CUT 13 Summary
Chipping Up Tour 2013.
10 days July 3 - 13, stayed at Monte Carlo, good location on the strip if you like to play Aria and Bellagio while being close to more touristy rooms
Played mainly 1/2 or 1/3 cash games with two sessions of 2/5. Also played a couple of tournaments.
Final tabled (of about 140) the final Binions Classic $125 tourney for a min cash of $265. Chopped the Excalibur $40 five ways for $120 each. Played one Aria tourney and busted out of the money after flopping bottom set 7s against top set of jacks and then getting finished off by same guy with QQ vs his AJ and the board ran out giving him quad jacks. Played the WSOP $235 daily deepstack and busted both times. In the second one I played, I was in the zone, making good plays, getting good value, and sitting on a two times average stack with blinds and antes at 300/800/1600. Got JJ UTG and raised, late position player 3-bet, I 4-bet, he shoved. I knew I was up against AA and figured I'd go big or go home and called. Board improved my outs by giving me a gutshot, but it was not meant to be. I them had 10 BB and shoved them into the pot when I got 44, but didn't improve and I hit the rail. I started avoiding tournies last year and focused mainly on cash games but played these tournies due to my cash games paying for the tournies.
For cash games, I played at Monte Carlo, Aria, WSOP side games at the Rio, Bellagio, Venetian, Orleans (4/8 Omaha), Hooters, Wynn, Planet Hollywood, Ballys, Mandalay Bay, MGM, and Caesars Palace.
Couple of notable hands.
At Wynn, I flopped bottom set (66) on a straightening and flushing board and got it in with about $400 and got stacked when opponent hit his flush draw.
Stacked a guy for $400 at Ballys when a board had QQQ on it and I had a Q in the hole for quads and he paired a K for a boat.
At MGM, I had KK and 4-bet preflop. The opponent moved all in. He was older and I hadn't seen him get out of line. I knew he had AA and mucked the cowboys face up. He didn't show, but I still am sure he had AA. Before this hand, he mentioned he works for AVP and I saw his name on the Bravo display to be Robert S. I tweeted to AVP to see if I could flush out some info on whether I read his hand right but they are not giving up the info (it's OK, I know).
Stopped by the Amazon Room at WSOP to see the bubble bust in the main event, pretty cool as the did the hand for hand.
Good trip with a net profit of $555.
Great write up! During that visit I always asked for the 9 (or 10) seat in most rooms.
nice fold Mr. Bluffs. good luck on the felt
I can see that you have an expertise on this topic.
What a small world. You meet the guy online that was the villain in the AA v. KK battle. This website is just great. I don't know a soul on here in person but I love reading these trip reports and have likely played against many out there on the strip. Nice trip report.
Looking forward to going back to play. Had been going 4 years straight, 3x a year on 10-day trips (about 30 days out of the year). After an 11 month break I finally have a 10-day trip planned in mid December. Like you, I cycle through about 8 to 10 different poker rooms when I go and come back with more than I left with. It's getting harder though as players are just flat out better than they were even just a few years ago. I always have the intentions of playing cash game hit-and-run...but once I get seated at a table where I think I have everyone all figured out....greed will not allow me to leave. I could be up $400 at a $1-3 and just refuse to cash out because my head is telling me I'll continue getting hands and collecting weaker players buy-ins. Although that can happen now and then and I can cash out for $1500 or something, more often I'll blow some of my profits because of the gambler and not the poker player inside saying - call the $150 bet despite not having pot odds, you'll complete you're open ended straight draw on the river.