If you think that every trip report people leave a winner, think of all the trip reports we get a shoe and bankroll picture and an airport gate pic and a LV airport pic and then crickets. What do you think happened there?

Losing money always sucks, but if you can afford it I would not worry about it. Although it is only my second trip coming up, my thought process is that I will bring X amount of money to have fun, play poker etc. If I go home with a profit it will obviously be amazing, if not... It´s calculated, no worries!

They won the lottery and want anonymity?

Sunday, Session Five: He is The One(/Two)

Sunday morning and afternoon was time with friends, but as they flew back to their snowy home, I made my way to Bally’s for the last two nights of the trip. At this price point the rooms are mostly all the same, and this room was a newer one like at P-Ho. It too had a fridge but not a soaker tub, which I had grown to appreciate. I also think P-Ho has a better location, though I like Bally’s poker room much more. (P-Ho doesn’t have a room, just tables in the middle of the floor, surrounded by smoke. Bally’s room is offset and cleaner in that way. And while this is a small sample size, with just 1 session at P-Ho and 2 at Bally’s, I liked the Bally’s dealers and vibe 100% more.)

I’d been up late both Fri and Sat chatting away (our swimmer had bf problems, we got her to DTMFA), so by Sunday night I was beyond exhausted. Yet somehow I managed a fun 2.5 hour session of 1/2 at Bally’s. As with most every 1/2 line-up, you could probably do the bird box challenge and pocket a quarter or two, but there was one fun spot here. Once in a blue moon we have a Neo moment, where we can see the entire matrix slow down. It really is glorious, and I swear I saw all of this the minute UTG acted. The blinds post, a borderline maniac MAAG utg straddles to 5. He came to our table after busting on the other one, going to play some keno, and then coming back. He’s down to 110 after the last hand, a $150 three-street bluff that was called by an outrageously sticky Indian guy with 4th pair. UTG+1 MAWG who complimented another player on his Jesus phone case (I’m not making this up) raises to 10. I glance over at him, and then at the straddler, and the players left to act, and I know I can stop bullets. In UTG+2 I look down at A4s, just call. 2 more players call, straddler shoves 110. Jesus freak looks sad, like someone just nailed his favorite mythological creature to a wooden post, and he folds. I shove for 260, everyone else looks peeved but gets out of the way.

I’m certain to be ahead of his range and with all that dead money all I can do is get the money in good and pray. There is only one God, and that is the God of Variance. And what do we say to the God of Variance? “Not today.” I hit an ace on the flop and scoop (V never showed). As I’m stacking the chips I smirk at the BB who is grousing that he would have binked a set of 6’s otf. Sorry boys!

Later on I give almost all of it away when my straight loses to a rivered flush; otherwise it’s just the standard bullying for the wee pots that add up to a winning session. 2.5 hours, +135.

Monday was my last day to play, and I completely went overboard with the schedule. I started at 1pm at the Orleans for some 4/8 Omaha/8. Never having played this game live, I wasn’t really sure what to expect, and I was (semi-) mentally prepared to dump 2 bills to find out.

The Orleans is by no means flashy, in fact I think there is an age minimum of 55 in order to enter the place. But I must have looked like a fish so they let me in. The poker room is actually one of the busiest in Vegas, though almost every table is a limit game. It also seemed like the tables are designed for 9 players but they go 10-handed, it was cramped the whole time. Most players were friendly though not talkative, and there was very little aggression.

I played for 4 hours and lost $146. I’m certain that I did not play well, though I think there was only one spot where I made an egregious mistake which cost me 4 small bets in a kill pot, so that was probably $24 I could have saved. I tried writing down as many hands as I could, but the game moved surprisingly fast, and at showdown I wasn’t always able to read the board to determine who had what before dealer pushed the pot and we moved on. Anyway, here’s a shotgun format of some of the hands (if I list suits it was NFD):

A349ccc I raise in MP, about 73 players to the flop. 962 one club, turn 7c, river J. I bet flop, raised the turn, but by the river I bet when I should have checked. Quartered.

A356hhh I raise 4 to flop. Q52r I bet, 2 callers. Turn 4, I bet, there’s a raise and a fold, I call. River blank, checked thru and I 3/4 a guy with A3KJ when my pair of 5s is the high. Woo hoo!

A34Thh in BB, is limped 6 ways. Board runs out AQ36A. 3-handed by the river, I am a dope so I c/r the river hoping they both are playing the low while my A3 boat will take the high. A2Qx scoops.

A245dd EP posted $6 kill, I raise from HJ, 3 to flop. J62d I bet, heads-up. Turn Jd, again I bet he call. River is an 8, I have no idea why I checked when I seemingly bet all the time no matter how dumb, this one I scoop! The reward is I have to post my first kill, which gets me in trouble when i make top 2 vs top set on a high-only board. Board was K97hh4J and the set of Kings just c/c flop and turn before leading river. Ugh. Sometimes the only winning move is not to play.

Last hand, the one that I know I butchered, A258ddss, I raise on the btn, 5 to flop. 852cc. Looked like awesome, multiple people will go for the low and I am going for the high. Obviously my visibility for the high is horrible, but I was tired by this point and this one just got away from me.

After 5 I head over to Caesar’s Palace for the Wayne Newton show. With some time to kill, I hear they have a poker room here, so I decide to give it a spin. I choose the 1/2, cuz I’m a bit tired, and literally the first hand I’m dealt is some action. AQ in HJ, I make it 12, btn and BB call. A22r, turn and river both blanks. Obv I fire all 3 streets. Only BB called the flop, and he tank called the turn. So he has a weak ace 95% of the time, and I bet 65 or so otr. He is tanking some more, asks me if I have 32, he eventually finds a call and tables AK. Um, nice hand? Only played 1.5 hours, -$105, now it’s off to a show!

Next up, a trip to Wayne’s world....

Short O8 advice -- overplaying A3 gets you in trouble

Certainly good advice, but of the 3 A3 hands I posted, 2 of them I had the nut low. The other one I was going for the high.

You have nut/nut here... wtf

We each have the nut low, so that half of the pot is split. So I won the high half, then half of the low half. This is called "quartering". So I got 3/4 and he got 1/4. It's why in a HU pot you don't always bet with nut low. If he could have beat my pair of 5s I would have been quartered, and a bet on the end costs me money.

This was from the Wynn

Wayne Newton: Up Close and Personal

The best part of the show imo is the storytelling, and I liken this show (in a good way) to a living museum. Wayne recounts his career, starting as a childhood star on TV, through his first Vegas gigs as a teenager, and through the years. Telling stories about touring the world, he name-dropped virtually every megastar from those days. Jack Benny, Jackie Gleason, and Bobby Darin are names I know, maybe we recall The Hustler or Beyond The Sea, but it’s hard for me to appreciate the gravity these men held in the world of entertainment. This show was an entertaining stroll through history.

Wayne’s music doesn’t do it for me the way Sinatra covers do, but the crowd absolutely ate it up. Old ladies were crying almost every time he made eye contact with them, he really did captivate the audience. While I preferred both the music and the humor of The Rat Pack Is Back (the jokes in Wayne’s show were even more skewed towards “basically things your racist granddad likes” bracket), but I still appreciated the fact that this show offers a glimpse into, for better and for worse, the way Vegas used to be. And at two hours in a cozy theater, you do get a good bang for your buck.

The Grand Finale

I may have been a bit tired by the end of the afternoon poker grind, but post-Wayne I definitely had a second wind. It was my last night in Vegas, which certainly contributed to the adrenaline surge. This can only mean back to the Aria.

Arrive at 10PM but I hadn’t called in, so I can wait for PLO or take a 2/5 seat right away. I’ll take the seat and some lucky chips, please! And a watermelon juice, I believe that is responsible for at least 85% of my run good. (I can’t believe I never ordered watermelon juice while playing PLO. As has been said by smarter wags than I, I’m not superstitious, just a little bit ‘stitious.)

I played for 3 hours, and it was the type of session you feel great about. I cashed out up $463, but I never won any big pots. (I think the largest single pot I won was about +150.) It was simply a couple of hours where I seemed to make the right move much more often than not, and I really appreciate these moments. I’m sure many of you know what I mean when I say that we feel better about grinding well than we do after as session where we won more but didn’t necessarily play well.

The most interesting hand was towards the end of the session. I have a very talkative, very LAGgy image, and I’ve been up the entire session, while the BB is a MAWG rec who has had a roller-coaster night. His stack had dwindled to about $300, but he’s muscled it up over $800 with no more than one or two showdowns. He’s defending his blinds almost 100% (which I would know as my LP rfi is probably over 60), is very sticky post, and it appears he’s simply attacking every time the OR doesn’t bet. Without showdowns I can’t range him at all, but the odds of him having it every time are pretty small.

An EP rec makes it 10 (lol), I’m otb with AT and bump it to 35. (In hindsight I prefer somewhere between 40-50.) Both blinds and EP call and off we go. Flop ($140) Q88r, and it checks around. Turn is a T, and true to form, V bets 45. EP folds, I call, SB folds. River ($230) is another 8, for a board of Q88T8. V pretty quickly puts out a bet of $100, and at this price vs this V, I have to be good here 25%. But I give it a longer think than normal, about 45 sec I imagine. I even do something I almost never do, cut the chips out behind my cards and riffle them as I stare at my V. He’s in the 5 seat, so he’s naturally staring at the board, breathing normal, doesn’t give off much. I finally let out a loud, exasperated sigh that gets the table's attention, and I declare, “Well, I hope you’re a church man, so at least I know this money’s going to a good place.” Everyone at the table laughs, including V, who chuckles and smiles, not a care in the world. Well OK then, I wait another beat or two before tossing my cards in the muck. V is a good sport about it, turns over A8o.



At 1 AM it’s late and I’m exhausted and it’s time to go to bed. So I rack up...then glance over at the PLO tables...then hit the cage and make my way back to Bally’s. Where naturally I end up in the poker room for “last last call”, if you will. Reasonably fun, way too passive 1/2 game. I know it’s a Monday night, but there's 2 water bottles and two coffee cups and no likka. What has happened to poker? Anyway, I play til 3 AM, can’t find another Matrix moment, down $43.

LOL I think you may want to read up on this game before next visit.

You 3 quartered him because you have a 6 high straight in addition to the nut low wheel.

Good report.

And here endeth The Rime of the Ancient Canadian. I ended the trip down only $288; considering the epic fail pace I was on to start the trip, it feels like a win! I didn’t get to pull off the dream of having all the poker pay for the ‘cation, but I got to catch up with friends, see 3 great shows, and bank some memories that will carry me through any upcoming valleys I find meself in.

Thanks to everyone for coming along and encouraging me while I was there!

sw

OMG You're right! Even the dealer announced "pair of 5's" which pissed the guy off so much and made a couple of people laugh. That's what I remember.

It's ofc possible I wrote down either the board or my hand wrong. I already admitted the game moved faster than I was expecting. W/e.

Read what you wrote again (the board, your hand), and then what I wrote again, and then think about coming up with a different response to what I wrote. I know what quartering is. I also know how to read the board. Sounds like you had a fun trip, although you left 3/4 of 16 BUCKS behind.

Read the post one above yours.