Alright so I’ve been sort of putting off this post because I know it’s going to be a 5 hour project, so if you plan on reading this make sure to set aside an hour of your life.
But hopefully it will be entertaining or something to read…
So we arrived in Vegas Friday night at like 2am after taking about 60 hours to get there and checked into our spectacular room at the fabulous Tropicana Hotel. No complaints about the room, it was clean, spacious and served all the “purposes” that my girlfriend and I required *WINK WINK*. The hotel itself is situated on the corner of MGM Grand, New York New York and Excalibur if you are familiar with Vegas at all.
My plan was to let my girlfriend tan all day by the pool while I played poker, but unfortunately the weather wasn’t warm enough to tan or swim so I wasn’t able to play nearly as much poker as I would have.
The Tropicana poker room is where I mostly played as it was just simply convenient to do so. The room itself must be brand new since there is at most 2 tables going and it seems like everyone playing there is staying at the hotel as well, which is actually a good thing. The floor manager was out there hustling random old dudes into playing poker and you could tell that they had literally never played before. If there is one constant absolute rule when it comes to live games is that men over 50 simply can’t play poker. They are all loose passive calling stations who are too concerned with not being able to get it up anymore to think about raising once in a while. Unfortunately, we all know the inherent problems when playing against calling stations - they suck out seemingly 90% of the time. Long run my ass, just let my fucking aces hold up once out of 10 times is all I ask.
Ok before I get too angry at beats and losses, let’s continue with the trip report.
Alrighty, so that night I played 1/2 NL at the Tropicana. Nothing really spectacular to note other than one hand where I had the nut straight on a board of 5789x (TJ) and I *KNEW* that this old dude had the 6 so I just pushed all in which was a bet of about $180 into about a $20 pot and of course he calls, flips over 66 and I win. I ended up about $130 for that session.
The next night I was playing again against the same old dude from the last hand and I picked up AA preflop and he had actually raised before me, which I hadn’t seen him do ever. I thought about pushing in preflop assuming he would call with his hand as it’s got to be QQ+ but I just decided to put in a raise instead. I was first to act as I was in the SB and the flop comes Qxx rainbow and I put in a pot sized bet. He then immediately raises all in! Seriously after playing at least 5-6 hours with this guy I figured he didn’t even know he could raise and now he’s done it twice this fucking hand. I know QQ is clearly a strong possibility but my monkey brain looks at the pot size compared with the chances he has KK or AQ (ya right) and I make the crying call with my aces and sure enough he has QQ. So I’m down to like 100 after being up before that hand and I was out of cash to rebuy since the stupid ass ATM’s down here have a limit on how much I can take out a day. I pick up ATs a few hands later and raise in late position and my old buddy calls me after limping in. Flop comes ATx with 2 clubs and again he bets into me. I can’t imagine what kind of hand he has unless its xx and now has a set but I’m not going to fold that easily and I raise, he looks at his cards and calls. Turn is a blank and he then looks at his cards again and I bet the pot. He is visibly uncomfortable at this point so I can’t see him having a set and I figure him for the club draw or an ace. He calls and the river brings the lovely x of clubs completing the flush. Now he checks again to me and I have like 20 left. Most of the time I would check it down here but as I had been watching him for the past 2 days I’ve noticed that he only bets with very strong hands and will usually go all in with them. I’ve seen him chase flushes and straights and hit on the turn/riven then push all in each time. When he checks to me on the river again my monkey brain assumes the best hoping he doesn’t have the flush and will pay off my last $20 with a pair of aces but alas, it isn’t the case, he has the fuckin’ nuts with Kx of clubs. After the hand he said he felt bad for sucking out on me with the AA and now this hand so he didn’t want to bet the river. Thanks man!!!
So I’m not happy and decide to get the fuck away from these gay ass cash games and try to find some sort of tournament to enter. I had my Cardplayer magazines with me which list the daily tournaments that each casino runs during the week and figured the 7pm $60 freezeout at the Aladdin Casino would be a good bet. My girlfriend enters as well and we are situated at the same table, with about 60 entrants. The structure was just horrid as we started with 1.5k in chips with blinds starting at 25/50 and doubling every 15 minutes. But since I’m the master of the turbo MTT I decide it is still +EV for me to play in this. I start doing my push/fold thing once the blinds get to 100/200 and people “just can’t take it anymore” and I get snapped off holding K2 from the button with the caller having the mighty QJ. I lose and am out. No biggie it was a shitty tournament anyways.
The next day I decide to check out the Bellagio as they are starting up a month long WPT tournament with daily big buy-in’s with the final tournament being a $25k buy-in. I figured the action would be fun to watch as I assumed a lot of big names would be there. Unfortunately there was a big WPT even in Foxwoods that was finishing up this week as well so most of the big names were still there either playing in it or the side games.
The first event in the Bellagio tournaments was a $1.5k buy-in MTT. They were running $350 1 table satellites all day where the top two would gain entry into it, along with $100 extra. After watching a few games I decided that these noobs needed a lesson on how to play a 1 table satellite and I plunked down $350 and grabbed a seat.
The structure was quick as well, starting with 1.5k in chips with 20 minute blind levels starting at 25/50. So I put on my best turbo sng face and played accordingly. 2 people busted out on the first two hands, both pushing hard with bottom pairs and getting called by top pairs. Thanks for the money. I once limped in the SB with J9s, flop comes J98 and I pot bet the flop with 2 callers. Turn is a 7 and I just want to fold, but I decide against it and just check, followed by 2 checks behind me. River is something shitty like a 3 and I decide I now have the best hand even though its entirely possible that someone just checked their straight on the turn for fun, but I throw out a half pot bet anyways as half value bet, half defensive bet. One person calls with QJ and I win a nice pot. A few hands later I pick up 33 in the BB with 4 limpers and blinds at 75/150. I think for a bit about raising here or maybe go all in but I decide to check. Of course the flop comes a fucking gorgeous 34J rainbow, and I of course check but unfortunately it gets checked around. Q comes on the river and I 3/4 pot it. I get a raise from the UTG limper and everyone else folds. I put on my best acting face, and push all in. He calls, with KK! Hah! Funny he still thought his one pair was good on a board of QJ34 when the BB bets then reraises him. But I’ll take it and I’m now chip leader. A few orbits pass without me doing much except receiving multiple assaults on my BB from the same old man who keeps min raising it. The third time he min raises my BB from the button, the SB calls this time and I look down and have the monster hand of Q8o. We are 5 handed at this point and I figure no one is ready to go home yet as they both have playable stacks and decide to push all in for a super slick squeeze play. The old min-raising man thinks for a bit and then calls and the SB folds. I’m laughing before I flip up my cards, but I don’t mind as I can only loose about 1.5k of my 4k~ stack. To my supreme delight he only has 55! What a call my man. I told you about these old passive stations. So of course the flop comes 9TA with the turn bringing a J and it’s good night nurse for old man river. At this point I’m the hilarious chip leader and everyone is pretty scared to fuck with me now, especially after showing down Q8. I ended up picking up a bunch of strong hands like AJ, AQ, 88 etc.. and kept pushing all in preflop. Everyone was being a supreme pussy and folding. We eventually got 3 handed with one player on the morphine drip with about 2BB and this total ass hole in 2nd place. Since I was in such a commanding position I could really chose who I wanted to take with me to the next round and decided to assault the asshole’s blind. I push every time the short stack folds and the ass hole yells at me each time but folds. He eventually calls with AK and I’m like LAWL way to put your guaranteed 2nd place on the line with no pair. I have 77 and hit a 7 right on the fucking flop and he is crying his fat face off. But of course he hits runner runner flush to double up and get all in my face like I was the one who made the bad play. Eventually we bust the short stack with my AK flopping the TJQ. So I advance to the $1500 buy-in event the next day and I’m feeling pretty good about my play.
OK NEW PARAGRAPH!!!
That night I get to bed early because the tournament starts at 12 noon which is actually hard for me to get up for. I get there early after having a beautiful stuffed fat French toast breakfast meal and take my seat. I notice a few “big names” at this first event including Men “The Master” Nguyen, John Phan, Michael Mizrachi and I believe it was David “Gayboy” Sklansky but I can’t be sure. Thankfully none of them are at my table. The structure was pretty dope as you started with 3k in chips, with 2 hour blind levels and blinds starting at 25/50. I decide to take a somewhat aggressive approach to this to let the table know I don’t only play 99+ AQ+. I start raising with hands like KQ and AT but I keep missing and receiving big playback. I ask myself what I’m doing. I’m simply a super tight weak online player trying to actually push around people in a $1500 buy-in event. Good strategy. But that doesn’t stop me as I pick up 54s of hearts and raise “one last time” I tell myself. Only the BB calls and the flop comes 522 with 2 clubs. She is an asian older woman who had been playing quite fast as well. She checks and I 3/4 pot it with my somewhat decent and deceptive hand. She calls and I don’t know what to think of it. Turn brings an offsuit T and she checks again. At this point I’m not really comfortable with checking or betting but I decide again to put a stupid weak ass bet out there of about 1/2 the pot. She then raises me 800 more. Ok hold up, what the fuck. What kind of hand could she possibly have strong enough to call me preflop, call my flop bet then raise the turn. Obviously she doesn’t have a 2 and she wouldn’t do it with something as weak as A5 or 66-99 right? Really the only hand that am beating here is a super aggressively played club draw. The pot is pretty huge right now (like 2k) and she’s basically saying she will go all in as we both only have 1k left. I want to shit my pants at this point, and actually I think I threw up a little shit in my mouth. I sit there and think, figuring I need to fold this and I tell myself I can’t insta-fold as it would show how weak-tight I really am. This is when I think probably the worst thought I’ve ever conceived. Just before folding I take a second look at her bet and I see a 500 chip and 3-100 chips. Since I bet a 500 chip my brain takes the hugest fucking fart it’s ever ripped and I think for a second that I only need to call 300. Obviously that is hilariously stupid as you can’t raise less than I bet. I figure well I can’t fold for 300 more into this 2k pot and I call, throwing out 300 chips. Of course the dealer says to me, “its 800 more”. And I’m like, wow, get me a computer right now, live play is too much for my idiotic ass. At this point I know I have two decisions, I can ask if I can fold not realizing it was actually 800 or just call the 800 and act like it ain’t no thang’. I figured the chances of them actually letting me fold after I already verbalized “call” were pretty much zero and I figured if I even asked if I could fold the asian woman would obviously know I’m weaker than shit. So I just decide to throw the extra 500 in like it ain’t no thang’. The river comes a 6 making the board read 225T6. To my surprise, with 1k left each and 2k in the pot she just checks, even after I showed hesitation to call on the turn. At this point I know she doesn’t have TT+ and figure her to be weak as well, but I know even if she has a pair, the fact that the stupid fucking board is paired means my 56 two-pair is useless. The only thing I can beat in my mind is a busted club draw, so I check too and she turns over 88. G FUCKING G. So I’m down to 1k in chips and I seriously want to cry. It hasn’t even been an hour yet and I’m on the verge of busting out.
A few hands later I get TT in 1st position and I raise to 200 (4bb). And because everyone has seen what a shitty dumbass player I am, 4 people call me and I again want to open fold the flop. The flop comes 982 which isn’t terrible obviously and when it’s checked to me I just push and pray. Thankfully everyone folds and I’m up to like 1.6k. Very next hand I have KT in the BB. 4 people limp in and I check the blind. Flop comes KT5 with 2 diamonds. I check and it gets checked around to the button who aggressively throws in a pot sized bet of 300. At that point I figure I have the best hand and I need chips, so lets not fuck around and I push my remaining 1550 in. Everyone folds to the button who INSTA calls and I’m worried about 55 for a second before he shows me his mighty J4 of diamonds. So just to get this straight, it’s a $1500 buy-in tournament at the Bellagio. The pot is 600 and I raised it to 1.5k. Meaning he has to call 1.1k to win 900 after my 300 of his is matched. I’m a 2-1 favorite to win this hand as it stands. So he called an overbet with nothing but a shitty non-nut flush draw. And of course the turn brings a lovely something of diamonds completing his flush. A blank hits the river and I’m out. Just like that. Awesome. Glad I spent $350 to get in, a night dreaming of winning and an early morning wake-up call for an hour of bullshit like that.
Ok so I misplayed the shit out of the 56s hand. Thinking back I suppose the best play would have been to check the turn and call whatever bet she makes on the river assuming its not some crazy ass overbet. Oh and of course if I played it by betting on the turn again I should INSTA FUCKING FOLD to any raises. When I think back on the hand it suprises me that she would check/call the flop and check/raise the turn with just 88 when a T appears on the turn. Especially when said check/raise pot-commits both of us. But really I have to give her credit for reading my turn bet as weak. Thinking back, the way I put the chips in the pot on the turn combined with what was going on in my head, I must have been screaming weakness and she picked up on it. Live play is hard!
Ok so after that debacle I decided to go back to the Trop and play more 1/2 NL. Luckily my old nemesis wasn’t there this time. Actually this night the game was super lively, filled with a lot of young guys who were drinking a lot. Since this post is already about 5k words too long, I’ll shorten this summary to umm… a shorter summary.
A Super drunk Spanish man was pretty much raising blind to $20 every hand. Keep in mind the blinds are 1/2. No matter what he had, he was raising to $20. Because no one could put him on a hand for a while, combined with some hilarious suckouts, he had his stack built up to about $800. I was to his immediate right and was just biding my time. Eventually I picked up AQ in the SB, and while I almost never reraise preflop with it, I did this time to isolate him as well as because I know I have the best hand against him. Everyone folded and he called. The flop misses me bringing something like J52 but I put out a continuation bet anyways because he is the type that just likes to see flops and when someone else takes control he can let go. But this time he called me after thinking for a while. Hmm. The turn brings an A and he immediately jumps up and bets like $50. Because I was in the SB he had acted out of turn but I read this as he just had hit his ace. I imagined that if he had A5 or A2 that he would have called me faster on the flop with a pair. So knowing that he liked that ace, I pushed all in because that’s how I roll and he insta calls me. He has AT and the river brings a blank and I double up. Thinking back on that hand it could have easily gone the other way if he had A2/A5/AJ which truly were possibilities but I went with my “read” which clearly had been good all day (they weren’t) and won a big $400 pot. After the win I tipped the dealer $1 and he made fun of me.
A bunch of hands later the Spanish train is still running the table and I pick up AK, this time I’m behind him. He does standard raise to $20 and I again reraise to $60 (preflop in a 1/2 NL game!!). Everyone folds and the flop comes AT5 rainbow. He checks and I go all in again for a hilariously big overbet of like $300. He thinks forever then calls. He has QJ of hearts. Nice call my drunken friend. The turn brings a 2nd heart to the board and I figure I’m done to his 12 outs. But the river brings a blank and again I take a sickeningly huge pot with 1 pair. I left the table shortly after.
All right I can see the virtual “wrap it up” signal here but I got 2 more tourneys to talk about.
The first one was at the Luxor, which was a $45 buy-in tourney. The structure again was terrible starting with only 300 in chips with 10/15 blinds and 20 minute levels. I got an early double up pushing preflop with 99 and getting called by some idiot with AA and I of course hit a 9. From there on in it was smooth sailing and I made it to the final table (50 or so entrants). Top 6 got paid and with 7 left I pushed with AK and got called by AQ and won, taking the chip lead. With 4 left I was pushing a lot but had a 2-1 lead over 2nd place and was feeling good. I eventually made the mistake of pushing with A8, AT and AQ and different people called me with the monster hands of KJ, 42 and K2s respectively. So after being the leader with 4 left, I went out fourth. That’s what I get for going all in with the best hand 3 times in a row.
I took that and entered a sit&go at the MGM Grand, which again was a terrible structure of 1k starting chips, 15 minute levels and 25/50 blinds. I pushed at 50/100 with AQ and got called by AK and I was done. Fun.
Alright we made it to the grand finale. It’s the best story of the trip so for the 1 reader who is still with me, congratulations. It was our last day and I was getting short on cash, not wanting to withdrawal anymore out. I had like $80 to my name so we went to Sahara because I remembered them having a good dinner deal. After dinner I was down to $60 and wanted to play in their 7pm MTT. The buy-in was $65 so I needed $5 to get in. I went to the black jack tables and bet $5. I lost. I then bet $10. I lost. Bet $20 and lost again. FUCK YOU. So I just bit the bullet and went to the ATM.
The Sahara has by far the best structure for a tournament out of all of the ones I entered except for the $1500 Bellagio one. You start with 3k in chips with blinds starting at 25/25 with 20 minute levels so you really do get a lot of room to play. Last time I was in Vegas I entered this tournament and got 6th for $500 so I was feeling good about it. They get a ton of people in these MTT’s, about 160 entrants. Early on I was playing tight and observant. The table was all old dudes (read shitty) and one young guy who was raising every pot. And his raises were way too big. At 25/25 he was raising to 250 (10bb) and he was showing down some absolute shit when people actually called (K2, 33 etc). I was just biding my time again waiting for anything that looked like a hand to play with him. Finally I picked up KJ which sucks but its way ahead of him. Again he raises 10bb and I reraise him to isolate. The flop comes QJx and he thinks for a bit and pushes, I insta call and he has 99 and I double up. I’ve never been so confident calling an all-in overbet with 2nd pair in my life. From there I started to make some “moves”. A fairly loose aggressive with about 10bb behind him min raises with 1 caller. I’m in the SB with AJs and I pop it up to like 8bb basically putting him all in, but he just calls and the other person folds. Because he only has 2bb left I go all in before the flop is even shown because I’m rough like that and the whole table ooh’s and ahh’s at my supremacy. The flop is actually good for me with Jxx but all diamonds, and I don’t have a diamond. He calls with AQ with the Q of diamonds and hits his stupid faggy flush draw. I guess it wasn’t a bad play on his part other than not pushing preflop but I thought I would write about it because of my all-in in the dark bad-ass move. Later I picked up AA and raised when 2 people pushed all-in before it got back to me and I took them both out when they had JJ and 99.
Now we had our plane back to Toronto leaving at midnight. It was 8pm now and I was dominating the tables. Because this structure is actually good, the tournament would undoubtedly go way past midnight if I continued to play well. So I figured I would play fast. I made a bunch of squeeze plays and reraise all-in’s with marginal hands and never got a caller. Eventually I did it again with TT on the button and 2 people called me which I wasn’t happy about but when they turned up their hands of KT and 99 I was a big favorite to win, but the KT hits AQJ on the flop and I lose a bunch.
From then on in I start to really pick up steam, picking up monster hands all day and taking people out left and right. I picked up QQ three hands within 20 hands of each other and each time got all in preflop and won each time. Eventually we were down to 2 tables and it was about 10:30. My girlfriend is freaking out thinking we are going to miss the plane, and of course it crossed my mind but fuck it I’m doing amazing. We called the airlines trying to get a later flight but they had nothing available for us. I went back to the tables with no specific plan in mind and just kept stealing blinds and pushing the table around nicely. I got QQ 2 more times, once against 55 and once against AT and won both preflop again. A few hands later I had AT and repushed a late position raiser who called with 55 and I won when the flop came 99QQx and it took 4 hours for him to understand why he lost. At this point I was 2nd in chips to a monster chip leader. But I had at least a 2-1 if not a 3-1 lead on third place so we were way ahead of the game. I had about 40k in chips with the blinds 1000/2000. The chip leader had about 60k and everyone else had about 10k on average. It was getting really close to 11pm which was our absolute cutoff when we had to leave to catch the plane. Finally after one last call to the airlines and them denying me I went back to the table and found myself UTG. Before the cards were dealt I pushed all in and declared “all in blind”. The whole place went nuts since there were a bunch of busted out railbirds watching as well as the other table. At this point we were down to about 15 with the top 11 getting paid. The dealer deals the cards and guess who fucking calls my blind all in? Of course the chip leader with 60k. Everyone is watching now as we flip up our cards. I have 87o and the chip leader has… 44!!! Wow what a hilariously bad call. And to make matters worse for him the flop comes exactly 69T giving me the fucking nuts and the entire place erupted. At this point I really didn’t know what to do. I had 80k in chips with blinds 1000/2000 and average stack at 10k and 2nd place now at 20k. First prize was around $4k so I strongly just considered staying. But my girlfriend was just freaking the shit place out thinking we wouldn’t make it back to Toronto ever. I asked the dealer if I could sell my chips, obviously no deal. I then asked if I could sell my seat. Obviously no deal. I eventually went over to the floor manager and explained my situation and pointed to the mountain of chips at my seat. He said that they will have to blind me out but would hold for a few weeks whatever prize money I would end up getting. Because my stack was so huge there was no way the other players could avoid blinding themselves out before I went out, so I was guaranteed something. But of course I was leaving for Toronto tonight and would not be able to pick up any prize money. But then I remembered that my friends were thinking of coming to Vegas at the end of April, which would really be perfect timing. So they took my information down and said they would hold it until I returned at the end of the month. We bolted out of there and BARELY managed to make our flight by about 1 minute and we were back home to Toronto that night.
Fucking nuts eh? So lets hope my friends come through on this next Vegas trip as there will be a nice little pouch of cash waiting for me.
So that’s it. The marathon of posts is over. Congratulations if you actually read this far, I know I wouldn’t. The trip on the whole was fun as we ended up doing a lot of non-poker stuff that was entertaining, but as far as poker goes, it wasn’t really a success. I ended up about even in the cash games, and probably about even in tournaments as well. I got to play in a big buy-in game which was pretty sweet. When I head back I’ll definitely be playing again at the Sahara, and avoid all the other shitty tournaments. But really the only way to make any money without getting super lucky is by playing cash games, which I already knew. I’ll really have to start making some adjustments to playing in live cash games as I think I’m way too tight/cautious and give too much respect to these drunken tourists.
5310 words, 90 minutes. I’m a machine.
