Cush, good read so far! You should give the 1/2 BigO a try at Rio if you already play PLO8. Very good game and is now a played year round over at Venetian once WSOP is over (and I hear Palms now has a regular game also).

Great idea with the blog. T, J, Z & G are all rooting for you.

Nice report gl

Thread has potential but will die without more details regarding hand history & wins/losses

Yea I tried it over the weekend but I think correct strategy (nut peddling) is too easily apparent even to bad players. The Rio dealers also make it so you get like 15 hands an hour.

Thanks, glad to hear it!

Well I had a pretty long update but my computer got stupid on me and I lost it. I’ll try to get as much of it as possible here. I’m also going to try to include some hands in and probably say how my sessions went, but I’m still not going to post numbers.

Went to the Aria yesterday, got there around 7pm and got on the list for 1/3 PLO. I played 2/5 nl hold’em for about 10 minutes waiting for my seat at the PLO game. I took down a decent size pot with KK , and during the hand my name got called for PLO so it was sort of a hit and run but I told them why I was leaving so I don’t think anyone was mad.

Played the PLO game for about 4 hours. Its definitely a different game than the 1/2 at Venetian since there is no straddle. A straddle is basically a third blind that people have the option of posting before they see their cards. It makes the game play bigger and creates action. The Venetian 1/2 game then plays more like 2/5 because the straddle is always out while Aria’s game actually plays like the 1/3 game it is supposed to be. It makes the game a lot more focused on post flop play rather than preflop.

I got in one interesting hand but I don’t remember all the exact action, but basically I turned top two pair into a bluff on the river when the spade flush card hit. I thought I had the A but I actually had the K. The first player checked to me and I shoved all in for about a 2/3 pot sized bet and the 3rd player starts thinking. While he is thinking the other player folds out of turn which I think killed me since the other guy knows he only will have to beat 1 player instead of 2. He ends up calling with a ten high flush. For people not familiar with Omaha, it may seem crazy to think he would ever fold a flush, but in Omaha when the flush comes in often someone has the ace-high flush and most players would fold the ten high flush to me there, especially since I had been playing pretty tight and the way I played the hand it looked exactly like I had a flush draw. I also thought I had the A, which means he can’t have the ace high flush, but in this case it didn’t matter that I didn’t.

Racked up around 11:30 and with the help of the KK hand at 2/5 nlhe I only ended up losing a little bit.

Went to the Venetian again yesterday for some PLO. When I got there 3 tables were going but the third was a must move and it was short-handed. I normally don't like playing short but because I knew I'd be in a full game fairly soon I played. We were 3-handed and one of the players was really bad and the other was fairly good but tight so I was able to play a lot with the bad player.

Unfortunately I just couldn't get anything going. The only times I would win an all-in pot was when I would get short-stacked and win an all-in and then be back to even. The first time this happened I got pretty lucky since I got it all in on the flop of J56 with A977. The turn paired the board killing my gutshot straightdraw and flushdraw and my opponent says "full house", then the river is a miracle 7 giving me the better full house.

A while later I moved tables and was back up to my initial buy-in of 400. I raised preflop to 20 with ATQQ and got 3 callers. The flop came A3J. It checks to me and I bet the pot, two players fold and the last guy goes all in for his last 210. I'm call with top pair, gutshot, and the nut flushdraw. We run it twice and I miss both times, and my opponent takes it down with a set (3 of a kind where you have two in your hand and one on the board) of Jacks.

Running it twice is when players get it all in before all the cards are out. If all players in the hand agree, you can run the board out multiple times. So if we get it all in on the flop, we can deal a turn and river, and then another turn and river and whoever wins with each board wins half the pot.

After about 3 hours I had busted my buy-in and decided that was enough for the day since I just couldn't get any traction. I'm going to take today off and brush up on some tournament stuff because I'm planning to make a 180 degree turn and start playing some satellites on Thursday to try to get into some bigger tournaments, ideally the main event.

Changed gears a bit today and played the 4pm $330 mega satellite at the Rio.

A satellite is a small tournament in which players can qualify for a bigger tournament. All the money in the prize pool is collected and they award as many seats into a specific tournament as they can. In this case they need $10,000 to put one person in since that is the buy in for the main event at the WSOP. So everyone puts in their $330 dollars (minus the $39 the house takes for rake), and get as many $10,000 chunks as they can. As a simplified example, if they get 100 players, that would be a total of $29,100 in the prize pool. So they would give away 2 seats and 3rd place would get the rest of the cash, in this case $9,100. Once play gets down to 2 players the tournament is over since both players are getting the same prize so there is no need to play on. These tournaments are a way for people who cannot afford high buy-in tournaments a chance to play in them for a smaller investment.

Today's 330 mega only got 46 players, so only first place would get a seat, with 2nd place getting $3386. I started off pretty well, winning a few small pots and within the first half hour got my stack up to 3000 from the starting stack of 2000. In the next level (each level was 30 minutes) I lost a little bit as was at about 2400 when I got it all-in 3 ways pre-flop with AA against AK and 77. The flop came 665 and unfortunately the turn and river both brought diamonds and I lost to AK's nut flush. Luckily I had him covered in chips and I won the side pot with the other guy, so I got about 1400 back.

From there I doubled up with 65 when I flopped trip sixes after limping from the small blind. A guy got it all in with me with a flush draw and missed. After moving tables I got JJ in preflop against KQ and held on to double up. (A pocket pair against two higher cards is approximately 50-50, with the pair having the slight advantage)

With about 15 players left, it folded to me on the button and I raised to 550 with A7 offsuit. The sb, a very aggressive player who had been raising and reraising a lot preflop reraised me to 1700. I shoved all in and he calls with 55. An ace came on the flop and I held up and doubled up again and was now in the top 3 or 4 in chips.

With 5 players left and the blinds at 300-600, the button, the same aggressive player from the previous hand, raises to 1800. I have KJ offsuit and I shove all-in with about 12k behind. I really thought he would fold since he was just trying to steal the blinds but he ends up insta-calling and tables 33. I flopped an open ended straight draw with a QT7 flop but missed it all and busted out in 5th place.

I was happy with the tournament and think I played well. I also noticed that there were quite a few bad players in the event and so I plan to keep playing this tournament at least 2 times a week, probably on weekends when there will be more entries. Thanks for reading!

subscribed!

Hey man....I frequent many of the PLO games that run in Vegas. 1-3 aria, 1-2 Venetian, and rio during this year 1-2. PLO is pretty much all I play although I used to be a 2/5 nl reg at Foxwoods when I lived in CT.

IMO any 1-2 PLO game with a bring of 5 and button straddles plays bigger than any 2-5 nl game. Bunch of money to be made hopefully by both of us.

If you are ever down to talk some live PLO hit me up as I am always looking for people to discuss hands with

ya, I get your not divulging wins/losses, but I like ^^ this person's idea, maybe say had a good day, or I struggled today, or even "I was tilting cuz they called me names " gotta give us something, bot

Definitely down to talk PLO some time. I'll most likely be at the rio today playing 1-2 PLO and the 4pm mega. I'll be sporting my red Wisconsin Badgers hoodie, introduce yourself if you see me.

haha yea true. Hopefully the last few reports have been more satisfactory for everyone as far as hands/results are concerned.

Have you considered enrolling at UNLV and getting a Master's? I don't know if they offer anything in finance, but I am sure they have a standard MBA. This will help you when you start the real world and you might make a few connections where you can get a full-time job and stay in Vegas for awhile.

Not really interested in doing any more school, at least not right now. If anything I'd go out and get an entry level job but for right now I'm taking my shot at poker.

Went to the Rio around 1 today to play some PLO and then the 4pm mega again. Got my seat at 1-2 PLO around 2 so I only was able to play for about 2 hours. Lost a big pot right away when I got it all in with a AJJ3 on a JsT6K board against a guy with Q9** for the second nut straight. We ran it twice and I missed both times. I could have hit any heart, queen or any board pairing card but as it turned out two of my queens and two of my kings were folded from other people's hands.

About an hour later I won a decent pot after flopping top pair and a double gutshot with KQT9 on a Q68 board. I got it all in against AKQ8 for top two pair and we ran it twice. First board ran out T-T and I won with the full house and second board came 3-9 which I took down with a bigger two pair.

Both those hands are pretty close to being coinflips, me being the slight dog in the first and the slight favorite in the second.

I racked up about even at 4 to go play the mega satellite again. I made a pretty good run again getting 11th out of 47. I don't really have any hands to report on this one because really nothing much exciting happened. I pretty much stayed at starting chips the whole tournament just by picking up small pots here and there. When I finally did get called on an all-in I had KQ and ran into AQ and that was my tournament. Looking back on it I can't believe I made it as far as I did because I was really card dead the whole way.

I'll probably play the mega again tomorrow and from now on play it only on the weekends.

Also I'll be taking my dad to the airport tomorrow so I'll be on my own. He's helped me a ton with moving in and planning everything, I don't think I could have done this without him, so a special thanks to him. Now that I'm mostly settled in, I also want to thank all my friends and family, especially my mom, dad and brother, for supporting me in doing this. I hope to see you all again soon! Thanks for reading.

Last session of the week today. Headed to the Rio for the 4pm mega satellite again. I again did pretty well but not good enough for a payout. Got I believe 17th in a field of 60 players. In the beginning of the tournament I could do no wrong. I was flopping trips left and right and was taking down pot after pot. Unfortunately my run of good cards ran out once the stakes started going up and I ended up getting my short stack all in preflop with AK against JJ and lost the race.

I then went over to the Venetian to play PLO. There was a game going at the Rio but I think having a better, faster game was worth driving to the Venetian. I ended up playing for about 3 hours and just could not get anything going. I literally did not win one pot in 3 hours.

I'm taking tomorrow off from poker to do laundry/dishes/grocery type stuff and I'll also be starting my exercise regimen again. My next update will probably be sometime in the middle of next week.

Great thread so far, even without the wins/losses imo. It's sweet that you can afford to move to Vegas to give poker a shot. I moved here about a year ago and just turned 21 as well, however I came for school. Paying for school and stuff makes it tough to play as much as I want to, but meh.

Oh and if you ever need anymore lamps at Target, I work at the one on Flamingo and Maryland, I'll hook you up lol

haha thanks, I'll keep that in mind

Took Sunday and Monday off from poker to get some random things done. Got back to the table yesterday around 7. Would have been earlier but the guy that came to look at my TV (refresh rate was lagging) didn't get here until 4. Then I had to go to the cable company to swap out my box because that was the problem.

Anyway ended up at the Aria. Got there just before 7 and was 2nd on the list for 1/3 PLO. Got my seat at exactly 7. Things were pretty slow for a while and I basically stayed even for the first hour. This one guy was talking non-stop and seriously would not shut up. Unfortunately I was sitting next to him so he kept asking me questions and I tried to be nice but I really wanted him to stop so I could focus. He got moved to the main game after a while so it was all good. Again not much happened and I just hovered around even until I got moved to the main game at about the 2 hour mark.

At the main game the guy who was talking a lot was also drinking a lot, so I was glad to be at his table, but also glad to be on the other side of the table. Won a decent pot right away where I re-re-raised (this is called a 4-bet) preflop with AAQ6. The 3-better called and we saw a flop of A77. He checked to me and I pushed all in for just under the size of the pot. He thought for a minute or so and folded. I thought about checking back here because he should know I have aces because there aren't many other hands I would 4-bet with preflop. However I don't think I get action unless he has a 7 and hits quads so I didn't want to give him a free chance at a one-outer and decided to shove and maybe get him to call with a 7.

Over the next hour or so my stack was whittled back down to where I started. About half hour before I left I ended up flopping top two pair on a KQ6 board. The pot was 4 ways and the drunk guy who had raised pre-flop bet the pot, the next player called, and I pushed all-in. The guy to my left called all-in for less than what I had and to my surprise both the other players folded. I ran it twice against the all-in guy's nut flush draw and gutshot straight draw. I won both and ended my session about half an hour later with a decent profit, basically all from that one hand.

Planning to either hit the Rio for a satellite depending on how many people they get or just play cash at Aria again. Thanks for reading!

Def check back aces full there Ainec

Yea I sorta thought that. I've been in this spot plenty of times before and I would almost always check it back but then when I bet the turn they'd always fold. If it was a bad player I might check back because they might actually put me on something other than AA** if I do, but this guy seemed to be a thinking player so I didn't think he'd be fooled if I checked back.

yeah but thier calling range is soo narrow so you have to give them a chance to catch up/ bluff.

Keep it up Kid. Thanks again for helping me out yesterday.

Thanks, no problem.

Got to the Rio around 4 yesterday with the plan of seeing how many the mega satellite would get and possibly playing it. I was disappointed when it only had 21 entrants at the start. Thought late registration is until 6, with 21 to start it still only got around 60 and I'd like to see it get at least 105 (this would mean top 3 would get a seat) before I play it again. I'm hoping it will pick up as the main event gets closer but I think the $235 2pm deepstack tournament is taking away a lot of potential players for this tournament. Until it starts getting busier I'm going to stick to cash games or maybe play the 2pm every once in a while since its been getting over 1,000 players consistently.

Since I was at the Rio I decided to check out the 1-2 PLO instead of going to Venetian or Aria. There were 2 tables that both looked pretty good so I got on the list and about 20 minutes later had a seat. I played for just over 3 hours before heading to dinner, during which I ran pretty hot. I got AAJ9 all in pre-flop 3 ways and unfortunately another player had the other two aces in his hand. Although he had AA34 and I was ahead of him, this gives the 3rd player a much better chance than if he was just against one AA hand. I ended up making a straight with my J9 side cards and scooped the whole pot.

I then got some food and came back to play another session. The second session was the exact opposite of the first. Played another 2 hours and didn't win a single pot. I like how I played, just didn't go right for me. I guess I was fortunate that I never got in any big pots, so I didn't lose any big all-in confrontations or anything, just $20 here and $20 there.

Today I'll most likely head to Venetian or Aria and play there. I don't really plan to play cash at Rio much, unless its before or after a tournament. On top of the dealers being much worse, the chairs are horribly uncomfortable, which is an often overlooked factor when playing live poker.

I've also been back on my work out schedule this week, so as long as I keep that up it should help me to play longer sessions.