tp's table talk

First, a disclaimer before you read this post. Yes, I am a geek. I’ve never hid the fact and if you saw me in Vegas you might have seen me involved in a passionate debate with Pablo about comics. I am not a hardcore Trekkie (or Trekker, see I don’t know what to call it). But I enjoyed watching Next Gen on Saturday nights with my parents when I was younger. I followed some of the subsequent series and actually enjoyed the latter parts of DS9 and Voyager. But, ever since I first read about the Star Trek Experience opening in Vegas, I’ve wanted to check it out. And Wil Wheaton‘s account of his experience in his book Dancing Barefoot, I was even more determined to visit.

So on Sunday morning, that is just what Benjy and I did. We took a cab out to the Las Vegas Hilton and, with some trepidation, sought out the promenade. The first thing we did was take a tour of the free part of the ‘experience’, checking out some of the memorabilia offered in the gift shops, that were all made to appear as part of the DS9 station. It was interesting enough that we decided that we’d fork over some money to check out the museum and some rides.

The museum was actually pretty interesting. They had a timeline of all the events in Star Trek contuity, as well as various props and artifacts representing those times. Many of the plastic replicas were less impressive than expected, but there was enough there to impress this sci-fi fan. And reading through some of the timeline rekindled my interest in watching the show. While I am a sci-fi fan in general, I am a particular sucker for continuity and world building, as subject I actually wrote about in university.

The first ride we went on was the new Borg Assimilation ride. There were a few neat things in it, but it felt slightly cheesy. I don’t want to give any of the tricks away, as even people with a passing interest of Trek should check out the ‘Experience’. After that was over we circled back to try the original ‘Klingon Attack’ ride. From the opening ‘conceit’ of the experience to the end of the ride, I really enjoyed this one. Somehow they avoided the camp that is almost inevitable for something like this and I was able to forget the real world for a few minutes.

The most amusing part of the whole experience was an actor dressed up as a Ferengi who would harass the tourists. He seemed to relish his role and it was fun to watch him heckle the crowd. He even gave Benjy and I some personal grief when he got us sitting on the floor waiting to get into the Klingon Attack ride. He didn’t seem to consider us particularly fearsome foes for the Klingons.

We tried to eat at Quark’s restuarant, but we didn’t actually get to sit in at the bar, the prices were ridiculous, and there was nothing on the menu for a vegetarian, so we ended passing on that part and headed back to the Plaza.

When we got there Gracie and Pablo strongly urged me to join them at a particularly juicy $3/6 table.

And boy were they right. I’d sat at some weak tables over the course of the weekend, but never like this. It took me a few orbits to get comfortable, but once I did, I started opening my starting hand requirements quite a bit. In one particular hand I was ready to throw my hand away after missing my draws on the turn and river but I saw that both my opponents were holding their cards out like they were ready to fold, so I bet and took the pot with nothing but king high (which was probably the best hand, given the play of those opponents). Not all the tells were quite this obvious, but most of my opponents were pretty transparent. And even though Gracie and Pablo are better poker players than I am, I had played many hours with them already and could spot situations where I should avoid them and when I could push them out with a raise. I felt a somewhat badly when I pushed Pablo off a winning hand based on my read of the other player in the pot, but I don’t ever want anyone soft-playing against me, so I’ll be damned if I am going to do it myself. And I won the pot in the end, so it’s tough to feel that bad.

The highlight of the evening was when I ended up capping nearly every street with AK with an ace hit on the flop. I’d already seen the gentleman I was in a raising war demonstrate his inability to realize that his good hand is second or third best. And with a poor old lady, who claimed she was new to poker, caught between us calling every bet with her draw, there was just too much equity involved for me to worry about him having hit a huge hand. On the river he started getting concerned and it wasn’t capped. He was quite pissed when he flipped his AQ to my AK. I would have had a hard time getting away from the hand too, but I certainly would not have kept reraising it.

When I got up to join my friend for dinner, I was up $100, which was a pretty good score for a couple hours at a 3/6 table. It hurt to leave, but I had spent $100+ bucks on my ticket to see ‘O’, and owed my friend at least some time away from the poker tables. But at least I finally validated my positive feelings about my play all weekend. And if it hadn’t been for the ill-advised session at the blogger NL table and the tournament, I’d actually be showing a profit from my poker play. Alas, that first evening left me in the red for my gambling. Still, my loss was only a 5th of what I was willing to drop at the tables, so I really couldn’t complain. Ok, I could and I did, but I had no right to.

next: dinner and a show

O, Canada
Here are some numbers for you. The total area of Canada is 9 984 670 square kilometres. Of this, 9 093 507 square kilometres is land and 891 163 square kilometres is fresh water. Canada’s area is the second largest in the world (after Russia which has a total area of 17 075 000 square kilometres). On Canadian territory, the longest distance North to South (on land) is 4 634 kilometres from Cape Columbia on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut to Middle Island in Lake Erie, Ontario. The longest distance East to West is 5 514 kilometres from Cape Spear, Newfoundland and Labrador , to the Yukon Territory – Alaska boundary. The total length of the Canada-United States boundary is 8890 kilometres.

The Las Vegas series:
Day 1 – A Grand Ol’ Time (part 1)
Day 1 – A Grand Ol’ Time (part 2)
Day 1 – Sunrise at The Plaza
Day 2 – I … See … Famous People
Day 2 – Storming the Castle
Day 3 – The Main Event
Day 3 – A Bucket of Nickels and the Shrimp Sundae
Day 3 – Nugget Poker
Day 4 – Finally, A Win!
Day 4 – Komol O
Day 4 – A Night in ‘The Suite’
Day 5 – Goodbye Las Vegas

Wow, if I keep up the pace of one post a week, I may get this done before the end of the summer. But, I digress. On with the story.

At the Golden Nugget we discover that they’ve already obliged a group of blogger by spreading a rollicking mixed-game table. There’s only one seat left and Pablo takes it. Gracie, April, John and I all get seats at a 4/8 table. It doesn’t take long for us to determine whether the money is going to come from at this table and we settle in, hoping to find the cards to take advantage. While we wait, Gracie, April and I gossip about the bloggers we met like we’re still in high school.

Unfortunately, the waiting is not producing any results. I watch John work his way through his buy-in with his usual ram and jam tactics and decide that it’s going to be too tough to push anyone off a hand at this table, so I’ll need some cards to work with. The players at the table are emminently readable (and I’m not even a great reader of tells) so it’s easy to minimize the losses. It’s just a matter of finding the opportunity to maximize the wins. Eventually I get a little impatient and start being aggressive in a few hands. One of the players comments that I must have something since I’ve been playing so tight, but he still calls me. I fold on a terrible flop and he shows down his marginal pre-flop hand to take the pot from the other gentleman who stayed in. So I know that I’m going to get paid off when I hit something.

Of course, I don’t get anything. Hand after hand I am dealt terrible cards. Not even anything I can be creative with. I limp into a few hands with some marginal cards, but I can see in my opponent’s faces that they’ve hit the flop that has managed to miss me completely, again. I feel the frustration building and try to remain on an even keel. The mixed-game breaks up and Gracie leaves the table (we a nice stack of winnings) to head back to the Plaza with Pablo. The rest of us decide to stick around for just a little while longer, hoping to hit something big. But nothing emerges. Eventually John busts and April stacks up her chips. I don’t want to leave as I know the game is good, but I decide that maybe I am trying just a little too hard.

When I do get up and cash in my chips (down one big bet, including all the tips and dealer tokes) I let out a deep breath and realize just how tightly I was wound up. I was nearly on tilt and I hadn’t even taken a bad beat. It was probably a very good thing I got up from the table as I was on the verge of pushing one of my marginal hands too hard and losing a chunk of my stack. I’ve been frustrated with cold cards before, but I don’t think I was ever steaming quite as badly as I was right then.

When I get back to the Plaza, it’s time to unwind and I decide to find out how far I can stretch my video poker winnings. I find a quarter Deuces Wild machine and slide in a five. Ten minutes later I’m cashing in my bucket of quarters for $11. That makes a nice 1200% return on my initial investment of $1. Now if only my poker was showing that rate of return.

There weren’t many bloggers left on the floor of the casino (we learned the next day that everyone was up in “The Suite” playing poker) but I settled down at an abandoned poker table with Bill Rini and Grubby. This was probably the only poker discussion I had all weekend. And even then, it was a less of a discussion than advice that Bill was sharing with us about his recent coaching and heads-up play. I was a little more helpful as we tried to explain RSS aggregators and in particular Bloglines to Grubby. How anyone is still individually visiting every single site on their blogroll is beyond me. I have everything set up in Bloglines and there are still blogs that I don’t subscribe to because I just don’t have the time. Regardless, it was great to sit with some of the bloggers I’d read for a long time and shoot the shit. Grubby even gave us some Vegas tips and though I wasn’t sold on the Golden Gate shrimp cocktail, I will have to take advantage of some of the others I remember the next time I’m in Vegas. Eventually April stopped by and convinced me that we should play a little blackjack to pass the time.

I am a little wary as I had intended to stay away from the -EV games. Though I suppose I sat at the NL blogger table, so I’d obviously broken that vow already. After a bit of hemming and hawwing I agree and we head over to one of the Plaza’s blackjack tables, where I buy in for $100 and April for $20, under the careful watch of Grubby. I am feeling unaccountably nervous as we place our $5 bets and the cards are dealt. Blackjack is not a complicated game and I had refreshed my knowledge before I left for Vegas. She ends up with a 10 and I a 9 against a dealer 3. She hits and stays and I look to Grubby to confirm that I should double down. I do so and the dealer busts and I’ve won my first hand of casino blackjack.

But as with any blackjack player can tell you, the rush didn’t last long and in short order April busted out. I was hovering at about my initial $100, winning and losing hands. April and Grubby wander over to watch Mike try out his baccarat strategy. I start varying the size of my bets, pretending that I know what I am doing. Now, you have to understand, I’m not a big gambler. I play poker because I have an edge. I have a math degree and cannot deny the realities of -EV games in the long term. I can recognize the entertainment value but often I cannot block out the fact that it is a losing proposition. So when I started doubling my bets after each loss and end up risking $50 on one hand, I’m well out of my comfort zone. Dropping $100 bucks in 15 minutes will get me in a pretty foul mood. So when I end up with 9-4 versus a dealer 10, I am not a happy camper. I hit and make 16. Strategy says I should hit here, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. I hold my breath as the dealer flips his down card but it is a beautiful 5, followed by a J and I’m back up to even. Plus that extra $10 I won on my first hand. I decide that it’s time to call it, tip the dealer, and rejoin the other bloggers.

I don’t want the night to end but I realize that I am virtually comatose at the table. I head up to my room and fall asleep writing my notes by the light of the rising sun.

next: I prove that I can actually play poker!

O, Canada
Fewer and fewer things are jumping immediately to mind when I go to write these, so I thought I’d take this post off and use the CIA’s capsule summary of Canada (from http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ca.html):

A land of vast distances and rich natural resources, Canada became a self-governing dominion in 1867 while retaining ties to the British crown. Economically and technologically the nation has developed in parallel with the US, its neighbor to the south across an unfortified border. Canada’s paramount political problem is meeting public demands for quality improvements in health care and education services after a decade of budget cuts. The issue of reconciling Quebec’s francophone heritage with the majority anglophone Canadian population has moved to the back burner in recent years; support for separatism abated after the Quebec government’s referendum on independence failed to pass in October of 1995.

The Las Vegas series:
Day 1 – A Grand Ol’ Time (part 1)
Day 1 – A Grand Ol’ Time (part 2)
Day 1 – Sunrise at The Plaza
Day 2 – I … See … Famous People
Day 2 – Storming the Castle
Day 3 – The Main Event
Day 3 – A Bucket of Nickels and the Shrimp Sundae
Day 3 – Nugget Poker
Day 4 – Finally, A Win!
Day 4 – Komol O
Day 4 – A Night in ‘The Suite’
Day 5 – Goodbye Las Vegas

I told myself I would get back on these things and try to get these last few trip reports out quickly but that hasn’t really worked out for me. I think the biggest stumbling block is the fact that this post probably constitutes my favourite part of the trip and I really wanted to do it justice. I’m not sure that I did, but more time can only make it worse.

Surprisingly, the La Salsa party was the least memorable part of the evening. After spending the afternoon with my buddy – including a surreal trip through the M&Ms store – I arrived at La Salsa right at 5pm, but the party had obviously been hopping for some time prior to that. Everyone was half-ripped and I got into the spirit by ordering a yard of margarita. Coming late, I found it difficult to insert myself into many of the conversations. I did get to spend a little time discussing politics with the Prof and chatted with blogger consorts Pablo and John. It didn’t take long for us to decide that we needed to get some food and find our way back to a poker table so a group of us headed back to The Plaza.

When we got back to The Plaza there was a debate between those who just wanted to grab something quick so they could get to the tables and those that wanted to actually sit down for a bit. But not before we took a pull at the oversized slot machine that had been installed in front of the casino since we’d left in the morning. No one won anything, but Gracie captured some great pictures of our attempts. This sort of set the tone for the wackiness to ensue. Eventually we decided to eat across the road at the Golden Gate. I’d heard so much about the $0.99 shrimp cocktail that I just had to try one. Even when we were told there’d be a 15 minute wait for a table, we would not be deterred. Besides, everyone – which at this point was Gracie, Pablo, Nancy, April, John and Benjy – had already placed a drink order.

Unfortunately I’d arrived late from a quick pitstop in my room and I missed ordering. So I was left looking for some other way to pass the time. What do we have here? A bank of video poker machines. I hadn’t played a single -EV game so far on my trip (well, aside from the blogger tables) and I had a dollar in my pocket, so nickel slots seemed like a grand idea. I fed my bill into the first open machine, sat on the handy stool and started slapping buttons.

Bingo! Five of a kind! Sure, it’s a Deuces Wild machine, but that doesn’t stop me from cashing out with a good win. Like a good little -EV soldier, I decide to take my profit and run. Of course, we still have another ten minutes to wait. And like any bad little -EV soldier, after a couple minutes I sat down at the next machine (Jacks or Better). This time I had a couple railbirds as a pushed buttons like a madman. Best I could manage this time was a full house, but I quickly cashed out – in my fancy little Golden Gate coin bucket – and moved to the next machine.

By this point we were about to be seated but I would not be deterred from grinding out another win. Unfortunately my luck was fading and I only pulled a few extra nickels out of the machine when I realized my dinner companions were nowhere to be seen. I eventually tracked them down inside the restaurant and after some prompting from my tablemates, I started counting out the spoils.

The tally came out to $6.25, which besides being a 525% return on my investment, seemed a perfect amount to serve as ammunition in an impromptu poker game at the dinner table. Pablo pulled out a deck of cards while I distributed the coins and the game was on. Even the arrival of the starter salads was insufficient to stop the game, though sugar packets and creamers had been added to the mix as different players busted out (some repeatedly). Maybe people weren’t taking it seriously. All I know is that I played the hammer fast and furious and was rewarded with two pair on the turn and river for a sizable pot. But between the poker and the banter, people could hardly get food into their mouths without laughing.

Now, I do have to admit a certain disappointment in the 99-cent shrimp cocktail here. First, I was charged $1.99 for it, which I guess is the price in the restaurant, and it was really more of a shrimp sundae than a shrimp cocktail. Examine a sundae glass full of baby shrimp with cocktail sauce drizzled over it like fudge on an ice cream sundae and you’ll get an idea of what I’m talking about. You even eat it the same way, with a spoon. Not quite what I was expecting, but I guess for the price I can’t complain.

I also couldn’t complain about my six dollar prime rib. It was actually pretty tasty and came with a couple sides. Though I’d advise not using the horseradish on the baked potato, as someone at the table did. We decided to call break the poker game so that people could enjoy their food, but the jokes never slowed, including many digs at the Canadians at the table. Still, the shared meal stands as the highlight of my Vegas trip and the people there as my favourite of those I met. It is impossible for me to capture in words the hilarity of the night.

Everyone is still giggling about the nickels and they all decide that I should leave the bucket of nickels as our tip. As a polite Canadian, I cannot in good conscience do so and I appeal to their poker spirit, arguing that I didn’t want the bad karma at the tables. After hitting quads the previous night after treating Pablo and Iggy, I was starting to become a believer in cosmic balance. I did eventually agree to suggest to the cashier that I wanted to pay the bill in nickels and Gracie captured a terrific picture of her reaction (that I’ve borrowed). Once I told the cashier I was joking she smiled and starting chuckling to herself. As we were leaving, the stragglers heard her telling the story to her co-workers, so I was satisfied that my karmic balance remained undisturbed.

We decided to walk down Fremont St. to take in the downtown sites and to see some fancy drink makers someone had seen a few blocks down. We were (un)lucky enough to see The Fremont Street Experience as we walked and I’ve got to say that while the overhead screens are somewhat neat, the “Experience” is pretty lame. The atmosphere of being downtown is enough to make it interesting. And the “Cocktail” style drinkmakers were impressive as they made John a bubbling blue concoction. But by this point everyone was starting to go through withdrawal so we decided to hit up the Golden Nugget for a little poker action.

next: tilting, blackjack and bloggers talking poker

O, Canada
Despite the regular jokes by various members of the blogger community, the Canadian dollar is worth
$0.81 of an American dollar and an American dollar will buy you $1.22 Canadian. It is sometimes inconvenient, but as most prices for goods and services here are roughly equivalent to prices in the States, without the conversion, it can be a pretty good deal. Also, because every dollar I win at an online poker site is an American dollar, it’s worth that much more when I cash out.

The Las Vegas series:
Day 1 – A Grand Ol’ Time (part 1)
Day 1 – A Grand Ol’ Time (part 2)
Day 1 – Sunrise at The Plaza
Day 2 – I … See … Famous People
Day 2 – Storming the Castle
Day 3 – The Main Event
Day 3 – A Bucket of Nickels and the Shrimp Sundae
Day 3 – Nugget Poker
Day 4 – Finally, A Win!
Day 4 – Komol O
Day 4 – A Night in ‘The Suite’
Day 5 – Goodbye Las Vegas