Trip Report – WSOP – Venitian – Binion’s

[JFJB]

I was in Vegas from June 21 to 25 last week and played the WSOP event 35, Venetian Deep Stack on June 22 and 23 and an evening tournament at Binions. Here is my trip report, which includes a few hands, anecdotes and my opinion on some of these Poker tournaments/room in Vegas.

I left Ottawa on June 20th at 18h30 and after flying for 5 hours with a stop in Toronto, I got to Vegas at 22h15, 15 minutes early. I had decided to rent a car with no prior arrangement after seeing a post from Shawndeeb (I think) who mentioned he rented a car for a week for 120$. When I got at to the new mega-rent-a-car-place in Vegas the rates varied from 300 to 400 for 5 days not including taxes nor insurance.

Lesson learned: Book your car ahead of time and do not expect any kind of good deal in Vegas unless you know exactly where you are going.

So I took a taxi to the hotel I had booked ahead of time. I had spotted that hotel in 2005 when I played the ME. It is right next to the RIO but cheaper; The Gold Coast. I got there, signed in and proceeded to my room. Room is barely OK, bed is too soft and overall feeling no too good. I proceeded to sleep and the next morning had breakfast at the Gold Coast. The food was disgusting and that was my last meal there.

Lesson learned: Find a different hotel for next time – Gold Coast sucks (I hear Ping Pang Pong, the Chinese restaurant is good tho).

THE WSOP

Anyhow, I proceeded to the RIO for a look. I had not decided if I wanted to play the WSOP event 35 or the Venetian Deep Stack yet at that time. Well seeing the place made me go for it and I registered for event 35 at about 10h00, which gave me 2 hours to kill before the event. I had to wait for about 20 minutes to register and it went pretty smoothly. I was assign seat 9 at table 69 inside the main room.

I do not have much to report in terms of hands for this event. I got AA once and made and old (60+) stationish man pay me off. The players are generally pretty bad and I would say that there are only 2 to 4 good players per table and we tend to rapidly spot each other. Now I played the tournament from 12h00 to 18h15 and during that period I played at 6 different tables (69-2-221-57-45-37). I got quite unlucky in that way having to spend time and chips to re-adapt to many tables. Anyhow, after 3 level of play if one still sits at around 3000 T$ it starts to feel pretty short. I do not remember the hand as was busted with. Most of the play was pretty standard IMO. I have no idea of where I stood when I got busted as that information was not available.

Lesson learned: The WSOP is a zoo and somewhat victim of its own success. I have seen many complaints about Jack Effeil, dealers, organisation, bad calls, etc. and frankly I am not surprised. Because of its shear size, odds are that bad things are going to happen at the WSOP. I think that overall the WSOP is pretty well organised and run. It is just too big and has become impersonal. However, the WSOP is still the big event of the year and is a magnet to poker player. There are a lot of bad players and is a great place to be if you are bankrolled to afford playing in many events for a few years (which I am not (yet!!)).

VENITIAN

The next day I proceeded to the Venitian and registered to the 550 $ deep stack with 10 000T$ to start and 40 minutes levels. What a great poker room, well run tournament with nice looking waitresses and overall great services. Oh yeah and the chairs are good too.

I got pretty good cards on that day. However, my original table was overly tight and we did not get much play. The table chip leader was a young Asian looking guy seated 3 to my left. Other than him was a mid 50 year old guy that played well. We had one donk at our table and got rid of him within the first hour. After about 6 hours of play the table was broken and I left that table second in chips (with about 28 k) to the young Asian guy (about 40 k).

When I got to my next table I encounter one thing I expected and one that I did not expect. As expected, I was the short stack at my new table since the previous table was so tight. What I did not expect was that I was seated directly to the left of the Asian guy (chip leader) from my previous table. Anyhow, on my second hand at this new table I picked up AA in middle position and raises to 3 times BB and rake in the blinds and antes. A few hands after the young Asian guy UTG (about 40 k) raises to 3 times the BB (it was 1k, 2k with ante of 100) and I look down at KK (I am UTG+1 with about 31 k) – I consider my options:

Fold : LOL out of the question
Flat call: On the plus side a flat call could induce a squeeze but being new at the table I am not sure of how this would work. On the minus side I would price a weak A in…
Raise: With my stack here I only can re-raise all-in. This is not a great value play since it goes raise UTG and all-in UTG+1. So the only value of this play is that I know my opponent and have to evaluate how he will react to a re-raise all-in. Both him and I are short at this new table and I think this guys would rather like a big stack. From previous play I think he will put me on AK if I reraise all in and I think he is likely to call if he has a pair since he covers me and likes being the big stack. Yep I like this play here.

I push my stack, and it gets folded around back to the Asian guy. After the first 5 seconds, I am happy because the fact he is taking more than 5 seconds means he does not have AA. He thanks for a minute or two. I do my best to give him as little information as possible and I pray for a call. He ends up starting to look at the size of the stack around the table and after considering he calls me and shows 10-10 and I double up. Villain erupts after the river being very pissed at my play which he though was bad (did not value play). Wright or wrong my play was based out of respect for villains ability to analyse the situation and take risks and it worked there.

3 hands later I pick up AKo on the button and it is folded to me. I make a standard raise to 3 time the BB (we are still at 1k, 2k with ante of 100) and the SB who sits on about 150-200 k asks how much I have. I took my stacks and moved them in front of me for him or dealer to count (I had about 60 k). After a moment he flat calls me and BB folds. We are heads up and the flop is K65 with 2 spades. Villain grabs a portion of his pile of 1k chips and puts 3 stacks of 3 k for a 9 k bet to me. Now I regret my play here in the after math. I took my time and reraise him to 21 k and he folded. I think I should have looked at my cards a flat call to see if he could have possibly put me on the flush draw and come out firing again on the turn. I will do better next time. The table breaks soon after and I went up from about 28 k to 86 k in something like 10 to 15 hands and this table.

After that I got card dead and lost chips on a few steal attempts that failed and I ended busting in this tournament in position 47 at 00h15 and they paid top 40 for a field of over 500 players (which included many alternates). I hear the top 31 made a deal for 7.8 k a peace. First time I hear about a deal including 31 players.

I played the Venitian deep stack the very next day and even if I feel I played much better on that day I lasted only 4 hours when after raising half my stack with AKs I got raised all in and called to end up missing the board against JJ.

Lesson learned: Venitian is much better place to play than the WSOP. The size of the tournament is more reasonable, the play you get with initial stack is better, the chairs are great, automatic shuffler means more hands per hour and of course the scenery (I mean the waitresses). The Venetian is a great value but there is no bracelet and no celebrity, just good poker.

BINION’S

I was at the Binion’s in the summer of 2005 and returned this year since it had made a great impression at the time. I show up at around 17h00 and no tournaments before 20h00 so I head down to the restaurant and notice some new hard wood floors which is nice. I get a great steak dinner with all the fixings for a good price and head back up to register for the 130 + 50 add on at 20h00.

Well my good impression from 2005 is now completely gone and it basically has to do with the staff and I mean TD, dealers and waitresses. Now I played there for about 1.5 hours and could not get one drink delivered to me at my table (and mind you I only asked for water).

In one hand in the big blind it was limp around (3 players + SB) to me and I checked my option with 73o. Flop was 4-7-9 and it was checked around. The turn brought another 7 and I bet half the pot and the button called me. Turn was a J and I bet again half the pot again and button calls again. I show a 7 and button shown A9 and dealer tells me that I have to show both cards. Now the 7 alone made me the winner and if my opponent or any other players asks to see my both of my cards I will show. But the dealer had no business asking me for both my cards there, IMO. Anyway, I show the 3 and the dealer says ‘Ah, you did not want anyone seeing that card sir’. To which I responded ‘ I was in the big blind, remember’.

Change of dealer and the new dealer asks me to leave my cards in front of me for everyone to see and not to hide them with my hand. Well sir I have no card protector and since I am in position 10, right next to you, can I protect my cards with my hand. What is this, I played poker for 4 days straight and never had this problem but here at the Binion’s the dealers know best. Anyhow, my 99 ran into the AA of that luck box who got his 3rd AA in an hour and I was out. That sure did not help my mood.

On the way out I stop to let the TD that the staff delivering the drinks was doing a poor job. And the TD started to argue with me about how long I could have possibly have been waiting. How in the world could he know better than me here? And no I do not want a replacement bottle of water on my way out. I wanted it 45 minutes ago when I was still playing. Wow this was bad.

Lesson learned : Binion’s is no longer what it used to be and not worth going to anymore. The staff and service sucks. The restaurant is now the best part of that joint and not the poker.

A taxi ride and a taste of Vegas

So I go out and grab a taxi and ask the driver to take me to the RIO. The clearly foreign taxi driver ask me where I am from and I tell him Ottawa (actually I am from Gatineau – the French side of Ottawa). Ah Canada!!, he says and then asks me how I am doing. To which I respond, ‘well my luck could be better’ and he starts talking for a while and I am not really listening to him since I am still thinking about my overall experience at Binion’s. At some point he is talking about beavers and I am thinking to myself OMG I am Canadian so he has to talk about beavers. But then cab driver stops and asks me, ‘so do you want to go?’ and since I have no clue what he was talking about I say, ‘What?’ and start paying attention.

He goes: ‘Well I have been in Vegas long time and if you want your luck to change I know just the place to take you. I could take you to club XYZ and they have great girls there and you could grab the boobies and touch the beaver. I will wait outside for you, you give me good tip, I take you back to gambling and you will see that after touching beaver your luck is going to change.’ Now English is my second language and even though I consider myself fluent, there is still some expression or slang I am not familiar with, so it took me a good fifteen to thirty seconds to figure out what a beaver was and what the relation between a beaver and my luck could be. Eventually I clued in and though WTF. That is Vegas for you…

[tipperdog]

I am dying. Too funny.

[Sayfur]

lol touch the beaver,
eh j'avais catcher que t'étais québécois après 2 lignes [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img], tu écris sur princepoker? if so AKA?

nice trip report, keep em coming

[JFJB]

JFJB on princepoker as well but I rarely post there. I read it often however.

[Foucault]

Good read, thanks for posting.

[JP OSU]

[ QUOTE ]

In one hand in the big blind it was limp around (3 players + SB) to me and I checked my option with 73o. Flop was 4-7-9 and it was checked around. The turn brought another 7 and I bet half the pot and the button called me. Turn was a J and I bet again half the pot again and button calls again. I show a 7 and button shown A9 and dealer tells me that I have to show both cards. Now the 7 alone made me the winner and if my opponent or any other players asks to see my both of my cards I will show. But the dealer had no business asking me for both my cards there, IMO. Anyway, I show the 3 and the dealer says ‘Ah, you did not want anyone seeing that card sir’. To which I responded ‘ I was in the big blind, remember’.


[/ QUOTE ]

Do you play live much sir?... This is ridiculously standard, and the proper action for the dealer to take... It takes two cards to drag a pot, this is the rule EVERYWHERE...