June 11-15

Decided to list things by subject matter this time so people can skip sections if they are not itnerested.

Poker:

Signed up for Venetian deep stack tournament late Wednesday night. Noon start on Thursday $340 buyin. Doubling the starting chips made it a no-brainer to choose it over Caesars – nicer room, amenities, shufflers etc. 5 minutes into the tournament and I’ve got a decision for my tournament life – blinds 25-50 (starting stack around 12,000 chips) I get dealt KK in late position. Mid position raises to 250, I re-raise to 750 and he re-raises to 3,000. It was early so I didn’t have any read. I’m thinking he may have AK but most likely has AA. My buddy and I were talking the night before about whether or not we would ship it in with KK early in a tournament pre-flop if the situation ever arose and here I was living it. I flat called the additional 2,250 – in hindsight I don’t like that move I should have just folded or shipped it in. Flat calling I essentially turned my KK into a pair of deuces because I was essentially set mining. Would be interested in any comments. Flop A104 three suits he pushes all in and I fold. He told me later after I busted out that he had AA and I believe him. Stayed around the 8-9,000 chip mark until I get dealt AA in the hi-jack, blinds 50-100 – folded to me I opened for 350 button calls as does the big blind. Flop j104 two clubs. Big blind checks and I bet out 1,000 and get reraised to 2,600. I’m thinking the worst – like him calling with j10 or flopping a set, but I still thought I was ahead of his range. I shipped it in and he tanked for 3-4 minutes. He finally calls showing QQ – I think great a double up but of course the turn was a Q and I was out. I get the full round of man that sucks from everyone at that table but I’m out in about 1 hour 10 minutes. So much for the good structure I never got to experience it!

Played the $60 PH 2 pm tournament Friday night. Was essentially card dead had AK once, highest pair was JJ in the bb and I was given a walk. Played good short stack poker pushing when I had too. Only 25 players – made it to the final table about 7th in chips. Ended up pushing allin with A2s and got called down by A7o turned the wheel for my only suckout of the night. We were down to 5 with 4 paying with the small blind putting in the last of her chips (she had 5,000 chips 2,000 already committed into the pot). Blinds were 2,000-4,000 and it was a 1,000 chip raise that the big blind had to call (he was the chip leader with about 40,000) and he folded – no one could believe it. It boggles the mind how some folks do well in tournaments and have no clue on pot odds. Money bubble broke on an interesting hand – blinds are 3,000-6,000 under the gun has 1,000 chips and goes all in fold to me on the button and I call 6,000 of my 20,000 chips with 66 hoping we can play nice and check this down to eliminate the one player. Small blind with 13,000 chips calls the 3,000 and the big blind (big stack referred to above checks). Flop comes 964 all clubs. Small blind goes all in, big blind goes all in and the action is on me wtf?!? I go from thinking of pushing to folding – someone’s got at worst a nut flush draw and perhaps a set so I fold showing my 66. Small blind turns over a set of 9’s and big blind turns over k8s for k high straight. Other players and dealer are amazed I made the laydown but on the money bubble it didn’t seem that tough to make. Ended up heads up with about a 10-1 chip disadvantage but the guy offered me $40 more than second place money so I took it. Ended up with about $350 and left a $30 tip.

$2-4 limit – played 3 sessions at totaling about 8 hours, lost about $30 in two of them and up $125 in one. Raked in about a $100 pot in the one session – capped pre-flop with 5 players (so $50 in the pot) I had kqs and flopped a flush. Probably shouldn’t have been in given the raising but the problem with limit is everytime you look it’s only $2 more to call!

WSOP – did the obligatory trip to the Rio to have a walk around. Kind of cool to run into various pros – saw Raymer, Greenstein, Lindgren, Bellande amongst others.

Hotel – stayed at Planet Hollywood and used the $20 trick to get us a nice refurbished room. No complaints.

Food – Restaurants of note – Stripsteak in PH and N9ne. Both were excellent – had the Filet Mignon and Lobster at N9ne – best I have ever had.

Golf – played at Bali Hai and Desert Pines. We teed off at 5:40 am both days and were done before 9 am before the heat got too bad. Bali Hai was $165 but you are paying for being on the strip – good course overall. Desert Pines was about a 15 minute cab ride but a good bargain at $75.

Sportsbetting – placed a lot of bets on Euro 2008 and did quite well for a while… My buddy and I had won on 5-6 tickets in a row and I decided to up the stakes from my usual $10 or $20 bet and pick Portugal for $150 in their final first round game figuring that even though they have clinched their group surely to god they can’t lose to the Swiss. Oops – I was wrong. Got in some golf bets – refused to bet on Tiger given the crappy odds – so needless to say no payouts there either.

Blackjack – probably wasted about $350 playing blackjack with my friend. He plays online poker but is a little nervous about playing live so I didn’t push it this trip. He likes playing blackjack at the Pleasure Pit in PH or with the Pussycat Dolls in Caesars. Being the nice guy I am I made sure to join him a couple of hours each day. I know basic strategy but the cards weren’t with me. My friend on the other hand won $5-600 after being up as high about $1,000 (average bet $15-25 per hand).

Shows – went to see Anthony Cools at Paris – adult oriented hypnotist – put on a pretty good show.

All in all a good time, lots of slushy drinks consumed – a few hours put in pool side. Disappointed that I couldn’t make AVP tournament but other reservations got in the way.

Looking forward to my next trip - in August with the wife staying at the Wynn.