Vegas Trip Report Part III

After properly recovering Saturday afternoon from the festivities Friday night, it was time to "storm the castle". I was well fed, sober, and ready to play some cards as I crossed the bridge to the castle from my home base at the Trop around 10:30 pm Saturday night. I have never been to the Excal poker room, but it was not that hard to find. Its just kind of on the far side of the casino, but out in the middle of everything. I did not see a ton of bloggers at first, but I put my name on the 1/3 NL list, turned around and ran into smokkee. Looking around, I saw Joe Speaker, DoubleAs, and a few others playing at various tables. I then saw pauly, and iggy milling about on the rail. I get called and seated at a table that had a couple of bloggers I did not know. There was a lot of action at the next table over. I saw that DoubleAs was there, and Joe Speaker had moved to the table. Then Smokkee got a seat there. I wanted to move to. I played for about 1/2 hour and was slightly up. I saw Huge Junk by the rail (I still don't know if its ok to say that). I chatted with him briefly at the blogger tourney. I decided to take a break, and try to get on the list for the other table. I went over and talked to Bob some more. He's as cool as you would expect from his blog. He mentioned that he was the top result in Google when you search for "Huge Junk". Must be nice! I wonder if he parlays that into as much action as I would. Prolly. Anyway, a seat opened up at DoubleAs table, and I had to cut our conversation short. I grabbed the seat to DoubleAs immediate left.

To DoubleAs right was biggestron, to my left Yosoyveneno (with iggy pinch hitting), then Smokkee, then Shane Nickerson, then Joe Speaker. Eventually zeem filled the seat to the right of biggestron. It was a table full of bloggers, and the next four hours at this table would be the most fun I had on the trip. I put an order in for a bottomless Hieneken with the cocktail waitress. The way DoubleAs, Joe, and zeem looked I had some catching up to do.

Iggy jumped in to play Yosoyveneno short stack while she took a break. He managed to get that little stack in the middle something like 4 times in 2 orbits, and doubled her up. There were abundant live straddles that I guess are mandatory. Smokkee raised it up to $35 after about 5 callers of a straddle, and took the pot down flipping up the hammer. I got QQ a few hands later, and and raised it to $36 after another bunch of straddle calls. Joe and DoubleAs call. Flop comes K high, and I lead out with $50 after DoubleAs checks. They both fold. I show my Hilton Sisters. It seemed like everytime there was a live straddle, someone would make an obsene raise to punish the straddler. That not going to stop it. I get all-in with Veneno when I turn the nut straight with AJ, but she has AJ as well so we split. DoubleAs calls Joes all-in after a reraise battle preflop with JTs. Joe has AKo. DoubleAs flops and turns a J to take the pot down and calls it a night. Smokkee doubles through someone on a turned straight and calls it a night. After smokkee leaves, biggestron comments that he wished my buddy didn't leave because he wanted a chance to get his chips back. I guess smokkee had been floating him for a while before I got there. I get JJ and make a standard $12 preflop raise. Zeem calls. Flop drops T98 rainbow, and I have "outs for days". I overbet the flop, and Zeem pushes in. I am getting more that 4-1 to call, so I do and don't improve. Thats ok, he will just be keeping them warm for me.

This is when the hand of the night happened. Joe live straddles, and biggestron reraised to $20 total. Then Katkin who took DoubleAs seat, reraises to $40 total. Joe stacks his chips up and pushes in for about $200 total. Biggestron folds, and Katkin calls. Katkin is behind Joe's 72o with the vulnerable KK. Joe flops an outside straight draw, and turns the straight after yelling "one time!"to stack Katkin. This must have tilted him, as he ran off. I figured I needed to get more into the action. My bottomless Hieneken was starting to kick in, and all this hammer dropping was just to contagious. I pick up the sooted hammer in EP and raise it up to $12. 5 callers. I flop the flush, and bet out $35. Everyone folds and I show the (sooted) hammer. Ok, I know that it does not count, but its all I got. Ok! Later, I call a 3x preflop with 45s in a family pot. I flop the ass-end of the straight when 678 appears. Zeem bets, and I reraise. The money gets all-in on the flop and Zeem has 84o (lol). I stack him, and he rebuys.

At about 4am, we pretty much all just called it quits. I had worked my $200 stack up to $400 for a nice $200 profit, plus unlimited Hienekens. It looked like Shane had got close to 1k for the biggest stack at the table. Joe was a lot of fun to play with, but prolly was a contributor due to the drunken nature of his game that night. It was a total blast playing with everyone.