VPC Went Vegas 2018; The Trip Report
02-12-2018
, 06:22 PM
02-14-2018
, 06:41 AM
VPC Went Vegas Day 4: Blue Monday.
My day starts out pretty decent. It took four sleeping pills but we put in about eight hours of sleep last night. I see Iebus made a deal in the HORSE tourney pocketing me some $ and Baars seems to be past most of his post blow-up depression. Baars gives some pristine advise this morning that translates poorly but I have to type it here for the local boys: “Ja, luuster. De petat mot verwerk waere asse werrum is’. Tegeltje.
We agreed to play the Wynn Daily this Monday. Normally we do a casino crawl on Monday but no one even dared to suggest it yesterday. Baars and I head over to Uncle Earl in Caesars but the joint doesn’t open until elven. Fantastic business plan for a breakfast joint imo. I’m not waiting 30 minutes for no Earl so we head towards the Forum Shops on our way to Encore. We obviously take the wrong street at The Fountain of The Gods and by the time we make it back it’s basically 11 o’clock so Earl it is anyways.
After a lovely Caesar Salad Wrap I have to convince Baars to take a taxi to Encore. Baars slipped into an every penny counts modus - which I know won’t last an hour - and wants to walk. F that. On our way to the taxi’s we see a shirt that we simply have to buy for mister X. When someone from the VPC loses big time we say ‘the bear was hungry’ from the Big Lebowski scene ‘sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes well he eats you’. With that in mind this shirt is a clear necessity.
Beer = Bear in Dutch.
We all gather in front of the Wynn Poker room. Boy, are the VPC a sad bunch this Monday morning. For some it’s the reality of the money spend this weekend, for others it’s being away from the family for the first time and for others it’s the lack of sleep. For most it’s a combination of all of the above, though. Mister X looks like the doctor just diagnosed him with stage Z cancer. Oppie looks like he’s undergoing a permanent cavity search while Hoebol looks like he’s about to start crying. I make myself scares and register for the Daily asap.
About 25 souls accompany VPC’s Hugo, Hoebol, Baars, Iebus and me in this Daily event which starts us off with a 10k stack. I splash around bit when the following hand occurs and makes me want to quit playing poker forever. MP limps 50 and we make it 200 in the cut-off with T4c. Because that is what we do with T4c. Deal with it. BB calls and MP calls as well. We try to use our range advantage on AK8r and bet 350. SB takes about 30 seconds to call. Limper folds. Turn is an off suit 5. Alright, we put villain on a weak ace, semi-strong king or a TJ/QJ combo, right? Slow played QQ-JJ that he’s not willing to give up just yet maybe, but that’s about it. Surely we can push him off all that. RIGHT? We bet 1k and villain tanks a good minute before calling. River 9. Villain checks and we load up the spitfire and drop an 80% bomb the river; 2.8k. Villain tanks forever and eventually calls. With…….. wait for it……… K3o.
Sure, we are polarised here but come on. That doesn’t even beat hands we could potentially turn into a bluff here. I check how Baars – holding a hand ranking chart - is doing and he obviously has heaps. This calls for alcohol and I order a Budweiser right away. I actually battle my way back to like 15k when we get it in on a standard flip are left with 2,5 BB when re-entry closes.
We can't spin the 2.5 BB and I hang around to catch my next 1 $ Budweiser before I make my way over to the Venetian where the rest is supposed to be. Bricking these tournaments all day long is expensive so I need to have a chat with an ATM. I walk past the Venetian towards Casino Royale because they have the lowest ATM fees. Funny how that works. Taking a ten minute detour to save seven bucks while spending tons of money on all sorts of crap all day long. In Vegas you basically reach for your wallet somewhere between 15 and 25 times a day if I had to guess.
I can’t find anyone at Venetian and just sit down in a 1/2 game and grind beers for a while. Eventually Hugo and Bozzie show up. The session goes well and I rack up around 18:30 to take a shower. Baars ends up bubbling the Wynn daily but is very happy with the fact that $ 140,- lasted him some good six hours. We agreed to have group dinner at Mandalay Bay at eight and go to MGM’s TopGolf afterwards. When I come out of the shower I see plans have changed. Apparently. Damvic, Baars, Hoebol & Oppie couldn’t wait till eight. Since we didn’t reconfirm the 8 o’clock meetup within seven minutes the boys ate elsewhere.
Official dinner cancelation.
The good thing about this nonsense is that Iebus, Bozzie, Hugo and me now can go to The Naked Fish for Sushi. The dinner is fantastic apart from the fact that we have to listen to Bozzie rave on about his passion for spinach for about 45 minutes. The meal leaves us stuffed but I’m still in the mood for TopGolf. Unfortunately I’m the only one and we head back to Flamingo where the other three return to their rooms right away.
Godlike.
Bozzie.
I felt like sh*t before dinner but I’m doing okay now. Not tired yet so I walk over to the Bellagio for some poker. The 1/3 game is pretty good. One dude is on a 36 hour session and seems extremely proud of the fact he hasn’t showered in two days. There is a couple from Sweden at the table. As per usual with women from Sweden she is breathtakingly gorgeous.
It’s clear the Swedish couple haven’t played poker in a casino before. At one point the dude bets $ 20,- out of turn. When the action gets back to him the bet is $ 30,- and the dealer makes him put in his original $ 20,- bet. I tell the dealer he’s wrong. Dealer doesn’t respond. It tell him again and he looks at me annoyed. I request a floor who makes the correct ruling. The dealer then proceed to complain about most 1/3 players hardly know the rules to the game. I tell him he’s probably right but since it’s kind of his job it would be nice he knew the rules to the game and put him on the no-tip list which now contains one name.
I’m seated about one table away from a heated mixed game. Just about every hand on that table leads to a massive brawl. There is one dude not playing and telling a story to one of the active players. During the 10 minute – probably bad beat - story the player tells this dude to ‘f*ck off because nobody cares’ at least 15 times yet the dude just stands there and keeps telling his story. Fascinating.
Can’t quite remember but I think the session was pretty much break-even. I do remember seeing dealer Fred at the cage. Fred dealt a game I was in two years ago and never in my life had I seen anyone as annoyed at with his job as dealer Fred. It was golden and immediately puts a smile on my face. I head back to Flamingo around 02:30 hours where find Baars staring at the ceiling. That tells me all I need to know about how his evening went. The boys planned a trip towards the piano bar in NYNY but eventually everyone backed out due a serious case of the Vegas Monday Blues.
My day starts out pretty decent. It took four sleeping pills but we put in about eight hours of sleep last night. I see Iebus made a deal in the HORSE tourney pocketing me some $ and Baars seems to be past most of his post blow-up depression. Baars gives some pristine advise this morning that translates poorly but I have to type it here for the local boys: “Ja, luuster. De petat mot verwerk waere asse werrum is’. Tegeltje.
We agreed to play the Wynn Daily this Monday. Normally we do a casino crawl on Monday but no one even dared to suggest it yesterday. Baars and I head over to Uncle Earl in Caesars but the joint doesn’t open until elven. Fantastic business plan for a breakfast joint imo. I’m not waiting 30 minutes for no Earl so we head towards the Forum Shops on our way to Encore. We obviously take the wrong street at The Fountain of The Gods and by the time we make it back it’s basically 11 o’clock so Earl it is anyways.
After a lovely Caesar Salad Wrap I have to convince Baars to take a taxi to Encore. Baars slipped into an every penny counts modus - which I know won’t last an hour - and wants to walk. F that. On our way to the taxi’s we see a shirt that we simply have to buy for mister X. When someone from the VPC loses big time we say ‘the bear was hungry’ from the Big Lebowski scene ‘sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes well he eats you’. With that in mind this shirt is a clear necessity.
Beer = Bear in Dutch.
We all gather in front of the Wynn Poker room. Boy, are the VPC a sad bunch this Monday morning. For some it’s the reality of the money spend this weekend, for others it’s being away from the family for the first time and for others it’s the lack of sleep. For most it’s a combination of all of the above, though. Mister X looks like the doctor just diagnosed him with stage Z cancer. Oppie looks like he’s undergoing a permanent cavity search while Hoebol looks like he’s about to start crying. I make myself scares and register for the Daily asap.
About 25 souls accompany VPC’s Hugo, Hoebol, Baars, Iebus and me in this Daily event which starts us off with a 10k stack. I splash around bit when the following hand occurs and makes me want to quit playing poker forever. MP limps 50 and we make it 200 in the cut-off with T4c. Because that is what we do with T4c. Deal with it. BB calls and MP calls as well. We try to use our range advantage on AK8r and bet 350. SB takes about 30 seconds to call. Limper folds. Turn is an off suit 5. Alright, we put villain on a weak ace, semi-strong king or a TJ/QJ combo, right? Slow played QQ-JJ that he’s not willing to give up just yet maybe, but that’s about it. Surely we can push him off all that. RIGHT? We bet 1k and villain tanks a good minute before calling. River 9. Villain checks and we load up the spitfire and drop an 80% bomb the river; 2.8k. Villain tanks forever and eventually calls. With…….. wait for it……… K3o.
Sure, we are polarised here but come on. That doesn’t even beat hands we could potentially turn into a bluff here. I check how Baars – holding a hand ranking chart - is doing and he obviously has heaps. This calls for alcohol and I order a Budweiser right away. I actually battle my way back to like 15k when we get it in on a standard flip are left with 2,5 BB when re-entry closes.
We can't spin the 2.5 BB and I hang around to catch my next 1 $ Budweiser before I make my way over to the Venetian where the rest is supposed to be. Bricking these tournaments all day long is expensive so I need to have a chat with an ATM. I walk past the Venetian towards Casino Royale because they have the lowest ATM fees. Funny how that works. Taking a ten minute detour to save seven bucks while spending tons of money on all sorts of crap all day long. In Vegas you basically reach for your wallet somewhere between 15 and 25 times a day if I had to guess.
I can’t find anyone at Venetian and just sit down in a 1/2 game and grind beers for a while. Eventually Hugo and Bozzie show up. The session goes well and I rack up around 18:30 to take a shower. Baars ends up bubbling the Wynn daily but is very happy with the fact that $ 140,- lasted him some good six hours. We agreed to have group dinner at Mandalay Bay at eight and go to MGM’s TopGolf afterwards. When I come out of the shower I see plans have changed. Apparently. Damvic, Baars, Hoebol & Oppie couldn’t wait till eight. Since we didn’t reconfirm the 8 o’clock meetup within seven minutes the boys ate elsewhere.
Official dinner cancelation.
The good thing about this nonsense is that Iebus, Bozzie, Hugo and me now can go to The Naked Fish for Sushi. The dinner is fantastic apart from the fact that we have to listen to Bozzie rave on about his passion for spinach for about 45 minutes. The meal leaves us stuffed but I’m still in the mood for TopGolf. Unfortunately I’m the only one and we head back to Flamingo where the other three return to their rooms right away.
Godlike.
Bozzie.
I felt like sh*t before dinner but I’m doing okay now. Not tired yet so I walk over to the Bellagio for some poker. The 1/3 game is pretty good. One dude is on a 36 hour session and seems extremely proud of the fact he hasn’t showered in two days. There is a couple from Sweden at the table. As per usual with women from Sweden she is breathtakingly gorgeous.
It’s clear the Swedish couple haven’t played poker in a casino before. At one point the dude bets $ 20,- out of turn. When the action gets back to him the bet is $ 30,- and the dealer makes him put in his original $ 20,- bet. I tell the dealer he’s wrong. Dealer doesn’t respond. It tell him again and he looks at me annoyed. I request a floor who makes the correct ruling. The dealer then proceed to complain about most 1/3 players hardly know the rules to the game. I tell him he’s probably right but since it’s kind of his job it would be nice he knew the rules to the game and put him on the no-tip list which now contains one name.
I’m seated about one table away from a heated mixed game. Just about every hand on that table leads to a massive brawl. There is one dude not playing and telling a story to one of the active players. During the 10 minute – probably bad beat - story the player tells this dude to ‘f*ck off because nobody cares’ at least 15 times yet the dude just stands there and keeps telling his story. Fascinating.
Can’t quite remember but I think the session was pretty much break-even. I do remember seeing dealer Fred at the cage. Fred dealt a game I was in two years ago and never in my life had I seen anyone as annoyed at with his job as dealer Fred. It was golden and immediately puts a smile on my face. I head back to Flamingo around 02:30 hours where find Baars staring at the ceiling. That tells me all I need to know about how his evening went. The boys planned a trip towards the piano bar in NYNY but eventually everyone backed out due a serious case of the Vegas Monday Blues.
02-16-2018
, 04:51 AM
VPC Went Vegas Day 5: Downtown.
Since we flew in trough London we had a lot of British lads on the plane that were only going to Vegas for the weekend. Seems like a long *ss flight for a weekend away but with every day that passes you kind of get to appreciate their point of view. The slogan of the Aria casino is ‘this is how we Vegas’, if you translate that to the VPC it basically come down to blowing away 80% of your energy in the first 48 hours and then hanging on to dear life for the rest of the week.
Since I only had a few beers yesterday this morning isn’t too rough. Still stuffed from last night’s Sushi I’m not in the mood for Uncle Earl so I stop at the Starbucks in front of Ballys and grab a Vanilla Latte and slow roasted Ham, Swiss and Egg sandwich. It’s my first coffee of the trip. I’ve been really careful with stuff that usually upsets my stomach / wellbeing like coffee, spicy food, huge meals and also smoking. Two years ago I really felt horrible the last three days and last Sunday I thought we were on that path again since I was dizzy all day but luckily yesterday wasn’t half bad.
We have a noon meet-up in front of the Flamingo poker room to make our way to our beloved Binions Casino. Everyone is on board for this day of running around Fremont street. We have about half an hour to waste before the Binions 1 PM tourney starts and that is carefully spend at black-jack tables in the front where the dealers are all but naked. I don’t think the boys win a single hand of black-jack at these tables. It’s brutal. Oppie almost gets physically sick when he watches Baars burn trough a couple of hundred dollars in less than no-time.
I show Hoebol around Fremont and the Nugget for a minute before we register the 1PM tourney at Binions. It’s hurts to see this sorry excuse for a poker room when back in the day I thought Binions had one of nicest rooms in Town. Since poker director Paul Campbell left for Aria they might as well have rolled over and died at Binions. Absolute mismanagement when The Nugget has a booming room about 100 feet away. No excuses.
No less than seven VPC members enter the daily making the total field twelve (yes, 12) players. Only mister X doesn’t register and that kind of annoys me. Sure, he ****ed up a bit in the weekend. Alright, he ****ed up big time in the weekend. Okay, okay, he ****ed up HUMONGOUSLY in the weekend but there are three days left so at least try to make something of the remainder instead of counting down the hours till we leave Sodom and Gomorrah. We have a chat about it later in the day and I’m glad to report Mister X’s mood improved from suicidal to heavily depressed for the rest of the trip.
The tournament has a $ 60,- buy-in which gets you 10K but one can add-on 10k for $ 20,- right away and add another 10k for $ 20,- after six levels. After a few Budweiser’s I switch to double rum and cokes so I can’t quite remember everything from this tourney. I remember getting frustrated about a pot where I have to bet the river because I lose showdown value due to a double board pair and Hugo eventually calls with un underset on 4QTQT. I accuse Hugo of a bad call when in reality it isn’t.
Not being able to get anything going in these tournaments is tilting me. Hands like this. I open AK and Baars calls on the button. I fire two bullets on QJ8J and give up on the river. Baars bets, I fold and Baars shows 22. You might think Baars wants to needle here but let me assure that is not the case. I’m sure he doesn’t have a clue as to why he bet the river but there has been a bit too much randomness like this when it comes to poker this week.
Eventually Damvic & Baars chop the tourney four way. I truly enjoy Baars being so happy with winning like ~ $ 250,-. He dropped that amount times three in about 90 seconds before the tourney started but winning even the smallest amount sends Baars straight into the clouds.
No idea why we get separated but at one point I end up in the Container Park with Bozzie, Oppie & Damvic. The Container Park looks nice in the Trooper video’s but it ain’t all that in real time. We sit down in an completely empty Asian joint where the two employees don’t even look at us for about five minutes. Alright, next stop is the Irish Pub on the corner of Fremont and LV Blvd.
After some chicken wing appetizers the main courses are served. The level of disappointment in Damvic’s eyes when he gets his order is something I’ll cherish for the rest of my life. Damvic always scans the menu for 15 seconds until he finds the word ‘steak’ and pulls the hand break. In this case the ‘Ahi Steak’ was the first one on the menu. Little did Damvic know Ahi means Tuna. So instead of a hot juicy steak he’s looking at a platter of raw fish. He looks at the plate and asks the waitress whether this is the salad that comes with the steak. I’m in need of mouth to mouth resuscitation by now. Damvic looks at the plate, than plants both hands flat on top the meal to confirm his nightmare; not only is it a platter of raw fish it’s an ice-cold platter of raw fish.
We can’t intervene quick enough when the waitresses offers to take the meal back and let him reorder. ‘That’s quite alright miss, it is what he ordered. Look at that table, those people look very thirsty. SEE YA!’ We enjoy some fine ribs while Damvic picks things of his plate that he considers eatable as if he’s playing John Spinello ‘operation’ game. Lovely dinner.
Damvic having dinner.
The other four went for Red Sushi in The Nugget and just got their table so I put myself on the list for some 1/2. It takes a while to get a seat so I’m just getting started when the boys are in front of the poker room ready to move on. I scan the group for a second and know enough. This bunch is going nowhere. It’s the biggest collective after dinner dip you’ve ever seen and I decide to continue the game.
As expected about 30 minutes later Iebus sends me a text; they are leaving. These boys don’t prepare for a Vegas trip so even the simplest mission – finding Atomic Liquor in this case – is a bridge to far. They walked past the Container Park and still managed to not find the joint. Pretty impressive. Iebus, Bozzie & Oppie are done with walking around pointlessly and I join them in the taxi towards Flamingo where I sit down in the poker room for a little while before calling it a day.
Since we flew in trough London we had a lot of British lads on the plane that were only going to Vegas for the weekend. Seems like a long *ss flight for a weekend away but with every day that passes you kind of get to appreciate their point of view. The slogan of the Aria casino is ‘this is how we Vegas’, if you translate that to the VPC it basically come down to blowing away 80% of your energy in the first 48 hours and then hanging on to dear life for the rest of the week.
Since I only had a few beers yesterday this morning isn’t too rough. Still stuffed from last night’s Sushi I’m not in the mood for Uncle Earl so I stop at the Starbucks in front of Ballys and grab a Vanilla Latte and slow roasted Ham, Swiss and Egg sandwich. It’s my first coffee of the trip. I’ve been really careful with stuff that usually upsets my stomach / wellbeing like coffee, spicy food, huge meals and also smoking. Two years ago I really felt horrible the last three days and last Sunday I thought we were on that path again since I was dizzy all day but luckily yesterday wasn’t half bad.
We have a noon meet-up in front of the Flamingo poker room to make our way to our beloved Binions Casino. Everyone is on board for this day of running around Fremont street. We have about half an hour to waste before the Binions 1 PM tourney starts and that is carefully spend at black-jack tables in the front where the dealers are all but naked. I don’t think the boys win a single hand of black-jack at these tables. It’s brutal. Oppie almost gets physically sick when he watches Baars burn trough a couple of hundred dollars in less than no-time.
I show Hoebol around Fremont and the Nugget for a minute before we register the 1PM tourney at Binions. It’s hurts to see this sorry excuse for a poker room when back in the day I thought Binions had one of nicest rooms in Town. Since poker director Paul Campbell left for Aria they might as well have rolled over and died at Binions. Absolute mismanagement when The Nugget has a booming room about 100 feet away. No excuses.
No less than seven VPC members enter the daily making the total field twelve (yes, 12) players. Only mister X doesn’t register and that kind of annoys me. Sure, he ****ed up a bit in the weekend. Alright, he ****ed up big time in the weekend. Okay, okay, he ****ed up HUMONGOUSLY in the weekend but there are three days left so at least try to make something of the remainder instead of counting down the hours till we leave Sodom and Gomorrah. We have a chat about it later in the day and I’m glad to report Mister X’s mood improved from suicidal to heavily depressed for the rest of the trip.
The tournament has a $ 60,- buy-in which gets you 10K but one can add-on 10k for $ 20,- right away and add another 10k for $ 20,- after six levels. After a few Budweiser’s I switch to double rum and cokes so I can’t quite remember everything from this tourney. I remember getting frustrated about a pot where I have to bet the river because I lose showdown value due to a double board pair and Hugo eventually calls with un underset on 4QTQT. I accuse Hugo of a bad call when in reality it isn’t.
Not being able to get anything going in these tournaments is tilting me. Hands like this. I open AK and Baars calls on the button. I fire two bullets on QJ8J and give up on the river. Baars bets, I fold and Baars shows 22. You might think Baars wants to needle here but let me assure that is not the case. I’m sure he doesn’t have a clue as to why he bet the river but there has been a bit too much randomness like this when it comes to poker this week.
Eventually Damvic & Baars chop the tourney four way. I truly enjoy Baars being so happy with winning like ~ $ 250,-. He dropped that amount times three in about 90 seconds before the tourney started but winning even the smallest amount sends Baars straight into the clouds.
No idea why we get separated but at one point I end up in the Container Park with Bozzie, Oppie & Damvic. The Container Park looks nice in the Trooper video’s but it ain’t all that in real time. We sit down in an completely empty Asian joint where the two employees don’t even look at us for about five minutes. Alright, next stop is the Irish Pub on the corner of Fremont and LV Blvd.
After some chicken wing appetizers the main courses are served. The level of disappointment in Damvic’s eyes when he gets his order is something I’ll cherish for the rest of my life. Damvic always scans the menu for 15 seconds until he finds the word ‘steak’ and pulls the hand break. In this case the ‘Ahi Steak’ was the first one on the menu. Little did Damvic know Ahi means Tuna. So instead of a hot juicy steak he’s looking at a platter of raw fish. He looks at the plate and asks the waitress whether this is the salad that comes with the steak. I’m in need of mouth to mouth resuscitation by now. Damvic looks at the plate, than plants both hands flat on top the meal to confirm his nightmare; not only is it a platter of raw fish it’s an ice-cold platter of raw fish.
We can’t intervene quick enough when the waitresses offers to take the meal back and let him reorder. ‘That’s quite alright miss, it is what he ordered. Look at that table, those people look very thirsty. SEE YA!’ We enjoy some fine ribs while Damvic picks things of his plate that he considers eatable as if he’s playing John Spinello ‘operation’ game. Lovely dinner.
Damvic having dinner.
The other four went for Red Sushi in The Nugget and just got their table so I put myself on the list for some 1/2. It takes a while to get a seat so I’m just getting started when the boys are in front of the poker room ready to move on. I scan the group for a second and know enough. This bunch is going nowhere. It’s the biggest collective after dinner dip you’ve ever seen and I decide to continue the game.
As expected about 30 minutes later Iebus sends me a text; they are leaving. These boys don’t prepare for a Vegas trip so even the simplest mission – finding Atomic Liquor in this case – is a bridge to far. They walked past the Container Park and still managed to not find the joint. Pretty impressive. Iebus, Bozzie & Oppie are done with walking around pointlessly and I join them in the taxi towards Flamingo where I sit down in the poker room for a little while before calling it a day.
02-19-2018
, 07:39 AM
VPC Went Vegas Day 6: Oye Cómo Va.
The Flamingo poker room. A society on its own. Here’s an idea; go play poker there for a year and write a book about it. I’d buy it. No lack of characters to choose from that’s for sure. Everyone in the Flamingo poker room seems to know each other for years and years. There is something lovely but also tragic about the whole atmosphere. The old folks buying in for $ 40,- at 2/4 Limit tables hoping to get their Aces cracked. Players sitting out on ‘unlucky dealers’. The regulars constantly scouting Bravo to check the latest promotions / free rolls around town. The superficial conversations. The way too personal conversations. All of it makes the Flamingo poker room a pretty special place.
Your average opponent in Flamingo.
It’s hard to imagine any of the Flamingo poker room habitants are actually making a living there. The level of play and poker talk is so ridicule at times you think they are jerking your chain. On Wednesday morning I’m having one of those sessions where it just seems some force of evil is out to get you. I get in all sort of horrible spots without even wanting to be in the hands most of the time. We check in the BB with KTo when one maniac limped in from MP. We flop TT4 and villain limped in with…..T4. Players overcalling $ 22,- 3-bets with ~ $ 70,- stacks to flop baby sets when we finally flop a pair with AK. I make it $ 14,- with Kings after a limp and the T4 dude calls from the BB. He leads all streets – 886T2 - for $ 10,- with 85. Okay. I pick up Kings three times in the session and they all get cracked after just three cards. It’s a sh*t-show. Luckily the players are pretty bad and I manage to loose less than one buy-in in this ridiculous session. Some of that is due to me over pot controlling at times but it works out this session, I guess.
We have some nice plans lined up for this Wednesday. Group dinner at six, Carlos Santana at eight, TopGolf after and the Piano Bar in NYNY to top things off. Around 16:00 hours I decide to go chill for a bit before we head to Mandalay Bay. Hugo takes my seat in the game alongside Bozzie. Before I’m in my room Bozzie sends me a text: ‘I’m fairly sure Hugo’s body gives him an electrical shock if he folds a hand pre-flop’. Epic Hugo. The man sees nothing but opportunities at the poker table. Hugo spits in the face of reversed implied odds. I’ve been watching Hugo play poker for quite some years now and never seem him have a VPIP of less than 60%. Having such a VPIP would suggest poker is a very expensive hobby for Hugo but that is hardly the case. Sure, his swings are hefty but since he also really rides the run good waves pretty hard I would assume he’s only a small loser in cash games overall. Combined with a pretty sweet tourney run and he’s more than likely up overall.
Folding is for quitters
I make my way down around six and meet Bozzie at the rail. We watch Hugo play some hands before we get a taxi towards Mandalay. UTG makes it $ 8 and UTG+1 raises to $ 24. Hugo is next to act with ATo. We get to witness the complete show; resting the head on the rail with disbelieve, leaning back in the chair and of course starring at the ceiling for a while. It takes him a full minute to finally let it go. In the taxi Bozzie and I sarcastically ask if it was a big fold on that last hand and Hugo – not knowing we railed the hand – responds the fold is still bothering him.
The eight of us have dinner at The House of Blues. Damvic, Baars, Hugo and I go see Santana here while the rest are going to watch the Las Vegas Rebels play ball. We order two 4-person plates of meat which are somewhat okay but the sides arrive 15 minutes later which kind of sucks. We bought the Santana tickets on the Strip today for like 60% of the original rate. Baars suggested we waited another hour or so to buy the tickets since price might drop even more. Baars. Of all people. Suggest we go hold our dicks on the Strip for an hour to save what? Eight bucks, maybe? Are you kidding me.
The Santana show is very good. It’s an exact copy of the show Baars and I saw in 2014 but it’s still a good time. After one horrendous can of Budweiser we switch to Vodka-Orange juice and Vodka-7-up. After the show all of us meet up in Mandalay and head for TopGolf. TopGolf advertises all around Vegas with having five bars. Well, seems like all five of them are closed as we pretty much have to beg to get one drink in during the entire hour. The golf is fun but we should have gotten two lanes as we all got to hit the ball like max 10 times. Which in the case of Damvic was still plenty.
After the golf it’s around midnight as we make our way towards the piano bar in NYNY. The bar was a huge hit with the VPC in 2016. It takes a few songs to get into the mood but after an hour or so we’re all screaming Sweet Caroline form the top of our longs. There is so much randomness going on in this bar it’s hard to keep track of it all. Behind us are a few military men trying to court a group of British ladies. One of the dudes really has game and is winding the ladies around his finger until he’s so drunk he’s basically bowling with these chicks and it all goes to sh*t.
In the VIP area there are some high-class escorts desperately looking to pay their rent while in the regular folk area there are some low-class escorts looking to pay for their next slice of pizza. Fascinating stuff. Meanwhile a fight breaks out which is always good. I see a girl spitting a man in the neck and throwing a glass at him. It takes security – a female shot-put athlete from Samoa – about 20 minutes to show up while the fight goes off and on. Can’t really put together what the fight is about but it looks like a typical case of #MeToo.
Then there’s this creepy dude. Bold like a cue ball, ring beard and butt ugly. This dude is in so much need for social contact it’s flat out scary. He walks around the joint solo and basically runs up to people that are laughing out loud and starts laughing along. It’s awkward beyond your wildest imagination. A day later I see this dude in the ‘It’s 5 o’clock somewhere bar’ on the Strip sidewalk. He walks up to guy who’s on his phone. The dude gives him the ‘can I help you?’ look and he just smiles funny. Serial killer material this one. That’s for sure.
Meanwhile our house is being sold back in the Netherlands. I’ve sold my house to some Chinese people who speak no foreign languages. I asked my girlfriend to keep me in the loop since I kind of expected things to not go very smoothly. I look at my phone at one point and see a message from her: ‘ONE FEKKING DRAMA!!!!!’ and I have a missed call from the bank. No Bueno. I call my girlfriend but she doesn’t answer for at least two hours. Good job keeping in the loop there, dear. I keep grinding Vodka-Orange juice because what else are you gonna do when thing turn sour back home? She eventually calls back when the duelling piano bar closes and we stumble into the pizza joint across the street. I find out most things have been sort off settled and I could potentially fire a few bullets at the Aria 10K high roller tomorrow.
Back in Flamingo I sit down at the 1/2 as per usual. Hoebol is at my table and Baars joins us as well. Having made a deep run at The Wynn and chopping the Binions daily Baars is now convinced he’s Gods next gift to poker. A fantastic hand takes place between Baars and a semi obnoxious dude that is between me and Hoebol. Baars bets like $ 50,- on the river and Phil Hellmuth insta snap calls the dudes $ 250,- shove with a set of nines to win the pot. Sounds standard but the board reads 8h 9d Jh 4h Qc. The dude is flabbergasted as is Baars when he is asked how he can call here. 5 AM. Time for bed.
The Flamingo poker room. A society on its own. Here’s an idea; go play poker there for a year and write a book about it. I’d buy it. No lack of characters to choose from that’s for sure. Everyone in the Flamingo poker room seems to know each other for years and years. There is something lovely but also tragic about the whole atmosphere. The old folks buying in for $ 40,- at 2/4 Limit tables hoping to get their Aces cracked. Players sitting out on ‘unlucky dealers’. The regulars constantly scouting Bravo to check the latest promotions / free rolls around town. The superficial conversations. The way too personal conversations. All of it makes the Flamingo poker room a pretty special place.
Your average opponent in Flamingo.
It’s hard to imagine any of the Flamingo poker room habitants are actually making a living there. The level of play and poker talk is so ridicule at times you think they are jerking your chain. On Wednesday morning I’m having one of those sessions where it just seems some force of evil is out to get you. I get in all sort of horrible spots without even wanting to be in the hands most of the time. We check in the BB with KTo when one maniac limped in from MP. We flop TT4 and villain limped in with…..T4. Players overcalling $ 22,- 3-bets with ~ $ 70,- stacks to flop baby sets when we finally flop a pair with AK. I make it $ 14,- with Kings after a limp and the T4 dude calls from the BB. He leads all streets – 886T2 - for $ 10,- with 85. Okay. I pick up Kings three times in the session and they all get cracked after just three cards. It’s a sh*t-show. Luckily the players are pretty bad and I manage to loose less than one buy-in in this ridiculous session. Some of that is due to me over pot controlling at times but it works out this session, I guess.
We have some nice plans lined up for this Wednesday. Group dinner at six, Carlos Santana at eight, TopGolf after and the Piano Bar in NYNY to top things off. Around 16:00 hours I decide to go chill for a bit before we head to Mandalay Bay. Hugo takes my seat in the game alongside Bozzie. Before I’m in my room Bozzie sends me a text: ‘I’m fairly sure Hugo’s body gives him an electrical shock if he folds a hand pre-flop’. Epic Hugo. The man sees nothing but opportunities at the poker table. Hugo spits in the face of reversed implied odds. I’ve been watching Hugo play poker for quite some years now and never seem him have a VPIP of less than 60%. Having such a VPIP would suggest poker is a very expensive hobby for Hugo but that is hardly the case. Sure, his swings are hefty but since he also really rides the run good waves pretty hard I would assume he’s only a small loser in cash games overall. Combined with a pretty sweet tourney run and he’s more than likely up overall.
Folding is for quitters
I make my way down around six and meet Bozzie at the rail. We watch Hugo play some hands before we get a taxi towards Mandalay. UTG makes it $ 8 and UTG+1 raises to $ 24. Hugo is next to act with ATo. We get to witness the complete show; resting the head on the rail with disbelieve, leaning back in the chair and of course starring at the ceiling for a while. It takes him a full minute to finally let it go. In the taxi Bozzie and I sarcastically ask if it was a big fold on that last hand and Hugo – not knowing we railed the hand – responds the fold is still bothering him.
The eight of us have dinner at The House of Blues. Damvic, Baars, Hugo and I go see Santana here while the rest are going to watch the Las Vegas Rebels play ball. We order two 4-person plates of meat which are somewhat okay but the sides arrive 15 minutes later which kind of sucks. We bought the Santana tickets on the Strip today for like 60% of the original rate. Baars suggested we waited another hour or so to buy the tickets since price might drop even more. Baars. Of all people. Suggest we go hold our dicks on the Strip for an hour to save what? Eight bucks, maybe? Are you kidding me.
The Santana show is very good. It’s an exact copy of the show Baars and I saw in 2014 but it’s still a good time. After one horrendous can of Budweiser we switch to Vodka-Orange juice and Vodka-7-up. After the show all of us meet up in Mandalay and head for TopGolf. TopGolf advertises all around Vegas with having five bars. Well, seems like all five of them are closed as we pretty much have to beg to get one drink in during the entire hour. The golf is fun but we should have gotten two lanes as we all got to hit the ball like max 10 times. Which in the case of Damvic was still plenty.
After the golf it’s around midnight as we make our way towards the piano bar in NYNY. The bar was a huge hit with the VPC in 2016. It takes a few songs to get into the mood but after an hour or so we’re all screaming Sweet Caroline form the top of our longs. There is so much randomness going on in this bar it’s hard to keep track of it all. Behind us are a few military men trying to court a group of British ladies. One of the dudes really has game and is winding the ladies around his finger until he’s so drunk he’s basically bowling with these chicks and it all goes to sh*t.
In the VIP area there are some high-class escorts desperately looking to pay their rent while in the regular folk area there are some low-class escorts looking to pay for their next slice of pizza. Fascinating stuff. Meanwhile a fight breaks out which is always good. I see a girl spitting a man in the neck and throwing a glass at him. It takes security – a female shot-put athlete from Samoa – about 20 minutes to show up while the fight goes off and on. Can’t really put together what the fight is about but it looks like a typical case of #MeToo.
Then there’s this creepy dude. Bold like a cue ball, ring beard and butt ugly. This dude is in so much need for social contact it’s flat out scary. He walks around the joint solo and basically runs up to people that are laughing out loud and starts laughing along. It’s awkward beyond your wildest imagination. A day later I see this dude in the ‘It’s 5 o’clock somewhere bar’ on the Strip sidewalk. He walks up to guy who’s on his phone. The dude gives him the ‘can I help you?’ look and he just smiles funny. Serial killer material this one. That’s for sure.
Meanwhile our house is being sold back in the Netherlands. I’ve sold my house to some Chinese people who speak no foreign languages. I asked my girlfriend to keep me in the loop since I kind of expected things to not go very smoothly. I look at my phone at one point and see a message from her: ‘ONE FEKKING DRAMA!!!!!’ and I have a missed call from the bank. No Bueno. I call my girlfriend but she doesn’t answer for at least two hours. Good job keeping in the loop there, dear. I keep grinding Vodka-Orange juice because what else are you gonna do when thing turn sour back home? She eventually calls back when the duelling piano bar closes and we stumble into the pizza joint across the street. I find out most things have been sort off settled and I could potentially fire a few bullets at the Aria 10K high roller tomorrow.
Back in Flamingo I sit down at the 1/2 as per usual. Hoebol is at my table and Baars joins us as well. Having made a deep run at The Wynn and chopping the Binions daily Baars is now convinced he’s Gods next gift to poker. A fantastic hand takes place between Baars and a semi obnoxious dude that is between me and Hoebol. Baars bets like $ 50,- on the river and Phil Hellmuth insta snap calls the dudes $ 250,- shove with a set of nines to win the pot. Sounds standard but the board reads 8h 9d Jh 4h Qc. The dude is flabbergasted as is Baars when he is asked how he can call here. 5 AM. Time for bed.
