laughlin tropicana

TROPICANA PAID NIGHTS

My weekday nights I bought for ten dollars a night. It was good to give myself days when no gambling is required. These are comfortable rooms with wide screen television. However, there is no Turner Classic Movies here either. I was happy to have the computer during those commercial times. I watched an old Bond movie, Goldfinger. I remember enjoying this at one of the old theaters in my town when I was a young fellow. I know I took a date and had a fine time, but I can't remember the girl.

GAMBLING

Tropicana poker:

My Tropicana first experience was very hard. One day I played very tight and positioned myself to the left of the pattern raiser who was trying to dominate. He was a dealer named Lucas. He slowed his raises until he could change his seat. We began to play musical chairs. He was a good fellow. There was plenty of laughter around the table and I out played him a couple times.

But my money drained. I had bought in for $350 and had about a hundred left when my pocket jacks went to trips on the flop. We bet back an forth. He had played and actually raised my jacks with his 8-10 offsuit. and then had luckily flopped a straight. I did not suspect it, as he had played mostly high cards all afternoon.

No full house. He took a good pot.

Fun, but what a long wait for cards to play and then a tough hand. While I was there, one player had pocket aces four times and others also had them. There is a wheel for cracked aces so it was exciting. I did not get more than those pocket jacks and played five hours waiting for the junk hands to quit. I got just the one pocket pair and generally my aces held low kickers.

I came back for a little play in the evening.

There were new more passive players. One was very bad. Mario, who works at the Edgewater Poker Room was there with his deft, aggressive play. I positioned myself just two to his left and was happy playing in that position, but unable to use it to any advantage as I got not cards for reraising his aggressive bets. I lost only one hand to him when he flopped a full house and I bet my kings into him.

Later I annoyed the table once by raising a full six dollars and trying to steal the pot or catch a straight draw which did not happen. I was playing so tight, I figured it would insure that I was called with later good hands, but it was a wasted six dollars because the good hands did not come.

The clear attempt to steal with the folks at this table did not make me popular. These folks wanted a peaceful game of predictable play and I did not fit that pattern. They did cheer, however, when I killed the resident fly.

I just got no cards, and when the table diminished and the pots became so small no high hand would be paid if I hit, I called it a night.

By Tuesday I had determined that there is no way to beat this game except to be a dominator and then you need to be ready for the same swings in action that no limit play offers. Too many rocks here.

My number of prime hands and winning pots should have assured me of winnings, but it did not. I sat next to Patrick who plays a game similar to what is in the “How to Dominate 1-2 no limit” that I've been reading, so I was in a fine position to reraise in order to eliminate the rest of the players, to call my suited connectors knowing the main bettor had aces and something. and to fold whenever he told me he had premium hands. He did not steal or bluff. He could not really because no one took his raises as unknown danger and by the time those were called, there was too much money to fold.

RIVERSIDE

I played the same game at Riverside with some of the same players and experienced the same frustration. My won pots were small, and if I chased anything, no matter how many outs to the river, I lost. I never seemed to catch a river. My straight flush draw cards flopped three diamonds and just my bet of $2 to begin to build the pot from ten to twenty scared everyone away. So while the promotions are good, meeting the pot minimum is difficult.

EDGEWATER

As dealer Doug says, “This is the only game like this in the world” A two – four-six structured limit game.

One promo at the Edgewater is to give tickets for straights, flushes, and higher for a $25 drawing each hour. To get a coupon the player must show a his hand on the river. So you can sort out those who have been betting real hands from those who are betting second best. That is an enormous advantage. Of course, it works both ways. Folks know when I bought one. Well, some folks. Others did not seem to notice when I did not reveal what should have been a straight or flush.

One day at the Edgewater I experienced how much table selection may influence how I do.

For the first five hours I played with all locals well known by the management who played easily, reading players perhaps, but certainly figuring the odds on plays. I lost $210 in spite of hitting a drawing for $25. Added to the competition was the problem that the table did not fill up with people.

I did have one exciting hand heads up with Jerry, an old fellow looked like my brother except for the odd suntan patterns caused by too much time in the sun on his motorcycle.

Biker Jerry was a good old guy. His voice was so much like that of an old buddy Jimmy who lives near me and gambles. Both are big burly men.

Biker Jerry and I got into one head to head. Each of us held A-Q and we capped raises on a board that made Aces full of Queens the nut hand just short of four Queens. The betting suggested this might be a bad beat. But it was all just fluff and money in the rake for the house.

I went for a nice free supper at Coco's and that took a while. I was mentally beating myself up a bit for playing too long in a spot where I knew I was outplayed and where my winning hands were too sparse. One incentive had been that I wanted to log hours for a freeroll promo that is worth $100 for a tournament on Saturday night. However, I imagine there too I'll meet players who just seem to have a third sense about cards and people and are very tricky and hard to beat.

I walked by on my way home and checked to see that the table was not almost full, and the players had changed to some extent. One fellow, a friendly old biker guy named Jerry waved me in to a seat next to him, and I decided to give it another try.

It was still a tough table while two regulars remained, but once they left, and the players were fairly predictable tourists, I could play a tight game and pull in some chips when I won. I got in the groove and won back all but $68 of my losses.

Near the end Biker Jerry won the $50 drawing when he was out of money and just playing to stay alive until the drawing. Then on my second last hand, I caught four sixes for an extra $25.

What I needed was players who would not throw away hands when I had some strength.

So there it was.

POKER TALK

At the end of August the poker room at the River Palms is closing. That should help the other rooms collect players. There was plenty of tough feeling about the attitude of the River Palms lately, the gutting of video poker, the ending of free rooms for poker play, the issues around substandard hotel rooms sometimes without enough towels. I guess they are having some tough times.

I keep wondering why room deals are so hard to get for regular poker players anywhere. It seems to me that free room offers, when rooms are twenty/forty dollars on the internet, would add people to these casinos without reducing their cost. Often poker players come with slot playing spouses or take breaks to play slots or blackjack or craps. I should think they would rather fill rooms with these customers than the folks with coolers who are clearly just there for river sport and probably just take the cheap rooms and don't gamble a bit.

I brought this up often. The Tropicana manager name Bee explained that the poker room itself had to pay for the rooms of players and for some reason the cost to the poker room is more than what I can find any day on the internet. Bee argued that the hourly comps would get players like me, who might sit for twelve hours, enough comps to offset room prices, but when I went to use my comps to take money off my room charge, they told me I could not do that. I had just enough for breakfast so I still was able to use them up, but long hours of play would simply result in a player having too many comps to eat up.

Other workers in poker room speculated that the attitude of the casino was that the poker room was more of a nuisance than an asset. If they could, they would not have it at all, but player pressure makes it necessary. If one casino closes it and another does not, folks drift to the casino with the option of live poker. At the same time, there might be long periods when they employ dealers and offer space and they can't get games going.

But which is it? Are the rooms a liability or do they actually attract people in groups and so provide the casino with slot and other table game players as well?

VIDEO POKER

Bee, the manager of the Tropicana poker room contended that the chips in a VP machine sets up the payoffs like a slot machine and that the paytable is just for amusement.

I have vowed not to get into this ridiculous conversation again, but I this is a fellow high up in the decision making part of this casino, and yet he does not know how a VP machine works. Of course, he is too big a guy to learn from little old me, even to take suggestions I make to read the literature that might bring him up to speed.

He does not see the contradiction between dealing from a 52 card deck randomly with a set pay table, and setting up a computer to pay out in random cyles or that a player might be able to figure the payback and control it with perfect play.

He is a very nice guy, but one of those guys who has his mind made up, so don't confuse him with facts.

Bob Dancer? Jean Scott? Dan Paymar? Linda Boyd? Vp Free? The difference between Class II and Class III machines?

I bring all this up and he just tells me about how connected he is to governing gambling boards and the Nevada Gaming Commission which I don't really follow well enough to outline here, except I do get it that he is telling me he makes decisions or advises those who do and yet has no fundamental knowledge of how a VP machine works.

He is not suggesting that anyone cheats. The chip is set by the manufacturer and he is not saying the casino changes that chip on the sly. He is just saying the paytables as all, “Smoke and Mirrors”.

“Don't pay any attention to this,” he says as he covers a pay table with his hands.

Video poker tutor software? No clue they exist.

I bring them up, and he tells me what an important role he has in managing gambling in Nevada and how they look for “two fers” like me, the folks who take too much advantage of deals and edges, and then they eliminate all their comps. It is a veiled threat I guess, although what comps he might take from me are questionable. I have wondered if the Four Queens read my trip reports and decided to drop me from the mailings, but what otherwise, what comps might I have to fear losing?

Poker rooms here and at the plaza fall al over themselves giving me free food because I am playing twice as long as I need to and overlook dysfunction when it happens and a dealer makes a mistake, and recruit players to empty seats.

Bee clearly has a good sense of what a poker room should be and has both knowledge about what pleases customers and a passion to make his room work.

So odd that a fellow would have connections to those making gambling decisions, smarts about how a poker room should be run, and not even a rudimentary knowledge of video poker.

Of course, he does not want to learn from his customers.

Also he is a close talker, so no matter how often I strep back, he is in my face. Remember Seinfeld and close talkers? Well, he is one of those. All the while he is talking to me I keep backing up and still I can't get more than six inches from his face.

His logic around video poker machines reminded me more of the Seinfeld character Kramer when he would argue with Jerry about something.

I tried all the approaches I could. I suggested that if the paytables are all “smoke and mirrors,” as he suggested, and had nothing to do with the cycle of pays on the machine, why not up all the pay tables on the Tropicana machines, so full pay tables replaced the unplayable inventory they now used? Why are Vegas casinos even bothering to downgrade paytables all over the city? They could attract lots of players by putting high paytables in their machines.

His answers all started with “Trust me” but did not even acknowledge the issues.

We ended friendly, and over all, I liked the guy, but it is amazing to me that I have read more than some of the folks who help make decisions about gambling and work in the field every day. However, I guess I should not be surprised. I met often met teachers who stopped learning when they graduated from college or developed professional positions based on ignorance, were not up to date with educational theory or new practices, and were not up to listening to parents.

The Tropicana is a great poker room, and much of that is because of this guy Bee. He takes a personal interest in the regulars, even splashes the pot with free plants that are his hobby. It is a nice touch. However, across the street I heard that he had annoyed them by coming over to recruit players for his room from the Edgewater.

TROPICANA POOL

When I came last time, I thought the pool hours were ten to eight. I must have missed the adult only hours of seven to ten in the morning. It was uncrowded and really great. Coming right at seven meant there were still some dead bugs and leaves floating as the attendant kept skimming. Soon they were gone. I think I am going to bring my own little skimmer with me and skim while I swim at some of the these places.

This is the most delightful pool. The shade is here almost all day and it is quiet and easy in the morning adult hours.

MOVIES AND SHOPPING

I found a Bell's Outlet in the nearby outlet stores and while it was not as good as those we visit in Florida, I saw plenty of things reasonably priced. I bought a picture album with a really nice ceramic cover showing old poles and a good looking rainbow trout. And I bought a nice pair of good sun glasses for just $6. I like Bell's sunglasses.

I went to see the movie, “ I Love you Alice Cooper” and I liked it. These are corny movies made with an adolescent audience in mind, but I find them always a good bit of fun. Perhaps having taught high school all these years sets me up to see high school movies. Of course, the teachers are generally portrayed as stupid. Even the parents get better ratings than the kids.