Day 4, the day where a burger underwhelms us.
At around 8 in the morning Fedor stumbles in, puts on his swimming trunks and is off to the pool.
I manage to sleep until 10 and then also make my way to the pool. It’s hot today and I only stay in the shade.
Fedor has had a good session at the Bellagio yesterday where his semibluff got called on the turn, but he got there on the river.
When we go back up around 1 PM, Ropski has just woken up and after a shower we are ready to hit the Strip.
We’ve heard a lot about the In n Out Burger. We have had 5 Guys, Shakeshack and Johnny Rockets in the past, but never an In n Out. Ropski is not hungry, so Fedor and I both order a Cheeseburger (I order it animal style) and 1 portion of fries, animal style. Fedor takes one bite and immediately claims that he is not impressed. I find it hard to believe that he can come to this conclusion after one bite, but I have to agree with him. This does not live up to the hype at all. The fries are an abomination too. In my opinion, Shakeshack takes the crown, followed by Johnny Rockets and Five Guys. For Fedor, it’s 5 Guys that has the best burgers.
Ropski and Fedor are off to Bally’s. Reason is twofold. They are going to play 3 hours to get a ticket for a free buffet in the Paris and Fedor wants to make at least 30 hours to play the freeroll for a WSOP main event ticket. Fedor is known for his lack of navigation skills, so instead of turning left, he goes right. They are almost at the Venetian when he realizes that Bally’s is the other way.
I opt for the Flamingo. The table is decent, mainly because there is a woman who turned 60 today and is wearing a tiara and a sash with ‘birthday girl’ written on it. Clearly, she is having too much to drink and she is really playing aggressively. She already lost a bundle and keeps rebuying. When I finally get a hand against her (AK) I re-raise her PF. She calls and the flop is AK7. She donkbets, I go AI, she calls and her pocket 7’s hold.
3 hours later I join the others in Bally’s. They collect the ticket for the buffet and we are ready for some pizza. In front of the Bally’s is Giordiano’s. Even though Ropski orders a medium pizza we are all served a small. Turns out this is more than enough and we even get a doggy bag because neither of us could finish the pizza. During dinner Ropski and Fedor have a nice discussion about how they both approach (small stakes) tournament poker. They both have a different point of view, especially at the final table and short-handed. Where Ropski plays over-aggressively, Fedor just waits for the others to make mistakes. Btw, this vacation will prove both methods work.
Listening to this conversation makes me wanna play a tournament, so we head over to the Flamingo where I buy in for a $70 tournament. Ropski and Fedor are playing cashgames, but the tables mainly consist of grinders who are more interested in their phones, iPads and even a laptop.
After 30 minutes they head over to the Venetian. My tournament life is over when TT < AJ and A7<KQ.
I take a lyft back home and the driver is a full-blown conspiracy theory guy. I just let him ramble the entire ride.
The others are still at the Venetian and I fall asleep immediately.