You make it to Vegas yet?

Yes. I'll have an update in a little bit.

After years of me shunning cases for my cell phones, I finally ran bad and dropped a phone. More accurately, yesterday my phone fell out of my pocket and onto the tiny airplane bathroom floor. I've grown fatter in the last year or so, but I swear that airplane bathrooms have correspondingly shrunk to sub-tiny camper sizes as a counterpoint to my expansion.



The result is that I cannot stand up anymore when I pee in airplane bathrooms; their narrow confines, combined with some Lovecraftian horror design cabin angles, make it so I have to sit. Thus my phone slid out of my pocket when I stood up, and the charging port broke when it hit the floor.

I'm here in Las Vegas for two weeks, and after considering rental car rates in this resort city on this extremely busy 4th of July weekend, I've decided to resort to my old compadre‐‐the bus‐‐for the first week; I'll revisit renting a car next week. I'm at the Gold Coast: a small but nice property located on Flamingo Blvd a straight 2 miles away from the WSOP at Bally's and Paris. The bus runs 24 hours up and down this route for $20/week. The Gold Coast used to have a free shuttle bus to the Strip, but they've discontinued it.

In the other direction and a similar distance up Flamingo lies Senor iPhone Repair.



The repair shop is located behind Pepe's Tacos, next to La Bonitá supermarket, and they have 800+ Google reviews averaging 4.9 stars out of 5, and their website is easy to navigate.

I was sold. They had a replacement charging port for my Samsung in stock, and they installed it within an hour for $60, parts and labor, and I left them a good review.

I'll spend the rest of today chilling. Tomorrow the grind begins.

well played imo

You’re on that side at GG, I played mostly O8 but did play a little $1/$2 at Orleans a week back and it wasn’t a bad game. Really interested in your opinions on cash games since you left. Feel like games are much softer than pre pandemic.

Sorry to hear this. Even worse, the GC sports book has discontinued its $1 hot dog.

Did Señor iPhone charge you more to fix you glass the. You paid for the phone?

It's a $100 phone. I heard once that the repair standard is 50% or lower, but I hate shopping for and setting up new phones, so it's a slam dunk repair as far as I'm concerned.

Oh wow I really need to check my grammar before posting.

I did not a have a great day at the tables yesterday. I busted three $125 one table SNGs in a row while waiting for the $580 mega satty to start. The SNGs have a terrible shovefest structure where we start with 20bb, and if we break even for 15 minutes the blinds go up and leave us with with a 10bb stack. I was card dead for all three bullets, and everyone knows how to play shove/fold nowadays, so I won't be playing those again.

On the second hand of the $580, which starts with T$10,000, blinds were 100/100 with a 100 big ante. EP opens 300 and is called by the CU. I defend with J9 in the BB, closing the action.

Pot (1000) - three players

Flop: 8TQ

I check, EP bets 800, CU folds, I raise to 2500 with the nut straight, EP thinks for a minute and calls.

Pot (6000) - heads up

Turn: J

Not a great card, but it occurs to me that I should discount V having AK, as that holding was an A high gutshot on a rainbow flop which had smacked my BB defending range pretty hard, and I had checkraised him for a quarter of his stack.

I have 7100 left in my stack and I elect to overbet shove, as V has all the sets (continuing with JJ on the flop makes more sense than AK) and all the two pairs, and I block only a set of jacks, and I also block K9 for the higher straight, and the river will almost certainly bring an action killing card.



As the dealer counted my chips to verify that V covered me (he did), the player to my right, a middle aged white guy, told me that if I had won the hand instead, I would have been penalized for "checking the nuts."

I'm sorry? Come again? He confirmed that he wasn't joking, or very high, or having a stroke and said, yes, it's a WSOP rule, been around for a while; you can't check the nuts.



What I wanted to say in that moment, as I was gathering up my stuff, is that I've played my share of live poker in the last few years, spent many hours at the tables, and that sir, that is the single dumbest poker related thing I've ever heard come out of a players mouth. You did it, sir.

But I bit my tongue and let someone else at the table explain to him that the no checking the nuts rule applies only to closing the action on the river, to prevent soft play, and that players are perfectly free to check the nuts on the flop, with our without the intention of checkraising.

After this, I met up with 2+2er FWWM and we went to Hofbräuhaus for the commiseration of dinner and drinks and good company. The place is fun, but too pricy for what you get. Now I'm about to set out for Hofbräuhaus again to retrieve my backpack.

**** rough start, flopping the nuts, check raising large, getting called with air. I mean getting those calls is profitable and great long term but sucked yesterday.

Damn dude you also broke your phone and forgot your backpack at a restaurant. Hopefully at the run bad is gone.

They still have Noodle Exchange and Ping Pang Pong, which is nice. Last night's Schnitzel didn't agree with me, so hopefully a beef wonton broth will settle things down. If not, then it's still delicious and I'll be no worse off.

The buffet is gone; alas, they're gone everywhere out here. Losing them is like losing an old friend. It hit me hard. I really loved the buffets. I have a big appetite and I always got my money's worth and more on every spread of $50 and under.

The casinos didn't have to take them away; Covid spreads through the air, and not nearly so much through surface contact. A buffet is no more crowded than a typical restaurant.

My only hope is that some property in the near future decides to try to stand out and opens or reopens a fancy getup, and has success with it.

Buffets are slowly reopening. Closest to you would be the Palms but a little pricey and don’t try going on the night they have lobster, it’s ridiculously busy, 4 hour wait times.

I did Southpoint recently and was pleasantly surprised. They had prime rib, bbq ribs, shrimp and a bunch of other stuff. $25 including soft drinks, friend had a comp.

List of 14 buffets open.

https://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/buffet-restaurants/

Thanks Da_Nit!. Palms breakfast is on the agenda for tomorrow.

While at the Palms of you signup for a card, they have a good new players promotion. $10 freeplay for every 250 points or $1000 on VP up to $100 in free play. They have full pay JOB up to $1 and full pay BP. Go grind like $20 an hour in EV on Jacks.

https://www.palms.com/gaming-promotions/first-day-perk/

I'll check it out. I only play double bonus, and it needs to be at least 9 for full house, 6 for a flush and 5 for a straight or I'll skip it out of principle.

Speaking of nitting it up:

I drank all of my hotel room coffee yesterday, and the place downstairs wasn't open when I woke up early and wanted another one, so I reused a one-cup coffee pack and it came out almost as dark as the first use.



So, running good so far today...

^The Nit approves. As a Nit I don’t do housekeeping but will hit up housekeeping for more coffee, at least GC has a coffee maker, the Cal doesn’t, damn you Boyd.

Palms does have 100% payback DB but no points. The better play on the signup bonus is JOB or BP. Although looks 9/7 DB at 99.11% with points, which comes out to a better return while playing the signup promo.

If live poker ain’t working out and if your interested and have some bankroll I can give you few other even better VP offers around town.

https://www.vpfree2.com/casino/palms

The Cal used to have coffee makers, but they disappeared a few years ago during a remodeling. I never used them because I love their lunch counter so.

The issue with the lunch counter is they now don’t open until 8am. I was working remotely like a dork on central time and had to get over priced bad coffee from Lappert’s.

SJ you didn’t get hit by a car crossing Flamingo to get the breakfast buffet at the Palms?

I'm fine, Da_Nit. Appreciate the concern.

No joy on the satties. I was almost completely card dead, but that doesn't mean that I was terribly unlucky. The fact is: since I arrived here, I've played roughly 100 hands total, due to the fast structures.

Card dead for 100 hands is an insignificant blip of bad luck and nothing to complain about; however, for me that 100 hands comprises 3 SNGs and 2 MTTs down the drain.

FWWM came up with a good idea. Tomorrow is the $1111 One More for One Drop, a tourney that starts with 400bb and has 1 hour levels. Hubba hubba. I am sold.

Are you only playing at the WSOP. Should have better structures for low dollar buy-ins in all the other tourneys around town.

That used to be the case, but I think this particular WSOP event takes the cake. For example, today's $1100 Venetian Monster Bounty starts with 350bb and has 30 minute levels, and tomorrow's Venetian $1100 starts with 300bb with 30 minute levels.

400bbs and one hour levels is pretty solid and even if rake is a bit hefty, it goes to a good cause, so sounds like a solid plan, GL

You’re right and yeah the extra juice to charity if I’m looking for a $1,100 tourney tomorrow I agree with you.