Found: Holy Grail of Roulette
Note: this entry originally appeared on my WSOP blog at PokerTips.org.
I guess it’s been a couple of days since I’ve written anything here. On some evenings or mornings when I’m contemplating whether or not to write a blog entry, it is not uncommon that I take a pass on account of not really having done anything since the last time I wrote. I know it might seem like being in Vegas for the WSOP could never get boring, but when every day is very similar to the one before it, it’s easy to start to feel a little bored after a few weeks here.
Two days ago, I busted out of the $1500 no-limit event in level three. I think it was probably the worst event I’ve had all summer in terms of how quickly I busted out and how small my peak chip stack was relative to the starting stack. We started with 4.5k in chips and I’m pretty sure I was never over 5k before losing a handful of pots and shoving 1,700 after looking at one Ace on the button during 75/150. The big blind quickly called with Kings. I squeezed a pointy-card, but alas, it was the Ace’s tranny cousin, a 4, and I was making my way out of the Rio as early as I have in any tournament this summer.
Later that night, I met up with my buddy and infrequent PokerTips blogger Steve. He and I joined my friend Dave, who was a blogger on here last year but is too cool for PokerTips now or something, for a meal at Isla in Treasure Island (excuse me, TI). Isla is a decent Mexican place which has guacamole and margaritas, both of which were exactly what I was in the mood for.
Steve and I parted ways with Dave after dinner in search of some single-zero roulette. I didn’t even know you could find single-zero roulette anywhere in the US, but Steve assured me that Venetian has it. For those of you who don’t understand the ins-and-outs of pit games very well, most roulette tables in the US have two green zeros. The wheels in Europe have just one. Single-zero roulette has a much lower house-edge than US-style roulette (2.7% vs. 5.4%). Sure enough, there it was at the Venetian in all its glory: a roulette wheel with just one zero. Unfortunately, it was a $100 minimum bet table which was a little more than either of us were looking to gamble.
Steve mentioned that Aria, the newest casino on the Strip, also has single-zero roulette and that when he was there at 2:00 am last Friday, it was just a $25 minimum table. So we made our way out of the Venetian on a quest for the cheaper single-zero wheel at Aria. On our way out, I saw this:
I knew it was just a matter of time before I saw someone playing online poker while seated at a brick-and-mortar table.
As we crawled down the Strip in my Infiniti from Treasure Island to Aria, Steve explained to me how his whole single-zero session at Aria last week came and went without ever seeing the ball land on the zero. His perspective on roulette is that it’s a vig-free game except for when the ball hits the zero and then all of your bets on the table are just your way of paying vig. That doesn’t change the house-edge or anything, but it’s a nice, comforting little way to view the game.
Not too long after we pulled up a chair at the $25 single-zero table at Aria, the ball found the zero. “Damn,” we exclaimed, “I guess we’re paying vig tonight.” Rather than collecting each of our $25 that was resting on red, the dealer took away three of the $5 chips and added three $1 chips to the top of our two remaining $5 chips. We both just looked at each other in disbelief. Is what we think is happening really happening? Yup! At Aria, they give you half of your bet back when the zero hits on their roulette table! We were like a couple of nerds who just cracked some secret code. “Holy crap! Roulette with a 1.3% house-edge in the nicest casino in Vegas! This is great!”
And like that, Aria is now my favorite casino in Vegas. I already liked it a lot before discovering their generous roulette rules; they built a really nice, trendy casino without taking it too far over the top on the douche-factor (like, say, Wynn does). I guess they also have blackjack switch with player-friendly rules too which is a great game that’s tough to find in most casinos. Aria will definitely be seeing most of my pit-game action on this and future trips to Vegas.
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Yesterday, I woke up early again for soccer, a practice that is becoming routine for me during the World Cup. After watching Uruguay put away South Korea, which was the result I was rooting for, I have money on Uruguay to win it all, Dave and I headed to Lagasse’s in Palazzo to watch the US-Ghana match. This is hands-down the best place I’ve been to in Vegas for watching games. They have TVs absolutely everywhere and a ton of different bars, couches, and chairs that allow you to have whatever viewing experience you wish. There is no other place in Vegas I would care to be for watching the US during the World Cup.
Unfortunately, this was the last time for a while that I’ll need Lagasse’s for US World Cup viewing purposes. Ghana played great and scored two goals on the few opportunities they were able to create; US just couldn’t capitalize on their chances and like that, they’re out of the World Cup. I was pretty depressed when the game ended and decided to drown away the pain with a distraction: the $350 event at Venetian. It worked pretty well. After a couple of hours of playing poker, I had mostly put the US demise behind me.
The tournament was nothing special: I lost a race for a 35k pot during 300/600 and got my last few big blinds all-in with King-Seven suited against pocket Queens in a blind-vs-blind battle.
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Soon, I’m heading out the door for Day 1B of this weekend’s $1000 donkament special. One of my best friends in poker and the guy more responsible than anyone else for helping me grow into an adept tournament player, Ray Coburn (Exitonly online), is 7th in chips with 35 left in the $1500 event that I mentioned busting out of earlier. So it looks like it’ll be a long day for me at the Rio regardless of how I do in the $1k: Ray is one of the nicest guys I’ve met in the poker world and is as deserving of a bracelet and a huge score as much as anyone could ever be “deserving” of such a thing; I look forward to sweating him at a WSOP final table!
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