Ready to take your shot at 1/3, DW?

Looking forward to the TR

Not sure - do you have any tips?

Get it in good and hope it holds up


Sent from a whisper on the wind

Maybe I have been out there at bad times, but the last few summers when I have gone out for a week in late June/early July it has been pushing 110 every day and just walking halfway down the strip has been no fun. Doubt hiking would be very enjoyable, but that is just my opinion. Not sure if anyone else has actual experience hiking around that time of year.

Get up really early, and be done by 11am.

Good luck-looking forward to the trip report!

This previous comment was from May 2016...

The trip happened, but the report did not.
To see if you can guess why, please review the results graph below:



I'm sure $1500 wouldn't be a big deal to most of you. However for me, it was pretty brutal.
For this trip I was still buying in a bit short most of the time (anywhere between $150 and $200), and when I lost a buy-in or two I'd go for a walk to another casino to chill out.
So none of the individual results were too bad, but it really was one-way traffic. My highest winning session for the trip was whopping +$107 at Aria.

On the last night I built up a stack big enough to give me some hope of erasing a good chunk of the losses for the trip:



However after losing a couple of decent pots as favourite, I went into full tilt mode to smoke off the rest.

At some point over the next few days, I'll share a few photos from the 2016 trip (I have burned the hand histories).

I recently got back from a more successful trip with my wife, so I'll do a short report on that too.

Bump 2.5 years in the making?

Pictures of wife, por favor ....

First batch of pictures from the 2016 trip.

The flight to Vegas was a relative highlight because I managed to accumulate enough miles for my first time in business class.

Space to stretch my legs:




My own window:










Along the lines of previous reports, some in-flight movies to guess:

First hotel was Mirage, which I hadn't tried before.
To be honest, I wasn't a huge fan. It wasn't too bad, but the room was a bit dirty and shower was crappy. Probably won't go here again unless the deal is too good to turn down. From memory I think I had 2 nights for free from grinding MyVegas.






One thing was that the view from the windows was noticeably yellow from the tinting / advertising on the outside:






The other thing was that they'd recently decided to replace the normal room service with delivering in paper bags and leaving them on the floor by your door. I guess this saves some money but I'm a bit surprised. I assumed they made good profits from room service given all the silly fees they add on. But then I also heard that minibars lose money at most hotels?




Since I was staying at Mirage, I decided to go see "Love", again courtesy of MyVegas . Crappy pic below:




Cirque is always impressive, but I've probably gone from being blown away by my first one (Mystere) to entertained (Ka) to slightly bored (Love). So I think the novelty wears off a bit. The dancers and gymnasts are bloody talented though.

Next post I'll do some pics from the other hotel, Vdara. I though Vdara was great, so it's where we stayed when I went back last month.

Final set of pictures from the previous trip. Not the most interesting, but here for completeness I guess. Then I can hopefully do a better job writing up the trip last month.

First up, Vdara. I really recommend this hotel:

• Directly in between Bellagio and Aria
• Nicer rooms than both of them
• No queues to check-in
• Generally slightly cheaper than both
• Small kitchen, including a fridge to store your drinks

And finally, a few random pics:

Your wife aged a bit ?

Please tell us those pic stacks will be in 20s going forward, or else change TR from trip report to tilt report.

Sucks that places like Mirage are not even being kept clean anymore. Great to see inside Vdara though!

Shhh… my wife might read this!



It’s probably hit and miss. We had a really dirty room in Bellagio before. Who knows?
As for the chip stacks, I make no guarantees. I vary between 10s, 20s, and occasionally towers. My wife is almost exclusively stacks of 10... perhaps it's a good way of tilting opponents?


Right, time to stop procrastinating and start the trip report…

THE TRIP --- NOVEMBER 2018

Itinerary:

8 nights in Vdara Las Vegas + 3 in The Roxy New York


Activities planned:

Me:
* Poker
* Drinking.
More of the latter if the former goes badly.

Her:
* Poker
* Food
* Shopping.
More of the latter if the former goes well.


Poker goals:

Me:
* Make some money this time. Ideally both of us but I’ll take an aggregate win for the syndicate. Whisper it quietly... whenever I've gone to Vegas with the wife, we've always both made money.
* Stop buying in short. Play longer sessions.
* Embrace the pain. Last trip I had to get more cash out and after that I shut down a bit. It probably affected my game too. And as Gzesh said, I don’t have enough skills to afford to get any worse!

Her:
* Win enough for a Chanel handbag.
* Play almost exclusively at Aria.


Bankroll:

* $3k cash for the both of us.
* More if needed.

DAY 1

12hr Flight was smooth. Watched 3 films:
* Hostiles. Great music and scenery, but tried to do too many things at once. And seemed to be a bit too PC for the period it was set.
* Bobby Robson (football legend) documentary. Very good, apart from the "clever" technique of switching time backwards and forwards unnecessarily.
* A quiet place. Really tense. The "toe-nail" scene was rather uncomfortable. But petered out a bit at the end.

Arrive at Vdara at about 3pm after a minor panic at US customs. They checked my bag for food and I struggled to explain why I didn't declare my breakfast cereal on landing form.
Checked in immediately. A bit higher up but almost exactly the same room and view as last time:







Both heavily jet-lagged, but as part of the booking we had a free Aria buffet every day, so I summoned the energy to scoff down 3 or 4 plates of roast chicken.

After that I crossed over to the CVS at PH to pick up the essentials:



Crashed out about 8pm.

Although I like to think I have a decent sense of humour, I'm not OK with people comparing my wife to a prostitute, particularly when based on her race.

If mods could delete all posts related to the picture (including the picture), I'd be very grateful. Also perfectly happy for you to delete the whole thread.

I was going to post a some updates tonight, but I'll wait to see whether the mods will do anything.

I have removed the picture of your lovely wife from the thread. Everyone's loss.

I have also issued a three day ban to the poster that made the inappropriate comment.

Well this thread went a bit weird. Lesson learned: don’t post pictures of loved ones (no matter how unrevealing) onto the internet!
Moving swiftly on…

DAY 2

I could really get used to waking up to this view:



Well rested, it was time to play some poker at Aria.
Although joining at different times, I was sat right next to my wife. [In general, we try to avoid this, as I find watching her pots more nerve wracking than my own, and she doesn’t like the pressure of me watching her.]

We were both in for $200, and she very quickly lost her first buy-in after raising to $15 and getting it in on a flop of 88J with KK (opponent had 8T).

My early fortune was a bit better, and I was up about $150 within the first 40 minutes. I then expertly capitalised on this start by making some awful bluffs. This meant that I was shortly down to less than $100. Rather than add on, I played short-stacked and after just over 2 hours managed to lose my first buy-in. NOTE TO SELF: Stop being such a nit and top-up next time.

Luckily my wife had more than doubled up and was sitting on about $500 (in for $400). I decided to leave her to it and went redeem the MyVegas $50 freeplay, and after some sub-optimal video poker strategy, and I cashed out $35.

At this point I went to stretch my legs and found myself at a newly opened table at MGM.
I again had a nice start. First, I took a short stack’s $100 when we both flopped a flush (my ace high vs. her king high). Then I won a decent pot with straight over straight. Stack now looked like this:



The Jameson was flowing and I once again decided to take advantage of my newly acquired chips by running a 3-barrel bluff against a nervous looking young player to my left. Since he flopped two pair and rivered a full house, this went about as well as could be expected.
NOTE TO SELF: stop trying elaborate bluffs at $1/$2.

Down to about $70, I learned the other lesson from before and topped back up. After a session of about 4 hours, I had recovered and cashed out for a small profit of +$45.

In the evening, I met up with my wife at one of our favourite Vegas restaurants, Blossom. It's a very relaxing atmosphere, quiet and separated from other tables.

Some pics below courtesy of my wife, who was up $104 for the day.




Results so far:
Me: -$152 (+$35 free video poker)
Her: +$104

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 AQ. 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: A75 ($80)
BB checks, villain bets $50 and I call. BB folds.

Turn: A753 ($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 710 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

1. If they just want to gamble, straddling halves the effective stacks and cuts the postflop edge - they don't just want to play bigger, they want to play bigger with a 50bb cap
2. Straddling tilts nits because it makes them play bigger pots than they're comfortable playing, and tilted nits are really funny to watch
3. Straddling tilts tryhards because they have read that they should be cool and sociable so they feel that peer pressure but have also read that straddling is -ev and the contradiction drives them insane
4. Tilted nits and especially tilted tryhards make expensive mistakes in big pots

Sounds like you made the right adjustment (buckle up, expect variance). In your situation I would button straddle, especially if the room doesn't allow it.

Players tend to adjust incorrectly to straddling in general Also your opponents tend to be more scared money when there is a straddle (1/3/6) as opposed to simply playing up a level (2/5). Furthermore, lower level games tend to be softer with less pros. Finally, 3 blind games generate more action and are more fun. Moving up to 2/5 isn't really comparable because they could be stuck in a game with 7 nits that are just folding every hand.

I can imagine a 2/5 at Bellagio with a mandatory straddle would be infinitely better than the Bellagio 5/T games. I know a player, good player but super action that would regularly convert 2/5 games to 2/5/T games. He would convince the table to change the game and they would agree because nobody wanted him to leave the table. It was really quite brilliant because there would be a couple 5/T games running which were each full of 5/T pros (none of which even knew this game was running) and here he was playing 2/5/T with a bunch of terrible under-rolled 2/5 players.

weaselbob, Dream Crusher. Thanks for the replies - your points make sense.
But do you think it's ethical to play that way? I'm not saying it isn't but I think it's a bit dubious.
Certainly I feel no guilt (and even a little pleasure) when I am the nit who breaks the chains of straddles.
I straddle only very occasionally OTB for $4 or $6 (but I think Bellagio is only UTG straddle?).


DAY 4

Started with a mid-morning walk to the South end of the strip, ending up at a friendly $1/$2 table at Excalibur.
There were 2 middle-aged English chefs, who said their group visited Excalibur at the same time every year to play poker.
I ran particularly well against one of them, getting there on the river twice when I had open-enders against his TPGK / two pair (both decent sized pots).
The first time I was the aggressor and the second time he gave me just enough implied odds to keep going (and paid off a nice big bet on the river) 😊.
After a 3 hour session I was starving. In for $200 and out for $351.

Pic from the walk back:



For a late lunch I wolfed down a Fatburger (far too quickly to take any pictures). After some consideration, this is my favourite burger chain. The edge of the burger is always crispy which might be why.


Next up was Caesar’s. I started off losing a couple of medium-sized pots with KK and JJ, however I topped up and ran pretty well, cashing out +$151 after a few hours.
The table was pretty weak throughout, with a clueless player to my right (I thought he was hustling/trolling to start off ). After he lost his third buy-in, he moved to a $2/$5 table.


By now it was time to meet up with my wife to use up our free daily buffet at Aria (always pretty good, and better than the other buffets I've been to).
Her luck had been mixed. She started the day with a very nice session of +$394 at Aria.
But in the afternoon she played at Bellagio and cashed out $-194 (in for $400).

After the buffet, I traded places with her, playing at Bellagio. Meanwhile she went back to her preferred room of Aria.
I only had the energy for a short session of 90 minutes of so, but hit a couple of sets for small-medium pots, cashing out +$90.
[SIDE NOTE: By this point in the trip I had flopped a set 3 times out of the 4 that I was dealt pocket 9s. Even as a devout skeptic, I had by now marked 99 as my “lucky hand” for the duration of the trip.]


A fun day for me, with 3 wins out of 3 - even if none of them were big enough to take pictures of.
It also took me back to about even for the trip:



My wife played a longer evening session at Aria and came back -$200, leaving her exactly breakeven for the day.


Results so far:
Me: -$10
Her: -$296

I am enjoying this. Thanks for sharing.

I appreciate that you can recognize how far off first impressions can be (re: the clueless player that you initially thought was hustling.)