Yessir. I gotta do better about checking these pages instead of just Reddit. I put myself in a trap where I always feel like, if I update here, I have to have some kind of HUGE update, rather than something quick. And I never feel like there's time enough to write a massive update. But I'm working from home today and waiting on a meeting to start, so here's something:

Earlier, I alluded to a spot where I heavily berated a guy at the table, worse than I ever have before. Daily tournament at MGM. Blinds were 1500/3000 (give or take). Villain with a stack of about 15k limps from MP. I'm in the SB and I see two red aces. I pull back my SB, and gather two 5k chips and two 1k chips, and toss them out all at once. BB folds. Action gets back to the villain and he says the dumbest thing I've ever heard at a poker table:

"That's a string bet."

Wha.... I ask him how it was a string bet, and he couldn't articulate it. Just kept repeating himself over and over "That's a string bet". Okay, but what makes you think it's a string bet? He says "I know what a string bet is. That's a string bet."

SO without getting a solid answer as to what he thinks I did to constitute a string bet, he called the floor over. As I'm sitting there listening to him, I realize his issue - he doesn't actually think it's a string bet. He overlimped from a short stack and realized he made a mistake. He was trying to see a flop for cheap so when I raised, his plans were shot. He's arguing with the floor that it was a string bet (still not explaining what I did exactly), and then I start laying into him "Stop lying. You know I didn't string bet you're just terrible at playing a short stack and realized you ****ed up. Admit your mistake and move on". Meanwhile we've wasted about a quarter of the level trying to put this together, he's talking to the floor, I'm berating him, and finally the floor says about the dumbest thing I can think of:

"If you feel that strongly that it's a string bet, I'll let you pull back your original 3k bet and fold the hand."

WHAT?!?!

Now I'm pissed at this angle-shooting prick AND the floor. He's clearly trying to game the system and she's trying to appease a tourist. He decides to leave his bet in there and fold. But then he kept going. "You don't think what you did is a string bet? I've been playing for 20 years that's a string bet." And I went back at him "You know goddamn well a one-motion bet isn't a string bet. What you just tried to pull is disgusting. You're a disgusting, cheap player and you should be ashamed of what you just tried to pull." We went back and forth until the flop of the next hand before I put my headphones in and ignored him until his inevitable bust a couple of hands later.

Getting to the more recent stuff - I've been playing at a different place recently. One where I never expected to become a semi-regular.

Sam's Town.

They've upgraded/updated three daily tournaments to the point where it's HUGE value:

1st and 3rd Fridays - $65 + $15 add on for a $5k guarantee. You can't find a guarantee for that much at that price point nearly anywhere. MGM does a $5k once a month for $100, but the players at Sam's Town are significantly worse. Plus they get 140+ players, so the pool is closer to $8k.

Every Saturday - $55 + $15 add on for a $2k guarantee. Again, terrible players, lots of value to be had.

Every Monday - $60 + $10 add on. No guarantee, but it's a bounty tournament. Everyone has $10 on them. A certain mystery player at each table has $20. And the floor has a $100 bounty on him, and moves tables every level. The logistics of it are impressive just because they keep track of every player and where they move, so even if you're on the 4th table of the night, they'll still know if you've got the mystery bounty on you or not.

But the best part about Sam's Town is this - they're so willing to chop and make bad deals that you can (usually) exploit it pretty well to guarantee some big payouts. I'll give you two, where I got $1000 and $1200, respectively.

During one of those Saturday bouts, I ran it the **** over. I think we had 70 runners, which would have given us about 1,050,000 chips in play. When we get down to the final 3 players, I had about 700,000. First place is $1200ish. I tell the other two players to give me first and they can chop the rest. They disagree. We play a few hands to no avail. They offer me $900 to chop the rest, I say $1100 and we agree to split the difference. I found out later that the two other players were husband and wife with shared finances. So I literally gave them no reason to not try to play it out. Why give away first when you don't have to? If I had led with asking for $1100, I probably could have gotten it.

Then, one of the Friday $5ks. This time we're down to the final 9 players. I have 600,000, one guy has 350,000, everyone else is under 300,000. First place is $2000, second place is $1200. I tell the table that if they give me second place money, they can chop the rest (about $650 each). They agreed to that deal so ****ing fast I probably could have asked for at least $1500 and still gotten them to take the deal.

But those two cashes paid for my Reno trip. And it's a good thing, because it meant I didn't have to use any of my own money to get my ****ing teeth kicked in.















I will start by saying this - I really, really like Reno. At least, I really like the parts of Reno I've seen. I stayed at the Peppermill but spent a lot of time playing downtown. The Silver Legacy and El Dorado are owned by the same company, hence the El Dorado chips being used at SL. Also, first time I've played a tournament, outside of a homegame, where there were no denominations on the chips. That was weird, but not a deal-breaker at all. The room was nice but a little small. Dealers and staff were remarkably friendly. Players were mostly regs but not terrible like I'm used to. All in all, a nice room, good feel, easy parking (aside from navigating some annoying one-way streets). I dig it.

On the other hand, **** the Grand Sierra Resort. Room was dark and dingy. Staff was rude. They have a rule in place where they don't allow you to use cell phone at all during a tournament. I kinda get that (slowing down action when the clock is ticking away), but after watching this tournament, I realize that this rule was not to help players, but to help an incompetent staff. I saw dealers miss blinds, move the button twice in a hand, not move it at all, miscalculate change, allow players to call for the wrong amount, not color up chips during a break when the other tables did (making weird stack sizes for those players when a table broke)... just a horrendous room all around.

I also played at the Club Cal Neva in their wallet-busting $15 daily. This room was tiny. Dingy. Smoky. All OMC locals. And maybe my favorite room of all time. Holy **** I had so much fun playing with those guys. We were all laughing and having a great time. It honestly felt like a home game played with friends. Absolutely going back there every chance I get.

I didn't get to play the Aquarius. Just mistimed it is all. Maybe next time.

And then there's the Peppermill for RIU itself. First of all, what a well-run, great poker series. The events are varied and interesting. The NLHE events are solid with a great structure and player-friendly. I did have two small "complaints" (more like suggestions) about the event:

1. They cancelled one of the small-ball turbos that I specifically wanted to play. I can't blame them - they got some kind of sponsored event added late and couldn't pass it up for a $100 thing, but still, I didn't find out until my plans were all booked.

2. They NEEEEEEEEEEEEED late night events. The last event of the night was like 5 or 6 with two hours of rebuys. So if you bust out at 8pm and you're not a cash game player (like me), then you're basically stuck with nothing to do all night. Give me a turbo midnight madness or something so I have something to look forward to. The latest available in town was a 9pm at Club Cal Neva, but that was only on weekends, and the one time I tried it, it didn't fire.

I would have preferred some lower-entry events too, but I can't blame them for going with the price points they had, and I found options at other casinos around the area to satisfy that itch. While I bricked every tournament, it wasn't a complete loss. I won at both my sessions of Pai Gow, including hitting quads for a nice bonus prize too.

Grabbed some late night food with the famous Pure_Aggression too. We talked once on that short-lived podcast me and Bikeking did a while back, so it was good just to hang out and not have to "perform" for the mics.

I took one day out of my Reno trip to drive over to Davis and Sacramento, CA. My old boss/mentor took a job in that area about 6-7 years ago, and this was my first chance getting to see how she's living now. I forget the name of the town (just outside Davis) but it definitely felt more like charming old New England town than northern California. I can see why she likes the area at least. We grabbed some lunch, shot the ****, talked smack about our former co-workers, and then I had to head out to...

PUNK IN DRUBLIC

So the beer tasting was wasted on me, but Teenage Bottle Rocket, Reel Big Fish, the Vandals, and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones all played:



What a great ****ing show. High energy. Good crowd. And absolutely no one else played. At all.

In other news -

If you're wondering what I've been drinking now that Diet Dr. Pepper is out:



Here's the Halloween haul we gave out:



(Somehow the Whoppers went first, and no one took the peanut M&Ms).

Here is the most frustrating tournament I've ever played:



I have around 190k. There's about 230k in play. We're three handed. I finished second. It wasn't even bad play for the most part. It was lost a flip, lost a flip, ran JJ into KK all in pre, knocked out one guy to get a bunch back, then shoved pre with like JT suited and the guy tank-called with QJ. Sigh.

Current battlestation:



Soon-to-be-built station:



I have the materials for the most part, but since I'm making it a floating desk, I need to buy braces for the wall, metal plates to hold the three pieces together, and gotta get some wrought iron legs made for the front. Otherwise I can probably start building within a couple of weeks. Oh, yeah, and I need tools too. That would help.

If anyone wants to help out a good cause and see how bad I play, come to the South Point on Saturday:

Great thread, thanks for all the stories.

If you don't mind me asking, what do you do for a living?

I've been purposefully vague about that. But I work for the state of Nevada as an administrator.

Yeah thx for writing. Love your posts.

Cool, no worries. Thanks again for the stories.

That Chai Poker charity tournament was a huge success. Over $4000 raised for the Boys and Girls club, plus a couple of dozen toys donated. There were over 40 players and at the final table they gave an extra $900 from the pool to the charity. Just a great event. Unfortunately I did not get very far. The blinds were ridiculous (doubled every level - literal double every level) and I just couldn't find a double up after missing a couple of draws. Finally ran AT into 88 and I'm out. Still a good time and I look forward to the next one.



Sam's Town atrium done up well for the holidays:



My dog got an early Christmas gift:



First time I've done Christmas lights on the entire house:



Still not 100% sold on those icicle looking lights but the wife likes them. Plus they're about the only lights that will work with out setup. I went under the eaves and screwed some small hooks into the overhang. The hooks aren't visible from the street and they're permanent, so all I have to do every year is run the lights over the hooks and I'm good. The downside is those hooks are set back and under the eaves, so the smaller lights don't really show up from the street.

I'm off to Boston for the holidays. I'm playing a daily at the Encore on Monday the 23rd (and going to the Bruins game if I bust early), and playing the Friday the 27th afternoon at the Hampton Falls poker room too. Not a ton of poker this trip but at least I can check out the new joint and the best daily I've ever seen.

Sam’s Town tournaments have been my honeypot for the past 15 years..

So just a heads up... There's a better than 0% chance I'm going to run for City Council in 2021.

Well that is McAwsome.

Best of luck.

Im from out of state.

What city?

just catching up on the Reno trip.....Sacramento here. You got me with Aquarius....!@?...am thinking obviously you meant...Atlantis.

But eventually the plan is to be like Oscar right?

It would be Las Vegas, NV Ward 6. We are currently represented by Michele Fiore. I mentioned her before as the assemblywoman who believes you can use salt water and baking soda can cure cancer. Well now she's getting herself in another bind by giving six figures of campaign funds to a catering company run by her daughter. It's sort of unclear if this is technically illegal, but it sure as **** ain't kosher. And at this point, enough is enough. Where there's smoke, there's fire, and being a public official should be a privilege. I can't believe this nitwit keeps getting elected.

Atlantis, Aquarius. Like I said I didn't spend any time there so I guess I didn't pay attention to the name.

Speaking of Run It Up, I noticed they released their schedule for the April series. Still no late night tournaments. Sigh. I guess I'll save my cash for the WSOP, since that schedule came out already. Firing at the Big 50 again.

The wife and I spent a "vacation" in Boston for Christmas. I put "vacation" in quotes because my wife doesn't actually get any rest or relaxation during her time off. It's absurd how much work she does for her mother during these times. And this year was even worse - aside from preparing 90% of the food for the Christmas Eve tea, she found that one of her mother's cats had been peeing under the spare bed for who knows how long. Two days, eight hours a day, she was on her hands and knees scrubbing and cleaning and scraping. Just absolutely gross.

Fortunately I'm kind of an ******* and managed to dodge all this by playing a special one day event at the Encore Boston Harbor:



This $160 event was a day or two before Christmas with a $10k guarantee. First of all, what an amazing room. If I had stayed in/around Boston I'd be here all the time. Great structure, newer chips, good staff, good floors, and having the poker room upstairs from the rest of the casino was a nice little perk. Having a Dunks just at the bottom of the escalator helped too.

There weren't too many bad spots in this tournament but I was caaaaaaaaaaaaaard dead. Just couldn't get a hand so I started trying to bluff. Like fold for 1.5 levels, folds to me in the CO, I raise 2.5x without looking, only for both the BTN and BB to wake up with QQ and KK respectively.

One weird spot - and I wish I had written down the exact bet sizings and whatnot - came when I had black AA. Flop of 632 two clubs. I bet one player calls. Turn 4c so front door flush draw came in. I rip it in and get snap called by red 55. River is a fourth club and the guy gets FURIOUS. Like "How could you go all in there?!? I know it's only a $160 but c'mon man you can't play that bad and think you did good". Keep in mind this dude snap called an all in when a front door flush came in with only a straight. I don't blame him for the call, but getting bertated was a little odd.

Much later on, the player on my right makes a small raise pre. I see black JJ and rip in about 13 or so BB. BTN goes all in for less and original raiser goes deep into the tank. He's thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking... and finally open-folds red QQ. I'm honestly amazed he was able to get away from it especially since he had both of us crushed in chips (losing would have meant less than 1/3 his stack). I once again get lucky with four to a flush and the QQ player starts silently congratulating himself.

This was a bigger tournament and 12 people made the money. The numbers start dwindling and we finally hit the bubble. Then... stagnation. No one was busting out. No all ins were being called. I think we did 2.5 levels hand-for-hand in a daily, which seems absurd to me. We had one or two more hands to go before I was going to suggest we just find $180 in the pool somewhere and pay a bubble to get on with it, but then someone at the other table does us all a favor and gets his AA cracked by something weird like KQ or QJ.

Unfortunately I quickly follow them out the door when my 66 gets called by the same guy who folded the QQ in the previous hand. This time he snap calls the all in with AQ and gets there. $160 in $287 out and I didn't have to scrape cat piss for like 8 hours that day so all in all, I consider that a win.

I was making fun of my dad for being a hoarder by keeping all these VHS tapes (with no VHS player):



Then I went to my room and found one of my old band's shirts that I've had prepped for sale for 15+ years:



It's not a trip to Mass without some townie degen:



As my wife and I always do, we grabbed a hotel room in Maine for a night away. And I can't think of anything more Maine than a Christmas tree made of lobster traps:



When the Golden Nugget hosts different events, they almost always do a good job:




The Moose events were not only well run, but the low rakes and good structures made them pretty strong value too. My beef was PokerAtlas ****ed up and misrepesented the chip stacks. I played the Sunday 11am and 3pm tournaments (as the 11am did not go well). The 11am was supposed to be 15k starting plus a $5 add on for 5k more, for 20k total. PokerAtlas advertised it as 20k starting plus a 5k add on. Same issue with the 3pm which led to a lot of confused calls to the floor to start the tournaments.

Nothing of interest happened in the 11am. Just smacked in the face by the deck a couple of times until I went busto. Late regged the 3pm and within 3 hands I had taken the 25k starting to almost 80k. Soon thereafter I get moved to another table, and that's when **** goes south FAST. I make two bad folds (one on flop, one on river with AA), one (I thought) good bluff that got called (QJ on KT8 flop, 3 turn, 7 river - I raised pre and bet all 3 streets and got called down by 66), and one probably bad jam pre. Had AJ UTG and make it 3x to go. One player flats, one jams for about 8x total. I re-jam for about 30bb and the initial caller almost folds but eventually calls for less with QQ and holds. So my 80k is now down to 22k when this happens two hands after the AJ hand.

Blinds are 800/1600/1600. It folds to me in the SB and I raise to 3600 with KK. BB calls. Flop comes T92r. I just ship it and the BB snap calls with... T3o. He acts like he trapped me until I roll over the KK, and he almost goes pale. Turn is, of course, a 3, and I can't counterfeit his two pair on the river so I left. First time I've ever just left without making sure the other player had me covered. To be fair, if someone was trying to get my attention that I had chips left, I wouldn't have heard them. I bought myself the Sony WH1000XM3 noise canceling over-the-ear huge ****er headphones. I was a bit skeptical that I would want/need something so seemingly unnecessary but holy hell I'm actually upset I haven't bought noise canceling headphones before now. Love love love love these things.

Tournaments are going about as well as a kick in the dick. Had one at MGM where we're 3-handed and one guy won't chop even though we're all about even. He misplays A2 pre and gets bailed out by the deck to crack my AA and sends me home in 3rd. South Point started reporting to Hendon Mob which isn't great when you're trying to play hookey from work (that 10am $2k gtd is sweet as hell). I didn't get to try the new Westgate Friday night and I'm dying to see what the Sahara does when they re-open. More on that as it comes.

The wife and I spent the weekend in LA. First, Friday night at the Novo to see Motion City Soundtrack:



Then Saturday we went to Universal Studios to hit up Harry Potter whatever:




I wasn't pro- or con-Harry Potter prior to the weekend. I just never really gave a ****. I'm actually a decently big fan of sci-fi in general, but I can't really get into a story where the main characters are kids. It just doesn't appeal to me. But we decided to blitz through all eight Harry Potter movies prior to me going to the park just so I could have a better frame of reference. I actually quite liked the movies. Not something I'm dying to go back and watch again and again but I enjoyed them while I was watching them. The park at Universal, however, was kind of spectacular. Really well done, and aside from the commercialism, it really felt like Hogsmeade and Hogwarts. Pro tip: Line passes are your friend, but don't use it in the ride where the line curls through Hogwarts. There's a bunch of cool **** to see in there and it's worth seeing. Plus the line moves rather quickly, even when it's crowded. The ride never actually stops so people can hop on and off without the need to wait for the next cart. We also did the studio tour and a handful of other little things around the park. Ate at Krusty Burger in the Simpsons area which was much better than we anticipated. After about 7 hours and more money spent on crap than I care to admit, we finally called it a night.

Here's a question for the LA people here: How the **** do you get around in this city without left turn lanes? Especially downtown. I couldn't believe that these lanes just don't exist. Kinda bugged me, to be honest.

Fortunately LA more than made up for that with the food we had there. We stayed in Koreatown, so the first place was Sun Ha Jang. It's basically a Korean BBQ place (which is probably my favorite genre of food) that only does duck (my favorite meat). And at the end, they fry the fried rice in the rendered duck fat that's been cooked off at the end of the meal. Honestly, first time in over a year I've regretted having surgery.

Then we found a breakfast joint called Sqirl, featured here:



My wife got the ricotta toast, rainbow style (multiple jams). I got a biscuit with corned beef, hollandaise, poached egg and celary salt. Unbelievable meal.

Like I said, Krusty Burger at Universal was surprisingly good.

Then the wife said "Hey I know we're in Koreatown, but there's a Mexican place down the street that looks pretty good."

Oh, pretty good? Over 2k reviews and over 4 star rating. James Beard award. Michelin Star. On nearly every "Best of" list in town. Yeah, pretty ****ing good. We got there and had over an hour wait, but decided it was going to be worth it if the place is this highly reviewed. First time I'd ever had mole, and I'm again regretting not having tried this earlier. We also got a quesadilla that was more like an epanada. Just unbelievable food. My wife bought her dad a cookbook just in the hopes that he'll make us some mole next time we see him in NY.

It got to the point where I almost got tricked into liking LA. Weird times. Weird, weird times.

Back on the horse. I'm applying for new jobs like mad. Maybe I should just become a pro poker player and vlogger. Couldn't be any more humiliating than what I do now.

Nice post. I can't wait to visit that Encore Boston room. If you need help getting into vlogging, let me know!

New job.

**** YES.

I might post more once my time here is up but I am so, so relieved to get out of here and try a new opportunity. I'm moving up like 3 rungs at once for this spot.

Congratulations, Spike. I hope you enjoy the new gig.

So, you got elected? :-)

WTG Spike!

Congrats on the job dude!

Congratulations!

Nice update. I really hope you run and knock out this incumbent, she seems like the worst.

Yeah GL with it Spike. Looking forward to hear more about it.

Thanks all. The new job is not the city council job (the seat isn't up for election until 2021). I start next Monday and I'm actually getting nervous. I have no idea what time I start or if I have to start wearing a tie. But I'm so excited for it. It's something I've been fighting and clawing for for about ten years now. This is my chance so I better not **** it up.

I don’t live in your district for now (we moved to Henderson for 2020-2021 at least) but if you DM me in the future I would be willing to campaign or canvass for you in your district. Or maybe host and DJ a couple fundraisers.

I hate bad politicians that don’t actively improve our community, I think you would work to make all of Clark County better for all citizens.

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I really enjoyed this thread. Would love an update.

Spike, Katana, and Leon are my favorite all time threads here.

Hope Spike is ok and not busto living in the tunnels..