Unplanned trip

On Sunday, I was trying to return from Detroit to Seattle, on standby. Unfortunately, all flights out of Detroit were overbooked, even into Monday. Things were looking pretty grim. Furthermore, there were no direct flights; I would have to connect somewhere else to get to Seattle. But it looked like as long as I could get out of Detroit, my second flight would be fine.

Well Sunday went by as I did not get on any flight... until 11:45pm, somehow I got on a flight to Las Vegas!

I passed out for the entire flight. I had been drinking somewhat steadily for my last 4 hours in Detroit.

I landed at McCarran around 1:30am. The next flight out of Vegas to Seattle was at 9:30am. So, after wandering around the airport for a little bit, I started to ask myself the obvious question: Should I head to the strip? The answer was of course a YES!!

So I did. Of course, I did not have much cash with me, and could not pull that much out of the ATM either. So I wasn't even sure what I was going to play. Eventually I decided I would just keep it simple and play 4/8 at the Bellagio.

Quick side-note: On my cab ride from the airport, the driver took me through the tunnel onto I-15. This is the long way, and costs almost twice as much. I wasn't very pleased about this, and it hadn't actually happened to me before so I didn't really think about telling him not to beforehand (the first I had ever heard about it was when it happened to Emily sometime last year). More details about that can be found here: 2+2 thread

Anyways, I actually went first to Bally's to check my bags. Not that I couldn't have done that at the Bellagio, but Bally's is more familiar to me so you just go with what you know, you know? Also I had planned on ending the night/morning with a breakfast at the Barbary Coast (now called Bill's Gambling Hall or something?) as we had done on other trips, since they have a really cheap breakfast special from midnight to 7am, so that made Bally's a reasonable place to leave my stuff.

I eventually got to a 4/8 table at the Bellagio around 2:30am. The room was still pretty lively, I'd guess about 20 full tables of action. Pretty impressive for a random Sunday night.

The game was pretty good. Lots of pre-flop limping, lots of cold-calling, lots of junk showdowns. And I had a complete maniac directly to my right. He was raising pre-flop with hands such as Q3c, 65o, T2o, etc etc, even 3-betting with such hands. So I had good position on him. Unfortunately, on my best hand of the night, I hit two pair with ATo, only to lose to his set of 8s. And of course I gave him a LOT of action since I didn't figure him to have anything. Anyways, I dropped $200 in this game, but not before getting a coffee and two double Glenlivets neat. That would've cost me about $30 at a bar, so that softens the blow a little :)

There was one really talkative girl at my table. She kept telling the old man next to her how beautiful his daughter was, and then later when his wife came over, how beautiful she was as well. And she kept trying to talk to the guy next to me, who wouldn't respond to her at all. After he wouldn't talk to her, she kept calling him "quiet" and "unfriendly," and then to really get in his face, she stuck out her hand to him and said "My name is Heather, what's yours?" He still completely ignored her. She talked to me a bit too, told me how she wanted an Asian daughter because they are so pretty. Started flirting with me, asked if I was a California boy, I told her I was from Seattle, she asked if she could crash with me if she came up there, I jokingly said yeah! Then she was like "ok give me your number" and whipped out her phone to save it. At that point I waved my hands and was like "nah." Fortunately she didn't seem to take too much offense. She wasn't too bad looking but she was a bit older, and actually was getting quite annoying. And I wasn't about to shout my phone number across the table regardless. Anyways, after about an hour, the guy who wouldn't respond to her at all jumps up and yells "YES!!" sticks out his hand to her and says "Hi, my name is Andy. I just won a $25,000 bet for not talking to you until 4:45."

weird.

Anyways, it was about 6am when I busted my stack. I headed over for breakfast, went back to Bally's to get my bags, and went back to the airport. I may have dropped $200 but I was playing in a good game where I most certainly had +EV, and I got there for free (well, minus $35 for cab rides there and back), so I can't complain.

Oh and I got on the 9:30am flight to Seattle with no problems, and was at work by 3pm.

Next trip to Vegas in 1 1/2 weeks!!