Event 38 Trip Report

[Cleave]

I made it to just before the dinner break before busting out on AdJd. I'm guessing I went out between 600 & 700. My buddy went out at the 2nd break.

There turned out to be over 2,700 players. The main room at the Rio spilled over into an outside tent and a couple of roped off areas throughout the casino. When I went out, I'm pretty sure all the tables outside the main room had broken.

Friday morning we cabbed it over to the Rio and got signed in. No lines at all, perfect timing. Signing up early allowed us a good table in the main room and easy "walk in and play" for Saturday.

I was at table 37 against the far back wall. The Poker-news team doing internet updates was just over my shoulder (so I had good access to chip counts) and I could see the whole room from where I was. Phil Hellmuth was about 6 tables away and I hung out with Jerry Buss on break. He's a really cool laid back guy. You would have no idea if you met him on the street he had all that money. I got my picture with him too.

I got to my table early and introduced myself with everyone. We had a good social table, mostly out-of-towners with 3 notable exceptions. A very pretty American-Asian girl named Lynette. Apparently she's a fairly well-known internet player and one of our players and her were discussing a big hand from the Sunday millions from a while back. To my left was a very solid local player named Paul that designs slot machines and on the end we had Tommy Phan. The rest of us were middle aged white guys and we did outlast our 3 "pros."

I can't say much for my play. I had just over an average stack for much of the day but unfortunately never got in any really big hands, so I found myself on a short stack as the day went on due to a lot of busts on my table. Apparently, my table was one that goes deep in the tourney by design. Our table never broke we just kept adding players....so as people busted we had a lot of chips on the tabel. They just weren't in front of me.

I had a great experience and will definitely be back. Contrary to what you may have heard, the tournament was well run and the dealers I had were very good. The only thing I wish I had done better was to be a little more aggressive, but I just didn't have the cards to play with. When I went out there were only 3 of us from our original 10 and I went in with a full 15 BB's against our tables big stack. It was an easy call for him with AK.

I went back to Harrah�s and after a nap I went down to the poker room and went on a Helluva run. I sat down about midnight with $200 and cashed out about 4:00am with $1,400. I got snapped off and was pushing & catching cards. It was a blast and I was really an ass. I went back to the room for another nap then went to Caesars about noon and sat at a $2, $5 table with $500. It was nuts!!! Usually $25 or $50 or more to see a flop, guys calling in the dark, lots of all-ins. We had a couple of deep pocketed drunk Irish footballers raising $200 with nothing. I ran my stack up to almost a grand when I flopped the Ace high diamond flush, I bet out because there were 4 players and I knew someone would call, I get 3 callers and last to act goes all-in. I call and my opponent has an open ended straight flush and hits his out on the river for the straight to the J and a $599 jackpot on top of a $1,500 pot. Go figure. I added on another two to bring my stack back to $500 like a dumb-ass and lost it before getting up. The table was so loose I had to give it a shot.

After that I met up with my buddy downtown at The Golden Nugget. He loves it downtown. I walked across to Binion�s and sat at the $5 Bacarat table and ran $100 up to $700. Went back to the strip and to Paris; Paris has always been good to me. I had to wait on a table for about 30min, when I did, several people got up to start a new tourney and left us with 6 players; two were dealers and one was a floor man at the WSOP. So, there was no action and scarey action. I played about 30min and left.

I can go on and on. I played much of the day Monday at Flamingo and did very well, doubling up. Bottom line is I left with a grand over my WSOP buy-in and came back with a grand. There was a lot of money on the $2/$5 game at Caesars and it�s a lot looser than $1/$3� As long as my bankroll is ok, I�m gonna try some $2/$5 games on the next trip. They should be more profitable.


Probably looking at October for the next trip, there�s a big event at Caesars we may try. Caesar�s might be my favorite room right now. I tried to play cash at the Venetian, but all their tables were taken up by their daily deep stack tournament.

It was a 4 day trip this time, due to my plans of making the final table, but that's really one day too many for Vegas. Three is about right for me. It was good to get home and get some sleep.

Cleave