- Vegas musings and stuff that didn't cost money

I was pretty awestruck getting into Las Vegas late Friday evening. The skyline is amazing (even though our hotel was less than expected). My roommate's Dad goes gambling a lot so we got two free rooms (one in Caesar's and one in the Imperial Palace). The Caesar's room was huge, had an extra couch, flat screen, mini-fridge, walk-in shower and a tv in the bathroom. The Imperial Palace room was considerably less than that...but it had a dirty bathtub, so I guess that's good. Not a big deal, though, I wasn't planning on spending much time in the hotel anyway.

After dumping my stuff, I immediately pulled $300 and went to a $1/3 table in Caesar's. It was only midnight and there were a bunch of games going. Since it was my first time there and I really haven't played live in a while, it was probably a good idea to start at the low limits and figure out what some of the competition is like. Within 20 minutes, I saw a guy fold (and show) 66 on a Q63 rainbow board when he got reraised all-in for about 150 bucks. He claimed that "the other guy probably had QQ." I was stunned (only about half the table even noticed). Drunks filtered in and out of the poker room (which is absolutely beautiful, by the way; plenty of space between tables, comfy chairs, well-lit, and very aesthetically pleasing) and dropped off money here and there. I made about 150 at that table before it broke around 3 AM.

My plan was to try to make 300 or so before calling it - thus making it easy to jump up to 2/5 the next night. Hung around the other table for quite awhile picking up little pots here and there. One guy on my right was a local who chatted up the whole table and played pretty much any hand. He bluffed me out of a nice pot early on when he raised to around $11 from the cut-off and I reraised to $ 27-28 with AK. I forget the exact flop, but I know it was something like AJx with two hearts (I didn't have a heart). He checked, I bet a little over half-pot. Turn was either the Q or T of hearts (probably the worst card to come for me). Check, check. River was a baby heart putting a four-flush up. He bet half-pot immediately. I tanked it and folded, just not able to bring myself to call off that much with A high and no heart. He showed K-rag with no heart to me and said "you look like you know what you're doing so I figured you'd lay it down if I pushed hard enough." I probably have so many tells that I don't even know about. I'm sure he picked something up. Oh well.

A little later these two Spanish or Mexican guys came in (both drunk and still drinking). Within 5 minutes, one has tripled up and the other has busted. The one that tripled up was extremely cocky and kind of fun to watch. His English wasn't that great and at one point, he started saying that he's not a "Texas freak." The dealer had told him that he had to show both of his cards after shoving all-in and the kid argued for a minute. Finally, he turns them over explaining that he doesn't know all the crazy rules because, after all, he's not a "Texas freak." Anyway, he had the few good players at the table licking their lips for a chance to take some of his stack. I didn't get any of it, but did manage to give him some of my chips. Not going into detail because it still pisses me off to think about it.

Around 6 AM most of the table had split. We were down to our last 4 players (me, a local, and two not so good players). I was sitting on about $250 (down 50 bucks on the session, but it could've been worse). I actually got a read on one of the two weak players - he said early on that he knew poker was much more bluffing than people think. He'd bluffed a ton of small pots and shown his hands. Basically, every time he got reraised, he'd lay it down, but say something like "I'm in on the next one. No more bullying" or something like that. Finally, I pick up AQs in the small blind. He raised from the cut-off to about $15 bucks (standard for him, but waaaay more expensive than it needs to be for a 4-handed 1/3 game) and I reraised to $40 even. He goes "I told you I was going to get in there next time and I don't mean to be an asshole, but I reraise to $90." From someone that knows what they're doing, I'd probably think about that reraise (live min-raises sometimes encourage action, but he'd been playing so bad, I didn't think much of it). I went all-in and he called with ATo. No problem, right? Colin ends up around 200 on the night, right? No. Ten on the turn. To make matters worse, as soon as the ten hit, he puts his hands up over his face and starts into this "Thank you, God! Thank YOU!!! OH Thank you!!!" over and over like he's just won the lottery. If the money was that important to you, I'm glad you have it (oh, the local guy that I'd been talking to all night leaned over and told me he folded the other ten...which was just great). So, no profit or initial buy-in for me. Went back to the room and slept for a few hours.

Ate at this fantastic Asian restaurant in the MGM. Probably the best shrimp tempura I've ever had. Sorry, Shanghai Bistro. The group that I went with to Vegas got ready to go to Jamie Foxx's birthday thing at Tao in the Venetian (apparently it was incredible - particularly if you're a guy...lots of scantily clad women walking around). I didn't have nice shoes so I figured the bouncer wouldn't let me in and I sure as hell wasn't going to give him any money to let me through. I guess we were all on a list, but I didn't want to risk it. Thus, poker tournaments! Yay!

Played the 7 pm $150 at Caesar's and went pretty deep. It had a really good structure and nice mix of locals and tourists in it. Picked up some hands and managed to make it to the final two tables (10 places paid - something like 4k for 1st). The blinds just went up to 1k/2k with a 200 ante and this Asian kid that looked like (and sounded like) Aunch from Paris Hilton's "BFF" show or whatever (I don't watch that show, I just remember Joel McHale from the Soup ripping on him/her constantly) raised to 7k from the CO. I've got about 34k chips in the small blind and have A9o. He'd been pretty active, but I figured I had a perfect reraise stack against his (he had something like 50k left). Wrong. He snapped off with KJo and spiked a K on the river. Once again, someone started thanking the Heavens for getting him some chips. Yeah, forget the fact that you made an awful call, sir. Oh well.

Joined the midnight $70 shortly thereafter and decided that, since this buy-in was basically the same as a single game that I play on pokerstars, I might as well have some fun with it. Food service brought me a 7 bite quesadilla (which was delicious, but cost waaaaay too much). Only two tables worth of players joined and the structure was such that it was going to be an all-in fest within an hour, so I figured I'd be much looser than usual. Tripled up early when I flopped a set of threes and guys were willing to put chips in without any effort. A few hands later, a guy raised in early position and I called with A8s on the button. Flop came AJT with two of my suit. He checked, I bet and he reraised. I figured him for AK or a set, but wasn't really going anywhere with the flush opportunity. Turn and river faded for him and he scooped it. Little bit later a kid around my age had been 5-6x raising constantly in late position and I was waiting for a spot to throw a reraise in. He bumped it 5x on the button. The small blind was this old, kind southern gentleman wearing a really loud yellow striped shirt. He flatted and I reraised huge with AK. Aggro button folded, but the small blind guy says "Sorry, son, was trying to trap the button guy" and flips over AA. By now the table is having a good time and I'm talking to as many of them as possible, not because I think it'll give information (which I wouldn't know how to use anyway), but we were actually having fun.

Since I was knocked down to about 900 chips with pretty big blinds already, I told everyone that I wanted to get through 3 coronas before i busted. I hadn't had anything to drink at the tables until that point - considering I knew it was time to get crazy, I figured why not get the drinks for really cheap? I made it through 2 before I busted. Sigh.

The next morning we ate at the buffet in the Mirage. Holy crap. Heaven. That's what it will look like for me. One of the chefs said to my friend when she asked about the desserts, "We change our dessert menu 4 times per day. You're in the Mirage; you're in a completely different world." It probably wouldn't have been so funny if he hadn't used the snootiest accent available.

I remember telling one of the guys that I'd be disappointed if I didn't make $1k while there. Complete lie. I can't wait to go back in a couple weeks (working for the World Series of Beer Pong - yes, you read that right) even if I don't win.

- Vegas tomorrow

Had a good day at the tables today and ended up getting some good volume in, too. Really couldn't come at a better time since I had to buy a plane ticket home and get ready for the holidays. Made another solid decision to put off getting that plane ticket until prices would be expensive (right...like people are supposed to expect flights to cost more around Christmas? no way...). So, now I've only got 4 days to get enough volume in to make 200k vpps. Why so little time, you ask? Your flight to Milwaukee isn't until Thursday?

This weekend I'm finally going to Vegas. I'm not into shiny lights and hookers like everyone that usually goes there - just the fact that cash games allegedly run like the online games of 5 years ago is really enticing to me. Since the majority of my friends here in LA are in the entertainment industry, I guess we're on the list of some clubs and Jamie Foxx's birthday party at the Venetian or something. Apparently it's also a CD release party - I guess he's going to sing. Maybe I'll skip out before then (honestly, why does he have two "x's" in his last name).

5 years ago when the online poker industry was still in it's infancy (or adolescence, I guess), huge schools of fish circulated an insane amount of money up the food chain on various sites. Unfortunately, the same methods that I used to improve are now so readily available that the learning curve is dramatically reduced for beginners. Thus, harder games all around. I really wish I knew what I do now 5 years ago. Honestly, I would be a very rich dude right now. Very.

Quick hand from today:
PokerStars Game #22836408323: Tournament #126444962, $55+$5 Hold'em No Limit - Level VIII (200/400) - 2008/12/11 21:39:51 ET
Table '126444962 1' 9-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: litlleWop (2200 in chips)
Seat 2: fattymcbones (3700 in chips)
Seat 5: slipperily (3730 in chips)
Seat 8: Nevermine (3870 in chips)
litlleWop: posts the ante 25
fattymcbones: posts the ante 25
slipperily: posts the ante 25
Nevermine: posts the ante 25
fattymcbones: posts small blind 200
slipperily: posts big blind 400
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to fattymcbones [3d Jh]
Nevermine: folds
litlleWop: folds
fattymcbones: raises 3275 to 3675 and is all-in
slipperily: calls 3275
*** FLOP *** [3s 2s 2d]
fattymcbones said, "omg"
*** TURN *** [3s 2s 2d] [Ad]
*** RIVER *** [3s 2s 2d Ad] [Jc]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
fattymcbones: shows [3d Jh] (two pair, Jacks and Threes)
slipperily: shows [6s Ac] (two pair, Aces and Deuces)
slipperily collected 7450 from pot

This is a spot 5 years ago people would constantly fold. The threat of losing the hand and bubbling the sng would be too much for most people. After the guy made the call, he typed "make a note" - probably because I was berating him (dumb move on my part) in the chat box. His call was so incredibly bad it's hard to describe. With a small stack like this on the bubble, I'm making an unexploitable shove (basically, I could have the worst hand possible, 27o, turn my cards over before I pushed all in and he still can't call with very many hands in that spot). After plugging the hand into my ICM calculator and reversing the situation, he made a -1.99 ev call. Normally, the goal is to avoid even the slightest -ev pushes (like, say, 0 to -.3). The fact that he made that huge of a mistake is just crazy. Even if he was trying to send a message to me about pushing any two cards in that spot, it's still incredibly dumb.

Rant over.

Well, I guess I'll update after we get back from Nevada. Time to dust off my cash game chops.

- Stupid regulars...

Started playing around noon today after a couple hours of trombone practice and it seems like every regular is playing today. To counteract the loss in equity, I've tried to only register for 4 60s at a time and see who else joins - then get out if too many regs are around. Unfortunately, I didn't unregister from one such game and ended up with 8 regulars at the table. Only 4 of them were decent/good regs, but still.

With all those guys at the table and me only playing around 10 games (since it was impossible to get less than 4 regs in every game down to the 16s...), I decided to alter my play a little bit and mix up some situations.

Here's a hand with one of the better regs at the table. It's the first hand of the sng and we've played probably around 500 in the same games. Because of our history, he knows without a doubt that I'm limping a pocket pair here (early position, early game, etc.) and he's usually aggressive against me pre/post flop (since I'm unlikely to put up much resistance early in the game).

This was a $60 -
Seat 1: dumb reg (1500 in chips)
Seat 2: good reg (1500 in chips)
Seat 3: reg (1500 in chips)
Seat 4: fish (1500 in chips)
Seat 5: reg (1500 in chips)
Seat 6: fattymcbones (1500 in chips)
Seat 7: reg (1500 in chips)
Seat 8: dumb reg (1500 in chips)
Seat 9: vgood reg (1500 in chips)
good reg: posts small blind 10
reg: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to fattymcbones [5c 5s]
fish: folds
reg: folds
fattymcbones: calls 20
reg: folds
dumb reg: folds
vgood reg: folds
dumb reg: folds
good reg: raises 80 to 100
reg: folds
fattymcbones: calls 80
*** FLOP *** [7d 4s 8s]
good reg: bets 146
fattymcbones: calls 146
*** TURN *** [7d 4s 8s] [Kd]
good reg: checks
fattymcbones: bets 250
good reg: folds
Uncalled bet (250) returned to fattymcbones
fattymcbones collected 512 from pot
fattymcbones: doesn't show hand

His range on the preflop raise I figured was somewhat wider than what I would raise in this situation, probably TT+ and AQ maaaaaybe AJs+. Since he knows I'm set-mining, he figures I'll miss the majority of the time and he'll pick up some early chips. However, his lead out bet seemed somewhat strange to me. Normally, this reg continuation bets pretty often (even though he's out of position) but not with strange amounts. If he had a big pair, it would make sense for him to bet 2/3 - 3/4 pot to get me off of a drawing hand - BUT, he knows that I don't play suited connectors in those spots (especially limp-opening the pot) so there's no real danger that I've got something sneaky like 56 or two medium spades. The only real danger for him is if I have 88, 77 or 44 which are all very possible holdings for me.

The rest seems pretty obvious: I float the flop, he checks the turn, I semi-bluff and he folds what was most likely a stronger hand. My question is whether or not that play was worth it? Sure, it's early and I made the conscious decision to deviate from my everyday play, but I only picked up 250 chips (half of which were mine anyway). I guess there was a chance I'd flop a 5 and he'd stack off to me, but that seems unlikely in hindsight. Most of the good regulars will at least notice that another good regular is involved and toss their AK and QQ/JJ in that situation. I could've folded pre, but he was giving me ok odds (would've preferred 80 chips) and I was in position. Eh, I don't know. The more I look at it, the more I wonder if alterring your game is worth it in early sngs. Most of these guys pay less attention than they should anyway. Suggestions are welcome.

- December's gonna be good to me

I'm sitting at my friend's house in Milwaukee looking out at several inches of snow. My flight leaves for LA in about 5 hours (where it's about 67 degrees right now) and I can't really play any poker because the batteries in my mouse died. The last week up here was completely relaxing - probably because I didn't need or want to play poker. Can't wait to get started again tomorrow, though.

I figure there will only be about 16 days that I'll be able to play once I'm back home. I'm coming home for Christmas (not a song-cue) around the 20th and the weekend of the 13th I'll be in Vegas (was supposed to play a gig backing the Temptations, but it got changed at the last minute...lame). Only 20k vpps shy of the 200k mark which, since the 4k bonus is released, will only take about 800 $60s to complete. Really, though, these bonuses will play out in a pretty fortunate pattern for me:

- I'm about 38500 fpps from purchasing the 1.5k bonus that I wanted to release before Jan. 1st (roughly 440 games at the $60s)
- 1.5k bonus will take 10k base fpps to release (400 games at the $60s)
- 400 + 440 games = 840 games (yay, simple math is all I'm good at) which puts me over 200k vpps and releases the 2k milestone bonus into the bonus account
- 10k base fpps later, or 400 more $60s, and the 2k bonus will be released

Unless I'm completely off-base here, if I can play 1240 60s this month I should be able to release the remaining bonuses I'd planned on in November. Plus, now that the break-even month is over, maybe I can get back to 6-7% roi at the 60s and get ready for some student loan payments!

Hopefully that will serve as ample motivation to play 75+ games per day until I go home.