Vegas Trip Report

This is long over due ...

Tuesday Day 1 - I have an early morning flight out of Hartford, and need to be at my friends house 0500. That means being up at 3am getting ready and an hour drive. I elect not to sleep and play cash games on Bodog all night long. I can generally sleep on airplanes, but United managed to put my fat ass next to someone that makes me look skinny. No sleep for me. ScottyDawg and I land about noon Vegas time, and are expecting the limo driver to be waiting at the bottom of the escalator with our names on a sign. All the other limo drivers are there holding signs, but ours decides not to show up. We call the limo company and are put into what seems like an endless hold loop and finally 45 minutes later get a human that apologizes and sets us up with the next available car. The entire point of arranging for a car in advance is to avoid the 45 minute queue at the cab stand. Oh well, at least we did not have to take a van.

After checking we head to the strip to get a late lunch and then play some cards. Dawg picks the Flamingo and after a short wait we both get seated at different tables. I played here a bit last year, and it is definitely a touristy room. There were three 1/2 NL tables going and some 2/4 Limit. After a few hours I run my Aces into Queens all in pre flop (he pushed over my 4 bet) and the villain catches a Queen to stack me. Dawg is more fortunate and in less than 2 hours catches a couple sets vs over pairs and is up about 5 hundo. I am down about 2 hundo.

Dawg want to see how far his winnings will take him at the Rhino and we somehow stay for 4 hours. Needless to say his +500 poker win does not put a dent in his Rhino loss. I finally convince Dawg to leave and ship him back to the hotel while I go play at Harrahs until 8 am. After an early stacking AA vs TTT I manage to grind it out back and even make back what I lost at the Flamingo earlier.

Wednesday Day 2 - I sleep until mid afternoon when housekeeping bangs on my door. I had been working on 48 with no sleep, and need a few more hours before the next session. Based on CK's recommendation, we head over to the Venetian (Thanks for the emails CK!!!) I really am impressed by the Venetian poker room. Even though it is only 1/3 the size of Foxwoods, it really puts their room to shame. Nice comfortable adjustable chairs, extra wide drink holders. We both get seated at different tables and I begin what would eventually become a 15 hours losing session. My first table was friendly, there were a couple of good players but it was mostly tourists. I bought in short for 200 and was up to 450 a few hours later when the table broke. Dawg had enough and headed back to the hotel. He did actually have to work the next day. The new table was the beginning of my demise. My 4 bet pre flop with KK loses to a runner runner 4 flush vs a drunk tourist's A3o with the 3 catching the flush. I suppose that I got the match up that I wanted. A drunk playing A3o happened to get lucky.

The 450 that I had brought over from the broken game is now down to about 120, so I add 2 hundos and begin to grind it back - nobody complained about me being slightly over the max. I stayed even at this table and eventually in the wee hours of the morning it broke, and I moved to my 3rd table of the night. I had KK cracked 3 more times at the new table, again with top set to a flush, and twice to Ace-rag. Oh well. Jennifer Harmon walked through the room somewhere around 11am - yes I was still there. My final hand was a flopped nut flush vs bottom set that went runner runner boat. Again nothing I could do there. He thought I was drawing at the flush when I jammed over his re-raise. The final count was me being down 3 buyins, which really sucked. About 1pm I drag myself back to the hotel and take a nap until dinner time.

Thursday Day 3 - I am exhausted and pissed off about my Venetian session. Dawg wants to go out early so I am only working on about 4 hours sleep when we head out. He does not want to go back to the Venetian, saying the players were too good and would prefer a more touristy location. So I take him back to Harrahs and see some of the same players as the other night. There was only a single 1/2 game going but we are first and second on the list. There is a list of interest for 1/2 HORSE, and eventually a bunch of locals all sit. I was tempted to sit for a while, but two seats opened up and we both sat down across from each other, the table was nearly all tourists. One of the players is a regular from Foxwoods in town visiting friends. He doesnt stay too long and leaves after getting stacked. A very nice Asian girl was sitting to my right - a local. She introduced her self as Bee - as in buzz, to which I replied my name is Rob - as in steal. She was a good player and we both stayed out of each others way. I catch quad 2s from the BB and stack a guy who jammed 77. I end up cashing out +500 or so, but that did not cover my loss from the night before.

Anyway, that is my belated trip report.