Vegas Report

I am back from my Vegas trip and boy, do I have a lot to report. This is the first time I have booked a Vegas trip through a third party. It was interesting, to say the least.

On the flight to Vegas, the head poker tour guy on the flight announced over the loudspeaker that all of the tournaments were canceled. The Colorado Gaming called Nevada Gaming who called Binions, who apparently freaked out and canceled all of our tournaments. Not only that, but he said that Binions canceled all of our reservations and that were had to find a place to stay on our own. Now this was a fight weekend, so finding a room would not be easy. Luckily, before we landed, the guy announced that we can still stay at Binions, but we would have to pay them ourselves, and APT would reimburse us.

When we got to Vegas, Laurie, the girl I brought with me, and I decided to start off the gambling early and try to cab it to the hotel instead of waiting for the bus that was arranged but had not shown up yet. The taxi line was long, but it moved fast. When we got to the hotel, the checkin line was out the door. We got in line and wait, and waited, and waited some more. After about an hour, we were finally standing inside. Inside, we waited, and waited, and waited some more. Finally, we checked in. Our non-smoking room turned out to be a smoking room. So glad he asked what I preferred when I checked in. NOT!

I played 2.5 sessions, 1 MTT, and 1 SNG. I started with a $60 MTT at TI. I played loose and aggressive and donked off all of my chips quickly. I went over to a cash games and joined a $1-$3 NLHE table. I continues to play loose and stupid. This is common for me until I get settled in and got my fill of action. Then I play smarter and make money. I donked off about $500 before I called it a day. I went back downtown, had some dinner, relaxed, and caught a few z's.

I hit the Binion's poker room around 3:30am and saw two empty seats, one at each NLHE table. One table had a drunk obnoxious guy, so I went to the other table. Stupid me! Little did I know before sitting down, but this guy about 3 grand in front of him and was bluffing like crazy. I asked to be moved to his table, but was put on a transfer list. I played smart and didn't lose any money when I was finally called to move tables. I was put a couple of seats to the left of the grunk guy. He was loud and rude, but no cared because he had so much money to give away. After about 20 minutes, the drunk guy asked to be moved to the other table. Ugh. I decided I was going to stay and learn how these players played. I rarely played during the 8.5 hour session. I was very selective. I ended up winning 3 large pots during the session moving my $200 starting stack to around $900. The $700 profit more than covered my $560 loss from the previous day, so I was up $140.

I had a great dinner that night at Hugo's Cellar. If you ever want to impress a girl, take her to Hugo's. It is a very very nice restaurant. Later that night I went to TI to meet my friend Anthony who drove out from LA. We played some Pai Gow Poker and I won about $200.

The next day Laurie and I joined my poker friends, Neval and Scooter, to the MGM poker room. I started off loose and aggressive and donked off $100 in 3 hands before a seat opened up at Neval's table and I moved. I settled down and won back $55 before a SNG started. The structure was crazy. Start with $1000, blinds at $25-$50, and they double every 12 minutes. After winning a bunch of small pots, I got my queens cracked by kings. Down to about $1300 with the blinds at $200-$400 I knew I was in trouble. I took a chance from the small blind after 4 limpers came in by popping it for the rest of my chips. Everyone folded except for one person who had A2o. I had 78o. No help and I was out in 6th place.

The flight home was less eventful, but the promised that they would make this up to us by rescheduling the tournaments for another time. I hope I can go. I think I might arrange my own room and fight though.

It was nice to end the trip ahead. Not only did I end up ahead at poker and pai gow, but I ended up ahead by winning my $165 Mayweather-DeLahoya bet after losing my $35 Kentucky Derby bet.