 Vegas July 2014 - Main Event satellite |
| Days 9 and 10 - Aria and more Aria |
| Last Updated: 2014-07-13 12:57:53 |
| Unfortunately I didn't have a lot to talk about for Day 9, so I decided to just combine it with Day 10.
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| Lunch at Guy Fieri's restaurant at the Imperial Palace...er The Quad...er...The Linq. Yes, the great old place is getting their second name change in, what, not even two years?
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| Apparently now that they've rebuilt the ground floor part of the casino, including (if you're familiar with good old IP) taking out that bar that was on the strip and the old driveway and turning that into an expanded casino floor, they're going to now rebuild the rooms. I thought they just did that like 5 years ago, maybe this time they're going to make them nice.
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| We only walked through that former bar/driveway area so I can't speak about the whole casino floor, but they did dress the place up. I have to give them that.
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| If you're really familiar with the old IP, remember how if you walked out to the north you would come around a corner (heading towards Harrah's) and there would be a Starbucks followed by a bunch of stalls selling stuff on the sidewalk? Well the Starbucks space was expanded and that's where Guy's restaurant is.
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| Our only complaint was that the food wasn't hot. But as I'm eating the loaded up pulled pork sandwich on a pretzel roll bun, that was otherwise excellent, I could almost hear Guy's voice telling me how loaded with flavors it was. We will definitely eat there again.
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| On to the Aria poker room for the 1:00 and frustration is the only word I have.
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| I bust out on the first attempt getting all in with Kings after the turn and run into a flush draw and an over. I pulled up my odds app and I was almost exactly a 70-30 fave (something like 70.08 to 29.92). He rivered an ace.
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| I buy back in and I continue to get good cards, but keep missing flops and only seem to get the good cards out of position. I don't remember the hand, but I texted Joann something about the only way I could win was getting in with the worst hand and doubling up to 23K. But that was my high point (you'd think I would remember it).
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| A-Q just absolutely destroyed me in this one. The worst was calling a short stack all-in, getting one other caller, we check down the board and when it's over I turn over my AQ, the guy who called also rolls over AQ and the short stack shows AK.
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| Well a few hands later I lost another 1/3 of my stack w/ AQ, eventually got in with the worst of it and didn't improve. I remember at some point counting out having A-Q 6 times, dunno if this was the 6th or the 7th but I can absolutely say I didn't win a pot with it in this tournament.
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| Buffet at Bellagio for dinner, usually I don't have time for dinner but it was one of those days.
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| Didn't rebuy in the 7:00, but didn't get very deep either.
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| Nothing going the first few rounds, somewhere along the way got all in with A-J, ran into Kings and sucked out. That only got me back to starting stack, never got anything going after that and we had an early evening.
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| Back to Bellagio for Saturday brunch, then back to Aria for more poker.
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| A-Q killed me Friday, but was a winner for me early in the 1:00 on Saturday. But, again, frustration.
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| After all the grinding, three times going 2+ hrs without playing a hand in some tournaments, I finally get hit in the head with the deck and it does me no good whatsoever.
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| In the first three levels I have AQ twice, AA, and KK. On consecutive hands I flop a full house (w/10-10), turn a nut straight (with one of the AQs) and my stack has gone from 10,000 to about 13,000. Are you kidding me?
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| Gets, ahem, "better".
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| River a nut flush, win about the minimum. Lose half my stack when I river a nut straight, call the all-in, other guy sees my straight, slams his cards and starts to walk away. Unfortunately for me since it was all-in, the dealer is required to table his hand, he has a full house and didn't realize it. Half my stack gone.
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| Just get blinds for QQ, lose a flip and I'm done in the 1:00.
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| Had to rebuy in the 7:00, I'm just going to say I made probably the one and only truly atrocious decision I've made in the roughly two weeks of poker I've played out here (between the two trips) and leave it at that.
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| Second attempt didn't start out much better, was down around 6K but won some all-ins without showdown and started to build the stack back up. Actually got some chips for Kings, then got all in with 99 against 77 and before I knew it I was up to 36K from the 10K start.
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| Took out a short stack, don't remember the hand, gave some back with A-K but took down a nice one with Queens and I'm up to 50K.
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| We start getting close to the money, the usual story of I'm maintaining my stack but the blinds are going up. I get to where I'm only a little over 10BB, it folds around to me on the button, I go all-in with 10-8 of spades...and the small blind wakes up with Ah-As.
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| Flop comes 9-4-4, 4s.
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| Turn 7s.
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| River 5s. Oops. I crack aces with 10-8 suited.
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| Two comments: 1) Turns out preflop my hand was the same winning percentage as an under pair - I was 20-80, so 10-8 suited is not terrible if you have to get all in against aces, it's actually better if the aces don't include your suit so without running a lot more sample hands two suited connectors might be generally better than a pair; 2) A local pro/semi-pro who was at the table and is someone I've played with many times at Aria claimed I was a flip on the turn. I thought no, more like 60-40, but not even that good...I was a 2-1 dog. But given I started out a 4-1 dog and was a 9-1 dog on the flop I'll take it.
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| After that, tho, it was just grind, grind, grind trying to eke out a cash. Unfortunately I fell just short, 2 from the money when I got all in with a suited ace, got called by a worse ace, thanks to a flopped pair on the board had a lot of outs to chop on the river but no luck. So close again!
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| So that's it. We're outta here, Joann is just waiting for me to finish typing so we can leave so I'd better get moving!
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| I might do a quick recap of my whole summer later today or tomorrow. |
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