Vegas Booked for Dec 30 - Jan 3

ottawaplayer

Woohoo... just booked next trip to Vegas, Dec 30 - Jan 3. Will be spending New Year's Eve there obviously. Work has been/will be crazy until Xmas, so I am looking forward to this trip.

Feeling fortunate - this is my 4th trip this year!

Ottawa direct flight to Vegas, $653 return and four free nights at Paris Hotel using TR card.

philliivey

Won't everything be sky high in prices cause of New Year's? i.e. food? (would say rooms too but you got the comps :))

ottawaplayer

Probably the clubs will be charging extra, but I won't be hitting any on this trip, so things should not be much more than normal.

Poker rooms should be well stocked... Not sure how much I will play at Bellagio, but I see that they are now spreading 1/3 $300 max, instead of 1/2 and have $2/hr comps. Not sure if that impacts the 2/5 game there. Still like Aria as a better room and MGM as a place to make $$.

I want to check out Gordon Ramsay's restaurant on this trip as well. It was there the last few times I was down, but I could not make it... Once you sit at a poker table, it is amazing how time just zooms by...

ottawaplayer

This will be a slightly different trip than my last several trips, as the wife and I are going together. I surprised her with tickets to Celine Dion for New Year's Eve (sigh, i know...), but by doing that I am totally free to poker degen it on the Tuesday & Wednesday of the trip. I think it is a +EV investment.

We might try and catch one other show, but we will play it by ear once we are down there... a few of the main shows are off on January 1...

moose

Absinthe recommended.

ottawaplayer

moose;337398 wroteAbsinthe recommended.

Yeah, this is definitely on the radar... Have heard good things from other PFC members as well.

We have seen several Cirque shows (not in Vegas, but locally and in Montreal), so probably looking for something different like Absinthe. However, I don't really want to book anything else until we get down there...

So far, trip looks like:

Dec. 30:
Arrive and check-in by 2pm
Checkout some of the sights
Gordon Ramsay Steak for dinner
Cash games all night

Dec 31:
New Caesars Bacchanal for dinner
Celine Dion, 7:30 (i know...)
NYE drinks somewhere, maybe some cash games

Jan 1:
Poker all day
Ellis Island for early dinner
Head downtown to Golden Nugget/Freemont

Jan 2:
My b'day, so my choice, but really just want to play poker
My play a Venetia or Aria daily, but the cash games may just be too good to not stick to them...

Jan 3:
Return direct flight is at 5pm... so have all day.
I was actually able to book an additional comp night at Paris, so we can keep our room and luggage there for the day...

ottawaplayer

Leaving for Vegas tomorrow morning... Excited to be going back... Will try to post some updates from my Blackberry... Sure wish the Bravo app was available for bb...

ottawaplayer

At Aria, playing 2/5... 11 hands in, I am up a buy-in.

Dealt KK in mid-position... I raise to $20 and it folds to small blind (has my $500 covered) that re-raises to $50. I re-raise to $125 and he moves all-in. I have to call, expecting Aces... I flip over my Kings; he shows Jacks!... Okay! Welcome to the table, but it's early...

ottawaplayer

It is 6:30am vegas time and just got back to my room... Ended up playing all night. Stayed at Aria till about 3am and then headed to Caesars for some 1/3, hoping to catch a few of the semi-drunks that wander in from Pure. Profitable night; left Aria up about $840 and Ceasars $300.

Nothing too exciting... First Aria table was rather tight, so I LAG'd it up more than normal and played a bit more from EP... However, being a bit rusty, I def played a few of the marginal hands poorly post flop. The table got tougher later on, but glad I held my own. At Caesars, one very aggressive bluffer with a deep stack at the table... He caught called down on a few of his bluffs, but I never got a spot in against him.

I do have a few hand notes that I can post, if interested, when I am more alert. Been up for 30hrs straight. Probably no poker today; showing the wife some sights this AM and then Celine and NYE fireworks.

We had lunch at the mesa grille (so/so) ...

JimmyHo

Nice result, I find poker + 30 hrs is - ev.

ottawaplayer

No BS, as I am glad to post my winning AND losing sessions, but I managed to sneak in two hours of 1/2 at Bally's yesterday before the concert and ran super-hot. Bought in for $200 and cashed out with $1100 in less than two hours.

Not great at describing hands, so sorry if I muck something here. I was seated in the four spot and the cards were perfect. Fourth hand in, I am dealt 9 10 in EP, I call the $5 button straddle, get two callers plus straddler. Flop is 10 K 9r, I check-raise a $10 bet to $30 and he calls. Heads-up turn is a 7 and he folds to my $40 bet and scoop and $83-ish pot. Very next hand I get AA in EP/mid and raise another straddle to $20. Shorter stack in CO goes all-in for about $80, BB goes all-in for about $200... Back to me for the call and I dodge a few outs to more than double up. CO had 10 10 and the BB had AK.

A little later I open with 5 6s and hit my flush on the turn against top pair/top kicker for a nice pot. I am then dealt 6 6 and call an early raise on a short-stack. The flop is 6 6 K... Quads!... Short shoves and I win the hand a hit the $100 high-hand bonus. Anyways, it was a pretty hot run; it has been a long time since I had a streak of cards and flops that decent in such a short time.

I will post a pic of my stack from that time, but not sure if it will work, as new to posting pics here...

Overall, up approx $2040 in 14 hours of NL.

Today (tuesday) should be a day where I get in about 12 hours of poker... I'll be at Aria or Bellagio today. I am sure the variance gods are waiting...

Also, on non-poker stuff.... Wife and I watched the fireworks on NYE on the strip after the show. it was pretty good, but afterwards it was chaos on the street. They close Las Vegas Blvd to cars and there were probably 300k+ people on the street (a cop told us they were expecting at least that many!). After the fireworks this mass of humanity wanted to go back to casinos...But they had fenced the entire street from the casinos, where you could only go in a very small openings at different blocks. People were getting crushed into the fences. Noone knew that u could not go back to the casinos and the crowd kept pushing forward. I was okay, but my wife was very scared and was getting pushed away from me. I had to grab her by the waist and pull her back to me. We actually found our way to a little cubby hole along the fence and it just put out my arms to protect our space. Up the strip you could see people getting absolutely crushed along the fence... Security was trying to keep the fence up, but the crowd pushed it over and all thsese people went falling over the fence!... It was crazy... Poorly designed and organized and tons of complaints from people today. I have never felt that uncomfortable in a crowd...

It was an experience...

Happy New Year everyone!

ottawaplayer

Ballys chips

ottawaplayer

Breakfast this morning...

RAM_Eh

moose;337398 wroteAbsinthe recommended.

Saw that show with a buddy who owns part of the show. Well worth the tickets and even if they were free, I would have paid.

ottawaplayer

It has been pretty hectic since I got back from Vegas and back to work tomorrow, so I have not updated the thread with any other poker updates... I will post a few updates when I get a chance and add a few pics from NYE and the lobbies... Some amazing holiday displays, especially the Bellagio, which had an incredible Xmas theme.