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London - Vegas - Orleans in a day.
Tikay10
Member, Administrator, Moderator Posts: 172,113
in Poker Chat
Afternoon.
I'm now in Vegas for a few weeks, & thought I'd try & bring those of you less lucky than me a flavour of Vegas day-by-day.
Won't win any Pulitzer prizes, & might be a bit boring to many, but I'll give it a go, & will try & produce some kind of Daily Report whilst I'm here. Don't mind if there's no feedback or interaction, just hope it's mildly enjoyable to some of you.
Please remember that Vegas is 8 hours behind the UK so I'll be out of sync with those reading the Forum in the UK.
It's Friday today, & tonight is the Welcome Party, so I'll try & get some photos & chit chat about that in tomorrow's splurge.
Today's missive will be about Thursday, which started in London, & ended in Orleans, via Vegas.
Comments
Bumped into Essexphil in the Departure Lounge which was neat, & we chatted a bit on the 'plane as we were seated just 4 rows apart.
Had a lovely seat with a ton of leg-room, so a reasonably comfortable 10.5 hour flight.
Was a Boeing Dreamliner, my first flight on the magnificent beast, & what a piece of kit it is. Smooth, quiet & as flying goes a bearable experience. The wingspan on a 787 is 60 metres (a 747 is 64 metres), and it's a bit scary to watch how much they flex in flight. How much do they flex? This much. And if this does not impress you, nothing will.
Flight left on time & arrived half hour early at McCarron. Was through immigration in 20 minutes (a record for Vegas where the wait can be 3 hours), my bag was waiting for me on the carousel, no queue at the cab rank or Rio check-in, & was in my room within an hour of landing.
Door-to-door though was 17 hours.
Unpacked, quick shower, & that's it, let the fun start.
Normal folks would want to sleep after 17 hours, but Vegas is Adrenelin City, so no chance of being sensible.
Let's go play poker then.
And if you enter a Limit O8 MTT, believe me, it's well-nigh impossible to bust for hours, so a long night was in prospect.
I just wanted the buzz from felling the "snap" of real cards in my hands, & riffling chips, chilling with real people.
The average age of players in Limit O8 is about 127, so I fitted right in. All sorts play the game, but I think more female players - usually quite "mature - play Limit O8 than any other game. Fiercely competitive they are, too.
First though, a word about The Orleans.
It's not a major name in Vegas as it sits about a mile off-strip, but in poker terms it's pretty much the Vegas HQ of year-round PLO, PLO8 & Limit O8 cash & MTT's.
Bigger than any UK poker room, obv, but in Vegas terms it's not huge.
Always packed out though, & there was not a seat to spare last night, there was about 80 tables in use & not an empty seat to be had.
Orleans is part of the Boyd Gaming portfolio of Casinos & Hotels, & they run a tight ship. The Group was founded by Sam Boyd 90 years ago, & is still run by the family under the leadership of Bill Boyd who is Sam's son. Their HQ is in Paradise, Nevada. Only in Nevada can a place be called Paradise.
They also own 2 or 3 Downtown casinos, including Main St Station, Fremont Hotel & California Hotel.
In Vegas proper, they own Gold Coast, Sam's Gambling Hall (is that a great name or what?) in addition to The Orleans.
The staff are all old, & many of them female, it's a bit like the staff at the Tote on British Racecourses, all the Blue Rinses work there.
Some 80 wall-mounted TV screens showing every sport imaginable, "live".
There's little booths, each with a laptop & screen so you can sit there all day & bet to your heart's content.
It was capped at 150 runners due to lack of tables, & was sold out by 5.30, with 90 Alternates. Imagine being 90th alternate in a Limit O8 event, that's the definition of optimism.
In the end, they got 188 runners.
What more can a man ask for in life?
Well it's tricky to get quadruple starting stack in the first 4 levels of Limit )8, but I managed it. Fast & loose, me.
It's also tricky to make last 4 tables with 2 x Average & 3 tables paid but fail to cash. I managed that, too. Fast & loose, me.
Had a ball though, & eventually exited just after midnight.
First hand I saw her play she capped the betting Pre & scooped. Her hand was 9-9-6-6.
Next hand she capped the betting pre again, & scooped again, this time with J-10-10-2.
I momentarily wondered what game we were playing.
More tomorrow.
Best wishes to all the Sky crew.
Vegas is such a larger than life place, with so much to see and do, but it is often the small things you notice, and that you describe so well, that stick in your mind.
Really looking forward to reading these each day @Tikay10.
Thanks.
Hope I can make it next time
Run golden at the tables
Dreamliner is good eh? I remember being sat at the wing and bricking it when I seen how much they moved.
Nice to travel there vicariously through this thread. ☺