Las Vegas Days 2 & 3: Brief Report

Not having either the time or the inclination to make a looooong blog post like this guy, I am, however, able to at least briefly note some things that have been happening the past two days in Las Vegas.

Day 2 (Thursday): Met koala, a member to the TBC “head patters,” at Harrah’s and had lunch together. It was quite a great time, reviewing the history of Tony and talking about some of Tony’s latest happenings and his upcoming homecoming in Las Vegas. Koala, like most of the lone poker players and or bloggers I have met, was really great in person – very personable and very funny. We had a great time!

I got in several hours of poker. Koala and I played at Harrah’s, where he did quite well and I finished with a small loss. I then went to The Mirage, where my table quickly disintegrated soon after I got there. I lost a little bit also. Things just never seem to go well for me at The Mirage. I then returned to Bally’s (naturally), played more poker, and then met Man in Black for dinner. I had met MIB in passing on my last trip to Las Vegas. He has been through some difficult times but recently got a new job and is getting some important things back on track. As always, the conversation at mealtime was great. This has turned out to be the social trip of all time for me!

Later that night we were hoping to meet Carmel, who earlier in the evening had sent me this great direct tweet: “You rat bastard.” It turns out that she was going to surprise me at Bally’s but got a ticket driving there. Of course, I was to blame! Unfortunately, due to my getting his twitter name wrong and Carmel’s fondness for libations, we never met up. However, MIB and I must have looked so pathetically desperate while waiting for Carmel that we were approached for “dates” by an elderly hooker. As I texted Pokah Dave, “I wouldn’t screw her with your dick!” Oh and yes -- when I tweeted about the incident, referring to the woman of way too many evenings as a “random woman,” I received a few texts informing me that she was a prostitute. Thanks to those people for explaining to me what a hooker is. Having been to Las Vegas more times than I can remember, I had always wonders who those skanky looking women were who flirted with me in the wee hours of the morning. Gee – I never knew …

I ended the evening playing more cash games at Bally’s, and then finally called it a night. Actually, it was the early morning.

Day 3 (Friday): Woke up late and had a brisk walk down the strip to get in some exercise. I then caught a bus to downtown and registered for a deep stack tourney at the Golden Nugget. I was surprised during the tourney to get a tap on the shoulder from Memphis MOJO, who was also playing in it. Unfortunately, MOJO got felted on a big play and was out while I played short stack ninja. After 6 ½ hours of play and on the final hand before the dinner break, I woke up with A-Q and pushed all in against a raise and a call. The original raiser said “I am giving you a gift” and called. Unfortunately, a big stack who had already called the first raise also said he was all in. The nasty scene: my A-Q vs. A-J (original raiser) and A-A (big stack that originally smooth called the raise). Shit! The big stack knocked us both out.

I then headed to Rio to have dinner with cmitch and Shabazz Jenkins, two really tough online tournament players. It was interesting as Shabazz was at the end of his trip, I was in the middle, and cmitch just arrived a few hours earlier.

After dinner I headed back to Bally’s and played some poker at the same table with Very Josie, Poker Grump, and Rob’s Vegas Poker. The game deserves an entire post in itself. I made a totally donkey play against Grump (there were reasons, of course) and Josie was a total agro wild woman at the table. I was so card dead (and trapped at an aggressive table with the guys on my right button straddling my every blind) that I was finally forced to switch tables. Later on in the evening I finally got a few cards at a table I could exploit and ended the session with a nice profit.

I have gotten to the point where I play very few live tournaments. I look at this day, for example, and see most of my day wasted in a tournament where I failed to cash while losing a buy in. I much prefer the flexibility of cash games. I will therefore most likely take a pass on the big All Vegas Poker tournament on Saturday but will play in the much more intimate private tournament for “Friends of TBC” Sunday night.

Cheers!