Trip report: weekend play at the Wynn & Bellagio 15-30 games

[swope]

Day 1:
By the time I checked into the Wynn I was already dreading the 15-30 LHE game, having read from several different people how it was basically a nitfest where one can basically expect to either break even or pay back the discount on the room rate in blinds. This worried me, a lot. I was committed to 12 hours of poker over the course of the weekend and every orbit was going to make me put 25$ on the table, flop or no. That said, I came here to play poker, so I figured if things were really bad I could drop down to 8/16 or even 4/8 and just ride out the hours.

I made it into the poker room at about 1:30am on Friday night/Saturday morning. The first thing that threw me for a loop was that this was supposedly the "best" poker pit in Las Vegas. I was greeted with a semi-open air room with maybe 20-25 tables, most of them spreading low-mid NLHE. I was expecting mahogany and teak everywhere by the descriptions, the reality disappointed me. The chairs were old and certainly nothing fancy, the tables were standard, albeit with reasonably maintained felt, chips were just your everyday monotone clay with the casinos name pressed on them. Basically, I felt the rumors of opulence were greatly exaggerated.

There is one 15-30 game, 7 seats taken. There is one big stack, a skinny, talkative white dude with about 2 or 3 grand in 5$ chips in front of him. He is good natured, and appears to know everyone by name. He seems to play a fairly straight forward game, raising when he enters the pot but rarely reraising. To his left is a middle aged white guy who is ordering vodka 7's at the table. Appears to have about 2 racks in front of him. He is raising up constantly and generally banking on aggression to take down pots, which appears to be working for him. Next to him sits a younger white kid who looks like he practices raising in the mirror. He loves to get his money in preflop and never misses a chance to bet, but is all too quick to dump his hand when someone pushes the issue in later position on him. Next to him sit two transgender women who probably played a lot of holdem in their respective frats. Sorry ladies, those hands dont lie no matter how much effort you spend hiding your Adams apples.

To their left is a large white girl with about a rack and a half in front of her. She likes to reraise and push people off their hands. I notice that no one seems to call her down. I make note to peep her file when she tries that [censored] on me. Finally, there is the ubiquitous TAG middle aged Asian dude, about two racks in front of him, playing few hands but rarely checking when hes in a pot.

The table is actually seeing a fair amount of action on every street, but not a lot of showdowns. There is a good amount of chatter and everyone seems to know eachother, which is worrysome, but I figure if I catch cards, Im getting paid off, so I sit down to the left of Asian TAG and to the right of bigstack. Right off, things get a little irritating; they dont have a rack of chips for me and I dont see a single chip runner anywhere. The dealer takes 2 of my hundred dollar bills and hands me 40 chips. This isnt how I like to play, but since cash does play at the table I figure its just one of those things and suck it up.

I play tight for a while and raise in late position with AQo with the big blind and large white girl in the pot. Blinds fold, Large Marge (I'll call her) calls. Flop is pretty raggy; 239 rainbow. Marge bets, which Im fairly certain means she has absolutely nothing. I raise for a free card, she calls. Turn is a T, which I figure might actually have helped her, but true to my read she checks and I check behind her. River is a 4, she fires at the pot and I call. She mutters that she has nothing and congratulates me on my call as I table AQo. Then a funny thing happens. She doesnt muck her cards. She sits there for about 20 full seconds then says, "Im sorry, Im really really sorry, I never slow roll, I didnt see that I hit a straight", and tables 56c. I assure her its all good, accidents happen, and make a mental note to never take her seriously in a pot again. If I run into a monster against her, so be it, but the majority of times Im HU with her, I will probably be ahead on the river.

I fold for an orbit or two then pick up 76o in the big blind. Large Marge raises my blinds in late position, I choose to defend for massive meta equity (lulz) and hit the 7h9c3h flop. I check/call, and make 2 pair with a 6 on the turn. A 6h on the river gives me 2pr, and I check it to Marge who immediately bets, once again confirming she has nothing, least of all the heart flush. I checkraise for great justice because I can read this bitch from space. She calls, and I know Im miles ahead. River is a 5. A 5 of hearts. Check check, she shows me her Jc4h for the flush. Nice hand Marge, expert peel.

A third hand with Marge and several other river-based misadventures drops me to -600 when I check/call to the river with AKh and lose to her pocket jacks. Tilty, but clearly giving this girl credit for anything is -EV. With my final 100$ worth of chips in front of me, I have an epiphany about the table. With the exception of Skinny, everyone here is drunk or borderline retarded or honestly believes that positional aggression pays the bills. At this point, I choose to employ a strategy described by mixed martial artist commentator and stand up comedian Joe Rogan; the strategy of RETARD STRENGTH. Retard Strength is an advanced preflop technique based on the gross overbetting of -EV hands, with the intent of getting a piece of total garbage flops and busting peoples king-rag hands.

In the big blind, I get A9 offsuit. The Malaysian transexual raises my blind. I blood up and reraise at her funky ass. She calls. Garbage flop. She bets. I call. Garbage turn, she bets, I raise all in. She calls and tables QJo when the river brick hits. Ship me the filthy lucre. She slimes away from the table in disgust, her frau in tow.

Pocket queens an orbit later gets me another stack of 5$ chips, now Im only down 400$ and feel like dining in hell. I defend 95o in the BB to the pudgy white boy after Marge calls his raise. Flop is 9T2. Whiteboy bets, Marge calls (LDO), I call. Turn is an obv blank, a 6, white boy throws his chips onto the felt like hes tossing diamonds to a swimming pool filled with whores, Marge calls, probably with jack high, I call. River is another 6. Check check check. I table my deliciously retarded hand which appears to have both of them dominated. For Sparta, mm hmm.

2 orbits later, Marge goes busto calling K high to the river or something and the table breaks up at around 4:30 AM. I cash out 664$ or so, so Im down about 36$. Whatevs. Im pleased with the results considering I was awake for 22 hours straight by that point and managed to put a major dent in the hours for my room rate qualification.

Its noon on Saturday as I type this. Im going to probably take a quick nap then head down this evening and [censored] around the 8/16 game while praying for a PLO table to form.





Day 2, Saturday afternoon.

Decided to hit the 8/16 game. Things immediately get weird when the poker desk informs me that they no longer call rooms when youre seat opens up. This means you have to spend hours blankly staring at the TV in your room, tuned into the poker room waiting list, and hope you notice when your seat opens up, or you have to basically hang out by the tables. Both these options are rather ass. Anyway I manage to call in as soon as I notice my name on top, and end up with a seat waiting when I get down to the pit.

First hand; AQd in early position. I call a UTG raise along with 4 others and we see a flop. JT7, two diamonds. Check bet raise reraise etc etc. Turn is a brick, bet raise etc, river is a king. Check, check, bet, fold, raise, call, and I take down a 20BB pot with broadway.

Predictably, things fell apart quickly after that. I lost two fairly massive hands which halved my stack (set to flush on the river, counterfieted house on the river), and suddenly I was circling the drain. I rallied briefly but to no avail, the first rack eventually disappeared to yet another rivered card giving a 70 year old fly fisherman from Montana 2pr (Aces and nines) to my pocket tens. Bought in for half a rack (100$) and managed to lose and win some small pots before getting chewed to pieces by an underset making a charming 22 year old Filipino girl a house to my top set. I circled the drain briefly then went the way of the dinosaurs after about 3 hours. Very sickening experience overall, but the free Orange Julius was dope as hell so I cant really be too upset.

I put myself on the interest list for a PLO game and headed back to my room to meditate on my play and look for holes etc.

Day 2.5

Quick nap and I make my way to the 15-30 game. I get seated at a must move game, the main game is next to us. Despite everyones warnings, the games are actually a lot less rocky than I expected. A lot of blinds get stolen sure but there are some big pots. Usually its a race, flush vs set or 2pr, but they are happening. Lots of familiar faces from the previous night. The thin, talkative TAG dude is there, playing extremely well and generally raising pots to take them down uncontested. A familiar face that hung out the previous night without playing was there. Dude named Daniel. I think he played about 6 hands the entire night. I think he won 4 of them at showdown, a fifth with an unanswered bet on the turn, and managed to take down something like half to a third of a rack every time. Very educational stuff re: table image. Every hand he showed was absolutely premium. Just sat there for hours with a thin smile, chuckling at jokes, chilling out and sitting behind an every growing mountain of 5$ chips.

The rest of the table is predictably good with a few notable exceptions. Case in point; the pudgy moron who peeled A2o against Daneil's AK. I had to tripple check he wasnt just calling Daniels raise from a blind, nope. He just felt like peeling with A2o in late position. This wasnt meta game, it was fiscal chicken with a Sherman tank. He got power raped, over and over. [censored] was wicked.

To my left sat a very cool middle aged Chinese man. Played solid, too loose preflop, but he seemed to know when to duck and when to shoot. I stayed out of his way generally.

Another character; some French dude who looked like a marine, loved to overplay his single pairs and generally could be counted on to call down any bet on the river. French dude: "Ok I call.. if you have straight, you win!", after the ace of spades hits to give me a royal flush on the river. Lovely.

#1 Grampa was an older, dignified looking black man who simply had no idea how to get the hell out of the way. He routinely got into trouble by hitting middle pair with a garbage kicker and being unable to let go of the hand, even when checkraised on a 4 flush board on the river. #1 Grampa contributed heavily to my war chest.

Then, materializing from a cloud of STD's and literally dime-store perfume, appears one of the trannies from the night before. She sits to my immediate right. I say hi because traps are cool, she acts like she dont know. Whatever. My eyes are literally watering from her god aweful perfumeahol, so I move about 4 seats away and am stunned to find that the entire area around the table is now a chemical hazard zone. Athiesm be damned, 2 minutes later I get must-moved to the main game.

Main game = tough. Main game = rocky. I get lucky defending my blind and flop a set of sixes against a guy who nailed TPTK, which destroys my table image but still makes people less enthusiastic to rob me. Everyone except skinny. He robs everyone with impunity, and no one is looking to go broke trying to teach him a lesson after he raises 56o in late position and flops 347 rainbow. Worth noting is that he was far from a bully, he was in fact extremely likeable and his chatter kept everyone friendly. Probably a prop. If Wynn knows whats good, hes a prop. Anyway. Not too many notable hands at the new table. Skinny raised in mid position, I called late with 67, spades. Filipina trap from the night before calls in late position, flop is 8h5s4h. Trappy bets, skinny calls, I reraise so fast I leave scortch marks on the felt. Trappy reraises, Skinny folds with an 'oh-[censored]' look on his face, I reraise, Trappy calls. Turn is a 2s. Trappy bets into me, which smacked of brain damage, so I reraised her like whoa and I guess priced her out of her flush draw, as she folded fast, muttering some trash under her breath. Skinny got a good laugh when I showed, which was a good thing because Trappy was about to chew her own lips off with rage that I took her to rapetown.

At some point, circa 4:00am, I realized I was up what I lost earlier in the day at 8-16, so I called it a night after the desk bashfully admitted it had no intention of opening a PLO game, despite 6 people having been on the list for hours. This was really quite ass, and honestly supports a lot of the less flattering assertions made on this board about the level of customer service one can expect from Kathy since she took over the poker room. Honestly, a live PLO game was a major factor behind my choice of staying at the Wynn, a hotel that has all the ambience, charm, and dignity of a middle American strip mall in my opinion. Im sure many people with argue with me on this point, and I respect their positions, seriously, but Im calling it like I see it, take it or leave it. The truth is, Vegas overall didnt appeal to me much. It felt like a cancer that had been scraped from the uterus of the Grand Ol' Opera theme park and allowed to grow wild out in the middle of the desert. I was expecting something a bit more refined, I honestly dont know why. My bad ultimately for having wrong expectations, and nothing personal against the multitudes who probably feel right at home there.

The next morning I check out, check my bag, and head to the Bellagio to test the waters for the afternoon before I fly home. I got on the list for 15-30 and sat to play some 4-8 while waiting. Took down a 60$ pot on my second hand when my pair of queens with king kicker came out ahead of about 5 peoples failed flush draws. While Im stacking, I get called to a new 15-30 game. U S A! Good service btw; chip runners were practically waiting for me at each seat. Sat down and recognized a couple of familiars from the Wynn 15-30, a hyper aggro Korean woman named Soon among them. Soon tends to overvalue her hands IMO but rarely is out of line completely. I stay out of her way. Oher notables include a very high strung middle aged Hongky to my immediate right, whose range pre-flop included capping with 7To. Classic move includes capping against an old white man, making bottom two pair with 96o on the turn, then losing to old white mans pocket kings when the river pairs the flopped Q. He then throws his cards at the dealer. He did this several times, always under the same circumstances; capping with dogsh!t then getting raped to shreds when the turn and/or river destroys his fragile peace. Sometimes he got lucky tho; I raised in late position with AA, 3 callers. Flop is clearly of no use to anyone, something along the lines of T42 rainbow. Everyone folds but Hongky and a younger, very TAG Asian. Turn is an 8, bringing 3 spades into play. One of my aces is a spade, and I know this clowns chances of sticking a flush is slim to none, so I bet to see where I am. He calls, so far so good, as does a younger Asian TAG who I make note to stay away when I dont have a read on him. A raise would have been bad, but when he calls I feel no one has a damned thing except TP at best. Another 8 hits on the river. I actually like this, as I dont feel like anyone filled up and now Im far less concerned with people flopping 2pr. I think for a second and bet, hoping my read is good. TAG folds, fast. Hongky thinks for a second then calls, tabling Jh8c. Expert play, sir. Usually tho, he just gets dominated and throws his cards at the dealer.

Speaking of the old man with kings, he had a mouth on him. Clearly a habitual loser, he compensated by giving a running commentary on everyones play, usually without the slightest thought as to why it was happening. Example; there is this one absolutely drop dead gorgeous Asian girl at the table with a hot pink Full Tilt baseball cap and the larcenous soul of a viper. She is extremely aggro and strikes fear into the hearts of many. However, she is also rather predictable, especially on the flop and the turn, overplaying good hands that dont really connect with the flop that hard. She raises UTG, which is nothing new for her and says simply she has an Ace with paint kicker most likely. I look down and see 89o. I decide to call, because if I hit the flop at all, I can expect to get paid off by her powerbetting her Ace high to the river. Obv she might have an overpair, it can happen, but statisically I can expect a lot of equity depending on how hard I hit and how much she thinks she can muscle me. Flop is 8TJ, she immediately fires into the pot. A check would have had my ass twitching in my seat, but her flop bet just stinks of baseless aggression. I call. Turn is an 8. She bets. My concern at this point is that she has filled up or flopped a straight, but I remind myself who Im dealing with, steady my nerves, and commit to calling down. The river is a Q, giving me a straight. Im concerned about broadway and against a few players I would check behind, but with this one, she doesnt like to miss bets. She checks. I think for a moment, then fire a bet into the pot. She looks at me for a really, really long time. I ice her out. Im thinking dentists, of sea lions, of Van Goghs broken heart, then I imagine a pack of wolves sodomizing her in an abandoned parking lot. I accidently imagine her enjoying it and start to get a hardon so I begin thinking of sea lions again. She calls and mucks to my straight. Old white man cant shut up for a good 5 minutes about me calling her UTG raise with 89o. At some point he says Im weird. Me and my 4BB/hr of profit arent feeling weird at all, sir. More power tho.

Amazingly unprofessional moment of the entire trip; the dealer at the Bellagio, a morbidly obese middle aged white man who probably uses a stack of rejected screenplays for a pillow at night, decided to voice his opinion regarding how the only "real" form of poker was no limit holdem, and how limit "plays itself". I considered challenging his fatness to some HU PLO, but decide to simply stiff him on tips for the rest of his shift, which felt just fine honestly.

A few orbits later, I cash out up 15BB, which brings my profits at the poker tables to a grand total of 390$ for the trip, give or take a few bucks. Considering the toughness of the games and the extended runs of card death and bad beats, Im pretty pleased with my results.

Parting advice to anyone who hasnt gone to Vegas yet; consider staying at one of the cheaper hotels and take a cab to the Bellagio for the games. Although Im not sure of the poker rates offered by the Bellagio, I dont like spending 200$+ a night (after poke rate btw) for a room Im only going to be sleeping in. Some of you might have companions when travelling or perhaps have needs I dont, but personally I regret spending 15BB on my room for this trip. Also, I very nearly lost my poker rate entirely due to some very poor planning on my part; I was renting for Friday and Saturday night, checking in around 10:30pm on Friday, checking out Sunday afternoon. I had somehow talked myself into thinking I would have 4 or 5 hours to play on Sunday to qualify for my rate. This almost proved to be my undoing; checkout is 1:30pm sharp if you talk real nice to the front desk, which means I had to put in 12 hours between Friday at 11:00pm and Sunday at 1pm. Factor in sleep and meals and the need to cool off between sessions and you see how potentially expensive this can get, especially if youre running bad.

[*TT*]

I often joke around that the best trip reports contain no poker replay of hands. The real reason why is often the hands are filled with errors, and since so many B&M forum regulars dont visit the strat forums they get exposed to the poor strategy here and they might absorb it as a good play (not that this is necessarily bad, but since it's the 2+2 forums we should at least try to strive for good strategy posts). I hate to say it... some of the play in this trip report made me cringe. No wonder why some people think the Wynn is so hard to beat, they don't adjust well to the table texture of a more aggressive game. If anyone cares to point out the errors, I'll happily chime in.

[swope]

my apologies TT, im sure i would benefit from your analysis. i wrote a lot of this while very tired and generally very out of it. if you really feel its a mess of a trip report or the play as i describe it is just too bad to justify discussion or poorly described, delete it, seriously. having never written one before, im not about to take it personally.

[*TT*]

[ QUOTE ]
my apologies TT, im sure i would benefit from your analysis. i wrote a lot of this while very tired and generally very out of it. if you really feel its a mess of a trip report or the play as i describe it is just too bad to justify discussion or poorly described, delete it, seriously. having never written one before, im not about to take it personally.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually the trip report was rather good, it was an engrossing read! But some of your strategy decisions made me cringe - which is fine if you let us all know that it was a bad play, but yo made some decidedly -EV decisions because you assume you play better post flop (better is subjective of course, the opponents do play rather bad of course), thats never good.

Anyway no need to delete the thread, I think there is a lot of redeeming value in it from the quality of the read, and also because we can spend some time picking apart the hands. I'm glad you posted it! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[rafiki]

"The Malaysian transexual raises my blind. I blood up and reraise at her funky ass"

I HOWLED at this. Excellent report btw, you can ignore TT. He's mostly just annoying a lot of the time in here. Hahahha, I'm still laughing.

[swope]

thanks man, im glad you enjoyed it, above and beyond questionable strategy choices on my part.

there were choices i made that i fully admit were -EV from a math/percentage perspective but made sense to me at the time because i felt i had suitable reads on specific players to guage my situation accurately post flop, or because i felt there was suitable benefits to table image/meta game, but im certainly willing to entertain criticism on those plays in case i missed something obvious.

there were other times where i felt i played strong hands too passively in position, which is certainly a valid cause for cringing and i will take any and all suggestions to improve my play on those hands to heart.

[NickMPK]

I thought this was a really good trip report.

I really don't think we should be criticizing the way people play when they post trip reports. Leave that for the strategy forums.

Great trip reports make this forum worth reading. If people on this board want them to keep coming, we shouldn't make criticisms that will make people uncomfortable about posting them in the first place.

Of course, if a criticism is aimed at the quality of the report rather than the quality of the poker play, that's a different story. We don't need to encourage badly written or incomplete reports.

[bobpoker]

I like to read trip reports because it makes me feel like I was there. Although I didn't understand some of the references in the report, it was still an enjoyable read. A good break from a boring day at the office. Long live trip reports!

[*TT*]

[ QUOTE ]
thanks man, im glad you enjoyed it, above and beyond questionable strategy choices on my part.

there were choices i made that i fully admit were -EV from a math/percentage perspective but made sense to me at the time because i felt i had suitable reads on specific players to guage my situation accurately post flop, or because i felt there was suitable benefits to table image/meta game, but im certainly willing to entertain criticism on those plays in case i missed something obvious.

there were other times where i felt i played strong hands too passively in position, which is certainly a valid cause for cringing and i will take any and all suggestions to improve my play on those hands to heart.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the #1 error I saw without breaking down into specific hands was your overly liberal use of implied odds vs bad opponents because you felt you could outplay them. For example there is nothing wrong with calling with 89o in the BB vs an UTG raiser if her range is the best 15-18% of hands if you play well post flop even if her equity edge is 67% - this is due to pot size, size of a bet to call, closing the action and HU play. But calling with 89o in any other position because of your implied odds is a losing proposition. There were some post flop examples as well, I am just pointing this one thing out because even with your suitable read its -EV from the getgo. Remember 89o has no showdown value, your looking to hit the flop hard or you just lost 2 bets vs her range.

[yourface]

I've never posted here before, but here's some strat:

AQo vs largemarge either bet the turn for value after your flop raise or let her barrel by calling down from the flop, betting the turn if checked to. your line doesn't make too much sense theory wise; you raised because you thought you were best, but then you gave her a free card on the turn with a very vulnerable hand in what is now a pretty big pot.

67o vs largemarge seemed ok given her blufftastic tendencies, but I think checkraising the flop is better. I would bet the river in the games I play online. if you plan on check/calling, bet instead because you will likely get some value from pair hands that would have checked behind.

malasian transexual was the SB in the A9 hand? meh given your shortstackness I think this hand was ok.

95 in blind you should fold preflop. your hand sucks. postflop seems fine I guess given the aggressiveness of the game.

AQs I would 3bet pre but call isn't bad; this hand plays well multiway. pumping the flop is good, but you don't have enough equity to pump the turn heads up.

cold calling with 67s is bad.

cold calling with 89o is even worse.

AA hand on the turn "so I bet to see where I am." NONONONO you bet for VALUE. river is a super easy value bet you shouldn't need to tank at all.

I think that's all the hands. btw more paragraphs please.

edit: oh yah nice TR, I liked it [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]