I checked out the Eastside Cannery last night, and you will never believe what I found!

A casino.

Yes, I’m as shocked as you are.

There were gaming machines and blackjack tables everywhere!!!

Who knew?

Okay, sarcasm aside it is a very nice place … but it’s still a casino.

I’ve been to many openings.  One too many perhaps,  and at this point I may be a little jaded because of it.  Casino interiors are starting to look the same to me.  Well, not the same … The Bellagio clearly looks different from Planet Hollywood, but I just don’t know that it matters anymore.

When you are watching your cards at the blackjack table, or staring into the glow of a slot machine, or getting shitfaced drunk, I don’t know if the decor is relevant.

That being said, the Eastside is a very nice casino, with the most unique aspect being the tower lighting on the exterior.  It is next door to Sam’s Town, and about a mile south of Arizona Charlie’s.

Parking was rough, and it took 20-30 minutes to find a space.  It is all outdoors and there is no garage, at least no garage that I saw.  Bring the sunshade for your dashboard.

Since this is a local’s casino with no taxi service, they are going to need to address the lack of parking.

Actually, since off-strip casinos have been growing visitor numbers while Strip casinos have been stagnating, I don’t know if it is fair to call this place a 100% “locals” casino.  They clearly have a hotel, and I have no doubt that there will be a fair number of tourists making a pilgrimage here.

The line between “Locals Casino” and “Vegas Casino” is getting blurred with each passing month.

It was quite crowded, and lines for everything were long.  The line to get a Player’s Card was at least an hour.

The inside is perfectly cool.  They have everything you would expect.  A couple of bars, a sportsbook, a poker room, and some eateries.  Upstairs they have a huge bingo hall and several ballrooms for various events.

I kind of don’t know what to say because the videos and pictures speak for themselves.  It’s just a very nice and new casino.  The tower outside is pretty cool.  It changes colors every 15 seconds or so, and when I got back to the near-Strip, I looked out to the East, and could actually see the building in the distance changing colors.  It’s one of the few Boulder Highway buildings which is visible from The Strip.

In the video at the top, I walked completely from one end of the casino to the other.  I began recording before even stepping into the place, so what you see is exactly what I saw for the very first time … therefore, you will get exactly the same initial impressions that I got, and you can draw your own conclusions.

I have some photos and videos of the Poker Room, Bingo Room, and Exterior which I will post once I get them offloaded.

Exterior:

[See post to watch Flash video]

Poker Room:

[See post to watch Flash video]

I’m going to go over and see what’s happening.

I’ll post a few live shots along the way.

I’m taking my “real” camera as well, and will post thoughts on the place and better photos sometime tomorrow (Friday).

Some people wanted to know what the residential areas near The Strip looked like.

Well, be careful what you ask for.

Most of The Strip (except for the Stratosphere) is in Paradise, NV and not in Las Vegas at all.   Las Vegas officially begins at Sahara Ave, and covers the area north of that street.  I live in Paradise, although it sure doesn’t feel that way.

As a non-resident, I cannot even vote for or against Oscar Goodman (he’s not my Mayor), and ironically, the only resort part of Las Vegas that Oscar officially represents is Downtown.

When he comes south of Sahara, he is no longer Mayor.  At least not of “our” Las Vegas.

Not that voting does any good whatsoever.  The notion is patently laughable.   In our primaries this month, we had a historically low turnout.  Most people were unaware that there was an election even taking place.  Here in Nevada, we always get to choose between Mr. Corrupt and Ms. Super-Corrupt (she’s a feminist so she hyphenated when she marred Mr. Super).

Anyway …

At 212,200 people, Paradise, NV is the most populous unincorporated place in the USA.

None of that takes into account the “residents” of the hotels, which adds 100K - 200K people to  our “city” every day.   If our hotels were considered residential buildings, the area within a 3 mile radius of Flamingo and Las Vegas Boulevard would probably be one of the most densely populated areas in the nation.

This place is a strange paradox.

After City Center is built, it’s just going to get more packed.

Every other place on earth with even half of our population density has a real mass transit system.  One that is not surface reliant.

We are desperately in need of exactly that.  The Monorail serves some of near-Strip Paradise, but it’s simply not enough.

Anyway, here is installment #1 of the “Real Las Vegas”.

[See post to watch Flash video]

There were people all over the X with very odd paper hats on.

At first I thought they were really, really cheap Klan members.

“I ain’t puttin’ on no cloth hats like them uppity honkies down in Birmingham.  If paper is good enough to wipe my mouth with, it’s good enough for hatin’ black folks with.”

I kept seeing one hat here, one hat there, and they just appeared at random from all directions.

I was trying to read them, but the people wearing them kept giving me dirty looks for staring at their head.   If you are going to put a big fucking paper bag on your head, and write things on it, people will try to read it.  If you don’t want people to stare at you, don’t wear the damn bag … or at least don’t act annoyed when they do stare.  You’re the one with the frigging bag on your head.

But I digress.

I finally found a blackjack table full of the bag people, and stopped to inquire as to why they had bags on their head.

They informed me that they got them at the bar in the X called “Dick’s”.  I didn’t ask them why they got their heads bagged at Dick’s because it sounded quite profane, and I find such references to be very offensive.

They did, however, agree to let me take their picture.

I still don’t completely get it, but … whatever.

I played the room last night, and took an “pseudo-professional” poker player with me to get his impressions of the new all-electronic setup, and also video some of the machines in play.

Neither of us had played these tables before, and the whole thing was completely new to both of us. He had seen the tables in California before … but had not played them.

This all-electronic system is in place for 6 months, at which time the Excalibur and the company which manufactures the machines will evaluate whether or not to make it permanent.

So how was the room?

First of all, the X Poker Room staff was very friendly and helpful, and made great efforts to explain the system. The floor person is willing to stand behind you as you play the first few hands until you get the hang of it. There is a “Call Floor” button on the table in the event you need to summon a human quickly, and there is always a floor person nearby. You aren’t totally flying blind.

Before you can play, you have to sign up for a special Excalibur Poker Room card … which looks exactly like an MGM/Mirage Player’s Club Card. You are added to a waiting list, and when your name is called, you put cash on the card and then you swipe it at the table. From that point on, everything you do is added or deducted to your account at the main server.

My buddy sat down at a 1/2 NL Game (which I recorded a portion of), and I took a seat at a .50/$1 NL game. I had never seen a game with such a low limit, and it fascinated me. It was also the most popular game with the longest waiting list.

In general, the players were very poor, and I ended up making a reasonable amount of money at the table. They all seemed like Internet players, and had little concept of real table interaction. It was awkward at times. I think they are used to sitting at home and yelling at their screens when they get beaten, and they are not used to people being able to respond.

For instance, I doubled my stack on one hand. I had pocket J’s. I made a modest raise to narrow the field to 3.

The flop came J-5-2 rainbow.

Since the players were fairly loose, I decided to play it slow, so I checked.

The Internet Player (hereafter referred to as “IP”) to my left made a sizable raise, the next player folded.

I pushed all-in.

IP looked at me quizzically and squealed “check raise?”

I said nothing, as I thought what I had done was obvious and not in need of further clarification. I’m assuming that he makes these exclamations to his computer monitor at home, but I am usually very quiet when in a hand.

He thought for a moment, and then called me off.

Since I was all-in, the computer flipped the cards over, and showed the percentages like they do on TV (a cool feature).

He had a set of 5’s, I had a set of J’s.

He groaned the whole way to the river, then this exchange took place:

IP: “I knew you had pocket jacks!”

Me: “If you knew I had pocket jacks, why did you call me?”

IP: “I couldn’t fold a set of fives! I had to play them. Who in their right mind would fold a set of fives?”

Me: “Someone who knows his opponent has a set of jacks.”

He seemed utterly perplexed at my logic, and didn’t get the point.

The point was that he had no idea that I had jacks, and that he proved as much. Money talks, bullshit walks.

Apparently this is not a recognized tenant of Internet Poker.

He then sought the reassurance of other players. At least two of them comforted him with “Yeah, you can’t fold a set of fives.”

That’s how good these guys were.

Mind you that I had folded the previous 20 hands before this pre-flop, not even calling off a dollar. If a tight ass like me raises, the odds are very heavily in my favor. For whatever reason, the players at the table didn’t pick up on this, which is good for me. Many tourists don’t pick up on it and that is how I make money playing cards here.

Soon thereafter, I left the table.

Is it because I doubled up and that is my goal?

Partially. It seemed like these guys were good for more cash, but they were loose and lucky on many hands I saw … so one or two monsters is all the risk I wanted to take before donkey luck bit me in the ass.

What actually caused me to leave the table very early, was four Germans. One to my left, and three to my right … all speaking German … unless they were insulting the Americans …. in which case the Germans spoke English quite well.

They were yammering in German during the hands non-stop. I have never encountered this before. All physical tables in Vegas are English-only, and I was not comfortable playing with four German friends speaking to each other in a way that I could not understand.

First of all, it is the most god-awful language to have ever been invented. It sounds as though they are hocking loogies at each other constantly, but somehow that became a language. I kept expecting to get hit on the side of the face with a wad of lung snot everytime they spoke.

Do these guys gargle with mucous every morning?

Seriously, it’s a harsh fucking language.

But there they were … four guys at the table speaking in their own secret code, and that wasn’t cool to me.

Were they discussing their cards while they were in play? I have no idea.

Because of their demeanor … probably.

They were obnoxious Eurotrash. They briefly paused to speak English, but only to insult an English player. When they would win they would taunt the American, then say something in German, and all four of them would laugh in unison.

To say they were douchebags would be an understatement. They were twenty and thirty somethings, bathed in cologne, carefully coiffed, dressed in 80’s preppy clothes and they made creepy comments at every passing female.

It was like a really, really bad Saturday Night Live sketch. As a matter of fact, had I seen it on SNL, I would have said “Now the producers are just going overboard”.

The experience was not entertaining for me, because I couldn’t understand what half of the table was saying until they ridiculed someone.

For a brief moment, I wish we had restarted WWII, because at that point I would have enlisted just to shoot these fuckers, at which point I would have gone AWOL.

The atmosphere was just terrible, and the collusion concerns that people have are very real, IMHO.

I didn’t see a German lose one heads-up hand versus an American, and they all talked in German during play. Maybe it was a coincidence, and maybe not. I don’t speak German so I have no idea.

The lack of an English-only rule will ensure that I don’t return until one is put in place. If I want to risk collusion, I’ll play online. I don’t need to go to a brick and mortar casino for it.

As far as the machines themselves are concerned, they are actually pretty cool. They do indeed speed up play … once you get the hang of them. There are a myriad of personal options such as “always muck”, “away from table”, it shows you the last hand, including a play-by-play of how it went down, and has all kinds of really cool features that I wasn’t expecting … including “Rabbit Hunt”.

For an additional $.50 debited from your account, you can rabbit hunt the previous hand on your screen … just to see if you would have made the flush if you hadn’t folded.

The rake was 10% or $3 max per hand, and there was no tipping (except for the waitress) which will certainly increase a frequent player’s bankroll over time.

I did have a difficult time pressing the touch screen. It often wouldn’t acknowledge me, and I would have to repeatedly tap it or use the edge of my players card. From what I understand, these can be individually calibrated.

I was also unsure how to raise at first. I was trying to raise $25, but raised only $5 on pocket queens pre-flop, and ended up losing the hand with four callers and a raise when I folded after A-K-3 hit the flop. I thought I was beaten with the A or K, but it turned out that the guy who won the hand had pocket 3’s. I’m assuming he would have folded to a $25 raise pre-flop. We were playing a fifty cent small blind so I am assuming that pocket 3’s would not have been worth twenty five bucks, but I’ll never know for sure.

I really liked the $.50/$1 structure. There was plenty of action when the cards were in play, but I could easily afford to sit back and wait for a monster without paying much attention to the blinds.

The machine allows you to chop the pot if nobody calls the big blind, but both players have to agree. I always chop. The one time I tried to do it in the small blind, the German to my left refused, then bet at the flop. I folded my 9-3o and told him to buy something nice for himself with the fifty cents. Since that is post 1985 sarcasm, he’ll get it in another 20 years or so.

The room wasn’t terribly full (3-4 tables going at any given time from 6-10pm), but it is not “Grand Opened” yet. They will be having one in the next couple of weeks.

Overall, this place has potential. It is an interesting concept and it may catch on, but I don’t know how often I will personally play there.

I am very fond of the low blinds, fast play, technological options, and incredibly shitty players, but at times I felt as if I was getting the worst of both worlds. I had to put clothes on and sit in traffic to sit in front of a computer screen as the people around me spoke to each other in a manner that I could not understand.

I am not 100% sure how different that is from Internet Poker, if at all. It’s kind of like an Internet Cafe where everyone is playing online poker against each other. I’m not sure if they need to be in each other’s physical presence.

The nature of the game seemed to bring out the douchebag in people. The Americans were know-it-alls (who played like shit), and the rest of the people were Eurofucks.

The “feel” to the game is very, very different.

It definitely attracts the Internet player crowd, and I am not really familiar with their culture, or lack thereof. It’s an odd vibe.

I think it may find a niche’. It’s the only all-electronic room in town, and the technology is very impressive. There are no misdeals or misread hands, everyone gets the correct number of chips, and there is no tipping. It certainly solves some problems with human dealers.

For recreation, I still prefer the tactile nature of regular felt-table poker with human dealers, but I can see where this game is coming from. I don’t think they will ever replace real dealers anymore than video blackjack got rid of real tables, but there will be a draw.

For a quick hit-and-run of overconfident braggart Internet players, this may be a source of income to add to the fraternity showoffs at the Mandalay Bay.

And there is a tram.

I like what they are doing over at the X. They have the right attitude. The staff is fantastic and helpful, and they seem excited about the product. You get a $4 food comp if you play for a few hours, and the cocktail waitresses come by about every 15 minutes. If they could stop the Tower of Babel thing, it would be better.

My “professional” friend also came out ahead, and told me that he might return simply because the quality of the players was poor. It took him some time to get used to the game, but he saw the same advantages that I did. No tipping added to his take. He still prefers felt, but may return from time to time for some low-limit action.

I think that is what the X is aiming for. They don’t expect people to play 100% of their poker there, but if enough people just play 10%, the room will be worthwhile.

I do hope they succeed. It’s unique, and it just may be what saves the X Poker Room.

This type of poker is certainly not for everyone, but it’s for enough people that I think it could do well.

It is certainly worth at least trying the next time you are in Vegas.

I’ll follow up by posting some thoughts on the place sometime on Tuesday.

It’s not exactly in Las Vegas, but this is as close as we are ever going to get to one.

Shorty after noon, all hell broke loose as the outer bands of Hurricane Julio spun off and blanketed the Vegas valley.

Wind, dust storms, lightning, thunder, and what looked like a funnel cloud at one point.

Of course, this morning our local “meteorologists” said that there was an 80% chance that none of this would happen, so they continue to smoke donkey pole.

Dear John Hinckley, my name is Jodie Foster …

I’m so excited.

And I just can’t hide it.

I’m about to lose control and I think I like it.

Anyway, I was away for much of the weekend, and decided to check out some of the phone calls that we had received.

We got like 50 hang-ups (what is up with that?) and a bunch of calls, but I just picked three calls out at random, and decided to share with the class.  I am experimenting with how to use these things, so I want to keep it short at first.

Of course, I warned you that if you called in that I would do goofy shit with your calls, and true to my word I did … and I will probably do even more treacherous things with them in the future.

Figuring that most people don’t want to simply listen to phone calls, I decided to set the calls to this lovely Sahara Hotel karaoke singer.  If you don’t like the calls, at least you have something to look at.  Las Vegas is a visual town, what can I tell you.

We’ll probably start a “video podcast” in the near future, so I am going to simply experiment with some stuff until we launch the thing.

How does it feel to be a guinea pig?

That’s the exact question you should ask yourself everytime you sit down at a 6:5 Blackjack table.

Anyway, I am still getting settled back in, so enjoy the two minute “phone cast” until I have time to make a longer one.

Wrapped up like a douche you know the roamer in the night …

Anyway, it’s that time of year again. The time of year when the earth is lined up with the sun perfectly to turn the Mandalay Bay into a supernova for about 4 minutes every morning.

I don’t know if they planed this or what, but for about a week out of the year, the reflection will concentrate on the middle column and form some kind of “super beam”.

People on the east side near The Strip actually keep their blinds closed during this week to prevent the flash-blindness that this event triggers.

Photos don’t it justice. You have to be here at just the right time in just the right spot, and you will see this unnatural cone shaped beam suddenly envelop the area, and then go away as quickly as it arrived.

I couldn’t even take the picture facing the Mandalay. I had to us the LCD screen tilted backward while looking in the opposite direction.

My guess is that they can also not land planes on the 19’s during this, because you literally cannot face southeast for a couple of minutes each morning. Due to the magnification and convergence, this thing is like 5 times as bright as staring into the sun directly.

It’s our version of a yearly eclipse or meteor shower.

I’m surprised some cult hasn’t started making a yearly pilgrimage to this thing, or some conspiracy theories have not sprung up around it.

Someone really needs to start a theory. It will increase tourism.

I would like to be the first to proffer that the Mandalay Bay was designed by engineers at Area 51 to guide distant spacecrafts to their assigned parking spaces 100 miles to the north.

The Nevada Gaming Commission has announced a “one year trial” in which they will get rid of the cellphone ban in sportsbooks. At the end of the year, they will evaluate the effect, and decide whether or not to make it permanent.

I have posted my disdain for the ridiculous “sportsbook cellphone rule” at length, and maybe someone was actually listening. Either that, or it is just a coincidence (which I suspect is the case).

I can’t imagine that they won’t make it permanent. With the proliferation of bluetooth and text messaging, anyone running numbers has known how to get around the silly ban for the last five years.

The only people security harrasses anymore are Joe and Jane tourist who are trying to coordinate a trip to see Blue Man Group while standing in line to place a wager on their Alma Mater.

This is a good first step toward removing impracticality and ambiguity from the casinos.

Now, if they would ban children from casinos or shut the hell up about it, the Nevada Gaming Commission might start making a modicum of sense.