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Just got home to find a beautiful home-made Christmas card in the mail, apparently from Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet. I guess I haven’t been paying enough attention to realise that these two were connected in some way, other than both offering insane amounts of reload bonuses – it’s basically free rakeback for everyone as long as you keep cycling money through.
I haven’t played on Absolute for, probably, a year. Their bonuses attract a huge number of rocks – probably female rocks if their marketing is successful – so the games just aren’t that good. My hand history shows nothing more than me dumping a free $5 bonus on blackjack in September. I’ve played maybe three or four tournaments on Ultimate Bet in total, never really got going on there after signing up because of some of the satellites they run. I’ve never had any freebies from them.
But in the spirit of Christmas, here’s some free money! And not just a few dollars to my poker account with a play requirement before I can actually withdraw it… inside the Christmas card was a disposable American Express card preloaded with $25!
That’s as good as real money. If only I could think of somewhere that will actually accept it…
I don’t mean to be overly dramatic, but this will change everything, one way or another.
Gutshot’s trial kicked off this morning at Snaresbrook Crown Court. Although quickly adjourned because of some kind of legal thing that I won’t pretend to understand, it’s still very much game on for the CPS and the UK casino industry vs a bunch people who just want to play cards. No more delays – this is all expected to be settled, one way or another, in eight days.
Derek Kelly, who is facing criminal charges under the 1968 Gaming Act, published an article on Gutshot.com this morning, confidently looking forward to the challenge ahead whilst also taking time to reflect on how things had come to be this way. In a week’s time, it may be looked on as the first eulogy for what was once Europe’s busiest card club. Meantime, this along with the expected daily updates is essential reading for anyone who gives a shit about poker in the UK, not just the twenty thousand registered Gutshot members.
I still can’t see any result being a good result. If Gutshot win, it’s also an easy victory for all of the imitators that have been springing up around the country playing the "if they can do it, so can we" card. Unlicensed, unregulated, law-unto-themselves card clubs will spring up almost as fast as Subways (can you believe that even Stoke – surely the only city in the world still without any kind of franchise coffee house – has five Subways that I’m aware of, probably more, and another is apparently opening opposite the train station soon). It’s difficult to see whether that’s much better – not taking into account, of course, the consequences for Mr Kelly – than if they lose. The game – for those not wishing to play bingo poker at the major casino chains and pay a 25% rake – simply becomes underground, unlicensed and unregulated.
Thanks to the miracle of Sky+ I’m about to start watching New York Giants @ Philadelphia even though it started an hour and a half ago.
But by way of an update – woohoo, I’m five for five so far!
One more to go. I need NYG to win or lose by less than seven, and it’s a hundred and fifty quid in the bank baby! High roller or what?
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EXCITING (for me) UPDATE: NYG 20 – 23 PHI!
"See those blue and silver guys, Maggie? They’re the Dallas Cowboys. They’re Daddy’s favorite team, and he wants them to lose by at least three points." — Homer Simpson
I’m 3 for 3 on my NFL bets this weekend so far 🙂 I’d hurried a couple of paylays on just before everything kicked off last night, leaving it all to the last minute as usual. No time to shop around, the price was Dallas+2 against Seattle. A two point spread is probably the least useful of all football bets when you’re backing the underdog, and I’d usualy try to take the team as a straight win to get better than even money when they win.
I mean, really, how often does a 2 point dog cover the spread without winning?
But once there was a possibility that it could happen, in between skipping the commercials in the second wildcard game this morning, the crazy gambler inside me took over, and that was the score I wanted. It took one of the most bizarre plays I’ve ever seen – a Dallas fumble on their own goal line that everybody and their dog had a piece of, ruled first as a touchdown and after review as a safety – followed by a quick Seattle score and failed 2-point conversion. But then, with four and a half minutes to play, we were staring a one point ball game in the face and the clock couldn’t run down fast enough!
Probably the most exciting game I’ve watched all season, and there’s me willing the score to stay the same. It really didn’t matter. As long as Seattle didn’t score again, I was winning, and that looked unlikely with the time remaining. So I was just holding out for the "glamour" win.
And then, as it was probably my fault that Dallas fumbled a 19 yard field goal attempt with just over a minute to go, I couldn’t help feeling just a little bit disappointed for them when it actualy did end 20-21.
Perhaps they don’t know how powerful I am.. 😉
Not long left to get your decorations down, and take all the snow and those cheesy little Christmas graphics off your web sites…
They didn’t hang around in Vegas. This is the huge Christmas Tree shaped structure on Fremont Street, on Christmas Eve…
…and at 7am on December 26th, Christmas is officially over.
If you will allow me to bore you with more photos of the festive period in Las Vegas then read on…
Continue reading Twelfth Night
Let’s talk about the next trip before I’m done talking about the last one then…
Mansion are putting me in a top notch room in Caesars Palace for Friday and Saturday night, but as I’m going early I need somewhere to stay for the first five nights. January is typically very quiet and great for room offers, and I’ve already had a few attractive looking mailers to help do things on the cheap.
Harrah’s properties from $45/night:
In fact, when I clicked the link in the email, none were actually $45. Flamingo rates started at $60 but there was nothing available on the dates I wanted for less than $90 at the start of the week. All rates were well into three figures by the Wednesday.
Aladdin from $49/night:
"Your last chance to stay at the Aladdin" before it finally becomes Planet Hollywood. Claire went hunting for Silver Strikes here last week whilst I was playing at Caesars and reported a much changed interior – not a single fake plastic jewel in sight. The offer is available only on six random dates in January, but it includes my first two nights. However it already says the Sunday is sold out (yeah, ok) and every other night is $169. In fact the Las Vegas Hilton was also showing sold out for the duration of my trip, which I don’t believe either – unless there’s a very large Star Trek convention on I don’t know about.
Terribles free stay:
This one actually is pretty good. The envelope promised an "Exciting Special Offer!!! Inside!!". Yes!!! Punctuated! Like! That!! It’s two midweek nights free, and it wouldn’t cost the earth to extend it for three more nights. Although Terribles isn’t half as smokey and dingy as it used to be, I’d still feel pretty isolated there by myself. It’s walkable to the Hard Rock, possibly to Tuscany, otherwise I’d need a car or a lot of cabs to get anywhere.
So the criteria for choosing a place came down to (a) must have internet so I can work and (b) must be close to a good card room so I can play. The Hilton looked a good first choice at first – even though it’s a (large) block away from the strip it’s on the monorail, and would definitely be somewhere I could work. After this trip I’m dubious about the quality of internet access downtown, and many of the rooms are small and probably wouldn’t have a desk, so even the superb $29/night poker rate at Binions would be a dodgy gamble.
I set Travelaxe on the case and it gave me a few options. Call me a snob, I just didn’t fancy the Gold Spike – even at $22/night. But this is why Travelaxe rocks – it found me a Premier Tower room at the Stratosphere for $53/night, when their direct booking web page said $99 upwards. There’s still a $5/night resort fee to add, and their internet isn’t cheap ($49/week) but I know the net works and I know that rooms in this tower have desks – we were there last Christmas. Actually we’d booked a World Tower room – the much smaller hotel building, presumably left over from Vegas World – but there was some blood on the bathroom walls (I do have a photo, but really it could be of anything) which we discovered was plenty reason enough to get an instant upgrade!
As well as being a home-from-home (this will be the 7th time I’ve stayed there I think), the Strat is a great location for me really. It has the shortest cab ride to downtown of any of the strip hotels and it’s walkable to the Sahara which has decent poker tournaments three times a day, and a monorail station. At $5 a ride, when you can get a cab to almost anywhere for $10, I’ve always though the monorail would only really be worth it when you’re travelling alone. Now I guess I’ll find out.
There is formula to certain stories on Radio 1 news that runs something like this.
(someone)
who (did something bad)
has been found guilty of (some offense).
He could face (some punishment).
In the story they just read, the blanks were filled as follows.
person = "a doctor"
bad thing = "texted a patient asking for a date"
offense = "acting unprofessionally"
punishment = "the sack"
Really struggling to fill the 40 second bulletin today…
Binions are trying so hard to position themselves as the home of poker in Downtown Las Vegas, if not in the whole city, but it doesn’t appear to be working too well.
I played the 8pm tournament on 24/12 – way too tired after waking up at 3am on the first day there to be concentrating properly on poker, but I still made the final table and finished just out of the money. It attracted just 36 players. Sure, it’s Christmas Eve – most tourists won’t land for a few days (although you wouldn’t know it from the traffic, which you can be sure I’ll whinge about plenty) and the locals who play there regularly might easily have other commitments. I thought very litle of the poor turnout until I heard someone asking whether this was typical and the dealer replied that they’d normally run with about five tables. When I played the afternoon tournament later in the week, five tables was spot on. Seven spots were paid but the last eight made a deal, giving $400 to me and six others and $1000 to the massive chip leader.
In the summer, these games were regularly getting 100+ runners both afternoon and evening. I love the Binions card room and it’s not good to see it struggle, especially when the casino floor was busier than it’s been for quite a while. This may or may not be aided by the new carpet (yes they did have one before, but the replacement is definitely not before time), and the Binion Dollar Babes, who were as good at dancing around to Shania Twain CDs as anyone I’ve ever seen. These ladies are cunningly positioned right inside the main doors and visible from Fremont Street as you pass. Who needs fountains to get people to stop walking outside your casino?
They’ve already cut the buy-in on the weekend tournaments (used to be $125) so it’s $70, with a $40 rebuy, every day. They’re pushing a $29 poker room rate, a $4/$8 game with 5% rake and also trying to draw in bigger players with the Ultimate Poker Championship events. I did play one of these, buying in directly for $660 after I dumped out of a satellite. I’d already decided to buy into one, so I would play two if the satellite attempt worked.
This could very well be the best regular tournament in town – 10,000 starting chips and 40 minute levels, with the top seven coming back the next day to be filmed. Once again, numbers were down and i was amazed that only 32 took part. Four spots were paid, so three would to get their fifteen minutes on television without taking home a penny!
Those that bothered to show were mostly very tough players, and I was pleased to keep up with the pack until my KK ran into AA, with me getting it all in pre-flop and still wondering whether I could have avoided it. If you don’t want to hear the bad beat story, turn away now.
I raised first to act and, although just ahead of an average stack, did not have enough chips to put in a third raise of anything less than everything when he came over the top. The player has only been at the table about 20 minutes and I don’t have much information, but he’s seen me being my usual tight self. However, I still figure to be ahead more often than not here. QQ or AK are both possible, and although there’s a very good chance I’m only called if beaten, I move all-in for really no other reason than I can’t work out how to play it post-flop if I call out of position leaving myself with just one pot-sized bet. I can’t fold KK pre-flop to a single re-raise and I can’t check-fold any flop.
After the long walk home to the hotel next door, I scribbled some dirty maths and convinced myself the push was still +EV, even if we never expect him to have pocket jacks or worse. Fortunately I binned the notes so you don’t have to endure that right now, but I might have another go sometime.
That $400 chop was on the last night and I didn’t want to push my luck with any more tournaments, so I sat in a $2/$4 game until I could stay awake no longer. Things started rotten, with me flopping top two pair against bottom set in back-to-back hands. I swung down $150 and not winning a single pot for over two hours before finally dragging one down with a QQ that I played much too softly against TT on a low board. With confidence restored, a new beer on the way and having had plenty of time to work out that this table was, in fact, a great one I ran warm enough to claw it all back. In my last hour at the table I was red hot, making quad jacks and then shortly afterwards quad eights. There’s no high hand jackpot at Binions yet (so there’s only $4 taken from each pot, not $5) but you do get a shirt or a cap for hitting four of a kind or better. I had one of each 🙂
I ended the seven hour session with $5 more than I started with. Not the best hourly rate in the world ever, but a respectable recovery.
Back from Vegas. Mustn’t grumble – going back again in less than three weeks. 🙂
Ten days without blogging – I didn’t plan for that so I need to regain momentum now. When you land a hotel that only pretends to have internet access though, it’s kind of a problem. Sure, there was a decent wifi signal. It looked to be working great too, right up until I put in my credit card number. It accepted and told me to go surf. I tried. It got slow. It died. It never recovered. Still don’t know whether they actually charged me or, really, who the hell it was operated by. The hotspot name was Cheetah something or other (hah – not kidding), and I’ll find out more if they do actually think I’m going to pay for it.
So all my plans to write lots of random crap about Vegas at Christmas time were thwarted. I did say to Claire I should try to find some net access and at least put up a post to explain, but then she pointed out that my reader was also stuck in Vegas with no net access. Thanks.
I do have a notebook with a few scribbles and a few hundred photos to sort through as soon as I’m a bit more awake to do that so there’ll be some retrospective holiday cheer to come. Before Twelfth Night too, with any luck. Here’s a very quick summary, with elaborations to follow:
Two final tables, two cashes and two bustouts with pocket kings – which I’ll try to argue I couldn’t avoid – from 7 tournaments. Christmas lunch is just dinner with a couple more turkeys served at lunchtime. Wayne Newton is still a Vegas legend, but it would be nice if he could still actually sing.
I found a link to the fireworks we missed here: http://tinyurl.com/swega. Bear with the commercial – it’s worth watching. My New Years Eve was celebrated with the pilot reading out the most pathetic countdown you ever heard and a plane half-full of passengers mumbling a bit. Nobody dared sing Auld Lang Syne, or lift up their top. Happy New Year.
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