Sorry for the lack of posts while in vegas but I didn’t bring my computer and figured a break for a week wouldn’t be a bad thing. Anyways one of my friends wrote a blog about the trip and I figured I would throw it on here since it’s prety much a good description of the trip. I’ll come out with some other random stuff about the trip in the comming days. The gambling didn’t go good. I lost a big pot in poker (the only time i played) losing AK to 10 10 all in pre for 1400 dollar pot. Craps didn’t go well either but the trip was great so it made up for it.
Vegas 2008 Blog
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Today at 12:58am
I know how you all looked forward to this years posting so here goes…
In 2008, the emails started approximately 6 months in advance; the conference calls 2 months in advance. Why? Because working sucks and this takes time away from it even though people think we’re busy. We also knew that we had to have a much better trip than last years, which I feel was slightly disappointing compared to 2006. Throughout this time, the # of people planning on going changed every other day, and we never got the final # until about 3 weeks in advance. Of course the Schnepps were possibilities up until the day we left, as usual. We had several tentative dates, until we finally picked July 9th-July 14th. The # of people also changed this year—and we almost lost 2 at the last minute, but luckily did not. 2008 would be a record breaker with 8 people coming, plus Rob (who lives there), to make it 9 people on the trip. These 9, Hefter (now known as The Dog), Radus, Heath, Ross, Dean, Frank, JM, Rob, and myself arrived at different times throughout Wednesday and Thursday. The plan was to have a “shortened” trip to entice a larger group. We still booked for 5 nights, and choose the Wynn to change up the trip from our normal Bellagio. Frank and JM would stay at Treasure Island.
On Wednesday morning, we ran down 2nd ave to chase a minivan to take to the airport where Hefter and Heath met Radus, Dean and I at the JetBlue terminal at JFK. After enjoying a $17 dollar breakfast of fruit, nuts, and a protein shake, we boarded the plane and found our upgraded seats with 40 feet of leg room. Dean’s arms barely could touch the seats in front of him to give you an idea of the room. Since we had to pay extra for these seats, we were hoping that the middle seats would not be taken, though of course, they were filled by a young Hispanic family of 8, all scattered in between all of us. During the flight, the woman in between Radus and I fell asleep on Radus’ shoulder and he was not too happy about it. He later kneed her to wake her up.
Once we took off, and the fasten seatbelt sign removed, I observe our attractive flight attendant doing stretches and exercises in the front. So while walking to the bathroom, I strike up a good conversation, which took place over several stops to the bathroom (I had to wash my hands a lot I guess). Towards the end of the flight she even let me push the flight attendant button (TWSS), which I have been dying to try since I was 3. That flash plus the sound was so worth the wait! I encourage all of you to try it on your next flight. Turned out she was from LA and flying on another flight right after so it did not work out between the two of us. Yes I know I could have arranged a future visit, but I didn’t have my superman cape on, maybe next time. After we parted ways, and I got shit from everyone, the 5 of us headed off to the rental car facility to pick up our Durango. We hit the streets to feel that stiff 112 degree heat for the first time since last year. Felt great to be back. The shuttle bus driver was the man. Heath and him became quick friends since they shared the same passion for Jazz music. Arriving at the rental car facility, the line was nearly 15 deep with 5 “specialists” assisting. I have always wondered what these guys do when they are looking at their monitors for all that time? Could they possibly be doing work the whole time? No way. They must be doing a jigsaw puzzle on there or something in between printing out the receipt and NOTHING. After an hour, we head to our car, and the assistant promises us we cannot fit all of our bags in the trunk. Well of course we did, but we intelligently left the receipt to get out of the facility under the last piece of luggage. Unpacked, repacked, and off to the strip after 2 hours.
We check into the rooms (after having to wait since there were no double beds room ready) around 3:30pm and head down to the pool to get some sun—only half the pool had sun. After several swimming contests and checking out some of the local attractions, we headed back to the room to get ready for dinner at B&B. You know my feelings on the Venetian from the 2007 edition, so lets skip straight to the dinner. Despite all the confusion with the ordering, (the menu was really weird) the food was actually very good. Before we left, I asked the waitress if she would like a picture taken for our album. She firmly declined the offer. At this point in the night we were all pretty tired and went back to the Wynn to play craps. Mins were mostly 25, but we found a 15 min table which is still pretty high since you need roughly 400 to buyin if you want to play max odds—the proper way to play. Each of us served up a wipeout during the session, but luckily we were playing with the most superstitious guy I have ever seen, who rolled for about 20 minutes. Every time this guy was ready to roll the dice, he would forcefully rub each hand on the felt, until the paint almost came off, then picked up all his red chips with his left hand, and then would throw the dice with his right. Whatever works buddy! Unfortunately our wipeouts caused too much damage and we were nearly broke on the session. Ross met us 15 minutes later since his flight arrived late, and we went up to the rooms.
Thursday started out with golf at our “home course”, Paiute (Snow course this time). Radus and Hefter played a heads up match at $20/hole, while Heath will attempt to lose no more than 30 balls for the round (he came pretty close). We teed off at about 10:15am, in the 100 degree heat, but was pretty nice out actually. Radus opened up 2 on Hefter (Dog), but in the late innings Dog pulled to all square at the turn. On a stroke basis, I shot a 41, Radus shot a 45, Hefter a 46, and Heath with a 61. The back nine proved to be much of the same, however the scoring was better. I shot another 41, along with Radus and Hefter, and Heath shot a 56 on the back, only losing most of the balls we had left in the cart.
I like Heath’s swing though and fully expect him to break 100 next year. After a few cigars in the smoking lounge, we headed back to the hotel to meet up with Dean, Ross, and the newest arrival Frank. Frank, whom brought and was wearing a top hot, had already found his way over to the poker room at Wynn, where he got bad beated and lost a big pot—I believe set (AA) over set (77) on the river. After dropping off our golf clubs, we got ready to go Michael Mina at Bellagio for a much anticipated dinner, 4 years in the making. We knew the one thing to get here is the Lobster Pot Pie, even though it’s about $80. However, the waiter offered us a tasting menu option for $115, which included everything including a sample of the pot pie. After debating for 10 minutes, 6 of us got the tasting menu and Ross of course got the filet—shocking. The first course they brought out was tuna tartar with a raw quail egg on top with little pieces of toast which was unreal. Second, was the renown lobster pot pie which was maybe the best thing I have ever eaten. There was a full lobster tail cooked in a cream sauce with potatoes and truffles in a crusty pie.
Third was black cod with 3 shrimp raviolis in a Miso broth. Frank also showed us how to drink the soup after, Q. The fourth course was Kobe beef and duck liver, served with some truffle potatoes. It was bite size but by this point that was fine with us—Heath’s favowit. For dessert, they brought us a sample of hot chocolate cake, some coconut cream concoction, and a root beer float, which Frank drank all 6 of ours since we didn’t like root beer. They also brought complimentary ice cream sticks which were great too. All in all, we agreed this was probably the best meal we have ever had and well worth the $1250 price tag. We headed back to the Wynn after to get ready for Tryst. We met the host downstairs just as JM was walking into the club, and got a big table, inside this year, which was much better than last years location which was near a tree outside lol. The club wasn’t all too crowded to start, but at around 11:30pm it was pretty crowded and a few rounds of visitors over at the table until the bottles were kicked.
Towards the end, this bitchy girl from Brooklyn head butted me because I took a picture of her and told her I would make a good story about it. I guess she found that none too amusing. I think I ended up deleting it—it looks that way at least. Anyway, a few of us stayed there late, and then we played craps and lost yet again. A much better experience at Tryst this time around.
Friday was set for recuperation day, however I decided to do just the opposite and worked out for 2 hours—pretty stupid to say the least. Prior, we went to the café for pancake (we did not drive to Bellagio, which was the plan) and it only took like an hour and a half to get the food. It was pretty decent though. Afterwards, we went to the pool and watched this guy play blackjack outside where he was betting 500 for the dealer and 100 for himself (yes—that’s right) on 2 hands. Not sure what the heck this guy was thinking exactly, but it looked like he had 30,000 in chips behind him. He ended up getting a blackjack in one hand, and lost the other hand (that’s a $1250 tip to the dealer). Nice one buddy…Later, when I went to the gym, everyone else went to the sports book to bet some baseball games until dinner at Bartolotta at 8:00pm. Tonight would be the only full group dinner, and the fish was thought to be the play. When we sat down, the waiter explained everything on the menu, and it took us only 30 more minutes to order. Frank, like the rest of us, was confused with how to order the fish. The menu only priced it per gram so Frank could only compare it to ordering Pot. Don’t think they would serve this fish in a zip bag though…Several people did end up splitting whole fish and got pastas; Ross and I got veal chops. During the dinner, and while a busgirl was working the table, Frank told us about his facebook application idea.
Essentially the application would pull out all bikini pictures from girl’s facebooks, and organize them into a separate album. I said he should call it, “Sort By Skin”. The whole table burst out in laughter and everyone in the restaurant was starring at us. As far as the food goes, the fish turned out to be pretty dry and the portions very small. When the bill came out, it turned out that they ripped us off on the fish so we complained and got the bill reduced by $120 or so. Overall, the service was average at best and I think we will be trying a new Italian restaurant next year. After dinner we were going to have a big group craps session at Wynn, however, the minimums were all $50 and up. Disappointed, we went to Treasure Island, which I have to say, is the best place to hunt down illegal immigrants if you were trying to find one. The craps table was ICE and Radus, Dean, and I watched Hefter and Frank wipeout after wipeout with their new Mexican comrades. We decided to go back to the Wynn (in the rain) to see if they had lowered the mins at the craps table. At that point I felt like shit and went to sleep. From what I was told, mins were still high, but they opened a 15, which was jammed. Everyone went to the 25, and asked them to lower it, which they did not, and everyone lost yet again. While the dealers at the Wynn were very friendly and good, no luck there at all so far.
Saturday was day 2 for golf. It was also Rader’s 25th birthday. The foursome of Radus, Hefter, JM, and myself played TPC Canyons (now TPC Las Vegas) at noon.
The temperature outside was only 90something and it was actually drizzling on the drive there. It was a tough round for everyone, and I was still sore and started to get a sore throat which didn’t help my game. When the sun came out at the turn, it got really hot since the humidity was still there. I also took about 40 TPC plastic cups from the course to use for beer pong later. While leaving, we got a call from Heath saying that Ross rented a car and that he and everyone else were at Rob’s house at TPC Summerlin to surprise him. We believe Frank was trying to makeup ground in the Casino at this time. Anyways, we decided to meet up with them since Summerlin is just down the street. After sneaking into his gated community, we find out from Rob’s mom that he was playing in a poker tournament at Red Rock Casino, but now playing craps with his dad. We thought it would be funny to surprise him, so we drove down the road to Red Rock Casino. This place was really nice, low key, and a great atmosphere for gambling. We surprised Rob and went over to the $5 craps table to see if we could maybe win a couple dollars. I had a decent roll and Heath a nice roll also so we were up a little. We ended up losing a little after and hoped that Radus could have a good birthday roll to get us out on top. He hit a few hard numbers and we put in a few YO bets for “the guy in the visor” aka Rob, and it worked out pretty good. We won less than 75 each, but no complaints from us. After leaving Red Rock, we went to Naked Fish, a sushi place located off the strip, recommended by an online poker player Heath knows (David Benfield).
Heath and Hefter decided to get the exact same order as David, since they are big fans. The waitress said Dave comes in every day and orders the exact same thing. Their/his order cost around $80 each, and we all got other rolls and hot stuff which was all really good considering the place was located in a strip mall in the middle of no where. After dinner we drove the cars back to the hotel to get ready and meet BA-BO in the room for some beer pong. We got to the room and threw everything off the desk to setup for the pregame and filled the bathtub and sinks up with beers that Rob brought over. The rest of the qrew showed up and we played a few games of pong before hitting the club around 11pm in the Hard Rock hotel.
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Body English was the play tonight and we cut the line as usual thanks to Greg Costello. He walked us to our centre dance floor table and we ordered several bottles of Grey Goose and took some group photos.
The club started getting crowded at around 11:30pm and the first few rounds of girls stopped by for some drinks and dancing, etc. By midnight everyone was dancing on the couch, on the sides of the table. The dance floor was packed with 6 foot blondes and the hottest waitresses in Vegas and the music varied from Old/new rap, to 80s pop/rock, to techno. Next to us, there were 2 guys in their late 60s or 70s with 6 girls under 30, whom ordered at least 10 bottles of champagne that cost at minimum $1,000 a bottle. Our table was full of a-stars, who claimed they were nurses from Orange County. To quote Scott Schnepper, “if a girl in Vegas says she’s a nurse from Orange County, it really means she’s a stripper from Carson City, NV.” Around 2am, some drunken moron fell into our table knocking everything over and broke all the glasses. Heath hit him in the face and our bodyguards threw him out in a hurry. Luckily, Dean was able to save the bottles from 10 feet away by reaching over everyone. Frank also somehow cut his entire arm and was bleeding everywhere, yet he had no idea as you can see in the pictures.
Heath also got covered in Frank’s blood. Later I’m told that Frank got his cut taken care of in the poker room—I know that’s the first place id go if I was profusely bleeding. As the night slowed down, and few of us went to an adult establishment and spent a few dollars enjoying the sites before heading back to the room after daybreak. All in all, a great night—probably the best in our long history in Vegas.
Sunday wakeup was not easy, but knowing In-N-Out was on the schedule made it manageable. We each had double doubles (1-2), and Ross inhaled his French fries “animal style” in less than a minute. Afterwards, we were supposed to go to Mt Charleston, but we decided to stop by the Rio to see the last few tables of the WSOP main event, where Matasow and Hellmuth were in contention. We left after a few minutes since they players were going on break though. As we walked out, the clouds started to roll in, and before we knew it was pouring out. A few of us decided to meet up with some girls we met at Tryst from Calgary at the Wynn pool.
We must have debated for hours on if the girls were strippers or not, (we just assume so), but they were clearly not since they ate at McDonalds for most of their meals. They also snuck into the pool lol. They invited us to go to a Mexican restaurant—probably Taco Bell, but we prudently declined saying we had reservations at Cut, a top steakhouse in Palazzo. Sorry! Before they left, we told one of the girls to send Radus a flirty b-day text message referencing them meeting each other at the club (which did not happen). He will not find out until he reads this…Dinner was set for 7pm, and we met up with Radus, Heath and Dean playing craps at Palazzo before dinner. They were rolling pretty solid until Hefter showed up and they 7′nd out right after—pretty common for Hefter aka “the Cooler” aka “THE DOG”; his nickname for the trip. We also said our goodbyes to Frank (hugs all around), and went to dinner. The restaurant was really nice, and we all ordered the same pork belly appetizer and the Bone In Filet (different sides). I ordered my steak blue of course, asking for them to leave the fur on the meat—to no avail though. The steak was the best I’ve ever had though. After they cleared the plates, they brought out a surprise cake for Rader’s b-day, a baked Alaska (no Alaska song though), and the restaurant sang happy birthday.
Heath then figured out the bill as usual and we drove down to Bellagio to see ‘O’.
We decided to blast “Ka” music down the strip again; a decision Ross would be none to pleased with. After sitting in traffic for a few minutes, Ross threatened to climb out the trunk and drop the golf clubs off in the strip since we may not get there 1 hour before the show starts. We were able to catch a fountains show (”Time To Say Goodbye”) from the car, and arrived at the show promptly 15 minutes before it started. The show started on time, and Heath took a picture during the show (of Hefter), and got yelled at by an usher.
The show was pretty cool, with plenty of really flexible A-Stars—your favowit. Following the show, Hefter, Heath and Ross decided to go back to the Wynn, and Radus, Dean, and I hit our home craps table for our last night session. The roll started off pretty bad, and we were down 50% quickly. Then my 2nd roll came up. It started around 12:20am, and ended around 12:55am. Radus hit a $60 hard 8 on my roll, and we won close to $1000 each on the roll itself. When I 7′nd out, the 3 of us had around $1,500 on the table itself! We walked away winners finally and went back to the hotel to sleep our last night in the Wynn.
Monday, our last day, was fairly uneventful. We ate at Red 8, and watched Radus have a great roll (by himself), before heading off to the airport to catch our flights home. On the flight, Dog’s tv didn’t work so he sat in our middle seat (which was empty) and watched “21″ and the HR derby. We got home around 1am.
So where does this trip rank? Let’s see. Looking back on our first trip in 2004, it was pretty much a failed attempt, so we can’t even consider it. I would say this would be on par with our 2006 trip. Had everyone won $, it would have been the best I think. The clubs were both great this year due to our table locations, which hasn’t happened yet, and the food at all the restaurants were excellent. We learned that it’s all in the tip, not the bottle min. We were however, very disappointed with the Wynn’s service and pool. The full pool only had sunlight for half the day, which caused one side of the pool to be overly crowded. One think that drove us really crazy was the elevators—they stopped on every freakin floor! I don’t think I had one trip where I went straight up or down. We also did not like that there was a separate pool area for the Suite guests, which were probably much nicer with better service and more seats. But all in, the trip was a great time and the new additions certainly made up for some of the losses we have experienced over the last couple trips. Next year, we will certainly be back at our home casino, the Bellagio—see you then.
brooklyn bum said
Sounds like you had a great time Sherm!
Any action at the tables though??
Pud's Poker said
Great right up! I found this blog through another’s link and I’m glad I did.
it sounds like you had a fantastic time and I am insanely jealous! I read 30-50 blogs a day and everyone who has been to Vegas has loved every second of it and had a blast.
Time for Pud to get saving I think!
shermhoy said
Brooklyn – no reall action at the tables. I lost 800 playing poker when I lost AK to 10 10 pre at a 2-5nl ring game. It was more of a vacation then a poker trip.
Pud – Glad you enjoyed reading. Vegas was a great time and I def recommend going if you have the chance…now back to the online grind for me … i’ll try and update frequently…best of luck to both of you!
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