Vegas Recap

Vegas will chew you up and spit you out. We've all heard this phrase and to a large extent it is true. Assholes and degenerates board planes, drive cars, sail (ummm ok probably not sail) but, whatever, they find their way to the desert. Inevitably most come home with emptier pockets, some drunken stories of retardation or sick and run down. Fortunately for me my pockets were heavier than when I arrived and I had a grand total of 2 Guinesses the whole trip.

What I did come home with is a kick-in-the-balls, full on sinus/ear infection. I started feeling shitty as I awoke for the 9th straight morning in the shithole that is the Rio. I mean it is the middle of the fucking desert where 100 degree days are the norm and yet I am freezing my cajones off the whole time. It's as if the place is built for two types of people: gambling degens and vampires. I try to get out to the pool or a walk outside every morning but that's half an hour each day. The remaining 23 1/2 hours I am bundled up like a vacationing Eskimo while protecting my bits from the inevitable shrinkage.

Add to this the collection of people with varying degrees of hygeine, long nights in juicy cash games and Rio essentially devolves into a giant Petri dish waiting to inflict its wrath on various assholes in the room. Once received there is nothing better than schlepping home on a Greyhourd, errr Southwest, flight with the great unwashed. I mean I have a love/hate relationship with the airline. I love their business model, pricing and on-time record. I hate the other retards on the flights, the cheeky canned jokes spewed by the stewardesses and the fact that every flight is packed more tightly than a can of sardines. Oh and the fucking singing...please stop with the fucking singing. I'm not sure what is worse the people doing the singing or the utter shitheads who giggle at them like they just witnessed a Chris Rock set. Anyway I think I am booked for another Southwest flight in July...lol.

On to the pokerzzzz. Despite the brickfest that was WSOP/Venetian tournaments the trip was quite profitable (at least for me). I had sold off half of my action in the bigger buy-in events and sadly had only one minor cash in those events. I hate losing other people's money particularly friends. Most, if not all, are poker players so they understood the variance that comes with these large field MTT's but still I want to deliver a nice return to the people who had the confidence to back me.

Cash games were CRAZY good. I played almost exclusively PLO8, of course, and most of that was the 5 card variety, Big-O. I played 1-2-5, 5-5, and 5-10 blind offerings and the play was equally bad in each, though the aggression in the 5-10 game was markedly higher contributing to a bit more volatility. The secret of the whole room though is the single table satellites. I mostly played the $275 satellites which pay one winner ~$2600 (though a deal is generally reached once heads up). The play in these is dreadful and anyone with half a brain as it relates to endgame SNG strategy will positively clean up in this section of the room. I made over $6k in these SNGs playing 10 or so games. Really super soft.

Anyway here are the quick reviews from the various MTTs I played (starting from after my last update):

• $1500 Pot-Limit Hold Em-Got AQs in blind vs. blind at 150/300 with abt 7200 chips. Opponent was rather aggressive but showed up with AA.
  

• $1500 HORSE- Grinded it out pretty well to a peak of probably about 12k until I lost a pretty large pot in Stud holding rolled up K’s. Bet every street facing the 3 bring in. He made a flush and I didn’t fill up. Then in Holdem portion I 3 bet pre flop (at 400/800 blinds) with TT from the SB got called by the BB and original raiser and saw a flop of AKQ. I checked and action went bet-raise and I had to fold. Finally got most of my stack in pre with 99 for 3 bets and saw another gorgeous KKQ flop.
  

• $350 NLHE Venetian-Cashed in this one for a little more than minimum. Not much interesting really. Actually not true, I did play a huge pot at 300-600 with Q high. Folds to SB who min raises to 1200 and I call Q9 suited. Flop comes K78 rainbow. He bets 1500 and I call not convinced he has anything. Turn is 3 and he checks..I check back. Now know he doesn’t have K. River is a K and he checks. I decide to bet and maybe fold out A high or even some random middle pair like 55. I bet 2600. He quickly check raises to 7700 which makes zero sense. If he flopped a big hand like 77 or 88 he would not have checked turn and river and if he had A hi or weak 1 pair hand why would he turn the hand into a bluff by c/r me on the river knowing he is only getting called by better. So I ship it and he insta-folds T high. My bust out was pretty sick…I had like 18bb left. MP bad player ships 15bb…I reshove 99 from late position. SB then tanks and finally calls off his 20bb stack. BB then tanks and he finally gets clock called and reluctantly makes the call. Hands in order K7, 99, AK, TT. BB’s TT holds. He says if SB snap calls there he folds the Tens.

• $1000 NLHE Got in a lot of weird spots. Not really sure I like how I played some of them. One was early before antes had even kicked in when I had 78cc on A669ccc board and just called the players bet. Pretty well had him on AK or AQ with the K/Q of c. River was an A obv and I folded to his bet. I also folded to a turn shove with KJ on a J672 board with 2 spades. Anyway busted out about 20 before the money when I shoved exactly 10BB holding AJ from the cutoff and BB snapped with TT. Obv I lost the flip. Played my cards too much in this tournament as opposed to situations, etc.
  

• $1500 PLO Tom “durrrrr” Dwan got moved 2 to my left and was obviously happy to just gamble it up. I played 3 large-ish pots and lost all three. First I got in with 4568hh on 237 2h board. He had AQJxhh so my flush was no good. Then chipped up. Dwan opened to 350 at 75/150 another internet stud 3bet to 800. I 4b jammed like 3500 all in from BB with AAQx double suited. Durrrr called with trash and other kid had like KJT9 and rivered a straight. Left with 600. Chipped up to 1k then get it in with 1 other in 3k pot (with dead money) and my AAJx single suited loses to KKT3.

So that is the long and short of it. I don't think in the future I will have extended stays at the Rio or any casino for that matter. I need an apartment or condo or possibly house to provide some normalcy while I am in Fantasyland. My wife and I have kicked around the idea of renting a house in LV for the month of June and sort of hunkering down out west for the month. I could play and also schedule some away time with little trips to LA, SF or Grand Canyon with the kids. We'll see.

I don't think I am going back for the ME this year as we have a family vacation scheduled for mid July.