Top Gun in VA you should have opted for Seniors $250 at Paris. That was my other option, I was debating between that or MGM 50K.

The Seniors 250 was moved from Wed to Tues this week.

If memory serves, the Aria Seniors was on a Sunday. I played the WSOP Seniors the prior Thursday/Friday, and played the WSOP Super Senior the following Tuesday-Thursday. I flew in the prior Tuesday, so too late to play the Paris weekly Seniors $250.

Aria ran the Seniors event a few times this Summer. The one I played was on Tue, June 21st.

For this week, the WSOP moved their Seniors event from Wed, 22nd to Tue, 21st.

Really enjoying the TR!

Day 5 - Part 2

Why is Venetian against taking pictures at the table?

In the last part we took a beat late in the Seniors event at Aria. Considering we joined in Level 5 and was never above the average stack, felt good we were able to survive till 78th place. If we won that flip we would have been safe for another 2 or 3 levels and closer to the money.

The time was around 6PM, before I could even think of what I wanted to do next needed a shot of caffeine. Decided to have it at the Wynn along with a shot at their 300 satellite in to $1600 Event. Coffee was good, but, I was totally card dead in the satellite. I was out by 7:30ish and wanted to check the Venetian Poker once before heading back to my room.

They were running a $600 BI, $200 Bounty event. Registered just before the break in Level 8. I think Venetian was the only room where they were not allowing me to take any pictures at the table.

I was seated next to a Chinese gentleman who was gracious enough to double me up whenever I was short.

One such instance, the only one, where I could snap a picture is below:



You can see the reaction from the dealer for the picture. K’s<10Jos on a 22102K board.

I pretty much crippled him when my AK took down his K’s at the end of the tournament.

I was sitting at a cooler city table. Some of the hands:

K’s<J’s. J’s flops Quads.
A6os<Q’s<67os, 67os makes a str8.

Had 50K, when we were down to 30 players at the level 1500/3/3K blinds.

I was below average most of the tournament but finally found a bounty when our AJ took down V’s 7’s. We both had exactly 35K. Down to 25 and we accumulated 78K.

Bubble broke soon after. Finally the second cash of the trip.

At EOL13 we were down to 19 players. 16K for 1st and $849 for 21st place.

Down to 16, the last hand was very dramatic, but ended up anticlimactic:

Call a min raise with Q10d.

F: QJA 2d board.
V checks, I shove, he snaps with K10os.
T:4c R:Qh

That flop looked so pretty with so many outs. In the end we were out in 16th place (15th had a 4 figure pay jump) and get this for the effort:



We ended up with one bounty, so in for $600 and out for $1150.

The time now is 1:30-45 AM. Took the deuce back to the hotel room and was out before my head hit the pillow (seems to be a common theme this trip).

Tomorrow is WSOP Seniors Event, hope to run better than the previous days. Since we didn’t have many pictures in this post will post a few random shots.

Unlike this picture can we run a little better tomorrow please.



Didn’t get a chance to try this Indian place:



What is better than a Korean BBQ which is open for 18 hours, 24 hours obviously:



Our home away from home:

Day 6

We had a 50/50 kind of day, lets see in which event we had a better luck.

On Day 5 we had a deep run at Aria Seniors and found a cash at Venetian Bounty. Slept late and was too lazy to get out of bed. As we know well we can’t win a tournament if we don’t play.

Lets take a shot at our first Seniors event at WSOP. Test run at Aria gave me the confidence for a deep run and cashing at Venetian provided the much needed boost. Today is a different day and a different challenge. Lets see how this day ends!

We stroll into the event at 11AM. Enter in Level 2. Remember the guy that almost knocked us out in our first Single Table Satty? Q’s<A9os.

He is sitting to my right, hmmm… Lets deliver Max Pain!

We have one shorty Senior who had our number today:



The gentleman in the white shirt.

Hand 1
It didn’t go our way, shorty (white shirt) is AI 1200 (how did you lose all those chips in one level).

Two callers, we make it 11K w10’s to get Heads-up.

10’s vs KJh

K in the window.

Hand 2:
Call a raise from our nemesis (Q’s<A9) for 600, shorty from the hand before is AI for 5900, nemesis goes AI and got us covered. A small PP I am thinking. We tank fold AQ.

Nemesis: 6Â’s V1: AQ (white shirt)

Q on the turn. Awwwww would have been early double and some for us.

We reach the first break with 28.8K from 20K SS.

Hand3:
810os in BB good on a 791023 board vs AKos.

He bet two streets when checked and I fired 3K on River. He folded!

Hand 4:
We contributed 1700 to this madness with 6Â’s and folded after the third shove!



Our nemesis became like a fat chicken after the above hand.

With that we reach EOL3 with 40.2K.

Then comes a hand that played by itself, the V in this hand didn’t believe me at all. I open to a 3B with AKos and we see this:



Open 3B with AKos. Two callers.

F:Ac89h make a Cbet get called
T:As I check, he bets big, we ship and he snaps with K8c
R:2d didn’t change anything

Not sure why he took a stance with K8, may be the second A and my check on the turn might have given him the confidence that he was good.

With that hand we reach the second break with the following stats:
EOL4: 50K, blinds 3/5/500

Lost a big hand in the last level and got some back with a Set of 2’s.

EOL5: 31.9K

Won a decent pot with JQd against two callers.

Pre: 1600, 4 callers.
Flop: 83J 2h, 3500, 2 callers
T: 3h, checks
R:6d, 3500, both fold!

L6: 35 mins left, 43.4K

EOL6: 22K, bad level lost a few hands.

Had to fold Q’s for heavy action on a 4 str8 board.

AK didn’t quite work well and had to fold for a shove.

In the end with my stack dwindling went with KJd AIPF. Got called by A4d and AJs and we see this:



F:10109 got us some outs, but, the 6 spade improved V1’s hand and a blank on the river sealed our Seniors event fate. Time now was 6:33 PM I really needed that triple to play comfortably after dinner break at 7PM.

On my schedule I had a Flight B of a 600 BI event at MGM, I guess I was too tired to make the trek, so, stayed back in Paris to fire a bullet at the 5PM Deep Stack event.

We entered the event in Level 4.



There was one big stack who was a little annoying with his table demeanor. He would ask how much and I call in the same sequence. He covered all of the players at the table.

So me and my neighbor had this side deal where we decided whoever knocks him out will get paid $10 by the other. Unfortunately my neighbor busts soon after and I miss my chance of collecting the $10 when I knocked out the annoying guy.

It was a good decision as we are close to getting our third cash of the trip as we soon reached the bubble. Sorry didnÂ’t have many hand history notes on this event.



We finally get short and shipped with 45os in BB on a 234 flop and get called by set of 2’s in a blind vs blind showdown:



The only note I had from this event was this:

Made a mistake called a min raise 20K at 5/10/10 with A6s

F:AQ3 bets 10 call
T: 5 bets 35 (which was 3/4 of our stack) we fold he tells me later he had Pocket 10’s.

After calling a raise and getting our card shouldn’t have chickened out. That win would have put us in a better shape to run a little deeper.

That brings the end of Day 6 with one miss in Seniors and one cash in Deep Stack. As I didn’t want to wait in a long line registered for the Seniors Event Flight B for tomorrow and hit the bed!

Thanks again for the write-ups.

For any other olds out there who haven't played, there's a ton of value in the Seniors event, at least the early levels. Saw lots of the types of hands like the AK vs K8 hand GolfPro describes.

Similar experience for me, ran it up through about level 6 or 7. Then, the worse players than me were knocked out, and the better ones came to my table and I drifted down.

Day 7

Did we bag in the Seniors event on the second bullet or did we fire a third bullet? Lets revisit the age old question, did the K’s save the day?

In the last part we were out of the Seniors event half hour before the dinner break. But, we cashed in the 4PM Deep Stack.

We stroll into Ballys Orange #T547/S2. Lets go!



On the way we pass by the lucky horseshoe:



As someone mentioned, it was placed upside down, the lucky horseshoe should be holding the money and not throwing it off!

Our table:


The only interesting character is Mr. Diamond with Two Fiji Waters (D2Fiji).

Earlier we play a hand with Q8d in a three way pot, Me, D2Fiji and the Raiser.

Flop is Jack high with one diamond. We both check raiser makes a CBet and we both call. Turn is another diamond and it checks around. River is one more diamond, we fire a pot sized bet and only D2Fiji calls.

He was not happy that I got there as he had AJos. A discussion ensues where our call of the CBet was determined loose. Now D2Fiji was gunning for our pots.

He ships a massive 3 way pot and his VPIP suddenly goes from 20 to 60%. His range grows as wide as Grand Canyon. We just need a hand to go to war with him. We reach EOL2 to with the following stats:
EOL2: 24.7K from SS 20K.

An opportunity arises soon, D2Fiji opens for a min raise and get 3Bet from gentlemen next to him. We see pocket Q’s and decide to flat the 3Bet to see how the flop unfolds.

Any high cards on the flop we will play slow, if it comes low we will go with a check raise.
F: 8 high with 2 hearts.

All our plans go out the window when D2Fiji opens with a huge bet, gentleman next to him ships AI. Not the outcome we were expecting, so had to take my time and decided to open fold Q’s on a 8 high board. Gentlemen with the All In is not happy to see our fold, D2Fiji snaps the extra few chips with…

wait for it…



Damn! should have shipped pre when it was reopened to a 3Bet. AI had AKos. Turn is a blank and D2Fiji gets there on the river with a heart. This pretty much cuts our stack down to 8K and we are still in L3.

We need a quick double and the opportunity presents soon enough. There was a limp and we open to see A’s and ship it for our last 5100. Gets folded around and the limper makes the mandatory call with J9os. We see this:



V flops a 9 and rivers a J. Seriously!

That ends our run in Seniors event with our second bullet. I didn’t even get a chance to go to war with D2Fiji.

As the field was huge (6000+) decided to fire one more bullet.



Grinded the 20K to Dinner Break with the following stats:

EOL8: 38.5 from 20K SS, 6385 entries.



Lets see a few players at our table:



We are in Seat 3

Seat 6 was replaced by an older gentleman (we will get to him in the next picture, lets call him Mr. AK)

Seat 8 was a gentleman with a LED Cap and a Mask. The mask was scrolling 2022 WSOP. Found it later it was made by a company called CYB. Look for CYB Caps on Amazon. The LED is reactive to Music.

Seat 9 was our table CL. Lets call him Mr. Pure.

Seat 10 is a Grinder, he was down to 3500 in L4 and built it back brick by brick.

After Seat 6 got knocked out we get a new player, Mr. AK, with 200Kish stack. Mr. AK and Mr. Pure are involved in the following hand:



Mr. AK opens to a 3Bet and gets smooth called on all streets with Mr. Pure’s Quad 7’s and Mr. AK folds for a River raise.

As I mentioned Mr. AK came to this table with 200Kish and shipped his stack in three hands with AK and mostly to Mr. Pure. We might have heard 0-60mph in a few seconds, this is was 200-0 in a few hands.

Sorry no picture of Mr. AK you can only see his hands.



After dinner we come back to see the final numbers, 7188 total entries, 1800 remain and we have 35.8K. Might need a double for Day 2 at some point. That brings back the age old question, “Did the K’s save the day?”

There was a 3Bet open and we peel K’s and ship our last 26.2K with another 30 mins left in L11. Get called by the raiser with J’s. We see this:




F:Q106
T:J DAGGER!
R:10

Boy! That walk back to the room was brutal!

Lets end it here for Day 7! I don’t even have any energy to give the closing comments.

Some rough beats there

I'm surprised you're willing to relive such brutality, tbh. I sure hop there's a great turn-around waiting, for your sake, but I have to say it's refreshing to see a TR in such detail that is not just a brag.

Everyday you hit the bed with the hope that tomorrow might bring the riches you deserve that would reward your correct play.

In order to win a tournament you have to run so pure and the stars have to be aligned. Since you never know which day is that day, you play every event with the same hope that today is that day!

Also, as someone said, you don’t lose an event because of one bad beat, you lost it because you didn’t accumulate enough chips to handle that bad beat.

Sometimes you are surprised by your own resilience to handle these beats. I feel it is similar to playing golf, you always go back, to hit that perfect score.

Day 8

Lets give the colossus a try today!

On Day 7 we had a colossus failure in the Seniors event to find a bag after three attempts. Looking forward to turning things around in the Colossus.

Today is a moving day, we are moving from Park MGM to Golden Nugget. Packed my stuff and took an Uber to Nugget. Dropped the luggage with the bell hop and took the Deuce back to Ballys. We got a little delayed in reaching Ballys, No worries even WSOP had a delay in starting Colossus and it started 40 minutes late.

Colossus with its prize point is going to attract a lot of people. Some of us were even placed in the same room as the 2K event hopefuls. We are at Silver 610/S10.

You can see the main TV Stage in the background. Sharing the table with a fellow homie, the one in black GG mask, doesn’t look like a friendly type. Lets call him Mr. Snail.



Mr. Snail is an habitual slow player. Each of his actions takes like 2 minutes. Checking his cards 2 minutes, deciding on a bet amount 2 minutes, same routine for flop, turn and river bets. Unfortunately if there is a re-raise then keep adding 2 minutes for additional actions. He made 40 minute levels look like super turbo.

EOL6: 25.1K, a lot of players in this thing, I will not even bother looking for the numbers.
We started with 40K SS, our depreciation is courtesy of our neighbor (to the right S9) who doesn’t have a fold button.

Found a full double with this:

A’s>K’s.

Another one when we were desperate:

AJ>KQ Courtesy our neighbor LN



K’s>K7s Courtesy our neighbor LN (last two hands not in the same order)

The highest we reached was 55Kish and then the wheels fell off.

A new aggressive player joins us in Seat 1. Plays a few hands and gets called and is down to his last 12K and then kept getting on the right side of the variance in every hand we played.

In a blind vs blind hand I limp call his raise with 89c. F:10J3 with 1c. Check, he CBets and we call, peel another club on turn, check, he fires one more bet and we call. River bricks and we both check. He shows Q8os and wins with Q high.

He out plays, out flops and out kicks all our hands including the last one in L7:


Lucky Neighbor (LN) (Seat 9): J9c
Hero: A10s
V1: AKc

V1 out flops and out kicks our Ace. LN ships his stack with a FD and is not happy to see V1’s hand, where he is out flushed. Luckily for LN, poker gods have a different plan, he gets a runner runner two pair.

With that our journey in Colossus comes to an end. I registered for Flight B tomorrow before trying my hand at a $125 Satellite.

We accumulate a decent stack and are down to the last three players. An Young American from Mid West (YA), a Russian with a fanny pack and us. Russian is very cold in his responses, he seems to find every opportunity to find an angle.

In one hand I limp with AK, YA fires a min raise, Russian flats, I declare AI and move in the chips. YA folds, Russian argues that he heard only a call and I didn’t utter the words All In, he starts checking with both the dealer and YA. YA confirms and the dealer indicates the same. He is not satisfied with the response, he demands for the floor and floor rules that the AI stands. He folds his hand eventually.

YA has only one move an AI pre flop. We double him up when our 10’s are no good against his KJ. At this point the Russian is the CL, I am second in chips, YA is third by a slightest margin. One hand would make or break everyone.

I ask if they want to split the extra cash ($75). I get an immediate yes from YA and a cold no from the Russian.

That brings the last hand of the event:

On my button, we wake up with AK and I go AI. YA snap shoves, followed by the cold russian:

Hero: AK
YA: 5’s
Russian: 8’s

I wiff the board completely and YA catches a 5 to triple up, Russian gets the side pot.

As soon as I am out, YA proposes a chop and the Russian agrees immediately to end the event. Damn! It would have been nice to hit an A or a K to take this one down in one shot.

We head back to the Nugget to complete the check in and give the Nugget nightly event and try. We get to meet a Clueless Colorado. Lets see if she helped us or hurt us near the bubble!



As I mentioned in an earlier post, the vibe at the Nugget is totally different from the Strip. We have a bunch of Australian’s playing this event. Four of them were at my table.

After playing for a while I got a feeling that they were communicating in some form with their slang. They seem to bust each others B’s, but at the same time, I felt they were indirectly indicating each other strength in their own way.

Three of them bust soon and one got moved when our table broke.

We progressed nicely to the final two tables. They were paying 12 and we were down to 18 and we are in the home stretch zone.



On this new table, we meet a Clueless from Colorado (CC). CC plays every hand and would stay till the end with marginal holdings.

Most of the table was salivating for a double up chance. A few of them received the benefit at my table by now.

We have A6os on BB at 1/2/2K. Our stack 42K. She opens to 4K, we pick up one caller and I call with A6os.

F:556 Check, she bets 8K on flop, one more caller, we ship to ISOLATE. She calls, V2 folds. My gut feeling is she doesn’t have a 5 and if she doesn’t have a pocket pair as well we are good here.

Time to reveal our holdings:
A6os vs K4os(?)
T:K BOO!
R:10 to BUSTO in 14th!

A double here would have given us some leeway to play relaxed. So out of the two events played here we are exactly 50/50.

The good guy that I am, I was almost about to go tell her dad, during the break, to ask her not to play every hand. Then my better sense kicked in and thought why should I care!

We were out played today at the Colossus and got unlucky at the Nugget. Lets hope on Day 9 we can turn things around in Colossus Flight B!

Back from my vacation trip!

We are left with Day 9 of Colossus. Which I will post in a few days. Our venture in Tag Team and synopsis.

If I didn’t mention that I play pool in a league (APA), I would mention that today, and our team got qualified to play in the World Pool Championships (WPC) in Vegas starting today.

It so happened that I arrived from India this morning and packed my bag for Vegas in the evening. Flight is delayed by an hour, unlike some of my friends whose flight was canceled, there is a good chance I will make it to Vegas tonight.

If you guys are interested will provide updates from WPC which might include a few Poker Tournaments at Venetian.

Welcome back! Would be interested in a continuing TR, about both India and WPC.

Most definitely will cover both.

Ditto

Love the style and the content. I'm in for all updates.

What the heck is a WPC anyways?

American Pool Players Association (APA) organizes a World Pool Championships (WPC) in both 8 Ball and 9 Ball formats in Vegas every August at the World Gate Resort and Casino.

How do you qualify you would ask?
First you need to be a member of APA ($25 per year), play in a local league ($12 every time you play), be the top team of the season to go directly or compete in the play offs at the local level (Step 1) to qualify for a regional entry. Regional (Step 2) events are called Tri Cups, they happen at the end of every season. The winners of the Tri Cups (Regionals) are Divisional Champions (Step 3). All the Divisional Champions come back and compete for a chance to qualify for the WPC (Step 4). Our team completed these four steps and got qualified to play in Vegas.

As a part of the qualification the team (8 members) is paid $5600 for travel and lodging assistance.

Now let's continue with our main story...

I have been playing pool for the past 20 years and have had a chance to make it to WPC Qualifiers a few times, but, unfortunately our team would lose in the last round and return empty handed. We do win money in the previous steps but as you know money is not everything, you want the bragging rights as well. To put it simply, this is a big deal for me.

In APA 8 Ball, the skill levels range from 2 thru 7. 2 being the lowest and 7 being the highest. If you are playing a SL7 you rarely get a chance to get to the table. It is more like a watch party. I qualified as a SL5 for the Step 4, but, as I played well (as it is a big deal for me) was pushed to a SL6 during the Qualifiers. Before starting the finals, knowing the disappointment from earlier years, I didn't even care to check the exact dates of this event in Vegas. Once qualified, and after the celebrations, I checked with the APA Representative and came to know that the event starts on Thursday, August 4th. My initial thought was to book a flight on Wednesday, August 3rd evening and relax for half a day before the event starts.

As you all know when you are planning your vacation travel to India you book your tickets three monthly in advance to save a few hundred dollars per ticket. So, before making my Vegas trip reservation had to check my return dates from India. Lo and behold we are returning the morning of 4th of August. Hmmm this is going to be close, glad I didn't jump the gun and make the reservations for August 3rd. Also, as with the previous trips, I usually suffer from a jet lag for at least a couple of days whenever I return back from India. So, I was not 100% certain how I would manage to play the event on the same day of my return.

My travel schedule for Thursday, August 4th was very packed to put it mildly. I am landing on Emirates Airlines at 8:45 AM, take an hour to hour and half to get through immigration and customs, I would most probably reach home by 11 AM. My direct flight from United is at 5: 45 PM which will put me in Vegas at 8 PM. My first game at WPC is scheduled to start at 9:30 PM.

We had a long layover in Dubai, which was a good and a bad thing for me. We were given hotel and meal vouchers at Dubai (good), we were able to go out and enjoy the city (good), it was very hot when we landed in the desert (107F, very bad). After all said and done we walked a total of 9 miles (only 15-25) minutes outside in Dubai. So, after taking a nice hot shower before boarding the flight, I literally slept like a baby during our 12-hour flight from Dubai.

The international arrival and the immigration took the time I expected and we reached home at 11 AM. I tossed my luggage, packed my check-in bag and my cue sticks and was out my door at 2:30 PM. As soon as I reached the Economy Parking Lot get a text from United that my flight got delayed by an hour. The thought that I had an hour and half to reach the location is cut down to half hour. As I had my checked bags (pool cues won't fit in the carry-on) I knew I won't be able to make it before the start of my first WPC event.

My team (5 members) were able to make it to the venue the day before. Me and another player from my team (his flight on Spirit got cancelled a day before) ended up traveling today. So, I was glad we had 5 players from our team to play (just in case if we end up missing the event due to the flight delays). But, I definitely needed one of the two players travelling today if it comes down to a decider game.

The flight boarded 45 minutes late (6:30 PM), after everyone is boarded the Captain announces that they had to remove a couple of bags from the passengers that were unable to travel with us, which delayed our flight by another half hour. We were finally pushing out of the gate at 7:05 PM. As this is a direct flight, I knew that the Captain will be able to make up some time enroute.



We finally land in Vegas at 9 PM.


By the time, I drop my luggage at Excalibur and reach the event center it was 11:30 PM.


The event center setup looks exactly like WSOP, where the Poker tables are replaced by Pool Tables. West Gate has set this event in three conference rooms, each one holding 100+ pool tables.

These are the trophies we were all competing for:


To be continued…

Rough travel day, hope it turns around in the story.

When you mention the skill level, is there any sort of handicapping, like bowling? I assume your team has different skill levels, so it's not "all SL6 teams play each other."

Thanks GoldDog.

There is handicapping in APA. They use a system called the Equalizer.

The maximum you can play is 23 SL points per round. So, you can pick different strings to achieve the same. We became a top heavy team by the time we reached Vegas (sucks, but it what it is!). You play your best 5 player combination without exceeding the 23 SL rule per round.

We were mostly trying to play 65543 by default, but, I would keep all the options open by playing the players that would help me put a different combination if needed. I will post a handicap matrix which will give you a general idea how many games you need to win a match.



As an example if 6 plays another 6, to win, he needs to be the first to win 5 games. When two similar SL’s play, a players that reaches the first SL-1 games wins the match. The minimum number of games a player has to win is 2.

Most of the time the games are evenly matched, but strategy comes into play when one team is behind and play their strongest player to get back in the game, while the leading team can evaluate their options by saving their strongest player for a later game.

Sorry to have left this hanging without the end results.

They divided the whole field into 8 brackets (716 Teams). In our bracket we reached the Round of 16. You need to win 8 rounds to win the title. We won 5 rounds and lost in the 6th round.

Made $1150 for the team in addition to the travel assistance they provided to reach Vegas. It was an awesome experience and it was well worth it.

My team is pretty stoked to experience the Vegas scene once again. Hopefully we can clear the initial hurdles and make it there once again.

Also, I cashed in two tournaments there and made it on the South Point twitter account for one of them.

Shout out to APA! I haven’t played since Covid, but in the before times, I really enjoyed the friendliness and the competition in my weekly APA league.

My skill level is either a 6-killer as a 4, or the worst 5 in the room against other 5’s.

I always managed to be on a team with a 7…. Always learned a lot from them.

Never made it to Vegas (for APA), but I think we finished 3rd or 4th in cities one year

TJ the next time the stars align and we end up in Vegas at the same time, the pool game is on me and drinks on you, deal?

I am a 6 and the captain of my team. We do have a 7 and it is always a pleasure to watch his game.

Planning for a trip this Summer.

Find included a link with my schedule:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...vents-1822428/

Hopefully the K’s hold this time!

Three weeks to go!

Super excited for the trip. Planning to bring in my Tennis Racquet to see if I find any poker players that want to play Tennis (I know slim picks because of the availability).

Will probably do a new thread.