Broke But Baller

With my WSOP dream over, it dawned on me that there was still a whole bunch of things I wanted to see and do in Vegas. Despite living it up in Vegas, we were essentially broke. We hadn’t intended on even having a summer holiday at all but then I won the satellite in a “freeroll” and Mrs Mak wasn’t going to be left at home so we scraped together the little spare cash we had to cover her flight (the package I won only really covered me) and planned to make the most of it.

Mrs Mak and I had spent our first morning exploring the Palazzo-Venetian resort, it's a massive shopping mall, in faux Venice stylings with a fake blue sky painted on the ceiling, with two casinos either side of the canal. Most of the stores were so fashionable or cool that I had never heard of them but the price tags spoke for themselves. I'm not really sure if these shops are just for show because I didn't see anyone shopping in any of them. Eventually we stumbled across the food court, finally somewhere I could afford to buy something!

Venice?

I'm not sure if it's a Vegas thing or if it's an American thing but the food portions were ridiculous. We got a couple of huge sandwiches, a layer of bread, piles of meat with a piece of bread on top... and then another layer of another meat topped with another piece of bread, this would set the tone for what a “portion” of food would be during our stay.

I left Mrs Mak window shopping while I headed to the PKR pool party, hosted at the hotel's fancy private pool area 'Azure'. It was a pretty lush affair, a bit of an exercise in excess, as a parade of bikini clad girls supplied us with a continuous flow of drink and food, while little water sprays perpetually 'mist' you to keep you cool. I couldn’t quite believe how I was seemingly living this ‘baller’ lifestyle. 

Despite staying in a fancy hotel, playing the WSOP, attending glamorous parties, we didn’t really have a lot of money to spare, so much of our entertainment came from simply exploring the various casino resorts, stopping off here and there for food and drink. 

Toy town

Vegas just doesn't look right in daylight, it's like some sort of weird toy town, it's a bit odd to be honest. But at night, Vegas comes alive and becomes the Vegas from TV and movies. The whole place was heaving with people, everywhere. We wandered through the various casinos and crowds but it's so much to take in, it all sort of blurred into one huge assault on the senses. We arrived at the Bellagio just in time for the water fountain show outside. I wasn't really expecting much from this, it was on my “Las Vegas tourist check-list” but apart from that I wasn't that fussed about it, I mean, how impressive were a bunch of fountains going to be? Pretty impressive it turns out. Along with Lee Greenwood's “God Bless the USA” soundtrack, I wouldn't have been surprised if a chant of “USA USA USA” had broken out, I was half-tempted to start one myself.

The shopping mall part of Caesars was much with the same as the Palazzo-Venetian, fancy looking expensive shops; painted blue skies on the ceiling and ye olde grandiose stylings; it just has more statues. The casino in Caesars is massive, we often found ourselves stopping for a bit a gamble just to sit down and have a rest for a while.

A friend had recommended we should get cake from the 'Cheesecake Factory' so when we happened upon it we stopped in for dinner. I got a 'Mac and Cheese Burger' which is a like a normal burger but with an additional patty made from macaroni and cheese covered in breadcrumbs on top of your burger and then covered in more cheese, and Mrs Mak got what looked like a 4 person plate of shrimp pasta. My arteries cried out in protest as I finished off my oh so tasty burger, much to my bodies relief we never got the cake that we came in for, there was just too much food.

The Wynn was my favourite casino/resort by far, it has something that no other casino has dared to incorporate into their fantastical resorts, natural daylight! Walking into the Wynn, we encountered the familiar mall of expensive stores but instead of painted blue skies on the ceiling, the central mall was bathed in actual sunlight through a glass roof. While the main casino floor itself was typically internalised, around it there were restaurants and bars that spilled outside looking onto water features under the sun. It amazes me that more isn't made of the sun in Las Vegas, it is stupendously hot in Vegas but equally it's really sunny, not that you get to enjoy very often.

After a few full on days we decided to try and enjoy the sun, thought it would be good to relax and recharge the batteries on the Palazzo pool deck. By the time we made our way down to the pool deck at the Palazzo we were just in time for the midday sun, obviously the best time for sunbathing. It was seriously fucking hot. It was too hot, too hot to relax. It was so hot that anything that wasn't in shade, was too hot to touch. It was so hot that I couldn't read my book for the sweat pouring out my forehead and into my eyes. We spent a couple of hours enduring the sun, maybe 20 minutes on the loungers and when it got too much, into the pool for 20 minutes, and repeat. I hadn't realised how chilled out the Palazzo pool area was until we went looking for shade on the Venetian pool deck, where Tao Beach can be found. Tao Beach liked it's music LOUD! Under the shade of the poolside bar we ‘refreshed’ with a couple of cocktail slushie type drinks.

I skipped out on another PKR party in order to make my poker pilgrimage to the old Vegas, Downtown, what is now dubbed 'The Freemont Street Experience', I think since they covered the whole street with a fancy roof. We opted to take a bus rather than a taxi, much cheaper.

The bus ride took us North of 'the strip' for the first time, although I visited neither, I wouldn't stay at Circus Circus or the Stratosphere because there's not much close by except some small shops and fast food joints. Past that, the place got pretty shifty looking, pretty quickly. Maybe it didn't help that it was dark but I wouldn't be getting off the bus at all unless things changed dramatically. This appeared to be where all the Vegas wedding chapels were situated, and not that they were open but I would not be coming here at night to get married, probably not during the day either. The only other highlights along the road were bail-bondsmen and attorneys' offices and billboards advertising their services. We passed through the "The Artists' District" which is a clever way to make a run-down area sound all bohemian and cool, before we arrived Downtown.

Bright light city

Freemont Street was insane! The street was mobbed with people, up on the strip it was busy but it was busy the same way a high street or shopping center is busy, this was busy like being in a nightclub. The whole street was illuminated by the old school casinos signage, The Golden Nugget, Binions, 4 Queens, Pioneer and more lighting the place up.

There were makeshift stalls and bars on the street and people in costumes photo busking. As we walked along there was a stage with a 80s tribute rock band blaring out Motley Crues’ "Girls Girls Girls", I think there was some sort of 'Rock of Ages' inspired theme going on. We were heading further along the street when suddenly there were screams from above, looking up, 4 girls whizzed past on ziplines that ran from one in of the street to the other. Further up the street another 80s rock band on another stage were just finishing off a song when all of the lights shut off. The whole street was in darkness, everyone stopped what they were doing, the ceiling lit up and turned into a scene from Guitar Hero and then, WOA WOA… WOA WOA… Bon Jovi's ‘Livin On A Prayer’ started pumping out and we were treated to a few Bon Jovi classics and some bizarre space themed video above us before the ceiling turned off, the casino lights came back up and everyone carried on again on the street.

Inside the casinos that lined the streets, it's a little smaller, a little more crammed, a little less slick but still filled with a lot of the same machines and table games as the strip, it was less glamorous, maybe a bit more hardcore. Binions casino had a million dollars on display but it didn't look a lot at all, we almost missed it. Lured in by a sign for 99cent hot dogs, we entered Mermaids casino, narrowly avoiding a girl handing out beaded necklaces at the door. The food was served up the back. If the street was like a club, this place was like the kebab shop come closing time. Quite a few people looking worse for wear but how can you go wrong with a couple of beers and couple of foot long hot dogs for under $10? It was possibly the best hot dog I've ever tasted. Back outside we enjoyed some more of the 80s rock and sights.

At the end of the night, we got back on the bus looking forward to be heading back to the peace and tranquility of the strip. Now we know why it's called the Freemont Street Experience!

I don't want to keep going on about the food but the next day we got another amazing breakfast, this time at Harrahs. I got a 'South of the Border' omelette, and not only was it the greatest omelette I've ever eaten, it was possibly my best meal of the trip so far, so tasty AND paid for with my 'Total Rewards' loyalty card off the back of playing the WSOP.

We thought we should see the Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon while we were in that part of the world. It turns out we weren't quite as much in that part of the world though as we thought. A bus tour was going to take about 6 hours to get there, for a couple of hours sightseeing and then it would be back on the bus for the 6 hour return journey. I didn't spend 12 hours flying to Las Vegas to spend 12 hours on a bus to see a big wall and big hole in the ground. I suggested we take a helicopter trip instead but I knew that was a long-shot because Mrs Mak doesn't like flying, but it seems being in a helicopter would be a hundred times worse for her, so that scuppered that idea.

Instead, Mrs Mak got her way and we went to the M&Ms World! Apart from a 3D movie, it was pretty much just a glorified shop, you wouldn't think it was possible to fill 4 floors with so much M&M merchandise but it is. After we stocked up on various types of M&Ms, we explored the so far unexplored end of the strip.

Other than over the top theming, what made Excalibur and New York New York stand out as casino resorts were their well-appointed gaming arcades. Loads of people bring their kids to Vegas and I have no idea why. I'm not even sure what the deal with kids in the casinos is, I would have previously assumed they weren't allowed but you had to go through the Palazzo casino just to get to your room, so maybe they are, I dunno. But these arcades were the first thing I'd seen to keep the kids entertained anywhere in Vegas, and it seemed like the perfect foil to the casino gaming floors. New York New York would also be where we had our first big win on the slots, 35 big ones baby! Made even better because it was one of those oversized slot machines and the winnings came out as big gold coins, so that was fun, and more than covered our slot money losses for the week.

Mrs Mak tries her luck

35 big ones!

One night we went to the Wynn-Encore casino for dinner, we ended up in the 'Society Cafe' and got some kind of mad Hesten-Blumenthal-esque dinner, with a little teacups of soup, cubes of crab, little bags of donuts and so on. We were enjoying that when who should walk into the restaurant but Victoria Coren and her other half, TV’s David Mitchell! I assume Coren was there for the WSOP and Mitchell was just a hanger on but what a great double celebrity spot! The most famous person I had ever seen up until that point was an actress from a Scottish regional soap, so after the disappointing lack of poker stars on show at the WSOP earlier in the week, I was quite chuffed.

Back at the Palazzo we got a drink at the Zebra bar. When passing by it had appeared pretty dead most nights, a house band performed some classic rock but remained mostly ignored. This night must have seemed like any other, until a man got up from the corner and started some bad dad dancing in the middle of the dance floor. Suddenly, he was surrounded by women, and reluctantly the men joined in too, and the whole place was rocking out, including a couple of old age pensioners. This must have been the band's best night and all it took was one drunk man dancing.

Despite being in Las Vegas for almost a week, we hadn't really done much in the way of gambling. I had played the WSOP for a couple of hours of course and we had been sporadically playing the cheapo slot machines at various casinos but that was it. Mrs Mak isn't into gambling, and believe it or not, neither am I. Now Mrs Mak insists that poker is gambling, and while I have to concede, that yes, technically, poker is gambling, there is a distinction in my mind between poker and what I see as gambling; roulette, slots etc and I haven't really enjoyed 'gambling' ever since I took up playing poker. While I had no real interest in the table games or slots, one of the big things on my Vegas checklist was to play a live omaha cash game for the very first time. I consider myself an omaha player, I rarely play hold'em given the choice. I spent months moaning about how I was being 'forced' to play that stupid bloody game in order to win a seat in Vegas, then I won and it didn't seem quite so stupid...

It seems like there are hundreds of players on hand to play around the clock in Vegas. The TV in our room had a channel telling you what games were running in the cash games downstairs, the smallest PLO game on the go was $1/$2 and that was plenty big enough for me. I am simply not rolled to play $1/$2 PLO by any stretch of the imagination but I was in Vegas, I was there for the poker, it was an experience, so I had to roll the dice, so to speak. On our final full day I headed to the Venetian poker room to play my first ever live game of omaha. I withdrew $250 from an ATM because I didn’t actually have enough money for a buy-in. I thought $200 was plenty of money for a buy-in, 100xbb, the norm right? Wrong! I came to the table with the smallest stack at the table by some way, I think the next smallest stack at the table was about $500, the largest about $1500, that was intimidating and doubt began to creep into my mind about whether or not I should carry on or just get up and leave. If I lost this money, it would be McDonald’s for dinner, and breakfast, and lunch and little else until we got home!

For the first couple of rounds, I must have looked like the nittiest nit from Nit Town, with my tiny stack and love of folding. The action was pretty fast and loose and it was becoming apparent that more than likely that my entire stack would be at risk if I wanted to play a hand. More often than not, there would be a straddle on so pots would get big quickly. Despite the huge pots, I had yet to see anyone showdown a particularly strong hand, 2 pair seemed to be the winner more often than not but I resisted the urge to mix it up with these crazy guys and kept playing tight. I began to see a few flops cheaply when I could but there was no point in bluffing because you were guaranteed at least one caller.

The pivotal hand arrived, I opened to $15 from mid position with [7h][8h][9c][Td], I'm not quite sure how I managed to open for $15, it had become the standard opening raise at the table, I guess it was because of the straddle, anyways a loosey goosey old man called before the button attempted to pot raise but the dealer declared it a min raise because he had string bet, so me and old man call and see a flop [7c][8s][Jh] (INTERNALISED MENTAL FIST PUMP!) I checked, the old man pot bet out, the button got out the way and I shipped the rest of my stack in and the old man called.

"How many times do you want to run it?" he asked.

I had never been in this spot before, I didn’t (and still don't) know what the right answer should be. Once if you're playing for the win? More if you just want to hold onto your money, lessen the variance? I went with what I knew and we ran it once. The old guy never turned over his hand (is this normal behaviour in a cash game?) so I wasn't sure what I was sweating, or if I even was sweating. The turn card was the [5d] so as long as the river didn't pair I couldn't lose… it didn't and I scooped a pot worth over $400!

My heart was racing. Everything had happened automatically, I had been swept up in the hand, sitting back I could feel the adrenaline rush. Having grown my stack to 200 big blinds, I felt a lot more comfortable at the table and started to loosen up and got involved in more pots. It turned out my table was a feeder table for the main $1/2 PLO table, so every now and again, whichever player had been at the table longest would be plucked to join the main game. As new players replaced the originals, the play got looser, wilder and a whole lot sicker. A few players I had tagged as being the 'good players' were bust by some horrible beats and sick action. I returned to nit mode. Dinnertime approached and the last of the players I started with was called up to the main table, I decided to call it a day, finishing with $450 in front of me.

I was pretty damn well pleased after that. I had been a bit down about my WSOP experience and while we'd had some minor wins and losses on the slots, I knew when we got home we'd be asked if we won anything and we had no great gambling stories from Las Vegas. But a winning session at the cash tables had changed all that and turned my attitude around. Finally, I had come to Las Vegas and won!

kaching!

Finding ourselves suddenly flush with money, we decided to treat ourselves on our last night to a steak dinner and a big Vegas show. Based on reviews, it was a toss up between Cirque Du Soleil's 'O' and the Blue Man Group, laziness won out and we got tickets for the Blue Man Group because it was performed inside the Venetian resort. As we had come to expect, dinner was delicious and when I got the chocolate cake for dessert, I simply couldn't finish it, it was just too much and I had to accept I had been defeated once and for all but the American portion sizes. The Blue Man Group was great too, it's difficult to describe what it is, it's a sort of mix of drumming, comedy-mime and performance art which might not sound great but it was. All in all a brilliant end to our Vegas experience.

Vegas started out a bit too full on, intense and crazy, then we got our bearings, got into the swing of it and after our week was up, we weren't ready to go. It felt like if we needed a few more days, there's just so much happening, you might need a holiday after.

Las Vegas is awesome.