leon
11-29-2004, 08:08 PM
I went to LV from 11/20-11/28. I was making this trip semi regularly 1-2 years ago until I moved out to San Diego where I live now. Of course now that I'm closer I have much less time on my hands and thus this was actually my first trip out this year... sad. The plan was poker, craps, seeing friends, and cooking for Thanksgiving, not necessarily in that order.
I got in Sat night, dropped my stuff off and headed straight for the Bellagio for some 10/20 NL. I do the vast majority of my playing online these days so every now and then I really get the urge to play live. In addition, I've been playing more and more NL and PL these last few years but only live, so this seemed like the best of both worlds. The game was fairly good as I'd heard. Tended towards the aggressive side but also a lot of loose calls with top pair no kicker. I bought in for 3K which made me an above average stack. Normally I subscribe to part of Tommy Angelo's thinking with NL/PL games- you want as big a stack as the fish at the table. However, my initial scouting revealed the people I'd pegged as the likely fish either had small stacks or in one case 8K which I didn't particularly feel like covering given I'd just jumped off the plane. Standard opening raise was 80-100$ which often was called in 2-3 spots. Couple of hands of note-
I have 1010 and make it 80 to go in middle position. Folded around to the BB, weakish calling station who calls. Flop comes 886 rainbow. He checks, I bet 100. He thinks and calls. Turn comes a 2, he checks, at this point I'm thinking he could call the flop bet with a 6 or potentially even 2 overcards. Anyway, we'll find out here. I bet 300, he calls pretty quickly. Hmm. The only question is how bad this guy really is- I don't think he'd call twice here with a 6. I plan on checking the river unless I improve. I figure he'll show me an 8. Of course I river a 10. He checks. The only question is how much to bet. I look over and it looks like he's itching for a call, so I oblige him and move in for a little over 2K which he quickly calls. MHIG and he starts muttering to himself about how he played that really badly as he flashes an 8. He did get me to bet his hand for him until the river, but he has to know I'm not going to bet the river unless his trips are no good. In any case, that got things started for me nicely.
Another hand I had 10K in the BB and get a free play. The flop comes 310Q and there are 5 of us. OK, nothing pot, nothing hand, move on. Eh, checked around. Turn is a 7, damn it, fine, you forced me to take a stab at this pot. I bet the pot and get called by a decent player. At this point, I can't put him on a hand I can beat. River comes another 10 and I bet 200. He raises to 400. I'm getting 4.5-1 on my call with trips/decent kicker. I call and don't like it, obviously. He shows me 10Q for flopped 2 pair and rivered boat. Wow. I'm pretty lucky he didn't raise more- I might have called a 400$ raise or so.
Anyway, I book a 2K win in the game. The next game over has Gus Hansen and Celine Dion's husband (or so I'm told), they're playing 1500/3000 stud. Johnny Chan shows up at some point and plays as well. Kinda cool. I thought about getting them to autograph one of my benjamins but decide they probably don't want to be bothered. In any case, I should have another opportunity for that. Gus spends more time talking to some girls who are fawning all over him at the sports book right outside the poker room. Decent looking girls, nothing special, but good for the ego I suppose.
Sunday I went to the Mirage for some 20/40. I won about 700$ in a hr and decided to play the tournament that night, 300 some$, unlimited 200$ rebuys the first hr, 200$ add on. So realistically it's a 500$ tournament at least. I played a satellite for 75$ first which was a mistake. I know the fields in these things are weak, and mine certainly was, but the stack size to blind ratio was too small making luck too much of a factor. No notable hands, and I ended up losing a race with 88 to AQ. Damn. The tournament was more interesting, 48 players, many of them weak. I felt I had a good shot at this one. 7900$ to the winner. I played pretty well throughout but ended up going out 10th with... 88 again. Had a medium stack and a slightly larger stack brought it in for 4x the BB, standard raise. They were only paying 5 spots and I wanted to make some real money and not just sneak into some cash, so I moved in. The raiser had pocket kings and I'm gone. At the time I felt ok about my play, knowing that I had to gather some chips to win and that people were still opening with trash they could fold to a reraise- 10K sooted and the like. Now I'm not so sure- perhaps I could have picked a better spot- if he has a decent hand I'm either a small favorite or huge dog. What do other people think- wait for a better spot or try and gather some chips?
With the 500$ plus 75$ satellite fee spent I lock up a solid 100$ win. MMM.
Monday I was supposed to meet pokerbabe at the Mirage. For those of you who don't know her she is a class act and a lot of fun. I try and get in touch with her now everytime I come out to Vegas. Of course, she ditched me that day, claiming she had to go "shopping with her sister" or some such. Clearly she was afraid of me being in her game. I win 300$ and go pick my brother up at the airport. Now that some other people are in town I can start opening my biggest poker leak- craps. I love the game. Whenever I have family or friends in town who don't play poker I always end up playing more craps than I should b/c it's a much more sociable game than poker. Plus, it's fun. My bankroll is much larger these days than it used to be so I'm looking forward to playing 10$ pass line bets and 100$ odds behind at the Stratosphere. Casino Royale lets you take 100x odds with 2$ pass line bets but I don't quite have the stomach for that yet. So, we proceed to the Stratosphere and I book a 600$ loser at craps.
Tuesday I actually got to meet up with the babe for some 20/40. She intro'd me to Key West Mike who is another of her best boys, an all-around nice guy and a solid player. There was another guy in the game who I quickly pegged as a good player. At some point I raised his blind for the second time, he shows me a deuce and says "every time you raise my blind I have one of these" as he mucks. Next orbit he raises my blind and I have K3. I show him the 3 and say "everytime you raise my blind I have one of these" as I muck. He goes, "that was the first time I raised your blind" and I say, "exactly". Turns out he's a fellow 2+2er, Sobedude, or as he puts it, "the whipping boy of the mid/high stakes forum". We proceed to have a riproaring coversation, covering everything from past posts to foxwoods, much to the annoyance of the rest of the table. People were actually telling us to shut up and play which we obliged with. I felt like making a snide comment but Sobe handled it for me. I lock up a nice 1800$ win, Sobe also booked a good win, and the babe came back from being stuck earlier so everything worked out ok. Went to Lawry's that night with my brother and planned on joining the 2+2/poker discussion group at Binion's the next day on an invite from babe.
The discussion group was pretty cool. About 30 some people taking up the back room in Binion's coffeeshop. Sobe and KW Mike showed up too. Jan Fisher and Linda Johnson were there, as was Al Schoonmaker and a bunch of other 2+2er's. Good times. Linda told us a lot about the tournament scene and we discussed a few hands, a few of which were played in the 20/40 game the day before. Anyone from out of town who comes to Vegas, I highly recommend attending this if for no other reason than to meet some other players. I leave early and go play at Mandalay's 4/8 game with my brother who is playing for the first time. I taught him the basics of Hold em before but he essentially knows nothing. I tried to give him some tips beforehand but there's so much you can tell a new player that I didn't want to bombard him with information, most of which he wouldn't understand at this point. So, mostly I emphasized having fun, tipping the dealer, protecting your cards, etc etc. For those who don't know this is a supersoft game in a very nice room. My bro loses only 10$ and has a lot of fun. I book a 100$+ win and get to play a lot of rags. Good times. Many times I was the only one raising at the table which drew a lot of looks from people. My brother knew what I was doing but I still had a hard time trying to convince him to play aggressively. It's a learned skill I suppose. We picked up my friend from the airport that night, played some craps at the stratosphere (won 1K), ate some awful Mexican food at 2:30 am and waiting for my fiance to drive in from San Diego. She got in around 3am and the crew was complete.
Thursday we didn't do much- cooked for thanksgiving and stayed home most of the day. We went out that night and I got hammered at craps and BJ. Happy Thanksgiving. Stayed up until 5:30am that night playing cards... spades. Just the 4 of us sitting around a card table at home, not losing a dime.
Fri and Sat were honestly a blur. My brother left Fri evening, and I do recall something about a buffet at the Mandalay, losing 400$ there, 850$ more at the Frontier (where you can also take 10x odds BTW /images/graemlins/grin.gif), and then another 600$ at the stratosphere. That sucked but good times were had by all. Sat I played at the Mirage to meet up with Babe again, started off playing some shorthanded 40/80 in a fairly tough game. That was a mistake which I quickly rectified by joining babe in the 20/40, lucky to book a win in the 40/80 game. The 20/40 game was good as usual but for the first time in a while I went card dead. I've been running pretty good the last 2 months and I forgot what it was like to get hrs of crap. Only one hand of note- early player limps, I raise with AJ sooted and the rest fold. Flop comes 872, none of my suit, and he checks. Normally, I bet here, oh, about 100% of the time. Here though, I'm thinking, "he's probably going to call my flop bet regardless. Or he could check raise. I don't think he's going to give it up and he probably likes the flop more than me". SoBedude posted a similar circumstance a little while ago, basically where you know you're going to get called/played with on the flop so you wait for the turn. We had discussed this on Wed at some point, and it was going through my head, so I decide to check behind. The turn is a 5 and he bets. I raise. He thinks a little bit and calls. The river is a 4, 24578. He checks, I check behind. He can't have a hand here which he can call the turn raise with and not call the river, so I think. He shows me a6 for the rivered straight. Ni han sur. Here I was thinking he had the best hand after he called my turn raise. He claims he would have folded to a flop bet. I'm not so sure. I lose 56$ for my only poker loss of the trip.
My fiance has been playing for a year now and is a decent low limit player. Meaning, she has some understanding of odds and a good preflop strategy, which is more than enough to take money from the majority of those mopes. She still needs to work on her aggression, but then, that could be said of other poker players I know (babe /images/graemlins/wink.gif). And they'd probably say I'm too aggressive in any case. She books a nice win in the 3/6 game, and afterwards is shocked by how badly her opponents play. I keep trying to tell her that MOST games are like that.
The rest of Sat is pretty sedate- we saw George Carlin at MGM and I gave away more money at BJ. I do HORRIBLY at BJ. Clearly I don't play enough to see the supposed small disadvantage I have playing perfect basic-strategy come out, but come on. It seems everytime I double in favorable situations, everytime the dealer shows a bust card, everytime I have a pat hand I lose. It's just aggravating enough to keep me coming back for more /images/graemlins/grin.gif. Some notable events this trip include-
1. doubling with 200$ out on an 11 for a 400$ outlay, hitting a nine against the dealer's 5 for a solid 20, having said dealer turn up a 7 and hit an ace, an ace, a 2, and then a 5 for 21 (that one was fun),
2. Splitting aces twice (3 aces total), catching 19 and 20 on each one. Losing to a 5 card 21. Nice.
3. Needing 20 to push. Time and time again. This is standard.
4. Betting 100-200$ a hand when the count is good. Getting 15 and 16's during said count. Betting the minimum during even or poor counts. Having those be the only times I ever got BJ's or 20's (most of the 20's I ended up pushing anyways).
I love blackjack.
Sun morning I dropped my friend off at the airport early, slept for a little, and then the fiance and I went to play at the Mandalay for some last minute fun. It was either that or craps and I didn't feel like warming up for a 5 hr drive, minimum, back to SD with another 1K loser. The game was predictably soft, predictably fun, I won 100$ and she won 160$ which I'm really proud of for her. Once again my raising drew unfriendly looks from some people, but the dude in the 2 seat who would cap it with 104o was loving it. He and I made the game, so to speak.
The drive home was so painful- good 'ol California traffic coming back from LV. Took 7 hrs to get home. And I booked a 2K loss online while writing to you fine people. Fun stuff. I love this game.
Summary of expectations/net for the trip-
-poker- +EV, up 4400$.
-craps- -EV, huge +EV on fun, satisfied on both counts. Stuck about 2K.
-blackjack- -EV, -EV for fun. "Satisfied" on both counts. Never again.
-met sobedude and KW Mike, saw babe again- freeroll, huge positive result.
-hanging with friends- +EV. Success.
Thanks for reading.
Leon
I got in Sat night, dropped my stuff off and headed straight for the Bellagio for some 10/20 NL. I do the vast majority of my playing online these days so every now and then I really get the urge to play live. In addition, I've been playing more and more NL and PL these last few years but only live, so this seemed like the best of both worlds. The game was fairly good as I'd heard. Tended towards the aggressive side but also a lot of loose calls with top pair no kicker. I bought in for 3K which made me an above average stack. Normally I subscribe to part of Tommy Angelo's thinking with NL/PL games- you want as big a stack as the fish at the table. However, my initial scouting revealed the people I'd pegged as the likely fish either had small stacks or in one case 8K which I didn't particularly feel like covering given I'd just jumped off the plane. Standard opening raise was 80-100$ which often was called in 2-3 spots. Couple of hands of note-
I have 1010 and make it 80 to go in middle position. Folded around to the BB, weakish calling station who calls. Flop comes 886 rainbow. He checks, I bet 100. He thinks and calls. Turn comes a 2, he checks, at this point I'm thinking he could call the flop bet with a 6 or potentially even 2 overcards. Anyway, we'll find out here. I bet 300, he calls pretty quickly. Hmm. The only question is how bad this guy really is- I don't think he'd call twice here with a 6. I plan on checking the river unless I improve. I figure he'll show me an 8. Of course I river a 10. He checks. The only question is how much to bet. I look over and it looks like he's itching for a call, so I oblige him and move in for a little over 2K which he quickly calls. MHIG and he starts muttering to himself about how he played that really badly as he flashes an 8. He did get me to bet his hand for him until the river, but he has to know I'm not going to bet the river unless his trips are no good. In any case, that got things started for me nicely.
Another hand I had 10K in the BB and get a free play. The flop comes 310Q and there are 5 of us. OK, nothing pot, nothing hand, move on. Eh, checked around. Turn is a 7, damn it, fine, you forced me to take a stab at this pot. I bet the pot and get called by a decent player. At this point, I can't put him on a hand I can beat. River comes another 10 and I bet 200. He raises to 400. I'm getting 4.5-1 on my call with trips/decent kicker. I call and don't like it, obviously. He shows me 10Q for flopped 2 pair and rivered boat. Wow. I'm pretty lucky he didn't raise more- I might have called a 400$ raise or so.
Anyway, I book a 2K win in the game. The next game over has Gus Hansen and Celine Dion's husband (or so I'm told), they're playing 1500/3000 stud. Johnny Chan shows up at some point and plays as well. Kinda cool. I thought about getting them to autograph one of my benjamins but decide they probably don't want to be bothered. In any case, I should have another opportunity for that. Gus spends more time talking to some girls who are fawning all over him at the sports book right outside the poker room. Decent looking girls, nothing special, but good for the ego I suppose.
Sunday I went to the Mirage for some 20/40. I won about 700$ in a hr and decided to play the tournament that night, 300 some$, unlimited 200$ rebuys the first hr, 200$ add on. So realistically it's a 500$ tournament at least. I played a satellite for 75$ first which was a mistake. I know the fields in these things are weak, and mine certainly was, but the stack size to blind ratio was too small making luck too much of a factor. No notable hands, and I ended up losing a race with 88 to AQ. Damn. The tournament was more interesting, 48 players, many of them weak. I felt I had a good shot at this one. 7900$ to the winner. I played pretty well throughout but ended up going out 10th with... 88 again. Had a medium stack and a slightly larger stack brought it in for 4x the BB, standard raise. They were only paying 5 spots and I wanted to make some real money and not just sneak into some cash, so I moved in. The raiser had pocket kings and I'm gone. At the time I felt ok about my play, knowing that I had to gather some chips to win and that people were still opening with trash they could fold to a reraise- 10K sooted and the like. Now I'm not so sure- perhaps I could have picked a better spot- if he has a decent hand I'm either a small favorite or huge dog. What do other people think- wait for a better spot or try and gather some chips?
With the 500$ plus 75$ satellite fee spent I lock up a solid 100$ win. MMM.
Monday I was supposed to meet pokerbabe at the Mirage. For those of you who don't know her she is a class act and a lot of fun. I try and get in touch with her now everytime I come out to Vegas. Of course, she ditched me that day, claiming she had to go "shopping with her sister" or some such. Clearly she was afraid of me being in her game. I win 300$ and go pick my brother up at the airport. Now that some other people are in town I can start opening my biggest poker leak- craps. I love the game. Whenever I have family or friends in town who don't play poker I always end up playing more craps than I should b/c it's a much more sociable game than poker. Plus, it's fun. My bankroll is much larger these days than it used to be so I'm looking forward to playing 10$ pass line bets and 100$ odds behind at the Stratosphere. Casino Royale lets you take 100x odds with 2$ pass line bets but I don't quite have the stomach for that yet. So, we proceed to the Stratosphere and I book a 600$ loser at craps.
Tuesday I actually got to meet up with the babe for some 20/40. She intro'd me to Key West Mike who is another of her best boys, an all-around nice guy and a solid player. There was another guy in the game who I quickly pegged as a good player. At some point I raised his blind for the second time, he shows me a deuce and says "every time you raise my blind I have one of these" as he mucks. Next orbit he raises my blind and I have K3. I show him the 3 and say "everytime you raise my blind I have one of these" as I muck. He goes, "that was the first time I raised your blind" and I say, "exactly". Turns out he's a fellow 2+2er, Sobedude, or as he puts it, "the whipping boy of the mid/high stakes forum". We proceed to have a riproaring coversation, covering everything from past posts to foxwoods, much to the annoyance of the rest of the table. People were actually telling us to shut up and play which we obliged with. I felt like making a snide comment but Sobe handled it for me. I lock up a nice 1800$ win, Sobe also booked a good win, and the babe came back from being stuck earlier so everything worked out ok. Went to Lawry's that night with my brother and planned on joining the 2+2/poker discussion group at Binion's the next day on an invite from babe.
The discussion group was pretty cool. About 30 some people taking up the back room in Binion's coffeeshop. Sobe and KW Mike showed up too. Jan Fisher and Linda Johnson were there, as was Al Schoonmaker and a bunch of other 2+2er's. Good times. Linda told us a lot about the tournament scene and we discussed a few hands, a few of which were played in the 20/40 game the day before. Anyone from out of town who comes to Vegas, I highly recommend attending this if for no other reason than to meet some other players. I leave early and go play at Mandalay's 4/8 game with my brother who is playing for the first time. I taught him the basics of Hold em before but he essentially knows nothing. I tried to give him some tips beforehand but there's so much you can tell a new player that I didn't want to bombard him with information, most of which he wouldn't understand at this point. So, mostly I emphasized having fun, tipping the dealer, protecting your cards, etc etc. For those who don't know this is a supersoft game in a very nice room. My bro loses only 10$ and has a lot of fun. I book a 100$+ win and get to play a lot of rags. Good times. Many times I was the only one raising at the table which drew a lot of looks from people. My brother knew what I was doing but I still had a hard time trying to convince him to play aggressively. It's a learned skill I suppose. We picked up my friend from the airport that night, played some craps at the stratosphere (won 1K), ate some awful Mexican food at 2:30 am and waiting for my fiance to drive in from San Diego. She got in around 3am and the crew was complete.
Thursday we didn't do much- cooked for thanksgiving and stayed home most of the day. We went out that night and I got hammered at craps and BJ. Happy Thanksgiving. Stayed up until 5:30am that night playing cards... spades. Just the 4 of us sitting around a card table at home, not losing a dime.
Fri and Sat were honestly a blur. My brother left Fri evening, and I do recall something about a buffet at the Mandalay, losing 400$ there, 850$ more at the Frontier (where you can also take 10x odds BTW /images/graemlins/grin.gif), and then another 600$ at the stratosphere. That sucked but good times were had by all. Sat I played at the Mirage to meet up with Babe again, started off playing some shorthanded 40/80 in a fairly tough game. That was a mistake which I quickly rectified by joining babe in the 20/40, lucky to book a win in the 40/80 game. The 20/40 game was good as usual but for the first time in a while I went card dead. I've been running pretty good the last 2 months and I forgot what it was like to get hrs of crap. Only one hand of note- early player limps, I raise with AJ sooted and the rest fold. Flop comes 872, none of my suit, and he checks. Normally, I bet here, oh, about 100% of the time. Here though, I'm thinking, "he's probably going to call my flop bet regardless. Or he could check raise. I don't think he's going to give it up and he probably likes the flop more than me". SoBedude posted a similar circumstance a little while ago, basically where you know you're going to get called/played with on the flop so you wait for the turn. We had discussed this on Wed at some point, and it was going through my head, so I decide to check behind. The turn is a 5 and he bets. I raise. He thinks a little bit and calls. The river is a 4, 24578. He checks, I check behind. He can't have a hand here which he can call the turn raise with and not call the river, so I think. He shows me a6 for the rivered straight. Ni han sur. Here I was thinking he had the best hand after he called my turn raise. He claims he would have folded to a flop bet. I'm not so sure. I lose 56$ for my only poker loss of the trip.
My fiance has been playing for a year now and is a decent low limit player. Meaning, she has some understanding of odds and a good preflop strategy, which is more than enough to take money from the majority of those mopes. She still needs to work on her aggression, but then, that could be said of other poker players I know (babe /images/graemlins/wink.gif). And they'd probably say I'm too aggressive in any case. She books a nice win in the 3/6 game, and afterwards is shocked by how badly her opponents play. I keep trying to tell her that MOST games are like that.
The rest of Sat is pretty sedate- we saw George Carlin at MGM and I gave away more money at BJ. I do HORRIBLY at BJ. Clearly I don't play enough to see the supposed small disadvantage I have playing perfect basic-strategy come out, but come on. It seems everytime I double in favorable situations, everytime the dealer shows a bust card, everytime I have a pat hand I lose. It's just aggravating enough to keep me coming back for more /images/graemlins/grin.gif. Some notable events this trip include-
1. doubling with 200$ out on an 11 for a 400$ outlay, hitting a nine against the dealer's 5 for a solid 20, having said dealer turn up a 7 and hit an ace, an ace, a 2, and then a 5 for 21 (that one was fun),
2. Splitting aces twice (3 aces total), catching 19 and 20 on each one. Losing to a 5 card 21. Nice.
3. Needing 20 to push. Time and time again. This is standard.
4. Betting 100-200$ a hand when the count is good. Getting 15 and 16's during said count. Betting the minimum during even or poor counts. Having those be the only times I ever got BJ's or 20's (most of the 20's I ended up pushing anyways).
I love blackjack.
Sun morning I dropped my friend off at the airport early, slept for a little, and then the fiance and I went to play at the Mandalay for some last minute fun. It was either that or craps and I didn't feel like warming up for a 5 hr drive, minimum, back to SD with another 1K loser. The game was predictably soft, predictably fun, I won 100$ and she won 160$ which I'm really proud of for her. Once again my raising drew unfriendly looks from some people, but the dude in the 2 seat who would cap it with 104o was loving it. He and I made the game, so to speak.
The drive home was so painful- good 'ol California traffic coming back from LV. Took 7 hrs to get home. And I booked a 2K loss online while writing to you fine people. Fun stuff. I love this game.
Summary of expectations/net for the trip-
-poker- +EV, up 4400$.
-craps- -EV, huge +EV on fun, satisfied on both counts. Stuck about 2K.
-blackjack- -EV, -EV for fun. "Satisfied" on both counts. Never again.
-met sobedude and KW Mike, saw babe again- freeroll, huge positive result.
-hanging with friends- +EV. Success.
Thanks for reading.
Leon