I moved to Vegas about 3 or 4 months ago, and since then I’ve been checking out many of the Poker Rooms on and off the Strip. Up until this past weekend I enjoyed Caesar’s Cash Games the best while I liked Venetian’s Room the best. In brief I came to the conclusion Caesars had the loosest games, with weak players and was the room that I’ve profited the most money in, while the Venetian’s room is very nice, most of the players were good company and solid poker players and of course the majority of the cocktail waitresses could pass as super models.
Over this past weekend I decided to check out the new Hard Rock Poker Lounge that just opened in September. I’ve walked by it several times since me and my friends party at the Hard Rock quite a bit, but have never played in the game. The only game that was going was a 1-2 NL Hold’em game which in actuality turned out to be similar to your average 2-5 NL game and some 5-10 NL games. To say the least the action in the game was great, and the players were horrible. Granted there were a few sharks at the game that I would just avoid the majorty of the players were there to donate, reload and donate some more.
Apart from the actual poker game, I absolutely loved this room and will frequent as much as possible. The dealers are all really cool, fun and quite a few of them are even gorgeous girls that seemed very friendly. The room management was professional and took care of everyone as much as possible. They even comped my food service after only playing for 8 hours. There was one incident with a drunk old man cursing out everyone and the floor handled it very well, apologizing to everyone and trying to just take the animosity out of the room.
I’ll discuss a few hands to give you an idea of the level of play in this game..
I was dealt QJ off suit with one other player in the pot. The flop comes Q 10 4 rainbow and gets checked to me. I bet the size of the pot and am instantly called by the player. Turn comes a K and player checks again, although I like that the King gives me an open ended straight draw I figure I would make check to avoid a check raise. rivers comes an Ace and gives me the nut straight, although it was a 1 card straight meaning anyone else with a Jack in their hole cards would have the same straight. The player comes out with a bet now of $25 which was about 25% of the pot, so I raised it to $125. Without hesitation the player min-raises me to $250, leaving him self with about another ~$100. Assuming he had a Jack and this whole thing would result in a split pot I just called his raise to save time and showed my hand. Player turns over AQ to give him 2 pair, which obviously was a losing hand. The player gets up from his chair says “Nice hand!” and tosses his remaining chips into the pot, for some reason, and walks away. The dealer looks at me and just laughs and says I guess he figured he was all in, although this was never established. I ended up tipping the dealer $40 for not involving the floor or anything and just smiled at the stupidity of the unnamed player.
These next two hand I want to bring up in brief were played by the same player AKA loose cannon. First off this guy was absolutely shit faced, totally obnoxious and just a bad poker player. During one hand he did what is known as a “Hard Rock Straddle” which basically gives the player on the button the option to straddle pre-flop and have the option to raise before the flop. This is the only room in Vegas that allows this, normally straddling is only available to the player under the gone or first to act after the blinds. During his straddle an older gentlemen decided to raise the straddle to $15 with his pocket Jacks, the loose cannon re-raised the gentlemen with the JJ to $45. The player with JJ then pushed all of his $250 into the pot, fed up with the players loose cannons play and begun the shit talking. The loose cannon pondered for about 2 minutes, and proceeded to call $250 preflop with a K2 off suit. This needless to say is a sick call, but apparently was the right move since he hit 1 of his 3 kings on the river to bust the JJ of the older gentlemen who left angrier then ever. A few hands later loose cannon made another amazing called, this one for a much larger pot. A younger kid playing next to me ends up turning the nut straight with KQ, only other player involved in the hand was loose cannon, who decided to bet into the kid with the nut hand. The KQ decided to shove all his $500 into the pot which was already decently sized. The pot was now potentially $1,000 if loose cannon decided to make the call. He pondered for a couple of minutes before someone called a clock on him to hurry his decision, he made the call with 10 5, which was bottom two pair, the board was 10 5 J A with 1 more card to come. After the money is made right in the pot, the turn is dealt and BAM! 10 on river to give loose cannon a full house and send the kid with the nuts home with his head spinning.
The room is very new, and they are starting to run promotions and get as many players in there as possible. If you live in Vegas and are looking for a new room to check out, I would highly recommend this room. Here are a couple pictures of the room, which is a very comfortable environment, dark lighting nice TVs on the wall, very comfortable seating, a bar and a bathroom all in one.
