Vegas 2013 Dec 2 to 6
I’m heading back to Vegas just over a year after my first visit. Staying at Paris Casino – I’m getting 3 out of 4 nights comped. Flight with Spirit Air from Detroit is under $200. My brother (NicNoK) and his wife will be there along with another couple they know. My wife has no interest in checking out Vegas so I’ve got a spare bed in my room if anyone is interested. With a shorter trip this time, I plan to stay on the strip and just play poker. I will try to hit some of the poker rooms I didn’t play at last year and check out a few of the daily tournaments. I’ll post the trip report when I get back, but will provide updates on anything interesting like winning a tournament or missing my flight back. Let me know if any other PFCers will be there that week.
Jac
Quick update - SeektheGrail has agreed to join me in Vegas and share the room costs with me.
Jac
Quick update - SeektheGrail has agreed to join me in Vegas and share the room costs with me.
Comments
Monday – Met up with SeektheGrail at my place and we head down to Windsor, arriving around noon. We both had direct bets and both lost. We also donated some cash at the poker tables until my brother picked us up and drove to the Detroit airport. Border crossing was smooth and we got to the airport with plenty of time to spare. Flight to Vegas with Spirit Air was smooth but it felt like there was even less legroom than last time. While checking in at Paris Casino, SeektheGrail asked if they would waive the resort fees since he is a Platinum member and after a phone call (since he wasn’t on the original reservation with me) this was done, saving us $20 per night. The room was very nice - much nicer than Flamingo. We walked over to Ballys and played some 3-6 limit for a few hours before calling it a night. It was my first time playing in Ballys and I really enjoyed the room despite losing a bit.
Tuesday – We made arrangements to meet up with my brother and his wife for his birthday dinner at the Venetian for 6pm, so SeektheGrail and I decided to walk there after breakfast and play there for the day. I didn’t have much luck at the 1-2 NL game so I left SeektheGrail and headed back to Ballys for a while where I booked a nice profit at the 3-6 Limit game, then I hiked back to the V for dinner. We ate at Dal Toro in Palazzo which was pretty decent – I had the steak Roquefort. After dinner, SeektheGrail headed back to the O8 tables in the Venetian while I hiked back to Ballys hoping to get back into the 3-6 game. It had a wait list of about 5 people but the 8pm nightly $60 tournament was about to start. I figured it might be a fun way to kill a couple of hours – and it was! There were 26 entries (some were re-entries) and top 3 paid. Most of the players were tourists with about a third of us from Canada. No one was taking it too seriously and there was a lot of casual chatter at the table. I made it into the money with a decent chip stack then lost a bunch of it when the short stack rivered a two outer. I then lost a race to the chip leader a few hands later and had to settle for third place and $160.
Wednesday – My brother received permission from his wife to play one tournament with me so I suggested the Aria 1pm $125 event. SeektheGrail and I headed over early to play cash games for a while and I booked a nice profit at the 1-2 table before the tournament. There were 127 entries and the level of play was much more challenging than what I was used to. At my starting table was an older guy who looked familiar and someone asked him if he was a pro, but he wasn’t. He was John Morgan, CEO of Winmark Corp – if you don’t recognize the name, he was the guy in the hand with Mikhail Smirnov where Mikhail folded quad 8s face up in the $1M event in 2012. Mikhail put Morgan on a straight flush and Morgan has never revealed what his hand was. Morgan was a pretty aggressive player but lost a big hand to woman from Calgary who shoved with 1010 while Morgan had KK, and a 10 came on the river. I lost a big hand when I shoved with AA preflop after a min-raise from a short stack that got everyone else out but one other player. The other two players called my shove with one showing AK and the other Q9. The board gave the short stack a 9 with another 9 coming on the river. I won a small side pot from AK but lost most of my stack to Q9. Shortly after that when I got down to about 6 big blinds, I shoved 3 times in a row, doubling up the first two times and scooping a small pot of blinds, antes, and some limpers the third. A few players suggested I should try for 4 times in a row, but I couldn’t when I looked down at J4 offsuit and someone had already raised. I managed to nurse my relatively short stack until going out in 28th place (top 12 paid). I think my brother went out in 40s so we both did pretty well but no cash. I headed back to Ballys and got into a 3-6 Limit game with a full kill and made another nice profit before jumping over to Flamingo to catch up with my brother and after an hour of goofing around at the 2-4 limit game I went to bed.
Thursday – SeektheGrail and I head back to the V where I planned to play in their noon $150 tournament while SeektheGrail played O8. We were about an hour early so I put my name on the 4-8 O8 list to get the table going and managed to win half a pot after about an hour to finish up $1. The tournament had 64 entries and I recognized about 5 from the Aria event on Wednesday. Every time we went on break I had to walk by the O8 table and SeektheGrail would assume I was making the walk of shame. He was eventually right as I went out in 24th when it was folded to me in the SB with A6 and I had about 4 BBs left and shoved hoping to scoop the antes and the BB who was also short stacked. My timing couldn’t be worse as he called and flipped over AA – good game. The room was very busy by this point (around 5pm) so I jumped on a 1-2 table and quickly made a profit of $260 of which half came from one three way all in where I held AK against AJ and a guy with a straight and flush draw. AJ had raised preflop to $10 after losing a big hand and I felt he was tilting a bit. The other guy called and I re-raised to $25 on the button and both called me. Flop came out Axx with the A suited with one of the other cards and AJ shoves with his last $50 or so and the other guy calls allin and I instacall having both covered. The board is run out with no flush and no straights possible and AJ quickly flips over his cards as do I while the third guy mucks. AJ leaves the table while the other guy buys back in for $100. I managed to take another $50 or so off him a few hands later when I flopped a set against his two pair, and then it was supper time. We ate at the Grand Lux Cafe and used the comp points we earned to offset the food cost – I had earned almost $15 so it covered about half my cost while SeektheGrail had more than enough to pay his full meal. SeektheGrail went back to his O8 game and I went back to my 3-6 game at Ballys, but had a losing session this time so I walked over to the Flamingo and played 2-4 Limit for about 15 minutes and made $24 until a seat at the 1-2 NL opened up. After a few hours I was up over $100 and SeektheGrail stopped in on his way back from the V. I cashed out and we checked in at reception in Paris to get our boarding passes printed – something we didn’t do last year which contributed to us missing our flight so we weren’t going to make that mistake again.
Friday – slept in a bit then packed and checked out. Quick breakfast at Flamingo food court then meet up with my brother and his wife to catch the shuttle back to the airport, leaving Vegas behind. Landing in Detroit around 7pm, we make it across the border easily and brother NicNoK drops us back at Casino Windsor where we check into my free room. SeektheGrail grabs some food while I head to the poker room. Along the way I pick up another $15 direct bet and win this time, along with a $20 cash voucher. A little while after SeektheGrail hits the poker room, I lose two big hands (AA lost to a straight, and AQ lost to A6) and decide to grab some food and head back to the room. SeektheGrail also won his direct bet which broke his direct bet losing streak. Drove home the next morning after a late breakfast/lunch.
Overall, this was an awesome trip. My flight and share of the room in Vegas was around $200. Every meal was comped using my TR card except for the birthday dinner ($60) and the partially comped meal at Venetian ($20). I played 3 tournaments and made the money in one. I was up overall in cash games in Vegas which came really close to offsetting the tournament buyins so I ended down about $50 overall for Vegas. Windsor was not kind to me but you can’t win them all.
Not sure when my next Vegas trip will be, but there will be another. I’ll be back in Windsor on Dec 20 and likely once a month in 2014 – gotta win some money back and build up my comp $$.
Thanks for reading.
Jac
+1 Also jealous!
Anyone else notice that he probably used more words here than he has said at the poker tables in his whole life? ;-)
Al