Thursday, March 29, 2007

Vegas Trip Report, part 1

So four months ago (before our last Vegas trip) Scott decides that his impending wedding is cause for a Vegas bachelor weekend. What did we do for my bachelor party you ask? Scott, Alex, Matt, and Baldo rented a hotel suite downtown and we played poker and ate pizza and drank MD 20/20. No naked ladies were present. Of course, I said I didn’t want naked ladies, but…you know. At least the pizza was from Giordano’s.

Actually I was the only one drinking the MD 20/20. Scott brought it as a joke and I took it as a personal challenge to finish the bottle:



Anyway, back to Scott’s bachelor party, because unlike mine, that one was worthy of going to Vegas. I was charged with finding the best hotel deal. I must say I did awesome, finding rooms at Bally’s for $136 (pre-tax) a night for the weekend of 3-23 to 3-25. The listed rate on their site was $199. I rule. Of course, the fact that I rule didn’t stop some people from complaining:

Me: “You owe $150 for Vegas.”
Baldo: “Why? Where are we staying? How much is it?”
Me: “We’re staying at Bally’s right in the middle of the strip. It’s $150 a night after the taxes and fees.”
Baldo: “That’s expensive, dude.”
Me: “You do realize you live in Rockford, right? I’m sorry that hotels in Vegas aren’t $27.50 a night like they are in Rockford. ”

This was four months ago.

The official trip was from Friday, March 23 through Sunday March 25. Scott and I decided to leave Thursday night and play poker all night and not get a hotel. Then four other dudes (friend Alex, Scott’s brother Dave, friend Matt, Scott’s friend Nate; Sam, Jon and Ubaldo would get there Friday) decided that was a good idea, too. Dammit, now we would hotel rooms. I saw that Gold Coast was only $55 that night so I booked two rooms. Scott and I had been there before and knew it would be serviceable, especially for the cheapasses that we are.

So last Thursday I brought my bags to work with me. When work ended I took the train to the airport to meet the rest of the group. I left at 6PM for our 9PM flight because the train is all jacked right now and figured it might take two hours to get to the airport. Nope. One hour. Plus our flight was delayed until 10PM. Awesome. Three hours to kill in a crowded airport. I called Alex to tell him to tell the group to not hurry because I’m a nice guy.

Luckily I brought my laptop and some DVDs of “The Wire.” I was halfway through season 2. I parked myself next to an outlet on the wall so I could plug in my computer. The outlet was right near a bank of pay phones. Is it really necessary to still have “banks” of pay phones? I was sitting there for two hours and the airport was crowded and not one damn person used the phone. I think one pay phone for the whole airport would be plenty, if not too much.

I fired up the computer, plugged in my headphones and started up episode 8 of season 2 of “The Wire.” For those who haven’t seen the show, the main character is an alcoholic cop named McNulty. Episode 8 starts with him picking up some waitress from a diner and banging her:

McNulty: “Can I get some eggs?”
Waitress: “You can get anything you want.”

(cut to a full shot of her riding him and moaning loudly)

I quickly pulled the computer close to me so the people sitting near me couldn’t see as well. I was slightly embarrassed. I took off my headphones to see if the audio could be heard. Except when I took them off the volume didn’t change. That’s because I had plugged my headphones into the “mic” socket and the sound was coming out of the speakers. Awesome. I’m glad I could treat my neighbors to some loud moaning.

I watched episode 8 (yes, I plugged the headphones in correctly first) and an hour after that my friends arrived. Scott brought poker chips. I can’t believe he brought poker chips. He decided a gay $1 buy-in, six-person sit n go would be a good idea to teach Nate poker. The flight boarded before we were able to finish. I was the only one eliminated when I sucked out on Scott’s set with a straight and he proceeded to suck out on my straight with quads.

We all boarded the plane. Scott and I had seats next to each other. He pulled out my copy of SSHE to study. That’s right: my copy. He borrowed it from me. I’m glad I could be here to provide free poker books. I’m the only one in the group who has actually spent money on poker books. Scott turns to me:

Him: “I’m liking this book. That part about cold-calling really spoke to me.”
Me: “How?”
Him: “You know, to not cold-call. Like, if I had something like K-10 off and someone raised, you know, I would call that.”
Me: “Why don’t you just stab me through the heart? Have I taught you nothing? Also going forward please sit your cold-calling ass to my left.”

K-10 off. Lol.

We were also seated in front of the D-Bag Express. The conversation we were treated to went something like this:

D-bag #1: “blah blah blah…I’m awesome…blah blah blah…condo in Vegas….blah blah…my watch cost $397.50…blah blah…golf…blah”
D-bag #2: “blah blah blah…I am also awesome…blah blah…I decided to go with the Volvo…blah…these pants are from Italy…blah blah…I like golf too. Blah.”

So that was fun. I had to restrain myself from laughing out load when we finally got a look at these dudes. I was tempted to whip out my camera to take a picture. I whipped out the camera but I wussed out on the picture taking. One of the guys was sporting the blazer/t-shirt combo.

One thing I actually heard one them say was:

“So yeah, tomorrow golf is probably going to cost $200, it will probably be $50 for beers, I’ve $100 to gamble with…”

Wait, hold on…$100? Wtf did you plan on doing with $100? Were you going to shortstack it at the $10 blackjack table and hope you run good? Silly d-bag.

So we got to Vegas and met Dave at Gold Coast. We checked in at about 2AM. Picture of Matt chilling in one of the pimp-holla-balla suites they gave us:



The desk lady must have recognized me from the last time I was here. I imagine her thought process went something like this:

“Holy shit! It’s Brick! I remember him tearing up the 4-8 table the last time he was here! I better upgrade his group to the pimp-holla-balla suites!”

Or maybe something like this:

“Since it’s 2AM we are out of regular rooms. Looks like I have to give them pimp-holla-balla suites.”

Either way we got pimp-holla-balla suites.

She also gave us a ton of coupon books, each of which contained two free drink coupons. We dropped off our crap in the rooms, grabbed some free drinks at the bar, and went to get some bacon and eggs at their restaurant: two eggs, bacon, hash browns, toast: $1.95. Throw in some 2-for-1 coupons from the books the desk lady gave us and the tab added up to $8.40 for six people (Matt got a Diet Coke, the rich bastard). Then we did what most people do when they get to Vegas: go bowling. I’m not going to write about that. I was disappointed in my performance. I did good enough to win $10 each off Scott and Alex, though.

At 4AM we were finished on the lanes and it was time for some poker. They only had one 4-8 table going. Dave and I got seats and everyone else went up to sleep.

I sat in the six seat and Dave was in the two seat. I sat from 4AM to 6AM. There was an Asian dude wearing a black hat who looked like he was on permanent tilt. It seemed he played every single hand through the river. He kept running out of money and rebuying. Awesome. At first it was $100 each time. Then his rebuys were $50. Right before I left he rebought for $25. At a 4-8 table. That’s just sad. I didn’t even know that was allowed. I thought it had to be $40.

Unfortunately, I didn’t pick up any hands and couldn’t take advantage. Also I suck at poker. I left after two hours down $80.

End part 1.

Summary: My bachelor party wasn’t in Vegas. I found a good hotel deal for Scott’s bachelor party in Vegas. Watched “The Wire” at the airport. Ate $1 egg breakfasts. Went bowling. Couldn’t capitalize on sucky players and lost $80 playing 4-8.

2 Comments:

Blogger Scotty Win said...

You are mean in this report. Why so bitter?

9:38 AM  
Blogger Matt Graff said...

I have been waiting almost two months for part 2...

4:35 PM  

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