DAY 3
In the afternoon I played a 4 hour session at Mirage, finishing up a grand total of $18.
My wife was having a worse time of it, being $400 down for the day at Aria and deciding to turn in early.
In the evening I decided to play at Bellagio, a short walk from our hotel.
It was a pretty lively table, with two or three drunk players throwing money around and sitting on big stacks or reloading at will. Whilst they were drunk, they weren’t clueless. They also tried to get the whole table to straddle every hand, with moderate success (nits like me didn't comply
).
[Side note: I've always found this kind of thing a bit annoying. There are literally a dozen $2/$5 tables in the same room, so why do you sit at a $1/$3 table and try to turn it into a $1/$3/$6?
]
On my left was an elderly - and completely sober - gentleman who was visibly getting frustrated at how the table was playing. I had actually played with him the previous day at Aria, when he was playing pretty passive & tight and he had seemed pretty chilled and friendly.
He tried to adjust to the table by making his opening bets $40+. However, the drunk players were still calling and hitting all the flops against him. Within 45 minutes, he was in for $800, massively on tilt and cursing at the players for playing bad hands.
Fortunately for him, he managed to win a $700 3-way pot when his raise to $50 with AJo hit 2 pair on the flop. He was still gathering up his chips when the dealer mucked his cards for the next hand, thinking he had folded.
Given that he had just won a big pot to get mostly unstuck, hadn't seen his hand, and was in a crappy position anyway (UTG+1), I figured he'd be a bit relaxed about it.
However, he shouted at the dealer and called the floor. I'm not sure what he expected the floor to do?? He announced that he would never tip that dealer again and implored the tabled to agree with him how unfair it had been.
Meanwhile, I was staying patient, mostly waiting for big hands to “ride the variance train” with. It was shortly after midnight when the following hand played out:
Hero: late position with A
Q
. Stack $255.
Villain: one of the drunk players, mid position. Stack $600.
Pre-flop: 2 limpers, including villain, and I raise to $25. Big blind and villain call.
Flop: A
7
5
($80)
BB checks, villain bets $50 and I call. BB folds.
Turn: A
7
5
3
($180).
Villain puts me all in (I have $180 left). I tank for a minute or so, but against these players I can’t really find a good reason to fold.
Villain says, “you got it” and shows 7
10
for just a pair of sevens.
I show the AQ.
River: 10
Villain laughs and says he thought I might fold an ace given how tight I was playing (he had a point!
).
I was tired enough to leave (whichever way the hand finished), so I booked a $238 loss and called it a night.
On the walk back I alternated between pretending to be absolutely fine with it
and being very annoyed at losing a $550 pot as 90% favourite.
Results so far:
Me: -$372
Her: -$296