Vegas Trip Report

It's tough to imagine writing a Vegas trip report sooner than a week after. It sorta takes that long to get back into the groove of things.

This particular trip was a mixed bag. The poker didn't go too well. At all. But, the wife came, and we managed to have a really fun time in Vegas anyhow.

We flew out late Thursday night. Stayed at Gold Coast, which is right across the street from the Rio where WSOP is - only cheaper than Rio, and, in my opinion, nicer. Rio is so overwhelming. Not the WSOP part of it, which is great, but the regular hotel with the flippin flying boat shit. Everytime the wife and I went to our room last year we had to walk through this, it was like Mardi Gras Uber Light now with Added Frat Guys. Loud, smokey and generally unpleasant once you are over 22. Also the beds sucked and the rooms weren't really anything special.

Anyway, Gold Coast was cool. I was playing in a $1,500 no limit WSOP event on Friday at noon, so went over to Rio, had a good breakfast and played a bit. Unfortunately, it was just one of those days where I wasn't getting cards and good situations at identical times, if that makes sense. I got whittled down from 5k to about 3500 by the end of the first two hours. Nothing special, won a few small pots, lost a couple of medium ones, but really not finding any spots.

I get back and the very first hand I look down and see pocket 7s. I'm in the cutoff and haven't seen a pair yet so this looks great. We're at 75/150, so I make it 450 to go. It folds around to the small blind who tanks for about a minute then puts me in. Well. I still have 3k and I don't think this is a great spot to get my money in. So I fold after pretending to think about it for about 30 seconds.

Two hands later, I look down and see Queens. A sight for sore eyes, indeed. So the exact same thing happens. I make it 450 and the guy now in the small blind 3bets to 2200 or so. At this point I've got about 2500 left so it's stack decision time. I really don't see how I can fold queens with so much in the middle and my current stack. So I call. I mean to put the rest in but call by mistake. The guy says "that's ok I'll just put the rest in in the dark," which is NOT what you want to hear. The flop came 10 high or something with rags and looked good. Of course he had KK and I didn't improve, tournament over. So that kinda sucked.

I was a bit dejected when I left. It's funny, I walked right by Scotty Nguyen taking a picture with some girls and then not twenty feet later saw Chris Ferguson hurridly go by me to wherever Chris Ferguson goes at a time like this, but I didn't feel excited just annoyed. Seeing world champs after busting so early didn't sit right with me at the time. Of course, this is stupid, but hey, anything worth doing is! (Isn't that the phrase?)

So we went to plan b. The Palms has a movie theater. Perfect. We look to see if anything good is out and realize Get Him to the Greek has just opened, the one movie that's come out in months that we thought looked good. Excellent. Go to a matinee and laugh forever. Terrific movie, especially if you liked Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

We then went to dinner at Gaylord's, this strangely-named but fabulous Indian restaurant at Rio. Food is terrific. We split a really nice bottle of Riseling and the pairing works great. Not surprisingly for us old people, sleep follows soon thereafter.

The next day I had options. The Venetian, Caesar's Palace and the Golden Nugget were all having daily deep stack tournaments during WSOP. I end up going to the Nugget because it's $135 while Caesar's is $225 and Venetian $340. If I'm going to last 2-3 hours, I'd rather spend less I reason. Golden Nugget was nicer than expected. Tournaments are in a big convention center type room. The structure was good, starting 12k deep at 25/50.

This one goes better, but only marginally so. I'm dribbling chips gradually, just slower than the day before. It becomes obvious that the guy on my right is an experienced, tough player. He makes my life difficult because he's raising so much that I can't establish a rhythm of raising myself. I try to sneak in an under the gun steal w/AJs and he comes over the top without any thought. Later he raises right before me in middle position and I flat with AK. An aggressive young guy to my left 3bets and, once again without hesitation, the tough guy shoves over and he has us both covered. Great spot. I fold without much hesitation. The guy behind me is yet to act and I have about 8k at 75/150. This is not the time to take a stand. I think online it might have different, but live is certainly tighter.

A little later, at 100/200 he raises in early position to 600 or so. I see pocket queens and know I am raising. I bump it up to 1800 or so, it folds back to him and he calls. The flop comes jack high rag rainbow. He checks and I put in 3k or so which is half my stack or so after the preflop action. He immediately pushes in. Great, I think, I'm going to lose with QQ again. I'm probably against JJ or a smaller set. At this point though, I'm pot committed and have to go with it. He turns over QQ and I let out a deep sigh of relief. The dealer says "at least you didn't lose anything" and I think he misreads me, I'm glad I wasn't BEHIND.

Once again, I gradually chip down. It's tough to find spots with this guy and a few other aggressive players at the table. Finally, around 200/400, I pick up JJ in early/mid position and pop it up to 1200. After the raise my stack is down to about 8k. The young aggro guy in middle position thinks for a bit and then 3bets to 4000 or so. I've seen this guy fire three bullets on a paired board with an underpair so I know he's capable of making a move. Again, I feel pretty committed and am ready to flip if necessary.

To put this in perspective, I should explain that I was really hungry by this point and probably not thinking as well as I should have been. I hadn't really planned the day well. Tournament started at noon but there's zip for me to eat at a place like Golden Nugget, so I was eating protein bars, by 5pm or so I wasn't in the best shape.

Anyway, I shove, he calls with QQ and day 2 is over.

I'm annoyed about this happening 2 days in a row, plus it just happens to be about 105 in Vegas, so by the time I get back to Gold Coast I'm covered in sweat, starving, and still a bit grumpy. I remember that there's an asian place in our hotel that seemed to understand the gluten-free thing. The day before we had lunch there and talked to the manager who made sure nothing we had contained soy sauce. Great. I know they have a fried tofu appetizer, so I think perfect. I clarify with the guy that I'm allergic to soy sauce, wheat etc, he says it's just tofu fried in oil with garlic. Ok. I get it and eat five or six before I get enough blood back in my head to realize that this shit tastes way too good to not be breaded. Great. Now I'm glutened for three days or more. I don't react well to this information, but eventually I move on.

The good news about busting out early is that we can go see Don Rickles, who's playing at the Orleans. I'd been wanting to see Rickles for a few years, ever since I saw his documentary "Mr. Warmth" and I especially thought it would be cool to see him in Vegas, which seemed most appropriate. I also figured I'd better take whatever chance I could. He has to be 90 - it's amazing he's still performing! Obviously, I hadn't seen him before, but he was SHARP and absolutely hysterical. A performer in his opening act says that her parents are there for their 50th wedding anniversary. The parents had come to Vegas and seen Rickles on their first wedding anniversary in 1961. I shit you not. Crazy.

Anyway, we had a great dinner at Orleans at - a different asian place where our waiter knew all about the gluten thing and treated us great. Then Rickles was terrific. That's the trip report, not stop asking me.

:P