It was the worst of times, it was the best of times...

I didn't talk about it too much on this blog, but I went to Vegas for what turns out to be the longest trip I've ever taken.  I had grandiose plans on taking down a bracelet (or three), but definitely had intentions to run good (who doesn't have that plan?) and at least score a cash.

My wife bought me a round trip ticket to Vegas for my birthday, working with a friend to research tournament options, hotel accommodations, etc.  Consistent with my arrival date, I opted to play the Millionaire Maker last week.  Mind you this is my first WSOP; I've never seen the Rio during WSOP, nor have I ever played in any non-circuit event.  I arrived at Rio late Thursday night, surveying a mostly filled Pavilion room and lots of action.  Turns out there are 2 other rooms almost as cavernous!  Wow!  Poker in America is alive!  I meet up with a few buddies, and see one of the floor managers from Baltimore.  After meets & greets, I go back to my hotel to get some rest for the 10AM start the following day.

I was a little late to my table to start the morning, so I maybe was blinded off 75 chips - a paltry amount.  I think I treaded water for a few hours with a stack size hovering around 7000 from the 7500 start.  No major hands to reiterate for this blog, but my table was eventually broken and I was seated around 2 tables behind where I was originally.

I walk over to the new table to find that I would be sitting in the big blind.  At this point, blinds are 100/200 with a 50 ante.  I look at the table, say aloud "I'm in the Big Blind?  I'm going to take a walk," and continue to take a walk around the room after observing my poor starting spot (I maybe have 6000 chips at this point).  As I circle back around to my seat after the dealer deals the cards, the dealer yells, "Floor!" and tells the floor that I avoided my blinds.  Apparently, that's against the rules - I had no idea.  I've played in all of 3 tournaments and never had to deal with a situation such as this.  Floor calls the tournament director, and tournament director says that I'm supposed to pay my big blind and small blind (with missed antes) to the pot on the next hand, as well as sit out a one round penalty (paying antes).  That's not all.  I'm also supposed to miss my next big blind and small blind (and antes) and can sit back in as the cutoff.  Pretty steep penalty; around 20% of my stack!  WTF.  At this table, though, I eventually recover my chip stack and work back to maybe 8000 before another table break.

I move into the Brasilia Room, which is where I'd finish my tournament with another atrocious penalty / angle shoot.  Guy sitting next to me is a complete fish with a mountain of chips - just trying to give them away.  A few hours pass and I dribble my stack down to ~4000 through blinds and antes.  Guy nearly doubles me up with JJ on a KK7 x 7 board with 22.  I'm sitting on around 8000 chips now and he pulls an angle shoot on me:

In the BB with 150/300/50 blinds and look down at AJ.  UTG limped, folded around to SB (fish) who calls his option.  Dealers starts to deal but I hold him up because I haven't acted.  I take the 3 100 chips and pull them back - putting out a single 1000 chip.  UTG instacalls and SB starts complaining that I just called.  I say "excuse me?"  It was very clear that I was raising.  He says 1 chip = call.  Half the table is like WTF - such a standard thing.  He's insistent.  Calls floor.  In the meantime, he tells me he understood what I wanted to do, but 1 chip = call.  Floor rules in his favor.  Seriously?  WTF?  Same floor person that gave me the penalty before, BTW.  Flop comes 9 9 x.  I lead for 800.  UTG calls and SB folds.  Turn is a blank.  I check / UTG leads & I fold.

I would eventually get all in with angle shooter on my BB with 9 4 on a Qd 9 5 4d board against his 76dd - diamond on the river LDO.  I so wanted to throat punch this douche bag....  Thus ends my Millionaire Maker WSOP run...

I decided to not dump more money into tournament poker - particularly because I was running so poorly.  Switching over to cash games, my whole week would be filled with card deadness & second besting.  At every flop, turn and river, I felt like I was being outplayed, only to be proved that I was being outlucked...  The majority of the time, I would properly fold - I think there were 2 or 3 bad calls that I made in the 45 hours of cash play.  45 hours in 4-5 days and you get pretty sick of building a pot only to have to fold the river...

My last day of cash would mostly make up for my run bad in cash, as I didn't get hit by the deck, but ran pretty darn well.

Final notes:  I played in Rio, Planet Hollywood (briefly, which is a crappy poker room.  I met Tim TheTrooper97Vlog at PH - he was sitting at the same table as me!), and Belagio (my favorite Vegas poker room).  I saw Scotty Nguyen, Doyle, Scott Seiver, Elie Elezra, Johnny Chan and Antonio Esfandiari.  It was a fun time - particularly when I was able to make up my deficit on the last day.  Let me tell you: Vegas is miserable when you're running bad as a poker player.

A Tale of Two Regs

Do you fancy yourself a pro?

As I alluded to in last week's post, I was tracking an apparent reg at the table - a Russian chick - while playing a session at the Belagio.  Word on the street (at least from the dealers' perspective) is that she sits there, doesn't say a word, and grinds away.  She's not unpleasant to work with - but I wouldn't describe her as pleasant, either.  The whole time I was there, she was checking her phone, disinterested in anything ongoing at the table.  In fact, when she was checked out of a hand, she was literally checked out - head down, looking at her phone.

In contrast, earlier in the session was a bald younger to middle aged gentleman (thick accent; maybe somewhere former Soviet bloc I'd imagine as well) who was [as it turned out later] waiting on a 5/10 seat to open.  It's not often that I see the 5/10 players showing up at the 1/3 games, but it was an interesting experience.  This guy was totally in tune with the game.  Although he was hyper aggressive and unpleasant [as an opponent] to have in the game, he gave me an opportunity to learn a few tricks.  He made me more alert of my game and what I was doing, and also made me more carefully examine each move that I was making.  He made me and the entire table realize that the money means a whole lot less to him than it does to the rest of the table, and as such, everyone walked on egg shells around him...  The table wasn't sure what his range was (it was very wide as he would open most pots and limp / call almost everything else).  He would frequently float and call cbets, and make large pot-sized cbets himself if he was opening the pot first (most of the time, he'd take down the pot, but if not, he'd barrel again on the turn).  He would carefully and deliberately make decisions rather than snap call or snap fold.  In other words, he was prepared to fight for every pot, no matter size nor action.

All of this glowing review of the 5/10 player is not meant to glorify him; he certainly had his flaws - spots where I would easily fold without a second thought (old guy shoves over with full stacks on a Q Q x board and he called with Q2 to be shown KQ and suckout for the chop), or 3betting me all in for $40 with A4 after I opened for $15 with A7o from the BTN immediately after the Q2 loss.  However, the takeaway for me is selective, hard aggression.  Barrelling twice is significant.  As I alluded to in my last post, floating flops is significant.  When opponents check the turn after taking initiative on the flop, it's usually a sign that they're giving up / pot controlling.  Stealing from the BTN makes sense.

All of the disdain I hold for the Russian chick is absolutely meant to chastise her.  If you fancy yourself a pro, stop screwing around on the phone.  Stop being distracted.  Stop being unfriendly at the table.  Use the tools you have to your advantage.  You're missing out on valuable information by not paying attention: how people play, their tendencies, why they play, what they're saying.  Identifying what motivates your opponent goes a long way to beating your opponent.  Does he play to win money?  Is she uncomfortable with the amount of money on the table?  Does he want the social aspect of the game?

Look, you consider yourself a pro.  If you work at a professional job, do you drink on the job?  Then why are you drinking at the table?  If you work at a professional job, do you play on your cell phone in between answering emails of phone calls?  Then why are you playing on your phone at the table?  If you work at a professional job, do you neglect your customers?  Then why are you ignoring your customers at the table?

Just some thoughts I wanted to put down...

Getting more comfortable with bluffs and picking spots - a Vegas recap

A critical part of your game should be adjusting to the type of game you're playing.  If you're playing in a tight game, play loose.  If you're playing in a loose game, play tight.  That's the adage at least - and I'm sticking to it!  As with the prior posts, I'm experimenting with expanding my game in the correct situations, and was able to pull off a few more bluffs this week.  Skip to the end if you don't care about the blah blah blah Vegas vacation recap.

The games in Vegas are an interesting breed - unlike that of the DC area.  Here in DC, people tend to not give up very easily, floating cbets and looking for spots to re-bluff.  Perhaps it's simply a factor of Vegas bringing in a more international flavor with a varied range of wealth types, versus the super competitive dog-eat-dog area that is known as the nation's capital, but the Vegas games seem extremely passive.

I got a decent amount of seat time in, all at odd hours (12am - 4am, 2pm - 7pm, 12am - 2am, etc.) but all told, I got to play 18+ hours throughout my Friday to Tuesday trip (while not playing a single hour neither Friday nor Tuesday).  My wife & I stayed compliments of Caesars Corporation at the Linq hotel & casino  (formerly the Imperial Palace).  The hotel room was decent enough - it was on the scale of a Hampton Inn or similar.   Everything was fresh & new, and the bed was comfortable.  We stayed in a room overlooking the Harrah's pool (which, BTW, is shared with the Linq for the under 21 crowd to use; the Linq has a 21 and older pool only).

Nice butt from the Linq

Decent looking chick at the Linq

Unfortunately, the Linq doesn't have a poker room, so I was forced to go elsewhere for my play.  Across the street from the Linq is the flagship casino, Caesar's Palace, where I got in 3 sessions of 1/2 poker.  Not only was it the most convenient - a mere 5 minute walk, but also I could receive Total Rewards credits for my play, as I attempt to achieve Diamond status (I should be there within 3 months).  The 3 sessions I played there were laughable - the tables were very loose passive, arguably the most desirable type of game: raise and they fold, or they call and fold the flop cbet, or they call and fold the turn / river overcard.  Easy peasy, even though the game selection wasn't that great; it was 1/2 poker but only had 4-5 games going on a given night.  Some interesting things I saw were a guy open shoving a 3 flush river on a double paired board (T T 7 5 5 I think), and his opponent folding face up with Q T, not realizing that he rivered the boat as well.  I saw another guy call down Ten high for no other apparent reason (and actually won the pot).  One other notable was where I freerolled a flush on a 4straight board (I shoved on a turned 2 heart board and my opponent called for the chop only to river the 3rd heart for the flush for me).  I'm sure there were a host of other egregious errors, but I can't remember any at this time.

I played a session during the day at the Wynn while my wife was buying at the ASD wholesale show with her parents.  This setting was a bit more of a challenge than Caesar's - there were some Vegas grinders - 3, in fact.  I was able to take advantage of one of the regs, which is detailed below in the hand history section.  It was during this session that I was able to play with the [in]famous Tony Big Charles.  He and I mixed it up for one footnote of a hand: I limped J9o and he limped AJo (questionable to limp MP with that hand, but what do I know...) and we gutted a turned straight (8 T K -- Q) to get it all in for $80 (I led $25 into the 2 flush board and he raised to $50 or something; I shoved and he called for his remaining dollars).  I don't think I'm ever folding the second nuts for $55 more...  Anyway, despite my play with Tony, I walked away a winner.

EDIT: According to Tony's post, this was a "big pot."  I don't know what his thought was, but he was certainly questioning me on the hand afterwards, wondering what hand I put him on that he would raise the turn - ummm...  sets, 2 pair, AK, any host of hands, but I digress.  A note on Tony for future reference: he does not like to slow play, seemingly ever (the hand above happened fairly early on) - even when it's a blank, draw-free board.  He'll only raise a very small range, and bet the shit out of it when he knows he's ahead.  An example is flopping top set with KK - he pots the flop where he should have checked to let others catch an Ace or a backdoor draw.  Instead, he pots $45 on a board where rarely anyone can have a solid hand.  Tony, if you're reading the post, please take the comments as advice, not as criticism.  Learn from it if you choose to.  Also, it was fun playing with Tony - I don't think I've ever played against him at a table though I've met him 3 times now.

Just Johnny 'n me!

After the Wynn, my in-laws took my wife and I to Bazaar Meat in the SLS casino.  Great eats - just like Jaleo, but classier and more expensive.  The two restaurants share similar dishes, but the Bazaar Meat is centered around steak and different cuts of meat like Wagyu beef and whole suckling pig.  The vegetables dishes are excellent (brussel sprouts, croquettes, asparagus, peppers, mashed 'taters, etc.), the 2 1/2 lb. ribeye was cooked perfectly, and the desserts were out of this world!  We got a bit of a special treatment, since my brother in-law's brother-in law is the head chef over at the Bethesda Jaleo.  For me, though, the coolest part about the whole visit was the fact that we ate at the table behind Johnny Chan (yes, that Johnny F*CKING Chan!!!) and Minh Ly.  Ho hum... rubbing elbows with celebrities and pros are what I do everyday...  I bothered Mr. Orient Express for a picture, and he obliged, as you can see.  It was kinda cool - and I guess I shouldn't be awe-struck, but he's on the phone with someone, ordering something and he's like "yes...  my name is John Chan..."  Who the hell is he talking to?  Shouldn't he be like "yes, it's me - you should know who this voice is!  I'm the man!"  Regardless, Mr. Chan is indeed the man, and he was very gracious to allow a pic with me!  Mr. Ly is pretty cool himself - he seemed like a fun guy as well.

The back of Doyle Brunson's head, wearing a red shirt and tan baseball cap

Scott Seiver in blue, seated

Final session of note was played at the Belagio 1/3 tables where Doyle and the gang were playing 1/2 mix...  oh - I mean 1 THOUSAND / 2 THOUSAND mix.  There was probably $1m + on the table.  I wasn't able to get a good pic of anything, but Scott Seiver was there, as was Jon "Pearljammer" Turner (I think it was him), Patrik Antonius, and a few other players I didn't recognize.  Anyway, my table at the Belagio had an international flair, as described below.  I found the general feel of Belagio to be similar to that of the Wynn, but the room was far more accommodating to grinders.  First, they serve Fiji water, which I think is more expensive than the standard fare.  All alcohol is free, and they'll bring you whatever you want.  The servers and dealers are super professional.  The only other items worth mentioning are that new players must post and new players can post behind the small blind, in between the small blind and the BTN.  That rule is totally weird, FYI - you wind up effectively with 3 blinds: BB, SB and the new player blind.  IMO, stupid rule, but again, what do I know...

Final item before we go into hand histories: it seems universal to Vegas that the they have a modified Mississippi straddle where only the UTG & BTN may straddle.  If the BTN straddles, there are a few rules: first to act is always the UTG, if the pot goes unraised prior to action to the natural BTN position, action jumps to the SB, then the BB, and finally the BTN.  If the pot is raised prior to the natural BTN, the BTN acts and then SB, BB.  Strange rules, but once again, what do I know...

The Hand Histories

Wynn 1/3:

Aggro has a newly doubled stack of $160 raises to $15 and I call with QJo along with 2 others.

Flop comes K K 6 dd.  Checks to aggro who leads for $20.  One caller in between and I raise to (I think - no notes) $50.  Instamucks all around and I scoop.

Belagio 1/3:

I'm sitting at a truly international table; 3 Italians (the Italian to my right is a poker coach and professional Stars grinder on Stars Italy), a girl from China, a Brazilian, a guy from Denmark and a Russian who I'm pretty sure fancies herself a pro (I'm going to write a post devoted solely to this chick later in the week / next week).

I call AQo out of the BB to a $15 raise from the Russian who's been playing fairly tight / aggressive.  Notably, she's frustrated because lately, every time she opens, she's getting 3bet and shut out of pots.  This time, we see a 3 way flop (I think the Danish guy calls): 3 5 6 rainbow.

Russian cbets $25 into the $45 pot and I just call to see what materializes on the turn.  Turn is a 4 completing the rainbow.  I lead for $45, repping 77 and after a long time, she opts to flat.

River is an 8.  I pause for a bit, thinking about bet sizing and put out $125  (I wanted to say - "if you're calling $45 on the turn with a bit of hesitation, I put you on a solid overpair and want you to call, but I don't want to make it an easy call for you.  Therefore I put out a roughly 3/4 pot bet.", while I'm thinking, "I've seen you fold hands, and I know you can fold this hand.  I'll make it easier for you by betting more than a stack of red.")  This stops her dead in her tracks - she tanks for about 5 minutes before finally opting to fold.

Belagio 1/3:

Same table as above, $6 raise from UTG+1, called in 5 spots ($30 in the pot) and I'm in the BB with KQo.  I look, think, and 3bet to $38.  Folds all around and I scoop a decent pot.

Vegas, baby!

I'm headed out to Vegas on Friday morning...  plans are for a 5 day trip.  I'm looking to perhaps mix it up with a few tournaments since I'll have the time to put in.  Here are the "major" guaranteed tourneys going on while I'm there:

• Venetian 8/1 12pm $300 $15k guaranteed - 12k chips, 30 minute levels
• Wynn 8/1 12pm $225 $25k guaranteed - 10k chips, 40 minute levels
• Venetian 8/4 12pm $150 $10k guaranteed - 12k chips, 30 minute levels

So, having never played a wide field tournament, how long do these events last?  If it starts at 12, will I be playing into the dinner hour?   Are they one-day events?  Would any of the above be considered "good value?"  Do the weekly guaranteed at these places carry an overlay (which would be nice)? 

Likely, I'll play the Wynn 8/1 and the Venetian 8/4 from the look of it.  The rest of the days and time that I have will be filled with 1/3 cash games.  Best I can tell, the places for cash games are the Venetian, Belagio, ARIA and Wynn - and based on Rob's latest details with Orel Hershiser, I'll probably go with the ARIA primarily.

Thoughts?

Booking a trip to Vegas, baby!!!

My wife and I have finally booked a vacation to Vegas!  I'll be visiting Vegas mid-March for the first time in 7 years!  I can't wait!  We'll be staying on the strip - so if anyone has any ideas for the best places to go play, I'll probably have a few hours to avail myself to play cards...

I have no idea how Vegas works as far as best comps, best action, busiest rooms, etc.  I can't imagine that I'd want to venture off-strip to play poker, though - so places like Green Valley Ranch and the like are probably out of the question.  We still haven't decided whether we'll rent a car - we'll probably take a car for a day or two ultimately, so that we can go see the Grand Canyon, the Hoover Damn or any of the other sites.  I'd also like to get down to Binions Horseshoe and the old strip just to check it out.

So before I end this post, I'm sure all of my readers have opinions of things to do while in Vegas.  I'm taking all suggestions!  Please let me know!  Any advice on getting cheap tickets to the Vegas shows is also much appreciated!