vegas TR (very long)

[JESSE G]

this is my first post. i have been lurking here for years. i am a semi-regular foxwoods player from boston.

I am heading to vegas for a very lengthy trip, part of it is to work. On Friday the 25th of feb, I arrive at the airport to meet up with one of the guys I work with (Tom). His van has been parked in the long term lot for a week. The genius forgot his keys in Oakland. We were supposed to unload the van into the Sands convention center to work a trade show. We make a call to get the keys sent for a Saturday delivery and decide to [censored] around for Friday night. We check into the Imperial Palace and Tom wants to get trashed. I follow in tow and order an extra drink in every casino from the IP to the Wynn and he pounds them two at a time. He wants to play a table game everywhere he goes and by the time we cross the street at the Wynn he is already up about $250. at this point we decide that it’s time to holla at some hookers at the Wynn, but none of them found it amusing. We cross the street and go to the fashion show mall and Tom proceeds to spend half of his winnings on the ugliest Swatch on earth. We work our way back up the strip and Tom is killing it everywhere he goes. We get to the Mirage and see they have a table with “casino war.” I convince him it would be a good idea to play and he instantly is up another hundred. The scenery is great but we decide to go to Caesars. At this point Tom is a mess. He is up over $500 by playing war, video poker, wheel of fortune, and blackjack. I ditch him in O’Shea’s and I head back over to the I.P. poker room. I sit immediately and see a few decent stacks for a $200 max buy game. First hand I am UTG and look down at 8 6 of hearts, "obviously" I raise it up to $12. TIME TO GET MY LOOSE IMAGE GOING! I have 5 callers. Flop comes out 8 8 4. Cha-ching! The moral of the story is that the player in MP never reraised me with his K K. ship it! Now I have over $500 in front of me. A few orbits later I am in the big blind with K9 clubs. UTG had made it $10 to go, I call and we had 6 to the flop. The flop came with two clubs giving me four to the flush. Smallblind checks, I instantly bet out $25, begging for action. two player call. Turn card brings the 7 of clubs. The small blind (who has $400 in chips ) pushes. I have to think for a second if he has the nuts but he is “too good” to push the nut flush on the turn so I have him on two pair so I make the call. It is folded around back to the small blind. He made a set of 7’s on the turn. The board does NOT pair. SHIP IT! No other big hands in this session. Played until about 2 am in very aggro fashion and cashed out. First night + $1125

Now its Saturday morning. We need to go set up the trade show. That process typically takes 6 hours. We go to the front desk to get the keys that were supposed to be shipped to us with a “Saturday delivery” and of course they were not there. After some bitching on the phone with the fine folks at UPS we decide to just call a locksmith to get us into the van since there is an extra key in the glovebox. Fast forward about 12 hours and we finally finish setting up. We are tired and pissed off. Tom is going to bed early since we have to be at the convention center at 9am. I make the choice to play a few hours. I go down to the IP poker room again only to find many of the same players from the night before. I had to switch gears because they were all staying out the way early on when I was raising every hand I had blind in late position. I started playing super tight and slow playing everything. I did lots of limping in EP with big hands only to re-raise any bets. I hit a few flops and stacked a few short stacks. No big hands since there were no big stacks at the table but I still managed to finish + $235.

Sunday is typically a very good day to play in vegas, hundreds of players who are down are all trying to make a nice score before they head home. I am still playing at the imperial palace where my next adventure happens. I am dead even after 2 hours of play and I am in seat 1 next to the dealer. A new player who reeks of whisky staggers in and sits next to me in seat 2. he is fooling around with a huge ball of cash and throws a thousand dollars on the table and tries to buy in. the max buy in is only $200. he claims he has never played before and I tell him I think he’s full of s*$t. His name is Mark. Within about one orbit everyone at the table knows he is going to donate to the game. He is drunk out of his mind and after 2 hours he has donated $1400 to a $200 buy in game. I bought the seat to his left for $20 just so I could have position on him. He is betting and calling everything. I win a few nice pots that Mark helps to build. We have some beautiful preflop action in a hand that I am in the big blind. I look down at pocket aces. There is already over $200 in the pots thanks to some raising and re-raising. I know Mark will call me regardless of what is bet, the only other hand that has a chance of calling me will be Kings. I go all in with my stack which is now around $450 and everyone folds to Mark, and as I expect he calls me with 9 6. I stack him for around $300. that was basically it for that night. The floor person decides to cut him off after he tries “hitting” every hand as if he was playing blackjack. He has had at least 8 screwdrivers since he has sat and now people at the table are buying him shots. I am trying to sell my seat to another player for $100 and he agrees but since the floorperson tells mark that it would be best for him to call it a night, my seat is now worthless. I leave the next hand after he leaves. +$580

On Monday morning I am still on the high of killing these super soft games. Tom tells me how he met some old rich cowboy at the wynn the night before and insists that I must meet him. I think it sounds like it would be funny. We work all day and call our cowboy friend, his name is John. We ask him if he’d like to go to dinner again tonight and he tells us to meet him at a café at the Wynn at 8pm. Apparently John has his own personal table at the café and we are escorted there as if we were royalty. He arrives a few minutes after were are seated and he is the coolest white dude I have ever seen. A giant beaver skin cowboy hat, the illest gator boots that money can buy and gold jewelry all over. He is originally from south Carolina but has lived in vegas for over 30 years. He has a ranch in Montana and another home in florida. He just oozes with wealth. I come to learn that he plays the 25/50 NL game at the Wynn almost daily. We all shoot the s#@t and talk some business and have a lot of laughs. We now have a new friend in town and we will definitely be hanging out the rest of the week. I want to go play few a few hours before I have to fall asleep. I hate playing at the Wynn because of all the smoke coming from the railbirds so I go back to the IP to find no games going on. WTF! I go next door to Harrah’s to find a few no limit tables running. I buy in for $300 and cash out for $301 at 1:30am. What a waste of time. So much action I just was never in a position to get in on any of it. Good night. +$1

Tuesday morning Tom and I get some Starbucks and go to the trade show really hyped up on caffeine. We have a great sound system in our booth and play some marvin gaye, stevie wonder, and kc & the sunshine band all day and get tons of hot older women to dance with us. Mind you that neither tom nor I can dance at all. We go and meet John at the Wynn for diner and I call it night around 1am after missing every draw and managing to hit bottom pair on every flop with 5 way action. I didn’t drag a pot in 3 hours of play. Finally had a losing session -$280

I wake up the next morning angry about such a weak session even though I cant say I was out played by anyone or that I really made any poor decisions. Its just very frustrating to miss every big draw. To make matters worse, Tom has gotten us free breakfast buffet coupons for the Imperial Palace. GROSS! I played again for a few hours after work with players who had no concept of pot odds and constantly had players chasing 4 outers for $50 flop bets into $60 pots. The suckouts are happening right and left. I get fed up with shortstacks and go to bed. -$75

tomorrow my friend Zac gets here and then the real fun begins. he has never been to vegas.

It is finally the last day of work at the trade show. We only have to be there from 8 to noon. Unfortunately we have to deal with all the union idiots who make exiting the building next to impossible. Basically, as an exhibitor, you pay a rate of $800 to these clowns in addition to the few thousand you forked over for you booth space. This $800 covers them taking breaks every 20 minutes, sitting while there is a line of people they could be helping, and for many of them it was what you paid them to sleep in a fork lift. We finally finished up around 8pm and headed back over to the Wynn and had some dinner with our new best friend, John. After dinner we thought it would be funny to hand some rings out. Now let me preface this, we run a wholesale jewelry company. We sell millions of little rings every year. They cost us about a penny to make so we give away a few thousand rings every show. Every girl that walks by gets one. I had a few dozen left in my pockets so we hit the floor of the Wynn and looked for some hookers to give rings to, we intstantly hit the jackpot. These two were real “smart.” I will just leave it at that. I know that Zac is now somewhere in vegas but he does not have a phone so I just go back to the I.P. poker room and hope to see him walk in. I don’t see him until about 3 am when he walks in like a Viking who has just plundered for profit. He is feeling good. I go and cash out my small profit for the night and we head back to the room but first we F with some drunk girls who apparently were not drunk because they passed a breathalizer test we found on the wall. We convinced them that we just shared an 8 ball and they though we were losers. True statement. +$70

Friday morning. We wake up around 11 am to knocking on the door. Who could it be? Oh its just a sketchy black guy that Zac smoked up with the night before in our room. He was looking for his ID/ room key and thought he may have “left it in our room.” We find nothing and we leave for the day and go get some breakfast. We drive to an off strip place and I have a really good chicken wrap. I am feeling great! At this point its about 1pm and I am ready to start playing. I have been waiting a week to have nothing to do but concentrate on finding good games. We decide to head over to Caesars Palace since the National Heads Up championship is there and its being filmed for television, so that means that the place should be teeming with donkeys. I have never played in this room since it opened and I am now a fan. They play 9 handed, have a high hand jackpot, have really good dealers, and on this weekend the room was teeming with babes. The televised event brings out mad chicks. Shannon Elizabeth was in it and she took down Barry Greenstein! WTF?! She is so hot and every dude in the room has definitely seen her boobs. Onto the games… I am seated as soon as I walk in at a 1-3 no limit table. Max buy is $500 but I only buy in for $300. the average stack at my table was only between three and five hundred so I felt good. I have a few nice plays bullying chasers and taking it down with medium pocket pairs. After a few hours I have started to build up a nice stack and have doubled up my original buy in. here is a hand I will remember for the rest of my life… I am in the small blind, and the action is folded around to me, I ask the big blind to chop, he looks at me in disbelief and bets out $15. I ask him if he is for real and he stands firm with his move. I say to myself “F THIS GUY” so I raise him another $50 on top… he pushes all in for $350 total, I have him more than covered and call. He proudly shows pocket KINGS, and I make his heart stop when I show him my pocket ACES. This is the point where he starts yelling and making a scene but I just wanted to confirm with the rest of that table that I offered to chop with him but he wanted to play it out. He goes unimproved and I stack him. CLOWN!. At this point I have well over a thousand in front of me and I am sitting pretty. Thankfully my friend Dolloff (who is now a local 20-40 junkie) showed up and saw that whole hand unfold. We had some laughs at this guys expense. Obviously now this guy is in full tilt mode and his sunglasses are always poised right at me whenever we are in a hand. Shortly after, two really young dudes sit down. Each buys in for $500. I have no reads on how either of them plays. I am playing my first button against them and they are both to my immediate left and in the blinds. The action has been folded around to my button and I have AQ of hearts. I make it $15 to go, then the small blind makes it $35 flat. Big blind folds, I call. The flop comes Q,6,4 with two spades. The small blind fires away $50 and I instantly re-raise him to $150 even. He thinks for a few seconds and pushes all-in for close to $500. now I am taking some time to replay everything. Was he playing a small pocket pair and hit a set on the flop? Is he making the worst play in history on a spade draw? does he have a weaker queen than me? I tell him that I am gonna make the call. Turn card brings and Ace, I make two pair. River is a blank- he mucks! I stack him for $500. WOW! I still never found out what he had and he never told me. He buys back in for another $500 and I sell him his chips back. I have over $1800 in front of me. Thank god cash plays. It is now about 9pm and I have had enough fun for one night. I cash out. Dolloff and I head over to the Wynn for dinner on me. We call John and he joins us for a few minutes as he is waiting for a 25-50 NL table. It is before midnight on a Friday night in vegas… so I do what is expected, I go back to my room to call it a night. I have just had the best session of my life and just would like to get some rest. Nothing could ruin this day for me. NOTHING. I walk into the room only to find Zac sleeping. Damn, its 11:30pm on a Friday night and I thought I was taking it easy. I notice that my Arcteryx and my new Jordan sweatshirt are not hanging up. I ask zac if he had moved them. Obviously he didn’t. I notice that the drawers are all open and they are defiantly missing all my clothes. I wake zac up and tell him we got robbed. He is missing a bunch of his clothes too. We call security and fill out a report. We come o the conclusion that one of the dudes that he smoked up with stole a room key while they were in our room. The dude who knocked on our door that morning was just trying to find out if we were even there. Once we left for breakfast he probably came right back up and took all of our stuff. I am BS at this point. Zac realizes that he knows where the dudes car is, and that the guy lost his key and its been there in the Alladdin parking garage for two weeks. We head over there to see what we can find. Its now 1:30 in the morning. We see his car just where zac said it would be. It was a 2007 chrystler. It was one of those fake Bentley looking cars. Very fitting for this guy. We break in through a window that is already open and pop the trunk, SURPRISE! we find my backpack! I immediately call the police and explain the situation. They tell us to wait for them to arrive. A security guard shows up and we tell him what happened because he was wondering why is sees two guys hanging out in their parking garage for a half hour. He wants us to fill out a report. As were filling out the report, the guy I had met that morning shows up at the top of and escalator wearing my brand new sweatshirt. Zac and I go after him and chase him down a few floors but he totally disappears. We head back upstairs to his car and while we are waiting, another dude shows up with some luggage. I start asking him about the bag and gives a story about how the other dude wanted him to bring it up here. I call him a bitch for carrying another mans luggage. Security is everywhere now and wont let this guy go anywhere until the police arrive. The cop finally shows up around 5am. He opens the back and first item out of it are some NDS cool grey Jordan iv’s. size 10. thank you very much. The a-hole re-laced them and took out the insoles. We find my business cards, credit cards, some of my clothes, and various crap that belonged to other people too. Now the cop opens the trunk. Inside we find my backpack with some polos, my boxers (what sick-O steals another mans boxers), and some of zac’s clothes. We dig through the back seat and I find my jacket and some other random stuff. I cant believe that this happened. How dumb were these guys? Did they think we weren’t gonna come looking for them? The police impounded the car and if the guy wants to get it out, since it is brand new, he is gonna face a felony burglary charge to get the car. We had back to the room around 7am. I just wanted to sleep. It was over 7 hours ago that I set out to do that. The best day ever totally went down the toilet. +$1490

Saturday morning. I have slept like poop, go figure. I cant even remember what we did before heading over to Caesars. They were still filming the heads up championship and the room was still filled with donkeys. They start a new table in the back corner and I buy in for $300. there is very little action. Dolloff shows up around 4 and he helps me loosen up. Now we start the blind raising and blind betting the turn. Blind check raising wasn’t uncommon. We end up breaking the table because people hated that we were making money playing like this. He leaves and I play until 3am. I kept going outside to watch the line for PURE. It’s a great vegas sight. Only one really memorable hand went down tonight. I am on the button with AK and make it $18 to go, I have 2 of the limpers call and we go to the flop. The flop comes 5,5,5. again, the action is checked around to me and I bet $30 in hopes just to take it down but it didn’t work… both players call. The turn card brings another 5. now we have quads on the board. They all check back around to me. I go all in. another player calls and I know he has an ace as well. The player to my right starts freaking out about what to do. He asks the dealer and the dealer cant tell him. What it boils down to is that I talked this guy into calling because he didn’t know any better. He had King high. Myself and the player at the other end of the table split his $220 in chips and each threw the dealer a nice tip. It was time to call it a night. +$270

My final day I play over at Caesars and I am down $400 within an hour. I keep putting short stacks all in and they keep sucking out with their draws. I switch tables and battle back to only lose $150 for the day. I am really tired right now and I don’t feel like typing up the last day. I had a great time in vegas and I will be back in early may for 4 days. Not once did I have breakfast at the Paris buffet. I feel like I cheated myself. I left around 10pm and zac was about to start in a well organized tournament at caesers and I have no idea how he did in it. Overall this was the best I have ever played and I ran into some great situations. Total winnings for trip +$3266 that is pretty damn good for 1-2 and 1-3 no limit. i will be back in town may 3rd-6th.

[BigBadBabar]

awesome trip report, sorry you got robbed, glad you got most of your stuff back!

[toss]

Great report. Glad to see the crooks get caught. Also, you run hotter than the sun.

[magicmcq]

Nice report!

Sucks about the thievery -- good that you seemed to get most back.

I'm a Boston Foxwoods 10-20 LHE semi regular myself. Hopefully see you up there sometime.

[NuklearWinter]

awesome first post, great TR [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[ungarop]

Has anyone else ever bought/sold a seat or seen this happen? BS?

If I have the first seat change button and someone offers to get up because they are paid to change seats, shouldn't I get the seat?

[rurollin]

Live Better for You and Your Family, WORK UNION!!

[iceman5]

Ive bought a seat before. I doubt you can do it though if someone has a seat change request already in.

What were you planning on doing after breaking into the car if the stuff wasnt in there? There are probably cameras everywhere. Even though your stuff was in there, you still couldve been charged with criminal mischief.

[Dave D]

Lessons learned:

1. Keep track of all two of your room keys, if you think you lost one, have the front desk give you new ones.

2. Don't tell the guys that you're planning on stealing from where your car is, this is what really amazes me about the robbers' stupidity.

3. Don't smoke up strangers unless you've hung out a while and trust them, and even then be careful, it's vegas.

4. There is no number 4.

5. Run really well.

Good TR, fun to read. Nice to see the crooks got caught.

[JESSE G]

a follow up...
-i don't smoke or drink. have steered clear for almost 15 years. the dude i was with was the brainchild of letting 2 strangers in the room.
-i was able to buy the seat because nobody was leaving with mark hemmoraging money, so the seat change button would have been useless. btw, we were at the IP, 99% of the players have no idea what a seat change is anyways.
-truth be told, i was running hotter than the sun for 2 nonconsecutive days played.