Playing Poker Against Myself
February 22, 2009
First and foremost, there was an eerie lack of people on The Strip today. I couldn’t believe that it was Saturday. It looked much more like an average Tuesday.
The Strip on Saturday
At one point, I thought the city might have been evacuated.
It was so empty that I was able to pull into the Treasure Island parking garage, and get a spot next to the 4th floor elevator. Maybe 20% of the garage was full … if that.
Treasure Island Garage
Las Vegas Treasure Island Hotel and Casino
Las Vegas Treasure Island Hotel and Casino
Anyway … every now and then, friends actually do nice things for you.
A couple of people (literally a married couple) were visiting from another country at the beginning of this month. They were here for the better part of the week, and they gambled in a variety of properties.
When they got home, they realized that they had forgotten to cash out one of their gambling tickets at Treasure Island. To add insult to injury, the ticket expired in 30 days.
30 Days?
It’s been a long time since I actually read the fine print on a TITO ticket, but I could swear they granted far more time than that in year’s past.
After contemplating on what to do with the expiring ticket, they decided that they wanted to mail the ticket to yours truly as a gift.
Of course, I felt horrible about such a proposition. I indicated that I would be more than happy to cash the ticket and send them a money order, but they assured me that they wanted me to cash the ticket myself, with the instruction to “not spend it wisely”. I took this to mean that they wanted me to pick up where they left off, and gamble the money at Treasure Island.
Therefore, today, I did exactly that.
Before I hit the TI casino, it occurred to me that I needed to drop by the Mirage quickly to take care of an unrelated task. I stopped to consider the best walking route from the TI to The Mirage, then it hit me.
Why they hell was I going to walk when they had a cool tram that was willing to shuttle my lazy ass over there?
Tram Ride From TI to Mirage
It’s been quite awhile since I took the Mirage/TI Tram. Damn near a year. When I have gambled at both places in the same day, I’ve normally walked. The Tram is easy to forget about because the TI side of the train is not in a terribly obvious place. It’s near the parking garage.
I was near the parking garage, though, and the tram does make travel between the two properties quick, seamless, and kind of fun. Sure, trams are not thrill rides, but unless you are used to riding them on a daily basis, it’s kind of cool to shuttle back and forth between two casinos by rail.
For those who haven’t taken this particular train, I recorded both trips. It’s neither exciting nor compelling, but screw it. It’s only a couple of minutes out of your day. Support mass transit vicariously.
As a side note, I have no idea what will happen to the tram when Treasure Island changes hands and is no longer an MGM property.
When I got back to the TI, I cashed out the ticket in a machine, and immediately proceeded to the TI Poker Room.
TI Poker Room
TI Poker Room
When I got there, I encountered three Playboy centerfold models having lesbian sex on one of the poker tables. Unfortunately, my camera malfunctioned at that precise moment, and by the time I got it working … they had already left the casino. Sorry.
After cursing my bad photographic luck, I walked up to the podium and bought into a 1/3 No Limit game with the exact bills obtained from the TITO slip.
I sat down, and spent about two hours in the most ridiculous grind session I have ever played. For once, people feared me. I don’t know if I forgot to use enough douchebag colloquialisms, or if someone recognized me. All I know is that whenever I bet, the table folded around.
For a solid two hours, I basically stole blinds, gave them back, stole them, gave them back, rinse, repeat.
One person finally took me to the flop, but laid down to a $20 bet when the deal came rainbow rags. I was holding a pair of Jacks.
It was like squeezing water from a stone.
I continued to pay my blinds, continued to steal the blinds, caught a very small bet here and there, and I finally put an end to the madness by cashing out with six dollars more than I sat down with.
I believe that I was down $9 at one point, and up $15 at another point. Those were the two extremes. I’ve never played for so long and remained in such a narrow range before.
You really know the economy is getting bad when tourists start playing as tight as I do. It was almost as if the whole table was playing defense. I felt like I was playing against nine other “me’s”.
Seriously, it was the tightest game ever.
Having not effectuated their instruction to “not spend it wisely”, I will be returning to the TI Poker Room in the near future to either double up and split the profits with my benefactors … or lose it all.
Stay tuned to see how this endeavor plays out.
Written by Clint on February 22, 2009 at 6:14 am
This game plays fairly tight on a regular basis from my experience. There are quite a few regulars there that are good players and the player pool doesn’t seem to be as large as many poker rooms.
Written by Wacky on February 22, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Rex,
I’m a pretty serious poker player myself, although I play medium stakes limit (20/40
Written by Wacky on February 22, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Hmm, my comment seemed to get cut off.
In any case what I said before in a nutshell:
In most games you typically win by playing a style that is in a reciprocal manner that the majority of the table is playing. In most games the majority of people play too lose, thus playing tight is the winning strategy. In a tight game, you should be stealing relentlessly until the table either loosens up or starts playing back at you too often. Then you can go back to your nit, nut-peddling self, and get paid off, since thye have failed to adjust back to you.
Written by heo85 on February 27, 2009 at 12:44 am
Damn, why couldn’t those playboy honies have taken things slower till you got your camera working! 2 hours of grinding at poker with that tight of swing sounds way too much like work.