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As I mentioned in this Blog, I failed to outlast Poker From the Rail blogger AlCantHang in the FTOPS Warm-Up. Consequently, I agreed to play the worst tournament he could find in Las Vegas. We originally thought this would be the 2am at Binion’s. For those of you expecting a tale of late-night filth and humiliation, you will be disappointed. (In fact, in a perverse way, so was I.) But I took my medicine, paid off my losing bet, and had fun besides. But it wasn’t Binion’s at 2am.
On Sunday afternoon, Al sent me a text that the Binion’s-2am is no more. Much like unfiltered cigarettes and killing endangered species for their coats and teeth, the 2am poker tournament at Binion’s might just be too much for our world to stomach.
On short notice, Al told me my replacement Walk of Shame would take place at the Golden Nugget at 1am. The GN’s 1am tournament has a $65 buy-in with one $40 re-buy.
Shauna and I arrived moments before the tournament started, surprised to find that Al brought his friends Brad and Big Mike for support, 
and ten other of our media friends, some from as far away as New Zealand, to join us in playing.
It was actually a very fun time. The tournament drew thirty players, pretty good for 1am Monday. I busted, re-bought, doubled up, lasted to the first break, was crippled, doubled up again, and busted. I think I finished about twentieth. Al gets fifty percent of that.
After saying goodbye to all my friends, as well as the new friends I made during the tournament, I left the glittering, empty casino and drove back to the Rio to go to bed.
The experience was oddly disappointing. The Golden Nugget is not a shit hole. It never was, and they have made some major renovations and have many more planned. And the poker room was downright NICE. It’s going to have to take a huge beating for a long time for those vibrant yellow and brown walls to look drab. The carpeting is going to have to avoid being shampooed or vacuumed for years to look like the bottom of a gerbil cage. Professional wrestlers are going to have to throw each other into those chairs hundreds of times for them to lose enough padding to be uncomfortable.
From everything I saw, the Golden Nugget remains a first-class operation, and that includes the poker room. The dealers and floorpeople were friendly and professional. I didn’t see a recent knife scar or busted teeth anywhere in that room.
When I go downtown, especially in the middle of the night after losing a bet, I expect some squalor. When I took a friend to Binion’s several years ago to show him the place for the first time in the middle of the night, a guy on Fremont street nudged us and said, in a hoarse whisper, “You guys wanna buy a couple of hotdogs?” There were no hotdogs or cooking apparatus visible at 2am and we fled without inquiring why.
Perhaps the bad economy has driven marginal tournaments in the middle of the night and scary poker rooms out of existence. That would be sad. In fact, as soon as I recover from this weekend, I resolve to return to Las Vegas to find the worst daily poker tournament in the city.
But it ain’t the Golden Nugget’s. Mind you’ the house rake was extortionate and the structure was ridiculous, but the camaraderie and nice surroundings made it bearable. And that’s a shame.
As I walked to the valet to get my car, I passed a man and a woman having an argument. The woman said, “We don’t have time to gamble. It’s 3am and we leave in five hours.”
The man replied, “Exactly. It’s 3am and we leave in five hours. That’s why I have to gamble NOW.”
It’s nice to hear that some things never change.
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Loading ...2 Responses to “#907 – Silly Sunday, Part II – It’s 1 AM, But This Ain’t Binion’s”
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Poker Shrink Says:
November 10th, 2009 at 10:34 amI am not sure they are still even running the tournament at Tropicana but that has to be a nominee. Next the late night at Hooters if only for the drunken competition. And finally as an example of fish in a barrel, the rebuy event at Tuscany. Unfortunately the authentic tournament you are looking for has been lost to the decline–that would be the midnight event at the Plaza. Now that was true sleaze, I think they installed the old carpet that Binion’s threw out.
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Turkita Says:
November 16th, 2009 at 3:11 pmThe 11pm at the Sahara. Seriously…the tournament is actually fun, is structured better than many others, and gets a good crowd, but the Sahara is one of the seediest places left on the strip. There are go-go dancers at a make-shift pit next to the after-thought-of-a-poker room, and that is right next to the NASCAR cafe. White trash central.
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