Eh, it's all related anyway. After the casinos destroy blackjack, it won't be long until decent pay tables for video poker will disappear too.

They've already done that. A few years ago you could find +ev vp in Strip casinos. They can always make it worse but they've got so many comps chasers making them good money they would be stupid to do so.

It's all good Stu.

Yeah, honestly I'm surprised the Wynn even has full pay machines. Most of the machines are garbage, and they do insidious things like put a full pay machine right next to an exact same one but with a worse paytable. Most of the patrons I've seen have no clue (my dad didn't until I pointed it out to him). Same thing on the Encore side except there are NO good machines- same games as the Wynn, worse paytables.

Overall I'm just happy things aren't worse.

I think it'd be stupid of them NOT to - like you said, there are so many comp chasers out there, and how many of them do you think would even notice if a 9/6 machine was turned into a 8/5? I doubt many at all.

VP on the strip is basically a barren wasteland for low-limit VP nits like me if you want even halfway decent paytables. At the limits you play I'm sure there are still plenty of decent options available, but I have to go out into eastern Vegas and into the locals' joints to get some good play. Hopefully those don't disappear too.

At the Wynn there's not even that many, I think there's 5-6 full pay machines tops. Haven't seen any 9/6 JOB, I bet they don't want full pay grinders in there.

I remember when the Stardust had one +ev vp machine. It was quarter credits and ALWAYS had someone planted in front of it.

My grandfather on my Moms side moved his Family to Vegas about 1960 until 1988 when he died and he mostly stayed in town except trips back to New York for grandma's cancer treatments. When I look at the Vegas he left behind in '88 (the mirage was just being built) I feel like he passed at the right time. He would have been accepting of the mega resorts but not thrilled, but all the other changes would have broken his heart. He was a lounge act, a band leader singing and somehow also playing on trumpet. He knew all the old time big names in Vegas and was a regular at the Stardust and out at Jerry's Nugget in boulder highway.

Anyway rant filled with personal stuff no one cares about over - the point was my grandfather deeply loved Vegas and he would be very sad to see how the town has changed. Although he would be proud of its growth into a major US metro from a dusty gambling town.

I'd bet he had some interesting stories!

Even in the short time I've been going to Vegas (1999?) things have really changed, and not necessarily for the better. I'm glad I got chips from the Stardust and Frontier. I remember walking into Binion's to watch the WSOP, back when anyone could just walk in off the street and stand next to the tables. I bumped elbows with Doyle at the Mirage (me table 2 20/40 limit, him table 1 ???godknowswhat). So many good memories of the Mirage, come to think of it. Pretty sad what's become of the Mirage now.

Then, the transition to the Bellagio as the "center of the poker universe", ALMOST bumping elbows with Johnny Chan (me 10/20 NL, him ???godknowswhat) but now the brush would give you the stink eye if you stared a little too hard (still better than now). The "old" lion in front of the MGM, removed bc it's bad luck for Asians. No Aria/City Center- I still get lost when I go down there, EVERY TIME.

I even remember when Lederer made fun of Gobbo- too bad for Gobbo he couldn't get in on some of that FT money; at least his soul is clear of that nonsense.

Stumbled on thread by chance, usually play deuces on ultimate x and multi draw will have to try double double and triple double when I go whoring in Elko next week

Just saw this new one..only quarters, but what timing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWgRKgtLtTc

Just too bad it was DDB and not TDB..

Sounds like we might have walked right past each other around those times.

I fell in love with poker in 95' and started going to the WSOP year every to sweat the event, soak in the environment and try to play a little. I was in awe of it all and had no idea what I was doing. For those who are unaware, there were virtually no resources back then besides Doyles book and a few two plus two books; the main game played was limit holdem.

I'd have to go out there solo because none of my friends were into poker and they all thought I had a gambling problem because I would drive to Shreveport to play when I wasn't flying to Atlantic City or Las Vegas. It felt like such an adventure at the time. Poker was still a big mystery and had that aura about it because the game was so looked down upon yet intriguing plus the notable players were larger than life and fascinating characters.

Walking around Binions during the WSOP at that time was so different than today. For example, they would set up these cheap metal bleachers in the corner of the room for the final tables to be played and viewed. They probably wouldn't hold 100 people at full capacity, which was never an issue because no one watched, except for me and a reporter named Andy Glazer and occasionally a straggler or two that would try to watch for a few minutes, give up and saunter off.

My favorite memory is sitting on the second row so I could get a little height above the table because I was less than 5 feet from the back of Johnny Chan who was playing heads up with Eric Seidel for the 2001 $3,000 WSOP no limit tourney. We were so close, Andy and I could see Johnny's hole cards. I still have an image in my mind of the two playing heads up and the surrounding bleachers empty except for an old man drinking a cup of coffee with I assume his wife who looked both irritated and bored. In the final hand, Johnny pushed all-in on a naked bluff and Seidel called him with 2 pair, K7 off IIRC. Man, I wish I had an Iphone back then so I could have recorded what I was watching. There wasn't even a damn report posted on this final table rematch, unreal in retrospect.

Man, I miss those days, sorry for the derail down memory lane.

It is sort of funny now to remember that Mirage WAS Las Vegas Poker back then.

Good thing for Gobbo he was a freak and weird dude..

It doesn't matter what it is, it's never enough.

No doubt. Those memories are really the only thing driving my (small) itch to pick the game up again. I still wish I'd taken a year off between medical school and internship- that was smack in 2003. I would have lived in Vegas for a year, and played online and live when I got bored with that/wanted chips in my hand. As it was, those of us who lived through it remember the "Moneymaker effect"- everyone who plays owes that guy a debt of gratitude. I still remember the graph of my winnings pre-and-post Moneymaker; the slope was good before, but afterwards it LOL shoots straight up and stays that way for at least a year. It really was like printing money.

I also remember playing with Greg Raymer at Foxwoods a bit- just a normal guy who got into the game a bit earlier than me and started playing tournies (I never had the time). I think he won a small one at Foxwoods and was starting to make a name for himself. I remember playing 5/5 pot limit just as big bet was starting to take off, and he complimented me on my game, saying something like "I think you should play the Main Event, you have a great game to do really well in a structure like that". Then he BANG ships the whole thing in 2004. OK, I'll take that compliment Ran into him at Mandalay when I was donking it up with friends, he and his wife sat 2/4 limit so he could teach her. I said hi but he didn't seem to recognize me...

Someday I will be playing $1 TDB UltimateX 10 Play and will have just drawn a full house the previous hand, and then I will draw 4 aces with the kicker..and after that I will retire from the video poker grind..$480,000..

Leon,

Thanks for the heads up re: tax reporting, that makes high volume VP a non-starter for me. Would have been fine when I was playing lots of poker and had to report winnings and use gambling deductions, but now it would just cost me money. It's a little surprising that they only have to do the overall net win/loss report for the pit, but I've never worried about it. I guess it would make it a real pain in the ass for players wagering $5k/hand at blackjack! I once hit $25k on Let It Ride, and even that wasn't reported individually. That was going to be my new game until I dusted off like $13k at it the next trip.

The other big issue with VP for me is that it doesn't seem like a good game to play with friends, which is a lot of what I'm looking for in Vegas. Though I often have a lot of solo late night degen hours as well, so maybe I can become a semi-pro VP degen then.

Rationalizing ways to gamble lots on -EV games is kinda tough!

Good stuff, did you ever play at the Taj Mahal?

The Taj was one of the first places I played and I had a blast out there. The games were much easier on the East coast back then, Vegas always whipped my ass. Pretty sure I played 5/10 limit holdem with Russell Rosenblum at the AC Tropicana and I remember he had like 20 little trinkets (small plastic comic figures, etc) in front of his stack and remember thinking "what a character". The next thing I know, I see him at the final table at the 2002 WSOPME. I was deluded enough for a time to think that if he could make it, maybe I could too. Ha! That was a pipe dream.

Moneymaker was great but I always attributed the confluence of internet poker with the hole card camera as the two major factors that caused the explosion of poker. Moneymakers timing couldn't have been more perfect to take advantage of those two events. Its as if there was a poker god orchestrating everything to a crescendo that caused poker to take off out of nowhere like a rocket.

Did you ever read/post at the wheels-off rec.poker.gambling forum?

I wouldn't retire... I'd just play bigger

No problem. Yeah, VP is not conducive to hanging out- about the best you can do is pool a session bankroll or something, and everyone splits according to %. That at least gets everyone involved and allows people of varying bankrolls to play together.

The only rationalization for -EV games is: they're a ton of fun

Never played at the Taj, or went on rec.poker. 2+2 was my first and only discussion board.

You're right- the combo of Moneymaker and hole cards/interwebz is what really did it. Moneymaker mostly fueled the huge amounts of people with the idea they could win at this game too, despite all evidence to the contrary, bc, well, Moneymaker!

One last story- I met someone through a mutual friend who also used to play on Paradise back in the day. He tells me he was at that final table to win a seat with Moneymaker and got busted by him in 3rd. Friend flopped top two, Q10 or something like that, Moneymaker got it all in with ace high... runner runner straight. LOL

Leon,

New request.

I'm gonna pump $500 into VP next trip. I want to make a zillion if I get lucky.

Tell me what to do!

Bring. More. Money.

Play one hand at $1 100-play, get dealt royal, $400K, ezgame.

this. if you want a chance at big money, you'd have to be playing at least $25/deal, and if you get a cold run to start, you can burn through $500 in literally a few minutes.

Unless of course by 'get lucky' you were implying that you were only planning on playing a handful of deals, in which case $500 is enough.