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My wife's New Year's Resolution for 2006 is to learn how to play poker. I've been playing for a few years and she thought it would be a good idea to give it a try, if for nothing else but to pick up a hobby we could do together. When she told me of her resolution and asked if I would teach her to play, I was happy to oblige. A week later I planned a weekend road trip to Vegas to give the wife a crash course in low-limit hold'em.
Though we stayed at the LV Hilton, we didn't play any poker there. I've read that their poker room was a mediocre room for beginners, so we just steered clear of it. I brought the wife downtown to the Golden Nugget for their 11am lesson. If you travel to Vegas with any poker virgins who want to get in the game, I highly recommend you bring them to GN. A veteran dealer named Robert Gillmer gave a very thorough lesson, and my wife learned the basics from him pretty well.
We were going to play a little 2/4 after the lesson, but GN's daily tournament was starting and the only 2/4 table broke up. We skipped Binion's because I heard there were too many local rocks there, and the wife nixed playing at The Plaza because she didn't like the smell (must be a woman thing). Anxious to get on a table, we headed back down to the Strip and jumped on a 2/4 table at Imperial Palace. Played for about 2 hours there. Me +$85, Wife -$80. She didn't quite get the hang of what "tight/aggressive" meant yet, having played a number of very speculative hands out of position (e.g. K/3o, Q/5s). Of course, half the table was playing the same sort of junk. The wife just didn't happen to get lucky with her junk like they did.
Feeling a bit dejected after her first foray into live table action didn't go so well, the wife retreated back to her usual slots/video roulette routine for a while. Later that night, I hit a 3/6 table at Paris. Good mix of locals and tourists. Walked away +$20 after a couple of hours.
The next morning, the wife awoke with a renewed interest in hitting the tables. We ventured down to Luxor after lunch and played 2/4 for about 3 hours. Though we were at different tables, we both got rocked by incredibly loose tourists calling practically every hand down to the river. I've never seen so much junk turn into runner-runner straights in my life. Me -$140, Wife -$120.
After that fiasco, we took a break from playing and decided to check out some other poker rooms on the Strip just to see if they lived up to the rave reviews. Caesars was amazing. Great room, very plush. Same goes for Wynn's. I can see why the 4/8 list was about 20+ deep. The chairs looked very comfy. Wife is anxious to get back to Vegas soon to try them out.
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