Vegas -- The price of poker has gone up

K Rose: hahaha i have to work for my money and you play for your moeny
life's not fair

LAS VEGAS -- So it's the afternoon at Bally's and I look down at something that looks funny in the rake drop.

It's a red chip.

WTF?

It seems that Bally's Las Vegas, or maybe its parent company, Harrah's, has decided to break the uneasy truce of rake in the city -- in most places, including Bally's sister casino, Flamingo, it's $4 max rake.

This is $5 max rake plus a $1 jackpot drop. That's $6 max each hand, or about .60 per player per hand. Estimate 30 hands an hour, you're going to have to beat paying $18 an hour just to beat the NL$1/2 game.

I hadn't even thought about whether the NL$1/2 game is winnable in the long-term, no matter how many donkeys play in the game. Even at the previous $4 max rake plus $1 drop, maybe it isn't.

I'm at the airport right now, closing out a (slightly) winning trip. The Biscuits shirt (4-1) performed well last night among the ubercrowds at MGM and Excalibur. For the third straight outing, SPAM (1-2) never really got it going and I almost blew all of my profit for the trip this afternoon at MGM.

Maybe the shirt's age is showing. I think you'll see it have a middle reliever role on future trips and certainly some appearances in the minors.

Downtown Las Vegas report: Binion's has been spruced up with nice looking felt on the blackjack tables and rugs around it. There are nice colorized pictures of the old days of gambling on the walls, giving it a Golden Nugget kind of sophistication.

In the poker room, they've moved the ugly ceremonial final table of the former Horseshoe where the Gallery of Champions (pictures of World Series of Poker champions) used to be. The table is really ugly and should be placed somewhere else.

On the wall to the left of the check in desk where that final table used to be, they've made a good decision and installed a gift shop.

The old budget hotel/casino off Freemont -- Lady Luck -- is closed, hopefully for renovation. I couldn't believe it.

And twice on the trip there were these young guys at the table who looked like the Asian -- and male -- equivalent of Brigid the Bruiser. It really creeped me out.