New poker room at Sunset Station

I read somewhere recently that Sunset Station had moved its poker room since the last time I was out there, so I decided to give it a look today.

My first gripe is that the room is hard to find. I went in through the entrance that was closest to the old room, and actually went to the old room to see what had become of it. (Looks like they're turning it into theater space, but it's unfinished so hard to tell for sure.) I expected there to be a sign inviting guests to the new room, with map and/or directions. There was none. So I started wandering to my left. Wrong choice. I had to go nearly the entire perimeter of the casino before I found even a sign pointing to the new room. They have not lifted a finger to help people find the new room.

It's by the sports book. The old room was really nice, I thought, for a locals casino. It had my rare "category 1" rating for being smoke-free, one of only three rooms in the city physically set off from the smoking section. That is no longer the case. Now it's open to the casino on two of four sides, with the consequent intrusion of noise and smoke. It wasn't bad, but the casino was pretty dead. When it's busier, that might be a real problem. It has now been bumped down to a "category 3." The old room had a luxurious amount of space between tables, a rare treat these days. That, too, is now gone. They're not uncomfortably crowded, but there isn't the freedom and ease of movement that used to exist.

I do like that they have doughnuts available for players. Nice touch. They also have a water cooler. I wish all poker rooms did. In the ones that do, I can order one bottle of water from the cocktail waitress, then refill it as needed myself. That not only saves on tips, but on plastic going into landfills. (Yeah, I could just start off with a Styrofoam cup of water from the cooler, but I much prefer drinking from a bottle, and being able to keep the cap on, to keep crap out and to prevent spills.)

They have what appear to be new tables, or at least newly redone tables. Exceptionally nice. Roomy enough, built-in cupholders, well-padded rail, beautiful felt of a sort of pumpkin color, autoshufflers. Chairs are better than average, too--rolling, adjustable for height and back rake.

When I arrived at about 6 pm, there were two tables of $4-8 limit hold'em, and that was all. Within ten minutes or so they started a third table of the same, which I joined, while still having my name on a NLHE interest list. That game finally got started at about 7:45. They wouldn't start it until they had seven players committed to it, which seems pretty nitty to me.

The limit game was just insanely profitable. You've likely heard that a good player can expect to make about one big bet per hour, which would be $8. Well, I made $160 in less than two hours--well above my average take for no-limit games. Practically everybody at the table knew each other well. I was the stranger, which probably made it easier to get paid off with my good hands (both the intrinsically strong ones and the tricky little ones that hit just right), because they didn't know what to expect from me.

As is sadly common at locals poker rooms where everybody knows each other, the players and dealers care not one whit about hands being freely discussed as they are played. Players openly announce what they folded, what they think other people are holding, etc. I didn't even bother to protest, since this was clearly the culture, and I would have been imposing on it. I'm not at all sure the dealers would have done anything even if I had spoken up. But it's a huge turn-off for me, and one of the reasons that I won't be going back there very often.

All in all, this is nowhere near the worst room in town, but it's also no longer one of the nicer ones, as it used to be. It's well out of my way to get there, and now I have even less reason to look forward to playing there than I did before. And, frankly, they were not particularly welcoming, with the exception of one dealer who really did go out of her way to notice that I was unfamiliar to her, and chat me up. I suppose I'll hit the place once or twice a year, when I have some other reason to be in Henderson, but can't see it being worth the effort to get there more than that.

Above are a few photos I snapped before they asked me to stop--something about worrying that some players might not want their picture taken. Too bad.

I think I'm going to throw up

Earlier this week I was playing at Sunset Station. Two middle-aged women, obviously friends, got some food delivered to the table and started sharing it. They were on the other end of the table, and the little cart with their meal on it was behind them, so I couldn't see exactly what they were eating, but it was some sort of finger food. They didn't wash their hands--just dug right in. They, when it was their turn to play, they'd LICK THEIR FINGERS OFF and resume play, as if nothing had happened.

It makes me nauseous just thinking about it.

How can people be so clueless? Poker chips and cards are filthy, disgusting things. Pick up any chip, and you can see globs of crud adhering to it. ("Table boogers," I once heard a dealer fittingly call them.) I know all too well that the majority of men leaving the public restrooms in casinos haven't washed their hands. Whatever is now on their hands, from their butts and genitals, gets spread all over the chips and cards.

And then you ladies want to handle those chips and cards for a few hours, then pick up and ingest food without first washing your hands, and then, to top it all off, LICK YOUR FINGERS??????????? What the hell is wrong with you? Are you just mentally ill?

Here's an interesting article from Bluff magazine about an experiment to determine the bacterial inhabitants of Vegas poker chips: http://www.bluffmagazine.com/magazine/2007/02/2007_02_54.asp. I only wish they had tested for viruses as well as bacteria.

And have you two ladies never, ever seen guys who openly pick their noses at the table? I have, many times, in a series of images that are seared into my retinas. Coincidentally, here's Daniel Negreanu's video blog from just yesterday, in which he discusses Mike Matusow doing the same thing--and the camera pans over to Mike, who freely admits he goes digging for gold openly, and doesn't care who sees it or knows about it: http://www.rawvegas.tv/watch.php?vID=6259beb58303c9d0ed2626fbab1eb6. Trust me: Mike is not alone in his lack of discretion about this activity.

So these ladies handle the chips and cards that have players' snot dribbled about on them, and then LICK THEIR FINGERS! Perhaps they think, somehow, that the rest of us sharing those cards and chips really, really want these women's saliva added to the already disgusting blend of crud we have to touch.

I remember an episode of Bravo's "Celebrity Poker Showdown" featuring the famously germophobic Howie Mandel. It was seriously bothering him to be handling the cards and chips, so he passed out latex gloves for everybody to wear. It was funny, but it was also pretty clear that this wasn't just a joke for him--he really couldn't handle thinking about all the microbes that were getting passed around. I'm not a germophobe--really--I just have a decent understanding of and healthy suspicion of the microbial flora that will invariably contaminate objects that get handled by so many members of the general public, many (most?) of whom have highly questionable habits of personal hygiene.

I'm not advocating that poker rooms hand out or require the use of rubber gloves while playing. But common sense suggests that one take care not to touch anything the cleanliness of which you care about (like, say, your face, or your food) after handling such manifestly foul things as poker cards and chips, without first washing one's hands pretty thoroughly.

Lordy, lordy, lordy--there's just no understanding some people's lack of good sense.

Addendum, May 6, 2011

I see that the link to the Bluff magazine piece no longer works. Here's the new link to get to the article: http://www.bluffmagazine.com/magazine/Dirty-Vegas--Bluff-Staff-750.htm