The rest of vegas

I realize some reading my blog don't want to read/don't understand the poker jargon...plenty of this will be non poker related, so just skip over the stuff you don't want to siphon through.

We woke up the next day and there really was nothing noteworthy going on during the day. I was pretty tired and having some general stomach issues, and while Steve played for a while, I just decided to hang out with Owen for a while and relax. We decided that Tuesday was a good day to take Vegas up on one of their illustrious shows, and after hearing all of the hype about the Blue Man Group, we booked two tickets for the 8pm showing at the Venetian.

We got to the Venetian around 6 with nothing much else to do, and decided to play some poker to pass the time. Steve sat some limit Omaha 8 or better and, still being tired and somewhat out of it, I didn't want to sit 2/5 or 5/10, so I sat some 1/2 300 max and figured I'd splash around some. I didn't do much splashing around, though I did run my stack up +300 then down to even. At least the table was fun. A drunk middle aged guy who was very enjoyable, a hick kid who we made fun of (including the dealer) because we felt like it, and a bunch of random kids who moved around from unlucky seats and got pissed when I turned them for stacks. It was a limped pot, I had about 300 and limped behind a bunch of limpers with A3o. The flop came 963 and I the small blind, a foreign kid with sunglasses and a gangsta flyayayayyyyyy jacket on led for like 7 bucks into a 13 dollar pot. It folded to me, and realizing I had only bottom pair, called the bet. I also realized that this kid was only leading strongly the way he did with a likely 2 pair, and a less likely set (this type of kid check/raises or traps with hands that big), so, reasoning that if I out turned him I would stack him, I called. The turn was the georgeous ace filling my top and bottom pair, and the small blind led, I raised and he 3 bet all in, and I snap called against his 2 pair and he mucked the river bitching about how he floped 2 pair (he showed 96o). I know I'm not supposed to tap on the aquarium, but he switched tables soon after so we all had a good laugh at him, myself and all the rest of the fish at the table. It was fun, except when I flopped top top (top pair top kicker) on a king high flop, got turned by the nut flush draw and the drunk guy by the king of spades (giving me top trips) and getting minraised...I had to call the minraise reasoning that this drunk idiot was playing stupidly in many other spots heads up against me and he could have a worse king a lot, and I was also never calling any reasonable river bet from this type of live donk...As usual, I have a knack for getting bad players to check back flushes to me on the river, and I was no good against the A4 of spades. standard.

I ended up even on this short cash session, and me and steve headed to the blue man group showing. To say the very very lease, THIS SHOW WAS FANTASTIC! Honestly, best live performance I've ever seen or heard about. Unreal what these guys can do with the audience and with their own talent. Every minute was entertaining, I was honestly just smiling and laughing the entire time. Really, a great, innovative, contemporary and interesting showing. I highly recommend it for anyone that can take loud volume and a fun, unique night for all ages and audiences.

The next day, Steve met with a student of his for a live coaching session and I went to my Aunt's house that lives in the Vegas suburbs. I want to take a second to tell you about my Great Aunt Elaine. She is the single most amazing family member still alive in my family. I don't know her all that well, as I've only recently been able to frequent Las Vegas, but she is quite an interesting woman. Shes in her 80's and well past legally blind. She lives alone (with her daughter frequenting) with her 8 cats, and is a funny, interesting and talkative woman but one that never loses your interest in the subject. From death to politics to gambling to girls to school to life to animals to our family, nothing bored me while we were engaged in conversation. It was a very nice two hour visit, and I then headed back to Monte Carlo to eat at the awesome buffet in the Monte Carlo.

I highly recommend this buffet, with a mix of really 5 or 6 different ethnic categories, all very good (French, Mexican, American, Italian are the ones I remember, I think some chinese food and european dishes as well) and SOOOO much to choose from. Even if you're never staying or gambling in the Monte Carlo, if you're looking for a reasonably priced, all you can eat buffet on the strip conveniently located, the Monte Carlo buffet is a pretty good choice.

I got ready, put on my best shirt, and headed to the Bellagio. I put myself on the 5/10nl list and racked in for the 1k table max. I had decent control of this table, but there were many characters and interesting hands and situations coming up. There won't be much coherency to this next portion of the report, so it'll just be a string of random hands and stupid crap but a potentially fun read, so take that as you will:

Starts off ok, I'm getting some respect even though the average open raise is to 50 or 60 with a 1k cap buy in so it played a bit big. Feature hands: I limp UTG with A4ss and a bit over 1500 in the effective stack sizes. a few limpers behind and huge donkey makes it 40 to go out of the sb. I call and they call behind me. Flop comes AT4 with two hearts and the preflop raiser checks, I lead for 110 and get check/raised to a bit over 300. I jam for about 1300 and the donk goes into the tank. He took long enough that it was very obvious he had AK/AQ, and I was rooting for a call. He did end up calling, and it was all bad news after I tabled my hand and said "don't bad beat me sir. No queen and no king!!" Well, as you can tell, the turn was a queen and the river a king, so the 3,000 dollar ish pot was not mine. Sad, I said a quick curse at the table, which I immediately apologized for (I never curse or drink at the table, it interferes with my seriousness and love for the game, so I get very upset when I slip up in a big pot, but sadly I'm only human). I immediately regretted my reaction because I later spewed off a stack to a nit idiot who has apparently won a million dollars playing tournaments, but plays cash games horribly awfully. He thinks he's gods gift to poker, which is why in his drunken and tilty state I made a big (and spewy) call against him, but I gave him too much credit and donked off a stack before having to work for it back later in the night.

This same kid was yelling drunkenly and talking smack to everyone, his favorite phrases being "LICKY LICKY!" and "STOP IT!" in his incredibly gay imitation voice (name that movie?), and trying to pick fights with me for taking too long to act. I guess my <5 seconds was too long, because we really got into it later. For the time being, though, I just took advantage of how bad he was, and watched him fold JJ to my single 3 bet preflop out of the bb with TT. We were over 150bb deep and he said "the flop is gonna come ten high and im not gonna know what to do". That would've been nice, but I just accepted his constant small mistakes until his 400bb stack was gone. Sadly for him, even if I showed KK he probably should've called my 3 bet in position with JJ. lol donkaments. I ended up playing a solid small ball lag style 5 handed with this kid, his friend, some random australian (?) guy and another dude. I was the only one to 3 bet pf in 5 hours 4/5 handed, and no one played back at me, but there were two sick angleshooting hands both involving the douchebag nitfest kid who thought he was god's gift to poker for lucksacking one live tournament back in 2005.

Before the shorthanded festivities, he limped preflop and they took a multi way flop that quickly became heads up post flop that I was not involved in. A middle aged asian regular bet and got called by the kid on a King high monotone spade board. The turn was a blank and the guy bet and got raised, and called the raise. On the river, the kid overbet jam the pot after the asian guy checked on a paired king 5th street, and the asian guy asks the kid for a chip count. The dealer says "he's got your covered, sir", and the asian guy quickly says "no, I have bills". Under a huge napkin and coffee mug, he pulls out like 1300 in benjamins and the entire table is just like lol is this a joke? And the dealer calls the floor. The dealer explains the situation, with the nit kid complaining along with us, and the floor manager makes her first awful ruling of the night, stating that the bills are obviously in play because they were on the table. The asian then goes into the tank and then calls and mucks a king to the kids flopped flush for a very sizey 250-300ishbb pot. very sick re-angle, and even though I had no respect for this kids cash game, nice hand sir, nice hand.

His second angle wasn't so nice. He was talking shit to me later in the night because I was playing very aggressively short handed, the only one reraising preflop and not shutting down incredibly often. He raised the CO and his friend on the button called, and I was ready to raise 40 to 160 with whatever garbage I had (actually it was AK lol). I reached for a benjamin and took my left hand back to get 60 in chips. I was in the process of sliding my bill across the line and the chips were coming in my other hand (note: my hand never came off the bill), and the kid immediately yells "STRING BET!" and his friend almost in unision despite not paying attention, yells "STRING BET!" and the unobservant dealer has no idea whats going on. The nit drunk idiot kid gets to explain to the same awful Bellagio floor person what the situation was, claimed I took my hand off the bill, and she instantly believed him and said I had to make it 100 to go. Great ruling ma'am. Do us all a favor and stop being a splinter in the poker community's ass. I asked the kid straight up out loud then and there, "Do you really have to take cheap shots at me to try and see flops cause you're that scared?". He didn't like that and I c-bet and they both instantly folded. looool live players are my favorite. I still ended up losing about two stacks in the game with the 3k+ pot loss with the A4 and the spewed stack, but I played well minus 2, possibly 3 spots and felt very good about my game at the end of a 13 hour session.

We slept all day the next day Until I woke up at around 8pm and was sitting online before IMing with Casey (Bones) about meeting up for food, and possible poker and a visit to the famous spearmint Rhino. We met up at the Bellagio cafe and had dinner, then headed to the poker room. Bones got on the 2/5 list and I sat my final session of 5/10, while Steve played 4/8 and then 8/16 shorthanded limit hold em with a short stacking Sam Grizzle (lol!) I was stuck a bit over a stack on the week going into this last session, but the last session proved to be no less interesting than the first two.

I sat at my first must move table two to the left of who turned out to be another 2+2er (TurnstoneMBD of the brick and mortar forum if I recall his name correctly) but didn't play there for long. I went to the main game and immediately was engaged in the mainly asian, but interestingly crazy table. Most noteworthy hand: Aggro asian raises in MP to 40 with 700 in his stack, guy calls in the hijack with the same stack, small blind who has my 1400ish stack covered (and who had check/raised the last flop and took it down uncontested) calls and I call in the big blind with AJ of clubs. Flop is T6c5c and both the blinds check, the asian preflop raiser bets 120, gets called by the hijack and the small blind check raises again to 380ish, maybe 400 actually. After reasoning through my reaads and the spot, I decided I had to stick it all in, and that's what I did. The asian, to my surprise, called all in, as did the hijack! THE SMALL BLIND WENT INTO THE TANK! What have I done!?!? All 3 of us got up and started pacing, and the small blind ended up folding what he claimed to be an overpair (wow he's terrible for flatting an overpair preflop in that spot? lol liveaments?) The turn brought an offsuit 7 and the river paired the ten with the ten of clubs. I asked who had the boat and announced my nut flush, and the asian mucked, and the hijack tables the 74 of clubs for the flopped open ended straight flush draw. Whyyy. Well, I luckboxed that one, but everyone was seriously at the top of their ranges (the asian flopping bottom 2 pair) and I couldn't narrow anything down enough for me to see playing it another way. It was a nice spot, much in contrast to the gross spot I got into soon after when I raised 60 to 300 after several callers and another asian opened in MP. I had QQ and the asian tanked and called, and it was heads up to the flop of KT9 with 2 clubs, both of us being well over 200bb deep. Ew. ew ew ew. I ended up check/folding to a 700 dollar pot size bet and he later claimed to have flopped a set which I am inclined to believe but am still not 100% sure about it. I also didn't see another way to play this, but perhaps leading and praying could work against some idiots. It felt gross but I was proud for the seemingly standard, but gross line I had to take in that spot.

I ended up a couple stacks in the end and made money on the week, albeit short a few thousand that I should've definitely made, and still felt good about the week and the experience.

5am rolled around and Steve, Bones, Jshuttlseworth, and MikeCH were all rooting for the spearmint rhino visit long awaited by all, and that's what we did. That place is a fun time, and the theory that playing hard to get with strippers creates better lap dances is confirmed because, that was a great time. Bones runs both very good and very bad with stripperaments (he can elaborate if he wishes), but the short of it is he was able to set himself up taking a stripper home with him who wanted to role play. SHIPIT. Though I never had the luxury of that story to tell, we all had quite the time between a fun bellagio session, and a trip to the rhino, followed by an authentic northern chinese breakfast. This breakfast featured lots of rice products and some great beef sandwiches and dumplings. Overall, not a breakfast I can see myself getting used to, but one that was very enjoyable and glad I tried it. I ended up driving a drunk Jshuttlesworth's car back to the monte carlo while he was going to play drunken 1/2nl at 10am while me and steve packed to check out a couple of hours later, in prep for our trek home after a long, but interesting and very enjoyable week in vegas. We packed our stuff up and decided to watch tv and relax before having to check out, in our very tired and dozey state.

Not long after, we got a bang on our door and we heard lots of yelling in the hall. We opened the door and a bunch of people were running to the stairwell. A couple turned back to us and yelled: "THERE'S A FIRE UPSTAIRS! ITS SPREADING! WE'RE SUPPOSED TO TAKE THE STAIRS, GET OUT!". now, the last time I ran near a fire was with an oxygen mask on and a hose line in hand with some older, experienced firefighters around. This was a few years later and a bit different of a time. We ran 27 flights down the stairs with all of our luggage, and got outside to the site of floors 28 and above being up in flames. It was a sad sight, and I immediately thought of what would happen if we weren't leaving that day (Friday). We would not have had our stuff packed and we would not have been awake, or easily woken for that matter. Yikes.

We watched the crazy scene for a while before deciding to get to the airport early and just hang out before the flight. After delays and the craze of a big Las Vegas casino fire, I had had all the excitement I could take for the week, and we got home at about 2am last night. Quite a week I should say, and I'm glad we did it. The semester starts on Monday, which I am dreading, but, such is life and I'll try and make the best of something that I loathe in school. Wish me luck this semester I guess, it may or may not be a bumpy ride. Hope that was a coherent report, sorry I did a bunch of jumping around. Thanks for reading.


Alex

p.s- a couple of pics from the fire above our hotel room:

[URL=http://imageshack.us][IMG]http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/2997/vegas005fa1.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Vegas day 1

So myself and tubasteve got into monte carlo in las vegas yesterday afternoon. Soon after we got in, I got a call from MikeCH, a friend and 2+2er, saying that he was finishing up a 15 hour session at the bellagio, and to come over to talk 5/10 staking. I got to the bellagio and mike threw me my stake in the form of a 5,000 dollar chip for the next few days. He told me to not give the nits action, and I should be the best player at the tables, and goood luck.

Well, being that I was pretty tired from traveling, I didn't want to test the waters at 5/10 just yet. Nearly all of my Las Vegas experience in live cash games lies in 2/5nl, with some 1/2-1/3 and VERY little 5/10. We headed back to the hotel for a nap and to just rest up and watch the giants/packers game (God what a terrible game, ONE TIME GREEN BAY CMON). Afterwards, Owen (Jshuttlesworth), who just moved out to las vegas this month, called and we met up to walk around and grab dinner while Steve remained passed out in the hotel room. We had a good talk and a decent meal at the cafe downstairs in monte carlo, and of course i lost the flip for the bill because i never win flips apparently. All the same, an enjoyable re-entry to one of my favorite cities.

Today, I woke up around 1030 am local time (130pm body time) to Steve telling me about his +3.5 stack 1/2 session downstairs while i was asleep. After we talked and finally decided to get out of our respective beds (not the same one, sorry to dissapoint all of my filthy readers), we headed down to eat before walking down to caesars to check out some donkament information, as we both figured we may as well try to play one live tournament while we're here, and Caesar's apparently has the best structures (and similarly ludicrous 20-25% rake that every live tournament has). To this day, I've never seen worse poker players than I've seen in live tournaments specifically.

We decided on the 7pm 150 buy in nightly multi, and since it was around 230 at this point, we figured we'd start with a bellagio cash session.

I changed in my 1k bellagio chip for a rack and sat at the "must move" 5/10nl game while steve decided to play some 4-8 limit hold em.

Needless to say as with most any live poker game, the players were nothing to write home about. I was easily the best player at either the "must move" or the main game that I was moved to shortly thereafter. As with any live games, people limp and call too much and dont raise and fold nearly enough, so it makes for an interesting time in these 5/10 games where some people realize maybe aggression is the way to go, but have no idea how to implement it ever.

I lost nearly have a stack on an early bluff where, in a limped pot on a board of A2dAdxA when I bluffed every street into trips then rivered quads. I had a good feel for this situation and reasoned that this player seemed capable of folding everything but maybe TT/JJ and quads. obviously, even though the draw bricked and i felt like i had it read it, it didn't work out when i had to fold to his shove and he showed me AQ.

I rebought to full and not much went on after that until moving to the main game (I did repop a straddle, got 2 callers, flopped TP on a weird monotone board and took it down with a turn bet when the flop checked through for a nice medium sized pot). The main game was much jucier at the time of my moving then the must move. there were a couple seemingly huge live ones that I couldn't wait to get into pots with. My wish came true when one particular idiot was steaming after people hit flush draws in 2 big pots vs him, even when he grossly over bets the pot for fear of the draw, and insta-stacks off on the river when the draw gets there. Anyways, the donk opens to 50 and i repop right behind him to 200 with AhKh. It folds back to him and he quickly calls. The flop comes J83 and he check/calls my continuation bet. The turn brings the Kd, giving me top pair top kicker and putting out a ton of draws. Donk open james into me for like 450. I go into the tank for not too long before deciding that he probably has top pair and is afraid of all the new draws, or picked up some type of combo draw himself and got excited. After short deliberation, I called, and the river was a seemingly ugly offsuit queen, but villain flipped up JTdd for 2nd pair and a busted running flush draw and my hand is good! That was pretty much the biggest pot I played. A lot of other ones just involved me playing small ball aggressive poker and picking up a lot of small pots which adds up nicely in the end. After all, the goal of no limit hold em cash games is to get those blinds! I finished the session up 1 stack, and was feeling a bit tired while Steve said he was getting a bit bored with limit. We decided to take a break and rack up for a while and see what was going on.

We came back to the hotel and after some down time, made our way back to Caesar's for the 150 tournament at 7pm tonight. Live donkaments are rigged. I simply, as always in live tournaments, could get nothing going. play small ball lag poker, making it a TAG game and just trying to pick up hands, and rely on people continuously playing awfully (very reliable assumption in live poker in my experience)....neither style worked, and I just couldn't pick up hands when I needed to. I still managed to read into people's souls, where I folded AQ and 99 to single raises in front of me and was right both times. Unfortunately, soul reading isn't enough and with the tournament structures, it was an early exit for me when I jammed 10bb on the button over a limper with T9s at t200/ante25 and the small blind put it all in behind with AJs and held. good game, F U live tournaments!

Steve was still in, so I decided to head to see if Owen was still playing at bellagio. After getting a text from him saying that he was going clubbing, I saw a 3 card poker table on the way out of the Caesar's casino and decided to take a seat. I mean hey, if I can't make money playing the game I've played for all of my personal funds for years, I may as well try my hand at something that requires absolutely no skill. Apparently, I was right again. I bought in for 100 and lost it. I bought in for another 100, and placing the 2x 15 dollar bets every hand, was ground down to my last 20 dollars of the 200 invested on 2 occasions. On the second, I was dealt three sixes. Shipit! For those of you that don't know 3 card poker, you play against the dealer and/or against your own hand strength (aka making a pair or better). I had both bets placed, and got paid 30:1 on my trips and 4(?):1 on my beating the dealer with trips. I finished my short three card session +500ish. I'm changing professions....

My back was in extreme pain for most of the afternoon and evening, so I came back after that to just try and rest up for tomorrow. The rest of the week is intended for lots of 5/10nl at the bellagio, and seeing the people I know out here and perhaps one of the many famous vegas shows as well. I'll probably try and keep up with daily reports, though if not, expect some variation of further reporting soon. That's about it for now, thanks for reading!

Goodbye Atlantic City, hello Las Vegas! (AC trip report)

Well, I'm sad to say that our apartment's journey up to Atlantic City was not overall as successful as we all had hoped.

We got into Harrah's in AC late monday night after some hotel booking difficulties. I realized that I was a bit tired from driving up, and that I really wanted a good night's sleep the night before the 11am start to the 300+50 no limit event, which was event #1 of Borgata's WPT Winter poker open.

That good night of sleep never really came for one reason or another, and I found myself pretty tired but still amped up and excited for my first live tournament series since turning 21 and being able to actually play the events (as opposed to the my world series stint where I could only ever get away with playing cash games). We got to Borgata right before tournament time, and Steve (Tubasteve) and Aaron (Manchild)were seated for the event in the main poker room, while I trekked along to find the convention center upstairs where most of the event was occuring.

I'm not sure why, perhaps subconscious/bodily nerves (I consciously was ready and felt ok it seemed), but I started to feel a bit queezy walking into the huge archway of escalators for the WPT area upstairs. I guess being able to finally pull out a tournament ticket for a bigger live event got to me somehow, because not too long after we started, I had to get to the bathroom for a quick calming of nerves (do you really want to ask about the details? Thought so.) I somehow convinced myself that there would be good players here and that I had to play better than them. Well, it is good to play better against your opposition so that goes without saying, but, my assumption on the quality of play was laughable, for lack of a better description. Seriously, I though 2/5nl at the world series was the easiest game in the world, when really limping and calling is the new betting, folding and raising in Atlatnic City.

After I sat back down, I felt ok, though my stomach still playing games with me. I very very quickly felt I was easily the best player at this table, and soon thereafter lost a sizey pot when I check/raised out of the small blind against a big blind lead with a combo draw and he called and called a turn bet with flopped top two. I saw this player make many weaker leads so unfortunately, while I don't at all regret my line, it didn't work out too well. I was quickly ground down from our original 5k stacks to as low as 2.6/2.7k. Around this time, some guy that wouldn't stop talking about his strategy (cliff notes of his strategy: folding A7o in the sb in level 1 to a utg big raise is apparently a "tight fold". Also, as with EVERY SINGLE OTHER PERSON ON THIS PLANET APPARENTLY, he hates starting a hand with 2 jacks...? Dunno, last I checked, paint pairs were a good hand) put it all in with a short stack over my utg open with 77 and I thought for a few seconds before calling with TT. I flopped top set to clinch it and I got a few chips back.

Soon thereafter, I was lucky enough to flush over flush someone and bust another player, and after that, with a few light resteals and c-bets, I was quickly back up to 8k in chips and feeling good.

The break came and we switched tables. The next table, though I never got any solid reads on many of the players, seemed pretty soft as well. Soon after I sat at this table someone limped in front of me in middle position at 75/150. I made it 600 over the limp with AKo, and got called by the very talkative/joking European guy immediately to my left. If you're unaware, middle ages European guys at these major live events seem to play fancily and get out of line easily. That, combined with no one knowing how to do simple arithmetic, led for a sad downfall. Anyways, we took a flop heads up of AK9 rainbow. $$$- I wish. I checked the flop expecting it to be very easy to get a guy like this (from the little I knew of him) to take the lead in the hand and get to play a big pot by the turn. He checked behind. The turn put out the Js, so the board was AK9sJs. I led 1000 into the 1300 pot and got called. The river put out another spade, and has Phil Hellmuth said on TV last year, I decided to check the river with that Hellmuthian voice in my head going "NOT SPADE- SPADE!" Really though, I simply decided that I had no solid read, but in classifying players realized that I just wasn't sure if I could profitably call a shove if I led at the river, and that he could definitely bluff with how much I underrepresented my hand. After I checked, he bet 2k and I quickly called and mucked to 6s5s. Yeah, sucks because I checked the flop, but I like my line after talking it over with some people given that I was relatively readless. That was how I planned to get the most value out of my flopped monster and it just didn't work out. Such is life.

Very soon thereafter, a TAGfish kid opened to 400 at t150 and I jammed 88 for my remaining 3k from the cutoff. He tanked, and did his stupid song and dance about how he has AK and that he doesn't think I could do this with AA/KK. I've seen this song and dance a hundred times, and not once has anyone ever folded AK in this spot. I stood up, waiting for his oh so surprising call, and lost my race. good game.

Manchild and another couple of friends of mine from home cashed in the event which was nice, so I took my illustrious 5% from a friend for his deepest finish of our group at 18th. Ship the 150 dollars that I got instead of the 5k I should've gotten when this idiot called a flop shove from my friend on a 9 high board with QJo against friend's 77 because my friend called him a coke head earlier in the night. River jack, good game in 18th place.

After chilling out for a while, I decided after I had busted to play the second chance tournament, the 200+30. The tournament was equally as soft, and the result similar. I realized I was in for a long (or short?) one when 5 peopple limped in on the first hand, I raised the button big and everyone called. Needless to say that didn't work out, though I did make some things happen in this event, and I got my stack up to nearly 20k from the 6k starting stacks before running into a wave of cold cards and fast blind/ante structure. I shoved A7o into AKo at the 600/1200 level, and as standard a push as it was, was out of my 2nd multi of the day.

It didn't surprise me, just not how I wanted to spend my day...feeling like crap and playing decently but losing. I'd rather have just stayed in bed for a good day 2 if I had foreseen it, though I will say it was a great experience and an overall good time.

Unfortunately, my woes continued when I was strapped for cash (the problem with being an internet player: plenty online, none around when you need to sit with live fish). I sat 1/2 instead of some juicy looking 2/5 games to grind up a bit of money before jumping into it, especially as I haven't played live since Las Vegas during the world series. Well, yeah, that didn't go well. The table's average stack was probably at least 100bb's, so the standard raise was naturally to 15 or 20 preflop. All I can say is, if I knew I'd always get raises and huge flop bets called when I had monster pairs I would just start open jamming them for 150 bb's preflop. Sadly, none of those monster pairs ever held. Despite people thinking that bigger raises=more of a reason to call with draws/lower effective stacks (?), it didn't pan out for me, and as laggy or taggy or nitty as I had to go to adjust to varying table conditions and players, I just couldn't put it together with the cards. Except for my one flush in the tournament, I didn't hit a draw or see the refreshing aces in the hole one time in 3 days. I rarely made a pair and no one ever folded to anything, so sadly, these series' have a bigger luck factor than one might be accustomed to. Again, I think I played pretty well with only a couple of minor errors all things considered, so I'm just looking to put it behind me and make Vegas a good trip.

Couple fun hands from my late night cash session: raise preflop to 20 (yes, at 1/2) with QQ. Old guy calls, idiot kid who thinks hes god's gift to poker (because he has the big stack at the cash table zomg!) calls out of the blind. Flop is 552 2-tone, and I lead for 60. Old guy calls, kid calls. The turn fills the flush, obviously. I check, old guy bets 60, kid folds, I tank and decide that he probably has the flush, but at basically 4:1, the fact that I'm never calling a river bet from this guy made it worth it for me to spite call this turn bet and see if he showed up with a bare draw/worse overpair/crap/whatever. I called, and I talked him into checking back on the river with his flush made with Q9hh. Yeah, the kid also had called pf with 43o, and the flop bet for 25% of effective stacks on that paired 2-tone board with his open ended straight draw. Nice one kid, god's gift to poker indeed.

Anyways, hope you enjoyed the really depressing report. At least some friends hit decently in the tournaments (another friend cashed in the second chance the next night after I played it). I'm also going to try to put in huge volume until vegas so I can keep up with my online bonuses/VIP stuff and what not on pokerstars. Hopefully Vegas will bring a happier trip in the sklansky-bucks department :) Thanks for reading.


-Alex


Oh also forgot to mention that I played a 120 buy in live sit and go also. Obviously I lost that one, but yes, in multi's, single tables and cash games, the players all seemed comparably bad. JJ shoved utg, queens with a slightly bigger stack than me (but still very short) reshoved, and I called with JJ on the button. Since we were both more or less drawing dead preflop, and the flop didn't bring me me only glimmer at a scoop or chop, that one was an easy exit. And if one more person open limps and calls a raise with AK pf or states how awful a hand JJ is I'm going to throw a kitten.

We ended the trip by missing our exit on the highway in the heavy snow/ice/rain and turning a 3 hour drive into a 7 hour ride of joy...that was also fun. Thats about it I think.

Post-Amsterdam, Pre Atlantic City and Las Vegas

So things have been relatively hectic. Amsterdam was nothing short of amazing, even though I didn't get to hit a lot of the attractions that we wanted to initially. Its an amazing city with a lot to do and very nice people. My friend Steve brought his dog also, so that made the trip that much more interesting.

We got there mid-morning on the 26th of December, and I immediately had to take a shower after the grossness of overnight trans atlantic travels. In my 3 minute shower, I managed to put out the electricity of the marriot we were staying at because of a leak conveniently located directly above the building's electricity mainframe. Good times.

The rest of the trip was filled with red light district walks, coffee shop visits, walks through the town, personal group-famous tram rides (note: these trams do not stop for pedestrians. Walkers beware), and just a lot of fun in seeing a new place and its history. Couldn't ask for a better way to end 2007 other than perhaps having run well playing cards in December. I have a lot of Amsterdam pictures up on facebook to check out if you're friends with me on there. Otherwise you can email me or PM me on the forum and I can send you some if you'd like.

I got home new year's eve, and didn't set foot in my apartment until 9/930pm that night. I got a call from high school friends saying they were out for new year's and, having not planned anything, they asked me to come out. I was pretty beat from not having slept and a crazy 5 days overseas, but since they were just 5 minutes down the street, I couldn't say no to hanging out with old friends. We ended up going to the only bar open and had a great night hanging out and celebrating. The next day was the end for me, and I've more or less been in complete lazy mode ever since with abrupt travels and time changes and just running around getting my act together for the month.

Since coming back, I've been seeing friends that I don't get the opportunity to hang out with often, and trying to come out of a no-volume poker rut. I've been trying to pad my roll for AC and Vegas trips. I've had a solid start to the month profit wise, but still haven't gotten in the volume that I need to. I plan on trying to play a lot the next few days until our AC departure online, with hopefully one live 1/2 or 2/5 nl session for a refresher night pre-AC. On the morning of the 15th, event #1 of the Borgata world poker open, a 350 buy in no limit hold em event, will be going on. I plan on playing this event, and if things go well, possibly event #2 as well. Beyond those tournaments, I will likely focus on the side games.

We come home from Atlantic city on the 17th or 18th, and I'll be home for 2 days before heading to Vegas for 5 days for more live play with my room mate Steve (tubasteve8). Should be a good last few weeks of break, we'll see what happens in AC! Thanks for reading.


Alex