My Trip Report... Laughlin, Nv

[JaxxVain 0]

I live outside of Philadelphia, so I don't get to play much in the way of B&M Casinos. Mostly home games and some online play money stuff (just to get my fix and waste time while watching the kids).My mother was moving from Sedona, AZ to Santa Monica, CA, so I offered to help her by driving a rental truck for her. I told her that at some point I would like to spend 6 hours in a card room. I figured I could hit something in AZ, or detour thru Vegas, or at worst play in LA at the end of the trip. Anyways, I ended up at the River Palms Casino in Laughlin, NV.Nice enough place, and Laughlin must be the RV capital of the world. I arrived around 5pm after a 4 hour drive. Spectacular drive I must add. Driving thru Flagstaff and then west on I-40 was breathtaking.The River Palms hosts a Friday night tourney ($100 +$15, for 5k in chips, +$5 dealer toke for 3k more in chips). They also had a few tables of $2/$6 spread limit hold'em. I never played a spread limit game before so I wasn't too keen on sitting down, but it was still about 2 hours to tourney time so I gave it a try. Lost the first and only hand I played when my K/10 (bb) lost to K6 when the board went K 4 8 J 6. Lost $24. Few minutes later they shut down the table to start the tourney. Tourney starts, and almost every single player knows each other and the dealers on a first name basis. I was forced to play tight as the table was fairly loose, despite the low early blinds (25/50, 8k starting stack). There was also a nut at my table who was pushing 2.1k on almost every flop, sometimes preflop. The best hands I had was JT suited and a pair of 4s. Neither of which I could play back at the guy when he big bet both times I entered pt with a raise ($200), he pushed out 2.1k. I thought about pushing all-in with the 4s, but I had two players yet to act who had called my raise, so I had to let him go. A shorter stacked called with KJ and the nut flipped over pocket 5s and took the pot.Then I get moved, new table, still some nut jobs over betting, and still me without cards to fight back. Picked up JJ in the cutoff, called a raise of $500 (blinds now $100/$200). I would have reraised, but I noticed the BB was ready to push in her last 4k and I didn't want to scare her off. She pushes in her 4k, initial raiser goes into the tank and finally lays down (damn!). I call, flip the jacks, she flips snowmen and is sent to the rail. Now I have about 10k, still below average, but still ok for the blind level. Card dead again for a few rounds, stealing the blinds once with A7 (BB told me he read me as strong and folded his AJ fearing domination, good read buddy). Had deuces once and sevens once and missed the trips both times and had to laydown against heavy action. Still had around 10k 1 hour later (blinds now 400/800). Lost 4k on this crazy hand... early position guy limps, middle position limps, I make it 2k from the button with A10s. Both players call. Flop comes 10 J K all diamonds. Check, Check to me. Maybe everyone is afraid of the board, so I bet 2k feeler. EP is insta call, MP guy hollywoods and then pushes all in (9k or so). Easy fold for me, EP calls. EP shows AdQs for broadway and nut flush draw, MP shows AcQd for broadway and 2nd nut flush draw. Funny thing is an old guy who was the big blind now slams his fists on the table saying he laid down 7d8d and would have crushed this pot, except the turn comes off 8d and the river was the 7d! He mumbles about maybe it was the last hand or something. Too funny.Trickled down to 4k when blinds were 1k/2k, pushed from the button with 88 and was called by both blinds. AQ vs QQ, nobody improves, I am out. Finished around 25th out of 83. Not too bad. With the cards I got I was not disappointed in my play. Gotta get back to work now, but stay tuned for my cash game report for later that night.

[Tantalar 0]

Sounds like you had fun. From my experience, tournaments at the casino (the low stakes ones) are a complete luckfest.I need to plan another trip to turningstone. DAMIT im still 19. In a year and 8 days ill be able to go to a REAL casino. WOOT WOOT.

[SweetDaddyFreak 0]

Live tournies are always a lot of fun, especially if you have enough chips

[pbcsurfer 0]

That's actually a really good amount of starting chips for the buy-in, you'll always have donks shoving first round of play, sounds like fun though and that's the most important thing.

[GetSprung 0]

Great structure it sounds like. Try going to Turning Stone where they MIGHT give you 3000 starting chips at 25/50 blinds and 20 minute levels. Their $1000 buy-in seasonal event only started with 3000 chips but it had 60 minute levels. Man I hate that place, so glad to be out.

[Nikki_N 17]

I live outside of Philadelphia, so I don't get to play much in the way of B&M Casinos. Mostly home games and some online play money stuff (just to get my fix and waste time while watching the kids).My mother was moving from Sedona, AZ to Santa Monica, CA, so I offered to help her by driving a rental truck for her. I told her that at some point I would like to spend 6 hours in a card room. I figured I could hit something in AZ, or detour thru Vegas, or at worst play in LA at the end of the trip. Anyways, I ended up at the River Palms Casino in Laughlin, NV.Nice enough place, and Laughlin must be the RV capital of the world. I arrived around 5pm after a 4 hour drive. Spectacular drive I must add. Driving thru Flagstaff and then west on I-40 was breathtaking.Gotta get back to work now, but stay tuned for my cash game report for later that night.

It's actually the Old People Capital of the West.

[chrozzo 19]

Live tournies are always a lot of fun, especially if you have enough chips

obvvvvvvvvv

[DEVZTB05 0]

Great structure it sounds like. Try going to Turning Stone where they MIGHT give you 3000 starting chips at 25/50 blinds and 20 minute levels. Their $1000 buy-in seasonal event only started with 3000 chips but it had 60 minute levels. Man I hate that place, so glad to be out.

Been playing in the weekly tournies @ turning stone while Im in Utica... consistently there have been roughly 40 people playing, even with the small fields, by level 4/5 you won't see a flop with the 4k starting stack you recieve. Instead of going from 100-200 to 100-200-25 they do a straight shot from from 100-200 to 200-400-50 ante. It's so sick. I've been down to the last 12 two weeks in a row and picked up hands that were essentially coin flips and lost them both and furthermore ended my run. And oh by the way, with <60 entrants, only top 6 pay. BLAH. For anyone going out there in the next month while I'm here let me know, i'll be sitting in ring games.

[eYank 0]

Been playing in the weekly tournies @ turning stone while Im in Utica... consistently there have been roughly 40 people playing, even with the small fields, by level 4/5 you won't see a flop with the 4k starting stack you recieve. Instead of going from 100-200 to 100-200-25 they do a straight shot from from 100-200 to 200-400-50 ante. It's so sick. I've been down to the last 12 two weeks in a row and picked up hands that were essentially coin flips and lost them both and furthermore ended my run. And oh by the way, with <60 entrants, only top 6 pay. BLAH. For anyone going out there in the next month while I'm here let me know, i'll be sitting in ring games.

im probably going sometime in may

[13CARDS 0]

...and some online play money stuff (just to get my fix and waste time while watching the kids)...

Sad, sad statement!!

[JaxxVain 0]

OK, I am back to post my cash game report.Thanks for the replies, it was a good time, and it only gets better.After busting out of the tourney I sat down at the only 1-2 NLHE table ($100-$300 buy-in). The other tables were all 2-6 spread limit, and I am not a big fan of limit, especially with this crowd. While it might be profitable to sit in these games and just play super tight, it would not have been that much fun.I sat with $175. Just as I got to the table there was some commotion going on. It seems that someone just one a bad beat jackpot. If Aces full or better gets cracked then the loser of the hand gets $250, the winner gets $150 and everyone dealt cards gets $50. I tried to weasel in for the $50, but the dealer was too sharp, and one of the locals gave me ****. While I was mostly just joking anyway, I didn't mind the dealer counting me out. But the local pissed me off a bit. Oh well, I just told myself to not get emotional and try to bust him and I would be okay. He left not long after I sat down anyways. I think I probably got 10 or 15 bucks off of him in the mean time.They paid the jackpot in chips, which was nice. It gave some extra ammo and wildness to a bunch of donks. Not a healthy combination for them. While playing NLHE everyone was having a good time, and I was slowly building my stack. I don't really remember any crucial hands, but I was doing a good job picking up a few reads and betting patterns. It was nice to have a few players on my left who would make up their minds and give off tells even before I peeked at my cards. It was almost like having the button on every hand. I built my initial $175 up to around $450 and stayed around that area for a good two hours. Then we got down to 4 handed, and even 3 handed a bit due to smoke and bathroom breaks. We were all pretty friendly, and chatting a lot. I asked if anyone liked any other games and if the casino would ever deal a mixed game. The players liked the idea, although we did find trouble trying to pick what mix to play. The dealer was interested just the stop his boredom of dealing hold'em all the time. So we finally ended up agreeing to play pot limit HORSE. This is actually exactly what I would have picked, because I am not a big fan of limit, and no-limit would be kinda crazy in the stud games (I have never played no-limit stud, or stud 8). We now had 5 players, and we would just play an orbit at each game. We were now the talk of the card room. With the 2-6 limit mopes leaning over to see what was going on. On the 3rd hand, Omaha Hi-Lo, I had KK89, and called a 3 way raised pot ($24 total pot, preflop), probably not a good call, but I wanted to see how folks would play a big pot. Flop comes K J 5 rainbow. I bet the $24 thinking I could get rid of anyone with A2xx here. First guy folds, second guy calls. A 10 on the turn has me worried, but I think I have to bet here. I bet $40 and the guy insta pushes for $100 more. I know he hit his miracle card here and should have laid it down, but part of me thinks he maybe bluffing or drawing to a flush now. I call, and he says "don't pair the board". Yup he has AQ for broadway, and I am drawing thin. River blanks and I lose $164 on the hand. Kinda of a donk play by me, but he should not have called a pot size bet after the flop. He admitted it was kind of a bad play, but his backdoor nut low draw kept in the hand. I lost another $100 on the next hand when someone rivered a 3 outer on me to boat up to beat my top flush. Then we got to Razz, which was like stealing candy from a baby. We play razz in one of my home games so I have some experience in it. Everyone else claimed to have played it at one point or another, but they certainly didn't seem to grasp it that much. Calling down river raises with 10 high, or bad 8 highs like 876xx. And then when they learned those hands were no good they would draw to 7th street, and then fold because they didn't get any improvement on the river card. I played pretty well in the Stud round, but I don't remember any key hands. I got hit in the face with the deck in the Stud 8 round, scooping 3 of the now 7 hands, and splitting two others. I had a 6 high straight flush that was good for both sides in a huge pot where one guy had an ace high flush (on 5th street) and another guy boated on 6th (when I hit a wheel for the nut low, but i kinda thought my straight was already beat and the pot was over $200 now. I was a bit worried now about getting quartered on the low, but when I hit my gut shot straight flush draw on the river card I got that warm fuzzy feeling back. God I wish these guys had more chips left at this point, but one guy only had $20 and the other guy had $80. I was expecting to take the high and split the low, but to my surprise (think very warm, very fuzzy now) I scooped as the best low anyone had was 75xxx. Ship it, pot $390 or so.I continued to run over the table in the stud games, as now folks were tightening up and folding early. It would go limp, limp, limp, me raise pot, fold around. Or I would end up with one opponent and we would end up chopping most of the time. I was pretty amazed at how weak the players were at this point. Finished the night at $665 for a +$490 cash session. Also patting myself on the back for a good recovery after getting down below my buy-in at one point. I comped a room and slept for 3 hours, took a shower, ate a comped breakfast brunch and got back on the road.Despite no strippers and blow, I had a great time. But now I am back at work, and back home with the wife and 3 kids (2.5yrs, 1.4yrs, and 4 months old).Until next time...