Unsatisfying End to Las Vegas Trip of Feb 15-19, 2023

This is the second part of my trip report from my sojourn to Las Vegas last week. The first part is included in the post "From Good to Bad to Hopefully Good Again in Las Vegas?"

Thursday, Feb 16, 2023

I played an afternoon session at Venetian. It seemed that for most of the session I didn't get playable cards or missed the flop completely. You know how those sessions are: your draws never make it while theirs do.

One of my nephews was in town to play some Yu-Gi-Oh! tournaments, so I took him out to dinner. Afterward, I headed to Resorts World to play some $1/3 NL. I immediately got some great cards and started quickly accumulating chips, apparently upsetting a player who seemed to believe that he was the table captain. He gave me crap about raising a limped pot in position with J-10 sooted, so it was on! He raised, I re-raised when appropriate. I think he finally got frustrated and left the table for a break. Some soft players left the table and replaced by players who seemed to be on the ball. I had only been there a half hour and was up $226, so I decided to close it down for the night as I was tired.

Friday, Feb 17, 2023

I played an afternoon session at Horseshoe, which is near the top of my list of poker rooms with the most profit. I was tempted to play $2/3, but decided on $1/3, where I had been having much success. Well, not this session! I had the second best hand several times and lost pots to a player who was playing anything and lucking out. After I'd had enough abuse, I messaged Tony Bigcharles that I would pick him up and drive him to the Friday night NL cash game at Poker Palace that he had been wanting me to play for years. Tonight was the night! I have already written about the night in my previous blog post, "First Impressions: The Poker Palace in North Las Vegas." It is a quick read.

Saturday, Feb 18

My day started out with a free breakfast, courtesy of the Black Bear Diner west of the Strip. I have been to a Black Bear in Arizona several times, and it never disappoints.

Talk about a disaster of a poker day! I began an afternoon session at Venetian. Nothing seemed to go right except for one hand. I flopped a set on a wet board and shoved. One player had been dealt a straight. After the river, he said "I have the nut straight." He was shocked to see that I had rivered a boat. I was due one of these. 😅 But outside of that gimme, the session sucked. I was forced to leave with a loss.

I then played a session at Horseshoe and seemed to be on top of my game and had more than doubled up. I should have left and picked up Tony so that we could go to Sahara, but instead I decided to stay. I then made a really big mistake: soft playing a hand due to the high hand promotion. Believe it or not, with only one other person in the hand, I lost after I FLOPPED A SET OF ACES! I got greedy and wanted that $200 for high hand. Naturally, my opponent either turned or rivered a straight. I was so discombobulated that I am not even sure. I later played another hand stoopidly and lost another chunk of my stack. I was just sick that I made such egregious errors. I try to play smart poker, but his session in particular I really played poorly. I guess that is the challenge of poker. I left with a meager profit when I could have left with a nice win and a well-played session. Bah!

My final stop for the night was Westgate. The games Tony and I planned to go to at Sahara broke up, so he headed there. I decided to join him.

A second nephew from a different brother was also in town for a football coached workshop. He and his wife stopped in to see me at the Westgate poker room. Glad to see that Las Vegas has become a fixture for the lightning family!

Unfortunately, I was not able to sit at the table I wanted, one that included Tony and James "PMan" Urbanic. However, there was a huge benefit to playing at the other table: meeting a player that Tony called "Black Mark" who has know Tony for many years. We were able to trade a few stories, which was fun. After getting short stacked after a bad run of cards, I called a raise with Q-10 - a favorite hand. The flop was ten high with two Spades. The initial raiser checked and another shortie pushed all in. I was guessing he was on a flush draw. I shoved. The player across from me, who seemed to be a solid player, also shoved. It came back to the initial raiser, who thought and then shoved. Yes - a four-way all in! The turn and river were bricks and I thought I was in good shape. The initial raiser had a big Ace that didn't hit. The shortie who shoved had, as I suspected, a flush draw that didn't hit. I was feeling pretty good until I looked across the table at the solid player. The dastardly villain had K-K and scooped the entire pot, felting three of us. At that point I decided that my poker on the trip was over. I hustled Tony to his place, went back to my hotel, Excalibur, and ended the trip playing some slots for fun.

Sunday, Feb 19, 2023

I needed to check out of my room by 11:00am. I packed up my things and thought about getting in a session at Wynn before I drove home. As it was, I was pretty exhausted and wanted to get going on my almost 300 mile drive home, so I decided to leave Wynn for my next visit. I remembered why I stopped driving to Las Vegas and instead took cheap Frontier flights when I could. The drive, despite excellent scenery and views (especially the view of Lake Mead with all the surreal hills and mountains - one of my favorite views!), seems torturous when traveling alone. I always take naps on long driving trips, so that just lengthens the time to get home. I was pretty exhausted when I got back to Casa lightning.

I had been having pretty good success on my recent Las Vegas trips. This one, though fun thanks to seeing some friends and relatives, goes down in the books as a losing trip. I'm taking a few days off from poker before deciding which of my three local rooms can set me back on the right track. C'est la vie.

Thanks for reading. 😀