 Vegas December 2015 |
| Day Three - Aria, Venetian, Aria |
| Last Updated: 2015-12-08 20:05:23 |
| Sunday at Aria was awesome. Monday at Aria could have been. This will probably be a little short for two reasons. One, I think I've been a little long-winded the last couple of days; Two it's all pretty much a blur and for whatever reason it's not all crystal clear in my head tonight. So I'll apologize in advance for any information I present as fact that might not be entirely correct...I am sure I will adequately present the situations even if I'm a little fuzzy on details. Of course...how would you know?
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| I do know that I purchased a lot of alcohol Monday morning. There is a chain of high volume liquor stores that I think is in California, Arizona and Nevada that sells higher volume liquors at very low prices. We were assuming that all of their prices were good, but we did some serious price comparing and actually found out that a bottle of scotch a friend was interested in, which is probably a low volume item, was more expensive there than back in Colorado. But everything I bought was $5-13 a bottle cheaper than CO and, well, I might have broken even on what the round trip gas is going to cost for this trip with our savings. If this doesn't last us AT LEAST until our June trip Joann and I are going to have to look into AA. :-)'Nuff said.
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| Went to the In-N-Out drive thru and had to eat in my car because I was running out of time, ran up to the room, woke up Sleeping Beauty, aka Nick who was playing cash until 5:30 the night before, and headed over to Aria for the 1:00.
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| Like Sunday I was fairly active Monday. It was good to get cards and be able to play a lot of hands, I hate days where I'm card dead.
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| Early on I was building my stack nicely. No particularly notable hands, just solid poker and winning most pots I got involved in allowing me to build my stack up to about 15K from 10K start.
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| Then a guy with 7K cracked my pocket kings with Q-J (he flopped two pair) and I was down 2K under starting stack. That was just the first round...
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| Back to work. By the end of the second round, same guy doubled me up when I again got KK, again we got all the chips in on a Q-high flop and this time his KQ was no good.
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| More stack building and I'm into the first break at about 20K. First time on the trip I'm double starting stack at first break.
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| I build up to 23K before losing a set vs set confrontation (TT vs 77 on a 7-9-10 flop) and I drop back down to 13K.
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| Then things continue to go south for a bit and I work my way down to starting stack. But then another turnaround, I get a takeout I think on a pair vs pair hand and before I know it I'm right back around 20K.
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| Visions of back-to-back start dancing in my head. Already two deep runs with less than stellar stacks into the first break, nothing can stop me now!
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| Sigh.
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| I pick up A-K, raise out, get two callers including the set vs set guy.
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| Flop A-2-J. I bet, he calls.
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| Turn a 5. He checks, I shove, he immediately calls with A-4.
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| 3 on the river, I'm done. Wow. That hurt.
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| Can't play any better than I did. Sometimes you can't beat stupid. I can promise you that I never got caught in a bluff once to that point. Literally every time I showed a hand I had the winner or a big hand that lost to a bigger hand. That guy had no reason to think he could possibly be good in that spot. I could fully understand if he pushed all-in into me knowing that he had seven outs if called. Hell I did THAT at the final two tables the night before, but I was in the money with an eye on getting into the top three instead of just min-cashing. I could sort of understand taking such a shot early in the tournament. Yeah early tournaments are all about survival and stack building but I can get with the "double or bust and move onto the next one" mentality. But get it in yourself with fold equity. Don't just call off that bad. Horrible.
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| But...he kept playing and I didn't. Oh well.
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| Too late to rebuy so I have 3 hours to kill. I have dinner at a Chinese restaurant downstairs in New York, New York. Wow, how have Joann and I not tried this place yet?
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| A little pricey as you would expect, but quite good.
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| Decided to try the 7:00 at Venetian because Aria had a tiny crowd on their Sunday 7:00. Venetian got 90-something I think so that was a good choice.
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| Somewhere late in round 1 the guy immediately to my right busts out and who should sit down but Nick! I apologize in advance for crushing his hopes and dreams :-)
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| Didn't quite work out that way tho. I don't think the two of us ever played a pot against each other outside of a multi-way limped pot (there were several) where at least one of us always folded at the first action.
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| 45 minutes into the tournament I was down under half a stack. Flop top two, bet every street, lose to running straight cards (he also almost caught running flush cards...). Flop top pair/top kicker, run into rivered two pair. It just wasn't my night.
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| But I did end up lasting well past the rebuy period. Even down around half a starting stack I couldn't get any of my all-ins called. I did have one moment where two short stacks both shoved ahead of me (Nick included), I seriously thought about calling with 44 but I didn't...and they both rolled over A-K. And neither hit. That would have got me going, but I'll just repeat my "good decisions..." mantra and move on.
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| I seem to recall being rather frustrated by my exit but I honestly can't remember how it came. I'm sure I got in good...
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| UPDATE: Nick reminded me how I busted. Looked down at an ace, under 10BB, shoved without looking at the other card, two callers, both had aces with better kickers, no love for me...
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| As for Nick, he had gotten down to 1150 from his 10K starting stack then I believe tripled when he had KK and flopped quads, then retripled when flopping a set w/99. From 1150 to over starting stack. Nice!
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| But I haven't spoken to him since and I don't know where he ended up.
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| UPDATE: Nick didn't end up faring much better than me.
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| So too late to buy back in, too early to go to bed. I decide to do something very rare for me, I head over Aria to see what the cash games look like. I really wanted to play $1-2 PLO, but I didn't want to make a huge investment. They had two tables and the one I could see was loaded with $1000 or more stacks. That's more than I really want to play for.
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| But they open up a new $1-3 hold'em table and everyone is buying in for $100-300. That's exactly what I'm looking for so I sit down and pull out a couple of bills...
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| Started out great. This is only the second time I've played cash in I would guess more than 5 years. But...I read A LOT of poker books and I understand the significant differences between tournament poker and relatively deep stacked cash play.
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| I think I played near perfect. I don't think I lost a single pot where I put in any significant amount of money after the turn came. I was extremely happy with my river bet sizing, often got very thin value when I was sure I was ahead but with marginal made hands and I was never wrong! Not once did I try to get thin value and lose a hand, and I got paid off more than half the time...basically if they couldn't beat what I had and they gave my chips, I am sure I did well!
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| There was only one bad hand. F-ing kings again. I should just fold them all day preflop on my last day of the trip.
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| Very loose player who was a little on the chatty side, and with about the same $300 stack I had at that point, opened for $10 or $15 (not sure) and it folded to me with the aforementioned kings. As I was counting out my bet (which if he had made it $10 I was making it $30, if he made it $15 probably $35, maybe $40) he admonished me not to bet too much because I didn't want to chase him away with my monster hand.
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| Sounds like a good read on his part, but there was VERY little 3-betting at this table from anyone, so it wasn't much of a stretch to assume I had a big hand.
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| Out go my chips, and my chatty friend starts to tell me I'm not going to get paid...but then the young woman who had sat next to me just a few hands ago goes over the top all-in for about $100.
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| Chatty guy is amused and says it looks like he was wrong.
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| Unfortunately I put a blazing sign over my head that I never play cash games when I call and flip over my Kings. She flips over her Jacks.
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| Unlike tournaments, in cash games you don't have to reveal until the hand is over. And why give away information you don't have to give away? Dumb.
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| Jack on the river, I'm back to where I started. Dammit.
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| I keep pressing on tho, play until I start to get tired and still work out a positive result. Not an earth shattering profit but a nice profit nonetheless. I moved on and kept playing very solid poker the rest of the session.
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| And since I was dumb enough to tell the whole table I was essentially a cash game noobie, at least it opened me up to ask dumb questions about cash game protocols of the dealer for future reference.
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| Like why was it that one guy was told he either had to post a big blind to get into the game or wait until the big blind got to him but another guy only had to wait until the button passed him and then could just start playing immediately without posting anything? That didn't make sense to me.
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| It goes like this:
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| Guy busts out after being either first to act or big blind in a hand. The next hand would therefore either be his big blind or his small blind. But he decides to sit out a couple of hands to lick his wounds.
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| Technically he's considered a player who missed his blind, and when you miss a blind you have to post to get back in regardless of position or you have to sit out until the binds are back in. In other words, he didn't stop being a player at the table just because he busted out. It was no different than a player who had a big stack of chips, went to the bathroom and missed a blind. They don't take blinds out of your stack if you're not there like in a tournament, but you have to make up for missing it when you get back or not play.
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| The other guy had walked up to the table as a fresh player. He didn't skip a blind. He can play right away.
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| So that's it for Monday. Frustrating start but fairly happy ending. There may be more cash in my future, I was very surprised and happy with how comfortable I was in a foreign situation for me. All poker isn't the same...
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| Tuesday we'll be wrapping up the trip with the Bellagio buffet and the Aria 1:00 again. I am sure this is the first time it took me four days in Vegas to get to any buffet.
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| There is a small chance I could go off the plan and play in a $240 tournament at Venetian...but it' a noon start and I think I'm better off at Aria so not likely. And as I'm finishing up this BLOG I think I'm running out of time for that option anyway :-) |
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