TR Topic:

Did the King(s) Save the Day!

About me:

I am GolfPro, I am a long time lurker and poster on 2+2 forums. I played poker for 15 years and have some success in Live Cash and Poker Tournaments. This is a post trip report and I will try to maintain the excitement and recreate the timeline where I was as excited to recollect as you would be to follow and be a part of the excitement.

I very rarely go to vegas. This will be my first solo trip after a long gap.

What I will play:

Poker/BJ/Craps/Keno/Video Poker.

Tournaments both at WSOP and other locations.

Cash Games, A session of BlackJack, Bubble Craps Degen and a Keno Crossover.

There will be a session or two of video poker, but, nothing at the level of Leon in both playing and cashing.

Dining:

A trip to the Famous Foods Street Eats at Resorts World.

A visit to Deep Dish Pizza/Falafel Shops near Bally's.

Sorry as the trip was more focused on Tournaments I didn’t get much time to venture outside for food. Wanted to try Weera Thai on Sahara Ave, but, due to time constraints couldn’t do it this time.

Administrative Tasks:

As we all know to be qualified as a Trip Report it should include the following:
1. A pic of shoes

2. Bankroll

In

I'm looking forward to it, thanks GolfPro!

In!

$3.50 haha nice touch with the turtle too

As you will see he is my partner in crime.

I did my master’s in a school where our tag line is “Fear the Turtle!”

Getting my troops ready!!!

[Uploading Image...]

Getting my troops ready!



Due to some reason the image didn’t get posted before.

Day 1

What a Crazy Ride!

Woke up at 5:30 AM to get ready and beat the work traffic to the airport. My flight is at 10 AM and I am hopping over Phoenix, AZ before reaching the desert.

A little digression before continuing our main story.

Digression Begins
—————————-

Run Good Vibes!

I used my AA miles to make a reservation on a nonstop flight to Vegas for 32K miles.

A week before the trip, just did a general search for the same date. Found out that AA were offering a First Class trip for 22K if I opt the morning flight instead of the evening nonstop. As in poker terms, if you flop the nuts and the opponent shoves into you, you do the only sane thing possible, you “Snap Call!”.

I snap called the offer, this was not only helping me to reach Vegas early, it was also allowing me to play one of the Day 1’s for the Golden Nugget Mystery Bounty tournament.

Digression Ends
————————-

Check in/Security was smooth, since it was First Class I didn’t have to worry about the luggage either.

We were welcome to this!



The flight journey was great. Big and comfortable seat, hot snack with a drink, gourmet lunch and a nice ice cream to finish.



Do a short hop at Phoenix, Arizona and landed in the desert at 2:50 PM local time.



Once I got my luggage and was out of the airport, we were welcomed into Paradise with this crisp temperature!



Paradise is hot boy!

Picked up my rental car (as I am staying at an AirBNB) for the weekend. I was planning to check into my hotel on the strip on Sunday.

AirBNB was sufficient with the basic amenities.



(will continue part 2 of what a crazy ride in the next post).

I will leave you all with a few pictures on the way to Vegas and also a pro-tip for upgrades.

Before you begin the trip, just do a general search for the same date. If there are upper class seats available you can snag them for lower miles or a cheaper upgrade. Essentially you can “Snap Call” an offer if there is one available.

If your camera had a little better resolution, you'd be able to see all the bodies that are now just beneath the surface of Lake Mead.

Isn’t this true for any great construction or empire or civilization?

If you see very closely there were/are always dead bodies beneath!

We all just need better resolution to see through it.

Day 1

What a Crazy Ride - Part 2

My initial plan was to play the 3PM flight of the Golden Nugget Mystery Bounty. There is a 250K guarantee on it and they were running a lot of Day 1 flights to make up for it.

I landed at 2:50 PM in Vegas and by the time I picked up my Rental Car and reached the AirBNB location it was 4:30 PM. By the time I finished shopping for essentials it was 6:30 PM. So, there was no way I could enter the 3PM flight and play with a comfortable stack. So, instead of 3 PM I planned to enter the 7PM flight. As I had a little time I figured let me go to the strip and complete the WSOP registration formalities (bravo online poker account).

The parking situation on the strip was bad. If you don‘t have a higher tier card or a credit card it is a minimum of $20 to park. I did read somewhere that Planet Hollywood is free to park, figured let me park there and do a little walking to Paris/Bally’s. It is true that PH is free parking, but, the fine print is it is free for only an hour. After that is it $20 for the first three and increases exponentially thereafter. I didn't think I can make this trek and complete the formalities in an hour. So, I ditched the idea and drove to Fremont street to play my first event of the trip. The time now is 7:30 PM.

If the parking situation is bad on the strip it is worse in downtown on a Friday evening. I think it attracts a lot of people to enjoy the Fremont street experience. After making two rounds up and down the garage in vain, I exited out and found a spot in a mahal (Garage Mahal) in Circa. It said it would cost $5 per hour. In the end I felt I just wasted time and I couldn’t even finish the registration formalities on the strip.

We entered Nugget 7PM event in L3 at 8:25 PM. The very first hand on the BB we see pocket 2’s facing a 3 Bet from the button.

Did we travel all this way to fold our first pocket pair on our very first hand? No sir.

We see the flop which didn’t have a deuce. As we believe in no set no bet and as we know that we cannot win the tournament in level 3 we let it go with a heavy heart. V was kind enough to show us his A’s. It would have been a good hand to flop a set.

We started this event with 20K and after a series of missed flops and blinds our stock hit the rock bottom of 2700. We are at a stage where we needed to pick a hand and go with it, and go with it we did with this:



We get a call from KJh. He flopped and turned a lot of outs would be an understatement.



We still survived!

After getting a double, we were still very short and needed another double and went with this and get called by Pocket 5’s:




Our stock slowly started trending upwards till we reached down to three tables. Then came a hand where we got it in behind for the first time in the tournament with this:





In a three way pot, we get it in with A8s on a 8 high flop with two clubs. We get called by Q’s and J7c. We catch the awesome A on the turn and fade a Q or a Club on the river to triple up.

This particular flight got 80+ entries 9 were making it to Day 2. We were down to three tables and one table will make the cut.

Even though we were feeling pretty good with the triple up, things looked dreadful on the flop with the next hand when we are down to 12 people. The V on this hand got us covered by 1500 chips.

He opens the pot with a three bet, we see our hand and ship it AI. He tanks for a few minutes and makes the call with this:



A‘s vs 10‘s AIPF and we see a dreaded 10 in the window!

To be continued...

Replying to sub for a fellow Marylander! Good luck on the trip.

After reading part 2 of your Day 1, it seems like you are the east coast version of The Trooper.

What is making you lean that way (Trooper Reference) the discussion about parking?

We do have a pearl card from MGM and it won’t matter going forward. Also, I was renting the car for the first two days only.

Day 1

What a Crazy Ride - Part 3

In the last part we paused the story when we were AI in the Golden Nugget Mystery Bounty tournament with A’s vs 10’s and V flopping a set.

The turn Kc didn’t quite help our cause and with it brought the tiredness/exhaustion from the trip which started at 5:30 AM Eastern Time. The thoughts that we played for 5/6 hours and our tournament life is ending with just another three players to go was slowly sinking in.

However, the poker gods did smile on me with this river:



With that hand we were no longer the shortest or average stack anymore. In a matter of a few hands we were down to 10 and were looking at one more elimination. We contributed to the final elimination on our table with the following hand:




I guess the other table had a similar idea as well and they lost one player too. So, in the end 8 of us found a bag for Day 2. Did I forget to mention that everyone who reaches Day 2 are in the money. Not a bad start to the trip, found a bag with 141.5K on our first day and in our first attempt.




Now the time is 2.30 AM. Tomorrow (Technically Today) is Millionaire Maker Tournament and I didn’t want to stand in a long line in the morning, so, went back to the strip and finished the validation and registration formalities. It was more like a walk in and walk out at that time. There was a brother with a lot of bling right behind me in the registration line. He will feature in our update.

By the time I reached the AirBNB it was 5:30 AM. What an eventful day and what a crazy ride from 5:30 AM Eastern Time to 5:30 AM Pacific Time.

We will cover the escapades of Day 2 which will include the updates from Millionaire Maker in the next part.

One for the good guys!

Congrats on the bag! Good luck on Day 2!

As a friend of mine put it correctly, in addition to playing well, when you are running good, cards seem to fall in your favor.

Like the hand with A’s vs 10’s where the V flopped a 10 and we rivered an A or the A8 hand vs Q’s and J7c. There is nothing wrong with the effort, still things have to fall in your favor to win.

That’s why they say, in addition to playing well, you need to run well to win the tournaments. Everyone needs that little pixie dust on their side to make it all the way.

This point will be proven to us time and time again in the next few days!!!

I'm going to assume that "pixie dust" is code.

Nice TR! Good writing, enjoying it.

My first recorded live cash was at the Nugget. Like you, I found an unbelievable run of cards. Triple up with QQ aipf. Win aipf with AK > AA + QQ. Win with KK, TT, and A9 > AK at the final table. I think I must've busted half the final 12 players (ended up chopping 3-ways). I didn't realize at the time how lucky I was running. In these faster structures, you really need to make some hands. Nugget events tend to run pretty fast. Extremely high variance. Fun if you can catch the wave though.

Congrats on the bag. Tournaments are so brutal and unforgiving most of the time, but that's what it's all about. The feeling of bagging up chips and watching players fall off the board when you're ITM is just pure dope. Every tournament player is chasing that dragon.

Good start, can't wait to hear the rest.

Day 2

A million reasons to play poker!

I can give you a thousand reasons why … Alessia Cara
(How about a Million reasons, just saying!)

Today is the day we play the Millionaire Maker event with a hope of two milestones:
1. Make a dinner break in a 1500 event
2. Bag a respectable stack for Day 2

Can we bag a quarter million chips today or will we bag a starting stack? I guess we will wait and see!

Had a good sleep (I was out even before my head hit the pillow) and planned to enter the MM Event in Level 3. This event starts at 10AM, 25K Starting Stack, one hour levels and breaks after every two levels. I am pretty aware that the playing field will not be the same as the night before at the Nugget. I always like entering the events in Level 3, it keeps me away from the craziness of the earlier levels and it reinforces the idea that you cannot win a tournament in L1 or L2, but, you can definitely lose one indeed.

Took my time getting ready and reaching the Bellagio, with the Pearl Card and the free parking, it was just a short walk away from Bally’s (you don’t even have to walk outside except for the bridge crossing at the north entrance to Bally’s). Enjoyed the Fountain Show at Bellagio at Noon. This always clams me down before/after a hectic day at the office. Was able to share the time with my daughter as we both watched the fountain show on FaceTime. Now we are ready to take on the field, and take on the field we did!

Starting Stack:


Our table:


The guy in the green jersey was behind me in the registration last night. He is the one that I was referring to as “Brother with a lot of Bling (BLB)!”, the picture doesn’t actually do a justice to the bling.

We will call Bally’s Blue #422 as our home for this event. At the EOL3, we were at 23K from the starting 25K with 3037 entries.

Our friend BLB has a very wide range. We got involved with him early on and won a sizable pot. He opens the hand for 1100 pre flop. We are three to the flop which was 9 high. He fires 3K when checked, we call and are heads up. Turn is a low card and we both check. River is a 10, there is a straight possibility, but, I felt my pair of 9’s with a Q was decent against his range. So, instead of checking to him and facing a bigger bet, I thought let me lead and see what he does, I fire 3500, he soul reads for a few minutes and folds saying “Did you catch your straight!”.

We then send an old man home, when we flopped two pair with our AK vs his Pair of A’s with a Nut Flush Draw. Fortunately he didn’t get there by river and our stock started looking healthy. We end Level 4 (second break) with 59.8K.



I feel there are some specific hands that come repeatedly on certain days and bring us good luck. Today that hand was AQs or AQos.

Took out an old guy, AQ>A10. He opens to 1500, 3 callers.

F:AQ6 rainbow.
Bets 3500, we put him in and he calls.

Board runs clean and we accumulate 68.7K.

At the third break we lose a little and end with 62.1K. During this time, BLB who played very aggressive and lost a bunch shipped his last few chips with 9Jos and ran into AK.



May be he should change his favorite hand to 27 suited or unsuited. He would have flopped a FH and doubled up. I didn’t have the opportunity of busting him, that honor went to the gentleman in red shirt and no cap (RSNC).

We did get involved with RSNC in the following BB special hand:

Got a BB special 23os for a min raise, 3 callers. A Raiser, RSNC and Me.

F:A94, Raiser bets 2K, we both call.
T:10, checks.
R:5 cha ching!

Fire 5K, raiser folds, we get a tank call from RSNC. He wasn’t impressed with our holdings, shows AJos.

Played a few more hands and reached our first Milestone, a Dinner Break (EOL 8) in a WSOP 1500 event with 66.1K.

Did we bag 250K by end of the Day? We will report on that in the next part!

Day 2 - Part 2

A million reasons to play poker!

To refresh Part 1 we made it to Dinner Break with a healthy 66.1K from our Starting Stack 25K.

I went out to join a long line at Starbucks for a Cafe Latte Extra Hot (the one near North Entrance of Bellagio), with a constant thought in mind which Starbucks on the strip has the shortest line? I guess the answer might be none. Most of the store front Starbucks facing the strip will have long lines.

I then enjoyed, another of my stress relaxers, the fountains show at Bellagio. They played the song “My Heart Will Go On!”. As always this took most of the stress out of me. Whatever stress that was left was taken care by the phone call home.



We then head back to Bally’s to take care of the business and to answer the question “Did we or did we not bag 250K?”.

New Table Mates:


Small world: I am in Second Seat, Seat 3 and 4 are buddies from the same country( in a field of multi day 3000+ what is the probability of sitting next to your buddy), Seat 5 is an Annoying French/Mexican Guy (AFG), Seat 6 is a Regular from my home casino(s) (MGM NH and MD Live, really I traveled 2000 miles to play with the guy I play at local), Seat 7 lets call him Last Level Torcherer (LLT), Seat 8 we know RSNC, Seat 9 is our double-up guy (DUG), Seat 10 Amazing Euro Caller (AEC).

We get involved in a limped pot with Q9h with DUG. We were in EP and he was in BB.

F: 10hQd4s, he checks, I bet, he min raises I call.
T: 9c, he ships, I call! and we see this:



Time to reveal our hands, the dealers hand is blocking DUG’s cards, he had 104os, so, what should have been a Big Blind Special for DUG turned into an EP Donk’s Lucky Turn!

Dealer reveals the River a 6h to knock out DUG and give us a full double. We were able to reach a half way point and more for our 250K target.

Mid way thru Level 9 we run into a few monster hands, lets check them out. AFG and I get involved in a hand when I open A’s to 4K.

F:449 2d, check, bets 1200, I raise 7K, he re-raised to 13K, we call
T: 3 check, bets 16K, we call
R:6 no flush, we check, goes AI and got us covered. We Tank fold!

I was asking my virtual WhatsApp rail “Good? Bad?”

A little history, AFG and AEC, were involved in a similar bet raising hand when AFG missed his FD and AEC called him down with Q9s (Q High!) and AEC was good (hence the nick name). AFG didn’t show his hand, but, later told me he was almost planning to fold his A4s for a 3 Bet.

The min bet re-raise on the flop, bet on turn and AI on river is at least convincing me he might have had a 4. In Level 9, with 33 minutes left, we still have 102K and they showed a total of 4429 entries after registration closed.

Seat 1 got involved with AFG who was running hotter than the sun and got busted. He was replaced with a new player who bought into the event just before the break (I believe he might have said it was his third).

We get involved with him after he built his stack to 33.5K. Open to a 3B with K’s. He is the only caller.

F:539 2h. Put him AI, he snaps with A8h, blank turn and snags a heart on the river. I guess it was a good decision to make a 3rd rebuy before the registration closed. Puts us down to 51K, 21 mins left in a disappointing level.

After folding a few blinds reach 40K with 25 mins left and 1528 players remaining.

In level 10, with 10 mins left, lost another 12K in a blind vs blind with A4os vs AQ to reach our lowest point 22.5K.

Found a nice double on the last hand before the break with K’s vs KQs. For a change the board runs clean. EOL10: 48K.

Can we spin this up to 250K with one level left to go? At least we found a hand that we can go to a war with:

UTG opens 4K at 1/2/2K. We are AI for 46K. LLT goes AI for 21. Raiser folds.

Time to reveal our hands:
He got 8’s. We got A’s with Ad



F:345 2 d’s
T:7 3 d’s.
R:8h
BRUTAL!!!

With that we come to a close of Day 1 in the Milly Maker and bagged this:



Not the bag we were expecting but we bagged 22500 at the end.

It felt good to make two nights two bags back to back, but, it hurt a lot that our big hands didn’t hold up when mattered and we missed a chance to bag 250K.

I had a post trip thought, lets say we folded all our hands from L9 after reaching like 140K, could we have bagged more than 90K? (Just a thought!)

Lets see if we can spin this back up in the next part!

Ugh, tough hands. Very much enjoying your reporting, hope you are able to spin it up!

Missed the words, “in Level 10, 25 mins left” instead of “with 25 mins left”.

“After folding a few blinds reach 40K with 25 mins left and 1528 players remaining.”

Thanks GoldDog! It was painful for sure.

As I said before:

In addition to playing well you need to run well too.

This point will be proven to us time and time again in the next few days!!!