Taking a trip downtown

Today I went to downtown Las Vegas to see what it's like. I booked a hostel there for the weekend. It surely differs a lot from the strip.

Let's continue yesterday's story first. After making my post I went straight to the dinner buffet and oh boy, what a feast it was. It was priced at around 15 dollars, but it sure worth it. This is the only time I envy all those fat Americans for being able to eat so goddamn much.

The buffet had it all: steaks, ribs, shrimp, chicken... Just too much to sum up here. I
grabbed some red meat and a few cowribs. I've never seen 'em so big! I didn't want to over-eat though, so I only took some ice cream for dessert after that.

After this I went straight for the poker room. It was very crowded, but luckily I didn't have to wait for a seat. I bought in for 200 dollars and played for about 4 hours, netting a 18 dollar profit. Every win is a win though, and I was pretty pleased with my play. I even made a very good bluff with 2 random cards and showed it . All in all I think The Orleans has a pretty good poker room, only downside is that there are a lot of locals playing. It's pretty nice for grinding, but just not that juicy.

Playing poker in Vegas is superb though. The max rake on 200 NL is usually about 4 dollars, which is very nice if you compare it to the max 20 euro in the Netherlands. A second forte are the free drinks. A cocktail waitress will come over regularly and ask you if you want something to drink. It's normal to tip here a dollar though, but I'll gladly give a dollar for a beer anyday. Lastly, the casino "comps" you for every hour you play. At the Orleans you get 1,25 dollar an hour, so I received 5 dollars yesterday. That's almost a free breakfast buffet!

I really enjoyed myself at the game, all the players were really nice. It felt like a homegame. A lady was even allowed to get her cards out of the much when she accidentily tipped them over when she showed them. I think I drank about 4 corona's or so, so sleeping was not a problem. I woke up at 7 AM again though :S

After breakfast I took the free shuttle to Bill's Gambling Hall on the Strip. Then I walked to the Planet Hollywood Casino to play the free daily slot tournament (didn't win anything) and took a free spin on the Slot Machine at the entrance. Everytime you do this you get a used deck of Planet Hollywood cards, I've got three of em now :) Gonna try to get as many as I can just for kicks :)

As I left the Casino the Deuce stopped right in front of my nose, so I decided to ride it. I rode it all the way to downtown, which is a 5 mile drive. I really like the atmosphere of the old downtown casino's like Binions and the Golden Nugget. I decided to play some 200 NL at the Nugget, and booked a nice win: 250 dollars. I won a very big pot with aces. The hand went something like this:

I picked up aces in early position, and raised to 12 dollars. Three people called my raise. The flop was all low cards, 47x rainbow. I checked, and someone in middle position bet 20 dollars. One guy folded to this and the other one called. I didn't like this spot naturally, but I felt it would be pretty bad if I folded. I had allready decided to checkraise to a substantial amount when I saw the flop. I made is 70 dollars to go. Both guys called me, this put the 2nd guy allin. The first guy had about 40-50 dollars left, so he was pretty much committed. Turn was an ace, giving me the stonecold nuts. I put the 1st guy allin and he called ofcourse. My opponent both mucked at showdown.

I didn't learn what the first guy's hand was, but I learned that the shortstack had 47, so I was pretty lucky when the ace came off.

When I went to the McDonalds after this, the shortstacker from before was there too and recognized me.
He bought a happy meal because he didn't have anymore money. I sat down at his table and talked a bit. It seemed his life was pretty tough. He's not the only one in downtown who has is rough, there are a lot of homeless and poor people walking the streets there. He just wanted to get some money out of me so he tried to convince me of his struggle with life. In the end I only gave him a dollar in quarters because I only had 10 dollars bills and up. I'm very nitty, I'm not going to just give away 10 dollars. It doesn't even help that much most of the times anyway.

I left for the Strip again and stopped at Circus Circus. I must say it's rather a fun casino :) They have a pretty good arcade and a free circus act every 30 minutes. A part of one of my favourite movies, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", was filmed here. That made it very entertaining to walk around. The moving bar from the movie was gone though; it has been replaced by slot machines.

For so far the good news. A sad thing happened today. My ipod finally broke :( This means I can no longer listen to my music. Music is like medicine to me; I really need it to wind down sometimes. Buying a new ipod won't cure anything as I can't put any music on it here.

Concluding:

I'm up about 180 dollars gambling.
I'm down an ipod.


I think I'm gonna take it easy tonight. I'm going to watch a movie called "21" starring Kevin Spacey at the cinema in my hotel, and afterwards I might grind 200 NL a little to get those free beers :)

Tomorrow I'm moving to the MGM Grand for one night. I'd rather stay here but I was too lazy to cancel my booking at the MGM. It's a good reason to play some poker there though, it should be a lot softer.

Viva Las Vegas, I'm really starting to get used to being here :)