The Fergusons do Vegas - A mix game, VP and eating TR
02-20-2018
, 10:31 PM
Yeah we’re not doing too bad
Yup could use a good shrink for sure.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
02-22-2018
, 02:46 PM
04-04-2018
, 12:29 AM
March 2018 Easter TR
Just got back from another TR and feeling a bit of lack of motivation to write this one up as we got pretty wrecked at the VP. That said, we still had some very good meals and a few entertaining stories, so I’ll do my best.
This trip Mrs. Ferguson requested a gift prior to leaving, in the form of VP strategy sheets that were decorated specifically for her. This would decrease her need to search the internet for strategy as she played. I found her card making supplies and embossed printed out strategy charts with various stamps, glitter and such. The result was pretty hideous, but ultimately useful.
We've got killer whales, embossed winner winner chicken dinners, food and wine, all kinds of goodness on this. There are 3 more pages for Deuces, DDB and TDB.
We landed in Vegas at 9:30 on Thursday of Easter weekend and with no checked bags, headed straight for the Cosmo where we had the weekend comped. The comp room is always at least one upgrade on the city room, this time being the terrace studio. Bonus was that it was an accessible room meaning right when you get off the elevator. Last trip at Aria the walk was like 500 metres as the room was the last at end of hall.
Really like the shower in the accessible rooms.
View from Terrace
After dropping off our stuff we decided to get a little snack at Zuma before heading to the VP. Zuma is a Japanese restaurant that effectively replaced Blue Ribbon in the Cosmo. Blue Ribbon still exists, but no longer has its sushi counter and has re-branded as Blue Ribbon Brasserie.
Zuma Chirashi Roll - Salmon, tuna, seabass and yellowtail with avocado, yuzu kosho mayonnaise - A solid roll, fresh taste and really liked the piece with the shiso leaf in it.
L->R, kinmedai, hamachi, suzuki, hirame. Highlights were the suzuki and kinmedai with the hamachi being least impressive.
Overall these hit the spot for late night and are of very good quality, just cost a little more than Kabuto or Hiroyoshi where we went the next two days. The price range was $5/piece to $7.50 per piece for these, and I actually didn't feel like I was getting hosed for being on the strip.
Beef with shi****o pepper and smoked chili soy - These were also very good, flavourful, well cooked beef, would get again.
Saikyo miso marinated black cod wrapped in hoba leaf - This was the most disappointing dish as the cod was overcooked and it was also the most expensive at around $32. Comparing to the black cod at Hiroyoshi, this is 3x the price and less than 1/3 as good.
Cocktails were also excellent, particularly this Ron Zacapa rum cocktail which is a mixture of rums that they put through a series of small seasoned barrels behind the bar. Flavors of banana, vanilla and caramel. Just incredibly rich and balanced.
The bartender forgot to ring in our chicken wing order so comped me an extra cocktail which was their Japanese old fashioned. Very good, particularly if you like the mild peat of Yamazaki.
The total bill was $160 for the food + 4 cocktails. Overall Zuma is a solid choice for strip sushi and is open until 11 or midnight depending on day. I can't comment much on the cooked dishes except to skip the black cod.
After our light meal, we’re now ready to get gambling.
We head down to the VP and proceed to dump about $1500 between the 50 cent ten play JoB, as well as some hood rat games like Ultimate X and Hot Roll. The Ultimate X is the only thing that actually prevents us from going busto in the first hour of the night and proved to be the only machine that didn’t totally destroy me this trip. After losing about $1500, we drop to 5 cent 50 play and grind for a few hours and lose another few hundred before we are done for the night. No decent hits to report at all on night one.
After dropping wifey off to sleep, I head over to Aria and hop in a $2/5 NL game as there is no mix running at Bellagio. The game is okay with the two biggest spots being on my immediate right and a mix of grinders/nits on my left. A Chinese guy from a city near the Terracotta Army is on my immediate right. We can call him the Man from Xi’an (MFX). He is VPIPing 90% and opening every pot to $15. I 3 bet him about once an orbit and he calls 100% of the time. Once I 3-bet him with 34dd and he is the only caller to a 256ss flop. I c-bet $20 into $75 and he folds. Balls. I continue 3 betting him and just c-bet 1/4 pot whenever I miss and he basically just plays fit or fold post flop and mucks most hands. Doing this I’m able to chip up to about $700 from my initial $500 buy-in.
I’m drinking and having a good time and being very friendly with the table when the MFX gets in about $700 with an over and flush draw to some British grinder who has an overpair. Unfortunately the grinder wins and the MFX only rebuys for $200. During that hand, the grinder made a raise to $180 on the flop and I said “One hundred and eigggghhhhty” doing my best darts announcer impersonation. Douchebag grinder asks dealer to have me not talk about the hand. WTF. This is why I can’t stand live poker. Half the time there will be some form of cancer like this in your standard Vegas low stakes NL game. Quality poker players and grinders will always be positive and friendly to everyone at the table, even pretending to nurse a beer for the whole night so it looks like they’re drinking, etc. This is so lacking in the low stakes Vegas poker scene. If there are any regular grinders reading this, recs enjoy it when you buy them a shot (for $1) and joke with them. It makes us way more likely to play loose and have fun and rebuy. Learn from Chip Reese, not from miserable low stakes regs.
I play one more hand with the MFX before and unfortunately turn two pair and lose to his flopped set. Fortunately it’s only about a $4-500 pot as he was short. MFX busts shortly after and the game pretty much breaks.
Despite it being about 4 AM, I am far from tired so head over to Bellagio. There are only a couple of games left and the $1/3 looks much better than the $2/5 and $5/10. I hop in the 4 seat with some friendly recs from Portland and Kentucky in the 1-3 seats and a few nits in the 5-6 and 9 seats. The game is decent when the real star of the show sits down. He is a mid 40s looking guy who likely has a low grade psychosis going on. We’ll call him PG. The only question is if it’s substance induced (eg. meth) or organic psychosis. This is actually quite common I find around Vegas. The number of people who are talking to themselves/responding to external stimuli etc. is pretty astounding. I see about 3-4 a night in the ER, so it’s pretty easy to spot.
Another interesting thing is what some people who don’t see drug induced psychosis regularly think drugs do. At the Bellagio last trip a guy told me he thought the Vegas shooter at Mandalay was “probably on meth”. I lol’d so hard. To have that kind of planning ability while on meth would be pretty much impossible. Unpredictably stabbing/shooting someone randomly in a street or decapitating someone on a bus (look up Greyhound Canada) is meth or schizophrenia. High order planning for mass murder is not psychotic crazy, it’s an unhappy person with an organized thought process. The majority of mass murder is a combination of depression or a personality disorder with a good plan and access to weapons/means. It is generally unlikely to be substance abuse or schizophrenia despite what the news may tell you and what people claim. Actually would be happy for any forensic psychiatrists on here to weigh in on this.
Anyway, he is wearing a Las Vegas hat and a very baggy, raggedy pair of jeans on. He reaches under his jeans so it looks like he’s grabbing his balls, which he may be doing
, then pulls out a mixture of bills that totals up to $197. It’s very TBC like for any of you that have played with him. He is in the big blind and there are a few limpers to him before he rips it in for $197 into a $10 pot. One of the guys from Kentucky calls with KQ and wins the flip with his pocket 2s. He looks very angry and is talking to himself vigorously at this point. He reaches back under his pants and pulls out an envelope and rebuys for another $300. The guy from Kentucky leans over and asks me if we’re all gonna get murdered. I can only respond with an honest “maybe”.
I lose a big pot to PG by trying to get involved with K7cc and miss a combo draw vs. his 86o on 10654cc. A few more hands go buy where PG makes it $20-40 pre-flop and usually gets it in by the flop or turn. The table has loosened up pretty nicely now with everyone looking for an opportunity to get PGs money. He is down a few buy-ins when my opportunity comes. PG opens to $40 from UTG, seat 1 makes it $100 and I look down at 99. We are $300 effective so I shove. Unfortunately PG folds and seat 1 calls the $300 with KQo. He flops a queen but I am able to turn a 4 card flush and win the pot. After losing about $1000, PG has changed his style and started to nit it up a bit. He gets up to leave and since it’s 6 AM, I do the same.
Day 1
VP -1500
Poker Even
Just got back from another TR and feeling a bit of lack of motivation to write this one up as we got pretty wrecked at the VP. That said, we still had some very good meals and a few entertaining stories, so I’ll do my best.
This trip Mrs. Ferguson requested a gift prior to leaving, in the form of VP strategy sheets that were decorated specifically for her. This would decrease her need to search the internet for strategy as she played. I found her card making supplies and embossed printed out strategy charts with various stamps, glitter and such. The result was pretty hideous, but ultimately useful.
We've got killer whales, embossed winner winner chicken dinners, food and wine, all kinds of goodness on this. There are 3 more pages for Deuces, DDB and TDB.
We landed in Vegas at 9:30 on Thursday of Easter weekend and with no checked bags, headed straight for the Cosmo where we had the weekend comped. The comp room is always at least one upgrade on the city room, this time being the terrace studio. Bonus was that it was an accessible room meaning right when you get off the elevator. Last trip at Aria the walk was like 500 metres as the room was the last at end of hall.
Really like the shower in the accessible rooms.
View from Terrace
After dropping off our stuff we decided to get a little snack at Zuma before heading to the VP. Zuma is a Japanese restaurant that effectively replaced Blue Ribbon in the Cosmo. Blue Ribbon still exists, but no longer has its sushi counter and has re-branded as Blue Ribbon Brasserie.
Zuma Chirashi Roll - Salmon, tuna, seabass and yellowtail with avocado, yuzu kosho mayonnaise - A solid roll, fresh taste and really liked the piece with the shiso leaf in it.
L->R, kinmedai, hamachi, suzuki, hirame. Highlights were the suzuki and kinmedai with the hamachi being least impressive.
Overall these hit the spot for late night and are of very good quality, just cost a little more than Kabuto or Hiroyoshi where we went the next two days. The price range was $5/piece to $7.50 per piece for these, and I actually didn't feel like I was getting hosed for being on the strip.
Beef with shi****o pepper and smoked chili soy - These were also very good, flavourful, well cooked beef, would get again.
Saikyo miso marinated black cod wrapped in hoba leaf - This was the most disappointing dish as the cod was overcooked and it was also the most expensive at around $32. Comparing to the black cod at Hiroyoshi, this is 3x the price and less than 1/3 as good.
Cocktails were also excellent, particularly this Ron Zacapa rum cocktail which is a mixture of rums that they put through a series of small seasoned barrels behind the bar. Flavors of banana, vanilla and caramel. Just incredibly rich and balanced.
The bartender forgot to ring in our chicken wing order so comped me an extra cocktail which was their Japanese old fashioned. Very good, particularly if you like the mild peat of Yamazaki.
The total bill was $160 for the food + 4 cocktails. Overall Zuma is a solid choice for strip sushi and is open until 11 or midnight depending on day. I can't comment much on the cooked dishes except to skip the black cod.
After our light meal, we’re now ready to get gambling.
We head down to the VP and proceed to dump about $1500 between the 50 cent ten play JoB, as well as some hood rat games like Ultimate X and Hot Roll. The Ultimate X is the only thing that actually prevents us from going busto in the first hour of the night and proved to be the only machine that didn’t totally destroy me this trip. After losing about $1500, we drop to 5 cent 50 play and grind for a few hours and lose another few hundred before we are done for the night. No decent hits to report at all on night one.
After dropping wifey off to sleep, I head over to Aria and hop in a $2/5 NL game as there is no mix running at Bellagio. The game is okay with the two biggest spots being on my immediate right and a mix of grinders/nits on my left. A Chinese guy from a city near the Terracotta Army is on my immediate right. We can call him the Man from Xi’an (MFX). He is VPIPing 90% and opening every pot to $15. I 3 bet him about once an orbit and he calls 100% of the time. Once I 3-bet him with 34dd and he is the only caller to a 256ss flop. I c-bet $20 into $75 and he folds. Balls. I continue 3 betting him and just c-bet 1/4 pot whenever I miss and he basically just plays fit or fold post flop and mucks most hands. Doing this I’m able to chip up to about $700 from my initial $500 buy-in.
I’m drinking and having a good time and being very friendly with the table when the MFX gets in about $700 with an over and flush draw to some British grinder who has an overpair. Unfortunately the grinder wins and the MFX only rebuys for $200. During that hand, the grinder made a raise to $180 on the flop and I said “One hundred and eigggghhhhty” doing my best darts announcer impersonation. Douchebag grinder asks dealer to have me not talk about the hand. WTF. This is why I can’t stand live poker. Half the time there will be some form of cancer like this in your standard Vegas low stakes NL game. Quality poker players and grinders will always be positive and friendly to everyone at the table, even pretending to nurse a beer for the whole night so it looks like they’re drinking, etc. This is so lacking in the low stakes Vegas poker scene. If there are any regular grinders reading this, recs enjoy it when you buy them a shot (for $1) and joke with them. It makes us way more likely to play loose and have fun and rebuy. Learn from Chip Reese, not from miserable low stakes regs.
I play one more hand with the MFX before and unfortunately turn two pair and lose to his flopped set. Fortunately it’s only about a $4-500 pot as he was short. MFX busts shortly after and the game pretty much breaks.
Despite it being about 4 AM, I am far from tired so head over to Bellagio. There are only a couple of games left and the $1/3 looks much better than the $2/5 and $5/10. I hop in the 4 seat with some friendly recs from Portland and Kentucky in the 1-3 seats and a few nits in the 5-6 and 9 seats. The game is decent when the real star of the show sits down. He is a mid 40s looking guy who likely has a low grade psychosis going on. We’ll call him PG. The only question is if it’s substance induced (eg. meth) or organic psychosis. This is actually quite common I find around Vegas. The number of people who are talking to themselves/responding to external stimuli etc. is pretty astounding. I see about 3-4 a night in the ER, so it’s pretty easy to spot.
Another interesting thing is what some people who don’t see drug induced psychosis regularly think drugs do. At the Bellagio last trip a guy told me he thought the Vegas shooter at Mandalay was “probably on meth”. I lol’d so hard. To have that kind of planning ability while on meth would be pretty much impossible. Unpredictably stabbing/shooting someone randomly in a street or decapitating someone on a bus (look up Greyhound Canada) is meth or schizophrenia. High order planning for mass murder is not psychotic crazy, it’s an unhappy person with an organized thought process. The majority of mass murder is a combination of depression or a personality disorder with a good plan and access to weapons/means. It is generally unlikely to be substance abuse or schizophrenia despite what the news may tell you and what people claim. Actually would be happy for any forensic psychiatrists on here to weigh in on this.
Anyway, he is wearing a Las Vegas hat and a very baggy, raggedy pair of jeans on. He reaches under his jeans so it looks like he’s grabbing his balls, which he may be doing
, then pulls out a mixture of bills that totals up to $197. It’s very TBC like for any of you that have played with him. He is in the big blind and there are a few limpers to him before he rips it in for $197 into a $10 pot. One of the guys from Kentucky calls with KQ and wins the flip with his pocket 2s. He looks very angry and is talking to himself vigorously at this point. He reaches back under his pants and pulls out an envelope and rebuys for another $300. The guy from Kentucky leans over and asks me if we’re all gonna get murdered. I can only respond with an honest “maybe”.I lose a big pot to PG by trying to get involved with K7cc and miss a combo draw vs. his 86o on 10654cc. A few more hands go buy where PG makes it $20-40 pre-flop and usually gets it in by the flop or turn. The table has loosened up pretty nicely now with everyone looking for an opportunity to get PGs money. He is down a few buy-ins when my opportunity comes. PG opens to $40 from UTG, seat 1 makes it $100 and I look down at 99. We are $300 effective so I shove. Unfortunately PG folds and seat 1 calls the $300 with KQo. He flops a queen but I am able to turn a 4 card flush and win the pot. After losing about $1000, PG has changed his style and started to nit it up a bit. He gets up to leave and since it’s 6 AM, I do the same.
Day 1
VP -1500
Poker Even
04-04-2018
, 10:40 PM
Quote:
[ about $1500, we drop to 5 cent 50 play and grind for a few hours and lose another few hundred before we are done for the night. No decent hits to report at all on night one.
After dropping wifey off to sleep, I head over to Aria and hop in a $2/5 NL game as there is no mix running at Bellagio. The game is okay with the two biggest spots being on my immediate right and a mix of grinders/nits on my left. A Chinese guy from a city near the Terracotta Army is on my immediate right. We can call him the Man from Xi’an (MFX). He is VPIPing 90% and opening every pot to $15. I 3 bet him about once an orbit and he calls 100% of the time. Once I 3-bet him with 34dd and he is the only caller to a 256ss flop. I c-bet $20 into $75 and he folds. Balls. I continue 3 betting him and just c-bet 1/4 pot whenever I miss and he basically just plays fit or fold post flop and mucks most hands. Doing this I’m able to chip up to about $700 from my initial $500 buy-in.
I’m drinking and having a good time and being very friendly with the table when the MFX gets in about $700 with an over and flush draw to some British grinder who has an overpair. Unfortunately the grinder wins and the MFX only rebuys for $200. During that hand, the grinder made a raise to $180 on the flop and I said “One hundred and eigggghhhhty” doing my best darts announcer impersonation. Douchebag grinder asks dealer to have me not talk about the hand. WTF. This is why I can’t stand live poker.
Despite it being about 4 AM, I am far from tired so head over to Bellagio. There are only a couple of games left and the $1/3 looks much better than the $2/5 and $5/10. I hop in the 4 seat with some friendly recs from Portland and Kentucky in the 1-3 seats and a few nits in the 5-6 and 9 seats. The game is decent when the real star of the show sits down. He is a mid 40s looking guy who likely has a low grade psychosis going on. We’ll call him PG. The only question is if it’s substance induced (eg. meth) or organic psychosis. This is actually quite common I find around Vegas. The number of people who are talking to themselves/responding to external stimuli etc. is pretty astounding. I see about 3-4 a night in the ER, so it’s pretty easy to spot.
Another interesting thing is what some people who don’t see drug induced psychosis regularly think drugs do. At the Bellagio last trip a guy told me he thought the Vegas shooter at Mandalay was “probably on meth”. I lol’d so hard. To have that kind of planning ability while on meth would be pretty much impossible. Unpredictably stabbing/shooting someone randomly in a street or decapitating someone on a bus (look up Greyhound Canada) is meth or schizophrenia. High order planning for mass murder is not psychotic crazy, it’s an unhappy person with an organized thought process. The majority of mass murder is a combination of depression or a personality disorder with a good plan and access to weapons/means. It is generally unlikely to be substance abuse or schizophrenia despite what the news may tell you and what people claim. Actually would be happy for any forensic psychiatrists on here to weigh in on this.
Anyway, he is wearing a Las Vegas hat and a very baggy, raggedy pair of jeans on. He reaches under his jeans so it looks like he’s grabbing his balls, which he may be doing, then pulls out a mixture of bills that totals up to $197. It’s very TBC like for any of you that have played with him. He is in the big blind and there are a few limpers to him before he rips it in for $197 into a $10 pot. One of the guys from Kentucky calls with KQ and wins the flip with his pocket 2s. He looks very angry and is talking to himself vigorously at this point. He reaches back under his pants and pulls out an envelope and rebuys for another $300. The guy from Kentucky leans over and asks me if we’re all gonna get murdered. I can only respond with an honest “maybe”.
I lose a big pot to PG by trying to get involved with K7cc and miss a combo draw vs. his 86o on 10654cc. A few more hands go buy where PG makes it $20-40 pre-flop and usually gets it in by the flop or turn. The table has loosened up pretty nicely now with everyone looking for an opportunity to get PGs money. He is down a few buy-ins when my opportunity comes. PG opens to $40 from UTG, seat 1 makes it $100 and I look down at 99. We are $300 effective so I shove. Unfortunately PG folds and seat 1 calls the $300 with KQo. He flops a queen but I am able to turn a 4 card flush and win the pot. After losing about $1000, PG has changed his style and started to nit it up a bit. He gets up to leave and since it’s 6 AM, I do the same.
Day 1
VP -1500
Poker Even
[ about $1500, we drop to 5 cent 50 play and grind for a few hours and lose another few hundred before we are done for the night. No decent hits to report at all on night one.
After dropping wifey off to sleep, I head over to Aria and hop in a $2/5 NL game as there is no mix running at Bellagio. The game is okay with the two biggest spots being on my immediate right and a mix of grinders/nits on my left. A Chinese guy from a city near the Terracotta Army is on my immediate right. We can call him the Man from Xi’an (MFX). He is VPIPing 90% and opening every pot to $15. I 3 bet him about once an orbit and he calls 100% of the time. Once I 3-bet him with 34dd and he is the only caller to a 256ss flop. I c-bet $20 into $75 and he folds. Balls. I continue 3 betting him and just c-bet 1/4 pot whenever I miss and he basically just plays fit or fold post flop and mucks most hands. Doing this I’m able to chip up to about $700 from my initial $500 buy-in.
I’m drinking and having a good time and being very friendly with the table when the MFX gets in about $700 with an over and flush draw to some British grinder who has an overpair. Unfortunately the grinder wins and the MFX only rebuys for $200. During that hand, the grinder made a raise to $180 on the flop and I said “One hundred and eigggghhhhty” doing my best darts announcer impersonation. Douchebag grinder asks dealer to have me not talk about the hand. WTF. This is why I can’t stand live poker.
Despite it being about 4 AM, I am far from tired so head over to Bellagio. There are only a couple of games left and the $1/3 looks much better than the $2/5 and $5/10. I hop in the 4 seat with some friendly recs from Portland and Kentucky in the 1-3 seats and a few nits in the 5-6 and 9 seats. The game is decent when the real star of the show sits down. He is a mid 40s looking guy who likely has a low grade psychosis going on. We’ll call him PG. The only question is if it’s substance induced (eg. meth) or organic psychosis. This is actually quite common I find around Vegas. The number of people who are talking to themselves/responding to external stimuli etc. is pretty astounding. I see about 3-4 a night in the ER, so it’s pretty easy to spot.
Another interesting thing is what some people who don’t see drug induced psychosis regularly think drugs do. At the Bellagio last trip a guy told me he thought the Vegas shooter at Mandalay was “probably on meth”. I lol’d so hard. To have that kind of planning ability while on meth would be pretty much impossible. Unpredictably stabbing/shooting someone randomly in a street or decapitating someone on a bus (look up Greyhound Canada) is meth or schizophrenia. High order planning for mass murder is not psychotic crazy, it’s an unhappy person with an organized thought process. The majority of mass murder is a combination of depression or a personality disorder with a good plan and access to weapons/means. It is generally unlikely to be substance abuse or schizophrenia despite what the news may tell you and what people claim. Actually would be happy for any forensic psychiatrists on here to weigh in on this.
Anyway, he is wearing a Las Vegas hat and a very baggy, raggedy pair of jeans on. He reaches under his jeans so it looks like he’s grabbing his balls, which he may be doing
, then pulls out a mixture of bills that totals up to $197. It’s very TBC like for any of you that have played with him. He is in the big blind and there are a few limpers to him before he rips it in for $197 into a $10 pot. One of the guys from Kentucky calls with KQ and wins the flip with his pocket 2s. He looks very angry and is talking to himself vigorously at this point. He reaches back under his pants and pulls out an envelope and rebuys for another $300. The guy from Kentucky leans over and asks me if we’re all gonna get murdered. I can only respond with an honest “maybe”.I lose a big pot to PG by trying to get involved with K7cc and miss a combo draw vs. his 86o on 10654cc. A few more hands go buy where PG makes it $20-40 pre-flop and usually gets it in by the flop or turn. The table has loosened up pretty nicely now with everyone looking for an opportunity to get PGs money. He is down a few buy-ins when my opportunity comes. PG opens to $40 from UTG, seat 1 makes it $100 and I look down at 99. We are $300 effective so I shove. Unfortunately PG folds and seat 1 calls the $300 with KQo. He flops a queen but I am able to turn a 4 card flush and win the pot. After losing about $1000, PG has changed his style and started to nit it up a bit. He gets up to leave and since it’s 6 AM, I do the same.
Day 1
VP -1500
Poker Even
04-05-2018
, 10:44 AM
Day 2
I manage to sleep a whopping four hours of broken sleep and wake up to the noises of Marquee dayclub starting around 11 AM. This would actually be a huge problem of the Boulevard tower at Cosmo if you wanted to sleep during the day while in Vegas. The music blares up very loudly on the south side balconies. Fortunately, I have no such plans and have the Vegas mojo.
We head down for a little morning VP session before our planned lunch at Hiroyoshi for 1 PM. Working on water and watermelon juice, we put in $500 and manage to hit
Time for lunch. We decided on Hiroyoshi at Gobbo’s suggestion as I hadn’t called far enough in advance to get a Kabuto reservation. Hiroyoshi is a small restaurant run by a husband and wife out on West Charleston and they get most of their fish from Japan. They have a few tables and a sushi bar, probably totaling about 20 seats.
Sapporo time
Crispy potato and arugala salad - Very light and refreshing, I'm guessing they use miso paste in the dressing as it has a great sweet and also nutty flavour.
Kinmedai and Chu-toro - Kinmedai was excellent, while Chu-toro was good but not great.
Masu (Trout) and Kanpachi - Really love the sea trout, amazing texture and density, great flavor, and an absolute steal at $2.50 a piece. Would just get a ton of these if I wasn't looking to try everything. The Kanpachi was decent but nothing special.
Sayori (Halfbeak) - Absolutely love needlefish, it's seasonal but I will always get it. The texture is so good and the strip of silver adds just the right amount of intensity to the flavor.
Anago - Very good version of eel
Rubyfish - I cannot recall having this before and it was at the chef's suggestion, an excellent piece.
Akamutsu (Perch) - This was torched and had great flavor. Surprisingly better than the akamutsu piece Mrs. Ferguson had at Kabuto the following night.
I missed a pic of a very good but not great kamashi-ta (I hyphenate this and shishi-to now because 2+2 censors them lol)
Black cod - This grilled miso cod is an absolute steal at $12.50. Rich, perfectly cooked, great balance of salty and sweet from the miso, we had to have another one.
We repeated several of the pieces of fish after this.
Overall Hiroyoshi was very good, but not at the excellent level of some other places. That said, prices are very reasonable, except if you are getting some of the fancier fish (eg. Kamashi-ta was $11 per piece and akamutsu was $8 per piece, prices very close to Kabuto). Our total bill for 12 pieces of fish each, two beers and two orders of black cod was $200 after tip. Comparing this to the 19 pieces we had the next night at Kabuto for $300 after tip, Kabuto remains my preference if available. One advantage of Hiroyoshi is that it is open for lunch on Thursday and Friday, while Kabuto is dinner only.
After a very satisfying meal, we headed over to TI to cash a sports bet from last trip, then had a quick losing BJ session before walking back to Cosmo for a bit of exercise. On the way we saw almost all of the Cirque show advertisement trucks in a row.
We picked up a little package at the Cosmo business center then chilled at the Cosmo pool for an hour.
I made a quick bet on the Red Sox for my friend from last trip who loves the Sox, then we decided to head downtown.
It’s been a few years since Mrs. Ferguson had last gone downtown so she really wanted to check it out. I usually make a trip downtown every year or so, but had never checked out the container park or much other than the big four casinos.
We started by going to Carson Kitchen for dinner. This was the last restaurant opened by Kerry Simon (of Simon at Palms Place and KGB at Harrah’s fame) before he died of multiple system atrophy. It’s a tapas style restaurant with a nice tight menu of share-ables as well as a few larger items for those who don’t like sharing. I started off with a nice Weissbier and wifey went with a variation on a Mai Tai. Both were very good.
The washroom also had quite a unique toilet, should you feel the need to use it.
Now onto something a bit more appetizing.
Tasty Weissbier
Pretty Rye for a Chi Guy - George dickel rye, orgeat syrup, velvet falernum, fresh lime, mint.
Devil's eggs with crispy pancetta and caviar - Loved these, but I'm a huge fan of deviled eggs in general and this takes them up a notch. If there is one food from the aspic era to bring back, it's deviled eggs.
Broccoli crunch with sunflower and pumpkin seeds. - A simple yet tasty salad. Nothing spectacular, but satisfying.
Gyro tacos - Lamb, tzatziki, feta, tomatoes. I think this dish lacked acid, with the lamb being a bit too rich and heavy. Some lemon juice would have really elevated this.
Charred octopus with fingerling potatoes and saffron aioli - This was another great dish, perfectly cooked and uncannily tender octopus and a great aioli. Favorite dish of the night.
Overall Carson Kitchen was very good with lightning fast and friendly service (in and out in less than 30 minutes), good food and solid drinks. It’s a great place to share some snacks, and I would go again if in the neighborhood, but wouldn't go out of the way to make it a specific destination. Total bill with drinks and tip was about $100.
Next we walked over to the container park and checked out the super cool praying mantis. There was live music playing and the acoustics in the container park were shockingly great.
Praying mantis - The story of the artist behind this is pretty fascinating if you want to take a minute to look this up. Warning, all marriage anniversary gifts will now be subpar.
A big shoe and the El Cortez
We stopped at the El Cortez just to walk through but saw a $5 single deck blackjack game paying 3:2 so just had to sit down and play a few hands. There were a couple of fun people from California playing with us and a few hands ended up being a few hours and a few drinks. Made a couple of bucks and had a great time just chilling in a very stress free gambling environment. It was actually a lot less smoky than expected as well, which was a pleasant surprise. Before leaving wifey and I had a little battle on the hood rat Ultimate X, going $20 each head to head. This hit pretty much guaranteed her win on this one.
Moving down Fremont we took in a bit of the street experience and found a couple of other interesting pics along the way.
Fremont Street Experience
For some reason I am always entertained by the term "Loose Slots", I don't know why.
The Nugget
Binions
The craziest thing about the Nugget, Four Queens, Binions and Fremont casinos is that the pay tables on many of the VP machines are absolute garbage. Even at 25 cent or a dollar, most of the machines were not good. El Cortez had some good pays, but the Cosmo is just as good as the big four in most cases. Maybe I wasn’t looking hard enough, or maybe it was only because I’m looking at multi-line machines, but I was shocked. I wonder if it’s because they have a captive audience of the people staying at the casinos downtown, but it seems that the pays should be better.
After a fun night of walking around downtown, eating and low stakes blackjack, we headed back to the Cosmo and threw another 1K in the VP, time to run it up.
Wifey was tired by this point so I tucked her in and headed over to the Bellagio for a bit of the pokerz. For a Friday night, there weren’t that many games going, so I hopped in the $2/5. The table was mostly 30-50 year old recs/nits, but on my right in the 2 seat was a new friend who I will call puntmagic (PM). PM is a mid 20s middle eastern guy who has a stack of about $1K in random piles strewn around his double vodka soda. Behind him is a nice young lady texting away.
I sit down in the BB and it folds to him in the SB. He makes it $35 and I decide to muck 57s, which I soon regret. He proceeds to open 100% of pots to $35 for the entire time I’m there as he is waiting for his $5/10 seat. In one hand, he is standing up talking on his phone and calls a $20 raise blind. Someone then 3 bets to $60 and he calls that blind too. Sadly he doesn’t connect with the flop and folds to a $100 c-bet lol. He then gets it all in nearly blind a few times and is on his third rebuy within an orbit of me sitting down.
I pick up 55 UTG and make it $20, get 3 callers plus PM in the BB. Flop 752ss. PM leads for $45, I’m not super keen on going 5 ways to a turn but need to keep PM in the pot, so bump it to $105. The others fold and PM calls. Turn is another 2, PM checks and I bet $100, just under 1/3 pot. Unfortunately PM folds.
A few hands later, PM makes it $15 from the CO and I 3-bet to $50 with AJo from the BTN. PM calls and we see a flop of JJ3r. PM checks and unless I can induce a supreme punt, I check back, hoping he’ll just fire turn and river. Turn is an offsuit 6 and he leads for $45, I call. River is another brick and he bets $75 into $190. I pump it to $200 and after thinking a while, PM folds.
Somehow I am the only person PM will fold to. He will get it in with everyone else holding trash, but has folded to me several times. Maybe if I bet the JJ3 flop he just spazz shoves, who knows.
PM now gets called to a new must move $5/10 game and everyone at the table is sad. Rather than whine, why not do something about it. I do the obvious thing and immediately transfer to the new $5/10 game. I'm excited but a bit worried as there is a reasonable chance might I get coolered repeatedly by puntmagic and lose 92 or 63 off the rest of the night. I find it totally hilarious that the other people in the game aren’t all clamoring for a seat in this $5/10 when there are 3 empty ones.
Sitting in the new game, what happens next is a thing of beauty. PM goes on one of those unreal heaters that only a player who VPIPs 100% can. He is felting regs left and right, first getting $1500 in with 63hh>Kh9s on 589hhs and rivering his gutshot. A couple of hands later he hits another gutshot with 47o and stacks another old man reg who gets quite pissed. He then makes it $200 blind from middle position, which he has been doing about 25% of hands. Solid reg who had the K9 earlier shoves for $1500 with AQ and PM looks down to find AK and snaps him off. Obviously PM is a run it once kind of guy and stacks the reg again. All of this happens in a matter of about 3x7-handed orbits. It's always great to see someone playing $5/10 when they should be playing $25/50 or higher.
I play one uninteresting hand where I make it $40 from UTG with AA and get two callers, including PM. I’m so excited to get this in and potentially get stacked on a random garbage flop. 932r comes out, I c-bet half pot and take it down. So boring. I get called to move to the main game and decide to just rack up and head home instead. All in all booked a small win, and was thoroughly entertained for about 90 minutes.
Before heading to bed I hit a little Ultimate X and get a couple of decent hits but no white whales.
Day 2
VP -$1300
Poker +250
On day 3, we hit Jaleo, get a surprise last minute cancellation for Kabuto, eat all the fishes and meet up with Javanewt at the PLO.
I manage to sleep a whopping four hours of broken sleep and wake up to the noises of Marquee dayclub starting around 11 AM. This would actually be a huge problem of the Boulevard tower at Cosmo if you wanted to sleep during the day while in Vegas. The music blares up very loudly on the south side balconies. Fortunately, I have no such plans and have the Vegas mojo.
We head down for a little morning VP session before our planned lunch at Hiroyoshi for 1 PM. Working on water and watermelon juice, we put in $500 and manage to hit
Spoiler:
Time for lunch. We decided on Hiroyoshi at Gobbo’s suggestion as I hadn’t called far enough in advance to get a Kabuto reservation. Hiroyoshi is a small restaurant run by a husband and wife out on West Charleston and they get most of their fish from Japan. They have a few tables and a sushi bar, probably totaling about 20 seats.
Sapporo time
Crispy potato and arugala salad - Very light and refreshing, I'm guessing they use miso paste in the dressing as it has a great sweet and also nutty flavour.
Kinmedai and Chu-toro - Kinmedai was excellent, while Chu-toro was good but not great.
Masu (Trout) and Kanpachi - Really love the sea trout, amazing texture and density, great flavor, and an absolute steal at $2.50 a piece. Would just get a ton of these if I wasn't looking to try everything. The Kanpachi was decent but nothing special.
Sayori (Halfbeak) - Absolutely love needlefish, it's seasonal but I will always get it. The texture is so good and the strip of silver adds just the right amount of intensity to the flavor.
Anago - Very good version of eel
Rubyfish - I cannot recall having this before and it was at the chef's suggestion, an excellent piece.
Akamutsu (Perch) - This was torched and had great flavor. Surprisingly better than the akamutsu piece Mrs. Ferguson had at Kabuto the following night.
I missed a pic of a very good but not great kamashi-ta (I hyphenate this and shishi-to now because 2+2 censors them lol)
Black cod - This grilled miso cod is an absolute steal at $12.50. Rich, perfectly cooked, great balance of salty and sweet from the miso, we had to have another one.
We repeated several of the pieces of fish after this.
Overall Hiroyoshi was very good, but not at the excellent level of some other places. That said, prices are very reasonable, except if you are getting some of the fancier fish (eg. Kamashi-ta was $11 per piece and akamutsu was $8 per piece, prices very close to Kabuto). Our total bill for 12 pieces of fish each, two beers and two orders of black cod was $200 after tip. Comparing this to the 19 pieces we had the next night at Kabuto for $300 after tip, Kabuto remains my preference if available. One advantage of Hiroyoshi is that it is open for lunch on Thursday and Friday, while Kabuto is dinner only.
After a very satisfying meal, we headed over to TI to cash a sports bet from last trip, then had a quick losing BJ session before walking back to Cosmo for a bit of exercise. On the way we saw almost all of the Cirque show advertisement trucks in a row.
We picked up a little package at the Cosmo business center then chilled at the Cosmo pool for an hour.
I made a quick bet on the Red Sox for my friend from last trip who loves the Sox, then we decided to head downtown.
It’s been a few years since Mrs. Ferguson had last gone downtown so she really wanted to check it out. I usually make a trip downtown every year or so, but had never checked out the container park or much other than the big four casinos.
We started by going to Carson Kitchen for dinner. This was the last restaurant opened by Kerry Simon (of Simon at Palms Place and KGB at Harrah’s fame) before he died of multiple system atrophy. It’s a tapas style restaurant with a nice tight menu of share-ables as well as a few larger items for those who don’t like sharing. I started off with a nice Weissbier and wifey went with a variation on a Mai Tai. Both were very good.
The washroom also had quite a unique toilet, should you feel the need to use it.
Now onto something a bit more appetizing.
Tasty Weissbier
Pretty Rye for a Chi Guy - George dickel rye, orgeat syrup, velvet falernum, fresh lime, mint.
Devil's eggs with crispy pancetta and caviar - Loved these, but I'm a huge fan of deviled eggs in general and this takes them up a notch. If there is one food from the aspic era to bring back, it's deviled eggs.
Broccoli crunch with sunflower and pumpkin seeds. - A simple yet tasty salad. Nothing spectacular, but satisfying.
Gyro tacos - Lamb, tzatziki, feta, tomatoes. I think this dish lacked acid, with the lamb being a bit too rich and heavy. Some lemon juice would have really elevated this.
Charred octopus with fingerling potatoes and saffron aioli - This was another great dish, perfectly cooked and uncannily tender octopus and a great aioli. Favorite dish of the night.
Overall Carson Kitchen was very good with lightning fast and friendly service (in and out in less than 30 minutes), good food and solid drinks. It’s a great place to share some snacks, and I would go again if in the neighborhood, but wouldn't go out of the way to make it a specific destination. Total bill with drinks and tip was about $100.
Next we walked over to the container park and checked out the super cool praying mantis. There was live music playing and the acoustics in the container park were shockingly great.
Praying mantis - The story of the artist behind this is pretty fascinating if you want to take a minute to look this up. Warning, all marriage anniversary gifts will now be subpar.
A big shoe and the El Cortez
We stopped at the El Cortez just to walk through but saw a $5 single deck blackjack game paying 3:2 so just had to sit down and play a few hands. There were a couple of fun people from California playing with us and a few hands ended up being a few hours and a few drinks. Made a couple of bucks and had a great time just chilling in a very stress free gambling environment. It was actually a lot less smoky than expected as well, which was a pleasant surprise. Before leaving wifey and I had a little battle on the hood rat Ultimate X, going $20 each head to head. This hit pretty much guaranteed her win on this one.
Moving down Fremont we took in a bit of the street experience and found a couple of other interesting pics along the way.
Fremont Street Experience
For some reason I am always entertained by the term "Loose Slots", I don't know why.
The Nugget
Binions
The craziest thing about the Nugget, Four Queens, Binions and Fremont casinos is that the pay tables on many of the VP machines are absolute garbage. Even at 25 cent or a dollar, most of the machines were not good. El Cortez had some good pays, but the Cosmo is just as good as the big four in most cases. Maybe I wasn’t looking hard enough, or maybe it was only because I’m looking at multi-line machines, but I was shocked. I wonder if it’s because they have a captive audience of the people staying at the casinos downtown, but it seems that the pays should be better.
After a fun night of walking around downtown, eating and low stakes blackjack, we headed back to the Cosmo and threw another 1K in the VP, time to run it up.
Spoiler:
Wifey was tired by this point so I tucked her in and headed over to the Bellagio for a bit of the pokerz. For a Friday night, there weren’t that many games going, so I hopped in the $2/5. The table was mostly 30-50 year old recs/nits, but on my right in the 2 seat was a new friend who I will call puntmagic (PM). PM is a mid 20s middle eastern guy who has a stack of about $1K in random piles strewn around his double vodka soda. Behind him is a nice young lady texting away.
I sit down in the BB and it folds to him in the SB. He makes it $35 and I decide to muck 57s, which I soon regret. He proceeds to open 100% of pots to $35 for the entire time I’m there as he is waiting for his $5/10 seat. In one hand, he is standing up talking on his phone and calls a $20 raise blind. Someone then 3 bets to $60 and he calls that blind too. Sadly he doesn’t connect with the flop and folds to a $100 c-bet lol. He then gets it all in nearly blind a few times and is on his third rebuy within an orbit of me sitting down.
I pick up 55 UTG and make it $20, get 3 callers plus PM in the BB. Flop 752ss. PM leads for $45, I’m not super keen on going 5 ways to a turn but need to keep PM in the pot, so bump it to $105. The others fold and PM calls. Turn is another 2, PM checks and I bet $100, just under 1/3 pot. Unfortunately PM folds.
A few hands later, PM makes it $15 from the CO and I 3-bet to $50 with AJo from the BTN. PM calls and we see a flop of JJ3r. PM checks and unless I can induce a supreme punt, I check back, hoping he’ll just fire turn and river. Turn is an offsuit 6 and he leads for $45, I call. River is another brick and he bets $75 into $190. I pump it to $200 and after thinking a while, PM folds.
Somehow I am the only person PM will fold to. He will get it in with everyone else holding trash, but has folded to me several times. Maybe if I bet the JJ3 flop he just spazz shoves, who knows.
PM now gets called to a new must move $5/10 game and everyone at the table is sad. Rather than whine, why not do something about it. I do the obvious thing and immediately transfer to the new $5/10 game. I'm excited but a bit worried as there is a reasonable chance might I get coolered repeatedly by puntmagic and lose 92 or 63 off the rest of the night. I find it totally hilarious that the other people in the game aren’t all clamoring for a seat in this $5/10 when there are 3 empty ones.
Sitting in the new game, what happens next is a thing of beauty. PM goes on one of those unreal heaters that only a player who VPIPs 100% can. He is felting regs left and right, first getting $1500 in with 63hh>Kh9s on 589hhs and rivering his gutshot. A couple of hands later he hits another gutshot with 47o and stacks another old man reg who gets quite pissed. He then makes it $200 blind from middle position, which he has been doing about 25% of hands. Solid reg who had the K9 earlier shoves for $1500 with AQ and PM looks down to find AK and snaps him off. Obviously PM is a run it once kind of guy and stacks the reg again. All of this happens in a matter of about 3x7-handed orbits. It's always great to see someone playing $5/10 when they should be playing $25/50 or higher.
I play one uninteresting hand where I make it $40 from UTG with AA and get two callers, including PM. I’m so excited to get this in and potentially get stacked on a random garbage flop. 932r comes out, I c-bet half pot and take it down. So boring. I get called to move to the main game and decide to just rack up and head home instead. All in all booked a small win, and was thoroughly entertained for about 90 minutes.
Before heading to bed I hit a little Ultimate X and get a couple of decent hits but no white whales.
Day 2
VP -$1300
Poker +250
On day 3, we hit Jaleo, get a surprise last minute cancellation for Kabuto, eat all the fishes and meet up with Javanewt at the PLO.
Last edited by TurdFerg; 04-05-2018 at 11:03 AM.
04-05-2018
, 11:13 AM
I will go back if downtown, but also want to try a few other places that look good down there.