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!
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!
Nice report scott. I'm looking forward to hitting some of those rooms next summer when I travel to Vegas for the annual chip convention. How much of a bankroll did you bring with you? Is $200 enough to sit down at most limit tables without feeling short stacked?
Posted by
Dave |
2:49 PM