AVP tournament trip report
I came into Vegas on the 10th. I had a 8pm flight out of San Diego. I had 2 beers and dinner while waiting for the plane, which was a little late. Got into Vegas about 20-30 minutes late. Airport was quick for a change and no line for cabs. I was at the Wynn much earlier than I thought. I had three free nights at the Wynn, and decided to make that my home over the next 5 nights. After checking in, I walked over to the Venetian to sign up for the DSE on the 11th. After signing up it was only about 10:30-11, so I went over to TI to play a little NL. Uneventful session. It was actually fairly short and I lost about $80. I went back over to the Wynn, and actually went over to Encore to check things out. I played a little BJ, and actually made a quick $500. I cashed out and went to bed after my heater at BJ.
Thursday-
After eating at the Wynn buffet, and a quick stop at TI, I went over to the Venetian. I arrived prior to 11am, so I sat in a 2-5NL while I waited for the tournament to start. I ended up making $170, again it was a fairly uneventful session, although it had a whole lot more action than you would normally expected in a 2-5NL mid-week. I took my seat in the tournament. My track record at the Venetian tournaments is on par with Yappy's at the Venetian. I pretty much make money at everywhere else in tournaments and then find ways to lose at the Venetian. This tournament in the end would not be any different. I drew a pretty good table, and I slowly built my chip stack. As the dinner break approached I had about $66K and was one of the largest stacks at my table, but the table I was on did not have a lot of large stacks (2 Dealers made a comment about where the chips were). The tournament had 660 runners. I got involved in a pot with a kid from Germany where I put him on AQ, and I had JJ and I thought I could push him out. He eneded up having KK, and the money went in pre-flop. He consdiered a fold pre-flop as I had pushed all-in and he thought I had AA. I was down to under $20K after failing to improve the pocket jakcs. I was out in about 140th place just before the dinner break.
I went back to the Wynn after the tournament and I decided to go check out the action at the Rio. I had dinner at McFaddens. I was not impressed to be honest. I checked out each room as I walked back to the Amazon Room. The first room had a nightly tournament with Jose Canseco playing. Boy I wish I could have found Jose in a game. He doesn't play good and has a lot of cash. The next room I walked into had a HORSE event with a lot of name pros. I watch Daniel, Jennifer Harmen, Gavion Smith, Matusow, Todd Brunson, and a few others for about 20-30 minutes. I then went on my way to the Amazon room. A final table was going on, and they were down to the final 3 tables of 2-7 (Juanda and Binger were two of the players I saw playing). I sat down in a 2-5 NL game. The max buy-in was $500 and I bought in for the max and I was the short stack. First hand I pick up JJ. $40 pre-flop raise and three of us took the flop. Flop was A-J-X. I lead out for $75. I got one caller. Turn brought a Q. I bet $125, and he folded. I ended up losing a big pot with pocket ACES, when after making a large re-raise preflop, I got called. Flop was K-6-5 rainbow and we got the money in and he hit a set of 6's. I fall below the $500 minimum and bought back up to the full $500. I ended up losing about $300 in that sessions. I found the game to be good but I went card dead for the final 2-3 hours I played, but I had to get some sleep for the tournament on Friday.
Friday 6-12
The next morning I woke up and caught a ride with the famous Yappy Dave to the Golden Nugget for the NL series tournament they offered. The Clemson/UNLV talk was in full force almost the entire ride. Since we signed up right at NOON, which was the same time the tournament started, Yappy and I ended up at the same table. He was in seat 8, and I was in 9. Meanwhile I kept texting Alaska Gal to give her updates if I was going to make the 7pm dinner on Friday night. Early on, Yappy was playing well and I thought he was going to make this one kid cry with about 2-3 check raises. The kid couldn't catch a break. I didn't get much going on that table. I think I actually lost a little over $1K, but they moved Yappy and broke the table shortly after that. The move was great for me. I chipped out quickly on my new table and built my stack to over $15K, when I picked up pocket J's and won a big pot. I was pushing $24K, which at the time was a good stack. While on this table Yappy ended up coming over and letting me know he got knocked out. I ended up on that table after another move or two. They broke that table shortly after that pot (Table 20-18- and now I get- 16). I ended up losing a big pot with AK against AA and some other hand, and that knocked me down to $10K. It didn't look good for me at that point, but on the last hand before the table broke I picked up pocket 3's and I pushed all-in pre-flop and won a race against AK. That got me to $26K. I got to my next table, and on the first hand I pick-up JJ and get it in against a smaller stack who has AK, and I win that race. Now I have $46K+. Game was on. At this point I started to push the action at the table. IT was basically myself and one kid from Germany (Not the same one from the Ventian) who were pushing the action. The only pots I seem to lose was against him. He had a monster stack. It was well over $100K. I went between $30-60K, and I had closer to $60K when that table broke. As we approached the dinner break I was pushing $70K and I texted Alaska Gal that I would not be making the dinner. They moved my friend from Germany to our table I we kept playing pots. It was 800-1600 with a 100 ante, and in my big blind he raised in the cut-off to $4,100. I looked down to 8d6d, and I made the call. He wasn't surprised with my call. Flop came Ad2d3d. I check, and he leads out $10K. I check raise to $30K, and he goes into the tank. He ends up folding the Kd face up. After the dinner break they broke that table and I was approaching $100K. I was playing a lot of pots making small raises and winning a lot of them without seeing flops, so my chip stack would grow slowly. On one hand at 1,500-3,000 I raised to $9K on the button and the dealer announced $7K. He made the call putting in another $4K. I quickly pointed out that he needed another $2K. He wasn't happy about that, and I knew his hand wasn't that strong. Flop came A,3,5. Good nut low, I lead out for $11K, and he quickly folded. In another hand I raised on the button with 10-9, and was called from the small blind. I made my 10 high straight on the turn and I check raised his $12K turn bet to $36K, and got called. I ended up winning a huge pot which put me well over $170K. He had pocket Kings. I went a little card dead at one point and I took about 5 hands off and one player at the table commented if I was feeling all right since I didn't raise. My raises were about 2.5x or so the big blind and since I was winning much more than I was losing I could build my stack. I got my stack up over $225K and we got down to the final 2 tables. I lost a pot worth almost $50K when my KJ lost to AQ. I now had about $175K. On this next hand I will discuss I look down at AQ on the button, and the blinds were 4K-8K, and two limpers call the $8K, and I raise on the button to $39K. This has been my other popular move after a couple of limpers to maker he raise in position and get the small stacks to fold their limping hands. The guy in the small blind commented that I had been doing this and knew I was doing it with nothing at some points and big hands at others, he pushes for $113K, everyone else folds, and I call. He flips over AQ. All right we can chop the $32K in blinds and antes. Flop coms two spades, he has the ace of spades, turn is another spade. Wait a minute, no, not like this, yep a SPADE ON THE RIVER. I got knocked out about 12 hands later when my A9 lost to a 34 when a 3 came on the river. I played a perfect tournament less the AK-AA hand early, and missing one value bet later.One of the other players commented on how well I played, and as I collected my winnings for finishing 14th, the tournament director was shocked I got knocked out as he said I was his horse for the tournament. I have since found out they chopped at the top 8. UGH.
Anyway I took a cab back to the strip, and walked from the Wynn to Bellagio. I couldn't sleep, and it was 2am. I played some 2-5NL at Bellagio for 2.5 hrs. I made over $300 at Bellagio. Friday was a good day. I went to bed about 5:30am.
The rest of the report will be posted later. Included a Mix Game table including Yappy Dave and Tony
Saturday (AVP Tournament Day)
Considering I didn't go to sleep until 5:30am, I slept in. I think I left the room about 2pm. I made the slow trip down the strip. I played a little Blackjack at Caesars and broke even. I got over to Ballys about 5:30pm. I went over to the tournament room to find about 6 AVPers locked out. We finally got in after 6pm. The pre-meet discussion really circled around the $200/$8,000 bet with Yappy and Joey. Not sure how you can risk $8,000 to win $200. I have seen stranger things happen than one of 2 guys win a 70 person field. I guess it was about the right price. I got my table draw (Mrs L, Mirage poker, and few others). I seized up the table and decided to take the very aggressive approach with the tournament. The tone of my tournament was set earlier when I flopped TPTK on a KQJ board and had Mirage poker push all-in. Of course I folded as he had a straight. My chip stack was below average the entire time. In another hand I made two pair and lost to a straight. I had raised pre-flop with 96o and was called by Q8. The board was 9,7,6,5,x It was ugly. I finall pushed all-in with Kd4d on a flop that was queen high with two diamonds. Of course I was up against a pair of queens and I didn't improve, so I was out before the rebuy ended. REBUY. I went to another table and I decided to wait and play better hands. I think I played one hand at that table in about 15 before the table broke. I got moved to a table which included Yappy, ilikecheese, boofer. Again I waited and I think cheese made a comment like if I was going to play a hand. By this point in the tournament the blinds were like 400-800, and I had like 11K. I woke up with QQ. A pre-flop raiser made it like 3k to 3.5k range. I pushed all-in over the top. cheese who had limped ended folding his pocket 4's. I was called by pocket 10's and he had me covered. WEll of course you know what happen, he hit a set of 10's. I would like to chalk it up that I was sitting next to Yappy and I had some of his summer karma. Anyway I would have lost to cheese as well as a 4 dropped on the river. Not sure if he could have stock around to the end of that end, but I was out and the tournament still had 50 runners.
Shortly after that pokermuffin and myself went up to the poker room and got everything set up for the mix game. We decided to make the blinds 4-8 rather than the typical 3-6 which is played at IP. We also decided not to play 321 Omaha (What a horrible game). Anyway we played the other 9 games. I made sure we got Yappy in the game after he busted out of the tournament and after he made sure that he won his bet (Yes his first cash of the summer- the fact he won that $200 bet). But Yappy actually keeping that $200 lasted about 2 hrs or so as he rebought in the mix game. The game was a lot of fun. We had almost a $500 pot in A-5. pokermuffin had the nut low, and an A high flush took the high. We started about 10pm and we ended up playing til about 7:20am. About 4-5am we started to lose a few players and we noticed that Tony (sevencard) was on the list so he came over and gave the game a shot. I think at this point Mrs. L dropped out of the game, and it was myself pokermuffin, motocycle john, and yappy. Tony played pretty tight and seemed more interested in knowing who everyone was and what comments they were making on AVP. Strange dude. We had at least one dealer who got rather upset with Tony as I guess they had history from the stardust days. We ended up felting Tony, and he rebought and I think he made a little comeback, but I am sure that Yappy, who was making a comeback with Tony in the game, and the rest of us would have enjoyed to keeping playing. WE all seem to be rather comfortable with the 9 games, but Yappy and John had tournaments to play in a couple of hours so we decided to wrap up the game. Plus we had been drinking a little and I think everyone was getting pretty tired.
I went to bed about 8am, and awoke at NOON to my cell phone going off from a text message. IT was a good thing. I went downstairs and grabbed lunch at Stratta. Great place at the Wynn. I highly recommend it. I had a pasta and meatball dish and those meatballs were awesome. I ate at the bar as they had the NASCAR race on. I had 3 drivers (Edwards, Biffle, and Kahne). Biffle was in the top 3 and ended up with the lead after the last pit stop. Jimmie Johnson who had been leading the race and had the best car was chasing him down in the final laps, finally took the lead with a couple to go. IT made me sick as Biffle could have won me $600, but with just over 1 lap to go, Johnson runs out of gas, and Biffle takes the lead. Wait with a little less than a 1/2 lap left Biffle runs out of gas and Mark Martin wins the race. UGH. Biffle and Johnson were racing each other so hard they used up their gas. I thought I had been given a gift and then to have it snatched away.
I will write-up the last part of the report tomorrow.
Great TR, Clem. Sorry I didn't get to meet you while we were down there. Next time.
Good read Alan, makes me miss the scene even more!
Great report but I hope you are kidding about Canseco having lot's of money. I believe the bad at poker part, but he's as broke as they come.
Final Chapter- the rest of the story
OK, so after the NASCAR race I went over to the Venetian to play a little 2-5 NL. I would suggest not playing while sweating a horse in a tournament. Very destracting dealing with the updates. I had a horrible session and dropped roughly $500. Everytime I made a move I ran into a bigger hand. It was horrible. I decided to move on rather quickly and make my way down to Harrahs. I saw LV Michael and a few other AVPers playing NL, so I sat in the game. My horrible luck came with me from the Venetian, as I picked up pocket QQ on back to back hands and lost both. I really lost the minimum (within $20) for the most the part. I limped the first time, and the flop came J,10,10. As the hand played out, three of us were in the pot. Bet was $10 on the flop, $20 on the turn, and 2 callers both time. The river was a K. The first guy acted with another bet- like $30, and then was re-raised all-in. Pretty easy fold for me. He called and the lady showed him J-10. The next hand I pick up QQ again, and the same lady raised to $12. I re-raise to $32, and she re-raises all-in. I have almost $200 in front of me. Pretty easy fold considering but I milked it a little, flipped up the queens faced up and folded. She showed aces. So sick I lose to straight hands with QQ.
Anyway LVMichael and myself head over to IP to play the mix game. I was so tired, as I only played until Midnight. I dropped about $100. LVMichael actually cut out before 10pm. I heard the game went all night. As I walked back to the Wynn, I stopped at Harrahs and make a quick $200 in BJ. I decided that I want to play another tournament so I played the Harrahs 12:30 am tournament (I caught a little of a second wind I guess). I ended up collecting two bounties and I finished 4th, which is actually the bubble, so it was almost a free roll for me. I played pretty well. On the last hand, I had AJ, and the pre flop raiser made it $10K. Blinds were $2K-$4K. I re-raised all-in- about $30K. Actually the small blind who was the short stacked called, and then the pre-flop raiser went in the tank. This was the second or third time I re-raised him all-in and he folded the other two. He finally made a stand and actually had AQ. UGH. Flop came A,Q,x. He barely had me out chipped and I was out in 4th.
Monday:
I had to check out of the Wynn and I was pretty tired from the trip, so I wanted to play a tournament and I only had about 4 hours till I had to go to the airport, so I decided the 11am TI $65 tournament would work. 3 tables. I got on the first table and had some great reads on the other players. I quickly established the targets. One guy was a calling station and would basically call you down with anything. Another would fold to a c-bet. I quickly built my stack. I then hit a little run of cards about the time we went from 3 to 2 tables and I was the chip leader, something I would never give up.I picked up AA in the big blind on hand where the button pushes all-in and then the small blinds pushes all-in. I win. About the only hand which caused me damaged beofre the final table was one where I raised pre flop with AQ, and was re-raised as a player pushed all-in. I was getting 3-1 on the call so I called and he had pocket AA. I had him well covered. When we got to the final table I had over $35K in chips (Roughly 40%). I knocked out a fair amount of the final table. The one bad beat I gave was when I had pocket 10's and beat a guys pocket Jacks after the money went in pre-flop. A 10 was the door card as I had flopped a set. When we got down to 5 handed I pretty much had well over half the chips and at 1K-2K, the small stack pushed all-in for 4.5K. Everyone folds as I am in the big blind. I call with 46o. He had 107o. Flop was 2,5,x. Turn was a blank. Of course the river was a 3. When I got to heads up, on three of the first 4 hands I was dealt pocket pairs (8's,9's, and kings)- no action of course. I had roughly 85% of the chips, and the money got in on the turn with this board K,J,8,7. I had J9. The other guy had K,x. The jack falls on the river and I won. It was a nice win. $576 is the first place price I believe.
I was very happy with my tournament play other than the AV tournament for the trip. Anyway I look forward to the next trip. Not sure when it will be. It could be a quick turn around depending how I do in a tournament at the Bike in LA this weekend. Anyway it is always good to come into town for the AVP tournaments.