I apologize for it taking so long to get these trip reports out. I've actually had these written for awhile but I needed to edit them so they made a bit more sense.



Day 3 Part 4

Before long we get down to the final table 10 handed. I have ~25k and I’m probably 4/10 at this point. I find some hands and win some pots uncontested.

Hand 6:

Preflop: I hold T9o in the bb. Blinds are 500/1k 100a. We are 7 handed. Villain has my 25k stack covered. The sb limps I think about raising but decide I can check and I do.

Flop: is Jd98d Pot: 2.7k

That’s a pretty good flop if I get check/raised I’ll go ahead and stack off. Villain checks, I bet 1.5k he calls really quick.

Turn: 3 Pot 5.7k

Total brick. Villain checks. I decide I can bet for value vs. draws some worse 9x and maybe 8x. But if villain calls who’s new to me as we busted 3 guys pretty quick he could give me a tough decision on the river if he calls my turn bet he can shove river making my life really difficult.

River. 3d putting the flush out there.

Villain bets 6k really quick. Hmm he could have a draw but bvb my hand is really strong and I’m sure he doesn’t have a J as most live players will bet the flop with that hand. He’s either got a flush or nothing I call and he quickly tables 84o lol. Nice bet sir you could’ve got a free showdown.

Hand 7:

Preflop: I hold TT otb with a 31k stack and I‘m covered by villain. Blinds are 800/1600 200a. 6 handed just one from the money. Laggy asian guy who raised 2.5x with AA and 4x with junk earlier raises to 8k utg. It folds to me and I pretty much auto ship. He tank/calls AsQs.

Flop: Ks9s5

Fml don’t do it to me again

Turn: 6
River: 3

Holy shit that’s the mtt I’m now a pretty decent chip leader now 6 handed.

Hand 8:

Preflop: I hold JT in the bb with a 70k stack. Villain has 40k. Blinds are 1200/2400 300a. We just are in the money 5 handed. Villain limps, I’ve been joking around with this guy and talking to him. He’s a really nice guy from Texas. He’s the one that dbled me up when my AJ>AT. I check my option.

Flop: JT8 Pot: 5k

Booyah nailed the flop. This guy was terrible post flop. He had either called a raise or opened earlier flopped top set with JJ and shipped on the driest possible flop earlier. He’s also done this with fairly strong top pair types of hands. When I say shove I mean shoving for 10-15x the size of the pot. That’s what he does here and I snap call. He tables J9o.

Turn: A
River: 6

Now I’ve got right at 110k 4 handed. This puts me in as cl 4 handed. Immediately the blinds go up. I’m pretty much running the table with no showdowns.

Hand 9:

Preflop: QT otb 3 handed. 3k/6k blinds 500a with a 150k stack villain has me covered because he made a retarded play that would never work and his j2s>kq vs a knowledgeable opponent that was never folding to his retarded resteal (this is also the same guy that won his kj flip vs my 99 to cripple me earlier). I raise to 15k villain 3 bets to 25k. I’m not happy about it but fuck I’m getting better then 4:1 with position. This guys really doesn’t trap post flop and over plays his top pair type hands post flop. In fact he told the table that he overbets his top pair because it gets called by worse or something. So basically if he cbets a decent amount on the flop I'm mostly folding.

Flop: T93 Pot: 54.5k

Villain checks, I check behind. Just in case he’s trapping I don’t want to bet/fold and I’m pretty sure I’m ahead and on most turns I’m willing to stick it in.

Turn: 7

Villain bets 30k. At this point like most live guys his range is polarized to sets and complete air. I'm sure he doesn't have JJ or QQ, I'm also really sure he doesn't reraise that small with 33. Basically he's picked up a draw and is betting because I checked behind and thinks I have nothing or he is slowplaying TT, 99, KK, or AA although I'm pretty sure he'd even cbet with KK+. I announce all in. He tank calls with AQ LOL. I have no idea how he makes this call tbh but for the most part this guy is horrible.

River: K

Now I have almost 300k of the 360k chips in play. The guy bitches about how I could call with QT. A part of me wants to berate him and tell him his raise size was horrible and btw I got most of the money in as a 95% favorite. Instead I tell him I should’ve folded and that he’s unlucky.

After that is was easy sailing. At the end I got HU vs. the KJ guy. I even got him to congratulate me when my 35> his K5. I won $1711 which really hurts now because a few hours later echo was going to cash for $35 more and bragging rights. I tipped the Wynn $125 because: 1. They put on a good mtt with a great structure considering the buy in and 2. The dealers for the most part are awesome. 3. The free drinks were very quick usually it took 10 minutes after you ordered. I'm actually not sure if I should've tipped so much but I was so grateful because the win paid for everything but my plane ticket.

Day 3 Part 2

I have few hands where I get involved with Asian guy but for the most part I’m sure he’s learned he better have it vs. me since I’m a calling station. One hand I called his lp open from the bb with QQ as I made the mistake thinking we were deeper. I thought we were 150bbs deep and I really don’t like 3bet calling vs. this guy that deep. But still I was 120bbs deep so calling is not so bad given that asian guy seems to be super spewy and I’m more then comfortable calling down with 2nd pair vs. this guy. Anyway I c/c a kxx flop, blank turn, then he bombed an A river and I folded. Another hand happened where he opened in lp I called with 56o and we were hu on the a 4s47s flop. He bet flop for close to pot which is fine I got lots of implied odds as I can either hit and win big or I can bet when checked too. He bombed a brick turn and I had to let it go.

Unfortunately the tight passive nit to my right got all his chips when the asian guy went down in spaztastic spewy fashion. This guy was super tight and meant to make a standard pf rr but made a minraise with JJ. The flop was Jxsxs where he check/called asian guy. Led an A turn then 3 bet shoved spewy asian guys turn 2 bet who ended up calling with As9s. Tight guys pf 3 bet, lead turn, 3 bet shove range is never ever behind tpnk w/fd lol.

I get moved a little after the first break to a table that had David Levi and Nick Bartoldi. From what I gather on tv Nick seems really good and he’s 3 to my right and David is a super nit which echo will agree with me. Echo shoved 8bb over Levi’s sb from the bb and Levi showed Ajs before mucking lol. I really don’t get many hands at this table.

Hand 4: JJ button 12.5k effective. Blinds are 100/200 25a

I’m not sure I like how this hand played. I went into online auto mode where JJ is pretty much always a 3 bet get it in in lp. An older gentleman opens on the co to 600, I make it 2.2k. It folds back to the old guy who tank/calls. At this point I put him on AQ+, QQ-77, maybe KQ, KJ but I just moved to the table so who knows.

Flop: 864 Pot: 4950

Old guy checks I bet 3k and I’m stacking off at this point as 99-QQ is hopefully in his calling range. He folds quick and shows AK as he shakes his head and mumbles something about AK. David Levi shouts, “show it. You had it right.” I quietly muck and pray to the Gods it folds to me when it’s his bb. Obviously this never happens unless I get 92o. The one time it did I raised his sb w/87s and had to fold to his big overraise.

Hand 5: 44 sb 15k effective blinds are 150/300 25a

PF: Blinds are 150/300 25a. I have roughly 15k and I’m covered w/44 in the sb

A young guy opens in ep for 1.1k it folds around to my sb and I make a somewhat loose call. I really don’t like my call right after I make it. Oh well maybe I can flop a set.

Flop: A92 Pot: 2750

I check ready to give up. Villain checks behind. Hmmmm.

Turn: T

I check, villain checks.
River: 9

I check villain bets 1.5k. At this point I thnk his range is polarized to junk and monsters. I snap call and he tables AK. Fml. What a weird way to play AK.

After this nothing interesting happened until I blinded down to 15bbs and reshoved on an old guy who had opened a lot of pots when he opened the button into my bb and my A8<KK just after the 2nd break.

After this I’m pretty pissed I never got a good spot to acquire some chips and pretty much went card dead again after the first break. When I say card dead I’m not talking I’m not getting QQ+, AQ+. I’m talking about getting hands in lp that I can’t open like j5o and the such. It was gross that I lost pots with AA, QQ, and when I flopped the 3rd nuts and got 4 outed.

I’m not really hot but tbh at this point I’ve played 4 mtts and nothing has gone right at all. It’s even more brutal since I’ve put in 13 hours of mtt play at this point and nothing to show for it but bubbling one mtt.

Obviously I’m going to play the Wynn 140+20 that starts at 7pm which means I have 2.5 hours to eat go back to the flamingo where Rich is and figure out what we want to do. We meet Echo at the Venetian who busted just in time to grab some food and play the Wynn mtt.

Day 3 Part 3

Most of the mtts the 3 of us had played were smaller fields except the Venetian which had 200-220 runners with a first place prize of around 36k. The Wynn mtts had anywhere from 24-40 runners. After me and Rich meet Echo at the Venetian we head over to the Wynn where Echo offers to buy dinner. Since I had pizza on my way back to the Flamingo I got an awesome peace of 7 layer chocolate cake and a glass of milk.

We sit down and we’re ready to roll. At this point I think I’ve finally made the adjustment to the avg. live player in Vegas. I’m used to the live players in Iowa who play very loose passive pf, and either very loose/tight passive post flop. Which is pretty cool as you can usually steal blinds relentlessly and if someone bets they almost always have some kind of a hand. In Vegas people are a little more willing to bet flops with draws and make some very unsophisticated bluffs. There were also a lot more guys that like to punish limpers and had no problem firing at least 2 barrels on bluffs.

This $140 + $20 managed to have 36 runners. I got the 1 seat to start off with echo at the 7 or 8 seat.

The first few levels nothing really happens as I win lots of small and medium pots hitting flops and taking down pots post flop when I float or cbet after a pfr. Really this is usually how mtts go until you finally get in a big pot where you got a guy drawing thin. Before long I work up my stack from 10k up to 14k with no risk.

Hand 1: JJ BB 14k stack, mp villain has 6.5k. Blinds 150/300

PF: Blinds 150/300 25ante. There are 2 limpers to me and my image is taggish maybe bordering on laggish. I hold JJ in the bb. I raise to 1.5k. An old guy that was horrible ships his 6.5k stack and it folds to me. The dealer says something like he doesn’t have AQ or something quietly to me which I thought was kind’ve fucked up. I don’t know maybe he wanted to keep things moving along for some reason. I’d seen this guy do this 2x. Once with AA and the other time with AK. Basically I’m getting about 1.4:1 on my money. I think his range might be a tad wider then QQ+, AK which is what I initially put him on as I had raised the last few pots and raised some limpers previously when I was in the bb with 99. I put him on 99+, AK. So that’s a slam dunk call really. I decide I’m pretty much going to call but I’m going to try and get a read. He didn’t look too comfortable so I put him on QQ-99, AK and made the call. He tables AK. I’m very happy not to see QQ.

Flop: Q85

Yess finally I can have a really nice stack going into the later levels.

Turn: 5

River: don’t do it….K

Fml I’m down to 7.5k

I chip back up getting some hands.

Hand 2: A9s BTN 9k effective. Blinds are 150/300 25a.

I open to 1k cause I’m tired and think the blinds are 200/400. Mid 20’s asian guy calls in the bb.

Flop: 6s64s Pot: 2350

Villain checks, I check.

Turn: Ac

Villain checks, I bet 1.4k, villain calls.

River: Q Pot: 5150

Villain checks, I bet 2k. Villain tank calls and shows KQ.


Hand 3: AK BTN 13.5k effective. Blinds are 200/400. Against same villain as previous hand.

It folds to me and I open for 1k, villain calls from the bb.

Flop: AJ4 Pot: 2.5k

The first hand villain was new to the table now it’s pretty clear he’s a station so I’m betting for stacks here.

Villain checks, I bet 1.5k villain calls.

Turn: 6 Pot: 5.5k

Villain checks, I bet 3k, villain calls

River: 7 Pot: 11.5k

Villain checks, I shove about 8k and villain tanks then calls and shows A8o.

Hand 4: AdJd CO 22k effective. Blinds 300/600 blinds 50a 7 handed with about 14 people left, 5 get paid.

A guy who loved to limp limped in early position I raised to 2400 and the button who had been a card rack called the blinds folded and the limper called.

Flop: K63 Pot: 8450

Ep limper checks, I check as I’m not really wanting to fire into 2 guys I’m kind of resigned to give this pot up. The button bets 6k, the ep limper tank folds and it comes back to me. Earlier when the button who was a really nice guy and fun to play with was talkative he showed big hands. The one bluff he showed he was very quite and looked straight ahead. He looked like he wasn’t happy with his hand which in my mind meant he was on a stone cold bluff or had something like middle pp or 6x. Ajs if I have any fe put’s me in a great spot to bluff here unless he has A6 I‘m 25% vs. one pair hands TT or less. After looking at him for 10 seconds I announce, “I’ll go all in.” and push my stack in. He tanked for probably 2 minutes folding his 99 face up. The other guy announces he had TT. LOL live players. I grimace and tell him I had it and that it sucks he folded.

About an orbit later I had been pretty laggy and I could tell the guy to my right was getting tired of me isoing his limps and raising his sb limps which lead to this hand.

Hadn 5: 99 in the bb. 500/1000 blinds 50a. I have 38k and cover villain by 7k.

There are roughly 11 people left in the mtt 5 get paid. We are 5 handed at our table. Sb open limps. I raise to 4000. Villain very quickly makes it 10000. I’m for sure I’m crushing his range and he folds lots of hands to a shove and will most likely call with worse hands like 88-55. I shove he tanks for 2 minutes and calls with KJ which seems insane to me but whatever.

Flop: A74

Hold one time and this mother fucker is mine. I’ll have the cl with 10 left. The next blind level jumps to 800/1.6k and if I win this showdown I’ll have over 70k and will have 2 or 3 levels where my mtt life won’t be at risk.

Turn: K

FML

River: 8

At this point I’m resigned to the fact that I run worse then anyone playing live. I shove for a bit with no showdowns. Before long I have 9k and end up doubling up vs. a guy who limp/calls my shove with AT and loses to my AJ. A few hands after the dbl up the blinds shoot up to 500/1k and I’m sitting at 22k.

This was by far the best day of the trip for a few reasons. 1. I think I had some interesting hands. 2. I actually remember some hands. 3. I actually got some sleep the night before. By sleep I mean an entire 5 hours or so which seemed like a lot.

Somehow Echo and Rich are up and ready before me. After shitty luck in our first 3 mtts obviously running good in the $550 Venetian deep stack would be very nice for any of us. We head over to the Venetian to sign up and then eat in it’s food court. Me and Rich settle on a Johnny Rocket burgers while Echo decides on a meatball sub of some kind and a milkshake. I decide against the milkshake since I don’t want to be having the urge to shit 3 hours into the Venetian.

At noon we all get to our seats and we’re ready to own for one fucking time. At the start of the mtt you start with 15k in chips and 25/50 blinds with 45 minute blinds. Fucking Awesome!!!!! Very first hand I get AA wheeeeeeeeeeeeee! But wait I’m really not that excited since I have no idea how everyone plays, most likely I’m going to be oop, and stacks are fucking deep.

Hand 1: AA UTG 15k stacks effective. Blinds 25/50

Prefop: I raise to 200, guy who looks to be late 20s early 30s calls, a guy that looks to be mid 40s calls, another guy in his 50’s calls, and a late 40’s asian guy calls in the bb.

Flop: QhQxJh Pot: 1025

Fuck me that’s a horrible flop getting 4 callers. I do some quick math. If I bet 600 and get one caller the pot will be 2225 and I’ll likely check the turn for pot control or fold the flop if I’m raised since I have no idea how anyone plays and I only have a tad more then 1% of my stack committed. I decided to check and see what happens seems like a pussy way to play but if someone bets, gets a call, then I’m mostly calling and turning my hand into a bluff catcher that deep. Late 20’s guy bets 600, guy to his left calls, and asian bb guy calls in the bb. Fuck my life what do I do now. The pot is now almost 3k and what the fuck do I do on the turn? I decide to just give it up and fold as I’m either barely ahead or way the fuck behind oop with no clue how everyone plays.

Turn: a blank hit’s Pot 2825

The 20’s guy checks, while the 40’s guy bets, bb folds, 20’s guy folds. When 40’s guy mucks I see paint whether it was a KQJ I have no idea. But fuck it I only lost 200. Oh yeah this is the first time I’ve seen AA all weekend.

Hand 2: TT OTB. Blinds 25/50 still really deep. 40’s Asian guy opens to 150 from the hj, I mean to call but throw out 2 100 chips and 1 25 chip instead of the other way around so this is a minreraise. 20’s guy calls in the bb who also seems to be very laggy.

Asian guy is now in the spaz category as he’s playing really agro and is sitting 2 to my right I’m calling his raises pretty wide and pretty much making his life hell because I know I can get tons of value if I could ever hit a flop.

Flop: T7s6s Pot: 800

Boom I flopped top fucking set!!!! Now I’m wishing I had just fucking called pf because at the moment I’m repping QQ+ and asian guy likes to 2 barrel at a minimum with air when he has the lead in the hand. 20’s guy bets 600, asian guy calls. I’m in a difficult spot now. Connectors and hands with a flush draw are for sure in 20’s guys range and honestly I think asian guy is calling his flop bet really wide. If I were hu or the flop was drier I really like just calling to induce some action later in the hand. Now the pot is 2000 after the bet and call. I decided to raise to 3k making the pot 5k while giving a little better then 2:1 for one of the guys to call or maybe I can get repopped by a draw. 20’s guy turbo mucks, asian guy tank folds. FML. I really believe if I just call pf there’s a good chance the flop goes bet, call, I raise and might get some action. Maybe not. I can’t be too mad though I added 30bbs to my stack.

Hand 3: 8d7d CO. Blinds 75/150. 2 limps in front of me I limp for 150, 50s lady who is a good tag or a tight passive player who’s getting hit by the deck calls, young 20s guy calls, bb checks

Flop: JcTc9x Pot: 975

Wow I hit another flop, fucking awesome!!! It checks to me I bet 600, 50s lady raises me to 1500 everyone folds and I’m put in a shitty spot. I think her range here is a set, str8, or 2 pair. I decide to call as I just don’t see her raising with a draw or even a combo draw and I have a pretty tight image. I call trying to see what reaction I get and to see what kind of turn I can get. She doesn’t look happy that I called her raise.

Turn: Kx Pot: 3975

Well fuck me. I think I’m getting zero action now from sets and 2 pps now and I still think I’m ahead of her flop raising range if I was ahead before. Because I don’t see how I can get action from a worse hand and if I bet and get called I’m going to have a shitty decision on the river for most of my chips. I check. She checks.

River: 9c Pot: 3975

Awesome. Now I lose to T9, J9, JJ, TT, 99, any Q, or some combo draws which is a tiny part of 50’s lady’s range. I see no reason to bet as I don’t think she’s capable of bluffing nor is she calling me with anything less then a flush. I check. She bets 1.5k. FML. I go through all the hands and T9, J9 seem like the most likely hands in her range. I sigh and tell her she must have T9 as I think the hand through then tank a bit longer and fold telling her I had a str8. We had been friendly at the table, which is something I’ve picked up on. It seems that when you’re friendly live you get more fe and people will show you their cards which is very helpful.
She says I put you on a straight and shows T9. Feels good to make a correct read, feels like shit to see 1/8 of my stack go.

Day 2 trip report for Friday. Really day 2 pokerwise sucked for all 3 of us so it'll be really short as none of the hands I played were anything more then standard.

I found myself in bed the night before with a crappy chicken sandwich in my stomach and a nasty case of poker blue balls so I pretty much got no sleep Thursday night. I might have drifted off to sleep a couple of times for maybe a total of 2 hrs. We met in the lobby a little after 10am. After visiting 3 or 4 casinos the previous night we decided that we'll play the Wynn’s $140 + $100 add on at 2pm and if things don't go well there we'll play the $160 also at the Wynn at 7pm. As a last resort there's a midnight mtt at Caesars.

There was talk of Denny's Thursday night so we thought we'd head over there for some breakfast. Obviously this is Vegas and there was a line. I'll die before I'll wait in line to eat at fucking Denny's in Vegas and I think we were all in agreement. We proceeded to get some burger's at Planet Hollywood which were really good. After signing up and getting players cards at the Wynn Rich did some shopping in hopes of finding a rungood shirt and hat. Apparently this didn’t work.

The $140 + 100 rebuy was a pretty boring mtt. I really didn't have a lot of hands and had a somewhat crappy spot with rich 2 to my left and a guy that never folded to my exact left. Really everything was super standard when I believe I got short at some point and shipped over some limpers AT with 15-20bbs and ran into AJ. I proceeded to use my $10 credit to play the mega bucks slot machine. I ran it up to $260 and cashed out at $150 SHIP IT.

The $160 mtt was much like the previous mtt. I couldn't get anything going. I was card dead and up to that point I had yet to see a big pp over JJ in 8 hrs of play as I busted AT<AJ yet again when I shipped 15bbs 6 handed when 5 were getting paid fml. I don't remember how echo busted out but he busted 7th. Our deep runs and no cash made us too late to play a midnight mtt iirc. So we played some cash games echo and rich got to play together while I got to sit in the 3rd worst seat in the house at the Flamingo. The other 2 worst seats were the one's that had to move when i wanted to enter or leave my seat because jamming one more table up against a wall is awesome. I only played for 2 hours or so as I wanted to make sure I got some sleep for the deep stack the next day. I again had no cards. I called a couple of raises with small pps and gave up post flop and I limped in a couple of pots and couldn't come close to hitting a flop in anyway. I won one pot where I raised a limper in a 1/2nl game to $12 otb with KJ and the sb, bb called and the limper folded. I flopped a K bet 2/3 pot and both guys folded. I ended my short cash session down $5.

I went to bed a bit dejected but had visions of winning the $550 Venetian deep stack in my head as I went to bed.

Day 1:

I missed out on a Vegas trip last year and decided I couldn't do it again. 2 friends of mine from our website lolnicesqueeze.com, RichC and BlueEcho, were going to drive up from Sand Diego Thursday, April 9 while I flew in from Iowa a few hours before them.

My flight was uneventful and as standard as possible. I left my apartment at 11:50 am and arrived at the Flamingo at 5:50pm. I had to wait 30 minutes to check in and finally arrived in my room at 6:30pm. I pretty much got situated then proceeded to have a $8.99 crappy ceasar salad. After dinner it was close to 7pm and being new to Vegas and by myself I decided I might as well just hang out at my room for a couple of hours until echo and richc showed up.

They arrived at the Flamingo around 9:30pm, after talking for a while we decided to hit some casinos and see what mtts are running during our stay. Both guys are as nice in person as they are online. This being my first trip to Vegas I was in awe of the size and vibrancy of everything. Echo pointed out that even the McDonalds sign is big, even so it took me some time to find it out of all the clutter of all the bright signs. It's nice to go somewhere where everyone wants to have a good time. It's a nice getaway from the talk of layoffs and the bad economy back home. Oh and all the women are freakin hot!!!

On to the poker. We decided to play the midnight $65 mtt at Ceasars. I didn't last very long as I was card dead for the whole 20 hands I played. 45 minutes in my 2.2k stack was only a 22bb stack so when 6 people limped which wasn't uncommon I found 88 in the bb and jammed, obviously I got tarped by the middle aged guy utg who had KK. Even though I flopped a gutshot I couldn't get there and I was the first one on the rail. Echo got knocked out after taking some beats he had built up his stack when this middle aged donkey limped and then snap called QTs when echo shoved 14-15bbs with AK and of course the flop was KJx giving the donkey both a str8 and flush draw, the turn was an A and echo joined me at the rail.

Rich managed to finished 4th out of 26 runners where he got his buy in back. He too took some brutal beats the most devastating were his AQ<KT and AQ<KJ, the latter which knocked him out. I was hungry so I stayed up until 4am which was 6am Iowa time so very late for me waiting for an overpriced dry chicken sandwich. I found some entertainment while waiting for my food watching 3 drunk girls and a couple of drunk guys. One of the drunk girls had a very hard time holding her plastic plate which contained a hamburger and fries. She only dropped it 3x. The other girl in the group was going on and on about how her fries were the best in the world even though she only ate half of them as the other half was on the floor.

After I finish my meal, and yes the girl was right those fries are awesome, I comtemplated how the hell I could get any sleep. Even though I only got 4 hrs of sleep the previous night and I'd been up for around 20 hours how the fuck does a poker player sleep in Vegas when he'd been there for 12 hours and played 20 hands of poker? Well I eventually nodded off for a bit and dreamed of the money I'd win on Friday.