Vegas, Sept 18-21, Part 1

Rather last-minute, but my new lady friend Melissa(yes, in the romantic sense) was working a job in Las Vegas, and we've reached a point where it was totally unspoken that of course, I would join her.

Let the poker commence!

The first night we met up with some of her friends that happened to be in town at Caesar's.  We ate at Trevi in the Canal Shoppes, quite good, then made our way to Fizz for some cocktails, where I think we were both propositioned and invited to a swingers party.  But I digress....

I woke up a bit later than I wanted, but the afternoon was fairly free until Melissa was done, so I headed over to the new Caesar's room that I have yet to see. We were staying at Bally's, but I hate the low ceilings in that room, so I would not be going there.  This was a bit of a frustrating first session, where I re-learned the '1/2 player betting te river probably has it' rule, being bested with a two pair a7 from my AK.  After a bit of up and down I left $32 down at $168.  We ventured over to the Venetian where we met her friends again, all USC fans, to watch the game at LaGasse's.  I have no investment in this game, so I bowed out and headed to a place where I haven't had much success historically, but I wanted to blow that hex out - at the Venetian's snooty poker house.

Within four hands I was dealt the dreaded pocket Kings. I was in the hand with a fellow who was talking to the man to his left - the man to hs left, we've all had this guy before ---"Oh yes, I stone bubbled the Collossus/Jonathan Little and I had coffee/I normally dont play these limits..." you know what I mean.  The other guy was foreign from the accent I couldn't place, but he had Beats headphones and obviously fancied himself quite the player as he inserted comments with this fellow about all the wonderful WSOP stories he had. Trying to contain the vomit in my mouth from all this banter, I raised three limpers to $15.  One caller across the table, as well as Foreign guy.  WSOP talker, out of the hand, took his typical Im-oh-so-serious-im going-to-look-for-your-tells pose.

The flop is a relatively harmless J58, with two hearts, and I have the heart K.  Foreign guy leads out for 25.   Hm.  I quickly make it $70.  He asks how much that is, thinks for a second and calls.  Turn is a brick, and he pushes out $50.  I shove it.  He tanks, then folds.  A tidy sum that broight me up north of $300.

The demise of foreign guy came about 20 minutes later, when I check my option in the BB with j9 off. The flop came k8T, two hearts.  I check, foreign guy bets out 15 I believe, and I call.  The turn is another heart, I dont recall what, but it was low.  Now Foreign guy bets out 25.  If he has teo baby hearts, good for him, but I didn't read him there.  He limped - then donk bet again like he did before. He hadnt played many hands since KK so I had little concept of his range, but I thought KT might be likely.  I've still got the up and down draw, so I call.  The river is a beautiful 7, masking my straight perfectly.  He bets out 60, and I start the talk.

Me: "Can you beat a straight"
Me: "You don't have hearts."
Me:  " I mean, I have the straight.."
FG: "It does not matter."

That's all I needed. I raise him double, he calls, and mucks. He later said he had pocket 8's, but I doubt it. He left soon after.  I'm now around $450.  I think I flopped a set somewhere in there and won a small pot, and was north of $500 when I made what I thought was a major error.  A very beautiful African-American girl sat down - she seemed to know what she was doing, but in the few hands I saw, she seemed pretty straight forward.
I have black AKos and call her $8 bet(I dont tend to 3bet AK in Vegas).  Flop comes A63, two hearts.  She checks, I bet $17, she calls. The turn comes a heart K.  So, now I have two pair, and she bets out $35 bet.

Me: "Hearts?"
Her: smile
Me" "You have Hearts."
Her:" You can pay and find out!"

Hm.  I smelled a rat, so I said "This is what I'm folding." and showed.  She asked if I really want to know what she had, and she turned over black deuce 5. Why is she raising that?  Maybe she was 25 or something, but she bluffed me off successfully.

I left with $467 from $200, the voodoo successfully expunged from that room.  The next post will involve exorcising another demon at Flamingo....

edgie

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They are testing my brain playing poker...

So, no actual poker hand content, but Ive been selected to take part in a neurological study at USC where they are going to test my brain activity while I play poker.  Should be interesting.

I do it on Tuesday morning, so I will report back with what happened!

Vegas is a no-go.

I hate to say it, but I'll miss my first WSOP trip in 4 years. this year. the car accident deductible, plus a wedding I have to go to NYC for at the end of the month, makes it completely irresponsible to put $ at risk at this point. For now the weekly Normandie tournament and every cash opportunity I can reasonably take will have to do. :(

TENTATIVELY on the way to Vegas June 26-29

...I say this because after an emergency room visit that ended up being just dehydration and then a car accident where I had to pay a 2K deductible two weeks later, money has been a bit scarce. Still, I am going to endeavor to make it. I've had some good runs on Bovada and America's Cardroom and I'm feeling good about my game. Two weeks ago I stone bubbled a satellite event for the ME out here in LA. That stung - just the opportunity to play in the 10K ME has evaded me twice now )getting close in another sat in 2011 online), but I'm going to keep trying to take a stab or two every year. I'm not sure how I will proceed in terms of scheduling should I go. I usually play a daily deepstack at the Rio, along with a Phamous event and something at Binion's or the Nugget (as I usually stay at the Downtown Grand - hands down the best hotel for the money in town). I will play a good dose of cash Day 1, and my fortunes there will largely determine how high my buyins go. I may head out to play sometime this month to see if I can't build up some more $$ to take with me. Admittedly I have no been playing a lot of cash recently, so I need to sit down and put some hours in to get comfortable. Good luck to all making the trip!

Again at the Normandie, 4/11

I think this Saturday Normandie tournament will be my new poker fix. With the $10 discount and a $2500 Guarantee, it offers plenty of play, the people are nice and they have a pretty tasty lunch you can have beforehand. Things went a lot better this week, though I did not cash. Re-entries are allowed through the first three levels, which happen to be 30 minute levels at 25/50, 50/100 and 100/200. then things start to go up quickly and levels shorten to 20 minutes. A lot of these people know each other and play this tournament every week. In fact, one elderly fellow at my table called it 'his home game.' While I was friendly and chatted with everyone, it was obvious that they know each other's tendencies well, and didn't know mine. Throughout the first three levels my 3bets were rarely challenged, so I opened my pre-flop range considerably to take advantage of this. The thing I noticed the most, especially as the levels went up, is that with a couple of exceptions, people had NO concept of how much money was in the pot, and people were giving others incredible odds to call.I caught two baby flushes this way, and over the course of the game, I felted three players, one with a baby flush and two others with AA twice(I know, run good helps). 109 entries were going to pay 10, and I went out in 21st. The average stack was 20BB as the blind levels started to get crazy, and while I did my best short stack ninja work that kept me treading water, at 300/1000/2000 I had dipped to 18K and called a shove from a larger stack with AQ. I was ahead of his KQ, but a King came on the flop and though I had a straight draw and the A over as outs on the turn, I didnt get there. Typically, if I get that kind of action ahead of me, I would pick a better spot, but I had seen him win at showdown with much less than AQ, so I dont really fault my play - I was ahead, after all. I think this field is very beatable, and I'm getting to play live for a cheap price, which my wallet likes! I'll be back.

Coin flip

Made it back to the live tables after a couple of month's absence, with one of the local poker groups here floating a $10 discount on a $40 tournament at Normandie Casino, which I had yet to go to, so I figured I would check it out.

Kind of a dreary place...bad lighting, low ceilings, but the staff was nice enough. I make my buyin and sit down to play. 6000 chips, 25 min levels

Lots of limping.  I took advantage of that by raising late with not much, maybe 10's being the best hand I saw all day.  We are roughly an hour in when this happens.

Im utg with starting stack, 100/200.  I look down at QhKh and raise it to 500.  Folds until the button who conpletes.  I tangled with this guy ince before, splitting a pot with Ax and neither of us beating the board. He had been routinely linping.

Board comes Ah Jc 3h.  With 1300 in the pot And liking this draw, I make it 1000. Villain pauses a bit, and matter of factly, says, I'm going all in. 

He's got me covered, and im fairly cerain he has an ace...but i have a nut flush draw and a straight draw. With all the hearts and 10's, i come to thr cinclusion its a coin flip (in reality im a 53/47 dog, after looking later). 

This is always tough, staking a tournament on a coin flip this early.. But, if i hit, Im in great shape with well over 12k.  I call, and its all black for the turn and river, and Im out.

I dont fault the play, and in a cash game it would be a no-brainer call.  Still, i could have gotten away from that and still been ok. But in theory, the move is, essentially, a $40 bet.  Thats it.  In a 1k wsop event? It would be a 1k bet, and with that perspective I went home thinking a lot about how buy-in anount might be affecting my play adversely...assuming i felt my call with kq was just.  To say that in another scenario I would fold to that shove is an interesting reflection on where my game is...and isnt.

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