Vegas #7
Date: Fri, Jul 4, 2008
Kind of been a bit lazy lately in updating with stuff that's going on, it's 3am and I can't sleep so here's a megapost of what's been happening for the past week.
Had a few hours free at The Wynn so went to the Fashion Show Mall across the street, ended up buying a ton of stuff. I don't like clothes shopping but the clothes here are fantastic and really cheap compared to back home. Sweet Levi jeans were like $36, got a Quiksilver hoody for $10, some cool stuff from the Lucky Brand shop, some shorts, and about 7-8 T-shirts. Will probably need to wear it all on the flight back home, it wont fit in my luggage!
Had a -$1100 session at the Rio the night before the $1.5k. Ran really cold the whole time and lost 2 big (over $1k) pots, one set over set and one AK vs set on an ATx flop against an aggro player. Frustrating, but unavoidable. Spotted Shannon Elizabeth playing in a $2-5 PLO game, bet the waiting list on that was big!
After busting the $1.5k event and being on a bit of a downer the obvious thing to do was get drunk. Two of Pete's buddies are staying with us right now, Jared and Scott (McLovin and AngleShooter). We had drinks and ate at Hooters - exactly as trashy and awesome as I expected. Played beer pong at O'Sheas 'til late went through 15 pitchers of beer, bet cash monies on all of the games and got lots of random people to play. Fun times. Wandered around on the strip messing about for a while ended up at Bellagio, I think MGM, and other random places.
Yesterday was Pete's Bday, 6 of us went to Benihana at the LV Hilton for dinner, actually the first Hibachi place I've been to. Started out with Japanese beer, warm sake, soup, salad and sushi... then the Hibachi chef came to the table and started cooking up the main courses, fried rice, lobster, swordfish, chicken, shrimp, etc. I went for a steak and we got shrimp, fried vegetables, rice and other stuff too. All of the food was prepared in front of us with the chef performing lots of cool tricks, awesome to watch and supremely delicious.
Then went to the Rio to see Penn and Teller who were really good. They messed with the audience a lot which was cool. I really liked the cold-reading, sawing woman in half, nailgun, and handgun segments. Some of the sleight of hand stuff was amazing too, good show overall.
Went out on the strip after and pretty much just got wasted drinking these crazy 46oz alcoholic slush drinks. Went to the bar in New York New York famous for it's duelling pianists. They kicked ass and played loads of covers including The Proclaimers, wooo!
Today went to see Rancid play at the House of Blues at Mandalay Bay. They had a wicked ska band supporting called The Aquabats. Led by The MC Bat Commader they were basically 5 middle-aged dudes in superhero costumes rocking out and messing about on stage. Rancid punk-rocked it up hard and played like 20 songs, the crowd were insane, really good gig. Mandalay Bay is real nice, some cool clubs and live music, had some food there after.
No real urge to play poker just now. I'm probably about breakeven for the trip at live cash, down over $3k on stt/mtts, and up a bit online. Played a ton live but I've ran really badly, not a lot I can do about it! As a result of that I don't really feel like playing at the moment, it's a good opportunity to relax, see the sights, party and holiday it up.
It's the 4th of July tomorrow, the US independance day so we might do some sort of BBQ and probably head into the strip to check out the firework shows. It's my Bday on the 7th... wheeeee, currently planning some sweet stuff to do then.
$1.5k trip report
Date: Tue, Jul 1, 2008
No big pros on my first table. In fact the table was REALLY soft. Players were mostly awful.
2nd hand in I pick up QQ. Blinds 25/50. Young scandie makes it 150 from UTG, I raise to 450 from MP1, mid 40s guy in MP3 thinks for around 10 secs and shoves for 3,000 total. Scandie folds, I fold. The guy flatted a raise with AK a few hands later so he almost certainly had AA/KK when I mucked.
Chipped up a bit in a few spots picking up good cards early. Made about 1000 with AK on an AKx flop, and won a 1500 all-in AA vs AK. 1st break after the first 2 levels I had 5200 in chips.
Not too much action in levels 3-4 I don't think... won an all-in against a short stack KK vs JJ. Had 6200 chips at the 2nd break.
Got to level 5, about 1000 players left, moved to a new table with a bunch of bigger stacks and tougher players still a lot of weak spots though. A few hands in blinds are 150/300 with 25 antes, table's playing pretty passively, I limp 88 UTG with a 7k stack, 4 callers. Flop comes 8h9d3d, I lead for 1100, fold, SB calls, BB shoves for 4k, I shove for 7k, SB tanks then folds. BB has ThJh so I'm about 75/25, he hits the Q on the turn. Boooo.
Switched tables, still at level 5, down to 2.8k, folds around to SB who I know opens REALLY light from a previous table. He makes it 800, I shove A9s, he calls with A6s and rivers a 6. Boooo x2. The dealer thinks the 6 is a 9 and ships me the pot lol, but obv someone alerts her and it goes the other way. And that was all she wrote!
The play in the tourney was a lot worse that I expected, I'd put my equity higher than I imagined, probably at $3000ish.
Will update a bit on everything else that's been going tonight probably, heading out to the strip now.
Busto
Date: Tue, Jul 1, 2008
Just a quick update as it's late and I'm tired/drunk.
I bust about 900/2700.
Started with 3000 chips, got up to 5200 at 1st break, then 6500 at 2nd break. Then lost 4k with my flopped set all in against a straight draw (that hit), then bust 3k when A6 rivered a 6 on my A9s. Played really well, every time I put my money in I was a strong favourite... just gotta have it hold up when it matters to run deep!
Will post more of a trip report tomorrow. Cheers to everyone that staked me in the event, I was a good investment and had a blast, I just missed that final element required to do well... luck!
GL me
Date: Mon, Jun 30, 2008
I'm now 50% backed for the $1.5k WSOP event tomorrow. It kicks off midday Vegas time, that's 8pm UK time. Thankyou to everyone who bought a piece of me, I'll be playing my very best. We're looking at a likely 2,700 player field with over $600,000 to first place... so u can do the maths on your percentage ;)
You'll be able to get updates by clicking the following link and going to Event #52 once it's put up there. http://www.pokernews.com/live-reporting/
I think pokernews will be trying to keep track of the big name pros rather myself so unless I bust Doyle Brunson you might not hear much from me. I'll do some sort of write-up after the event anyways.
Here are a couple of pics I took from the $50k buy-in HORSE final table tonight. It was 3-handed Erick "E-Dog" Lindgren vs Scotty "It's all over baby" Winnn vs some 2p2er with a girls sounding name. All of the big names were out railing it and messing around drinking on the sidelines. Obv Phil Hellmuth tried to get in on the cameras as much as possible too...
WSOP Event #52
Date: Sat, Jun 28, 2008
As much as I dislike the variance in tourneys I can't come to Vegas and not play a WSOP event! I've decided to play the last $1,500 entry WSOP tourney. It's a 3-day event and should have around 2,000 entrants, with the top 10% of the field getting paid. First place will pay around half a million dollars.
Rather than put up all of the $1.5k from my roll I'd like to even my variance by getting up to 50% of it backed by any people who'd like the action. You can buy any %'age you like in me from 1% ($15) upwards. I'm giving the action straight up, so you take 10% for example and you'd take 10% of whatever I win. If I bust you bust also.
I'd expect my equity in the tourney to be around $2,000-2,500 (meaning if the tourney was ran a million times that'd be what I'd expect to get back each time on average) but the variance is huge as it's the only big WSOP tourney I'm playing. One shot basically. Due to the top heavy payout structure around 80-90% of the time I will bust the buy-in. So although I'm certain I'm profitable to back it certainly is a gamble, but a positive expectation one!
The event is on Monday at midday Vegas time, if you'd like to buy a piece of me drop an email to bazclef@gmail.com and tell me how much you'd like to buy. I can take payment by transfer on Stars/FTP, bank transfer, in person, etc.
Vegas #6
Date: Fri, Jun 27, 2008
Booked some small wins day before yesterday and put in a decent sized online session, getting like 800 hands in on the laptop.
Noticed $100 had been shipped to my Stars account this morning, Amatay lost the bet on whether he could make $10k this month playing SNGs on Full Tilt. He kind of underestimated the difficulty of the task, I'm pretty sure he took off the first day of the challenge and went out drinking lol. I think he would have needed to play about 1,000 SNGs AND run well to win the bet. Unlucky you lazy fishay.
Headed in to Caesars Palace yesterday to play cash games and did well despite only getting a few hours sleep the night before. Seeing as drinks are basically free while playing I decided to start working my way through their drinks menu. I recommend the Chocolate Julius, tastes like the fakest chocolate ever but is very delicous.
So yea, booked like $420 there, shippp. Then went across to Venetian to meet up with Pete/Dan and had some noodles. All 3 of us ended up getting in a $1-2nl cash game and drinking coronas and shots throughout, was pretty much carnage and a lot of fun. We didn't leave 'til after 5am I think and I was reeeally tired and pretty frustrated after losing most of the money I'd spent that day making! Lesson learned, don't drink and play or play tired. if I'm going to drink play $2 blackjack or something instead. Although I did run pretty bad that session, but whatever. Was really frustrating worked hard at Caesars booking a good win then jizzing it away. Grrr!
Took a bunch of pictures around the Venetian and some of the strip...
Venetian shops
Guy on a Segway outside the Venetian
"Las Vegas and the fuckin' Mirage"
Scotty Nguyen's car (probably) outside Rio
Today was pretty lazy, slept 'til like 2 then lay in bed watching the Mask of Zorro :P Got up at like 5 and headed into the Rio, played a short cash session and ran pretty poorly, the table wasn't great either. So I quit and left after a few hours. The $50k horse event was on which was pretty cool to rail for a bit, and the $5k 6-max too. Awesome fields. Isabelle Mercier is sooooo hot in real life. Had a burger from In n Out which was sweet.
Gonna get my grind on at the Rio or Caesars tomorrow. My aim is to get back to breakeven for the trip by the end of the weekend and play the last $1,500 WSOP event which is on Monday. If I'm playing it I'll be selling half of my action at face value, will post about that over the weekend.
Kind of concerned that almost half of the trip has gone and I've not done a lot of the touristy shit I was aiming to do. Really need to hook up some of the following...
- Shooting guns
- Spearmint Rhino
- Rollercoaster at NY NY
- Stratosphere
- Shopping at outlet mall
- Cirque de Solie show
- Penn and Teller
- UFC 86
- Rancid gig at the House of Blues
- Play at Bellagio and Wynn
- Euro 2008 final
Damn I've played 76 hours of poker since arriving here just 11 days ago, pretty sick. :)
Vegas #5
Date: Tue, Jun 24, 2008
Dan and I headed out to Rio late last night and pulled a big session getting in at 7am. I booked a $1,040 win in the $2-5 game. Building a huge pyramid stack throughout the night and cashing in 3 racks of chips FTW. Booooooom. It's GO TIME.
Got up at 5pm today played some pool and had a delicous breakfast(?) of blueberry waffles and Mountain Dew, best drink ever. Now chilling in the pool playing some cash on Full Tilt with Matt, weather is pretty much a perfect 100 at this time in the evening (7:30pm).
Spent a bunch of time on study yesterday, read a lot of The Poker Mindset, posted some comments on weaktight, railed a coaching session Brian was doing with Dice and picked Dan's brain a ton about live poker. Made a lot of adjustments to my game, a lot that Adam mentioned in his comments on the last post. Basically playing a lot more passively preflop and not inflating pots without a big hands, playing draws more passively, keeping a tighter image, etc.
Really not too much tourism or whatever going on, although that being said there are lots of big poker players at the Rio. On nearby tables to me yesterday were Devilfish, Raymer, Violette, Mortensen, David Williams which was cool. Anyway, we're all pretty much still in the mood for playing poker so continuing to play a lot and expecting to get burned out soon. Will take a couple of days off and do some tourism and drinking. But until then it's allll poker, planning on heading to the strip in an hour or two.
Suspiciously 3 cases of All-in Energy Drink have been delivered to our house, I think from a tourney Dan entered.
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