Annual Las Vegas trip: the X-ieth anniversary

And lo, did the Furdells and friends vacation to Las Vegas, on roughly the 10th anniversary of our first trip there in "fall" (all our memories are fuzzy, we don't remember exactly when) of 1999.

A lot has happened in those 10 years; for example, I used to watch football in standard def, and now I watch it in HD. But more significantly, Vegas is a kind of personal economic litmus test. It's a reflection of both my personal wealth and my willingness to assume risk, and both have changed a lot over a past decade.

James from 1999 probably took the MARTA bus from his dingy Atlanta apartment to the airport to save a few bucks; he stayed at Excalibur and shared a room with three other guys to make it affordable; he agonized over every red chip lost to the whims of the cards or the dice. 2009 James, by contrast, can afford to drop a few bucks on a taxi in the name of enjoying his vacation time more. 2009 James spends more on fancy dinners with friends and aromatherapy massages at the cushy casino spa, and can withstand a bad day at the tables because it's merely an annoyance. For 1999 James, losing was a seeming indication of my downward spiral toward homelessness and rail-car vagrancy.

I have a ton of great memories from the annual trips to Vegas. In 2000, we stayed at the Luxor in the pyramid for the first time, and one night had a terrific run at the craps table while visiting Excalibur. We celebrated with Krispy Kreme donuts (I wore the paper hat and drank banana milk), and danced giddily down the walkway back to the Luxor. One year, maybe 2003, I departed for the airport leaving Andrew in the middle of a poker tournament, only to find out I had been bumped from my flight. I took a first-class option for a later flight home, returned to the casino and watched Andrew chop first place in the tournament.

In 2004 I successfully petitioned us to adopt Pai Gow Poker, and in subsequent years we would find ourselves six-to-a-table at Paris, pushing almost every hand and drinking as much as possible. That was also the year a few of us tried a hike the mountains and wound up in a hailstorm and Andrew almost destroyed the Gun Store; oops.

Guy Behind Counter: "How can we help you fellas today?"

Andrew: "We'd like to shoot some guns."

GBC: "OK."

Heh.

I didn't think it would be possible to top last year, our first time staying at Mandalay Bay, which had been a long-held dream of mine. We, of course, saw Fake Prince at the House of Blues, and several Purple Rain drinks later, were extremely sick. (Mistakes were made, hotel fixtures were destroyed.) But it was awesome, and after nursing away a hangover at the wave pool on Monday, many of us declared 2008 the Best Vegas Trip Ever. (Or at least Andrew and I did. I think. It's kind of fuzzy.)

(Hey, that dude photo-bombed us.)

However, for me, 2009 will be hard to beat. I expect to lose some money in the long run when I gamble, but when everything turns into red ink immediately and I reach my maximum daily loss budget before noon, that's just not fun. I have previously experienced trips to Vegas where everything felt-top table I touched turned to disaster, and I wound up just walking around aimlessly, or watching my friends gamble while I licked my wounds.

This year was bizarre because I had the Midas touch. With a couple exceptions, every single table I sat down at turned a profit for me, and making the decision at the start of the trip to extend it an extra day with Andrew turned out to be even more lucrative.

I say it's bizarre for two reasons. There's the obvious: after exposing myself to the house edge for days, I was repeatedly finishing in the black, which is mathematically unusual, to say the least. More strange is the way winning affects me now: not much. 1999 James would get an adrenaline rush from walking away with a $40 profit at blackjack or craps. 2009 James walks away up $120 or so, and feels good about it, but it's not like winning or losing that amount of money is going to change my life significantly. The ambivalence is a nice feeling; I can sit at a table with my friends and drink and be social, and even if I lose my buy-in, it won't hurt too much. If I win, bonus, but not so exciting I'm skipping down the corridor like in 2000. These days I'm more excited about catching up with my friends, going to a nice dinner, or drinking by the pool, or getting a massage and a few hours to relax in the spa. I feel like I've seen every possible roll of the dice, every unusual back-door 21, every unexpected pai gow win or loss, every two-out hold-'em win on the river; at this point, the unexpected is the expected, and so maybe some of the thrill of the chase gone. Plus, living in Washington, where we have legal card rooms and plentiful Indian casinos, I can go gamble whenever I feel like it… which, lately, has been less and less.

(Here's the part where I start talking about poker, forever into infinity. You've been warned.)

This is not to stay there aren't still some thrills. These days they mostly come from paying no-limit Texas Hold-'em. One more notable difference in Vegas since 1999 has been the resurgence (and, maybe, fall again) of poker; when we first started learning how to play in the casino, they were more likely to be replacing poker tables with more slot machines. After ESPN starting showing the WSOP, Hold-'em became incredibly popular and casinos couldn't add tables fast enough. (Which is nice, although I miss playing seven-card stud once in a while. Mandalay used to offer both games, and stud has seemingly been retired there.) The advent of no-limit cash games in casinos has been remarkable; you can sit down with a $200 stack of chips and lose them all within a minute, on a single bet, to another player. Nothing will put my heart in my throat faster than going all-in and praying to the gods of probability that my Ace-King off-suit somehow holds up after the flop. Looking back through the blog I was surprised to see that the first time I played no-limit was just two years ago; I thought it was longer than that. Since then I've played a lot of $2-$40 spread at Club Hollywood in Shoreline, which is not no-limit but is similar in a lot of ways, so I feel like I'd developed the tight-aggressive strategy you need to be successful at that kind of a game.

My cash game exploits this time were few and far between but a net profit affair; despite a $140 loss on one hand, a lot of small wins made up for it. Andrew, whose poker game surely would lend itself to being profitable in no-limit, also took a big profit on the final day. But the real surprise was my tournament success.

I've always enjoyed playing in poker tournaments, since your loss liability is limited to the buy-in. I'd never finished in the money, but the guaranteed entertainment for my money made it seem a good buy. My venue of choice has historically been the $40 buy-in tourney, weekday mornings at 10 a.m. at Mandalay. Assuming I can wake up in time to register and grab a coffee, this one has always been my favorite and I never felt like I was throwing away too much money on it. In previous years, this tournament was limit for the first two rounds, then no-limit afterwards; now, with no-limit being the most popular tourney format, it is no-limit from the start (but you can re-buy until the end of Round 2, which those who bust out often do).

And so, Tuesday morning, I found myself in this tournament, along with Andrew, Eric, and John, whom we had somehow convinced to join us before they had to fly away. I was at Eric's table, and of course his unpredictability from playing in the $2-$4 game in 2007 (c.f.: "I an shivebadd") was foremost in my mind. Eric actually may have helped me win this thing in the end, believe it or not. He did his usual Eric thing on one hand in particular. My pocket cards were A3 diamonds, and I limped in pre-flop. So did Eric, but the player to his left raised it way up. A fourth player called, and I thought about calling, but I suspected a high pocket pair, which could be hard to beat, so I folded. Eric called too, and the flop came up mostly blanks, but with two diamonds. That fourth player made a big bet, Eric called, and the original raiser folded. The turn card was another diamond, so I would have made my flush, oh well. Another big bet, another call by Eric. At the showdown, sure enough, the fourth player had a high pocket pair, and Eric had… the 3 and 5 of diamonds!? He made his flush with those awful starting cards and took down the pot, leaving the player he beat shaking his head, and rightfully so. I would have made a better flush had I stayed in, and between him and me Eric only had seven unseen diamonds remaining to make his flush, but of course he did it, possibly a credit to his natural charisma. He is, as I said many times during the trip, the Best Of All Of Us.

Later, I raised all-in pre-flop with something like QQ, and Eric called with J2, perhaps out of friendship. My cards held up, giving me a lot of the chips he had taken earlier. That was one of the few times I actually saw a showdown in that tournament; most of the time I was winning pots because people were folding to my raises, even after we got to the phase of the tournament where an ante was required from all players before the deal so that there was a lot of money to take by being aggressive pre-flop. It was a happy ending for everyone, because Eric was able to make his flight, and I had enough chips to play it conservatively the rest of the way, mostly waiting for other players with small stacks to knock each other out. In the end, it was down to me and one other guy. I had never finished in the money before, as I mentioned, so I was pretty happy about chopping the 1st and 2nd place payouts with this guy and heading off to the pool. I didn't pay too much attention to our chip totals, but I thought they were roughly even; there was some dispute over that (John says I had more than he did). Either way the other player eventually agreed to the 50-50 chop, and I took a payout of $240.

Oh, but there was one thing I didn't realize, and this did make me a little bit jealous; there's a trophy for winning. Not really a trophy, but actually a large disc, with the Mandalay logo and "1st place" and a depiction of some lovely pocket aces. When you agree to split the top prize, they deal one final to determine who gets the trophy, and it was the other guy. Not that the money wasn't nice, but I wanted that trophy. It didn't help that Andrew kept mocking me for taking a deal. "No deals!" he would yell at me for the next several hours, laughing and pointing.

So there you go. For the first time, I had finished in the money in a tournament. The strange thing here is that I barely felt anything. Sure, I had the usual heart-in-the-throat moments during the tourney, pushing all-in in early position and hoping nobody would call. But even when I was close to the money, I wasn't experiencing the thrills or the adrenaline I thought I would. Maybe it helped that I had a comfy number of chips, or that I've played so much poker by now and seen so many goofy things happen that nothing fazes me. Again, as nice as the $240 was, it wasn't going to change my life. I was actually a little bit annoyed because I was not that excited. Where was all this largesse 10 years ago? 1999 James would have been jumping up and down and shouting like a fool to win that much cash in a couple hours. 2009 James was like, "Oh, that's nice." It almost didn't seem fair to 1999 James.

After everyone finally left Tuesday, Andrew and I were paired up for some brotherly Vegas action. Andrew took three hugs pots playing in a cash game Tuesday evening that put him way up. Wednesday, we decided to give the morning tourney one more shot, with an added side bet for our enjoyment: whoever between us lasted longer in the tourney bought the other a sushi lunch. Which could potentially cost more than the $40 buy-in, but that's how I like it.

Immediately, on the very first hand, I doubled up. Normally I hate going all-in on the first hand because I hate being knocked out in less than five minutes, but this time I had the nut flush so I knew I was going to win the hand. I was actually in bad shape after the flop; I had limped in with A3 suited spades, and the flop came with another Ace, plus two more spades, one of which was a Jack. I bet a modest amount and was called by a player across from me. Another spade on the turn meant I had the flush. He checks, I bet, he calls. A blank on the river that did not pair the board, which was a good sign for me because that means no full house is possible, thus I have the best hand possible (Ace-high flush). The player across from me bets into me! I raise all-in. He has to think about it, but eventually calls with AJ, two pair, no good, and is friendly about it but clearly disgusted with himself. He may have misplayed it, though; in tournaments, I always try to be aggressive with high cards to remove the drawing hands from consideration if possible. A raise pre-flop might have gotten me away from those cards; I probably had to stay in after the flop because of the pair of Aces and four-flush, but as it turned out he was still the favorite, and I would have had to think hard about calling an all-in raise. He re-bought his way back into the tourney immediately, and I took more of his chips and knocked him out again later. Poor guy.

A second hand I remember helping me out was one of those few instances where I used a tell to help me out. A tell is when another player either involuntarily or unknowingly reveals whether he has a good hand. They can be subtle; my favorite one that has saved me in the past is to watch for new players' hands to be shaking when the place a bet, because it means they have a big hand. In this case, I did not have great starting cards: Q-10 of clubs. Could develop into something, and I think I just called in late-ish position, but I usually prefer to have more players in the pot to play a hand like that, and in this case there were only three. The flop didn't help me, but everyone checked so I got to see a free card. The turn card was a Queen, giving me top pair with an OK kicker. I put out a cautious bet hoping not to get raised, but instead I got called by the button, which could be even worse if he's hiding a monster hand. The river card was uninteresting; Queen was still the high card on the board, so I had a decent top pair. Just then the player on the button checked out of turn.

This was the clue I needed to let me know I probably had him beat. In no-limit poker, if you check on the river, it's probably a sign you don't have much. There is a move called the check-raise, where you raise the other player after you had previously checked, but this move doesn't make a whole lot of sense playing heads-up no-limit unless you have nothing and decide to make an impromptu bluff. I had thought about taking it slow with my Queens and maybe checking to hope for a free showdown, but instead, because I now was sure I had the better hand, I threw out a value bet. A value bet is a moderate sized bet, some modest percentage of the current pot, decided to be an attractive call for your opponent. You want them to call a value bet, because you think you have them beat and it would mean more chips for you. Too big a bet might mean they fold, which gains you no additional chips besides what's currently in the pot. My value bet worked; the button called and showed a low pair with an Ace, which he was probably hoping would pair up at some point. My Queens were good and I took down some extra chips to boot.

Memorable hand #3 was my favorite, because I beat Cranky Guy. There's always gotta be a Cranky Guy. Usually some old and/or foreign dude who's angry at the world and vaguely threatens other players because he doesn't like how they bet. Cranky Guy in this tournament was not at my starting table, but was at the final table when I made it there. I had seen him earlier barking at the dealer, I believe because he had hit his leg on the table's coin box, or something. Whatever it was, it had briefly caused a bit of commotion. Cranky Guy was older and wearing a Cal (as in Berkeley) hat, but was decidedly un-mellow, and we found ourselves in a showdown not too long after being seated at the final table.

I'm actually disappointed with how I played this hand. Like I mentioned before, you need good cards to win a tournament to cover your mistakes, and that happened here. I found myself playing a not-so-good unsuited Ace-8. The reason A8 is not so good is because if someone else plays an Ace with a better kicker and you both pair your Aces, you might be stuck betting on a losing hand with no easy way to suck out a win. That happened to me here. I limped in with my A8, and sure enough, the board came up an innocuous-looking A-7-6 rainbow. But because there had been no pre-flop raises I liked my Aces, and bet a moderate amount, about four times the small blind. Cranky Guy raised all in. Now I had a tough choice to make; call his all-in with my not-great 8 kicker, or fold and forfeit a decent number of chips.

I was pretty sure Cranky Guy had me beat. I wasn't inconceivable that he would limp in with AQ or AJ and wait to strike against a player with a worse Ace if it paired up. While making my decision, I even said out loud, "I think you have me out-kicked." This would be bad news for me; if that was the case, and it was (he actually had Ace-King), there weren't too many cards left to bail me out. An 8 and no further Kings would give me a win, but there were only three of those left and two cards left to reveal. Two more sequential cards around my 6-7-8 for a straight would also do it, and two more 7s or 8s in a row would give us a push with equally full houses, but those possibilities are barely worth mentioning. I was long shot at almost 5-to-1 if my hunch was right.

"I think you have me out-kicked… but I call." On this hand I was what we call "pot committed." (Note that this is different from being committed to pot.) Cranky Guy's all-in raise was not that much more than what I had originally bet; I think I had bet about 6,000 and he went all-in with about 9,500. With the blinds and all the antes and my original 6,000 bet in the pot, the additional 3,500 seemed worth it; a moderate risk for a big pot, and definitely worth it if I'm wrong and he doesn't have a better Ace.

Of course, he did have a better Ace and my hunch was correct. But the turn card was an 8! "Oh, there's my 8," I said, like it was the express bus I had expected to come along at any minute. Cranky Guy left, muttering, "Nothing you can do about that." No, there's not. The other players at the table did that poker player thing where they say "Great call," when in fact you have made a terrible call, and they just want to encourage you to do it again, for them, when they go all-in. But I knew I had gotten lucky, which was just what I needed. With any tournament you're not going to make every correct call and every correct move, and in order to beat a large number of people (in this case, about 30), the cards have to go your way at least once on a hand where you're a long shot to win.

This time, I didn't chop. I wound up playing heads-up for about 15 minutes or so. Despite possibly being behind to start, I came back and won by being maybe just a shade more patient than he was. In the end, I won, pocketed $450, and most importantly…

A sushi lunch from Andrew. Oh, and the trophy chip:

And now you know the rest of the story. I won two poker tournaments in two days. For the trip, I was in the black for at least $1,000, a new record.

A few more thoughts:

1. Blondie's, a restaurant in the mall attached to Planet Hollywood, is the nuts for watching NFL games on Sunday, and I wish to find myself there on all Vegas Sundays, now and forevermore.

2. The Pinball Hall of Fame, located about three miles east of the strip at Tropicana and Pecos, is fantastic and I'm happy that something like that exists. I got to play Pinball Circus, a stand-up prototype; only two were ever made. Simply that is amazing.

3. Fake Prince at the Hooters (guh) Casino was much raunchier this time around. According to Andrew, newly religious Real Prince probably doesn't play "Darling Nikki" live anymore. So in that respect, Fake Prince is better.

4. I've been going to the Mandalay Bay sports book since 1999, and I love it, but they need to put in High Definition screens, for football. We aren't cavemen, after all. HD in the rooms is a nice improvement, at least.

5. After someone at our Pai Gow table kicked the plug out of the floor, knocking out the shuffler and the bet minimum LCD screen, Andrew and I realized that every gaming table has a very unimpressive looking power strip balanced precariously on a cross beam underneath. Presumably this will play a factor in Ocean's 17.

6. Getting a massage and some solitary spa time is a great way to collect your thoughts and reflect on your life, and get a few Moments of Clarity. It's important to relax, celebrate, and also reflect on what you've done. While I had some time to devote a few synapses to quiet thinking, I decided that as much as I've enjoyed refereeing football over the years, it's time to give it up and do something else. (Of course, I said that before this season too, and then relapsed right back into it, but that's another story.) Assuming that decision sticks, I'll talk about it more after the season ends in a few weeks.

In conclusions, I. Love. The Vegas.

See you next year… in Seattle?