Green Valley Ranch poker room management cheats at tournaments

Read this:

http://wastedacespoker.com/2011/12/03/green-valley-ranch-still-like-the-south/

Note that TDA rules clearly state that tournament seats must be "randomly" assigned.

Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt

(Photo from here.)

Last night I had the rare treat of seeing Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt in concert at Green Valley Ranch. The tickets were free, thanks to my House Seats subscription. To be honest, I had somehow never heard of Hiatt, though I did recognize one of the songs he played--the lovely "Have a Little Faith in Me"--maybe from a movie or TV show somewhere. (Now that I'm looking it up, I see that it has been covered by Delbert McClinton and was sung by Jewell in the movie Phenomenon, so I've probably heard it from both sources.) Looking over the basic facts of his career now, I find it remarkable that I had somehow overlooked him.

Lovett, though, I had not overlooked. I have several of his CDs and like them a lot. I enjoy his quirky voice, quirky lyrics ("And if I had a boat, I'd go out on the ocean/And if I had a pony, I'd ride him on my boat"), and quirky synthesis of country, jazz, and blues traditions.

The concert is pure simplicity: Two men, each equipped with a guitar, a microphone, and a chair. That's it. They've been doing these joint recitals for years, and they work splendidly together, with distinct but highly complementary styles. They take turns performing, with a little light banter between songs. Each occasionally does a little backup vocal or guitar, but mostly sit back and yield the stage to the other. It seemed clear that they didn't have a set order of pieces, but played whatever came to mind, triggered by a theme or idea in the other's previous song.

Because the tickets became available only on very short notice, I put out an offer on Twitter to give away the extra one. Good move, me. The call was answered by one "CoolDave88," who turns out to be a reader, a fellow grinder, somebody who had shared the final table of a HORSE tournament with me, and an all-around enjoyable person to get to know. He was a Hiatt fan but had not listened to any of Lovett's stuff, so we came at the concert from opposite perspectives. We each left feeling glad to have been introduced to another interesting artist worth exploring.

The music was marred only by our seats being surrounded by people who seemed to think that we came to listen to them rather than to the performers. They chatted away freely, as if watching television in their living rooms, and sometimes sung along to let everybody else see that they knew the lyrics. It's so annoying how self-absorbed and inconsiderate people can be. A couple of rows back, two guys actually got in a fight over something or other and got hauled out by security.

Also, on our way in, security confiscated the bottle of water I had started drinking while playing in the poker room before heading downstairs to the concert venue. They said that no outside drinks were allowed. I pointed out that this wasn't an "outside" drink, it was a Green Valley Ranch water bottle, given to me just a few minutes earlier by a Green Valley Ranch employee. They were not moved, so I handed it over. I really wanted to ask the goon, "Do you feel good about spending your life harassing people on the enforcement of such idiotic policies?" But I bit my tongue. A stupid bottle of water that I had been given at no cost wasn't worth a confrontation.

Those minor irritations aside, it was a far more pleasant way to spend a couple of hours than sitting at a poker table. If Lovett and Hiatt's show passes your way, you might want to give them a try.

Taking pictures in casinos

I've been taking a lot of photos inside of casinos lately, and it has been an interesting experience. First, I've been impressed by how much nice stuff there is, at least in the classier joints. I tend to be pretty oblivious to decor and accoutrements that don't directly affect me. When I'm at a casino to play poker, I just beeline to the poker room and then back to my car, paying precious little attention to anything in between those two points or outside of my path. But recently, when scoping out interesting things to photograph for the "Guess the casino" posts, I've wandered around much more and actually paid attention to the art, the lighting, the decorations, etc. Turns out there's a lot more lovely touches than I ever knew, especially in the Bellagio, Venetian, Wynn, etc. Who knew?!

Just as interesting, though, has been the variety of reactions from casino employees. For the most part, I just get ignored, along with everybody else who is taking pictures. But once in a while somebody asks me to stop. So far, nobody has asked me to leave the premises or delete the photos I've already taken. (I would do the former. I would not do the latter.)

The most common place I have been asked to stop taking pictures is inside of poker rooms. This was prior to even thinking of the "Guess the casino" posts, mostly for comment on newly opened or remodeled rooms. Offhand, I can remember this having happened at Gold Coast, Sunset Station, Aliante Station, and Silverton. When a reason has been stated, it has always been the privacy of the players there.

But twice recently I have been asked to discontinue taking pictures in other parts of casinos. The first was a couple of weeks ago at Red Rock Station, then again this week at Green Valley Ranch. I am confident that it is no coincidence that these are owned by the same company--as are two of the four poker rooms in which I've been asked to stop.

At Red Rock, it wasn't even a security guy. It was apparently a maintenance man, judging by the tools on his belt. He didn't just ask me to stop; he had to throw in a little lecture about how if I went to the Strip, they wouldn't let me take pictures anywhere inside. (In retrospect, I believe that their rule is no photos on the casino floor, though elsewhere in the facility is OK, but he wasn't really making that clear.) Well, that's just completely false. I have taken many pictures now inside of virtually every major casino on the Strip, and haven't been hassled in any way about it.

I was with a friend that day, and the same guy asked her to stop with the pictures just before he talked to me. (We were far enough apart that he probably didn't know we were there together.) What he told her was even more bizarre. She was taking a picture of some piece of interesting interior design, and he said something like, "If the owners discovered that their designs had been copied by another casino on the other side of the world, they'd come back here and kill whoever took those photos!" Lovely way for employees of a service industry to speak to their guests and customers.

Wednesday night at GVR, I wandered around snapping shots for 20 minutes or so. Then out of the corner of my eye I noticed a security guy in black walking towards me, but he stopped a short distance away. When I looked around, it seemed to me that he was trying hard to appear as if he were not paying attention to me. After the Red Rock experience, I thought that he must have been sent to stop me, but for some reason felt that he had to catch me in the act. I wandered maybe 50 or 70 feet. I didn't notice him following me, but I didn't look around to check. Clicked off one more picture, then, sure enough, he approached me. "There is no photography allowed on the casino floor." OK. I put my cell phone away. Of course, I already had 20 or so pictures, which is plenty for my purposes.

VegasRex is one of my favorite bloggers about what's going on in this city. He has a ton more experience that I do with the schizophrenic way that casinos deal with people casually taking pictures. Green Valley Ranch got him, too, though with an added touch that wasn't imparted to me (at least not in my presence):

I took pictures all over the casino, but when I snapped the shot above, a
(in)security lady came up to me, and told me that I could not take pictures. I
said “okay, and put my camera away”. [Sic on that misplaced quotation mark. PG.]

Then, she picked up her walkie talkie and said, “One camera warn at station
number 2571″. I don’t remember the number, but it either denoted her employee
number or the location of the “incident”.

Basically, every time a security person annoys someone, they proudly radio
it in so that they will get credit for pissing off a customer. I guess they get
a gold star or something after they annoy the hell out of a certain number of
people.

I get this harassment all the time, but this was the first time I heard the
formality of radioing the “kill” back to headquarters.

As you can see, this is part of why I conclude that the Stations facilities are a lot more paranoid about this than other casinos.

Another time at GVR security followed poor Rex while he was taking pictures from the parking garage, but didn't actually stop him--which is why, combined with the comment from the guy who talked to me, I conclude that their policy pertains only to gambling areas, though they're at least suspicious of it elsewhere.

He also got asked to stop taking pictures at the Luxor:

As I was leaving, I stopped to take one final picture, as a security lady
came over and scolded me. I had taken about 300 pictures in roughly an hour, and
on my way out she finally told me that I could not take pictures inside the
casino. O …. K. So I didn’t get the 301st picture. Once again, that policy is a
complete and utter waste of time, and it’s patently unenforceable. Like Don
Quixote tilting at windmills. But at least it gives “security” something to do
while my bike is being stolen for the second time. I wouldn’t want them to get
caught up in preventing actual malfeasance. I doubt they get paid enough.

It happened again at the Hilton, after its poker room closed:

Don’t you just love what they’ve done with the place?

I went to cash out my Patriots/Eagles ticket today, and got this grainy
cellphone shot.

It is now “Wheel of Fortune World”. I kid you not.

I tried to take another one where the “Wheel of Fortune” is lit up (it
lights on and off from left to right), but the security lady came over and
started screaming at me for aiming my camera at the thing.

Something about Bin Laden using Wheel of Fortune slot machines to take over
the world.I always thought those things were evil.

Seriously, I don’t know what the lady was babbling about other than “you can’t take pictures here!”

At the opening of the Palazzo, the schizophrenia really showed itself:

As for photos …

The first Palazzo security person directed me to the best spots to take pictures, I was then encouraged to take pictures by the casino floor manager, another security person took a picture of me with the gaming machines in the background (”Would you like me to get you in the picture, sir?”), and the 4th security person ran up and told me that there were absolutely no pictures to be taken in the casino at all, and she shadowed me for awhile to make sure that I didn’t. By that time I had already taken several hundred pictures in the casino, so it really didn’t matter.

It just goes to show you that the whole “photography” thing is completely random and up to the discretion of the individual security person you may be speaking with. It makes little to no sense not have a crystal clear posted policy, and you can’t fault the tourists for not knowing what in the hell is going on.

3/4ths of the staff encouraged me to photograph, and one staff member was a real bitch.

And speaking of the whole terrorism angle, as the Hilton woman apparently did, one of his funniest stories is being told he couldn't take pictures of City Center, under construction, because other people seeing him do so apparently worried that he was a terrorist plotting how to blow the thing up. It's too good a story to reduce to an excerpt here, so just go read the whole post.

His strangest story of all, though, is the cocktail waitress at the Venetian who actually threw a glass at him because he had taken her picture, followed by Venetian security guys acting like complete morons about the whole situation. Again, too good a story to condense--go read here.

Over the following few days, however, Rex took pictures not just inside of the Flamingo and MGM, but had cocktail waitresses and showgirls cheerfully pose for him. The inconsistency from place to place and from day to day and from one employee to another even on the same day perfectly illustrates how completely insane the whole thing is.

Here's the core of Rex's comment on the stupidity being displayed:

There were no signs preventing photography, and as has been discussed before, taking pictures in such areas is not illegal. Some security people say “go ahead” and some ask you to stop. It is really just the luck of the draw. Taking pictures inside of any Vegas casino is not illegal.

99% of people really aren’t sure what the law regarding photography is in private buildings (although they act like they know), so here is a very brief primer. It is not comprehensive, but is just a general guideline.

http://www.krages.com/ThePhotographersRight.pdf

It is not illegal to take pictures in the casino. It is illegal to keep taking pictures if they ask you to stop. If they ask me to stop, I do stop. But there is no posted policy in the casino, and if you ask around to the employees, you will get different answers from different people. Some employees have encouraged me to take pictures. One time a pit boss instructed a dealer to pose for me. It just varies day to day as to what the “policy” is. Sometimes you are invited to take them, sometimes they just ignore you, and sometimes they ask you to stop. I just do what they ask me to do, if they ask me to do anything at all. It’s a humongous “grey” area in which you might violate the wishes of certain people … but you violate no laws.

...

I have had my photo taken thousands of times in this town without my permission. It is part of being out and about in Vegas. And it almost always occurs on private property. I’ve had my picture taken at the Bellagio Conservatory probably 50 times while I was milling about. Nobody ever asked me if it was okay. Being in a publicly accessible place implies consent, and I don’t expect them to ask me.

I have a lot of pictures of the Rio performers. I never stopped the show to
ask if I could take their pictures, I just took them … along with hundreds of
other people. And most cocktail waitresses will gladly give you a smile. They
are part of the entertainment, and they (should) know it.

I have pictures of the Sirens of TI, Venetian gondoliers, Bally’s
Showgirls, ride operators at Circus Circus, doormen, cab jockeys, monorail
ambassadors, etc, etc, etc.

Hell, the girls at hooters smile and pose when they see a camera come
out:
http://www.vegasrex.com/2007/12/10/hooters-girls-and-cowboys//

Why?

Because it’s Las Fucking Vegas. You are going to get on film, and it doesn’t make one shit’s bit of difference if you want to be or not. Big cameras, small cameras, pen cameras, cellphone cameras, everybody has some kind of camera with them 24/7 … welcome to 2008.

If you have an aversion to being on film … don’t come here. You may
know it, you may not know it, but someone is going home with a picture of you. I
hate to break it to Ms. Bad Aim, but she has been photographed eight bazillion
times, probably without her knowledge.

I could not possibly say it better.

Other than the sensibilities of certain delicate guests, are there other legitimate reasons a casino might want to prohibit photography on its property? Here are the ones I can think of:

1) I once heard a poker dealer tell somebody who asked about taking pictures that flash photography, at least, was forbidden because it could temporarily blind the video surveillance cameras. OK. If that's true, it at least makes sense, though I really think that it's an awfully minor consideration. But so far neither my experience or that of anybody else I've heard from or read about finds the casinos making a distinction between picture-taking with versus without flash.

2) There's the intellectual property theft angle, alluded to by the maintenance guy at Red Rock. That's completely bogus, because if somebody wanted to copy a design, he or she could. They are not copyrighted or trademarked (for the most part, and no other casino would want to copy the portions that are). Somebody could come in and sketch whatever he or she was interested in, or just memorize what it looked like and sketch it later. You can't prevent copying, as fashion designers see every year when knockoffs come out the day after a dress is worn at a runway show or Hollywood premiere. Furthermore, with the availability of tiny, completely concealable cameras, anybody who seriously wanted to photograph a piece of the interior of a casino would be able to do so with impunity, unharassed by security. It's only those of us who are casual and willing to be obvious about it that get hassled.

3) Could somebody be scoping out the place in order to plan a robbery, a la "Ocean's Eleven"? I suppose so, but the same considerations come into play as above. You can't stop a determined group of people from making their dastardly plans; you simply prompt them use other means, such as making sketches or using surreptitious photography.

If there are other possible justifications for prohibiting photography inside of a casino, I can't think of them.

Balanced against those pretty weak excuses is the ill will caused by stopping people from doing what they want to do, when it hurts nobody. People like to take pictures--especially people on vacation, having fun, visiting an unfamiliar new place. Hell, when they get home and share pictures of their trip with family and friends, and post them online, it's free advertising for the casinos. What's more, there are many attractions both inside and outside of casinos that seem like obvious invitations for visitors to take pictures: the Rio Masquerade show, the "dealertainers" at Imperial Palace, the "flair" bartenders you find all over the place, showgirls handing out flyers advertising the available entertainment, attractive young female dealers provocatively dressed (the Pussycat Pit at Caesars, the Pleasure Pit at Planet Hollywood, the Burlesque X girls at Flamingo, the Playboy bunny dealers at Palms), and so forth. Insinuating that people are doing something evil by taking photos alienates and annoys them for no good reason.

I wish the casinos would give up on this particular manifestation of insanity, and leave the craziness to the tourists, who pay for the privilege.

Crying over spilled milk (and other beverages)

Last night I took my second shot at the $40 Wednesday night HORSE tournament at Green Valley Ranch.

I was the first one to take my seat. Then a woman sat down on my right. She had a beer in a large glass. She tried to set it in the table's built-in cupholder, but it was too big. It just sat precariously on the rim of the cupholder, in what was quite obviously an even less stable position than if it were flat on the table. As soon as she let go of it, apparently satisfied with her solution to the problem, I thought, "That's gonna spill, and it's gonna get on me." I almost said something to her about it, then suppressed it, thinking that I was going to have to be six inches away from her for a long time, and that wasn't a very friendly way to start things off. I hate being confrontational.

No more than 60 seconds later, she stood to take off her coat, and, sure enough, she managed to plop the whole thing into her lap. It was less disastrous for me than I had imagined, fortunately. I just got some splashed on my leg and on the chair. But still I had to take a few trips to the desk for tissues to sop it up. My friend Eric arrived just then, planning to enter the same tournament. I'm afraid I wasn't very good company, being plenty peeved at the moron who was sitting next to me and distracted by the task of trying to clean up just as they were getting ready to deal the first hand.

I mean, is this woman really so stupid as to not be able to anticipate what was going to happen with a full glass of beer perched in a manifestly unstable situation? Even if she has personally never spilled a drink at a poker table before, surely she has seen others do it. One of the benefits of a large cerebral cortex is supposed to be that in addition to learning from our own experiences, we can learn things to either do or avoid doing by observing the experiences of others. This is why we do things like buckle seat belts, even if we ourselves have never been seriously injured in a car crash. Maybe the woman I saw last night has had a lobotomy and has thus lost this capability, which evolution spent a few million years developing for us.

Look, I love it when my opponents drink. If you want to handicap yourself by voluntarily ingesting a chemical that will impair your vision, judgment, memory, and analytical ability, and then play poker with me, be my guest. I even grudgingly accept that drunk players occasionally toppling over their drinks in a stupor is a practically inevitable consequence of their excessive imbibing.

But this woman was, as far as I could tell, completely sober, having just received her first beer of the night. She can't write this off to alcohol-induced lack of coordination. No, it was just simple stupidity, an inability to foresee even the most obvious of short-term future consequences.

It's not that she's unique. Nearly every day I shake my head at the foolish obliviousness to blindingly obvious danger that some people exhibit--driving with a toddler in one's lap, sitting on the edge of the bed of a pickup truck going down the highway, riding a motorcycle without a helmet, composing text messages while driving, etc.

Oh, and while I'm ranting here, how about a dope slap for the casino executives who decided to have drinks served in glasses larger than the cupholders they have in their tables (or, to look at it the other way, who order poker tables with cupholders smaller than the glasses in which they serve drinks)? [Knocking on their heads like Biff in "Back to the Future"] Hello? Is anybody in there?

The annoyance of the whole mess is directly proportionate to how patently foreseeable and avoidable it was.

Grrrrrrrrr.

HORSEing around

Wednesday night I spread my wings a bit again: I entered my first live HORSE tournament. Green Valley Ranch has one every Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. for only $45. (Well, technically it's $40, but there's a $5 add-on at the beginning that everybody takes.)

GVR is a pretty nice room. It's comfortable, smoke-free, has good dealers, and, as far as I can tell, is well run (though there are definitely conflicting reports on this count on allvegaspoker.com). For me the only problems are (1) it's too far away from where I live, and (2) it has a very low tourist:local ratio. Since there are plenty of fishier waters within a much shorter drive, I just don't have much reason to head out that way. Too bad, because it's the kind of place I would definitely make a home out of if not for those two big negatives.

But this HORSE tournament will probably give me more reason to visit Henderson than I've had. I enjoyed myself quite a bit. I've now done 107 online single-table HORSE tournaments, and it appears that they have prepared me reasonably well. I doubt that anybody at my table would have guessed it was my first time doing one live. My favorite dealer from Bill's was, by coincidence, also playing at my table, which added a bit of fun.

I finished about 10th out of maybe 20 or so runners (two tables, with a couple of alternates coming in late). Nothing spectacular. But I had been 2nd in chips at my table for much of it--propelled primarily by one hand early in the first razz round in which I made a wheel at the same time as another guy made a 7-4, and we kept raising and reraising each other. I knocked him out. My chip lead swung way over into short-stack range, though, on two hands just before the first break. First, one opponent just wouldn't fold his pocket kings despite an ace and possible flush on the board. Of course, I didn't actually have him beat, but he should have believed that I did, dammit! :-) Then in a stud round my jack-high flush got sunk by an ace-high flush.

The average age of entrants was over 50, I'm sure. In terms of skill, I had no trouble keeping up with the table. I couldn't peg anybody as being obviously better overall than I was, despite the fact that I went into this prepared to be the least experienced HORSE player there. It was 100% straightforward, level-1 play--nothing fancy or tricky going on at all, as far as I could tell. Bet or call or raise if you have something, check or fold if you don't. In hold'em and razz, the two games in which I have enough experience to make some reasonable degree of judgment about relative ability of opponents, the skill level was pretty pathetic--about what you'd expect in a typical $2-4 game.

The only problems I had with the mechanics of the game were (1) some difficulty seeing opponents' up cards in stud games, because I was at one end of the longish table, and (2) one time forgetting to return my cards to the dealer in an Omaha round (a real amateur move, that).

The dealers, by the way, were great. I couldn't detect any weakness in any of them dealing any of the games. Of course, that is what one should be able to expect, but it is not a foregone conclusion in this hold'em-dominated age.

I viewed this as a trial run--test the waters, see if I'm really ready, be sure the mechanics aren't handicapping me or showing me up as a noob. I held up well enough that the next time I enter, it will be with the thought that I should have a reasonable shot to cash in the thing.


When it was over, I headed down the road a piece to Club Fortune. It's been more than a year since my only previous visit there. As I reported at the time, they were in the midst of constructing a new poker room. I wanted to see what they made of it. Answer: Nothing. There are still three tables stuck in the dead center of the casino floor. Nobody was playing. A dealer was putting some decks of cards into order. It looked basically the same as I remembered from 13 months earlier. Back then, they had said they would have the new room in a couple of months. I have to assume, then, that those plans got cancelled. It couldn't possibly still be under construction after this much time.