Okay this is going to be long, and I hope it pays off for you... After years of no regular poker games, around August I finally cracked the local home game scene (illegal in my home state so tough to get invites as the new guy). Anyway I ran good for four months and decided it was time for another Vegas trip. In the meantime I also started a home game so I went to dig out my old Milanos and found out that they were most likely stolen by one of my son's friends at some point (TEENS!!!!!!). Oh well, time for new chips. I just bought some blank Majestics that I planned to custom label, but it became obvious to me after I joined this site that that would not do at all.
So now I'm in the middle of designing a CPC set to last my game forever, but I figured hey, if I run good in Vegas I should just harvest a set of live chips as a temporary fun set to tide me over. Plus I love the idea of harvesting chips, it's like I'm in a heist movie or something. Dumb, I know, but it sounds fun.
I'd never gone to Vegas alone, always with either friends who like to be ballers (I am not a baller) or with work where there's not much free time. So my trip was designed from the start to be alone, and I booked Mon-Thursday at Bally's/Horseshoe because it's a great location and super super cheap in January, especially weekdays. Coincidentally, two days after I booked, my baller friends all said they were going for the preceding weekend, so of course I just extended to join them Saturday.
I arrived Saturday and met them at Aria where we played for like six hours and I lost about $100. Football was great (I won the 1st half Chiefs cover + over parlay!) but poker was all dead cards. Dinner was going to be late (Barry's at Circa), so we went to the 1/2 Golden Nugget uncapped game for a few hours before dinner. I don't know if the Nugget game is normally like this, but it was like a time machine brought us back to 2005. Half the table bought in for the minimum and didn't know how to post blinds and said "raise" instead of "bet" and vice versa while the other half of the table bought in for like $500-$1k and just sat there stonefaced. Except for one guy who was the table D-bag. Screwing with the dealers and other players. It was just stupid fun for him, but he ended up just killing the whole vibe so we racked up early (I was up $2 on the session WOOO!) and walked around Circa instead of watching the Eagles just crush the Giants.
Barry's was excellent as expected, and we were ballers. $200 down for my steak, sides, and dessert and I only had one beer (I had about 8 before this). We got high and floated our way back to Vdara where my buddies were staying (again, ballers).
Sunday morning they all got onto early flights and I was on my own and walked over to the Horseshoe and put myself on the list just in time for the Bengals/Bills game to start. I walked over to the cashier to sign up for a players card and this happened. I had planned on harvesting the $1's and $5's at Horseshoe if I liked them in person (mostly because they'd all be brand new and it would be super easy), but this weird cashout thing spooked me a little bit, like what if I get these home and months later they do something weird with their chips and cashout procedures? Plus they don't seem popular for resale on PCF so whatever. Anyway, the answer on where to play was even easier when I found out the entire place's cable tv was out so no NFL playoffs for anyone. Ouch... So I thought what the heck, and walked over to Caesars since I knew they had a huge sports book next to the poker room and football would be on 100%. I'd figure something out from there.
I had no real interest in harvesting Caesar's chips going in. I figured they'd all be old and worn out and really hard to get good numbers of decent chips. And I've always disliked hot stamps. But I realized the only reason I did was that every one I've ever seen in person was both old and worn out along with having a simple and boring stamp on it, like just the denom number. So when I saw the Caesars hot stamped $1's all new and bright and shiny I knew these would be part of my set for sure.
Then after playing with the $5's for a few hours they really grew on me too.
So that settled that. The hot stamped $1's account for around 2/3 of the $1's I saw, so they were plentiful, and they're all very good condition, imo. So I kept every one I could. A few friendly rivers and I was up $608 so I figured these were all just free at that point. Ha! I had two dealers ask if I wanted to color up my $1's. I said "No thanks, they're too pretty."
The $5's on the other hand needed some sorting. Probably half of them are pretty rounded and warped. I wasn't super picky since this isn't some lifelong set I'm after, so I just took the last orbit of play to sort them into yes or no. Then cashed out with very full pockets. Ha!
Here's what the $5's I kept look like:
So that was fun! It is like everyone says, the poker rooms are easy to get chips. But after researching harvesting I'd had it in my head to try getting some from a craps table. I've never played craps but it always looks fun, and I found out that Ellis Island has a $5 table so let's give it a go!
I never even looked at Ellis Island chips before, but when I got there OMG this is going to fit perfectly for me now!
So the plan became Caesar's $1 hot stamps as my frac, Ellis Island $1 hot stamps as my $1, and the Caesar's $5's. I don't think the denom on the blue will matter in play, those just *look* like fracs so it should be easy to keep track of. Anyway, an hour and a half later I was down $100 on the table, but I had 29 of these in my pockets.
Day 1 of harvesting went much better than I expected, especially considering I had no idea what I wanted to harvest when I started.
I'll spare you too many details of day 2 (Monday), but here are the highlights:
I had several hours of work that popped up so I didn't get going until around 4pm (boo!). And Soule Bird at Aria has an amazing Korean chicken sandwich, $15 well spent
I repeated my Ellis Island harvest plan (got more than the day before, also lost more at craps...oh well) and headed to Caesar's again.
I met my new best friend at the Caesar's poker cage. The room was busy but the cage wasn't. After putting my name on the list I walked over and asked if I could buy some of "those shiny blue $1's." She gave me a weird look and asked how many. I said "sixty?" She said "how about twenty?" -- "That would be wonderful! Thank you!" $2 tip
Ten minutes later my name is called so I buy in at the cage, same person. "I'll take $500, and is it too soon to ask for more of those $1's?" She gave a weird look, shook her head, and started sorting out twenty hot stamps. $3 tip. I pocketed $180 in reds to sort through later and sat at 1/3.
Pro tip in harvesting poker chips... If you just run really good it's super easy to build huge stacks of them. I was only there two hours and had KK get paid on an AQTKK board. The guy had a J so I needed the river to scoop. Yay!!!
A little bit later, and I admittedly was pretty drunk, I had AcQc and the board went Jc98KcTc. The pot wasn't that big, but I bet $40 on the river and got two callers. I said "I have a straight... no, a flush... no, A ROYAL!!!!" Yes, I honestly did not see the runner-runner clubs that made me a royal. At least my image as the drunken idiot was intact. I ended up recording +$302 for the session, but honestly it was easy to mix up what I bought in for and what I cashed out for since I had so many extra chips in my pockets, it might've been more. Good problem to have I guess, lol.
Either way my haul for two days looks very good! I'm here through Thursday so I'll update with any new craziness.
So now I'm in the middle of designing a CPC set to last my game forever, but I figured hey, if I run good in Vegas I should just harvest a set of live chips as a temporary fun set to tide me over. Plus I love the idea of harvesting chips, it's like I'm in a heist movie or something. Dumb, I know, but it sounds fun.
I'd never gone to Vegas alone, always with either friends who like to be ballers (I am not a baller) or with work where there's not much free time. So my trip was designed from the start to be alone, and I booked Mon-Thursday at Bally's/Horseshoe because it's a great location and super super cheap in January, especially weekdays. Coincidentally, two days after I booked, my baller friends all said they were going for the preceding weekend, so of course I just extended to join them Saturday.
I arrived Saturday and met them at Aria where we played for like six hours and I lost about $100. Football was great (I won the 1st half Chiefs cover + over parlay!) but poker was all dead cards. Dinner was going to be late (Barry's at Circa), so we went to the 1/2 Golden Nugget uncapped game for a few hours before dinner. I don't know if the Nugget game is normally like this, but it was like a time machine brought us back to 2005. Half the table bought in for the minimum and didn't know how to post blinds and said "raise" instead of "bet" and vice versa while the other half of the table bought in for like $500-$1k and just sat there stonefaced. Except for one guy who was the table D-bag. Screwing with the dealers and other players. It was just stupid fun for him, but he ended up just killing the whole vibe so we racked up early (I was up $2 on the session WOOO!) and walked around Circa instead of watching the Eagles just crush the Giants.
Barry's was excellent as expected, and we were ballers. $200 down for my steak, sides, and dessert and I only had one beer (I had about 8 before this). We got high and floated our way back to Vdara where my buddies were staying (again, ballers).
Sunday morning they all got onto early flights and I was on my own and walked over to the Horseshoe and put myself on the list just in time for the Bengals/Bills game to start. I walked over to the cashier to sign up for a players card and this happened. I had planned on harvesting the $1's and $5's at Horseshoe if I liked them in person (mostly because they'd all be brand new and it would be super easy), but this weird cashout thing spooked me a little bit, like what if I get these home and months later they do something weird with their chips and cashout procedures? Plus they don't seem popular for resale on PCF so whatever. Anyway, the answer on where to play was even easier when I found out the entire place's cable tv was out so no NFL playoffs for anyone. Ouch... So I thought what the heck, and walked over to Caesars since I knew they had a huge sports book next to the poker room and football would be on 100%. I'd figure something out from there.
I had no real interest in harvesting Caesar's chips going in. I figured they'd all be old and worn out and really hard to get good numbers of decent chips. And I've always disliked hot stamps. But I realized the only reason I did was that every one I've ever seen in person was both old and worn out along with having a simple and boring stamp on it, like just the denom number. So when I saw the Caesars hot stamped $1's all new and bright and shiny I knew these would be part of my set for sure.
Then after playing with the $5's for a few hours they really grew on me too.
So that settled that. The hot stamped $1's account for around 2/3 of the $1's I saw, so they were plentiful, and they're all very good condition, imo. So I kept every one I could. A few friendly rivers and I was up $608 so I figured these were all just free at that point. Ha! I had two dealers ask if I wanted to color up my $1's. I said "No thanks, they're too pretty."
The $5's on the other hand needed some sorting. Probably half of them are pretty rounded and warped. I wasn't super picky since this isn't some lifelong set I'm after, so I just took the last orbit of play to sort them into yes or no. Then cashed out with very full pockets. Ha!
Here's what the $5's I kept look like:
So that was fun! It is like everyone says, the poker rooms are easy to get chips. But after researching harvesting I'd had it in my head to try getting some from a craps table. I've never played craps but it always looks fun, and I found out that Ellis Island has a $5 table so let's give it a go!
I never even looked at Ellis Island chips before, but when I got there OMG this is going to fit perfectly for me now!
So the plan became Caesar's $1 hot stamps as my frac, Ellis Island $1 hot stamps as my $1, and the Caesar's $5's. I don't think the denom on the blue will matter in play, those just *look* like fracs so it should be easy to keep track of. Anyway, an hour and a half later I was down $100 on the table, but I had 29 of these in my pockets.
Day 1 of harvesting went much better than I expected, especially considering I had no idea what I wanted to harvest when I started.
I'll spare you too many details of day 2 (Monday), but here are the highlights:
I had several hours of work that popped up so I didn't get going until around 4pm (boo!). And Soule Bird at Aria has an amazing Korean chicken sandwich, $15 well spent
I repeated my Ellis Island harvest plan (got more than the day before, also lost more at craps...oh well) and headed to Caesar's again.
I met my new best friend at the Caesar's poker cage. The room was busy but the cage wasn't. After putting my name on the list I walked over and asked if I could buy some of "those shiny blue $1's." She gave me a weird look and asked how many. I said "sixty?" She said "how about twenty?" -- "That would be wonderful! Thank you!" $2 tip
Ten minutes later my name is called so I buy in at the cage, same person. "I'll take $500, and is it too soon to ask for more of those $1's?" She gave a weird look, shook her head, and started sorting out twenty hot stamps. $3 tip. I pocketed $180 in reds to sort through later and sat at 1/3.
Pro tip in harvesting poker chips... If you just run really good it's super easy to build huge stacks of them. I was only there two hours and had KK get paid on an AQTKK board. The guy had a J so I needed the river to scoop. Yay!!!
A little bit later, and I admittedly was pretty drunk, I had AcQc and the board went Jc98KcTc. The pot wasn't that big, but I bet $40 on the river and got two callers. I said "I have a straight... no, a flush... no, A ROYAL!!!!" Yes, I honestly did not see the runner-runner clubs that made me a royal. At least my image as the drunken idiot was intact. I ended up recording +$302 for the session, but honestly it was easy to mix up what I bought in for and what I cashed out for since I had so many extra chips in my pockets, it might've been more. Good problem to have I guess, lol.
Either way my haul for two days looks very good! I'm here through Thursday so I'll update with any new craziness.
). The home games have been great, but there's something about running into strangers and figuring out their play styles and adjusting and the challenge of staying sharp. And I truly enjoy the random banter and chatter at the the table. Some of the most interesting stories and people I've ever met were at a poker table.
