Trip Report: Mansionpoker.net Pokerdome Challenge 6/16-18

[Burdzthewurd]

So I qualified for the June 18th edition of MansionPoker.Net's PokerDome Challenge on a whim, while checking out the site for their smaller tournament overlays and was considering playing there on the side.

Friday:

I say [censored] it to sleeping, and go to Bradley Airport to catch my 7am flight. Plane has an hydraulic problem, as we wait 40 minutes to switch planes (ugh). So we end up being about two hours late flying out, so I sure won't be making it to Caesar's for my interview segments at 1pm. Actually ended up sitting across the row from Rob Garrison, sophomore guard on the Uconn Men's Basketball team (no idea if he's a big name or not, I think he was a bench player last year). Get to Vegas around 2:30pm, and after checking in to my King-sized Deluxe VIP Room (goddamn are those mini-bars such a jopke for prices, $3 for a Snickers!), get around to getting the interview and various head/body shots taken care of. We all have to do silly poses, so I go the WWE route with the RVD and "You Can't See Me" expressions, which at least appeals to fellow...sports entertainment fans. I get asked about tournaments I run on-campus at Umass-Amherst (shh, don't tell the Po-po's), and am suggested to make some stupid comment about stacking the deck since I had won or cashed in most of the tournaments I ran. Then I get to the fun part, which was ripping into Michael Konik. I'm asked who I would want to play heads-up with the most, and basically suggest that if his poker skills are as bad as his jazz musician skills (he headlines the "Michael Konik and His Tasty Band" group), I would easily take him down. Also mention "His Tasty Band" left me with a little vomit in my mouth. The producers love it and find it hilarious (Konik was amused with my questionnaire as well), but of course, FSN makes sure to shoot down any fun like that.

Head out to Swago for the weekly pre-show dinner with all the head honchos of FSN/MansionPoker/Matt Savage and the other players. Open bar was good, though I didn't want to get all that plastered since I was going to hit up some B&M later that night. Met some of the players there of course. Marissa (the eventual winner) was also on one of the Ultimatebet.net World Poker Challenge shows (I was on Week 2 in January earlier this year) and cashed in a Monte Carlo Consolation Tournament in 2004. Gen spoke some English, but was hard to understand, so he had a smoking hot translator with him. They said on-air he placed in the top 75 of the WSOP Main Event last year; actually it was 110th, but still impressive. Bill was a fmr. Marine and seemed to be the only one out here so far actually throwing some money around before the show, but I had no interest in sticking around Caesar's for cash games since they didn't have much of a selection yet. Didn't really meet Jack until the show. Cory-Ann (recent 2+2er 1girlarmy) got to dinner an hour late, but was immediately fawned over by the producers and MansionPoker host (ha, well-deserved of course). The dinner itself was nice, can't say I'm used to all that fancy kind of cuisine.
I had Prime Beef Tenderloin with garlic potato slices (I guess fancy garlic fries), some red wine, and don't really have an idea what I exactly had for dessert. It was solid, but it'll be a cold day when I pay for such extravagant cuisine myself (I'm classless). We each get five-hundo in Caesar's chips which I assume most of us cash in for the bills.

Cory and I head down to MGM for some 1/2 NL action, but see a 1/2 PLO game going, yay gamb00l! Don't see any slick Europeans in site, so action should be good, and it was. One guy playing every hand, a 3-way all-in with two flush draws and gutshots losing to an open-ender that hit the river, top set losing to bottom set's quads on the turn, nut straight vs. top set vs. bottom pair/OESD all-in on the flop, and every AAxx shown down was a loser. Pretty much got rags the entire time (as in T327 four-suited). I guess Vegas does the $200 buy-in instead of hundo like I am used to at Foxwoods, so screwed myself out of some money on the one hand I played. 3 limps to me and I limp A776 with hearts, B&M grinder/online PLO multi-tabler raises to 10, 2 or 3 call and I call as well, and flop comes QT7 with one heart. Checked to me and I check, and PFR bets $50, folds to me and I c/r all-in for about $40ish more, he calls. Turn and river come 3/5, and my set is good vs. his AQJ3. +107 for the night.

Saturday:

Get up at 10:30 or so, get some pizza at O'Shea's and leave for the Tropicana at 1pm via limo to arrive at the temporary Pokerdome (the actual one opens in Neonpolis sometime in early July). We do the intro shots of us walking in and sitting down, get mic'd up and put on heart rate monitors. We sit down to play some practice hands for 30 minutes or so so we don't do anything stupid on TV and waste time. For some reason I try and play realistic here, but then see everyone else is screwing around and adjust properly. Get it "all-in" with 89o vs. 22 and 44, flop K35, turn 5 river K and I jump out of my seat, start doing the Ric Flair strut, and proclaim my absolute greatness. After we get our hour-break, Matt Savage rips into me, scolding me to "never do that again", repeating it 3-4 times. Also FSN apparently reads 2+2, and one of the executives comes by to scold me about no chopping (didn't plan on proposing that this time around anyway). We get make-up done, and the taping begins around 6pm.

Blinds start at 1k/1k with 20 minute levels I believe for the first three levels (up to 3k/6k), then 10 minutes (ugh) from then on. At least no commercials or segments interfering with the blind levels this time around, and 50xbb stacks were far better than the previous 25xbb stacks. Table is pretty tight/aggressive for the most part, unlike past shows where 4-5 would limp with marginal hands and see a flop. Pick up 22 in the BB the first level in a 3-way limp pot, with the flop coming J62. SB checks, I check, UTG bets 3k I think, and SB and I both call. Turn is a 6, SB checks, and I decide to lead for 6k hoping to confuse UTG and maybe get a big raise out of him. I thought check-raising would look too much like a set here. UTG folded, but SB c/red me to 15k! Hm, I went ahead and used my 30-second button, but unfortunately forgot it was NL after the flop (I play mostly PLO8 online nowadays), and reraised pot (which was all-in), and he made a sick hero fold. In essence, I should have flatcalled and been ready for him to shove river, but I'm not used to making sophisticated traps like that in the live tournaments I've played, so that doesn't really jump out at me as my best option, but hopefully will as I evolve into a great tournament player.

Bill George gets short-stacked early, but for some reason, they don't show how he got back even early, when he shoved KJ of diamonds in the CO and I called with AQ of spades in the BB. He flopped two pair and turned full, getting back to even and setting me back to about 59k. Marissa also was short-stacked early and got Gen to call her AJ push with...QJo!! Yikes. So yeah, would have been nice if someone busted early, and that hurt us (me) in the end. I bust Gen with Q8d on a QQ9 flop after I check and he shoves 93o from the BB. I'm in pretty good shape, and I've only had to show down one hand with my preflop raises stealing the blinds outright or winning on the flop with my continuation bets (including getting A9 to fold on a Q43 board against my K9s). After Cory-Ann gets bad-beated by a fairly bad call by Marissa with 65d when she spikes her open-ender on the river, the action picks up, and I thank-god bust Jack in 4th with JJ vs. 33. Before that, my big hands hadn't been getting any action, so was nice to show down some of these monsters.

I have a big chiplead with a little over 50% of the chips in play 3-handed, but blinds were 8k/16k, I was getting trash on the button like 63o and such, and both players had been good about committing all their chips preflop, so despite "letting my chiplead slip away" like Konik said (I call BS), most of my BBs were raised, and I did raise in the SB most of the time since George was more apt to fold marginal hands worthy of pushing consider his stack. Hand that got criticized was when I limped T9 offsuit on the button when Marissa had 16 of her 24k in the BB. Konik says I have to raise there, and I say why! I want Bill to obviously call here, and when Marissa puts her last 8k in (she was fairly knowledgable about poker math, so I fully expected her to do so), I would call, so would Bill, and we'd check it down trying to eliminate her. He folds 75s (which sucks, but wouldn't have mattered), and she hits a straight on the river with her A4o. I can't believe they didn't show one all-in 3-handed on the show, where Bill moved in with A9h on the button, Marissa moved in over the top with QTh, and I folded pocket 3s. Board came J97J3, and Bill doubled through. I knew folding 33 is clear-cut there, but got that feeling where you know you're going to suckout with your hand despite making a horrific call, and it's hard not to be results-oriented when you could have won the entire tournament right there. Take a big hit when I can't suckout with QTo vs. Marissa's AKh, then I get severely crippled when my A5o runs into Bill's TT, but make some serious comebacks with KK, AJ, and J3o, and get back to about average chipstack. Move it in with KQo vs. Marissa's J9d, and flop trips on a QQT board, but she's open-ended straight flush style, and spikes a diamond on the turn, with the river blanking out and I'm crippled again. Manage to double-through again, flopping a 6 with 67 vs. 97, but finally bust K2h vs. Marissa's QTo when she flops a T. So it sucks that I played all my hands great, and that once again it was a crapshoot at the end, though this time because people didn't donk off their chips in the first few levels.

I go out to where the audience is at (we're playing behind a big black curtain, and the audience watches us on big plasmas in an almost soundproof studio), and it's nice to get an applause. Get set up for my busto interview with LeeAnn Tweeden, and we stand there for 10 minutes or so, then I'm told to take my mic off. So once again, I get screwed out of a bustout interview. One of the producers yells at me for staring at her knockers, but hey, I'm standing two feet away from her, they are sorta in the way. I cannot believe Bill and Marissa were even LOOKING at their cards HU, it's automatic all-ins with blinds at 20k/40k no matter what (KK and every hand after that I did not look at preflop, just shoved in blind). Konik agreed with me on that one. So we have to all stick around for some photo shots after the tourney is over, and end up getting out of there around 11:30 or so. My sweet leather Mansion jacket didn't fit, so hopefully get the new one in the mail this week as I was promised by the coordinator Susanne. I'm hella tired, but I talk Cory into a Bellagio trip to play some NL, but they only spread 2-5 and higher, so we check out Paris since she heard good things about their room. We're 2nd and 3rd on the 1/2NL list, but only two tables running of it and the guy first in line is a call-in, so we say f' it and head over to Aladdin/Planet Hollywood for some 1/2NL and 2am NLHE donkament. I get the first seat open, and play pretty bad. Table is pretty loose and bad, with lots of bottom-pairs calling down, betting TP no kicker all the way, drawing to gutterballs, etc. 5-way limped pot where I have QJo in the BB, with the flop comes J58 rainbow. SB and I check, loose guy who had played every hand preflop bets 5, SB calls and I call. Turn is blank, check check loose guy bets 10, we both call. River is a 5, check check loose guy bets 15, SB check-minraises to 30, I fold, loose guy calls, and SB shows 95o while loose guy mucks JTo face-up. They had some heated exchanges, and played each other hard/tried to suckout a lot. Funny stuff. Another blunder where loose guy limps UTG, another limp and I make it 15 with AKo on the button, and loose guy limp-reraises to 32. I make a awful call, and it goes check/check on a T89 flop. Turn puts a 9 out and he fires out 20, I fold and he shows KK. What else does he have there besides AA, maybe QQ? I rebuy for 50, then raise a $4 straddle to $20 with KK, which I should have made $13 or so, ugh. Finally get some action going when a seemingly tight player from my observation makes it $10 UTG, with 4 callers and I call with 74d in the BB. Flop comes 446 two spades, SB checks, I check, PFR bets out 20, one call, and I c/r to 65. He stares me down intensely, like it was a WSOP Final table or something. He folds and says he had a 6. So much for that tight image thing. Pick up another nice pot calling a $6 raise preflop with K8d in the CO with 4 others staying in for the ride. Flop comes T73 with two diamonds, and it gets checked to the CO who bets $15, which I call, and two others call, which concerns me in terms of my diamonds being good. Turn comes a Kh, and it gets checked to me, where I bet $40 and take it down. Up about $67 when I leave for the tournament.

Donkament doesn't last too long for me as I bust in 29th out of 30 places. Blinds 25/50, and guy who just has me covered around the 5th hand open-limps in MP, and I make it 225 with AQo on the button, blinds fold, he calls. Flop comes QT3 two hearts (QTh) and he fires out 200. I make it 700, and he sets me all-in. I call and he turns over AJh, and flushes the river, boo. I try and find a 1-5 spread stud game at the Excalibur, but they ditched the poker room and that game, and Luxor ditched a juicy NL50 game they used to have as well [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] I consider pulling an all-nighter at the Bellagio for some 4/8 O8 action, but decide it'd be better for me to get some sleep in my sweet room and not have to rely on getting comfortable on a Southwest flight. A smoking hot 20something Puerto Rican hooker asks me what I'm up to the rest of the night around 4:30am, and if I can't even keep my eyelids up, I'm probably not going to be able to keep my dong up either (that and I'd feel a bit pathetic paying for sex, though I'm not against it).

Sunday:

Wake up around 10am when my mom calls and leaves a message on my cell asking how I did (WATCH THE SHOW INSTEAD). If I had won, I seriously would have tried hard not to tell anyone until it aired. I get out in front of Caesar's and wait for an hour, and my limo does not [censored]' show up (and if it did, it made no effort to indicate it was for me). Didn't have the travel director's # on me, and the limo company's # was automated, so I held little stock in that. Take the shuttle back to the airport, lifting my own bag and carrying it out. As I'm walking towards the terminal, I hear the driver screaming "PAY ME!". WTF, every other time I took a shuttle it didn't cost [censored], so I hand him $4 since that's how many fingers he held up when I looked back at him. I walk away and now he starts yelling at me again, saying it's another dollar. Eh, he can go [censored] himself, I got screwed out of a limo already and I don't think tipping is obligatory there, call me a nit. My awesome karma continues when my handle on my suitcase breaks off. My flight gets delayed 30 minutes, and nothing notable after that as I get back on time in Hartford around 11pm EST.

Positives of trip:

- Flippin' sweet hotel room
- Nice upscale cuisine
- $500 spending money and in the black for the trip
- Pretty decent food in the green room at Tropicana
- Playing live PLO
- Being pretty happy with my play overall, and not having any serious regrets during the tournament
- My friend was quite correct that Aussie girls are far hotter than American chicks , much love C-A!
- Being assured by many that I will be in the spotlight once again for poker (and not in winner-take-all format, real WSOP/WPT stuff)
- TV exposure always good

Negatives:

- Flight into Vegas being delayed
- Having NOTHING funny I said air in my vignettes (trashing on Konik, made-up/sarcastic hobbies)
- Not winning [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]
- Matt Savage ripping me a new one for kidding around (I would shoot myself if I ever danced around on TV after a suckout)
- Not getting to use my $50 meal comp. card at Caesar's because it was only for the restaurants and NOTHING in the Forum shops, and everything was closed after midnight, so ate crap fast-food the entire time since no late-night buffets open
- Instead of getting a bottle of champagne as was promised in the "package", I got a 2003 bottle of Saint-Hilaire Blanquette De Limoux (White Sparkling Wine). I think I saw somewhere online that this cost around $10-20. Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm a n00b when it comes to wine values.
- Limo screwing me on my departure
- My jacket not fitting well
- Shuttle driver demanding overpriced tip for usually free service (to my knowledge).
- Most of my friends missing/forgetting about the telecast

So thanks to Susanne, Judy Kulis, my favorite Aussie Cory-Ann and Mansionpoker for putting this on, though for me it's hard to appreciate it as much now since I'm all about winning $$$ now since I'm in debt and my father is out of a job. Look forward to making the most out of my next time in Vegas, and hopefully in a big money tournament.

[CoreyB]

cool nice report

[onegirlarmy]

Mate you're a champ - thanks for the kind words [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Just so you know - when you make your next Poker Dome appearance, the Augustus Cafe in the main lobby is open 24/7...I spent a lot of time there - actually after I purposely busted out of the 2am tourney with QT vs AA vs AT I went for food and had it paid for by some 40 year old guy....pretty funny stuff!

Great report [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Cory
P.S. And of course no one does swaps in these crazy crapshoots....

[bsheck]

[ QUOTE ]
Get it "all-in" with 89o vs. 22 and 44, flop K35, turn 5 river K and I jump out of my seat, start doing the Ric Flair strut, and proclaim my absolute greatness. After we get our hour-break, Matt Savage rips into me, scolding me to "never do that again", repeating it 3-4 times.

[/ QUOTE ]

C'mon Savage/FSN. Every poker program on TV should feature some kind of bad behavior.

[BowlMeOne]

I watched the show, and a friend of mine will be on this coming week. As a viewer the show really bored me. Did they make you announce "fold" everytime? And then hearing the guy in the studio repeat "Seat 1 folds, seat 2 folds, etc" everytime, was very annoying. I was getting confused when MANY times someone raised "the pot". You were my pick after watching for about 10 minutes. Nice report, and congrats!Any tips I should pass along to my buddy?

thanks

[BowlMeOne]

Hope I didn't come off wrong there. I didn't mean you or any of the finalists were boring, just the format of the show, as well as the announcers didn't do much for me. I found myself flipping the channel often.

[Burdzthewurd]

They encourage everyone to announce their actions loudly, and the dealers repeat everything loudly so there is no confusion to whether or the not the pot has been raised or not, etc.

[DrNo888]

Pics?

[grdred944]

Thanks for the report.

Did any doctors approach you after the show about your heart rate? My girlfriend asked me if that was typical for poker players.

That PI didn't have a pulse and the others kept their's in the 120 range. You were off the chart!

[Burdzthewurd]

I'm a pretty intense guy, but when it was soaring that high, I didn't even feel awfully stressed. I usually get it to around 150 when I'm doing cardio at maximum exertion. I don't think those monitors were pinpoint accurate.