Vegas Trip Report

I'm back from a quick trip to Vegas over the weekend. It was a interesting weekend that went something like this. I rolled into town Friday night, and headed over to the Rio. I found Dr. Pauly in the press area, and we had a nice chat about Fantasy Sports Live's plans for the next year including a new and improved Sunday's with Dr. Pauly coming this September. I also asked him about his 30 day break from the WSOP to travel the country following a concert tour. To me a nice break from the grind of the WSOP would be several weeks in Maui, vs. a travel heavy concert fest, but to each his own. I like Pauly's idea of coming back fresh for the 50k horse and Main Event, vs being burned out by the time the biggies roll around. I don't know how some of the bloggers can get through the grind of an ever longer WSOP schedule. I watched a bit of the 50k HORSE which is always cool because the field is small and the tables are star-studded. Phil Helmuth was not in the HORSE event, as he was still playing in an earlier event that was down to the last few tables. After that I headed over to Slots-a-Fun for a quick $3 craps session and off to the MGM for poker.

I put my name on the list, and was looking around the poker room, when I noticed Hoyazo, Chad and CK playing at a $1/$2 NL Holdem table. I asked to get moved over there, and after about 20 minutes I was seated. Hoy said the table was tight and they could use me to liven up the action a bit, lol. I played a pretty long session with them, and watched Chad put on his usual cash game clinic, and CK accumulate over 1k in chips. I was horribly card dead, and did not get my first pot until about three hours into the session. A couple interesting plays from Chad were as follows. Someone opened to $13 preflop and there were a couple of callers, so Chad raised to $152. I said something like "Don't you think that is a bit excessive?". It folded around until a guy with QTo stated he wanted to gamble and made the call. Chad's JJ held up. There was also this really young looking guy who thought he was some sort of poker genius. Chad and him were going at it constantly. At one point he opened to $17 preflop, and I said "that's one dollar for every year he is old." Chad called with a low suited 5 gapper, and after hitting the flop slightly took down a massive pot from the child prodigy. I love watching Chad play cash, because he plays pretty much exactly opposite of how I play, and still has success.  I was folding away with bad cards and not catching any flops as well. At one point, I had K9o and had limped from a blind in a four way pot. It checked through to the river, and I had nothing, but took a $5 stab at the small pot. I don't mind taking down the orphan pot, but I also don't mind getting called down for image purposes. As tight as I play preflop, I like to get caught bluffing once and a while so that people will think I am a bluffer in the back of their minds. Hoy made the call and dragged the pot with a 3 for bottom pair. I said "you better not make a play like that tomorrow (in the WSOP)". Eventually, I would win my first pot with a Jack high hand, and then shortly later, I would call a $13 open in a four way pot with KQo, and spike two kings on the flop. Hoy would stab at the flop, and I called. On the turn Hoy check folded to my bet. It was getting close to three in the AM at this point, and Hoy, CK, and Chad called it a night. The table got much easier immediately so I hung around for a while. Sometime after 4 AM I packed it up myself, and quit a 5 hour + session where I won just two pots and was down $150.

I slept in till about 1PM the next day, and got back the the MGM shortly after 3PM for another session. It was another card dead nightmare. Two hours into another session, and I had not won a pot yet. I had not seen a single hand like AK, AQ, AA, KK, QQ, or JJ in over eight hours of poker. It really starts to wear on you after a while, and I was even starting to make some bad plays which is not acceptable. I ran into Russ Fox and Weak Player who were at the MGM for the Clapton concert that night. Later on Chad would show up, and commented that I looked depressed. I pretty much was. I came out to Vegas to play a bunch of live poker, and was simply getting crushed. In this session, I finally started to catch some middle pairs like JJ, TT, and 99. I would raise preflop, and get a bunch of callers. The flop would come with one over, and it would check to me. I would stab at the pot and get pushed off by an immediate reraise. Basically, the medium pairs were just accelerating my losses. Eventually, I would just get up to clear my head after a three hour+ session with just a single small pot won and loss of $190. I knew things would turn around eventually, but I was not in the right mental state. I split the MGM and headed over to the RIO were I ran into Mr. Al Can't Hang. We talked for a while in the press booth, and then I headed over to a Final Table with Lee Watkinson.

I then headed over to Casino Royal for a $3 Craps session, and ended up back at the MGM around midnight. I could not find any bloggers (Hoy was off making a big score at the Venetian), so I sat down for some more $1/$2 NL and started running like a God. Second orbit I picked up KK and dragged a $320 pot. I would also pick up AA, QQ (2x), and AK (2x) during the session, and run my $200 buy-in up to about $530 over 3 1/2 hours. The session would come close to squaring my losses from the previous two horrible sessions. I called it a night. Sunday morning, I was feeling a bit burned out and decided to head home earlier than planned.