Fun and dissapointment in Vegas
Sorry that this will be only a short update with no pictures. Internet is down at the whole property I am staying in. So I am now at Starbucks to make some updates before heading to the Venetian again.
Yesterdays tournament started on a table with a broken autoshuffler. But the Venetian staff was fast to re-seat us inside the poker room. Unfortunately this meant that the table would be broken first. This turned out to be a very unlucky happening as we had a real "donator" at our table. I was able to abuse this "ATM" two times myself and was on a good run when the table was broken. At the new table I could continue for a while and reached my highpoint of 22k. Startingstack was 15k. At this time close to 500 people had bought into the tournament.
Unfortunately from then nothing worked right anymore and my stack went down to 16k again (not losing a big hand or making huge mistakes but losing a good number of small hands). Nothing to worry about at 100/200 (25). The thing to worry about is the fact that again I played one hand very badly. My JJ ran into two pair of a shortstack (AT). As the final money went in on the river I think even against the shorty there was still a way to let this hand go either on the turn or the river (and save some important chips).
With the increased blinds and my smaller stack I now entered push-and-fold time. Pushed two times with no customers and then went on a one level (40 min.) dry run. I hadn't played a single hand for a whole level (!) when I finally got AJ of clubs. There was an UTG raise to 2k with blinds now 300/600 (50). I pushed for 7,200 total in LP and he almost immediately called. What the hell did he think I might have? At least he thought that KQ (clubs too!) was good here. He had a healthy but not huge stack. So why risk a quarter of it on anything that is a coinflip at best?
Anyway, I was delighted to be faced with a 40:60 setup. The flop came AKx putting me ahead even more at 80:20 ... until another King hit the turn :-(( The Jack on the river was meaningless.
Out somewere around 350th place after 4 hours. Spotted Roy von der Locht (a player from Munich) at one of the tables and said hello. At this time he had a 33k stack so hopefully he made it deep into the tournament. Other notables: Tiffany Michelle (still in after busting out of the WSOP Shootout early) and former World Champion Jerry Yang. Yang had a fast exit and it was reported that he played like crazy: raising every hand, pumping his stack up to 30k, down to 20k, up again and then blowing it all away by calling an all-in with Ace-high (that all happend during the first two levels). At least he made someone very happy at his table ;-)
I was very dissapointed the way my exit went. I don't mind to bust the way I did on Monday ... but this was cruel! So I went to the "Tacone Grill" at the Planet Hollywood and eat some delicious 4-chese quesadillas. After that I felt much better ;-)
Just to find the next dissapointment. PH used to have very good low buy-in tournaments and a nice poker-room. Both is gone now. The room is now cramped on the other end of the floor between some slot machines and the decent tournament structure of the past is gone too.
Over to the HardRock Casino that also got some good reports in the past. And yes, they have a good structured low buy-in tournament (6k chips and 30 min. levels) and a nice room. But again this one has two downsides: It seems that with the age of 42 I am getting to old for the loud rock music that is played in the casino (including the poker room). Other may like it but for me it is just annyoing and causes me headache after some time. But I know that I am not their preferred customer anyway as they try to cater for the under 30 crowd. But the worst thing is that regulars get 500 additional chips per hour of live play (up to 2k). That puts every visitor into a bad position. No play for me here.
Dissapointed with the options to play a smaller tournament but wanting to play a little that evening I decided to give cash game another chance again and hit the MGM poker-room. This was a long and interesting evening. It lasted over 5 hours with a lot of ups and downs but at the end I went out ahead with exactly the amount to buy-in for todays tournament at the Venetian :-)
An older guy at hour table who obviously thought from himself as "the-guy-who-invented-poker" was a real ATM for most of us. Especially after a female gave him a cruel bad beat. Nobody felt sorry for him as he had bad-beaten everyone at the table already before. But after that he really went on tilt and drowned several grand in a short time.
In the biggest hand of the day I could hit him very hard: as often it was only called around (he was the most aggressive anyway) and I called with K6o on the button to see a flop. Don't tell me that this is a bad play ... if you played there for five hours already you would have made it that way too ;-)
The flop comes K-6-3 with two diamonds. It was checked around to me, I bet my two pair and everybody except "Mr. Poker" (as usual) went out of the way. The turn was an Ace. Didn't like that card too much but didn't give him an Ace as he most probably would have raised with it pre-flop. He checked, I bet and then hell break loose. He re-raised me and I assumed now that he was on a flush-draw. I took him all-in and he called quickly. River was a diamond and I felt doomed. But I wasn't ... he had hit two pair either with K3. Ship It!
On of the most remarkable laydowns I saw at that table was from a middle aged asian lady. On a 6-8-9 flop she flashed AA to me and mucked after her bet got a raise and re-raise. She was dead right as she was up against a set of 8s and another set of 9s!
So I went over to the Venetian to buy into todays event with my fresh money and went back to the hotel for some sleep.
Yesterdays tournament started on a table with a broken autoshuffler. But the Venetian staff was fast to re-seat us inside the poker room. Unfortunately this meant that the table would be broken first. This turned out to be a very unlucky happening as we had a real "donator" at our table. I was able to abuse this "ATM" two times myself and was on a good run when the table was broken. At the new table I could continue for a while and reached my highpoint of 22k. Startingstack was 15k. At this time close to 500 people had bought into the tournament.
Unfortunately from then nothing worked right anymore and my stack went down to 16k again (not losing a big hand or making huge mistakes but losing a good number of small hands). Nothing to worry about at 100/200 (25). The thing to worry about is the fact that again I played one hand very badly. My JJ ran into two pair of a shortstack (AT). As the final money went in on the river I think even against the shorty there was still a way to let this hand go either on the turn or the river (and save some important chips).
With the increased blinds and my smaller stack I now entered push-and-fold time. Pushed two times with no customers and then went on a one level (40 min.) dry run. I hadn't played a single hand for a whole level (!) when I finally got AJ of clubs. There was an UTG raise to 2k with blinds now 300/600 (50). I pushed for 7,200 total in LP and he almost immediately called. What the hell did he think I might have? At least he thought that KQ (clubs too!) was good here. He had a healthy but not huge stack. So why risk a quarter of it on anything that is a coinflip at best?
Anyway, I was delighted to be faced with a 40:60 setup. The flop came AKx putting me ahead even more at 80:20 ... until another King hit the turn :-(( The Jack on the river was meaningless.
Out somewere around 350th place after 4 hours. Spotted Roy von der Locht (a player from Munich) at one of the tables and said hello. At this time he had a 33k stack so hopefully he made it deep into the tournament. Other notables: Tiffany Michelle (still in after busting out of the WSOP Shootout early) and former World Champion Jerry Yang. Yang had a fast exit and it was reported that he played like crazy: raising every hand, pumping his stack up to 30k, down to 20k, up again and then blowing it all away by calling an all-in with Ace-high (that all happend during the first two levels). At least he made someone very happy at his table ;-)
I was very dissapointed the way my exit went. I don't mind to bust the way I did on Monday ... but this was cruel! So I went to the "Tacone Grill" at the Planet Hollywood and eat some delicious 4-chese quesadillas. After that I felt much better ;-)
Just to find the next dissapointment. PH used to have very good low buy-in tournaments and a nice poker-room. Both is gone now. The room is now cramped on the other end of the floor between some slot machines and the decent tournament structure of the past is gone too.
Over to the HardRock Casino that also got some good reports in the past. And yes, they have a good structured low buy-in tournament (6k chips and 30 min. levels) and a nice room. But again this one has two downsides: It seems that with the age of 42 I am getting to old for the loud rock music that is played in the casino (including the poker room). Other may like it but for me it is just annyoing and causes me headache after some time. But I know that I am not their preferred customer anyway as they try to cater for the under 30 crowd. But the worst thing is that regulars get 500 additional chips per hour of live play (up to 2k). That puts every visitor into a bad position. No play for me here.
Dissapointed with the options to play a smaller tournament but wanting to play a little that evening I decided to give cash game another chance again and hit the MGM poker-room. This was a long and interesting evening. It lasted over 5 hours with a lot of ups and downs but at the end I went out ahead with exactly the amount to buy-in for todays tournament at the Venetian :-)
An older guy at hour table who obviously thought from himself as "the-guy-who-invented-poker" was a real ATM for most of us. Especially after a female gave him a cruel bad beat. Nobody felt sorry for him as he had bad-beaten everyone at the table already before. But after that he really went on tilt and drowned several grand in a short time.
In the biggest hand of the day I could hit him very hard: as often it was only called around (he was the most aggressive anyway) and I called with K6o on the button to see a flop. Don't tell me that this is a bad play ... if you played there for five hours already you would have made it that way too ;-)
The flop comes K-6-3 with two diamonds. It was checked around to me, I bet my two pair and everybody except "Mr. Poker" (as usual) went out of the way. The turn was an Ace. Didn't like that card too much but didn't give him an Ace as he most probably would have raised with it pre-flop. He checked, I bet and then hell break loose. He re-raised me and I assumed now that he was on a flush-draw. I took him all-in and he called quickly. River was a diamond and I felt doomed. But I wasn't ... he had hit two pair either with K3. Ship It!
On of the most remarkable laydowns I saw at that table was from a middle aged asian lady. On a 6-8-9 flop she flashed AA to me and mucked after her bet got a raise and re-raise. She was dead right as she was up against a set of 8s and another set of 9s!
So I went over to the Venetian to buy into todays event with my fresh money and went back to the hotel for some sleep.
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