We are Back!
My body is back in Georgia and back to the office grind, but my mind and spirit is still in Vegas!
We had a great time there ringing in the New Year. Although I am a little lighter in the wallet, I would definitely do it all over again. I am going to try to give a brief trip report focusing on poker. Although this is not a bad beat blog and I hate to recount bad beats, you will notice a trend if you continue reading. OK that's the warning...read on at your own peril.
Our flight on Delta was packed like a box of sardines. Other than having to endure a pack of giggling school girls sitting right behind us and a crying baby in front of us, the flight was pretty uneventful. After 4 hours, we got into Vegas at 9:30 local time. I decided to take a cab instead of fighting the lines for the shuttle bus. It cost $25 to get from the airport to the Riviera.
We checked in to the Riviera and were not very impressed with our "deluxe" room. Although it was already 1:00 AM eastern time for us, we couldn't just go to bed. This is Vegas after all so we decided to check out the casino. I passed by the poker room and it was very small. They only had 3 tables going and no tournaments. We proceeded to play some blackjack. We both won about $150 in less than 30 minutes. My wife was smart enough to keep her winning, but I decided to give mine back to the craps table. Now that I got that out of the way, we are finally ready for bed. Not so fast....on our walk back to the room, my wife puts a couple of dollars into the slot machine and hits for another $200. I think I found my lucky charm!
We get up bright and early on New Year's Eve. The plan is to walk to all the casinos up the strip and play a little blackjack at each stop. It was a cool day and perfect weather to do some people watching. The same trend continues for me....I lose while the wife continues to win. When we got to the Mirage, I found that they were running continuous sit and go. This was my first chance to play some live poker this trip so I sat down in a $60+10 table that paid 80% for 1st and 20% for 2nd.
The play was pretty weak and I quickly took control of the table. After about an hour and a half, we were heads-up and I had a 2 to 1 chip lead. My AQ ran into AK and now we were about even in chips. I still felt pretty confident as the other player was not challenging my raises. Everything was going my way until they switched dealers. We see a flop with me holding A4. The flop comes Q42. My opponent checks at the pot and I move all in on her pretty certain that she didn't have the Q and would have to fold. Actually I said "all-in". Without waiting for the player to respond to my all-in bet, the dealer deals a 7 for the turn card. She said that she didn't hear me.....are you kidding me??? Now I am stuck in a hard place, there are 2 overcards to my pair of 4's but I have to continue with my all-in bluff to have any chance at winning the pot. My opponent happily calls with the hammer "7-2". To make it enough worse, she confesses that she would have folded to my all-in bet on the flop. So instead of winning $420 for 1st, I have to settle for $180 for the second place finish. I really like this poker room and there was quite a bit of action. It didn't take very long for the sit and go to fill. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get back to this room prior to leaving.
After ringing in the New Year on the strip, we wake up on New Year Day and pack up to move to the Monte Carlo Hotel and Casino for the remaining two days. The room here was much nicer but that was to be expected. Our next stop after checking in was the Aladdin since I had heard that they run sit and go all day on Sunday. I was not disappointed as the room was very nice and the staff was friendly. I sat down at one table $55 sit and go. Lot of pocket aces were being dealt, but I didn't get any of them. I think I busted out in 6th when I tried to semi-bluff with middle pair and ran into top pair. Although I would have liked to play more than one, we had to leave for dinner reservation at the Monte Carlo. There would be no more poker on this day.
On Monday, my last full day in Vegas, I told my wife that I wanted to enter some of the multi table tourneys. My first one was at the Monte Carlo at 9:00 AM. This was a $40 buy-in and it only drew about 30 people with top 3 making the money. We each started with 1000 chips and the blinds went up pretty quickly. After an hour, we were down to the final 9 players. The blinds drove the action and we were quickly down to 5 players. I was the short stack when I pick up pocket jacks on the big blind. I was more than happy to call when the small blind moved in on me. I wasn't so happy when he turned over KQ because I knew we would be racing. He managed to hit both his K and his Q to send me packing in 5th place. I had a real shot at 1st if my jacks could have held up.
After lunch, we went back to the Aladdin so that I could play the 1:00 PM $60 with one $40 rebuy. We each started with 2000 chips and I immediately took the rebuy for an additional 2000 chips. Some donk promptly gave me all of chips when he tried to move me off my pocket 10's with his A4 offsuit. I won a couple of smaller pots and was quickly chip leader at my table with over 7000. Then this hand happened. I find pocket KK and make it 500 with the blinds at 100-200. I get re-raised to 1000. I got the feeling that the guy was just tired of me picking up pots and wanted to catch me stealing or wanted to slow me down. I decided to push all in. I thought that he may read me for a steal and maybe call. Well I was right, he did call with the only hand that I didn't want him to....pocket aces. Now I am doing to under 2000 and I can't take another rebuy since you are limited to only one.
A few hands later, I am on the button with AQ suited. There are 3 limpers to me and about 900 in the pot. I decided to push all -in. I am called by the same guy who had aces against me earlier. This time, he has my KK and I get no help on the board. Game over. That was all the poker that I played on this trip. I didn't do as well as I would have liked but I had a lot of fun and it was nice to hold some real cards for a change.
Now that I am home, I will soon make some 2006 poker goals and get serious again. I have some big plans this year. Check back soon for that entry.
We had a great time there ringing in the New Year. Although I am a little lighter in the wallet, I would definitely do it all over again. I am going to try to give a brief trip report focusing on poker. Although this is not a bad beat blog and I hate to recount bad beats, you will notice a trend if you continue reading. OK that's the warning...read on at your own peril.
Our flight on Delta was packed like a box of sardines. Other than having to endure a pack of giggling school girls sitting right behind us and a crying baby in front of us, the flight was pretty uneventful. After 4 hours, we got into Vegas at 9:30 local time. I decided to take a cab instead of fighting the lines for the shuttle bus. It cost $25 to get from the airport to the Riviera.
We checked in to the Riviera and were not very impressed with our "deluxe" room. Although it was already 1:00 AM eastern time for us, we couldn't just go to bed. This is Vegas after all so we decided to check out the casino. I passed by the poker room and it was very small. They only had 3 tables going and no tournaments. We proceeded to play some blackjack. We both won about $150 in less than 30 minutes. My wife was smart enough to keep her winning, but I decided to give mine back to the craps table. Now that I got that out of the way, we are finally ready for bed. Not so fast....on our walk back to the room, my wife puts a couple of dollars into the slot machine and hits for another $200. I think I found my lucky charm!
We get up bright and early on New Year's Eve. The plan is to walk to all the casinos up the strip and play a little blackjack at each stop. It was a cool day and perfect weather to do some people watching. The same trend continues for me....I lose while the wife continues to win. When we got to the Mirage, I found that they were running continuous sit and go. This was my first chance to play some live poker this trip so I sat down in a $60+10 table that paid 80% for 1st and 20% for 2nd.
The play was pretty weak and I quickly took control of the table. After about an hour and a half, we were heads-up and I had a 2 to 1 chip lead. My AQ ran into AK and now we were about even in chips. I still felt pretty confident as the other player was not challenging my raises. Everything was going my way until they switched dealers. We see a flop with me holding A4. The flop comes Q42. My opponent checks at the pot and I move all in on her pretty certain that she didn't have the Q and would have to fold. Actually I said "all-in". Without waiting for the player to respond to my all-in bet, the dealer deals a 7 for the turn card. She said that she didn't hear me.....are you kidding me??? Now I am stuck in a hard place, there are 2 overcards to my pair of 4's but I have to continue with my all-in bluff to have any chance at winning the pot. My opponent happily calls with the hammer "7-2". To make it enough worse, she confesses that she would have folded to my all-in bet on the flop. So instead of winning $420 for 1st, I have to settle for $180 for the second place finish. I really like this poker room and there was quite a bit of action. It didn't take very long for the sit and go to fill. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get back to this room prior to leaving.
After ringing in the New Year on the strip, we wake up on New Year Day and pack up to move to the Monte Carlo Hotel and Casino for the remaining two days. The room here was much nicer but that was to be expected. Our next stop after checking in was the Aladdin since I had heard that they run sit and go all day on Sunday. I was not disappointed as the room was very nice and the staff was friendly. I sat down at one table $55 sit and go. Lot of pocket aces were being dealt, but I didn't get any of them. I think I busted out in 6th when I tried to semi-bluff with middle pair and ran into top pair. Although I would have liked to play more than one, we had to leave for dinner reservation at the Monte Carlo. There would be no more poker on this day.
On Monday, my last full day in Vegas, I told my wife that I wanted to enter some of the multi table tourneys. My first one was at the Monte Carlo at 9:00 AM. This was a $40 buy-in and it only drew about 30 people with top 3 making the money. We each started with 1000 chips and the blinds went up pretty quickly. After an hour, we were down to the final 9 players. The blinds drove the action and we were quickly down to 5 players. I was the short stack when I pick up pocket jacks on the big blind. I was more than happy to call when the small blind moved in on me. I wasn't so happy when he turned over KQ because I knew we would be racing. He managed to hit both his K and his Q to send me packing in 5th place. I had a real shot at 1st if my jacks could have held up.
After lunch, we went back to the Aladdin so that I could play the 1:00 PM $60 with one $40 rebuy. We each started with 2000 chips and I immediately took the rebuy for an additional 2000 chips. Some donk promptly gave me all of chips when he tried to move me off my pocket 10's with his A4 offsuit. I won a couple of smaller pots and was quickly chip leader at my table with over 7000. Then this hand happened. I find pocket KK and make it 500 with the blinds at 100-200. I get re-raised to 1000. I got the feeling that the guy was just tired of me picking up pots and wanted to catch me stealing or wanted to slow me down. I decided to push all in. I thought that he may read me for a steal and maybe call. Well I was right, he did call with the only hand that I didn't want him to....pocket aces. Now I am doing to under 2000 and I can't take another rebuy since you are limited to only one.
A few hands later, I am on the button with AQ suited. There are 3 limpers to me and about 900 in the pot. I decided to push all -in. I am called by the same guy who had aces against me earlier. This time, he has my KK and I get no help on the board. Game over. That was all the poker that I played on this trip. I didn't do as well as I would have liked but I had a lot of fun and it was nice to hold some real cards for a change.
Now that I am home, I will soon make some 2006 poker goals and get serious again. I have some big plans this year. Check back soon for that entry.
posted by Beatbookie | 9:16 PM
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