|  Vegas June 2006 | | Day One (Sunday) | | First the drive. Things were going well, although we almost ran out of gas through Utah. Basically Pete learned that having the convertible top down costs about 30 miles on a tank of gas, so we'll probably have to put the top up on that same stretch heading back. But we'll see...
| | Saw a forest fire on a mountain west of Cedar City (about 10 miles from the Utah/Arizona border), too far to make out any detail but it was like the entire mountaintop was on fire. By that time the top was up and the AC was on, we did see one roadside thermometer that read 110. But then when we were about 15 miles from our destination the road turned into a parking lot. Took us about an hour and a half to move 3 miles to the next exit where we discovered that the I-15 was closed (couldn't see why) and had to detour. Detour wasn't nearly as bad as the highway, got back on it a few miles down and finished the trip in a couple of minutes.
| | Ate a quick meal at the TI buffet (where I'm staying). Unimpressive by Vegas standards, I wouldn't recommend it. Then it was on to the tiny poker room (8 tables) for a quick tournament. The structure was for $60 buy-in you only got 2000 chips, but rounds were 20 mins so that made up for the small chip stack a little. My run of tough luck continues, I had slick 4-5 times and A-Q once, of all those hands I only had one caller preflop and we ended up tying the hand. Aside from that stole a pot here and there but also got caught a couple of times so after an hour-plus with blinds at 200/400 I was still at about 2K chips - not enough to play. I finally get wired kings and make only a small raise hoping for some action...and I got some, someone came over the top...with Aces. Bye-bye Pete. Rich was basically in the same boat, he did double up a couple of times but never had much of a chip stack. I was at a limit table when Rich busted out on the bubble. Top prize was $980, there were a little over 50 buy-ins.
| | Then it was over to Rio to check out the WSOP of poker action. I wasn't surprised, but I was a little disappointed to find out there are no satellites into the preliminary events so there will be no $1500 buy-in for us this year. But while we were there, they were running a freeroll "Tournament of Champions". When we walked in there were 12-13 left, names you might now were Negraneau, Matusow, Ferguson and Kido(?) Pham (I believe he's made some WPT final tables) and at the other table were Mike Sexton, Kanter (the guy that was sucking out on people and busting them out left and right at least year's main event), Hanson and Andrew Black who had a massive chip lead. They were playing down to 10 last night (I heard someone say they were paying 9), supposed to start back up at 1pm today. The only name player that busted out was Kanter who Black took out when Kanter had slick, Black had A-10 and flop came A-10-blank. They were not all-in preflop, after the flop Black pushed and Kanter agonized over his top-pair-top-kicker hand for a good 5-10 mins before calling and getting the bad news. That sent everyone home for the night.
| | Then it was on to Aladdin for a late-night snack and the 2am $60-buy-in tournament. One thing I forgot to mention before is that both tournaments allowed buy-ins for the first hour, so people who busted out could essentially buy back in if they wanted. Format was the same and the misery for Pete continued. This time I won the first two pots (the second with Kings again) but didn't get much for either. Then a long stretch of no cards and not hitting any flops and once again there Rich and I were a little under 2K in chips. There was one hand where someone went all-in and no callers, tightass Rich tells me he folded slick because of the all-in. Next poker night I want everyone to tell Rich "Rich - you never, ever, EVER fold big slick when you have less than 10 times the big blind". A few hands later I had slick, it went all-in by a short stack (shorter than me), call by a big stack, over the top for a few more chips and the original caller called that. First all-in had me tied with slick, big-stack-caller had Kd-Jd. Flop comes three blanks but two diamonds, turn was an Ace...naturally the ace of diamonds giving big stack a flush. Rich lasted a few hands longer, he finally pushed with Q-9 after the whole table folded to his small blind, unfortunately for him BB was sitting on bullets and that was all for Rich.
| | So it was back to the room about 4am, and that was the end of day one. | | Post a comment |
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