Las Vegas, Sept 22, 2015



After a week in the old “Downtown” Las Vegas, I was heading back to the strip. For some reason I have hardly been to Monte Carlo before and it was my first time playing poker here. I had no clue what to expect in any way.

Monte Carlo is in the middle of the strip right next to Aria. It is, like Aria, also a MGM Resort, which usually means high quality on everything. Monte Carlo is no exception. The hotel is getting a bit old by Vegas standards (opened in 1996) and things are of course not as modern as the newer venues, but all in all things looks clean and of high quality. The people working here are doing everything they should do and I haven’t seen anything or anyone I have disliked here. They even have a nice pool for those of us that like that as well. That’s where I went before I played poker.

When I arrived in the poker room around 7 PM it was 3 tables going and I was able to get a seat in the 1/2 game right away. The room is pretty small (8 tables) and in a corner away from the slots. I like that it’s a bit quieter in the room than it is in the ones that are in the middle of the slot machines. All the members of the staff in here were polite and professional, and even the players seemed to be among the nicer ones. This could turn out to be a pleasant night!

I sat down with $ 300, which is the max in the 1/2 games here. The player to my right, a nice man aged 64 ½, was raising every hand (I have to admit I couldn’t help myself smiling when he told me his age with the ½ year added). I called on his 4th consecutive opening raise with Q-10 suited. The flop came Q-10-8. He bet full pot on the flop. Usually I would raise here, but sometimes I like to smooth call to see what happens on the turn. I do this for two reasons. To hide the strength of my hand and also to keep the pot small until I find out where I am. I pretty much only do this in position though since I’m way more protective of my hand when I’m out of position. On a blank (3 or 4) turn he bet almost full pot again. I felt that he was super strong, but I couldn’t fold. On the river (3 or 4, the opposite of the turn card) he bet out a little over half pot, $ 70. I don’t know exactly why, but I had such a bad feeling that I almost folded. He seemed so damn strong. But he could feel super strong with kings or aces too, not knowing better, so I decided to call. He turned over pocket queens. He really was strong by any standards! Not a good start for me.

For the next hour or so the table was totally rigged! I have never in my life seen so many bad beats and setups. Everyone that has been around a lot of poker players has heard that online poker is rigged. I am pretty sure it’s not. But variance can make crazy things happen within a time period that are very unlikely to happen. I got kings cracked, a flopped set cracked and worst moneywise 99 vs. 88 vs. 77 cracked on the river (I had 99 and a 7 came on the river). But it wasn’t only me that bad things happened to. A total of 6 times AA and KK got cracked. I think we had 12 sets in that period. The guy to my left got his aces cracked before he cracked aces and kings with pocket 3s both times. Then he played them again against my A-10 on a 10-6-5 flop where I asked if he had a set again. He answered truthfully “Not yet”. He was right, as the turn was a 3. It was madness going around!

When things like this happen people tend to get grumpy very often. But that didn’t happen to my surprise. The “worst” action was a player shaking his head before saying “good night” and leaving. This gave me new faith to poker players as a group. And it made me like this room quite a bit more than what I would expect.

During this craziness I lost a couple of hundred dollars more. I only had around $ 100 left from my $ 500 to start with ($ 300 + $ 200 added when I got below $ 100). I should probably have reloaded, but I decided to get stubborn and stay with my stack (as a tourist player would do a lot of the time).

A few of the regulars went home between 10 and 11 PM and more recreational players replaced them. Players that liked to see a flop, but played too weak after the flop. I think it was 5 different people that lost between $ 100 and $ 200 in the game. This type of players really is the best to have at any table no matter what stakes or what tournament you are playing.

I won almost half the pots at the table, but mostly small ones. I had one guy sitting on the opposite side of the table that was the only one that was at the table when I sat down. He really hated to fold against me. I straddled on the button to $ 5 every single time. He pretty much always called. And most of the time I raised, especially if we were heads up. I started raising to $ 15, then $20 and $ 25 and even up to $ 30. He still kept calling me. He was harder to get rid of then mosquitos in the north of Norway! But we had fun battling like this. Between us we won something like 80 percent of the pots playing 5-handed for a couple of hours. I wasn’t able to get a lot of chips from him at any point though. And I was still in red being down around $ 200. One of the players at the table suggested we should get hold of some boxing gloves. But the battle was very friendly all the way from both sides. Exactly as I like it! We even took the elevator up together after we quit playing (relax mom: I’m still straight and he didn’t come to my room).

I kept my button-straddling-and-raise game going. One other guy started to call me a lot too and it was this other guy that called one of my straddle-raised pots when I had 7-8 of spades. (That hand looks so pretty!) It didn’t look less pretty on an 8-8-4 flop. He check-raised my $ 25 bet to $ 50. Nice! I just called giving the guy some rope. On the turn 8 he bet $50 again (having around $ 125 behind). He was drawing dead and didn’t see a reason to not give him more rope. On the river he bet $ 75 and I went all in being out of rope. He called off his last $ 50 and I showed him the bad news. He decided to quit and so did another player and the last three of us decided to end the game. For the first time this session I could show a profit, so stopping there and then was okay.

I have realized that no matter what stakes I play I want to end with a profit. It doesn’t need to be a big one though. My head is easily tricked I have realized. For some reason it is happier winning $ 100 two days and lose $ 500 on the third day then losing $ 50 three days in a row. My stupid head need to be checked! (Daaaah)

Conclusion:

Monte Carlo has a poker room that I would recommend for everyone. The good atmosphere and the nice people made me feel good. The lack of rude and grumpy players is a relief and the staff is very professional in every way.







Monte Carlo Venue and Poker Room Review

Moneywise:

I ended up with a $ 157 dollar profit on my very last hand after being down for about 8 hours. Not a good hourly rate, but I really can’t complain running the way I did.