really good read. Your KQ reshove that Jason called atrocious was lol standard but I think shoving the K8 over limpers was bad. Keep them coming!

Yeah, I talked with Robl about this one later (not sure if I mentioned this in the report) and he said it was standard, so that made me feel a little better about myself. I think he said he liked the A8 fold as well. Obviously Jason and I still don't have the late game down pat.

Another segment coming up.

assuming it was winner take all, the A8 fold seems really bad
but good reports, keep em coming

excellent read

favorite part:

nice more pics, keep it up

Friday, 6/20/08
I get up at 10:30 and start my day with some online poker. Just one table this time, as I don’t want a repeat of yesterday’s disaster. Things go well and I catch some cards against my tight table to find myself up early, but then a solid new player comes to the table (one of the ones pounding on me yesterday) and I give some of it back. I finish up about $80 before refusing to play with him anymore, so it’s all good. I make breakfast for Jason and myself, and then we head for the Rio. We miss the shuttle at Paris, so I persuade him to join me in Bill’s Gambling Hall nearby for some craps. I don’t last long and lose $40 very quickly before we walk. We wait at Caesar’s Palace to get the shuttle there, then it’s time to grind some more sats.

GAME #14: I am somewhat distracted by the dealer’s giant nasal deformity, but I get over it. Early on I raise 99 and fold when the SB bumps it to 40% of our stacks (he claims to have QQ) – my stack just never goes up for the rest of the game. After taking the blinds a few times, I have 875 chips and push T5o in the cutoff with blinds at 100/200. The big blind makes a horrendous call with 87s and spikes an 8 on the river to take me out.

GAME #15: This game is nearly a carbon copy of the last – an early raise-fold, this time with ATs, and then card-dead for the rest of the game. I lose with K7o v. JTo for most of my stack, then A2o vs. 38s for the rest of it. An over and under card against middle ones is apparently no good for me today, because that’s three crucial confrontations lost as the favorite.

I’m ready for another game, but the line is absurdly long, so instead I grab a delicious chicken sandwich at the Sao Paulo Café and call my grandma for a chat. Things haven’t been going well overall as far as gambling/poker goes, but I’m doing my best to regroup. I head back to the Satellite room and start again. Please to stop running like excrement?

GAME #16: Out so fast I barely have time to do anything. I get AKo all-in against AQs and the guy makes a diamond flush, taking away more than half my stack. The very next hand I openpush 62o in the small blind and the big blind wakes up with AKo and beats me. My bad luck continues.

GAME #17: This could be my last one. I don’t pick up any big hands down the stretch, but nobody calls any of my pushes to put me at risk (or double me up) so I survive until we’re five-handed. I’m happy to get it in with 99 for my last few big blinds, but of course I am called and beaten by AJo.

What a horribly disappointing day. Against Jason’s better judgment, I go over to the Gold Coast for about the tenth time to play craps and try to feel better about losing by, um, losing more. And naturally, that’s exactly what I do, about $85 worth. Goodbye profits from yesterday, hello deep feelings of failure. I head back to find Jason in the PLO game. I ask about playing another satellite, but he has talked to Robl and apparently we’ll be joining him and Phil Galfond at the Bellagio to celebrate winning his bracelet. He wants to get food first. I call Robl as we head out, and he tells me they actually weren’t able to get a table but he would let me know later what they’re doing. I make Jason listen to my moping, and he agrees that after today’s bout with epic fail, it is probably time to give up the dream. Depressed, I part ways with him and head back to the hotel room rather than watch him eat.

This is the low point, the crash after losing – I experienced it on both of my previous trips to Vegas as well. It comes after huge downswings in poker and after pissing away money at the table games. Why do I gamble when it’s so painful to lose and never satisfying enough to win? I wonder if it really is an addiction, a disease. I’m not responsible, I’m careless. I miss Lauren and I’m worried about money because I don’t have a job back home. Maybe I’m no better than Sam Grizzle, a sick degen who doesn’t care who gets hurt. It’s just like everything else I mess up in my life.

Robl never does contact us, and I advise Jason to get up early enough to register tomorrow before I go to bed. I don’t know what I’ll be doing.

Saturday, 6/21/08
I wake up at 11:30 feeling refreshed and motivated. I see that Jason is still here and I ask him if he’s still willing to back me if I put up $400 for the last WSOP event we have a chance to play. He says yes, and I say let’s go for it. “There will be more money,” I tell him. “There won’t be any more chances.”

We have to hurry – no time for breakfast (apart from a disgusting bag of turkey) or a shower, and we run to the back of Planet Hollywood to catch a cab. The people in line let us to the front when I ask, and we make it to the Rio in time to register. I ask the lady for a happy face to be written on my ticket, as they do in the satellites, and am satisfied.

WORLD SERIES OF POKER EVENT #39, $1,500 NO-LIMIT HOLD ‘EM
My table is in the Amazon Room Red next to Jason’s. It’s pretty loose and has good players from what I can tell. The guy two seats to my right (“bparis” on Stars according to his shirt) is a medium stakes pro. I chip up early on when I fire two bullets OOP into a Kxxx board with JJ and the guy folds the turn (Jason disagrees with me over this move later but I like it). I’m brought back down when I raise and call a shorty push with 88 in the hijack, but the guy behind me call-pushes his pocket kings and I have to fold after putting 600 chips in.

The blinds hurt for a while and then I make a huge mistake in a blind battle against a solid player: He openlimps the SB against my 56o, which I check. The flop is 4 4 T; he checks, I bet, he calls. The turn is a 7, giving me an open-ender. The correct move here would be to check through, especially since I am short on chips, but instead I bet the pot. He comes over the top and I have to fold, leaving myself with only 1,100 chips from the starting 3,000.


I screwed up early in Event #39 and this was my reward: Only 1100 chips left at my low point.

In the next round, the small blind openlimps and I push KQo. He calls with A7o and I’ll need some help to stay alive. The first four cards are rags, but the queen of diamonds on the river doubles me up and saves my tournament life.

After a while, the table breaks and I am seated at an older table to the right of a Middle Eastern man with a large stack. I have around 3,000 chips at this point and I take down the blinds with AKo right away. On the next hand with blinds at 100/200 I pick up ATo and raise to 500 in mid position. Middle Eastern guy calls and the old guy on the button pushes for 1,375 total. It gets back around to me and I decide to repush. Mistake! M.E. calls and I see that both players have AQo and I’m in danger of busting once again. The board comes 5 6 5 7 6, and I’m saved by the rivered two pair with my ace kicker that ties theirs. They don’t look too happy with me, and I feel bummed that I made such a blunder again, but happy to still be alive.

As time goes on I find out that the guy to my left is in fact Hasan Habib, 4th place finisher in the 2000 Main Event and owner of other assorted deep finishes. We have some fun at the table, as he’s a nice guy despite the beat I put on him early.


Me and Hasan Habib, 4th place finisher in the 2000 WSOP Main Event.

There is one questionable hand where I pick up AKo in the small blind with 200/400 blinds. UTG+1 raises, UTG+2 calls, and CO overpushes for about 15k. I tank and decide to fold, not positive about my decision but thinking that the CO’s range is QQ+ at worst, and that doesn’t even account for the EP guys. The table is very tight; I correctly push about 12 or 13 times while I’m there and I never get a call, going to the dinner break 6 hours in with 6,500 chips.

I meet up with Jason at the dinner break and find that he’s still in as well, but with only about 2,000 chips left. Blinds are going to be 300/600 with a 100 ante after the break, so we’ll both need to catch some cards to survive. We have dinner at Sao Paulo and I call Lauren because I love hearing from her.


Jason and I stepped outside at the dinner break to warm up; here’s a picture I took with a nice Wynn backdrop. That cowboy walking away offered to take the picture with both of us in it, but I didn’t want to get my camera stolen. In retrospect, I probably could have chased him down anyway, since he was wearing boots.

I call Robl and ask him about the AK hand (which he says was a good fold) and if he has any updates about where we’ll be going tomorrow (he doesn’t). Then it’s back to the action.

In one of the first hands back from the break, I push A2o in the hijack and get called by pocket tens. I start calling for an ace (despite the big blind showing that he folded one). The flop brings a deuce so now I have some more outs. “Ace or deuce!” I yell. The turn brings an ace and I cheer. The river bricks; I nearly triple up with the antes and I’m up over 16,000 chips. I get a warning from the floorman over excessively celebrating, which kind of makes me laugh. “I thought I was going to be gone on that hand, so I didn’t care, sorry,” I tell him.


Me eyeing Hasan’s stack. As you can see, I’ve got a decent amount of chips in front of me at this point.

Jason busts very quickly after the break and comes by to tell me he’s moving to the PLO cash tables. In the ensuing rounds I steal the blinds a few times and avoid confrontation until the table breaks down. I wish Hasan well and say goodbye to the table. I’m put at a table that is much quieter and much looser. I sort of recognize the guy across from me, and it’s because he’s Nick Binger, Michael Binger’s brother (who looks a lot like him). The blinds get huge and I’m looking for a hand to push. I pick up AKs on the button against Binger’s UTG push for ~9k. I repush for ~14.5k and the others fold. He has pocket tens and we’re racing. I yell for the ace or king but it’s not coming this time. The board bricks out and I’m crippled.

Soon I pick up AQs and take down the blinds to move me up a bit. The next hand I have A5s and push again, but this time I’m called by pocket queens. The flop brings a five, but I can’t draw out this time and I’m out around 370th (270 pays). It’s a big disappointment, because to have a stack that late had a lot of potential, but I have few regrets. It’s been a hell of an experience and I’m happy to say I took a shot and went deep.

I tell Jason I’m headed back to the hotel room, which we’re supposed to check out of tomorrow morning. I take the shuttle to Harrah’s (the first one available) and call Robl to give him the update. He says he couldn’t get us a room anywhere; he’ll put us up at his place if he has to, but he’s running bad at online poker and he’d rather we find a cheap room somewhere ourselves. I can’t really afford that; I guess everything good has run out at once.

I end up sticking the last $40 I have on me down at the Imperial Palace craps table. Jason calls and is upset I went to a casino instead of heading right back, but I’m allowed to change my mind, especially when I’ve got something to be bummed about. I play the dice for a long time on small bets and leave with $100, heading back to the hotel room. I write my report while watching “Mystery Men” and try not to be too worried about what will happen to us tomorrow.

I’m about ready to head home; I’ve done everything I set out to do to the best of my ability, and I’d like to get back to my lady and see what I can do with my life. Jason and I don’t fly out until Wednesday night, though, so it’s not that easy. Before I go to bed, Jason comes back to the room and tells me there’s no late checkout (so we have to be out of here by 10 A.M., which is bad because it’s 3:00 now) and is still ticked off at me for my change of plans (and that I’m not able to afford a room at the Wynn). No idea what’s coming, but all I can do now is sleep.

the pic with 1100 chips made me expect a comeback of epic proportions. still a neat idea for a photo.

i think its cool how u make time to call ur fam + girl

Well, I did make it up to a peak of about 21k. Obviously at the time I took the photo I didn't know what would happen, but had my hopes. If I had just won that damned flip against Binger I probably would have cashed, might have gone deep even. Who's to say?

Mike Sexton in some WSOP event.

Sunday, 6/22/08
I’m awoken from a dream about being at Gramma’s place at 9:15 A.M. by the alarm I set and immediately regret it. I whack the snooze button, but moments later Jason is pounding on my door. I groggily clean up and cook the last of our eggs, and then we head out. We end up leaving our luggage at the Marriott for the day and decide to head to downtown Vegas to try the two deck blackjack at Binion’s Horseshoe Casino, or wherever else it’s handy. We make a few stops and call Andrew every so often to beg for a place to sleep, because it seems like we are hanging in the wind here.

We spend basically the whole day at the Fremont playing blackjack and the occasional craps (which Jason finds less interesting), and I lose a bunch of money again. Stupid gambling. I’m exhausted as the day wears on, and am not really having a good time. I’ve been running awful, one of the dealers sucked a lot, and downtown is kind of a hovel. Jason suggests I quit craps for life, which is almost definitely the best suggestion I’ve heard for a while.

Finally around 7:00 P.M. we get in touch with Robl, who’s still not at his place but should be there soon. Robl has agreed to get a hotel room somewhere for us (I had to ask, since I thought we were covered), but doesn’t want us to stay at his place again because he’s been running bad at poker and has trouble sleeping with people there. We decide to take a cab all the way back to the Marriott, collect our gear, and then go to Robl’s apartment. He’s not there right away, but we’re let in and so we wait outside his door for him to arrive, uncomfortable and tired but able to access the internet. I chat online with Lauren for a bit and think about how I’d go home to her right now if I could.

Robl finally shows up and lets us in. He tells us he’s been looking at poker hands with Sass and also hanging out with durrrr (who had a 9 in his bed, apparently). I ask him if he ever gets lonely in this place by himself and he responds no, he likes poker hands better than people. I guess I can see how in this town, that might start to seem like a more satisfying thing to spend time with. I hope I never feel that way, though.

Meanwhile, Jason and Andrew’s friend Wesley (“the_R3aLde4L”), whom I’ve talked to and met once before, has final tabled the PokerStars Sunday Million tournament. The three of us sweat him for a while and work on a badugi-related math problem that Robl has posed. I hope that he will let us stay at his place tonight since this thing will probably be going late, but he makes it clear he’d still prefer us to find somewhere else. I try calling a few places but nobody seems to have anything. I need to take a one-hour nap to refresh, as I’m running on empty. I have a hard time getting to sleep and it seems to go by very quickly once I do.

I get up in time to see the final few hands of the tournament, which Wes wins – he doesn’t get full prize money because they agreed to a partial chop, but he gets the lion’s share (~$120k, of which he owns half the action) and that will be life-changing money for him. I call Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall, which Robl says has good rooms, but they have no openings either. Robl finally says we can crash here (despite the way it may disrupt his balance), which is a great relief and I continue to be impressed by his generosity and understanding. I’ll call Bill’s in the morning and get a room for our final two nights. Jason gives me a, “Can I have the bed, since you ran bad for all my money?” Well, since you put it like that… It’s the couch for me tonight, which is fine. At least I know where I’m sleeping.

Monday, 6/23/08
I wake up to the sound of Andrew playing online poker at around 10:15 A.M. I grab some cereal and watch for a bit while being as unobtrusive as possible, trying to pick up a few things that might help me be more of a winner – it looks like I need to be tighter out of position and 3bet more in position, and pay more attention to the other players to decide what my move in a given situation will be. One exchange I think is hilarious: Robl is playing for Euros on one site, and I ask him how much the amount is in dollars. His response? “I don’t know.” He’s so balla, he doesn’t even need to know how much he’s playing for.


The view from Robl’s balcony by day. Keep winning at poker and you could live here someday.

I meet Robl’s assistant Channing (big upgrade from me I’m sure) and play some low stakes Stars tournaments with the miniscule amount of money I have on there. I only third place one as I continue to play well and run bad. Standard. I hop in the shower to get ready for the day. I play online poker for a bit to attempt to tool up my game with the tips I’ve learned from Robl, and it really seems to work wonders. Hopefully I will be a force to be reckoned with from now on, applying $25/$50 skills to $0.50/$1.00.

We head to Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall by taxi and check in. We’re both pretty hungry for some dinner, so we go next door to the Flamingo’s Garden Buffet, which ends up being very expensive ($24) compared to some others but it’s pretty tasty. We come back to the room and try to figure out the wireless internet (a task we sadly fail), so Jason heads out to the Rio for some PLO, which he’s really been enjoying, and I connect to the internet to play some online poker.

The Robl method continues to work wonders – in one hand, immediately after asking me if I think I have the rights to every single pot (I respond “pretty much, yes”), a player pays me off for more than two stacks when I make quad sevens against his flush. I do believe Andrew has solved poker. I get bored after a while and go down to the Imperial Palace to play some more craps. I lose more money pretty quickly. Man, I can’t control the dice at all. What a dumb game. I go back to the room for more poker, which actually involves skill. It goes well, and I break at about 12:30 A.M. after watching The Mole and Reno 911 (it’s the Reading Ron episode, my favorite). Jason finally comes back at about 2:45 A.M. and tells me about his PLO successes totaling about $1k. Then it’s time for sleep.

Good **** man, I'm a new poster on here I live in vegas, I think I saw you during durrrs 10k mixed event table. Good report!

Here is the rest of it. Thanks to those of you who read and left positive responses.

Tuesday, 6/24/08
Just one more day until we go home. I’m up at 10:30 and Jason is already getting ready for his day. I decide to stay in the room for a while rather than joining him for breakfast (which he’s going to follow up with more PLO, since he’s apparently in love with the game now). World Poker Exchange is having some connectivity issues, but I get on eventually and win for a while. I also post some of the things I’ve seen here on 2p2 (NVG specifically) before heading out in search of a cheap lunch. We might do a farewell dinner with Robl later.

I grab lunch at Chipotle, then decide to stop in for some $3 craps at Casino Royale (which is a far better idea than $5 craps for my roll). A couple guys are shooting extremely hot, to the extent that the floormen get frustrated and decide to change the dice (which is hilarious), and I turn my $40 into $160 before ever touching them. When I finally do, I only end up getting about 4 rolls – well below the expectation of ~7 – and leave with my winnings. I play more online poker and end up breaking even on the day so far while planning one last dinner for the 2p2ers (since Robl’s incommunicado).

I take the shuttle to the Rio from Caesar’s Palace and arrive at 8:45 P.M. or so. I meet Mike (“acesinurface” on WorldPx) and John from 2p2 there, whose date I messed with the other night, and collect Jason. Mike tells us about his previous multiaccounting shenanigans, of which I disapprove. He’s traveling very light – a laptop and one plastic bag, half of which seems to contain poker books – and doesn’t know where he’ll be staying even tonight. What a vagabond.

We get the all-you-can-eat sushi at the Miranda Noodle Kitchen in the Rio. I order a bunch of sushi and eat it, then order about twice as much. The waitress sets this gigantic plate in front of me, and I say I’m going to eat all of it. Jason expresses skepticism, and this results in a prop bet between him and John over whether I can do it. I power through and polish it all off, getting my money’s worth and helping John win Jason’s $10. Don’t tell me what I can’t eat.

Like last time with the 2p2ers, I take the guys over to the Gold Coast where we shoot craps for a while (though Mike doesn’t get into it), and Josh joins us for that as well since I got in touch with him earlier. Josh is going to be staying to play in more events including the main, so if he goes deep he’ll have to fly us out here for the final table obv. Craps goes really poorly and I lose my profits from earlier (what a stupid game). We bid the others adieu, then head back to the hotel room. Jason grabs the wired internet, which is all we have, and I work on my report and watch tv. This is all going to be over soon.

Wednesday, 6/25/08
I wake up at 11:00 and Jason is already in the shower. Damn, he’s sneaky. I watch a little Cosby as we pack up and get ready for the voyage home. I text Robl to see if he wants to get lunch (since he rarely answers his phone) and he responds no, but we should come chill at his place before our flight. We check out and take a cab over to Sky Las Vegas, where we find Robl playing poker again. It’s what he does best. We plan to eat at the airport and watch him play for a while. I let him know about the success I’ve had applying the “Robl method” at 100 NL. His assistant Channing is instructed to drive us to the airport (to save us another expensive cab ride), for which we are appreciative. I write up a thank-you email and take one last look at Andrew before going – 2 30” monitors making him tons of money in front of a beautiful view overlooking the Las Vegas Strip, he’s basically royalty in Vegas.


Good2cu doing what he does best – playing poker on his ridiculously nice setup, in his ridiculously nice apartment. Any poker player who says they don’t want this is kidding themselves.

And yet I don’t want to be him. I’ve taken my shot and it’s been a wild ride, gotten to see some amazingly cool things, but I’m ready to get away from gambling and back to Lauren. I’m in the minority here, but I just don’t believe this stuff is what life is all about. I couldn’t do it.

Channing gives us a ride to the airport. At check-in there’s a very upset bleached blonde foreign woman (maybe Italian?) making a huge scene. Not a lot to be done there. Our flight takes off at 3:18 P.M. as scheduled. The flight is relatively uneventful; I pass the time by playing Final Fantasy VI Advance on my DS (assault on the Dragon’s Den!) and Jason naps. We arrive in Atlanta at 10:30 P.M. local time and grab some Popeye’s Chicken to sustain us. Now it’s time to catch a much shorter flight from here to Flint, MI, where Jason’s dad will be waiting to pick us up.

At the gate, they announce that the plane has been oversold and they need volunteers to stay in Atlanta overnight and take a flight tomorrow. “To hell with that,” I tell Jason. “Let’s get in line.” The plane is much more cramped than the last one, with very little leg room, and we have to sit there for about 20 minutes before finally taking off. Mercifully, it’s a short flight compared to the last one, and we arrive in Flint around 1:20 A.M. Jason’s dad is already waiting for us and we update him on what happened while we collect our baggage and head back to the Lademan house. Jason will be driving me back to DeWitt (and Lauren) tomorrow, but now the Vegas trip is in the books. It was certainly a good time, even if it cost me a lot of money, and I gained plenty of live experience (and revolutionized my online game). I took the shot I’ve been longing to take for years. I did think the trip was about 3 or 4 days too long, but I made the most of it. Maybe we’ll do something like this again in the future, I don’t know. For now, I’m happy to be home… where I belong.

awesome TR

i lol'd really hard

enjoyed reading the trip report good work..

so how much this end up costing you?

what was it?

good TR

nice TR. in the picture of good2cu playing online the top right and bottom left tables look like partypoker tables. I thought you couldnt get on there in the usa?

Craps is a game for entertainment only. You will lose your money, it's just a matter of how much and when.

I think the whole trip was around 1.7k lost or spent in total for me.

The question was something like, what are the odds of making a better hand with five outs in a triple draw game? There's not a badugi odds calculator online, so we had to remember our probability math from high school. It took a lot of doing, but eventually we came up with an answer of ~28%. Something like 1 - ((1-P(first draw))(1-P(second draw))(1-P(third draw))) I think. It didn't help that we were all pretty tired.

My first thought too. Great tr's!

they do look like Party tables.. :-?

Nice work buddy, there is always next year....

Great trip report.
Would be nice if you could win one of these satelites....