INTRO

Working for a school district has the nice perk of summers off and various other odd breaks throughout the year. I live in western Wyoming, where games are few and far between, so I try to capitalize on such breaks by putting in some quality time in vegas. After getting married this summer (wife doesn’t play, but at least doesn’t frown on my playing), I’m well aware that such opportunities will be diminished. With having this upcoming Monday and Tuesday off for ‘fall break’ (also known as hunting season opening to the locals), while my wife still had to work, I decided a quick trip was in order.

I make no pretense of being an expert. I work a regular job and as mentioned, don’t get to play as much these days. But after ample time reading the various forms and books out there, I feel as though I can hold my own at the lower stakes and smaller tournies. This year in particular has been good to me; I went on a stretch last spring in which I won or chopped in 3 consecutive tournies for just north of 10k in total winnings. These were decent sized tournies of 75-100 people apiece, all with relatively solid structures (2 of them took 12+ hours to play out). To be fair, catching cards and run-good played a role as it does in any tourney victory, but I was overall very pleased with the quality of my play and felt that my mistakes were minimal.

As you may have guessed, I consider myself more of a tourney player and tend to build my schedule around them in vegas. At the same time, the cash games in vegas are too juicy to pass up, so I’ll be spending considerable time there as well. My typical plan of attack is to jump in an afternoon tourney (the ones at Aria and Venetian are favorites), take a break/nap in the late afternoon or early evening unless I go deep, then play cash into the night, sometimes with a smaller evening tourney mixed in. I’m an avid runner and also try to get a run in in the morning before playing , which I’ve found helps tremendously with focus and decision making.

DAY 1
I had an 11am flight out of Salt Lake Airport, which went smoothly. I’ve done the drive from Wyoming before and it’s around 7-8 hours, which isn’t bad, however I had enough points for a free ticket on Southwest, making flying much more +EV on this trip. We got into McCarran on time, then for reasons never made clear to us, proceeded to sit on the tarmac for about a half hour. This would had been somewhat more bearable had the fellow behind me not commenced very loudly to rambling about the evils of vegas and diet coke to his neighbor. We finally got out and to my pleasure, the cabbie took me the shortest route without even asking. He was rewarded handsomely. I checked my bags and made my way over to Aria for the 1pm $125 daily.

This may well be my favorite daily tourney in vegas. With 10k stacks and 30 minute blinds, you get a bit more bang for your buck. I also ended up chopping 1st for $1200 the first time I ever played it, so they managed to sucker me in. To my dismay, about half the table knew each other by name, despite the rather large 140+ player turnout. Unfortunately, the two who seemed the best were in the two positions directly on my left. The one next to me seemed particularly douche and intent on making his poker aristocracy known to us peasants with all the big events he had cashed in this year.

I never really found myself in a position to capitalize on the weaker spots. I did get an early double up after getting it all in on the flop with 10-10 against QQ on a 9-8-7 board and spiking the 6 on the turn. That was pretty much the extent of my run-good however. Shortly thereafter in the 100-200 level, I raised to 800 preflop with 10-10 in LP behind a couple of limpers. I got one customer – an older station-y fellow- and we took a J-7-6 rainbow flop. I fired barrels of 1200 on the flop and 3000 on the blank turn and got called down. The river went check-check and he shows J-8 off to knock me down to 16k. Later, I raised from mid-position with Q-10s and got a call from the big blind. I lead out on the Q-high flop was then check-minraised on the flop AND the K turn (how’s that for a bitch-slip?). I folded on the turn and he shows Aces. Down to 12k. My turn bet was definitely debatable, but I read him for weakness after his check. I guess my antennae still needs to warm up. I was relatively card dead after that and got blinded down without finding myself in good position to make a move. With around 12 bbs left, I finally shoved Q4s from the BB after a Button raise. He calls with A-6s and gets both on the flop to end my day. Not totally thrilled with my play, but the trip is young.

After checking into my hotel (NY/NY) and taking a rest, I head across the road to MGM in the evening and play a few hours of 1-2. The table is friendly, especially the Canadian gent next to me, but relatively weak. I open up the aggression a bit and take down some pots. Overall there were not too many hands of note in this session. I drop about 50 bucks when my flopped straight finds itself up against a flopped flush. In retrospect, it could have been a lot worse had the board not paired on the turn. I get it back and then some a little later when I get paid off with KQ against KJ on an AQQJJ board. I bought in for 300 and cashed out for 408 after about 3 hours. Not bad, but not enough to quit my day job ;)

Note: unless there is a 200 cap, I always buy in for 300. I think the edge you get from having more chips to work with is often underrated, especially in Vegas. Also of note, the MGM room seemed to be in good shape and not hurting for action. Granted it was Saturday night, but there were several tables in play while I was there. That was good to see; it probably won’t be my last stop at MGM on the trip, especially with it being just a walkway away.

Overall not a bad end to the day. Still down slightly from the Aria tourney, but plenty of time (to lose even more!).

More to come later...

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