I took it easy the first couple of days.

I arrived in Tunica early Monday evening, and checked in at the Gold Strike, a relatively high-end hotel where the $25 room rate for poker players is a bargain. The first thing I did was head next door to the Horseshoe to check out the new Diamond Lounge for VIP players (when Harrah’s opened up their new poker room in St. Louis this past March, the casino had given all of the $30/$60 and pot-limit Omaha players Diamond Cards to convince us to move our games over their from Ameristar; since I will never in a million years give enough action to the casino to actually warrant such a card, I plan on abusing the privileges until mine expires next March).

In contrast to the Diamond Lounge in St. Louis -- which is a complete joke, with leftover food from the buffet, no service, drinks you have to pay for, and cookies that my one-year-old niece could probably make for dessert -- the Diamond Lounge at the Horseshoe (also owned by Harrah’s) is very classy, with new plasma TVs, cocktail waitresses, free drinks, tasty bite-sized quesadillas, an assortment of fancy desserts, and a bathroom I’d gladly take a shit in. I treated myself to all of the above, and watched the first quarter of the Falcons-Saints game on the 50-inch plasma.

At around 9 p.m., I drove over to the Grand where the WSOP Circuit tournaments were being held. The side-action was pretty sparse -- there was a $20/$40 hold’em game, and a bunch of $2/$5 NL games. Well, I can get the NL games at home, and I would be fifth or sixth on the list for the other game, and none of the Omaha games were running; I didn’t really feel like waiting or playing all night, so I decided to screw it and head back to the Horseshoe.

At the ‘Shoe, I ended up playing some short-handed $10/$20 hold’em for about an hour, and won $62. Next, I went over to one of the $25 single-deck blackjack tables -- one of the best games around, and a piece of cake to beat, so long as you don’t abuse to privileges -- and won $135 in about 20 minutes before deciding to move on.

To cap the night, I went next door to the Sheraton, which is an exceptionally quiet slot joint acquired by Harrah’s in the Caesars deal (along with the Grand). I went upstairs, whipped out a San Cristobal de la Habana, sparked it and put $20 in a penny slot. I was pretty much the only one up there, so I could hear the actual sounds of the individual slots for the first time in my life. What’s more, between Ghost Island, Turkey Shoot, and some Dragon’s Quest game, I couldn’t lose. I hit the bonus rounds almost immediately in all of them, and won $45. I took it as a sign of things to come.


Tuesday: Graceland
Now I had been to Tunica/Memphis maybe a dozen times before, but I had never been to Graceland. I figure since I am going to be here until Friday, I might as well mix things up a bit and finally do it. So I went.

I spent all of Tuesday afternoon in Graceland. Elvis’ house is pretty modest compared to my expectations, but I’d probably do OK living in it. The collection of cars in his car museum is acceptable as well. As my mother is a Elvis fan and her birthday is coming up, I picked up a Graceland-exclusive box set of Elvis DVDs -- not cheap, but I only have mother, so what the hey.

I ate a late lunch in one of the Graceland restaurants, and left at around 5:00 p.m.


Back to Tunica
Tomorrow’s WSOP event is a $300 + $40 buy-in event, and I thought it might worth trying it out. So when I got back to Tunica, I took a quick shower and went over to the Grand to register for the tournament and check out the games.

But by the time I got there, it is already too late; the registration desk was closed for the evening, and I will have to wait until tomorrow to register. As for the live action, this time they had a $10/$20 Omaha Hi/Lo game going, but there were several people on the list and I didn’t feel like waiting. Like the previous evening, I decided to head back to the Horseshoe, planning to come back to the Grand early on Wednesday.

The ‘Shoe was a bit of a wash. The $10/$20 hold’em game wasn’t running, and the biggest Omaha Hi/Lo game they normally run is $4/$8, but that game wasn’t going, and wouldn’t really be worth my time anyway. They had the pot-limit Omaha game going, but it was $5/$10/$25 blinds with a $2000 minimum buy-in -- a little bit big of a game for my tastes. I watched the game for a minute; when I turned around, I noticed that Sidney -- a player and former dealer from St. Louis that I had played pot-limit Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo, and H.O.R.S.E. with -- was sitting in the $1-$5 Stud game. I went over and said “Hi.”

Sidney had arrived Sunday, and played in both the $300 and $500 buy-in tournaments on Monday and Tuesday, respectively. He said there were like 900 people for the $300 buy-in tourney, and -- like at Caesars this time last year -- only 60 tables or so. He also suggested that I get over to the Grand before 9 a.m. to register; well, I am definitely not getting up before 9 a.m., and I definitely don’t care to do the whole alternate thing again. I decide to screw it.

There was an open seat in one of the $20/$40 hold’em games, and I try it out. I had heard that there was considerable action in it; there was, the problem being was that these guys were really pretty good. Plus I hadn’t played $20/$40 since we moved the game to Harrah’s and changed the game to $30/$60 with a half-kill, so my limit hold’em game isn’t all that sharp, either. I played for about half an hour; I was up $1 after stealing a couple of pots, and felt pretty good about it.

Anyway, it was midnight and I hadn’t eaten dinner yet, so I got a comp for the buffet. After dinner, I found an open seat in the Stud game with Sidney. I almost never play Stud, since we don’t have a regular game in St. Louis. I sat down and played for a couple of hours, got ahead early, but lost a couple of relatively (relative to the miniscule size of the game, that is) big pots and ended up a $10 loser. At least the drunk Indian dude next to me was very entertaining.

On the walk back to my hotel room, I found an empty $25 single-deck blackjack table at the Gold Strike. The casino must be pretty paranoid about counters, because despite the fact that I was playing heads up with the dealer, he was only dealing three hands before shuffling. Still, three hands is plenty enough for me to beat him in the long run; I played for a little bit and made out with a small $40 win.

Through two days, I hadn’t really done much of anything. The heavy lifting begins tomorrow.