Sunday At Tahoe

I decided to take a little road trip last Sunday (10/23), and headed up to Harvey's at South Lake Tahoe. There was no special event going on Sunday. I just figured I would check out the place. However, I won't be going back anytime soon, because it was a giant waste of time.

There was a $40 donkament at 10am. It took me a little longer to get up to Tahoe than I thought it would, and walked into the poker room at 10:10. The tournament had just one table with two alternates waiting, so I was shut out of it. The Floor said the $3/$6 game should start around 10:30 or 11am. I wandered around for a while, dumping a $100 bill in a Video Poker machine and then sitting down at a Texas Hold'em Bonus table. I was down $45 when they started the $3/$6 game.

The $3/$6 game started shorthanded with five players, and was playing rather tight. Eventually, the game filled up, and started playing like a normal $3/$6 table. There was some good, some bad, and a lot of frustrating.

Here's some info about the Harvey's Poker Room:

- I gave them my players' card, and found out they don't give comps to poker players.

- I bought into the $3/$6 game for $100. The dealer gave me 60 White $1 chips and 8 $5 chips. I thought this was bizarre, as most $3/$6 games frown upon Red chips at the table. I asked him about it, and he said they don't have enough White chips in the room. During a busy Friday or Saturday night, they run out of White chips, and have to use the Silver $1 Slugs that the Pit games use. How can the almighty Caesars Corporation, the largest gaming company in the world, let one of their larger poker rooms not have enough chips?

- They do have the High Hand Bonuses that most rooms have around here, but they do them in a very different way. There is a sign posted that says, "Poker Rewards," along with a dollar amount. I'm assuming that it's the total of the Promo account. On Sunday, it was $8798. For Quads, you win 1% of the Player Rewards. A Straight Flush pays 3%, and a Royal pays 5%. The other bizarre thing is that you only need one card to collect the Bonus, but they only pay if you get Quads 9 or higher.

They also have a second tourney on Sundays. It's a $120 NL tourney at 2pm. Obviously, I'm planning on playing in it, as well as one or two people at our $3/$6 table. At around 12:30, I heard the Floor talking to a customer about this tourney. He said that it probably won't run today, since it didn't go last week.

This really pissed me off, and I snapped at the Floor. I told him there are a few of sitting here waiting for that tournament, and if you tell others the tourney probably won't happen, then they won't come back. If you don't want to be here, than close the room. He babbled about some lame excuses, including staff issues.

At 2pm, the tourney did start, so I cashed out of the $3/$6 game down $3. The tourney was capped at one table with 11 players squeezed around it because they were too cheap to pay another dealer. They gave us 6k chips with 20 minute levels, and a quick structure.

Since we were 11 handed, I played tight for two levels, and then start to go after the Blinds. I raised with 96o from the Cutoff, and got called by one of the Blinds. I hit Two Pair on the Turn, and got All-In. The other player had a better Two Pair with A9o. Next hand, I 3-Bet All-In with JJ. The original raiser had AK, and flopped a King. I was the first one eliminated.

I then sat down at the $2/$3NL table that had recently opened up. I was there less than an hour before I dusted off my $300 buy-in. It was a combination of bad luck and bad play. The only thing I'd eaten all day was some McDonald's on the way to Tahoe. I was hungry, grumpy, and had very little patience. That's a bad recipe for a session of poker.

I then left the casino, and headed into town to get a sandwich and fill up the gas tank. On the way home, I stopped by two casinos in Carson City just to do some recon. The first one, Casino Fandango, only had a Dealer and a Floor in the poker room. They were sitting there chatting since there were no players. As it turns out, the poker room is only open four days a week, and it's mostly for daily donkaments. The second one, Gold Dust West, didn't even have a poker room.

I'm really glad got transferred to Reno rather than Carson City.