PokerSlut Tour XVII PLO DS

Vegas Trip Report - Part 2

Since my first night of staying in Vegas always sucks for sleeping, I woke up at 7am after a while 3.5 hours of rest. I always hate playing cash games earlier in the day. Playing against local rocks never seems like a whole lot of fun to me. I decided to hit up the 10am $60 tournament at Planet Hollywood. Before the tourney started I sat and played some low stakes pai gow. I played the $10 minimum and $1 on the bonus bet. I ran good but then lost the last two hands I played in a row and walked with a $15 profit.

The tournament ended up having 22 runners. You start with 4500 chips and 20 minute levels. On the 4th hand I have presto from the button and call a mp raise to 225 and the cutoff call. Flop comes A35dd. Hijack cbets 300 cutoff flats and i put in a raise to 900. Cutoff thinks and raises to 2000, cutoff gets out of the way and I go ahead and ship. He says "well if you have a set you have be but I can't fold, I'm all in." I call and he shows the AK. Turn bricks and he is drawing dead. River brings quads for fun and I get the early double.

After the double I pretty much stood steady the whole way to the final table. When the final table started I had dribbled down to around 8k and was around 7th in chips with the top four getting paid. We lost the first two people fairly quickly. 7th took quite a bit longer to bust. I think we played almost two levels before we were six handed. A bunch of shoves and no calls including two of my own were occurring. We finally lost 7th place and I was the short stack at the table.

Blinds were about to go to 1k/2k and I would have been left with 4bbs so I shoved the Q7 when it was folded to me in the sb. A decent stack woke up with A7 from the bb and I was out the door in 6th for nada. Too bad I couldn't get a double there and wait out another bust and try to at least get my money back for the bubble prize. Not to be though.

After the tournament I walked over to Caesars again for lunch. I ate at the same bbq joint as the day before (always my favorite) and while wandering down to check out City Center I shot a text to CK (thanks by the way) to see if they had 1/2 or 1/3. I hoped for 1/2 but was sad to hear that it was 1/3. The casino is impressive. Lots of dark wood throughout the casino. It actually made it look a little dark. The opposite end from which I walked in was the poker room. They had a ton of games going for 1pm on a Thursday. One thing I immediately noticed was the tv's. There were too few of them and they were WAY too small. They were mounted high up and when I was seated in the 2nd row of tables I could not read the score of the hockey game going on. This was the only complaint I had of the whole room.

After about 10 minutes I was able to get a seat in a 1/3 game. I ended up buying in for $140 and had another $60 in chips in my pocket in case I wanted to top off. At first glance it looked like the table was fairly tough. There were 2-3 stacks sitting in the $600 range and everyone else was between $100 and $300. It only took about a lap to figure out that this was a fairly passive table. The big stacks were not running the table and they likely built their stack from big hands running into one another.

I had a steady build until I had a hand in early position and limped the KQ. About 3-4 to the flop which came K,x,x. I lead for $15 and was called by an older guy in late position. Turn is a brick and I lead for $25 and get called again. River another brick and I check. He bets out $50 and I make the call. He says ace high and I show and take the pot. That was about it for interesting hands. I played for about 90 minutes and got up with $325 in front of me good for a $185 profit.

After that win I pretty much had a winning trip locked up. I walked back over to the Flamingo to play some more multi-hand video poker. I played for around a half hour or so and this time i will $0.06 weeeeeeee. Since I had an early flight Friday morning (6:30am) I wasn't going to stay out too late but i did want to get one more session in. Last time I was in town with Blaz we went and played at the Hard Rock. The play seemed horrendous at that time so I decided to drive over and give it a shot.

There were two 1/2 tables going and I was able to get an immediate seat. When I was about to sit down the floor person said it was an un-capped buy-in game. What? I looked at the table and the average stack was somewhere around $800 or so. After playing two hands I got up and asked for a table change to the other 1/2 game. My request was granted almost right away. That game had a $300 capped buy-in. The average stack on that table was around $200, much better. This table was not afraid to get some chips in the middle. With just $100 in front of me chances were that it was probably going in pre-flop or on the flop.

The first big hand I played I raised to $10 with JJ and was re-raised to $30. I ended up shipping for my full $100 and the other guy tanked. he ended up flipping over QQ and said "I know you have AA or KK." He took about two minutes before he finally called and his hand held and it was time to re-buy. Not too long after that I had AK and raised pre and got one caller. Flop comes Kxx rainbow and I bet $15. My opponent raised to $40 and I shipped the rest of my chips and he took a long time before calling. I was pretty sure he had KQ in that spot and after the board rolled out my hand was good. Back to even. I ended up dropping a little before I left with a $55 loss. That would be the end of the trip for me.

I will have one more wrap post and a great story from the Hard Rock about "European Style."

Vegas Trip Report - Part 1

Within less than 24 hours after coming up with the thought of going out to Vegas I was sitting in the baggage claim waiting to grab my bag and make a run for the tables.

Non-Poker Rant

When I was booking my car for the trip ( I decided to get the free room at Residence Inn Hughes Center) I looked at Orbitz to see what the cheapest rental car company would be. It always seems to change every trip. This time it was Budget and it would be $67.93 for two days including all of the taxes and fuck you in the ass fees that go along with the actual $22/day rate. That equals a 54% effective tax rate on the car. I would rather them not even mention how much the standard rate per day it is. Just tell me including taxes how much per day it is. That way I don't feel as bad. Event that said it was still a cheaper route to go this way than staying on the strip and taking cabs.

While waiting in line I see a sign that says "If your total rental is less than 75 mikes we will automatically add a $15 fuel charge unless you provide us a receipt". Now the only reason I saw this sign was because I was waiting in a line that was 15 people deep. They did have 4-5 agents working but the line still was not moving fast. I could overhear the agent's say your car will be in space H1. It's going through the wash right now and should be there in 10-15 minutes. Here is where my rant REALLY starts. You know you are the cheapest one going at the time, you have all of these reservations, why are there no cars available. It reminds me of the old Seinfeld episode, "You know hot to take the reservation, but you don't know how to keep the reservation."



After waiting in line for close to 30 minutes I make it up to the counter. I was one of the faster ones to get done with the agent at a touch over five minutes. They now require three forms of identification there. Why, I have no fucking clue. If someone stole my wallet I imagine they would keep all forms of identification in it. I was given a space number that already had a car in it, hooray! I think total there were four cars in their lot. WTF are you people doing? I got a Crown Vic at the price of a compact. Score one for me. This thing had a big enough trunk to fit multiple bodies in it. I was able to place my large roller suitcase in it standing up and still shut the trunk. After waiting in line for another 15 minutes or so to get out of the lot, with one lane open to get people out, I was off. I guess if you don't have cars there is no reason to have more than one open right?

Gambling Content (mostly)

A couple thing I really wanted to do this trip was to check out City Center (see photo at beginning) and Encore. More about that in a bit. After checking into my hotel and getting my Insanity workout in for the day I was ready to play. I drove to Harrahs and took the short walk over to the Venetian to play some single table satellites. They had a $340 event the next day and I wanted to take two shots to get in via the $80 two winner satellites. Fail. I never lasted longer than the 75/150 level in either. I chased a couple draws and was crippled both times. Just like that I was already stuck $160 on the trip.

After the satellites losses I wanted to try and find the softest 1/2 game that I could find. I mentally started to go through where I have had my biggest wins of the past. After a quick stop at the Caesars food court I was off to the Monte Carlo. When I got there they had one 2/4 game going and one 1/2 game going. They were just starting the 6pm tournament. Unfortunately nobody from the 1/2 game got up and after 15 minutes I decided to move on. Next stop was Hooters. Poker Grump mentioned recently that the play is always bad there. Why not give it a shot. When I arrived there was one 1/2 game running with a small list. While waiting I signed-up for their frequent player card since you need it for their aces cracked and bad beat bonuses. After waiting for 30 minutes I gave up and went looking for something else.

Next stop was to check out the Luxor. I made a quick detour to the Tropicana along the way and signed up for a card and got $10 free play. I made about $8 out of it. At the Luxor like most other played I hit they had only one table going which was 1/2. I waited for 30 minutes and gave up there as well. Next stop would be the Excalibur where they had three 1/2 tables going and I was able to get into a game right away.

I sat with $100 and started to take in the table a bit. Pretty quickly I was able to recognize the two rocks pretty quickly and the rest of the table was full of a variety of loose passive other clueless tourists. At the beginning the standard table raise was around $10-12. there was a big stack to my immediate left of around $600 but he got up about 1/2 hour into the session. The rest of the stacks were in the $100-300 range. I was able to slowly build my stack up to around $200 without anything exciting happening until this.

I am in middle position and limp QJcc after an ep limper, sb completes and bb checks. Flop comes KJJ rainbow. Checked to me last to act and I bet $10. Sb throws in a check raise to $30 and has another $80 behind. He was a mid-20's kid who had a bit of gamble in him. He certainly wasn't a great player. I decided to put him in right there thinking 100% of the time he has a weak J from the blind. He snap calls with the K10. I turn the case J for fun and win the pot. If you hit quads or better in the room even with one card in your hand you get to spin a wheel for free cash. I spun and got an extra $25.

A little later in the night two 20 somethings who know each other sit next to each other. Shortly after that three of their friends were standing behind chatting and having a good time. UTG I limped 1010 and we went to the flop 5-6 handed. Flop comes 8,6,2 rainbow and I lead into the field for $10 and one of the 20 something calls. Turn is a Q. I check and he fires $25. I really didn't feel that hit him and I called. River pairs the 5 on board. I check and he fairly quickly bets $50 and starts chatting up his buddies not paying attention to the game. I know my hand is good and I call. He flips over 10,8 and I scoop the pot. The way he was acting sure seemed like he was betting a worse hand or air. I just got the feeling that he wanted to show his buddies that he could bluff.

Now sitting on a little over $400 I was able to play a bunch of different hands. Having a good feel for the table I was able to tell where I was in hands. I was playing any suited cards with one face card and any 1 and 2 gappers. Plus the raises in the game shrunk to 3x or so. The other 20 something raised UTG to $7 and I was the only caller with J7ss. If I hit I can take a ton and if I miss I am just losing $7. Flop Comes J54ss. Good flop. Kid cbets $15 and I opt to call. turn is the K. He hesitated for just a second and bets $25. I think I may just have the best hand right now and have a decent showdown hand and I min-raise to $50. Since the hand has some showdown value I want to be able to see the river as cheap as possible. I didn't hit the flush but paired the 7 on the river. He checked and I went for a bit of thin value and bet $50. He thought for a good bit and finally called with QQ. That had his buddies talking a bit. I'm pretty sure they didn't even see the flush draw in my hand. They just had no idea what my thought process was on the turn. Loved it.

After the hand I was sitting on a little over $500. I ended up playing for about 30 minutes longer and and left after about 4 1/2 hours of play with $525 in front of me. I will definitely try and get back here on the next trip. On the half hour-ish walk back to the car at Harrahs I walked through the Crystals at City Center. A mall is a mall but this was impressive. A ton of open space and the place just seemed massive. I saved walking through Aria for the next day.

Not quite ready to go to sleep I stopped in Flamingo and found my new non-poker love, multi-hand video poker. They had a total of three machines, two 50 line machines and 1 100 line machine. You could play it in $0.01, $0.05 or $0.25. I opted to play 25 lines of $0.01. I ended up playing on $5 for around an hour, never down more than $4 and I ended up with a massive profit of $0.11. After that I hopped in my car and made it back to my room by 2am and was out around 3am.

Part 2 and wrap-up coming soon.

PokerSlut Tour XVII Limit Holdem

Trip Report Soon, Maybe

When I get home I will try and put together a report to wrap up the two days. I ended up making a little over $300 for the trip. At least it will be a positive report, mostly.

Surprise!

I finished off my work trip early and since I am so damn close to Vegas why no go, right? I am going out just for a couple days and have an early flight home on Friday. I am going to take two shots at a single table satellite for the $340 Venetian Deep Stack Tournament on Thursday and then just play cash games the rest of the time. I am looking forward to seein City Center and Encore. I think Encore was open last time I was in town but I never made it down there.

My play at Sandia was very brief. I played a $40 donkament last night and busted out shortly before the end of the first hour. You got t3000 to start and blinds doubled every level I was alive. In the 100/200 level I had t1600 and shoved the cutoff with KJ soooted and was snap called by a t3000 stack in the sb with KQ and I was out.

I wandered over to Pai Gow and proceeded to lose my first hand. I wouldn't lose another hand for well over an hour. I ended up winning $100 and decided to go sit in a 1/2 nl game for a bit. A bit is the key phrase. I didn't even last one lap. I bought in for $150 and started in the BB. In the 3rd hand on the button I had 99. A lady in the cutoff who seemed like a pretty decent player raised to $12 and I called. Flop come A109 rainbow. She leads for $12 again and I flat. Turn J and she leads for $15 and I put in a raise to $45. I was talking about the hand to Zooks this morning and I think a better raise in that spot should be in the $60 range. Not much of a difference but meh. River A and she leads for $45. I decide I cant fold a full house and call and get shown the A and the J. Underfull FTL. Shortly after that I called a raise with a suited ace and flopped the fd and shoved my last $27 in and I was up against a set. I didn't improve and in 10 minutes the $150 was gone.

Hopefully Vegas goes a little better on the poker side of things.

I lied

I did. I lied.

Last week I said we'd be back to playing the PokerSlut Tour this week, but alas, we won't be.

Some stupid little holiday is interfering with my poker. 'Nuff said.

So, go watch the Olympics with some take out and snuggle up to whatever floats your boat.

PokerSlut Tour will return next week. Yeah, I'm sure. I already checked. No, really.

AIPS Recap

Edit: I apologize, stud recaps apparently are never meant to be done. Be warned.

Last night started a new season for AIPS. I have finished in the top 10 in the season standings the last two years but I am still looking for my first banana. Event #1 thus year was Stud. It's not my favorite game to play by any means but I always seem to fare well in Stud events. I guess I just suck a little less than the rest of the tourney donk crowd.

The structure was a good one, 2500 chips to start, 15 minute levels and starting at 25/50 so the first couple levels actually mean something. You can see people spew off 40% of their chips in the first level alone. There was 51 runners and the final table would be paid. My starting table looked as follows:

Seat 1: joelok (2500 in chips)
Seat 2: BigAl (2500 in chips)
Seat 4: glance302 (2500 in chips)
Seat 5: miccky j (2500 in chips)
Seat 6: scottc25 (2500 in chips)
Seat 7: McCordPoker (2500 in chips)
Seat 8: Poeben (2500 in chips)

I only recognized glance302 and Poeben from prior AIPS events with the rest complete unknowns. The first two levels was a slow climb and at the end of level 2 I was sitting on t3010 in chips. The first really big hand of the day came in level 3 against a short stack of t1200.

I started with (AA)K
10s completes
3c 2bets
I flat - probably a bad play, I need to get the 10s out and go heads-up.

4th street Me - (AA)K7
Villan - (xx)3J

Betting was capped on 4th street and the rest of his chips went all-in on 5th. He opened up (JJ)3J and I never improved and was left with t1625 after the hand. The rest of level 3 and level 4 I pretty much tread water and ended with t1845.

Level 5 I was able to chip up to t2830 by winning two pots. Fast forward to level 6 I lost a monsterpotten to rascony with kings up against aces up and I was crippled to t850. I was able to pick up a couple more pots to stay alive but anted down to t1215 at the end of level 7. Beginning level 8 I was able to double through PokerGeekMN on back to back hands.

Seat 2: scottc25 showed [Ac 2h Ah 3h 3c Kd 2d] and won (2750) with two pair, Aces and Threes
Seat 3: PokerGeekMN showed [Js 9s Tc Jd 9h 2c 5c] and lost with two pair, Jacks and Nines

Seat 2: scottc25 showed [Kd Ks Jd Qc 3s 5d 5s] and won (5820) with two pair, Kings and Fives
Seat 3: PokerGeekMN showed [8h 8d 4s 6s 9h 6h Ad] and lost with two pair, Eights and Sixes

After those two hands I was sitting on t5830 and a healthy stack.

Working down to the the final tables we hit a major hurdle at 14 people. I think we were sitting on that number for nearly 1/2 hour. In that time I bounced around quite a bit between 6th and 12th. Working out way to the final table I busted two players to give me a nice final table stack:

scottc25: shows [Jd 7d As Tc Ac 4d 6h] (a pair of Aces)
PokerGeekMN: shows [2c Qc 5c 8c 5s Js Ad] (a pair of Fives)

The last of PokerGeek's chips made it in on 6th street. Shortly after that I broke the double bubble of the cash and final table with the following:

scottc25: shows [6s Ad Ac 6c 6h 3h Kc] (a full house, Sixes full of Aces)
carbidexxx: shows [9d Ah Kh As 2h 8c 7c] (a pair of Aces)
scottc25 collected 23750 from pot

Starting the final table the stacks were as follows:

Seat 1: ru47suited (19920 in chips)
Seat 2: scottc25 (34910 in chips)
Seat 3: BigAl (26295 in chips)
Seat 4: zorag (11350 in chips)
Seat 6: jherky psych (16120 in chips)
Seat 7: drewfin03 (14285 in chips)
Seat 8: RiceF88 (4620 in chips)

There was only 7 people as someone busted on the other table right before I busted carbidexxx. I was able to hold on to the chip lead for quite a while until we reached 4 handed. Sitting 4 handed the other 3 opponents played a massive pot which busted one and crippled the other. I ended up taking out jherkey psych in 3rd.

(click to enlarge)

All of the chips were in on 3rd street. I actually had to hit on 7th after his runner runner runner boat when I held one of his 4's. Going into heads-up I was a 2-1 dog in chips.

Seat 1: ru47suited (83350 in chips)
Seat 2: scottc25 (44150 in chips)

I was able to flip the script once where i held the 2-1 lead. I had a run of about 8 bring-ins in a row and my opponent had and ace door card 4 or 5 of the times. I was chopped down to even stacks when I lost the big pot to chop one of my legs out:

scottc25: shows [Qh Jc Js Ks Td Tc 2d] (two pair, Jacks and Tens)
ru47suited: shows [8d 8c 5s 9c 8h Kc Th] (three of a kind, Eights)

After the hand I was down 5:1 in chips. I was able to hang on for another 20 hands or so before I busted in 2nd.

ru47suited: shows [4h As 3s Ts 6h Kd 9s] (high card Ace)
scottc25: shows [Jc Qc 6c 3c 2s 7d 8h] (high card Queen)

All of the chips were in on 3rd street. As it turns out any pair or crub would have got me a double. I guess the whistle didn't work that time. Congrats to ru47suited, another Floridian from Bradenton on the win.

Winstar Report

I was in Dallas this past week and after work on Wednesday night I was able to take a trip up to Winstar. Thanks to rain and rush hour traffic it took me nearly two hours to get there. Pulling into the parking lot it almost didn't even look like the same place. The place is like 3 times the size of what it used to be and the tents are gone.

I was put on the waiting list for 1/2 and after about 15 minutes they opened up a new table. The first five hands were a whirlwind. Won the first, lost the second, lost nearly $100 on the 3rd hand with trip kings (vs someone playing K8), all in on the 4th hand and a win on the 5th hand to get back to the starting stack of $200.

After the early action I settled in. About 4 hours into the session and staying around even I finally was able to win a bigger pot and was sitting on around $260. There was a guy in the game that was playing fairly nitty, folding for $1 from the SB, etc. After he eventually loses his first buyin he has his seat locked up so he can get some more money. About 10 minutes later he comes back, buys in for $100 and says I'm all in dark. WTF? Did he just go take his crazy pill? He gets called by 1010 and loses. Very next hand he does the same thing saying "one last time I'm all in." Nobody calls. Very next hand he just limps and I look down at KK. Fuck me, one hands too late.

The very next hand he adds another $100 for $185 total (after losing some to me the previous hand) and says "OK one last time, I'm all in dark again." I look down and what do I see? KK again! I ship and everyone folds. He hasn't looked at his cards until the board runs out for the full sweat. I didn't have too long of a sweat when the flop came out KJJ. After the board ran out he flipped over AQ. How pissed would I have been if I lost that hand?

I ended up playing for another hour or so for a 5 hour session and walked away with $455 in front of me. I felt good about my nl game going in and it proved to be profitable.