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#1
03-21-2007, 12:22 PM
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Vegas March Madness Trip Report
Cliffs Notes at the bottom. Warning: No strippers/hookers/blow. Just poker. The big payoff for the trip is on the final day.
For the past four years, I’ve been taking an annual pilgrimage to Vegas for four days of poker during the first round of the NCAA tournament. I am joined in this annual trip by one of my roommates from graduate School, Dan. Dan: Let’s just say that Dan is, in most ways, a typical New Yorker. Brash, opinionated, generally a good guy. He is also short. That doesn’t come into play during the trip; I just like to point it out to him. Dan plays mostly NL these days, and is squeaky tight. Wednesday: I decide I am not going to work the half day on Wed as I had originally planned, as I have more vacation time than I can actually use, and I just won’t have any real concentration for it. Instead, I lounge around most of Wed. morning until noon, when my wife picks me up and takes me to the airport. Pre-printed boarding pass + simple carry on + Wed. afternoon, means I am through security and at the gate less than 15 minutes after being dropped off. An hour wait, an uneventful 90 minute flight and I am in Vegas, it is 3PM local time. On the way to the rental car counter, I get a call from Dan, who has been in Vegas for about 2 hours now. He apparently decided to stay in the airport and get lunch, rather than head directly to the Strip. Fool. I meet him at the rental car counter; we get upgraded from our cheap-o subcompact all the way to mid-size. BONUS. Ten minutes out the lot, but they’ve screwed up our contract and given us a Saturn Ion instead of the Malibu. No worries, the lady behind the counter fixes it in five minutes flat and we’re off. We’re staying the weekend with my aunt, who has a house in Henderson. Beat: Family obligation and social etiquette mean that I have to sit down and catch up with her before getting to play poker. 2 hours later, we’re headed for the strip. We decide to hit the MGM, as we liked the room a lot last year and the games were loose and fast. I have been practicing my no-limit skills on line, but know that I am a rookie in this camp. (I’ve been playing limit for more than 10 years). I actually manage to build a decent stack shortly within the first hour. This is largely at the expense of a 40ish woman who sits in the one seat shortly after I take my seat. The floor tells the dealer she doesn’t speak much English so be sure to help her out. She might as well have put all her money on the table in $200 stacks and started handing them out. She played nearly every hand and would call just about any bet (I did see her fold a few hands on the turn) all the way to the river. I doubled up through her when I raised AQ, caught an A on the flop, bet the whole way and she finally called all in on the River with pocket 10’s. However, you had to get out of her way when she actually bet at the pot. If she did, she was holding no worse than the third nuts on the current board. And she would never bet the flop, but always check/call. She re-loaded three times in the first hour before her luckbox activated. I lost one big hand (about half my stack) when I flopped trips with a medium kicker and got called by the same trips with the nut kicker. We decide to call it a night at 2am, as Dan has been up more than 24 hours. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but we have three more days to go and we have designs on the Noon tournament at Caesars the next day. Wed. Totals: 7 hours of poker, I book a small loss, Dan books a small win (<$20) The rest of the trip will be posted today and tomorrow, in easy digestible chunks. Cliff's Notes: Long awaited LV trip. First day 7 hours of poker at MGM. I am unsuccessful at NL. Dan is short. 
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#2
03-21-2007, 02:49 PM
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Vegas March Madness Trip Report (Thurs)
Thursday: (Caesars)
We get up at a reasonable hour, shower, chat with my aunt a little more and head out the door. Breakfast at IHOP is on the menu this morning and with more than 2 hours until the Noon tourney we think we have plenty of time. I failed to factor into my plans that Dan eats like an Ethiopian refugee and breakfast takes longer than anticipated. We get to Caesars around 11:30. Hustling through the sports book and into the poker room we are dismayed to find out we are forced onto the alternate list for the tourney, which is capped at 72 players, as the tournament room has been converted into a VIP room for the NCAA tournament. By the time the Alternate list gets to us, the tournament is well into the second level, and we decide to pass, thinking we could play Fri or Sat. We both get seated in about 20 minutes, Dan into the 1-3NL and I into the 4-8 limit. Over the course of the next two hours I get up $250, Dan is doing relatively well too. Unfortunately I hit a bad string of cards, the usual 4-8 suckouts and some lapsed concentration/bonehead plays. I give my win back and a small portion of my original buy-in. About the room: Caesars only serves well drinks in the poker room. No call liquor at all. Not even for sale. But you can get single malt scotch for playing the penny slots. Also no Red Bull, only SoBe. Boo. The chairs are comfortable, the tables are decent, and the player’s aren’t. And if you take a beat and want to get away from the table, well just wander back out to the main casino, take a left and wander over to the Pussycat Dolls area of the casino. There the dealers at all the table games are hot, hot women wearing a bra/panties/garters set. Good Googamooga… I have a hard enough time counting cards when playing blackjack, but this distraction (along with the two ladies dancing in the suspended cages) would make it impossible. Dan and I decide to play in the 11pm tourney, which has a similar structure to the Noon, though smaller starting stacks. Nothing too exciting in the tourney. Dan runs AK into AA and is out relatively early. I make a few moves, get a few decent hands, and make the final two tables, though as one of the two or three smallest stacks. With an M of 2 I push with QJs after the 2 seat’s fifth consecutive pre-flop all-in. Of course, THIS time he has AA and not junk, and although I flop both and OESD and flush draw, the turn and river are blanks and I finish 15th. Not too bad for my first live tournament. I get back into the 4-8 game and bleed off the remainder of my original buy-in over the next four hours. We finally decide to call it a night at 6am. Thurs: 18 hours of poker, I’m down $200, Dan breaks exactly even, less the tournament fee. Cliffs Notes: I do well in Caesars 11pm tournament, but not well enough. Nice room, but they need to serve the booze. Lots of skin in the PCD pit area.
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#3
03-21-2007, 02:52 PM
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Vegas March Madness Trip Report (Fri)
Fri: (Caesars again)
It’s after 7am when we crash in Henderson, but we are up and ready to go again just after noon. Knowing we missed the tournament, we decide to hit Caesars again. I decide to play NL again, and get into the 1-3 game. Nothing much happens for the first hour or so, three players at our table get busted and we are a little short, but they have a couple of short games so the floor (smoking hot body, butterface) breaks one game to fill the other two. We get three new players who all know each other. One sits in the one seat, and buys in for $500. The other two sit in the 8 and 9 seats, both with more than $1000 in their stacks. I’m in the 5 seat, Dan is in the 10. The three new players are having fun, playing very aggressively. The 1 seat especially, as he has shown several bluffs (raising to $50 with 7-3). The 8 seat drags a monster pot ($600-700), busting two players at the same time, oddly with the best hand the whole way. Then the explosion happens. The 9 seat raises early, the one seat calls, everyone else gets out of the way. 9 seat bets a 3-3-9 board . $100 on the flop. Blank turn, $400. All-in on a blank River. His buddy in the 1 seat busts his Aces with A-3 that flopped a set. This puts the 9 on monkey tilt, and he is all-in again on the very next hand, and gives up the remainder of his stack on AK blank board, and immediately leaves. I lose my buy-in after about 4 hours of play against the 1 seat with a small flopped flush and an open ended straight flush draw. Unfortunately he has a bigger flush and I don’t catch my two outer. I decide I am done with NL and get back into the 4-8 game. I run OK until the tournament, making enough that the tourney is a freeroll for me. I make it deep into the second hour, but then run Jacks into slow played Kings on an all low board. C’est la Vie. I get back into the 4-8 around 2:00, only this time it’s playing with a full kill. The 1 seat has about 700 in blue chips ($1) in front of him, the 2 seat isn’t far behind. I buy in for $200 and get 2 racks of BRAND NEW CHIPS. Kinda cool, sharp edges very rough. Hard to shuffle, but nice. About 20 minutes after I sit down there is a kill pot with the most aggressive player at the table holding the kill button. Three players call to me, I call , the kill button is last to act and auto raises his kill. Everyone calls the second bet and there are five players ($90). I flop top set and get ready to get paid. Its checked to the aggressive player and everyone calls ($130). The turn was a little blank card that didn’t change anything, but suddenly one of the EP players bets out, I smooth call again, knowing its going to get popped. Sure enough Mr. Aggressive makes it $32. The bettor calls, but now I 3-bet. Two players drop out, so its 3 to the river ($226) after the other two call. Checked to me, I bet, both call ($274 all in $1 chips) and MHIG. It takes the dealer four two armed swipes to move the pot to my end of the table. It takes me three hands (of which I win one) to stack the pot. The game breaks a couple of hours later (around 5am) and we decide to call it a night. Thurs: 15 hours of poker, $150 loss, including the tournament buy-in. Dan dropped about $40 in the cash game and $70 on the tournament. This would be his only losing day of the trip. Nit. Cliffs Notes: Another day at Caesars. I don't do as well in the tournament. Brand new chips are cool. I drag a nearly 3 rack pot, still lose $$ on the day.
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#6
03-22-2007, 12:53 PM
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Vegas March Madness Trip Report (Sat)
We get up too late for the Caesars nooner (again), and decide to check out the Venetian. Neither of us has played there yet. In fact, neither of us is sure how to get there. But the blind squirrel finds a nut, we cruise down Koval to hit the Venetian from the backside. We make a parking garage mistake and have to hike all the way across the casino. We get there at about 3 and Dan gets on the 1-2 list, I get on the 4-8 list that is 20 players deep (one table). Despondent about my chances of actually getting into that game, I get on the 1-2 list about 15 minutes later. Sure enough, as the tournament that was running breaks down, they start three more 1-2 games, despite 4-8 having the longest list. I get a seat in the 1-2 game and promise to just peddle the nuts. I promptly lose $40 with AKs after raising and flopping a flush draw, but get forced out by a very large bet on a 10-10-9 board. Fortunately, the 4-8 opens about 5 minutes after my small loss. While the table does not turn out to be an ideal line-up there are at least three weak spots when I sit down.
The Venetian is really trying to attract business and paying attention to the poker players. We get the first half hour of the game rake free, as only six players arrived after the initial call for the new table. The other three arrive five minutes later, but we still get the entire first down free. I immediate make back my NL loss with a flopped set against TPTK and small two pair. After an hour, I’m up close to $100 as the three weak spots simply cannot lay down a top pair hand, unless a four flush falls on the board. There is an asian girl showing a lot of skin sitting three seats to my left. She plays ok, but takes some brutal beatings on the river. It is unclear if the guy sitting on her right is her friend or boyfriend, but they seem pretty close. However about an hour or so after I sit down at the table I catch half of the conversation on her cell phone and she says, twice, “So, when we are in the bedroom and I do that for you its NOT intimate?” She apparently doesn’t get the response she wants and hangs up on whoever is on the other end of the line. About 10 minutes later another very nice looking Asian girl slides up behind the dealer, whispers something in his ear and slides a couple of business cards in his shirt pocket. As she is walking away, I ask the dealer “what is she selling and how much does it cost?” This gets a laugh from the dealer and several of the players. Turns out she’s an ex-dealer who just opened a restaurant. What do I know? I manage to grind my way up to a $150 win around 10pm. I get up and check on Dan, who is up about $150 at the NL game and mention dinner. Now, neither of us has eaten in nearly 24 hours, but then neither of us is hungry either. I fear that this is a sign that there are some addiction issues. In four and half days in LV I ate breakfast once, lunch never (of course I was usually just getting out of bed at noon) and dinner three nights. Four meals in four and half days. No wonder I lost 5 pounds. (I can just see the new money making idea: the Poker Diet. Play 18 hours a day, lose weight and win money!!) We decide to book our wins and head back to MGM where we have comp dollars to pay for dinner (yes, we’re both cheap bastards.) I somewhat regret leaving this particular table as I had great reads on everyone there and knew who to stay away from. I wouldn’t regret it for long. We get to the MGM, get on the lists and get our comps. We hit up the Rainforest Café so Dan can get a veggie burger (silly vegans). My comp covers dinner, Dan pays cash for the tip. In the mean time, we’ve missed our call for our tables and have to get back on the list. Fortunately it only takes about another five minutes. I pull my usual play one pot and lose $40 at the NL before getting called for the only 4-8 game in the house. Stupid NL. I take the 7 seat in the 4-8 game and there is a nice older lady in the 8 seat and two very tight players in the 9, 10 seats. All of the action at the table is coming from the 1 seat (drunk) and the 6 seat (gamBOOLer). It’s getting close to midnight at this point so a number of people are in an out of the game over the next two hours. I don’t remember exactly when he sat down, but it was some time before 2am. Dan and I referred to him as Sam Jackson, as he looked modestly like the actor. Sam is the most LAG-tard player I have ever seen in a live game. I’m not even sure that LAG-tard does this guy justice. He sat down in the three seat and lost about a rack and half in less than an hour. Then he moved over to the 6 seat next to me and went on a rush, piling up nearly 3 racks over the course of the next hour. Sam played every single hand during the time he was at the table. Not only did he play every hand, but he raised with 60% of them. I watched him 3-bet with 3-7 suited. I watched him call a cap on the flop with bottom pair, no kicker, no draw (and hit his 2 outer on the river as he tripped up). It wasn’t “any 2 will do” it was “EVERY two will do”. The variance at the table over the next couple of hours was incredible. I took several racks from him, but he’d take them back with some strange two pair, like J-6. Some people tried to passively stay out of his way except with monsters, but I took the opposite approach. Any two cards over 9 and any suited connectors down to 6-7. Difference was I could give up on the flop if I missed (usually for at least two bets) and he wouldn’t. Dan finally came over to the table around 5, having cashed out of his game. I needed to leave around 5:45 to take him to the airport for his flight home. Variance wasn’t on my side, as I effectively broke even during the time that Sam was on my table. But the game was so good, I just hoped that Sam would still be there when I got back. I may have broken several records, but I got Dan to the Airport and got back to the game in 35 minutes. Unfortunately, Sam was gone (but it wouldn’t be his last appearance in this trip report). The good news was that he’d been replaced with by another player with a very similar style. Not quite as aggressive, but similar. Final installment later. The best 12 hours of my poker life.
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#7
03-22-2007, 12:56 PM
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Re: Vegas March Madness Trip Report (Sat)
[ QUOTE ]
Warning: No strippers/hookers/blow. Just poker. [/ QUOTE ] Thank you for that. Outstanding report. Thanks for the details of your play!
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#10
03-22-2007, 07:40 PM
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Re: Vegas March Madness Trip Report (Fri)
I too was playing at the MGM on Saturday night, as well as on Sunday night. I hit up all the limit games they had to offer, but my best success was at the 4-8 table on Sunday night when the table became short-handed. Fun times.
I was going to work on a trip report, but I like yours better. Good job!
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