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Happy New Year Trip to Vegas
Just got back from Vegas for the New Year trip. Finally Vegas is humming compared to a month ago when I went. This time, lots of tourists and fish around. Traffic was terrible on the strip. Enough of that, lets get down to some poker stuff.
Got into Vegas around 1130am, wanted to play the Venetian 12pm $150 tourney, but my friend wanted to eat lunch and play cash game. Fine with me. Played at Flamingo Hilton $1/$2 NL after lunch. I couldn’t catch any card but my friend doubled up. 1 interesting hand for him. He raised $12 and got called by 1 loose cannon. Flop AJ5, 2 spades. Villain betted out $30, my friend re-raised all in for $70 more. He called, nobody turned over the cards. Turn another spade, river another spade!! I was thinking my friend’s hand is dead since 4 flush out there. He turned over QQ with 1 spade, so he had a Q high spade flush. The villain just mucked his hands and I saw both red cards!! He called $100 without a flush draw. Later, we saw William Hung from American idol. He was sitting at a brand new $1/$2 NL table, and I wanted to play the new table. Unfortunately, my friend doubled up and didn’t want to move table. So, we decided to go Bally fishing, fair enough.
I played at Bally $1/$2 NL before and found the competition very weak. Cocktail waitresses are old and terrible. One even had attitude until you tip her, then she cracked a smile. Horrible service. Glad I was there to fish, and not to have drinks. Shortly after I sat down, I looked down at QQ in middle position, raised to $12. Couple callers. Flop J82 rainbow. Villain betted out $30. I went all in, lost the rest of the field except villain. He called with AJ, no help for him on turn and river. Easy double up for my $100 buy-in. Later, I raised to $12 with AQ. A very solid played called with $400 behind him. So, I was going to proceed with caution. Flop 279, I probed with $15 and go called, not a good sign. Turn J, I checked waving my white flag. So glad he checked behind me. Turn Q with no flush possibility. I Hollywood a little and betted out $50 into a pot of roughly $60. He called and I dragged the pot. He told me that he was on flush and straight draw. Whew! Then, 1 new fish sat down. He would buy in for $200 each time at $1/$2 NL, lost it and rebuy for another $200. He has done this probably 4 to 5 times. At the end, he would only rebuy for $100. He must have lost close to $1000 in 2 to 3 hrs. My friend won 2 big pot from him, but I couldn’t catch any cards to play him. He would often raise or called $12 with KT. Anyway, my last hand to tell you about is KK at late position. As usual, I raised to $12. Got called by BB, flop Q66. I got sneaky and checked. Villain betted $15, I raised him to $30. He re-raised another $45 on top. I got him, and wanted to extract his remaining $60 stack. I thought and thought, and went all in. Sadly, he mucked. Time for dinner with family, +260 for me, and about the same amount for my friend for 3-4 hrs of work. Then, I checked into Wynn and tried the crazy $1/$3 NL, lots of people. Lost my $100 buyin after doubling up to $200 with trip QQ. Very interesting hand, you can read about it in Hand analysis section and feel free to give your comments. http://www.allvegaspoker.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=7082
Day 2, played at Venetian tourney on Friday 1/2/09. $150 buy-in with more than 180 runners. Top prize over $7000. Comfy chair, auto-shuffler, hot waitress, spacious room, great tourney structure for $150, what else can I say about this place? The table I sat down at have around 7 solid rocks. Only 1 to 2 young LAG. Picked off a bluff from him, almost double thru him with my AA. Went card deck for the remaining of the game. After 3 levels of 30 mins each, ante kicked in. By 5th lvl, it’s pretty much all in fest when all the rocks had to fight for survival. I eventually lost my tourney with A5 to TT. Only 1 hand of regret is a loose player went all in for 6000, a solid player went over the top all in. I had about 6000 chips of roughly 15 times BB. I would call my AJ in a heart beat if the solid player didn’t enter. I eventually folded my AJ. Loose player showed 66 and solid player tabled TT. Ace on the river would have tripled me up if I played, oh well.
Went to Bally again to do some more fishing. It’s really frustrating when I couldn’t catch any cards and seeing people called with 2nd pair. It’s just nuts. My $100 buy in dwindled down to $50, 1 guy who just won a big pot raised to $12 and was about to leave. I knew I had him with AJ as I pushed $50. He called without showing his hand. Flop J42, I proudly turned up with TPTK. Turn 8, River 7. He said he is sorry and had the best hand after catching a runner runner straight with 9T!!! No problem, that’s poker. I continued to stare at Q6, Q5, Q8, K2 for the next hour and decided to call a quit at 1230am.
Overall, very good trip. +$60 on cash game, down $150 for Venetian tourney. Thank you for reading this long post.
Thanks for the report. Nice to see someone else plays at my second favorite room (the Flamingo...where I typically stay....with my favorite being the V). What did you think of the Wynn's 1/3 NL with $500 cap? How does it compare to other LLNL games in Vegas?
The fish are always biting at Bally's!
Is the Ballys game really that good?
@fishouttawatta
After about 9:00 pm, it can be a drunken fish fry ... but there can also be a lot of variance. Buyer beware!
@Grange95
After about 9:00 pm, it can be a drunken fish fry ... but there can also be a lot of variance. Buyer beware![/quote]
What would you rank in terms of fishiest rooms? I used to love the Ex pre Tron poker. Especially going there right after the free afternoon poker lessons. Ahhh good times.
@fishouttawatta
Based on my last trip, fishiest games are:
Bally's
Imperial Palace
TI
Venetian
These are all after 9:00 pm when the drunks roll in, either from the casino floor (Bally's and IP) or from the night clubs (TI and Venetian). This is not to say these are the best rooms for everyone, just the ones with games I like (lots of raised pots, players with no concept of position, players overplaying top pair and overpairs, players willing to buy in for the max 3+ times).
I didn't play cash game this time at V. I did before and the game wasn't as crazy as Wynn. Not as much variance, it's a little more predictable like $1/$3 NL at Caesars. Game is loose but not crazy like V. If u have the bankroll and don't mind the variance and suck outs, go for Wynn. If I didn't lose my baby 2 pairs as I described, I would have won $300 off my $100 buy-in within 1 hr! Imagine u play a bigger bank roll.
Bally and Hilton are fishy, but depends on your table. Hilton in general has more rocks based on 2-3 times that I played there, but it really varies with the table. I would love to try IP, but heard the place stinks and is old. I like to fish in comfort.
Just curious as to which table you were seated at in the tourney? Would be a small world if we were on the same table. I was on table 31 btw.
Yeap, table 31 seat 4 for me. How about u?
I was that stupid asian kid that donked off his chips in seat 1.
When you described your table I thought "hmm that sounds pretty much like my table".
LOL, welcome to this forum.
You were good, a little too aggressive. I raised 200 blind to 600 with AA, u repopped to 1600, I called. Flop crap, I led out with like 600 or something really small to induce you. You put in a huge reraise to like 3600 with only about 4000 behind. I hollywood a little and went all in. I don't know how u got away with your hand when u r so pot comitted. So, kudos to you, nice lay down. I wished I would have stacked u that hand. I waited patiently like for 2 hrs for that hand.
I think you were really the only LAG player on that table, I couldn't squeeze much from other players. I knew you took a lot of little stab at late position, but I just hated to play back against you out of position at big blinds. I let a lot of those A5, K8 go at BB. Anyway, you did a really good job taking small stab and rebuilt your stack back up after the laydown against my AA.
This is my second time playing at V tourney, how about u? How do you like its structure. I think it's excellent, but still an all-in fest by 5th lvl unless u have enough chips, and it's super hard when a tight table like ours didn't give us much action. I love your small stab but still hard to win with a table filled with rocks like ours. What do you think?
Yea I agree I think I played a little too aggressive too. I don't remember what i had that hand against your AA, but I do remember that i put you on a big pair. I don't play too many tournaments so I wasn't exactly sure how to play, but since the table was so tight I decided to steal a few blinds, prolly a few too many attempts. I do remember the lady in seat 7 kept raising big preflop, and I was getting sick of it, so I called her with garbage a few times just to take the pot away on the flop when she missed.
Coming into the tournament, I thought that the structure would allow for a lot of play. However, as you said, around level 5 it was pretty much an all in fest. I thought I was doing fairly well in the early stages of the tourney, until I realized that since taking so many pots down early, the pots weren't very large, therefore my stack wasn't growing as much as I wanted. I won a ton of pots but only had about 12k at the first break. Ideally, I would like to have a 75/150 level in there, but I do know the tourney lasts forever. All in all, it was fun. Thinking about the tourney afterwards, I was very disapointed in myself though. I felt like I just gave up; pushing with KJ after a reraise was a pretty stupid move. I'll just take it as a learning experience and hopefully it motivates me to learn how to play better in tournaments.
It was nice to run into you on here though. Small world I guess. Any plans to come back to vegas?
Do u live in Vegas? I don't plan to return to Vegas anytime soon, I live in LA and play in Vegas prob like 3-4 times a yr.
Tourney just takes so much luck. Remember all those suck outs? The seat #7 lady suck out big time and took down 2 players. Too bad I didn't get any cards against her. Yeah, I thought I would have more play with V tourney. But with rocks sitting around, we could only win small pots early on.
So, what / where do u usually play?
@badbeat
No, I wish I lived in vegas haha. I live in Sacramento, I was just in Vegas for new years as well. I do hope to be able to come back this summer however. Maybe if I make enough money, I can play in a few WSOP events.
In Sacramento I usually just play 1/2 NL or 1/3 NL. I'm actually going to take a shot at 2/5 NL tomorrow so I'll see how that goes.
hey anthony in Sacramento, I am from Lodi just down the road
@watbri2008
How's it going? Where do you usually play at?
right here in Lodi at the card room they opened, action is pretty good most of the time
I like to play our 1-3-5 NL (buyin 200-1000) game that gets going most Fridays & saturdays, the 1-2-3nl game (50-300) is ok too
as well I go to Vegas about 5-7 times per year to play higher NL like 10-20 and 25/50 at Bellagio...I also have played 5\10nl at Venetian which was good & i hear they have some 10/20 going at the V now as well so I may go over & see what thats about, although I hear the crazy 'Iceman' is the one kinda running it, he is a nut
headed to Vegas on SuperBowl weekend, to watch game- send wife shopping - and pay for her shopping with my poker winnings
I actually saw Teddy Monroe playing at the V on New Years Eve. I don't know how big the game was though, but they were in the higher limit poker room. I wish I could play as high as you, maybe one day haha.