Raging Solo

So I think it's probably less surprising to hear that I'm awake in Las Vegas at 6AM than it is to hear that I'm awake in Las Vegas at 6AM after sleeping for 7 hours.

Yep, I went to sleep in Las Vegas at 11PM last night. And I don't regret one minute of shut-eye that I grabbed.

I got here Thursday evening rather than the anticipated Friday afternoon, after deciding that getting from Downtown Denver to Blackhawk to explore the Indian casinos was just gonna suck too much. FYI, I have never in my life, in my travels anywhere in the US and abroad, paid as much for a cab ride as I did fort he ride from downtown to the Denver airport. I'm pretty sure that in most places, including Dallas, where I thought the airport was in another state from the hotel, I could have taken a limo cheaper than a taxi. So Thursday night I wandered around, blew a little money playing 2/4 (really, somebody remind me again why I play 2/4), made most of it back playing 3/6 (almost as bad a game, but I made the appropriate adjustments), and blew a little more money playing Let It Ride (I know, fuck off).

Then yesterday I started off with one of my planned goals for the trip. I wanted to play Stud at a casino. I walked over to the Mirage to see if I could lower the median age at the low limit stud game by about 30 years, and there happened to be a seat open. There were actually a couple of players under 70 in the game, and I did very well to start out. I picked up trips a couple of times, and generally played tight-aggressive poker. Unfortunately, after about a half hour of playing well, I realized that even by playing well, I could only win $40-$50 because the table was so tight after 3rd street, and it was so easy for these folks to get away from most hands at the sight of ay aggression. That's when I stopped paying much attention, and consequently stopped winning.

But while I was still playing well, a guy sat down next to me and we started chatting. He was younger than me (not by much, but looked to be in his late 20s), and we went through the whole "what do you do for a living" conversations, and it turns out he's in the business. He watches poker on TV for a living. His card says he's a "CardTracker" statistician, which means he puts the percentages on the hands on TV shows, including Poker After Dark and the PokerDown. I mentioned that a friend of mine was one the PokerDome, and we realized that we know a lot of the same people from PokerNews. So that was kinda interesting, running into someone with mutual acquaintances at a random Stud table a couple thousand miles away from home.

But not as odd as running into someone who may make a nice addition to our home game while playing a Mixed Game at Caesar's a couple thousand miles from home. Sitting there talking about where everyone's from, it turns out the guy in the 3 seat lives a mile from my house in Charlotte! So I got his card as well, and promised him an invite when I get back to town. Nice guy. Good Razz player.

There's more, including mis-judging a psuedo-donk at Planet Ho last night, but I'll get to that later. Now I'm gonna wander the strip and see what the action is like just before sunrise.