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Friday, October 28, 2005 

VEGAS TRIP REPORT

I'm back after taking the red eye home and I'm wide awake this morning so some time this afternoon I will end up passing out.

My apologies for not updating during the trip. I had every intention too and even brought the laptop with me to Vegas, but I wasn't in the room much.

The trip was fun and I got to play lots of poker like I wanted to. Unfortunately the results weren't great but that's ok. My cash game play was basically a wash out and my 2 tournaments got me nowhere.

Sunday night:
I started out at the Luxor 2/4 game which I had played at last year. The game is no foldem holdem and typically has 6+ players to a flop. The positive is that there are huge pots. The negative is that your good hands hold up less. So my first night I ended up -98. Yes -$98. I even felt good about every decision I made at the table. The river killed me multiple times. My favorite was KK on a T73 flop. Guy kept calling my bets and raises with 64 and hit the 5 on the river. Another hand I had A4, other guy had A3 and hit the 3 on the river. Hands like that killed me all night. One of my exciting pots I won was a 4 way split pot where 4678 was on board and we all had a 5. I saw AK 3 times and never held up and I must have seen 72 offsuit like 8 or 9 times.

Monday morning:
Aladdin $40 tourney. This is I think the second cheapest tourney on the strip and hence why I played it. It had about 90 players and was supposed to last 2 to 3 hours so the blinds are very aggressive. They go up every 15 minutes. I did pretty well and managed to hold my own the first hour. You start with a 1500 chip stack with blinds 25/50. I had AK the 2nd hand of the tourney UTG+1. I raise to 100 cause I'm nervous and been playing limit and forget I'm playing NL. Button raises to 300 and UTG and I both call. Flop is T64. Check - Check, Button goes all in. UTG thinks for a minute and then calls...I go byebye, button shows JJ and UTG shows QQ. So I'm down to 1200 chips now and got garbage hands for a long time. Blinds went to 100/200 and I had 900 chips left after blinds were gobbling my stack. I raised all in with KTs UTG+1 and got called by the BB who had 66 who only had 600 chips left. I flopped two kinds and I was now back to my starting chip stack.

I got moved to another table a hand later and bought blinds with AQ and then again a few hands later with QQ at 200/400 blinds and I was at 2200 chips. Blinds took them right back and with 1600 chips I was on the button and the big blind only had 500 chips left. So it was folded to me and I went all in with K8o to get heads up with him. The small blind thought about it and folded and then was pissed when he saw my K8. Big blind had 74 but unfortunately he hit his 7 and now I only had 1100 chips left. As blinds were about to hit me shortly after the first break at 300/600 I went all in UTG with K7s and big blind called with JTo and the flop came JTx and i was done. I felt like I played decent enough for my first live tournament.

Monday afternoon:
I decided that I wanted to play at as many places as I could to grab a $1 chip from as a collectible. So I walked over to the MGM Grand and played some 2/4. Once again no cards and I lost 25 over a little over an hour. The poker area is decent and they actually have it split into two halves - one for limit and one for No Limit. There are about 10 tables on each side. EXCITING CELEBRITY ALERT: So I'm hoping to at some point during the trip see someone like Negreanu or Brunson or Juanda. The highlight was sitting next to a table where Chris Moneymaker's dad was sitting. WAHOO! No other recognizable faces the entire trip. I wouldn't have even realized it was Moneymaker's dad if the dealer hadn't have pointed it out. Overall the poker room was decent but not somewhere I cared to play at again.

Monday night:
Back to the Luxor to try again. This time I started out well and hit a nice full house with my pocket tens and up almost 50 only to give it all back and another 15 more.

Tuesday morning:
Back to the Aladdin. I decided to play som 3/6 there before the tournament and played pretty well. I made $43 in about an hour of playing there. It is a smallish poker room with about 13 tables and is smack dab in the center of the casino. At 10am I played in the $40 tourney again and didn't fair as well.

Tuesday afternoon:
Wynn. Wynn tried to make something better than what he did with Bellagio and failed. Fortunately they made a nice poker room. It is off in a corner shielded a little from the main casino noise which is nice. The lowest game is 4/8 and that's what I played. I played for about an hour and lost a whole $3. Not bad for my first venture into 4/8 territory. I played with a lot of older gentlemen who seemed to be mostly locals and many of them were weak passive players.

Wednesday afternoon:
On my last trip I was too scared to try to play at the Bellagio and 4/8 seemed out of reach then. Now after all my online play and feeling comfortable at the Wynn on Tuesday, it was time jump in. Bellagio of course is known for it's elegance and expensiveness. The poker room is no different. 4/8 is the lowest limit stakes and go up to 8/16 then 15/30 and 30/60. Most other rooms don't go past 4/8 and here they had waiting lists for all of them at noon. I guess this is where all the grinders are. The 4/8 game played much the same as at Wynn only this time I was getting cards. I hit a couple of flushes, a full house and my AK/AQ hands were finally winning. After just one and half hours of play I was up $134. YAY I WON.

After that, my wife and I ate at Caesar's and then I played at Mirage for an hour. 3/6 is their lowest game and is also the first casino I had ever played poker in about 3 years ago before the World Poker Tour made it explode. I sat at a table with a couple college kids and a few local oldtimers. I started out well hitting a nice flush a few hands in and was doing pretty well. We ended up getting short handed and I won a couple more pots before my wife was ready to leave and I left the table up $41. Another nice little win.

Wednesday night:
Mandalay Bay. Last time I was here a year ago their lowest game was 4/8 with a 1/2 kill and I was expecting to play that. Now they had a 2/4 game going and I wondered if the 4/8 game would be tougher now. I decided to just jump in it was just like any other low limit game with a couple of people with a clue and a few without one. The game has mini blinds ($1 and $2 blinds instead of 2 and 4) so people were playing looser preflop and even calling raises to $6 with junk. It was a nice game that unfortunately broke up and I took $43. I decided I didn't want to play 4/8 anymore as I was starting to get tired.

Then stupid me says "ok let me just go play at Luxor 2/4" cause I still wanted to play but not have to worry about making as many bad decisions. Again the cards ran dry and my big ace raises didn't scare anyone away and I couldn't hit the flops. My JT lost to QT :( I started out -25 off the bat and then hit a full house and was up again. Then the cards died again and I couldn't get any good hands again and finished -32.

Thursday afternoon:
My final session was at Bellagio and this 4/8 table was a little tougher. I unfortunately got tangled up in a hand I should have thrown away preflop. My first orbit at the table most hands were 4 or 5 to see the flop. I got 66 UTG+1 so I called. Everyone folded to the SB who raised. Flop comes 855. He bet, I called. Turn is a 5 - he bet, I raised, he called. River is a 3 and he bet out. I call and he shows A8o. So that was $32 gone right there in a marginal situation. Again my hands like AJs and AQ were missing the flop and I made poor decisions a couple of hands which didn't help my cause. I ended up -81 for the hour and a half I played.

Results:
2/4: -170 over 9 hours
3/6: +84 over 2 hours
4/8: +93 over 4.5 hours

Tournaments: -80

So -73 overall I suppose. Not horrible but I certainly could have done a lot better. We'll just say it is a small sample size and chalk it up to variance :)

The Bellagio and Wynn were my favorite places to play. Mainly because they were more out of the way and quieter than the other rooms. Luxor's is near a live entertainment area. Mandalay's is attached to the sportsbook. Mirage's is right next to slots and table games. Aladdin was probably 3rd best of those 6. They also have high hands jackpots and bad beat jackpots. A guy at my table Wednesday morning hit quad 6s and made $93 bonus for it. It would have been a few hundred had it not been hit the night before.

That's about it for now. As I end this my eyes are starting to shut on me. Time to catch up on some sleep! If I think of anything else I'll add it to my next entry. May the flop be with you!

Saturday, October 22, 2005 

Vegas Baby Vegas

Sunday morning I leave for Vegas on the nice birthday surprise vacation my wife got for me :) I may post once or twice during the trip. I plan on starting out in the 2/4 to 4/8 range depending on where I'm at and how the games look. If I do well the first two days I'll probably take a shot as high as 8/16 or so. I will try to play in the morning Alladin tourneys as well. I think they are in the $30 range and like 8 or 9 tables.

My last couple of days have been great. I've been playing 1/2 6max on Golden Palace and loving it. +80 on Friday and +140 on Saturday. I am now nicely in positive territory for the month. I am almost done with a $40 bonus on Golden Palace and I am about to start a $150 bonus on Poker Rewards. To top it all off, I am just about at the 5 figure bankroll mark. Almost there!

Wish me luck in Vegas...may the flop be with you, always!

Friday, October 21, 2005 

BACK IN BLACK

October: +37.31 (YES!!!!!!)

Last night was the Chiptalk.net tourney. There were 39 entrants which was about the average although the tourney had gotten near 50 a couple times. I haven't cashed in almost 2 months now and I was concentrating my best to do so. I started off well and caught trip 7s on my third hand but that only got me a couple hundred chips. After that things went up and down around my starting mark for a while. I then got dealt TT with about 1000 chips left and 25/50 blinds. Early position guy raised. I thought for a second and just called. 2 others called. flop came 972 (does this hand look familiar). Checked to me and I pushed...everyone folded. So I was back up around 1600 chips.

Blinds crept up and I made a few steals to keep above water. Blinds went up to 100/200 and I had 1300 chips left so I pushed with KJo in the CO. Big blind called with AA. Flop comes T42. I say "bad timing on that push sigh" then lo and behold...Turn J...river K and I double up and the guy with AA only has 300 chips left.

So now I have 2600 chips or so and a half decent stack. I mostly make blind steals here and there and get to the final table. I am in 5th of 9 when I get there but most are around the same chip amount. And one by one they fall. With 6 left I was the low stack. I luckily bought blinds to take my position back and the low stack went all in and got knocked out putting me in 5th as the blinds were about to gobble me up. So the very next hand I pushed with K8o and got called by AQo and no help for me. So I finished 5th for $31.20. I wanted first but I'll take the cash :)

I have been playing a bit on Golden Palace Poker the last few days to clear a bonus. Started out horribly at first but came back and am now $40 up. Mostly at 1/2 6max with some regular 1/2 thrown in. :)

That's about it for now...2 days til Vegas! May the flop be with you!

Wednesday, October 19, 2005 

Alrighty Then

Before anything else I have to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY GU!

Ok quick synopsis of the last couple of days:

.5/1: -23.25 (92 hands) (Horrible table with a couple of friends online)
1/2: +17.87 (235 hands)
1/2 6max: +32 (67 hands)
2/4: +26 (48 hands)

I'm going to start putting hand counts in too to help keep track better. Unfortunately I started a bonus at a site that PokerTracker doesn't work with so these numbers aren't all inclusive.

I am waiting on a $25 bonus as well so that will put me very close to even this month. I also just started a $40 bonus on golden palace but I had issues there last time. The site is very loose aggressive so the swings aren't fun. So we'll see what happens.

Now the fun. I wanted to play a lot more last night but I wasn't feeling well after dinner. So around 11pm I actually shut down my computer and was going to call it an early evening (normally I go to bed around 1 or 2am. A few minutes later we get a phone call from my wife's father. Her sister was in a car accident. She flipped over her SUV on an exit ramp. So her dad went to check it out and we find out she's just got some bruises but they are bringing her to the hospital to check her out and her dad told us we'd probably have to pick her up in the morning. OK around 1:15am we get a call from her sister saying "pick me up now". So we get there the xrays come back and nothing is broken or fractured so we take her home and we get home around 3am. This girl ...I don't know how she does it. This is like the 3rd car she's totalled and she's never had more than just a few cuts and scrapes. Crazy.

Monday I set a record at the dentist office getting 7 fillings in one sitting. In a couple weeks I have to go back to get even more done. Fun fun.

That's about it for now. Hopefully I'll get to play later tonight. May the flop be with you!

Monday, October 17, 2005 

Almost back in black

Sunday:
1/2: +$20.75
1/2 kill: +$37.75
2/4 kill: +$8.75

SNGs: +3
MTTs: +29.92

October: -82.84 (much better than the -300 I was a few days ago.)

It has been a good weekend. I feel like I am playing well and I've done well with table selection too. I played my first limit sit and go on PokerStars and came in 2nd. Finished 8th in the NL SNG I tried. Flop 842 I had 99. I had raise preflop and got called by the big blind. big blind bet out and i raised all in. He called with TT. sigh oh well.

I played the $5 multi table speed tourney today as well. 2118 entrants and top 220 got paid. I was chip leader a few times until I screwed up royally. I had a shot to win this thing and I blew it. There were about 50 of us less and I had 155k chips with blinds of 30k/60k. Chip leader at the table was in the Big Blind with 180k chips. I get dealt AA and instead of raising for some reason I just call. Folds around to big blind who checks and flop comes K82 with two clubs. She pushes all in with K2 of clubs. Of course the 5th club comes on the turn and even though I have the ace of clubs and a shot on the river, it doesn't happen and I get knocked out in 47th. Sigh. SLOW PLAYING KILLS. I keep telling myself that and I knew as soon as I hit the call button that I was going to regret it. The blinds were huge and I should have just taken them rather than getting cute and trying to take out other people with my AA. oh well. I'll try the speed tourney again. It is a lot of fun and over quickly which is nice. I won $35.92 for about 1hr 20min of work :)

Thats about it for now...may the flop be with you!

Saturday, October 15, 2005 

Success

After an abysmal month of playing, I made significant headway toward positive territory. I finally won money on 2/4 and was +30 on Thursday and +60 on Friday. With bonuses I'm still down about $200 for the month, but this is a step in the right direction. I have a few bonuses I'm clearing so hopefully they will all get my bankroll back where it was and finish October in the black.

Took a break last night and watched the movie Sahara. It stars Matthew McConaughey, Steve Zahn and Penelope Cruz. Pretty good movie. Its an action/adventure movie kind of like an Indiana Jones treasure hunter based on a novel my wife read at some point so she wanted to rent it. It gets a little unbelievable at times but that's what movies are for and 'suspension of disbelief' is the key to enjoying most movies these days. It definitely kept me interested the whole time even though I was really tired and ready to conk out on the couch beforehand. Good humor in it too. Hopefully they will make movies out of the other Dirk Pitt novels by Clive Cussler. I'll give it 7.8/10

That's all for now. May the flop be with you!

Thursday, October 13, 2005 

The onslaught continues

This month's chart so far:



Absolutely horrible. Putrid. Ridiculous. Now I know I've made some mistakes but I keep losing huge pots that I should win the majority of the time. Today's latest 2/4 hand was with TT. flop T65. turn 9, river 7, guy flips over 88 for the straight. I have never seen so many runner runner losses. I have been picking good tables with loose passive players that just keep hitting on me. Flops keep missing me. My game is broken :( Hopefully I'll get out of this funk before I go to Vegas in a couple weeks.

I played a couple of $6 sit and goes on Pokerstars and finished 3rd and 1st for $10.80 and $27 so that helps a little. Oh well...back to the drawing board. May the flop be with you!

Monday, October 10, 2005 

The story of my last 3 weeks:

PokerStars 1/2 Hold'em (9 handed) FTR converter on zerodivide.cx



Preflop: Hero is UTG with Ad, Ah.

Hero raises, 3 folds, MP3 calls, CO calls, 1 fold, SB calls, BB calls.



Flop: (10 SB) As, 2c, 7s (5 players)

SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets, MP3 calls, CO calls, SB folds, BB calls.



Turn: (7 BB) 9h (4 players)

BB checks, Hero bets, MP3 raises, CO calls, BB folds, Hero 3-bets, MP3 calls, CO calls.



River: (16 BB) 7d (3 players)

Hero bets, MP3 raises, CO folds, Hero 3-bets, MP3 caps, Hero calls.



Final Pot: 24 BB



Results:

Hero has Ad Ah (full house, aces full of sevens).

MP3 has 7c 7h (four of a kind, sevens).

Outcome: MP3 wins 24 BB.

 

Horrible

Sorry I haven't been updating as much. I really should. I have been sucking it up lately and am kind of ashamed. Lately I'm just getting hammered. I think I have been playing pretty solidly too. I have made money on my 1/2 tables but I am playing mostly 2/4 now and none of my big hands are holding up. On Saturday my 9 biggest money losers in this order were:

AA: -28
ATs: -26
TT: -22
QQ: -14
ATo: -10
AQs: -8.50
AKo: -6.75
KQo: -5.75
KK: -5.50

My biggest money winners on Saturday were 22, A4s, 32s, QJo.

Something is just wrong with that picture.

Anyhow, I am down about $140 so far this month but I'm about to clear a $100 bonus which will put me close to even. I just need to get back on my winning track.

My biggest problem has been UltimateBet where I am -370 over my last 6 sessions playing 2/4 and one session of 3/6.

One of my destructive hands came on 2/4 Kill where I got AA on a kill hand (so the stakes were now 4/8). I raised in CO, Button called, BB called. BB was a Loose aggressive player bordering on maniac. flop comes QJ4 rainbow. BB bets out, I raise, button reraises. BB calls and I call. Turn is a Ten. BB bets out again, we both call. river is a blank BB bets out, we both call. BB shows 98 for the straight. HOW DO YOU BET OUT WITH A GUTSHOT STRAIGHT DRAW THEN CALL TWO BETS BACK TO YOU. Just boggles my mind. Button had KQ for top pair. It is hands like these where it just gets frustrating losing like $40 in one hand when I should have won a huge pot. oh well. back to the drawing board.

Til next time...may the flop be with you (and me)!

Thursday, October 06, 2005 

Let's try something different

I'm going to try playing mostly 2/4 this month and see how it goes. I made +$20 or so after about 300 hands. I will probably play most of it at Pacific and PartyPoker and hope I can do well. If I start losing a lot I'll step back down to 1/2.

My biggest problem seems to come when I'm heads up with someone with a decent hand and not folding to turn check raises. I always seem to get in my head that I'm getting bluffed while almost every time I call down, I'm screwed. So I'm going to have to work on that a bit.

Short write up today. Haven't played a whole lot the last couple of days. The chiptalk.net tourney is tonight on PokerStars. Come join the fun and may the flop be with you!

Tuesday, October 04, 2005 

Falling in the Fall

October has not started off well. I seem to win a little on a couple tables. Then I lose on a third. And the cycle repeats itself. My tournament play has not gone well either. I haven't been making good decisions lately.

I bought NHL 06 hoping it will give me something else to take my mind off poker here and there. Wednesday is the start of the NHL season and I'm getting really excited for the start of the season. Our fantasy draft was Sunday night and my team looks half decent. I ended up getting the first pick of the draft and just didn't know who to pick. I took Brodeur in 2004 and my forwards suffered so I decided to take Joe Sakic this time around. I settled for Vokoun (Nashville) and DiPietro (Islanders) in the nets but I think both of them are going to have great years.

I also bought two new poker books I hope will help. The first is Phil Gordon's Little Green Book. It is basically him explaining how he plays NL tournaments. So far I really like it and I think it was definitely worth buying. The other is Zen and the Art of Poker by Larry Phillips. It is ok so far. A lot of little generalizations to help keep you focused and improve your game. I've read probably the first 40 pages of each. The next book I'd like to get is King Yao's Weighing the Odds. They didn't have it at Barnes and Noble so I guess I'll try to get it elsewhere.

That's it for now. May the flop be with you!

Saturday, October 01, 2005 

September in Review

The month started out great and I was quickly up about $300 along with about $300 in bonus money after about 6 days and it was shaping up to be a big month. Unfortunately everything went south at Titan Poker and UltimateBet and I got clobbered. The Prima sites were all good to me fortunately. As you can see from the chart I got my clock cleaned right before I went on vacation. I came back strong and then had that crappy downturn on the final day of the month.

The chart below is just the limit hands I have in PokerTracker so it isn't perfectly accurate mind you. I'm missing about a $150 loss on Titan, a $100 win on Pacific and all my tournament play.

Money Earned: $132.56
Bonus Earned: $590

September Total: $722.56

So not horrible but I easily should have been over 1k. My big losses all came on 4 or 5 tables where I kept getting big hands cracked.






So I didn't make a ton this month but at least I still managed to stay in positive territory. I took a couple of shots at 2/4 and 3/6 that didn't work out all that great which didn't help either. I'm going to keep trying at those limits when I see some loose play there. We'll see what happens and I'll keep you all posted! May the flop be with you!


  • NL = No Limit Holdem
  • PLO = Pot Limit Omaha
  • CP = Crazy Pineapple
  • TD = Triple Draw
  • UTG = Under the Gun (first to act)
  • MP = Middle Position
  • LP = Late Position
  • CO = CutOff (one before the button)

About me

  • I'm Scottwire
  • From NJ
  • Hi there. I started this blog mainly to keep track of how I'm doing playing poker as well as to vent, share my thoughts and feelings, and allow friends and family to follow along. Thanks to everyone following along whether I know you or not. About me - I am currently a web developer who is trying to become a successful Entrepreneur with my wife. We love to travel and are trying to become successful enough to do that as we please :) That's us in a nutshell.
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