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Diary of a hilariously miserable 24 hours
Dec. 13th, 2005 02:24 pmDid I mention that when I checked into the Flamingo that my room key card didn't work? No? OK, well, I'm going to mention it now, because in three days the new, super Harrah's owned, Flamingo has pissed me off mightily.
After the standard five-mile trek to my room, key card does not work. I use house phone. Security guy eventually arrives. He peremptorily says "ID" (no please, etc. Obviously an ex-cop). I hand him my passport. He looks at the passport. HE CAN'T FIND THE PHOTOGRAPH PAGE. Presumably the only kind of ID that a hick US ex-cop now-working-in-security can cope with is a US driver's licence.
That night (2am), as I go to bed, I turn on bedside light. It doesn't work.
My cold was getting worse.
The following morning, the alarm goes off at 6.15am. Great. Don't housekeepers get told to switch the bedside alarm clock to "off"?
After a not-very-happy day (well, after a blinding first week and foolishly spending some of my winnings by paying my Boardwalk hotel bill in cash, I might have guessed that I would have a really bad session -- it duly arrived) I went back to my room and fell asleep. At 5am the next morning, the alarm in the next room goes off. And there's no-one in there to turn it off.
I finally crack and telephone guest services. She says "I'll send someone up from security". "Hold on", I interrupt, before she can get me off the phone, "do housekeeping staff get told to turn the alarms to off when a room is vacated?" "I'm afraid I can't answer that". "Well, can you give me a name of someone I can talk to later today?" "Sure! You can come to the desk and ask for the assistant manager". "No, I want the name of the head of housekeeping". "I'm afraid I don't have that. There's been a lot of changes here." "Well, that's not very good, is it? Can you go find the name, please?"
Net result, she went off to find name. Head of housekeeping here is Maria Cuevas. And, you know what, HARRAH'S SUCKS!.
++++
The poker was just miserable. Continuation bets failed. When I hit, no-one called. A terribly weak table, and I couldn't take advantage of it. By 9pm it had tightened up considerably and I was still $450 down, so I quit.
The game didn't actually start until 3pm because of the bloody tournament. I wish that they had told me that when I walked in at 9am to put my name on the list. Like I say, just about nothing went right in 24 hours. Did I mention that my cold got worse?
The above is a good example of the perils of "professional" poker play. Despite a storming run last week, and despite me still being more than $1100 up for the trip, suddenly my bankroll is looking thin. I have a photoshoot today (cost, $400) and that will leave me with little more cash than I arrived with. Pro players often go broke because, basically, real life is perpetually denuding their bankroll, leaving them inevitably undercapitalized at moments when things run bad.
Should I drop back to $4-$8 to try to rebuild, or should I carry on at $8-$16? My guesstimate of my average earn at the Bellagio $8-$16 is about $20 an hour, but the volatility is fairly nasty. With only $750 in my pocket, a lot of my cash is "in play" on one session. That isn't something that I am used to or comfortable with.
I wonder if my cold was affecting my play yesterday. It didn't feel as if it was (there weren't that many difficult decisions in the five hours, to be honest), and my reads were spot-on. That doesn't do you much good when you couldn't hit the side of a barn door at ten paces when it came to flops, but it does serve to keep some confidence flowing.
My sleep pattern is now out-of-sync with the Bellagio game, which is seriously annoying (thanks very much, Harrah's). Did I mention that Harrah's sucks?
After the standard five-mile trek to my room, key card does not work. I use house phone. Security guy eventually arrives. He peremptorily says "ID" (no please, etc. Obviously an ex-cop). I hand him my passport. He looks at the passport. HE CAN'T FIND THE PHOTOGRAPH PAGE. Presumably the only kind of ID that a hick US ex-cop now-working-in-security can cope with is a US driver's licence.
That night (2am), as I go to bed, I turn on bedside light. It doesn't work.
My cold was getting worse.
The following morning, the alarm goes off at 6.15am. Great. Don't housekeepers get told to switch the bedside alarm clock to "off"?
After a not-very-happy day (well, after a blinding first week and foolishly spending some of my winnings by paying my Boardwalk hotel bill in cash, I might have guessed that I would have a really bad session -- it duly arrived) I went back to my room and fell asleep. At 5am the next morning, the alarm in the next room goes off. And there's no-one in there to turn it off.
I finally crack and telephone guest services. She says "I'll send someone up from security". "Hold on", I interrupt, before she can get me off the phone, "do housekeeping staff get told to turn the alarms to off when a room is vacated?" "I'm afraid I can't answer that". "Well, can you give me a name of someone I can talk to later today?" "Sure! You can come to the desk and ask for the assistant manager". "No, I want the name of the head of housekeeping". "I'm afraid I don't have that. There's been a lot of changes here." "Well, that's not very good, is it? Can you go find the name, please?"
Net result, she went off to find name. Head of housekeeping here is Maria Cuevas. And, you know what, HARRAH'S SUCKS!.
++++
The poker was just miserable. Continuation bets failed. When I hit, no-one called. A terribly weak table, and I couldn't take advantage of it. By 9pm it had tightened up considerably and I was still $450 down, so I quit.
The game didn't actually start until 3pm because of the bloody tournament. I wish that they had told me that when I walked in at 9am to put my name on the list. Like I say, just about nothing went right in 24 hours. Did I mention that my cold got worse?
The above is a good example of the perils of "professional" poker play. Despite a storming run last week, and despite me still being more than $1100 up for the trip, suddenly my bankroll is looking thin. I have a photoshoot today (cost, $400) and that will leave me with little more cash than I arrived with. Pro players often go broke because, basically, real life is perpetually denuding their bankroll, leaving them inevitably undercapitalized at moments when things run bad.
Should I drop back to $4-$8 to try to rebuild, or should I carry on at $8-$16? My guesstimate of my average earn at the Bellagio $8-$16 is about $20 an hour, but the volatility is fairly nasty. With only $750 in my pocket, a lot of my cash is "in play" on one session. That isn't something that I am used to or comfortable with.
I wonder if my cold was affecting my play yesterday. It didn't feel as if it was (there weren't that many difficult decisions in the five hours, to be honest), and my reads were spot-on. That doesn't do you much good when you couldn't hit the side of a barn door at ten paces when it came to flops, but it does serve to keep some confidence flowing.
My sleep pattern is now out-of-sync with the Bellagio game, which is seriously annoying (thanks very much, Harrah's). Did I mention that Harrah's sucks?
