what they are,” or something like that.

Later, I had pocket Kings again.  I raised to $10, was called in four spots.  The flop was Ace high.  It folded to me and I bet $35.  Bad play?  I realize that with four players it’s likely someone has an Ace, but am I just supposed to check/fold there?  I usually don’t.  Anyway, it folded to the last guy who could call me, who took forever to go all-in—for $36.  Yeah, one buck more than my bet.  Tim was dealing so I joked, “I need time, this is tough decision, so I need to think about it.”  Of course, as I was saying that, I threw in a buck.  Naturally, the guy was playing Ace-2 (I think it was suited). That sucked.

Then came the hand of the night.  I had Ace-Jack of diamonds and raised to $6 (remember, the BB is a buck).  Six of us saw the flop, including Alysia.  The flop was Jack-10-8, two clubs.  Remember the guy with diarrhea of the mouth?  He was still there, still yapping, and he led out for $10, a donk bet.  Ordinarily I might just call there, but based on his play I thought he might just have a weaker Jack than me, so I wanted to raise.  I made it $30.

And AC, next to act, shoved.  It turned out be $93.  It folded to the chatty guy, who talked for about five minutes before acting, coming pretty close to revealing the contents of his hand.  He was warned to keep it quiet since there were players behind him, including me.  He clearly did not want to fold…but he finally did.

So it folded back to me.  And then this character would not shut up.  He did this other times too, saying something like “two pair no good there,” and “how big are your two pair,”  Honestly, I don’t understand why the dealer (it was not Tim) didn’t tell him to shut up.  It was just distracting to me and arguably bad for Alysia, who didn’t need the player facing action to be coached.  It’s one player to hand, right?  I can only assume that the female dealer wasn’t paying enough attention, or since she could tell that AC and I were obviously friends, maybe she thought this guy was part of group as well. Truth be told, this guy liked to talk during and after hands, commenting way too much on the action, on the kinds of hands that might be good.  He was warned to keep quiet, but to little effect.  

But AC was also talking.  She didn’t tell me what she had, but she kept telling me over and over again, “I’ll show if you fold.”  She said this any number of times.  Even over the other guy babbling, I heard this.

I was thinking of a lot of things.  I was thinking about the very first time we played together, she bluffed me off my Kings (see the link I gave at the beginning).  I was thinking of her constantly referring to herself as a bad player and misreading her hand (I think she may have pointed out that she had double checked her hand this time).  My gut told me she wasn’t bluffing, but that maybe she was semi-bluffing with any of the draws out there or a pair and a draw. 

But the other thing I was thinking of was the math.  When I was finally able to tune out the chatty guy, it seemed to me that, from a Stack-to-Pot ratio analysis, the right decision was to call. It was borderline, for sure.

But I finally became convinced she really only would do that right there with one hand—Queen-9 for the flopped straight.  And that reminded me of the hand I had against Lightning some time back (here), where he took down my set of Jacks with a turned straight while playing Queen-10. Of course, afterwards, I gave him all kinds of grief for being a bad player to have played Queen-10 there, it became a great source of ribbing between us.  Well, if Lightning was a bad enough player to have played Queen-10, certainly Alysia was a “bad enough” player to being playing Queen-9 there.  I mean, she had been telling us what a bad player she was all evening.

And so, after tanking for approximately 45-minutes, I decided to make the most of the situation.  I didn’t just fold.  I announced, “Well, since you’re a bad enough player to play Queen-9, I fold.”  I said this while mucking my cards.  Alysia, realizing I was folding, was good to her word and was in the process of exposing her hand.  It was revealed before I finished my declaration.  Of course, it was indeed Queen-9 (but it was sooooooted)., 

Well, I lost the pot but got a great laugh, a great reaction from everyone for not only calling her hand but the way I called it.  Alysia was the last one at the table to realize exactly what I had said when I folded, then she too cracked up.  She even tweeted about it.  I knew she’d be a good sport about it.

With three people at the table (four when Tim was dealing) familiar with this blog, it was mentioned quite a bit.  Can’t remember the context of it, but very early in the session I somehow mentioned that when I use a quote as the title of a blog post, I almost never use one of my own quotes—I prefer to quote someone else (and better yet, a woman).  But now I realized that I had to quote myself for the title of this post.  I’m pretty sure Alysia even said something about having to quote myself.

Well, nothing much happened after that.  Between the Kings hand I lost and the hand I lost to a player bad enough to play Queen-9, I ended up down a few bucks. 

But it was certainly a fun session at the Linq.

Note on the pic below. I was kind of desperate to find an appropriate pic, and finally Googled “Queen-9.”  For some reason, this pic popped up.  I really liked the pic although I have no idea why.  So I’m using it for this post.  I hope no one minds.

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The Mystery of the Stolen Diet Coke

There’s good news and bad news.

The good news is, as I start this blog post, I’ve just sent off my latest Ante-Up column to my editor, so I can focus all my attention, writing-wise, on the blog.

The bad news I need to do one more quickie, not-really-a-full-length-blog-post for now before getting to the meaty stuff.  I am hoping that by the time my self-imposed deadline for my next blog post rolls around (Sunday evening), I’ll have a real juicy, lengthy, blog post for you folks—you know, the kind that take two days to read.  And there will even be some poker content!

But for now, here’s a quick little anecdote having to do with one of my biggest pet peeves.

In fact, this pet peeve was the very first item in the post I did nearly two years ago (see here) which I titled “Things That Piss Me Off.”  Yes, it really pisses me off when any glass of liquid refreshment (usually diet Coke) that I have at the poker table is taken away before I’m done with it.

So last Saturday I was playing in a tournament at the Aria.  It was the second or third break.  I got up to get rid of some of the aforementioned diet Coke that I had been consuming.  I guess I should have taken a picture of my glass for evidence.  There was more than just ice in it.  There was definitely some diet Coke left.  Maybe not ½, but at least 1/3.  I’m sure.  There was certainly enough left for anyone to identify that it was a cola type drink and not just water or maybe a 7-Up.  Definitely.

And so when I got back to the table, ready to count my chips for my notes, I was shocked to see that my glass of diet Coke was gone.  I was not happy.

I said, to no one in particular, “Who stole my diet Coke?”  The dealer—the same one that had been there when I left—heard me but said nothing. There was no waitress around to complain to, of course.  Then I remembered the waitress who had been serving us had said, late in the previous level, that she wasn’t taking orders as she was going on break.  Great, so it would be awhile until I could get another soda.  Fortunately, I am now prepared for this so I had ordered, as my first drink, a bottle of water, which I had barely touched (preferring the soda).  But since I was sure she had left the room to go on break before I did, I wondered who the hell had taken away my glass of soda.

In fact, when this waitress had come around as the tournament began, she had a tray full of waters and I asked for one, but she had just given the last one to the guy next to me.  So when I asked for a water she said, “Well, I just gave the last one to him, but don’t worry, I’ll be back.”  I said no problem, I was sure she’d be back with my water.  So she joked, “Yes….I’ll be back, and I’ll ignore you all day.”  I laughed and said, “Well you won’t be the first waitress to ignore me.”  Then, I realized I didn’t want to make it about her job, so I added, “You won’t be the first woman to ignore me.”  Another player at the table, who didn’t know me from Adam said, “Or the last.”

Some time went by when a different waitress came by to take our orders.  When she asked me what I wanted, I said, “A diet Coke….to replace the one that was stolen.”  I dunno why I said that, I guess I was still a bit perturbed by the missing soda.  And so the waitress just stopped dead in her tracks and looked at me.  “Stolen?”  I said yeah, something about it disappearing while I was on break.  I didn’t think much of it but then a few seconds later, someone else tried to get her attention to order a drink and she said, “I’m sorry….I’m trying to process the fact that his drink was stolen.”  She eventually recovered and I eventually got a new diet Coke.

The same waitress brought me at least one more soda and then the original waitress returned.  When I gave her my order (and honestly, all I said was, “diet Coke, please”) she stopped, looked at me and said, “Are the player who had his diet Coke stolen?”  I couldn’t believe it.  How did she know about that?  I said to her, “You heard about my diet Coke being stolen?”  She said she sure had, the other waitress had alerted her.  The player next to me said, “Everyone in the casino knows about it by now.  The police are on their way.”  I said, “Wow…I was only going to tweet about it!”  That’s actually true. Since my readers are aware of this quirk of mine, I did consider tweeting about the stolen drink, but I got too busy trying to play poker to bother.

About an hour and at least one more diet Coke later, I order yet another one from this same waitress. When she returned with a tray full of drinks, I readied my near-empty glass and the dollar bill I was going to tip her. But she said, “I’m sorry, someone stole your diet Coke off my tray, I’ll be back with yours.”  I couldn’t make this up folks!  The player next to me—the same guy through all of this, said, “It’s ok….he’s used to it.”

There’s an addendum to this story.  The next night was my last night in town, and I was playing cash at MGM (right before my encounter with the hooker that I just told you about). The room wasn’t that busy so someone I guess decided that one waitress could handle the whole room.  Not a good idea.  Even tho the waitress assigned was one of good ones, she seemingly ignored my table a time or two.  Finally when I saw her in the room, I got up to order right away so I could then visit the restroom and not miss my blinds.  I asked her if she was still handling our table and she apologized, saying that she had a full tray and just couldn’t get to us.

But she took my order even tho she hadn’t reached my table. I started to head to the restroom and then remembered that I had a glass of mostly ice there—but there was still quite a bit of ice.  I turned back to her and said, “Please don’t take my empty glass.”  I guess I should have said “Please don’t take my ice” or something else.

Of course, when I returned, the glass was gone.  Perhaps she hadn’t heard me, or perhaps she misheard me and thought I was asking her to remove the glass.  Sigh.

The good news is that she returned with my new diet coke in less than five minutes, so I forgave her.

I’m all heart, really. 

I’m gonna have to start putting a lock and key on my damn soda.  

EDITED TO ADD: GRANGE HAS DONE BASICALLY A REALLY LONG COMMENT ON THIS POST AS A POST ON HIS OWN WONDERFUL BLOG, AND YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST READ IT AS THE FOLLOW UP TO THIS.  SEE HERE!
 

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"Would Your Girflriend Mind If I Sat on Your Lap?"

Well, I’m back in L.A., after cutting my Christmas Vegas a bit short.  My original plan was to come home on Tuesday, but left Monday instead.  I was trying to beat the weather.  A total of four storms were predicted to hit the West Coast this week.  Monday was supposed to be a weak one, but the one for Tuesday was predicted to be quite strong.  Just as a general rule, I’d prefer not to make the 4-1/2 drive home in the pouring rain, of course.  But there are actually a couple of mountain passes between here and Vegas where it often snows during the winter storms.  And I’ve even seen snow in places where it “never snows” in the past, like Victorville and Barstow.  And when it does snow, if it’s more than just a dusting, they don’t waste any time closing the freeway.  None of this chains or snow tires stuff—they just close down the I-15.

With all the trips I’ve made to Vegas over the years, many in the winter, I’ve lucked out and never been prevented from getting through.  If I recall correctly, the second or third time I went up for Christmas with my pal Norm, a storm closed the I-15 for three days and it just opened the morning we were scheduled to go there.  Another time Norm and I went up there in April—it was actually on Easter Sunday, which was very late that year—and a freak arctic storm hit that morning.  We actually drove through snow flurries but made it through ok.  Later that day, in Vegas, we heard they closed the I-15 at Mountain Pass (about an hour south of Vegas) just a few hours after we drove through it.   

Then there was the time that it snowed in Vegas for several days before I headed up.  That wasn’t that long ago, actually.  The weather had cleared but there was still plenty of snow on the ground—and on the roofs of houses—when I got to Vegas.  And snow all along the side of I-15 as I drove up.  I stopped in a place called Hesperia (just south of Victorville) to make a rest stop, and the parking lot of the Jack-in-the-Box were I stopped had snow all around.  I had to make a snowball just for the hell of it.  I threw it—at no one in particular. It was the first time I’d touched snow since I was just a kid.

We were always concerned about this so Norm and I researched it and figured out a way to get to Vegas (or home from Vegas) without using the I-15 (or any non-Interstate route that paralleled the I-15, since the problem would be the same).  This was before Google or the internet existed so we had to use a Road Atlas—anyone remember them?—to figure it out.  We came up with a way that would take us through Blythe, CA on the border with Arizona—a long way from Vegas.  It probably would have been a 9 or so hour trip as I recall.  Luckily we never had to try it.

So to make sure I didn’t get stuck in Mountain Pass or the Cajon Pass much farther south, I came home a day early.  It had rained in Vegas overnight Sunday, but I only had to deal with an occasional drizzle driving back, and traffic was good despite two major incidents.  Just as I was approaching Baker, I could see that traffic coming the other way was at a complete standstill, and as I got closer, I could see why.  There was a helicopter that had landed in the middle of the freeway, in the northbound lanes.  Didn’t see any evidence of an accident but apparently someone had to be taken to a hospital post haste.  For a few miles, the northbound freeway I was passing was just a parking lot, people were out of their cars walking around, chatting with their neighbors.  Ugh.

Then, as I was heading into the aforementioned Cajon Pass, I didn’t quite see the accident, but I saw some of the result—a huge pile of smoke, dirt and dust in the air as traffic slowed to a crawl.  As I eeked by, I saw a car facing the wrong way in the left most lane that was barely more than scrap metal.  I later heard on the radio that it was a multi-car crash where one vehicle had overturned several times.  Amazingly, it didn’t seem like anyone was hurt too badly and it only delayed me a couple of minutes.

And for good measure, after I arrived home, I heard about one of the major freeways in my neighborhood closed for hours due to the police chasing—and catching—a wrong way driver who was wanted for murder.  It wasn’t very far from where I live, but fortunately for me it wasn’t a freeway I use to get back from Vegas.

But I digress.  This trip was a very good one, so much better than my Halloween trip.  It was not without its frustrations, of course, but the poker went quite well overall and I have many successful (and fun) sessions to report on. Most of those frustrations were non-poker related, things like the weather, my chronic backache bothering me more than usual, bad cocktail service and the like.  And by weather, I don’t really mean the weather outside (despite the fact that it was unusually cold in Vegas most of the time I was there—but definitely not unseasonably cold),  I mean the weather inside numerous casinos and poker rooms, which were actually colder (or seemed colder) that the frigid temperatures outside.

If seems I’m stalling, I am.  Between total exhaustion from this trip, and the fact that I have an Ante Up column due Friday, there isn’t time for me to start relaying all the juicy details from this trip in the proper Robvegaspoker-style that you demand. So I only have time to do a short post to keep you satisfied until I get you the long, detailed posts I know you hunger for.

So just a quick hooker story to keep you entertained for the moment. I didn’t really expect to score another hooker story this trip, after the last one which I reported on so recently (see here). But this happened Sunday night, just after my last poker session of the trip.  It was a decent session, I came out ahead, and I’ll eventually write about it one of these days.  I was heading back to the MGM garage.  I took a seat in front of a slot machine in the area I call “Hooker Central”—which is also a decent place to catch some of the club goers as they march to and from the club. Unlike the previous two nights, it was a slow night for the club.

I was happy about the session, happy about the overall trip, but a bit frustrated that I had to end the trip prematurely, and that I had to end the session earlier than I might have since I had to get up early the next day for the long drive home. So I really didn’t even think that the two black ladies I’d seen earlier where working girls—my spidey sense wasn’t going off.  Actually, the one girl who really got my attention was wearing a really tight, short dress more like a club girl would wear than a hooker would. I also noticed she was rather amply endowed in the chestal region.

They were in front of me when I sat down but before I knew it, they had turned around and came over to me.  Damn, I was totally unprepared, and frankly, not really in a mood to deal with them.  Besides, I’d already gotten my obligatory hooker story for this trip.

But there they were, right in front of me.  The one who was more modestly dressed spoke.  “Hi!”  I was a captive audience.  I said hi back. “Whacha doing there, looking so sad?”  Guess the disappointment for having to leave Vegas early showed on my face.  I said, “Nothing.”  I know, incredibly clever, huh?

She repeated her question. “Whacha doing?”  Now as I mentioned, I wasn’t really in the mood to deal with her. My mind jumped to something that I thought for sure would make them lose interest.  “I’m waiting for my girlfriend.”

She immediately came back with, “You’re waiting for your girlfriend? I don’t believe that.” Hmm….kind of insulting, isn’t it?  I mean, do I look so pathetic that the thought of me having a girlfriend is out of the question?  You know, next time, I’ll try, “I’m waiting for my boyfriend” and see if that works better.

I just laughed and shrugged.

So she said, “Would your girlfriend mind if I sat on your lap?”

I’m pretty sure my imaginary girlfriend would mind that very much.  Certainly a real girlfriend would object.

I said, “Yeah. I think she would.”

She thought for a second and then asked, “Well, can I sit on your lap?”     

I said “No.”  I think I stretched out the word “no” so it was like, “noooooooo.”

Anyway, she got the message, said, “Okay,” and then the two of them walked away.

And that is how my Vegas trip came to an end. I’ll tell you the rest over the coming weeks.

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MGM's New Drive For Five Promo is a Winner

Don't change that channel, don't close this page in your browser.  Despite what the title might make it seem, this post is not one of my Ante Up columns presented for your pleasure.  This is an actual Robvegaspoker blog post.  Of course, I will discuss this topic in my next Ante Up column (which I have to write as soon as I get home this week) but it will be a much briefer mention and will necessarily be more unbiased.

You see, as I wind down this Vegas trip, I need to get something quick posted for your enjoyment, and I've got way too many juicy stories floating around in my brain to pick one for you today.  I already mentioned a few here.  I now have three long tournament runs to report on, two of which I cashed in, including yesterday's.  And of course there's the session I had at the Linq the other night where I will have to quote myself for the title (because calling a friend a bad player and nailing her hand is so much fun).  But all those tales and more will require more time to compose than I have right now.

Since in the recent past I have been a tad critical of my favorite poker room's promotions, I thought it would be appropriate to sing their praises here.

I don't like freerollsin general so it's no wonder I wasn't thrilled with MGM's version.  They are designed to appeal to local grinders who can spend all their days and/or nights playing poker.  I'm not in Vegas quite long enough to play them.  I loved the cash drawings they had when they introduced them, but I somehow became mesmerizedmy them to the point that they started affecting my play when I could least afford to let that happen.  It was entirely my own fault, my own weakness, not the fault of the promo.

Now I do love the football promo they have.  I've seen them all, and I believe the MGM football promo is the best in Vegas.  The only issue I have there is something beyond their control—the time of the games makes it tough on my schedule, timing meals around it.  I dunno if East Coast poker rooms run football promos, but any room in the eastern time zone would do well to steal the MGM football promo next year, it would be absolutely perfect if the games were on from 8:30PM to midnite.

But the MGM decided that these promos had run their course, and they wanted to come up with something new for the new year.  All the old promos mentioned above are now gone, replaced by just a single promo.

It's called "Drive for Five" and as soon as I heard about it, I thought it sounded good.  Now that I've seen it in action, albeit very briefly, I'm calling it a winner.

Players are given a card (almost like a Bingo card) that has five hands on it.  Each time a player makes one of those hands, that hand is stamped (i.e, checked off).  When the player completes the card with all five hands, the player gets $100.

And the hands are relatively easy to make.  It's two pair, three-of-a-kind, a straight, a flush and a full house.  To be clear, it is any two pair, any straight, etc.  You don't have to make a specific hand of that rank, any one will do.  The card is good for the entire month….bring it back the next day and keep getting stamps until you fill out the card and collect your $100.  Then get a new card and start over again. 

There's a few caveats.  There must be $20 in the pot to get a stamp.  You can only earn a stamp for the highest ranking hand you have.  So if you have a straight and a flush, you can only get your flush box stamped (and a straight flush doesn't count as either). And you must win the pot to get the stamp, unlike the old cash drawings promo where you just had to call at showdown to get a ticket.  But I think that's actually a good thing.  If you know you are beat, you won't be tempted to call a big bet with a baby flush when you know someone has the bigger flush or a boat.  So it should save you money.

And it still shouldn't be very tough to complete the card, since you only need one card in your hand to win.  Last night I had Ace-rag on a board with Ace-8-8 and got my two pair box stamped.

To supplement the promo, they have random cash drawings ever hour on the half hour. One player is randomly selected as the winner. Nothing needed to qualify but be playing in a cash game. If you have no card or a card with just one stamp, you get $25 if picked.  If you have two or three stamps on your card, you'd get $50.  If you have four stamps on it, you'd get $100. Note: You can't have five stamps, as soon as you hit that, you'd turn the card in, get your $100 for that, and then get a new, blank card to start over.

Vegas rooms are always looking for promos that appeal to both locals and tourists.  Every Vegas room on the strip has their share of locals who play there.  Locals start games and keep them going.  That's why so many rooms do have freerolls.  Then they must have other promos that the tourists have a shot at (high hand bonuses, bad beat jackpot, random drawings, etc). What's nice about this promo is that it serves both kinds of customers.  Those grinders who were in the room day or night to earn freeroll hours should have no trouble putting their hours in and filling out card after card, each worth $100. 

And one great thing about this promo—unlike the freeroll, you actually have to play hands to win.  You can't sit there and just play Aces and Kings and expect to fill out the card.  You have to put some chips in play to win.  So the promo is actually good for the game.  I don't see any way it has a negative affect on game play. And even tourists have a chance to complete a card in a 3-4 hour session.  Plus they could hit the hourly cash drawing.  And the drawings being every hour means you'll never feel obligated to play more than 59 minutes (at most) more than you want to!

I think the only issue is that they may end up giving away more money than they expected to.  Good for the players, maybe not so good for the room.  I suspect they will keep this promo for awhile, tho they very well might have to tweak a bit as it goes on.

At first blush, it seems like a real winner to me.  Lemme know what you think.

And damn, this is about the perfect length for an Ante Up column.  Too bad I can't just submit this!

(Edited to add, this promo has been discontinued for more, see my follow up post here).

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