While the rest of the country was eating turkey on Thanksgiving Schmoopie and I were taking money from the little old ladies at the poker tables in Las Vegas. Actually, they were taking our money. These ladies were so tight one of them actually folded pocket aces to a raise and reraise.
We stayed at the Golden Nugget and spent most of our playing time in their “new” poker room. It has about 8-10 tables and was dealing low-limit ($2-$4 up to around $6-$12 I think). The service was pretty good and I don’t think I ever waited more than five minutes for a seat. They have a tournament daily at 11 a.m. - $55 buy-in, $40 add-on, $40 rebuy. I did not play in the tournament but wished I had, as top prize was $2,200 and they paid eight spots, down to about $220 for eighth. The Horseshoe, across the street, also has a daily tournament at 2 p.m. with similar buy-in costs. Frankly, I was surprised by the tight play on the $2-$4 table at the Nugget. I was expecting the same kind of reckless calls I’ve seen at the Limelight and heard about from your experiences in low-limit games, but people played a pretty tight game.
The story was a little different on the $3-$6 tables at the Mirage, where we went the next day. (Stopped in at the Bellagio to see if we could do any star-gazing, but the place was jammed and the waiting lists were miles long). Much looser calls at the Mirage: 6-7 people seeing the flop each time. There was one guy who I’m sure was putting on a “stupid” act to suck us into pots with him later. He had these thick glasses and every time the flop would come he’d take them off and squint and ask the dealer what the cards were and say stuff like “how many clubs are there?” He would bet really aggressively all the way to the river and then flip over something like a 4-7 on a board of Q-K-J-10-x. (Now Quads is saying “what’s wrong with playing 4-7?”) He would try to make a $6 bet when he was the first bettor after the flop and would get into an argument with the dealer about it. Then, a few hands later, he wouldn’t make a peep and would quietly rake in a big pot.
We finished down overall for the weekend, but had fun nonetheless.
We stayed at the Golden Nugget and spent most of our playing time in their “new” poker room. It has about 8-10 tables and was dealing low-limit ($2-$4 up to around $6-$12 I think). The service was pretty good and I don’t think I ever waited more than five minutes for a seat. They have a tournament daily at 11 a.m. - $55 buy-in, $40 add-on, $40 rebuy. I did not play in the tournament but wished I had, as top prize was $2,200 and they paid eight spots, down to about $220 for eighth. The Horseshoe, across the street, also has a daily tournament at 2 p.m. with similar buy-in costs. Frankly, I was surprised by the tight play on the $2-$4 table at the Nugget. I was expecting the same kind of reckless calls I’ve seen at the Limelight and heard about from your experiences in low-limit games, but people played a pretty tight game.
The story was a little different on the $3-$6 tables at the Mirage, where we went the next day. (Stopped in at the Bellagio to see if we could do any star-gazing, but the place was jammed and the waiting lists were miles long). Much looser calls at the Mirage: 6-7 people seeing the flop each time. There was one guy who I’m sure was putting on a “stupid” act to suck us into pots with him later. He had these thick glasses and every time the flop would come he’d take them off and squint and ask the dealer what the cards were and say stuff like “how many clubs are there?” He would bet really aggressively all the way to the river and then flip over something like a 4-7 on a board of Q-K-J-10-x. (Now Quads is saying “what’s wrong with playing 4-7?”) He would try to make a $6 bet when he was the first bettor after the flop and would get into an argument with the dealer about it. Then, a few hands later, he wouldn’t make a peep and would quietly rake in a big pot.
We finished down overall for the weekend, but had fun nonetheless.
