Uneventful flight .... there was a bit of a commotion at one point but it turned out that a card from Gus & Erik's deck had fallen down the side of the seat and they were desparately scrambling to recover it lest they have to stop playing for more than a few seconds.
I have said before that I like McCarran airport (it's small and friendly, basically) but the luggage carousel is a joke - bit of an embarrasment to Vegas tbh. After whizzing through immigration, had to wait 40mins for bags when there was only one flight and it landed about 50metres from the terminal. Ridiculous.
Anyway, minor irritation. Hopped in a cab - seemed to go an awfully long way around to arrive at my hotel, but that's the same with cabbies everywhere I guess.
Staying at The Mirage, part of the MGM group. I wanted to stay at Caesar's but it was booked out apparently. Mirage is next door, and mid-strip, so seemed a fine choice.
I must say I am impressed with the place. The first sight that greeted me was something very alien however - smoking indoors ! Amazing how quickly we become used to the new norms (ie no smoking inside pretty much across Europe).
After I had been here a bit longer, I actually became surprised at how little smoking there is in the casino. No smoking is allowed in the cardrooms thank goodness.
I was most impressed with my room - it was the cheapest available tariff - not uber-cheap by Vegas standards ($229 on Sat night down to $99 on Tuesday) but still seems good value in GBP. And my room is large, and brand new with all shiny bits and the wall-mounted plasma TV has male and female USB ports, USB power out, HDMI, component RGB, composite and S-Video, 15-pin Din PC-feed and RJ45 and RJ35 inputs all presented on a sleek interface panel at the back of the large glass-topped desk. Very snazzy.
No kettle however !
So, decided to be further disciplined by actually unpacking before playing but sooner or later I could not help but go down.
The Mirage has a large poker room itself - rumoured to be a pretty good game. On the first day, I did not want to drop a bundle of cash so opted for $1/2 NLH.
Bought in for the max $300 and never had to rebuy, although I did fluctuate down to $120 at one stage. The turning point came when one particularly bad player arrived, but overall the game was very passive so it was highly beatable.
I was a bit upset to lose with the powerhouse early on. Saw a cheap flop, and it was checked around when it came AT4. The turn was a non-flushing 3 - giving me the nuts. Got a fair bit of money in there. The river 7 wasn't ideal and I check-called only to see him show 56 for the rivered higher-straight.
Ah well. As I said, the arrival of one bad loose-weak-passive player was enough to really turn things around. He wasn't the luckiest either !
On the plane I had meant to read Harrington on Cash but I packed vol2 instead of vol1. After doing the Sudoku and the FT crossword, did not have time to get through much of it, but one thing I remembered was his slightly counterintuitive advice about holding the nuts on the river.
He advises to move all-in. I tried this a couple of times and it worked a treat ! It is surprisingly often that the river brought the other player some hand he won't lay down, like 2pair. Obviously when they call you make a relatively huge profit.
Cashed out +$350 in this game, and also made 2nd in a sit-n-go to finish the 1st day $500 or so - a better start than usual. I'll take it.
2 comments:
Keep up the good work - tight is right (except when it isn't)!
Harrington's advice isn't spot on (I haven't read it yet) but it is better than conventional 'wisdom' that advises a small bet to make sure you get paid something.
The right way to think about it IMHO is in teh long term. So if you move in and get paid off a small % of the time, it pays better than a tiny bet getting paid off 100% of the time. It doesn't mean you should always move in. But you should def think about it, particularly against those that just can't release. It dawned on me not that long ago that some players if they are going to call, will call, regardless of amount, so it may as well be all of it!
As for vegas, Mirage would have been $25 and back to the airport would have been $13. Almost standard for cabbies to long-haul you on the I-15. According to their rules, they can suggest they take you that way 'the fast way' due to strip traffic, but because it isn't the short way they should seek your permission. they routinely don't. Next time, get in and say 'Mirage - no tunnel' and he knows the game is up.
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