Reno Trip Report (not short)

[billyjex]

Just spent the weekend in Reno, partying hard, playing poker and losing my poker winnings at other gambling ventures.

I arrived in Reno at about 3 p.m. on Friday. I was there as part of a SWAT trip (summer winter action tours, this was basically a winter break trip.) There were going to be 2000 kids from alot of west coast schools (California, Arizona, Nevada mostly) staying at the Golden Phoenix in downtown Reno.

Me and my buddy drove up from Chico State (which is a school an hour and a half north of Sacramento.) We got there a few hours before most of our friends were (as they were taking a SWAT bus from Chico on up) so we immediately hit up the El Dorado for some 3/6 full kill.

The El Dorado had a nice poker room. It was about 10 or so tables, but rumor is that in a few months El Dorado is moving to a bigger room with up to 40 tables. The dealers were friendly and understood the game well and kept the action flowing.

There were 3-4 tables running at this time and I got a seat pretty quickly. The play was pretty bad, as usual for a casino low-limit game and I made a quick $100 profit in about 3 hours of play. The play was very loose passive. I had three old ladies at my table who would not bet or raise without at least two pair or better.

On my kill pot I had AQo and raised PF UTG. Only one old lady called me in the BB and we went HU with a flop of A 10 6. She actually C/R me on the flop and I probably should have just let my hand go there, but I called her down (actually with her passiveness she checked to me on the river) and she tabled A6 for 2-pair.

That night was a dance party at one of the Phoenix's ballroom. A heavy night of drinking, followed by my lame attempts at hitting on scandidly dressed females and whiffing led me and 3 of my buddies back to the El Dorado at 3 AM for another poker session.

I signed up for 3/6 and 6/12. There was only one table of 6/12 going and it would be a couple hours before I could get into the game.

3/6 was fairly uneventful until later in the night when I went into a "battle" with a megafish, a kid who was about my age. I had KJs in MP1 and threw out a five chip to raise (El Dorado has a 1/2 blind structure for it's 3/6 game, which I've never seen before.) I didn't say raise and the dealer just said "call", which I objected to but there wasn't anything I could do. The megafish says "if there's no raise, I'm calling!"

Flop is 6 4 J rainbow. I bet out, fish reraises, and when the action is back to me it is HU. I 3-bet and he caps and I now am 99% sure I am behind but I yet again decide to just call him down because I have trouble letting go of these hands.

The turn is a J however, and after a C/R and a bet out on a blank river the fish tables 6 4o for flopped two pair and tells me how the turn killed him. I know not to berate the fish and be a table coach, but the alcohol in my veins made me say "That's what you getting for playing crap like that."

The dealer tells me to not yell at my fellow players and let everyone play their game. I tell him I can say what I want and will let my opinion be known. Again, I was really drunk.

So later in the same orbit I have KTo in the CO. I normally wouldn't play it but I'm drunk and bored. The fish on the button went to grab his chips to call before I had acted, and once I threw in my chips to limp, he tells the table "If he's coming in, I'm raising!"

4 or so players to the flop of K rag rag. I bet out and the fish reraises. Everyone folds and I call. K on the turn and I do another C/R and river bet out. I table my trips and tell him "Wrong time to mess with me," and he mucks his hand.

I move over to 6/12 at about 7 AM in the morning. The table is 8-handed and full of a bunch of middle aged, cranky men. I drop close to a hundred bucks when my JJ loses to turned trips and my KJ loses to KQ on a KQ6K6 board.

Dazed, tired and ready for bed, I am dealt TT UTG in a kill pot (which is 10/20 at this 6/12 game.) I raise PF and get 4 callers. The flop comes 10 9 rag and I bet out and everyone calls me and I am now very nervous as this is the biggest limit I've played and one of the biggest pots I've been involved in (in terms of $$$.)

The turn brings a J and I bet out again. One caller and the BB C/R me and I immediately feel I'm up against a straight, but plan to call him down even if I don't fill up hoping he is holding two pair of a lower set. We are HU to the river when the board pairs a 9 and I get 2 BB out of his KQ (turned nut straight) on the river for a $350+ pot and I leave the pokerroom at 10am with a nice $230 profit.

I get about 2 hours of sleep and me and a couple buddies go to the sports book to bet on the days football games and watch them at the Phoenix's sportsbook. The sportsbook is nice as it is next to a bar, the casino floor and has about 10 large TV screens. I bet $50 on the Steelers and $30 on the Falcons to cover.

After watching the Steelers play a horrible game against a team they should have crushed, about 4 of us hit up the blackjack table for a few hours. I drop about $200 until me and one of my friends decide to go back to my second home, the El Dorado poker room for a quick session before dinner time.

After an uneventful 2 hours of break even poker, about 15 of my fraternity buddies go to dinner at Benihana's in the Golden Phoenix. If you've never been there, it's a Japanese restaurant where the chefs cook right in the front of you and do "tricks" while the cook (like flipping shrimp in your mouth, bouncing eggs on their skillets like a tennis ball on a racket, etc.) Great fun, alot of saki bombs and Vodka tonics, and we head out to a Warren G concert that SWAT is putting up in the Phoenix.

After Warren plays the 4 songs he is famous for in the early 90's, me and my friends again party through the night, and again make a 4 AM run to the El Dorado.

I play 6/12 for a few hours, drop $150 in a drunken mess and crash out at about 7 AM before I play in the "College Poker Championship" put on by SWAT at noon the next day.

The tournament is a $50 buy-in with $20 rebuys and a $20 add-on at the end of the first hour. The tourney is capped at 40 players and me and five friends are signed up.

Everyone at the tables looks like hell. We're all hungover and I feel like I need to throw up during the whole tournament. The play is mostly bad with 2 or 3 decent players per table.

At the end of the first hour I am break even. We get down to 3 tables and I go on a rush, flopping quad 6's in a 6-way pot. I of course take a huge pot, and after taking out 2 people with JJ on the next hand I am suddenly chip leader.

I keep my stack large with tight, aggressive play. Just about everytime I raise PF and bet out the flop I win the pot.

After about 3 hours we are down to the final table. I am about 3rd in chips (the chip leader has a huge chip lead, he took out about 4 players at the other table.)

My last friend in the tourney quickly busts out in 10th. Slowly we get down to the last six players and I have barely played a pot at the table and am 4th in chips, but far behind the leaders.

The prize structure pays out the top 5 places:

1st - $1250 + 50% of the rebuy pot ($~500)
2nd - $750 +30% of the rebuy pot ($~300)
3rd - A Mountain High season pass (a ski resort I live 10 hours away from, so it's useless) and 20% of the rebuy pot. (~200)
4th - $400 snowboard
5th - Pair of goggles

1st-5th also receive a $400 spring break trip.

We take a break with six left, and SWAT is filming a DVD for this trip and some corny host guy interviews me on the camera. He asks me questions about the ups and downs of the tourney and I just try to not look like a poker dork by using technical terms.

My celebrity status confirmed, the final six of us take the table with a crowd of 25 looking on and the camera filming us. Kinda weird playing poker in front of a crowd like this.

The short stack busts and we are all relieved to be in the money and guaranteed at least some prize. Of course, the top two is what I am aiming for as the prize value goes from about $600 to $1500 from 3rd to 2nd.

I am the short stack almost the entire time. The huge chip leader had pissed away his whole stack being overaggressive and is out in fourth. We are three handed with stacks of about 10k for me with 1/2k blinds, and 30k for the other two players. One of the players is horrible and has hit two two-outers all in to get here, he admits he has never played poker outside of a home game but the cards are on his side.

I go card dead and am blinded down to 2xbb. I go all in three times in a row (with 10 9o, A 5o and QJo) and manage to move even with 2nd and not far behind third.

3-handed, we play for almost an hour. It is very intense and even the bad player is playing aggressive. Me and the otehr good player are all in multiple times but nobody wants to go out in third.

Finally the good player busts when he moves in with a flush draw and is called by top pair by the horrible player.

I am HU with a 3-1 chip deficit. I cannot hit any cards and "bluff" at the pot would take almost half my stack with the large blinds.

I am dealt KK on the BB and am shocked when he folds to me preflop. He played every hand except this one and I was dissapointed, knowing he would call any bet after the flop with any piece of the board. I table the KK and everyone "oohs".

Down to a 5-1 deficit I move in with middle pair and villian calls with top pair and I am out, but very happy with my +1k score.

That night is more of the same. Partying and hitting on girls. We all hit up the BJ tables late a night and I drop another couple hundred.

An interesting side story, one of my buddies turned about $200 into $1700 at the BJ tables and lost it all making $300-400 bets in a matter of hours. We all tried to get him to leave while he was up but he has too much of a gamble too him.

So after about 6 hours of sleep in 72 hours, dozens of beer and drinks consumed and a $500 overall profit for the trip, I headed home, to sleep from 3pm until 11pm on Monday.

Some more tidbits:
- I didn't make it to any other poker rooms except the Circus Circus where the tourney was held. Their poker room is decent but small and cramped. The Circus Circus dealers were incompetent in the tourney and when it came to getting change for the blinds, keeping track of the button, etc. it felt like pulling teeth.

- The Golden Phoenix is a trashy hotel. Their room service sucks (we called for towels three times to never receive them.) I wouldn't reccomend staying there.

- I folded a hand that would qualify for the bad beat in most casinos but not at the El Dorado (which is quads beaten by better.) I had A10o on the SB and folded to a raise. Board is AJragA10. PF raiser shows AJo. This is the first jackpot eligible hand I have ever had and at the El Dorado it would just have lost me a big pot.