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peterbirksIt is of course something of a rule that no journey from London to Las Vegas will be trouble-free. This time it was British Airways administrative incompetence, and Dollar rent-a-car popularity that messed me up.
My good run with plane seats came to a sort of end when it was clear that the flight would be full. Sitting between me and another shrewdie solo traveller were two boys aged about 8 and 10, part of a family of five who clearly could not get their act together to reserve a block of seats together.
To be fair, the kids were as good as gold the whole way, sleeping much of the time.
Take-off was delayed for nearly two hours, first by a late passenger, then by the absence of a single form that needed to be signed off by an engineer, and which had not been signed off. That delay led to a passenger panicking and deciding that she didn't want to fly after all. No changing her mind. So, off she went and her baggage had to be found and unloaded. Then another 20 minutes while we awaited a take-off slot. Amateurs, I tell you, amateurs.
Movies
I watched a couple of movies – Birdman and the last of The Hobbit trilogy. Birdman was interesting rather than a masterpiece – clearly a bit of "too clever for its own good" in choosing an ex-Batman as the lead character and going for this unusual "pseudo single-shot" technique. Fine supporting performances; Ed Norton, Emma Stone and Naomi Watts are all strong.
The Hobbit. Well, sigh. Perfectly well-executed by the cast and the director, but I fear that the six films of Middle Earth have only served to highlight the nonsense of the world in which the films are set. Don't get me wrong; LotR is a great read. But Tolkien's world of language stands up to scrutiny far better than does his world of people, orcs, elves, trolls, dwarves and so on. I can imagine several of the characters saying to Jackson "but this just doesn't make sense", to which Jackson can only have replied – "I know, but that's what they did in the book".
We landed 90 minutes late. Then (it was by now 10pm, 6am my body time) the shuttle to the rental car office took ages to arrive, and then there was a significant queue to pick up rental cars. To give Dollar credit they got extra staff from somewhere, eventually.
Finally, there were no rental cars to be had! Another 40 minute wait.
My apartment block's front office closed at 11pm, so I was panicking somewhat (indeed, a couple of BA staff waiting for a car were caught out by this as well, and they had to book a hotel room elsewhere). Luckily there was a night porter at my block, and when I finally arrived, at midnight, he got me a room and a key.
This is an approximation of the view from the front of the suites block.
Getting from the airport to Boulder Highway was also entertaining. My Tom Tom, when I finally got it working, took five minutes to work out where I was and then decided to take me via the I-15 and all of the other I-roads in LV. It's almost as if I had bought it second-hand from a rogue LV cab driver.
In practice, this was probably the quickest route, it being 65mph and 45mph limits all the way. But it was seven miles instead of three miles, and at one point I honestly thought that it had decided to use my previous route and to take me to Phoenix.
I so lost my sense of direction (and it was late), that I made the schoolboy error of turning left onto Boulder Highway going the wrong way. By which I mean not that I was heading in the wrong direction (although instinctively I thought that I was – I had been expecting to be told to turn right) but that I was heading south on the northbound carriageway. I realized within about 15 seconds and there was hardly any traffic around (traffic, of course, is something that helps you make the right decision in this circumstance!)
HOT
So, now I am settling in, but my it is hot out there during the day. I played from 10am to 3pm on Monday, planning to come back to the apartment, do a bit of admin, and then go back to play at Bally's in the evening. As it turned out, I fell asleep at 6pm and, although I woke up a few times, decided to "sleep through".
The admin included heading to the grocery store on the other side of Boulder Highway, where I picked up bread, margarine, cheese, coffee, milk, and some stuff to make chilli con carne and pasta.
That also necessitated picking up the various kitchen items from the front desk, which is only 100 yards away, but was still an effort in the heat. It's getting to about 108f (low humidity) during the day. Hard to describe what that is like when there is no wind. I certainly wouldn't want to be outside in it for more than 10 minutes.
I was unlucky at poker. I more than doubled-through from $110 to $260 when my two red Kings got two callers pre-flop when I three-bet from the blind to $37, and one caller to my all-in on a Qc 6d 3c flop. Turn was a club and river was a club, but opponent was clubless as well.
But then I got $250 all-in pre-flop with Aces and the board came down 9Q544, so I was quite optimistic. Unfortunately opponent had QQ. Sigh.
My next all-in went wrong when one player raised to $10 all-in and he got one caller. I had JJ on button and made it $30 (I think I should have made it $50). Non-all-in opponent called and flop came QQ5. He checked and I shoved for $80, but, yes, he had QT.
I made a near double-through back with AK all in preflop (I limped under the gun, three-bet a raiser and called his four-bet shove).
So, $160 down for the day. Onwards!
Two interesting hands occurred in which I was not involved.
The first saw a small raise UTG called twice by MP and Button
Flop came down Tc Kc 6d
Bet from early, call from MP, raise all in from short-stack button. MP now goes into the tank for so long that I wondered if he realized he was still in the hand. He did, and he re-raised all-in. Early raiser calls without hesitation.
Turn comes a low red card and river is 9s
Early position tables 66 for set of sixes, button has TT for set of 10s and MP has Qc Jc for a straight. Set over set and a four-card royal flush draw all on the flop. Actually, the table had good chances for a Bad Beat jackpot there. Roughly 2*(1/24*1/24), I think. About 1 in 300?
The second hand was one where a ruling was required and some coniderable argument ensued over what was only $10, but it was a tense hand.
Player A has $211
Player B has $201
Player C has $600
Player A is a youngish kid whose English was not that great. Player B (in his mid-30s) was on Rum and Coke and Player C (early 30s, good, but a drinker) had been knocking back Jack and Cokes.
Player B has AK, which eventually turns out to be the winning hand. Players A and C both had draws that missed when all the money went in on the flop. Player A's miss was "better" than player C's miss.
The interesting part of the hand is as follows.
On the flop, player A bets, say, $50 into a $50 pot. Player B says "all-in" (for $151) and player C distinctly says "I call", shoving a randomly large sum of cash over the line (say, $300).
Player A then shoves in all of his own money without saying anything and with a body language that also indicates "sigh, I call".
Now, as we can see, what no-one, including the dealer and, it appears, player A himself, realized, was that he had more money than player B - $10 more to be precise. Player A was looking at the large random sum that Player C had put in, and knew that he had less than that. But player C had distinctly said "I call".
Therefore Player C should now be required to announce that he calls Player A's technical under-raise of $10. But, since no-one had noticed what was going on, the dealer decided to sort out the count after (a common occurrence) and dealt the river.
After the deal was terminated, Player C dragged back is $300 (naughty of him, the dealer should have done the returning) and put $151 in the middle, that being the amount that player B had gone all-in for. Dealer counts the cash and throws $10 back at player A, because he realises that there was $161 there.
At this point another player (in seat one) points out that, since Player A was all in for $161, player C, with $600 in front of him, owes the pot $10 and that a $20 side-pot should have been created (which, as it happens, player A would have won, having the better of the "losing" hands).
Player C refuses to put in the extra $10, noting that player A had not said "all-in", or "raise". The seat one player (she was as it happens a dealer elsewhere at high-stakes games), observed that a player does not have to make a verbal declaration when going all in, and that therefore his action when pushing $161 all in qualified as a raise.
Unfortunately there was no quality floorperson on hand to rule on this. At first I instinctively sided with the observing player in seat one.
But the ruling eventually was that player C did not have to put in the extra $10.
Thinking about it after, it occurred to me that, theoretically (although it wouldn't happen in practice), player C could have folded to that "extra" $10. Since he wasn't given the option so to do (because the dealer and all the players failed to spot that player A had $10 more than player B) he could hardly be told that he had to put in the $10 retrospectively after he had lost. On the other hand, if player C had won, I am sure that he would have taken the $161 put in by player A, rather than player A getting $10 back.
In fact, it could be argued that the dealer had dealt the turn and river prematurely before all the actions had been completed and that therefore he should redeal turn and river.
But here practicalities come into play. It was a $750 pot and the final raise "that never was" was just $10.
So applying the letter of the law here would have been very unfair on player B, who had done nothing wrong throughout, and who had won the pot.
It caused considerable argument, subsequently, getting rather personal at stages. I kept well out of it.
My Tom Tom is proving temperamental. Seems to take five minutes to work out where I am, and then it keeps trying to get me to go miles out of my way on the I-15. I have to ignore it for five minutes and then it works out that I am not going to change my mind, and agrees to let me go via Flamingo East and Desert Inn.
Well, I shall drive in at about 9am I think. The traffic didn't look too dreadful yesterday at that time.
I have had my breakfast! Very nice to be able to do that in your own little apartment.
My good run with plane seats came to a sort of end when it was clear that the flight would be full. Sitting between me and another shrewdie solo traveller were two boys aged about 8 and 10, part of a family of five who clearly could not get their act together to reserve a block of seats together.
To be fair, the kids were as good as gold the whole way, sleeping much of the time.
Take-off was delayed for nearly two hours, first by a late passenger, then by the absence of a single form that needed to be signed off by an engineer, and which had not been signed off. That delay led to a passenger panicking and deciding that she didn't want to fly after all. No changing her mind. So, off she went and her baggage had to be found and unloaded. Then another 20 minutes while we awaited a take-off slot. Amateurs, I tell you, amateurs.
Movies
I watched a couple of movies – Birdman and the last of The Hobbit trilogy. Birdman was interesting rather than a masterpiece – clearly a bit of "too clever for its own good" in choosing an ex-Batman as the lead character and going for this unusual "pseudo single-shot" technique. Fine supporting performances; Ed Norton, Emma Stone and Naomi Watts are all strong.
The Hobbit. Well, sigh. Perfectly well-executed by the cast and the director, but I fear that the six films of Middle Earth have only served to highlight the nonsense of the world in which the films are set. Don't get me wrong; LotR is a great read. But Tolkien's world of language stands up to scrutiny far better than does his world of people, orcs, elves, trolls, dwarves and so on. I can imagine several of the characters saying to Jackson "but this just doesn't make sense", to which Jackson can only have replied – "I know, but that's what they did in the book".
We landed 90 minutes late. Then (it was by now 10pm, 6am my body time) the shuttle to the rental car office took ages to arrive, and then there was a significant queue to pick up rental cars. To give Dollar credit they got extra staff from somewhere, eventually.
Finally, there were no rental cars to be had! Another 40 minute wait.
My apartment block's front office closed at 11pm, so I was panicking somewhat (indeed, a couple of BA staff waiting for a car were caught out by this as well, and they had to book a hotel room elsewhere). Luckily there was a night porter at my block, and when I finally arrived, at midnight, he got me a room and a key.
This is an approximation of the view from the front of the suites block.
Getting from the airport to Boulder Highway was also entertaining. My Tom Tom, when I finally got it working, took five minutes to work out where I was and then decided to take me via the I-15 and all of the other I-roads in LV. It's almost as if I had bought it second-hand from a rogue LV cab driver.
In practice, this was probably the quickest route, it being 65mph and 45mph limits all the way. But it was seven miles instead of three miles, and at one point I honestly thought that it had decided to use my previous route and to take me to Phoenix.
I so lost my sense of direction (and it was late), that I made the schoolboy error of turning left onto Boulder Highway going the wrong way. By which I mean not that I was heading in the wrong direction (although instinctively I thought that I was – I had been expecting to be told to turn right) but that I was heading south on the northbound carriageway. I realized within about 15 seconds and there was hardly any traffic around (traffic, of course, is something that helps you make the right decision in this circumstance!)
HOT
So, now I am settling in, but my it is hot out there during the day. I played from 10am to 3pm on Monday, planning to come back to the apartment, do a bit of admin, and then go back to play at Bally's in the evening. As it turned out, I fell asleep at 6pm and, although I woke up a few times, decided to "sleep through".
The admin included heading to the grocery store on the other side of Boulder Highway, where I picked up bread, margarine, cheese, coffee, milk, and some stuff to make chilli con carne and pasta.
That also necessitated picking up the various kitchen items from the front desk, which is only 100 yards away, but was still an effort in the heat. It's getting to about 108f (low humidity) during the day. Hard to describe what that is like when there is no wind. I certainly wouldn't want to be outside in it for more than 10 minutes.
I was unlucky at poker. I more than doubled-through from $110 to $260 when my two red Kings got two callers pre-flop when I three-bet from the blind to $37, and one caller to my all-in on a Qc 6d 3c flop. Turn was a club and river was a club, but opponent was clubless as well.
But then I got $250 all-in pre-flop with Aces and the board came down 9Q544, so I was quite optimistic. Unfortunately opponent had QQ. Sigh.
My next all-in went wrong when one player raised to $10 all-in and he got one caller. I had JJ on button and made it $30 (I think I should have made it $50). Non-all-in opponent called and flop came QQ5. He checked and I shoved for $80, but, yes, he had QT.
I made a near double-through back with AK all in preflop (I limped under the gun, three-bet a raiser and called his four-bet shove).
So, $160 down for the day. Onwards!
Two interesting hands occurred in which I was not involved.
The first saw a small raise UTG called twice by MP and Button
Flop came down Tc Kc 6d
Bet from early, call from MP, raise all in from short-stack button. MP now goes into the tank for so long that I wondered if he realized he was still in the hand. He did, and he re-raised all-in. Early raiser calls without hesitation.
Turn comes a low red card and river is 9s
Early position tables 66 for set of sixes, button has TT for set of 10s and MP has Qc Jc for a straight. Set over set and a four-card royal flush draw all on the flop. Actually, the table had good chances for a Bad Beat jackpot there. Roughly 2*(1/24*1/24), I think. About 1 in 300?
The second hand was one where a ruling was required and some coniderable argument ensued over what was only $10, but it was a tense hand.
Player A has $211
Player B has $201
Player C has $600
Player A is a youngish kid whose English was not that great. Player B (in his mid-30s) was on Rum and Coke and Player C (early 30s, good, but a drinker) had been knocking back Jack and Cokes.
Player B has AK, which eventually turns out to be the winning hand. Players A and C both had draws that missed when all the money went in on the flop. Player A's miss was "better" than player C's miss.
The interesting part of the hand is as follows.
On the flop, player A bets, say, $50 into a $50 pot. Player B says "all-in" (for $151) and player C distinctly says "I call", shoving a randomly large sum of cash over the line (say, $300).
Player A then shoves in all of his own money without saying anything and with a body language that also indicates "sigh, I call".
Now, as we can see, what no-one, including the dealer and, it appears, player A himself, realized, was that he had more money than player B - $10 more to be precise. Player A was looking at the large random sum that Player C had put in, and knew that he had less than that. But player C had distinctly said "I call".
Therefore Player C should now be required to announce that he calls Player A's technical under-raise of $10. But, since no-one had noticed what was going on, the dealer decided to sort out the count after (a common occurrence) and dealt the river.
After the deal was terminated, Player C dragged back is $300 (naughty of him, the dealer should have done the returning) and put $151 in the middle, that being the amount that player B had gone all-in for. Dealer counts the cash and throws $10 back at player A, because he realises that there was $161 there.
At this point another player (in seat one) points out that, since Player A was all in for $161, player C, with $600 in front of him, owes the pot $10 and that a $20 side-pot should have been created (which, as it happens, player A would have won, having the better of the "losing" hands).
Player C refuses to put in the extra $10, noting that player A had not said "all-in", or "raise". The seat one player (she was as it happens a dealer elsewhere at high-stakes games), observed that a player does not have to make a verbal declaration when going all in, and that therefore his action when pushing $161 all in qualified as a raise.
Unfortunately there was no quality floorperson on hand to rule on this. At first I instinctively sided with the observing player in seat one.
But the ruling eventually was that player C did not have to put in the extra $10.
Thinking about it after, it occurred to me that, theoretically (although it wouldn't happen in practice), player C could have folded to that "extra" $10. Since he wasn't given the option so to do (because the dealer and all the players failed to spot that player A had $10 more than player B) he could hardly be told that he had to put in the $10 retrospectively after he had lost. On the other hand, if player C had won, I am sure that he would have taken the $161 put in by player A, rather than player A getting $10 back.
In fact, it could be argued that the dealer had dealt the turn and river prematurely before all the actions had been completed and that therefore he should redeal turn and river.
But here practicalities come into play. It was a $750 pot and the final raise "that never was" was just $10.
So applying the letter of the law here would have been very unfair on player B, who had done nothing wrong throughout, and who had won the pot.
It caused considerable argument, subsequently, getting rather personal at stages. I kept well out of it.
My Tom Tom is proving temperamental. Seems to take five minutes to work out where I am, and then it keeps trying to get me to go miles out of my way on the I-15. I have to ignore it for five minutes and then it works out that I am not going to change my mind, and agrees to let me go via Flamingo East and Desert Inn.
Well, I shall drive in at about 9am I think. The traffic didn't look too dreadful yesterday at that time.
I have had my breakfast! Very nice to be able to do that in your own little apartment.
