good luck!!! pics??

Yah I gotta get some up either tomorrow or Monday. My favorite part of the ride out here was going through Utah. Truly breathtaking views. Everyone is leaving tomorrow so I should be able to get a nice TR done.

Currently getting ready for a wild night.

Las Vegas Trip Report


This was written earlier this afternoon. I was finally able to finish it and get the pictures uploaded tonight.

As I type this I’m sitting on the living room couch in my condo waiting for my internet to be hooked up. I lucked out and got a pretty solid place for cheap right across from the Rio and am finally all settled in here in Vegas. It’s been a rather smooth transition consisting of only logged a couple poker sessions although I must admit that my play was rather atrocious. We’ll chalk it up to wanting to see some of the older rooms around town and being a tourist fish ☺. However, now that I am finally moved in it’s time to consider myself a Las Vegas resident and embark on my pro career. I took yesterday off and made a nice celebratory steak dinner in my new place and am planning to take today off also. This should allow me to gear up for the last weekend of March madness and hopefully my first couple sessions turn out well. It’s always nice to start in the black. Anyways…enough of all this. Without further ado…the TR I promised.



This is going to start out rather weak as my phone is finicky with pictures. Sometimes it works and others it doesn’t. Although it wasn’t working at the beginning of the trip, it decided to do its job on the second leg, which would provide some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen. More on this later.

I took off from Indianapolis at roughly 10 AM EST and hopped on 70 West. On my way out of town I made a quick pit stop for gas and some McDonalds breakfast (got there like 2 minutes before lunch started holla!). There would be plenty more McD’s on this trip as my Dad hooked me up with a $25 gift card there. Shout out to Jimmy. The next 8 hours would consist of some really boring scenery. I was so amped though and this made the drive easy. I went through Illinois and St. Louis before noticing a cool trend developing throughout Missouri. This being that there were a ton of wineries. I stopped at a local spot called Coopers Hawk winery and picked up a bottle of red wine to enjoy at one of my stopping points.



My next stop would be Kansas City and I got in town around 7:30. Perfect timing as planned in order to watch the Heat/Pacers game. I settled in at the bar at Jack Stack BBQ for some ribs and an overall amazing and physical game that would eventually end in a Pacers win.

http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/34/38068...ue-Kansas-City

The food at this place did not disappoint. I had urbanspooned the KC bbq scene about an hour outside and this spot appeared to have everything needed. Bar…check, TV’s…check, outstanding barbeque…double check. My phone somehow started working here and here is the meal.



Four center cut ribs and broccoli in Garlic butter. The lighting was dim and the restaurant and I was a pussy and scared to use the flash so it’s a bit hard to see. They were perfectly marbled with fat and top and would crack the top 5 of ribs that I’ve had of all time. I washed this all down with numerous lemonades and was back off on the road. It was about 11 PM CNT at this time and I stopped for gas and hopped back on 70. About a hour and a half in fatigue was setting in and it was time to stop. The small town of Salina, Kansas was the next stop to pop up and their La Quinta would prove to be an ample place to catch some Z’s. Fast forward to Thursday morning. What do you know….conveniently there was a McDonalds across the street. I fueled up on some breakfast and hit the road right around 10:30 AM CNT. I had roughly 4 hours of Kansas left. It was flat and boring just as the states previously tackled were but with my camera working I was able to snap some pics.

Entering Kansas


Windmills became the norm for a bit. This was a nice little reminder of my many rides from Indianapolis to Chicago and back during my college years. The Lafayette/Purdue University area is covered with windmills.


These were followed by some nice oil derricks.


The next state up would be Colorado where the scenery game would be upped. Limon had been with me for the last 300 miles when I first saw his name on a mile marker. It was now time for him to let me go on my way and pursue my dreams.



Appreciate it fam. I will try and follow your guidance.

Now as a kid my family drove out to Keystone to snowboard, however, I don’t really remember too much of the journey more than likely due to sleeping. Either way, I was soon welcomed by the Rocky Mountains and they were rather unkind. I got some real nice blurry pictures due to it being a bit wet and my windshield being dirty.





Yeah, those are fantastic just as the next 3.5 hours would prove to be. As I ascended towards the clouds the snow began to fall and continued to do so harder and harder with each mile traversed. It was beautiful but would lead to some rather stressful driving and constant breaking when faced with a steep and slippery grade. It took me 3 hours to do what was supposed to only take 1.5. Needless to say I didn't get any pics as I was scared for my life. The Rockies failed to get the best of me this time and I will hopefully be back again this winter to tackle them and board whatever trails I can find. Upon entering Utah I was exhausted. It was the middle of the night and I had just completed the most anxiety laden hours of driving in my life. We get some decent snows in Indy, but they are nothing compared to this when accounting for the terrain. Once again reaching a state of immense fatigue I decided to stop in the small town of Green River, Utah at a ****ty Motel 6 (106 miles left of I70 w/ no hotels on a sign before the exit). Yeah that’ll do. It more than did the job for $45 total after tax and gave me a place to crash for the night.

The next morning would provide some of the most beautiful terrain that I have ever seen. This being from an Indiana country boy of course.

Part 2 to come….

Vegas TR: Part 2


I woke up fairly early Friday morning due to the fact that I had about 5-6 hours left until Vegas. This would place me in Vegas right around 3-4 PM PST, which would be perfect timing. I gathered the minimal belongings brought in from car and headed to the gas station to refuel. What I would see when I left the hotel parking lot would blow my mind.





There were unbelievable plateaus all around. Now this may not seem that crazy to some, but where I come from in the Midwest we have little to zero interesting terrain. I had been in the Rockies but this just felt different. Perhaps this is because it was new to see the red jagged rocky areas of the desert. And it only got better.



Some photos of random canyons along the way shot from the 3-4 viewing areas they had setup off the interstate.











The photos don’t really capture how deep these were. It was steep and looked rather dangerous when walking up the edge. I can’t imagine what the Grand Canyon will look like. This breathtaking landscape continued for ~3 hours when I reached another check point.

Entering I-15S towards Vegas
IMG]http://i.imgur.com/uZvDzqp.jpg[/IMG]

Cue up some McDonalds lunch this time for a quick stop then it was back on the road. I had entered Arizona and this provided more welcome scenery. Only this time it was up close. I was literally driving on road that looked like it appeared as if it had been cut into the mountains. These photos were taken during the more opportune times. I was a wimp and a bit scared.







After 20-30 minutes the land would flatten back out a bit. It was then that I first saw the oasis in the desert.



Getting closer. Strat in the background.





It was then that I decided to stop taking pictures as things were getting a bit hectic on the freeway and the excitement began to build. I would then go to the Mirage parking garage. Head up to the hotel room and shower and meet up with the fellas for a fun night. Friday and Saturday night were both a blast. We didn’t really do much besides drink and gamble a bit, but I had not seen these guys in a while. I ended up something like -$50 sports betting, +$250 blackjack, and -$130 roulette for the weekend so not too bad. With the free drinks I’d say I did pretty well.

Everyone left Sunday and I spent my next 3 days at the Riviera on the cheap while looking for a place. Everything worked out flawlessly and I was able to score a great place literally 30 sec drive across the street to the Rio, which sets me up nicely for the WSOP.

Thanks for reading.

Poker updates to come.

Finally finished my first session in the black since arriving in Vegas. Settling in for the night and about to watch these final two House of Cards episodes. Update coming tomorrow.

Sweet pics, makes me want to go on another road trip.

Well, the House of Cards season ended in a gay manner. Literally. I wasn't too happy to see Meachem gettin in on the threesome as I would have liked to see another chick in there haha. Perhaps Jackie. Either way a very odd scene that me dislike the ending of the show a bit. I feel like everyone was expecting what happened in the end (I won't spoil it) so I kinda wish they would have thrown a curveball there. I loved the first season and overall thought it wasn't too bad for a Netflix series.

On to the important stuff. As I mentioned earlier my first positive session occurred last night. So far in Vegas I've played 18.5 hours of poker (10 of 4/8 Omaha Hi/Lo and 8.5 of 1/2 NLHE) and am down ~600. I have decided to stay away from the hilo game even though it seems very soft and focus on NLHE for the time being. I'm making progress here as my last two NL sessions have been very productive. Friday night I played at the Venetian and got into some tough spots that challenged me a bit resulting in -$400 but I made a nice comeback last night and finished +232 after only a couple hours. My nerves are settling down again which is a good sign and my confidence/comfortability are growing with each session. I'm going to turn this $800 starting downswing into a positive and work my way out with solid play and volume.

The plan for this next week is to continue playing the Venetian 1/2 NL game and hopefully crush. So far, each table I have been at has been better than what I'm accustomed to at home and I can only assume this is due to the overall deeper pockets of the Vegas tourists and the occurrence of the Venetian Deepstack through the end of April. I'm going to try and take advantage of this and hopefully get some good volume while also recognizing when I'm not on my A game and choosing not to play during these times. I was thinking about playing tonight and there seem to be a good amount of games going according to Bravo but I had a couple drinks during the dismal Pacers game (wtf happened to our team???). Due to this, staying in seems best. I'm going to cook some dinner and catch the start of Game of Thrones Season 4 followed by the new HBO comedy by Mike Judge entitled "Silicon Valley." I've been waiting for Game of Thrones for a while and Mike Judge is obviously one of the GOAT wrt to comedy so I'm pretty pumped for tonight. Hopefully back on the grind tomorrow or Tuesday depending how Bravo looks.

Let's crush it this week fellas!

Posted this in response to a question I received in my Las Vegas Lifestyle post. He asked if I plan on living in Vegas for an extended period of time and I thought it would be a relevant answer here.

My response:

I'm really not sure yet. I have a friend down in Florida who I was planning on visiting assuming I didn't like here, however, after only 1 week the addiction of Vegas has set in. I understand why some people don't like it, but it seems awesome to me so far. Perhaps this could be due to the fact that I haven't been partying at all sense my buddies left. This is obviously why some people love Vegas but the partying lifestyle gets old and burns a lot people out. Currently, I'm trying to take a more grounded approach involving simply having some drinks at home while watching Netflix/sports, cooking dinner every night while jamming to music, and playing poker. I love it right now so I can't imagine myself leaving anytime soon, but maybe I will get bored of it too. Only time will tell. At this time, I only have a three month lease, but as poker picks up and I start winning the plan is to throw some more cash down on the apartment and lock it up for at least another 3 months and reevaluate. The thing I love about this game is that my "work" can take place in literally any city in the world there is a cardroom. This coupled with the fact that I already love the freedom only 2 weeks removed from work have me thinking positively. Anyways, I'm beginning to ramble so I'll stop this post here.

Just some random thoughts.

Thanks for reading.

Taking care of some administrative stuff today. Will be back at it tomorrow afternoon/evening.

Got a decent session in last night. I played really well for the third session in a row which is a great feeling. The first table I sat at was void of action and this was easily seen after 1-2 orbits this lead me to grab an early table change with slightly more action. The table fish here busted pretty soon after my arrival and the action reduced dramatically. I requested another table change to the obvious best 1/2 game in the room. Drinks were flowing and some general fun banter could be heard. It looked like a solid game to make some money in but after waiting about an hour and a half and no one leaving the game I decided to rack up and leave. There were literally zero interesting hands from the night as it was a standard PFR followed by folds all around. Literally don't think I saw a turn card all night in my raised pots leading to rather easy decisions and a half buyin profit.

I got home and caught up on some Mad Men (final season begins Sunday which further adds to my tv show list goin that day!) while also trying to stay up as late as possible to get my new schedule set up. I only made it to about 4:30 AM which is some decent progress. Slow and steady. This was followed by laying in bed as long I could this morning. Today's plans include doing some laundry, watching the struggling Pacers (we are sitting our starting 5 tonight so that should be interesting), and hitting the V for another late night session.

4th solid session in a row last night. Each and every hand dealt leads to more comfortability and confidence at the table. Last night felt especially good because I got stuck early ~1.5 buyins when my Aces got cracked by KQ (3 outer as the other guy in the hand) and a couple PFR/Cbets failed. I literally didn't flinch when the K hit on the river and kept grind on the mind. The next 3 hours would result in near perfect play with a couple great value bets and a nice call with TP on a fairly dangerous board. When all was said and done I ended up with a nice .5 buyin profit which keeps me on track to getting out of this early downswing.

The call I made near the end of the night:

Hero: BB with JT
V1: Nice guy from Alabama who likes to see a lot of flops then constantly bet
when checked to.

2 limpers including said villain in the CO, SB completes, Hero checks

Flop (8): J78

Hero leads 6. All 3 villains call.

I'm still pretty sure I have the best hand here. I would have rather not gotten as many calls but there are still some safe turns that can hit allowing me to bet again.

Turn (32): 4

Rather safe turn for me. I'm still behind JQ, KQ (unlikely as both limpers were in LP and would have raised these hands), J8/J7, and now 58.

Hero bets 22.
Alabama Villain 1 calls.
two other villains fold.

With only the mentioned villain calling, I am not about 90% certain that I am ahead. This particular guy would not be limping KQ, QJ from behind nor would he be slow playing his 2 pair vs me. He either has 58, 89, a spade draw, or at best 89. I guess he could also have a weaker J but I beat that also.

River (72): 3

Perfect card for me, however, there is no point betting at it. The straight and flush draws were not completed so he would not call a bet of mine. He could also come over the top if I bet which could certainly not be called. Hence, checking remains the best option here as we are hoping he throws out a bluff on the end. Remember, he has been doing this before.

Hero checks
V1 bets 50
Hero snap calls.

MHIG and V1 mucks.

So overall not too impressive of a call, but I'm happy with the way I thought the hand out considering I just started playing again.

I'll be back at the V tonight for some more 1/2. My volume has been steadily increasing over my last 4 sessions which is setting me up nicely for a long weekend grind.

I forgot to mention that Teddy "The Iceman" Monroe has been present every night so far and do agree that he spends way more time away from the table than he does seeing hands. The guy is truly a spectacle. A couple days ago he was wearing long ass cargo shorts with various holes in them, house shoes, his massive headphones (which allegedly don't work), and Louis Vuitton man purse which was slung over his shoulder. He is truly a great Vegas character.

Good to see things are going well man! Just don't let your default action be a check in that JT hand, it's very villain dependent as anything is, but the default against a fish should be to bet. If you can weight his range toward draws (ie he doesn't raise draws and does raise top pair hands), and he's bluffy, then checking can be right. Otherwise, you don't want to let weaker Jx hands and other random pairs check behind.

Of course, take it with a grain of salt, you know I'm massively downswinging.

I do agree with your advice and the fact that it is very villain dependent. Given that I had this guy pegged as a bluffer on the end coupled with the fact that I believe he usually is raising his two pair hands are why I made this particular play. Also his limping range in the back is much more weighted toward straight/flush draw hands than weak J holdings (4 of which beat us now J3, J4, J7, J8) which contributed to leaving him a little rope to be the best play IMO.

Appreciate the advice Cuse. I do really agree that this situation is villain dependent. I believe the fact that he is a proven bluffer on the end coupled with the fact that his limping range in the back is much heavily weighted towards straight/flush draw hands as opposed to weak jacks (J3, J4, J7, and J8 all beat us now also) led me to my line of thinking.

Wrt your downswing. You got that **** man! I'm currently working out of one myself. Also, to be clear I was not insinuating that you are not good enough to beat the online games but more so that the live game must be played much differently than online. Sometimes when we are ironing out leaks in our live NL game these online games can become a distraction similar to the way PLO does for some players when they try and implement it into their schedule while downswinging. Keep your head up tho man! I would say GL but we both now what Mike McD says about that.

Well, I just finished up my second week of poker here in Vegas and quickly got things back on the right track. Without giving exact numbers, I was able to erase all but 1/8 of it and am looking to get my way back into the black in the next few days. Unlike the first week played, folds became a lot easier to make in the tough spots and this without a doubt is what helped me transition to playing winning poker.

Although my game is getting better, the volume department is still lacking. Hopefully this will change this week but no promises. I sense fairly well when my attention is lacking and usually decide to pick up at this time. Instead of addressing this with playing more regardless of my mental awareness level, I am going to try and take it on by simply trying to up my focus. Hopefully this will be achieved by working out and getting on a better sleep schedule. I have been able to eat healthy since in Vegas since I do a lot of cooking (don't think I have eaten out even 1 time since getting in my new place), however have been lacking in the other two areas. I plan on getting a gym membership in the next couple weeks to combat this.

I decided not to play today and ran some errands this morning before the Pacers game. It was definitely different to watch the game at 10 AM but kind of cool in a way. It felt like my whole day was still remaining following the game. Tonight the plan is to cook up Sunday dinner and relax while watching my various TV shows that are on tonight. I'm not really sure if grinding will find its way into the schedule tomorrow but that really just depends on how Bravo looks in the afternoon/evening. Monday seemed pretty awful last week, but I am not ruling it out just yet.

Second solid week in a row. Still struggling to put in volume but I have some ideas for changing that so we will see how this week goes. Layin around all day watchin basketball and will hopefully be back on the tables Tuesday.

Not gonna lie....been watching a ton of NBA and thus the lack of poker updates. I've probably seen 80% of the playoff games to this point which is both admirable and incredibly lazy. I started setting my alarm Tuesday for the first time (lol) and have been grinding out the morning shift to get in some volume. The regular updates will resume when I start getting in some consistent play.

Quick story:

The morning/early afternoon games are obviously not as fishy as the evening games, especially early in the week. However, the characters are absolutely legendary. I've always enjoyed playing in these games (and similarly omaha 8/ob) simply due to the number of funny old senile guys that infiltrate these games. They aren't the best opponents because they don't stack off light, but they make up for through conversations while not putting me into any real tough spots. I was yucking it up with three older Vegas regs who obviously all knew each other and play the morning shift quite often when the following conversation comes up.

Good looking younger blonde waitress walks by.

OMC 1: "Woah that girl"...as he watches her walk by for far too long and continues staring at her ass for a bit

OMC 2: "Is that Nichole? Because if it is I got a story about her"

OMC 1: "No....that's xxx)"

Me: "Well now you still have to tell the story about Nichole OMC 2."

The other old men agree and we get the guy to spill the beans.

OMC 2: "So check this out fellas, you know that server Nichole....Scott showed me this website where girls show their tits and post photos of themselves" (I'm currently already laughing and already love where this is going) "I get on the site and there she is, with her tits showing"

We are all laughing at this point and the other two old guys are very intrigued.

OMC 3: "So is she on there now?? Lemme see"

OMC 2 then proceeds to pass the phone around to all of us and I am losing it.

OMC 2: "The sites call realnicetits.com," he utters, as some players are the other end of the table are now intrigued.

OMC 1: "Well that site isn't lying....those are some real nice tits," he laughs.

Just another early morning with the old timers...hopefully the run good continues for my session this morning.

Had my biggest session since arriving in Vegas last night. Getting ready to head to Whole Foods to pick up what I need for my weekly Sunday night Steak and Shrimp dinner. Pacers game tonight. Life is good.

Nice work dude... On the playing, the healthy meal and the life balance. Enjoy!

Thanks man. Will do!

I've been failing to write longer updates lately and am hoping to change this here soon. I'm finally starting to remember hands for days at a time so this will hopefully lead to more hands being posted. Also, I realized that most of my posts have been rather positive to this point and although I have been enjoying the hell out of Vegas...there have been a couple things that I had to relearn since being back on my own and life leaks that I had to plug. I'm going to try and write up a decent sized post summing up what I've had to learn/relearn during my first month out here so it doesn't unrealistically seem like its all roses.

I didn't want to have a bunch of food pictures spammin up the thread so I'm gonna link some of my posts that are in the OOT Steak Thread. This thread is one of my favorites on the forums and I owe the guys in there a ton for all the information that is continually provided. I cook a steak every Sunday evening before tuning into Game of Thrones and I seem to be getting more consistent with each cook.

For those that don't hate foodies and our pictures.

My last 4 Sunday cooks in order: Enjoy

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...ostcount=16316

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...ostcount=16678

(2 Sundays included in this next link)

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...ostcount=16922

Dang that looks like a good skill to invest in... (esp when I blew a good portion of my life roll on restaurants). I'm hungry right now but can't stand to eat another bowl of plain instant oatmeal with bread... Lol

7.25 Hours yesterday and made.....3 bucks. Holla!

Bout to make breakfast and head out to crush these weekend hours. Leggggooo!

Well, my weekend of poker has ended and it's time to relax. It turned out to be rather productive and overall I am really happy with my play. I made a couple mistakes which I will post tomorrow but ended up ~3 buyins over 16 hours which feels great. In addition to this I was able to finally meet a Pure_Aggresion which was great as his passion for life and chase for ultimate freedom were very instrumental in my decision to come out here. To top it all off I made quads and managed to get paid off by a smaller stack right before I left tonight. This allowed me to collect a free 50 bones plus 125 or so from the guys stack which was nice.

I'm currently sitting here reading 2p2 and having some whiskies. Bout to turn on some Netflix and more importantly will be watching Bruce Lee movies until I pass out. I do enjoy these type of Satruday nights, however, hopefully my social circle starts expanding here soon so I can chill with some ladies on a regular basis. I'm getting sick of jerkin it...

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