I did not join the other guys at Red Rock, as I have been a bit sick for pretty much a week now. Nothing major, but just coughing a bit here and there and not feeling 100%. Hopefully it will pass as soon as I get home.
Home yeah, that's tomorrow. This was the last full day in Vegas. I dedicated myself to playing cash the whole day, and have done just that. I'm a bit too tired to go for a long recap (famous last words?) but let's start from the top.
I took the Monorail over to MGM Grand, intending on starting the day there (around 10am), only to be met with a wait list. Oh well, I had checked Bravo and knew that might happen so I went over to Excalibur instead. Even though I lost in my last session there, I liked the game and the caliber of play (or lack of it).
Unfortunately I would not fare any better this time around, and ended up losing -$212 USD over 2.5 hours. Not really too many interesting pots of note, except once where I flopped the flush with
J6hh from BB in a limped pot. The flop came
Ah-Th-3h, and first limper leads for $15 and a bit of a station calls for $15. This should be my queue to raise, but instead I just call. And when I don't raise, I should consider leading the
5d on the turn. But rather than considering that, I check without much thought, it gets checked through, and
Kh hits the river. I call a $25 bet from the calling station fish, and he obviously has Qh Ts. Likely I would have doubled him up had I raised the flop, but that doesn't matter. It would still have been the better play.
Apart from that I just lost a few small/medium sized pots, but for the most part I actually thought I played ok. Just didn't connect much, and raising a bit and taking a few stabs here and there gets expensive. I also missed a big draw once, where I raised turn with open ended straight draw and flush draw, but bricked river and didn't dare a bluff. My opponent won with 2 pair.
I left the game and went out into the Vegas sun again, which always put one in a better mood:
Made the short walk over to the Aria, and got quickly seated in a $1-$3 game. I immediately got involved in an interesting spot when I raise
KK to $13 over a limp, and get no less than four callers.
6c-7c-8s is a fairly ugly flop. It checks to me, and I decide to check it. The last player bets $40 into $65, one of the limpers jams for $100 or so, and another limper rejams for around $190.
Wtf? I end up folding, as I cannot see myself being ahead here with such action. There are a lot of draw out there of course, but normally I would say one of them have me beat. Except they don't. The player who bet $40 folded, and the two all-in players had K9cc (huge draw, to be fair) and QcTh. I would have scooped the pot as well, since they both missed, except QT made a pair on the river. But on average probably fine to fold?
I quickly realized this was a very good game, with one father/son duo from England directly to my left who was in almost every hand. The son was somewhat decent (although way too loose pre), while the father was just a terrible calling station. There were also 2-3 other middle aged guys in the game who seemingly had no fold button.
At one point I was actually up around $120 in the game, but then it imploded drastically. First I made a huge mistake after raising
KQo to $15 over two limps, and getting 5 callers (standard). Flop is very safe;
Q-3-3. I decided to check it, slightly for deception + wanted some of the players behind to bet. The 'father' takes the bait and bets $10, a younger-ish guy with a backpack calls $10, and it's back to me. I really should raise here to get value from worse Q, but instead I just call. Turn is
7. Seems safe, so I bet $40 after it's checked to me. The 'father' folds, but the backpack-guy looks uncertain for a while and then ships it for $95 or so.
I'm fairly prized in and he seemed unsure, so I quickly call. He does however show 77 for a turned boat; a hand I could easily have gotten him off with a raise on the turn. I guess it's nothing wrong with having him in there drawing very thin, but I still think I should have check-raised flop (or just bet) to charge the fish some more.
I also slowplay a bit when I flop trip sevens myself on
7-7-5, and let one of the middle aged stations get there on an
8 turn (64ss he had). I paid off turn and riverbets, once again after only calling a bet on the flop when I could have raised.
Then we get a set of
88 as the preflop-raiser on
Jd-8c-7c, and get it in against a new player that just sat down ($200 stack). He obviously has 9Tcc, and no help for me.
So yeah, basically playing bad and not running well either. By some miracle I actually managed to steal some medium sized pots here and there, thus preventing me from going completely bust in the game. I really should have stayed longer as well, cause the game was still good. But in the end I couldn't take it anymore, and left after around 4 hours down -$375 USD. Not a good feeling at all.
Went back to the room a bit and tried to reset mentally, before going down to the Venetian to play an evening session. And it felt really good to salvage my psyche with a cool $290 USD win there. Some up and downs also in this session, but nothing too bad, and eventually I won a decent pot with
JJ on 4-2-4 up against a flushdraw that didn't get there. Also won a few other medium/small pots etc.
Will update the stats tomorrow, likely no more play now before the plane leaves at 3:30pm. It's been an eventful and fun trip, but man how time flies in Vegas. Still feel like there is so much more I should have done, but ok - then I have a reason to come back.
/O