Golden Gate

GOLDEN GATE

I really don't want to take the time to write much but just record the bare details of the day. I also don't want to spend much time at Krispy Kream looking for internet time. I don't know when this might be posted, but I put in ?? so when I edit I can add names, details and some photographs. If you are reading it with the ?? it is a draft version.

As you can see from the ?? pictures, the remodeled rooms are very comfy. The size remained the same, perfect for one person; crowded for two. However, the electric was redone so it no longer runs along the wall. There were not as many plugs as in the El Cortez, but I carry with me a swivel adapter plug, so I can plug three things in any socket.

The beds seem new and the television is just fine. There is a place for an ipod to play music instead of those cheap radio clocks.

I miss the old real glass lights, but the fine woodwork on the doors is still there. And there is a coffee pot.

While I was checking in to my $20 a night weekend room, a young couple came and asked if there were any rooms available. The desk clerk said that they were fully booked. I saw that the room rates were up much higher the week before I left.

Coming into the hotel from the rear door of the parking lot I was immediately struck with the feeling of yesteryear. There was all the beautiful fine wood, the piano playing, the gathering of folks eating at the little tables. I hope all that never gets remodeled. It was very refreshing. I was exhausted having played 17 hours of poker at the El Cortez and only taken a small nap before checking out and the whole feel of the Golden Gate was just wonderful. Also wonderful was that they easily and quickly gave me my room early. No hassle.
And while I don't like the parking lot much, it was not crowded at eleven thirty and I just don't intend to use my car until I leave downtown. Then when I have gambled to exhaustion and drank a bit as well, I don't have any worries. With my new bus pass a ride on the CAT regular lines like 108 or the 116 is just seventy five cents.

Awake at ten PM
I had to go back to the El Cortez for my plug adapter which I failed to unplug. Then I signed up for a player's card and had a shrimp cocktail and listened to the live piano player. It was three PM before I was ready for my nap. Next door I could here the laughter and muffled tones of some young college girls. I took a sleeping pill called Midnite. This is not a heavy pill, but advertised as all natural and not addictive. It worked to change my body clock. I slept well and woke up refreshed after dreaming I was young again and at a college party. I can hear some Freemont talk and music. It is like sleeping on the edge of an amusement park.

And I love all of it.

So there will be no strip for me tonight. I'll play a bit here and walk around downtown. I can already see that this week is going to go quickly.

SATURDAY

I played poker at Binions all night. It was good in the beginning but eventually I had lost $147. Nice table. Good games. Tough run of cards.
I walked out and played the Megabucks and got not small hits. Then it hit for red 7-7-7 and I got all my lost money back. So I am ahead $12 for the day and $90 for the trip. I have a nice Nugget buffet coupon too and I am hungry. It opens at eight. The last I ate I had the shrimp cocktail here at the Golden Gate. That was 18 hours ago. Of course, I filled up on Myers rum and on coffee with amaretto.

POKER
No memorable hands. Most of them would be of bad hands. In the beginning I had pocket aces and ace-king often. Some of the paid and others cost me money.
I do like that they will reduce the rake. We did play with short tables and I am tired of doing that. But if we asked the rake was reduced. The problem is that soon there would be seven and then six or five again and we had to ask again. Nothing is automatic. I asked every time, but it was work.

Normal rake is 4 and 1
Six person rake is 2 and 1
Five person rake is 1 and 1

This is a great improvement over Tunica games. Some Harrah's here have 5 and 1 rake and will not reduce.

Later...
FOOD
I ate at the Nugget Buffet but it cost me $8 even with the comp. It is more expensive on Saturday. It was good, but only worth the $8. Because it was a brunch it had foods other than breakfast foods. I enjoyed that. I tasted a fine piece of prime rib, some barbeque pork, and two helpings of smoked salmon with capers, tomato, but no horseraddish sauce. I had plenty of fruit including some really good grapefruit. I finished with a little ice cream cone.

On the way back I played matchplay craps at the 4 Queens, and BJ at the Vegas Club and the Plaza. I played three and won twice giving me a profit of fifty dollars. Hit and run matchplays are the most lucrative form of gambling.

POKER

I have been wanting to spend some time playing no limit poker on the machines at the Excalibur. They offer a fifty cent/dollar game with a hundred dollar max buy in or a dollar/two dollar game with a two hundred dollar buy in. Over twelve hours I played a good bit of both kinds and fully enjoyed the machines although I ended down $650 dollars. I am thinking of going back today.
In the first hour I won some fine hands and was ahead about a hundred and fifty dollars. Then I seemed to just get drained. In the last few hours I was playing with people who could far outplay me, but I wanted the experience. I got terrible cards and played practically no hands. Then my blind Q-7 caught two pair on the flop and I bet and was called. On the river came an ace. I had not bet out in an hour. He bet into me and I decided to bluff a really good hand. Into a pot of eight seven dollars I put one black chip. It worked. He folded. His banter indicated he layed down two pair with an ace, but that may have just been a way to try to get me to tell him what I had.
On the next hand I caught trip fours on the flop but the turn produced three clubs. I did not see strength and decided to try the same tactic again. With about two hundred dollars in front of me, I put a black chip on a pot of nearly that much money. This time I got caught by a fellow slow playing A-J of clubs. He reraised me. I decided to call. Any board pairing or a four would give me the pot and I was ready to head home, win or lose. I lost.
The rest of the day was pretty much a long day of folding. I did win enough hands to stay even for long periods of time, but gradually the folded and poorly flopped hands grind down my bankroll. I stayed at the max buy in and for a small stakes game found that there were very few all in bets. I had worried that the hundred max would produce maniacs just going all in every other hand, but that did not happen. So for me it was a very comfortable game only gradually I was ground down.
One interesting twist was when they ran the new strip poker tournaments. As players are eliminated from the tournament a stripper who dances a slow strip tease all the while removes on item of clothing for each group of people eliminated. Eventually she is down to very little and all the while she does classic stripper moves while classic stripper music plays. I loved it and I had a seat playing the one hundred max that was the best in the house. It was erotic, she was very cute, and yet it was tasteful, mild, sexy dancing.
So that must have cost me some money, right? Well, it is true that I was not studying my opponents after folding and that a few times I appeared to be really distracted, complaining after betting with, “oh, I missed that” remarks when I had missed nothing at all. But what was ironic was that over the course of the first session when I watched the show intently, I also won forty dollars.
The show was repeated, but by then I was more into the poker and moved to a two hundred max game where the view was not as good anyway.
I was really out of my league in the two hundred game. If I go back today, I think I'll stay with the one hundred max game although the rake is a dollar more. The lack of a dealer tip adds a good bit to the value and I like that much of the bonus rake is spread around in high hand bonus amounts and the bad beat is aces full beat so that it happens more often. I like all of it. For learning no limit I can't imagine a better place for me to be. I would just like to get some better cards next time.
I think they said that comps are a dollar an hour and will stay on their card as long as they are there. The way that was said suggested to me that there is some question that they will be there when I come for my next trip, so perhaps I'll use some up today for Sunday dinner at the buffet. I don't need anything fancy, just something free.
So I am down $510 for my trip. This is day five.
FOOD
I stopped at three in the morning when I got back downtown and had the Golden Gate prime rib. I was tired but had not eaten in a good while and knew the meal would put me to sleep. I talked to my wife for over an hour and then went to bed and slept over three hours. I feel good, but I suppose I'll get tired by evening today.

THE CAT BUS
I check out of the Gate tomorrow so I might just as well get a more traditional night's sleep and be fresh for driving. I will not drive again today. Yesterday with my new senior citizen pass I rode the bus out and back for a total of $3 and saved that drive home late a night with a couple of rums in me and twelve hours of tiring poker play. I don't like to drive at night. The bus folks were as entertaining as always and the Deuce coming back early morning was quite comfortable even from as far up at Tropicana. I rode the 108 up and transferred to the 201 and found that comfortable although it is a bit odd standing by a deserted lot with Southwest planes flying overhead while waiting for the Tropicana. I don't know if that would feel comfortable after dark. A fellow came out of the fenced in area rolling a suitcase. He knew exactly where there had been a hole cut in the fence. This would be a bit disconcerting after dark. Late night returns on the Deuce are not too bad. Tonight will be fine as it is Sunday night.

MUSIC
I am amazed at how fast the time goes here and how much there is to do that I skip with all these long sessions of poker. Still I enjoy the game and the variety of places to play. I was going to go up to the games near Flamingo but now it is really between going back to the El Cortez where the bankroll needs are a lot less or heading back to the Excalibur.
I did see two good free bands on Friday night. One was outside and it was great to be in a a crowd of dancing people of mixed ages. The band had high energy and songs moved along quickly. ?? names.
Two girls and two guys with all sorts of music, good voices, great dancing and constant change of costumes. I loved it and stayed for a full set. The other was an Elvis impersonator at the Golden Nugget. I think I have seen him before. His voice is a really so close to Elvis it is eeirie. He was not flamboyant, just good at what he sang and his ourfit was low key.