The End of Vegas

Posted in Vegas on July 15th, 2009 by Damn Ringer

Alright… so maybe I overestimated my drive to blog while I was in vegas. I’ve gotten countless feedback from you guys that I am killing my own blog. My bad.

So lets go over the first thing first. I haven’t started running better yet (actually lets not say it like that) winning again yet. I have been trying really hard to improve portions of my game while I’m here and still manage to make 2 or 3 really awful mistakes a session which continue to just take away my winrate. On top of that, I am still running pretty bad. However, at this point i think its fair to say its not the run bad and I’m simply playing exploitably. I’ll go ahead and post my graph since I arrived in Vegas about two months ago. It’s been pretty frustrating breaking even for 2 months, but that stress is the price you pay for not having a real job i suppose. I really don’t have too much to complain about though, as I can break even for the rest of the year and still basically make my previous salary.

Here’s my graph since arriving in Vegas. As you can see its been more than swingy and at no point shows a trend, very bizarre considering my entire year to this point was an escalator to the top.


(Click to Enlarge)

Here’s a few updates from my life. I am leaving vegas on the 19th and trekking back across the country. I will be then moving to Washington DC by August 1st to live with girlfriend, Leigh. I’m really excited about this. We are also living with my best friend from college and another fraternity brother. So it should be a pretty nice situation. I’m really excited to open a new chapter to my life as well however leaving Charlotte will suck ass.

I have managed to spend about 10k in vegas, and put on about 10 lbs. I managed to not see a gym and not eat 1 healthy meal this summer. Its been a complete disaster on that front. I honestly don’t think I can ever do this to my body again. I just can’t wait to go home to reasonable meals and a gym. I’ll prolly spend the rest of the year taking these pounds off but oh well.

Vegas has been the time of a lifetime though. We have done some of the craziest shit ever, and its been done on basically a daily basis. I don’t really have any outrageous stories off the top of my head but basically everything has been great. I just really wish I could have put in more than like 6 winning sessions while I was here. Anyways, I’m heading off to bed. Hopefully that’s somewhat suitable enough for a blog post if anyone still reads this.

Cake games = Dead

Posted in Vegas on June 27th, 2009 by Damn Ringer

So lets get the obvious question on everyone’s mind outta the way. Have i started to run better? Yes I have. I went on a ridiculous heater last week and am now up 9k on the month. Its been a hell of a good time. I knew i wasn’t playing that bad and its nice to see the reward for good flow. Ok… So the last 4 sentences there might have been a complete lie. That was just a test to see who reads past the first 4 sentences.

I have still been running bad but basically break even while still running like total garbage. I am just getting use to it at this point. Its probably pretty good for me, because i’ve started asking a ton of questions to the roommates and getting some interesting feedback. June will be my first losing month of 2009 (and hopefully the last!). Ok enough of that, cause the downswing is boring as balls.

Cake is completely desolate recently. I made the mistake of cashing my entire roll on FTP so i could invest in the market with the monies. I think the FTP games are leagues better than cake right now. Yesterday, The 1/2 full ring games were the highest games running and there were 15 people spread between 12 tables. There was maybe one truly juicy “cake” fish. The tables never run for more than 3 hours a day either. I have been playing alot of .5/1 this month due to the 1/2 tables not running and me having a whopping $12 on FTP. I am going to be taking alot of money off cake in the very near future.

I haven’t deposited online in so long I got a question for the masses. How in the world do I deposit an amount over 10k in one deposit on FTP? Is it still possible to do? I need help with that cause lord knows no one wants cake money these days, let alone over 10k worth. I have thought about maybe just getting a stake and running that up on FTP, but I figure that’s retarded especially since i have the money to have my own roll.

Either way its clear, the “seizing of funds” that has become so popular in the media is scary fish away. There seem to be only new regs coming into the games and no new fish. Its a sad sad day for cake. I need to get to FTP cause i keep eying up the games and seeing ridiculously awesome fish i wish to sit with. Its gonna be weird getting use to a hud again though.

On the vegas front, its been an awesome time. I finally met storm god and he’s a really chill dude. He is such a sicko these days and has run his awesomeness up to the 10/20 level. I have deviated from the style I use to have when I studied his play, but i still have a ton of respect for the kid. I’ve met so many players since i’ve been out here its been a hell of a time. I have also decided to come home 2 weeks earlier than I orginially planned. I need to get my moving situation all setup plus drive back across the country plus be at my parents beach house by August 1st. So that said I will be leaving early from vegas.

Shouldn’t be a big deal though considering there’s not relaly gonna be anyone here after July 15th anyways. So that said… if you are planning to visit in late july… i probably won’t be here.

Hopefully next blog i can report massive run good.

[ ] Another Whiny Post

Posted in Vegas on June 18th, 2009 by Damn Ringer

My serious apologies to you guys for blogging so depressingly while in Vegas. So lets talk how incredibly awesome this trip has been.

This trip has consisted of doing some the craziest things i’ve ever done on a complete spur of the moment basis. We have been all sorts of places and i’ve seen just about every casino in vegas now. I have played golf and eaten at crazy ass restaurants. I’ve had some of my best friends visit, and even my family. I’m only a month in too! This is going to be the time of my life i think. I will look back in 10 years and be glad I went to vegas for 3 months with people i hadn’t met in real life.

My roommates really couldn’t have been any better. To be honest however, I haven’t met a poker player I didn’t like yet out here. Everyone is so cool. I was like secretly hoping that a ton of these sickos who make 30k/month+ were totally douches… so i could feel good about being normal and quasi-wealthy. Instead, its like the opposite. The more money these guys make, the cooler they seem to be. It’s pretty awesome for them… and makes me think maybe i can have months like that soon.

We had a BBQ last week at the house and it was awesome. It was a touch of a sausage fest as only one girl came, but it was still a pretty good time. I met BossmanisMe and a few other 2p2ers. I also went to sushi tonight with about 15 2p2ers. We played credit card roulette for the $400 bill, and I was second card drawn so i didn’t even get to sweat. That was nice.

On the sushi subject, I’m completely converted. I think I have tried every type so far and it has to be one of my favorite kinds of food now. My girlfriend has been trying to convert me, but it took undugu to get me to realize it’s actually really good stuff. /sushi rant

I haven’t yet played a WSOP event yet either. My plan was to play like 3, but since i’ve been running so horrendously I think i’m gonna put that off. When I start to run better, i’ll play an event or 2. I have put in pretty decent volume this month though. I have played almost 25k hands so far, so I’d argue this is gonna be one of my highest volume months, clocking in at 50k hands. I play with a ton of guys who play like 3x that so that’s hilarious.

I can’t wait to see what the next month brings, as I can’t possibly run worse at poker in the process. So whatever, I don’t know why I go into “woe is me” mode when I blog. It tends to help me verbalize everything i’m thinking, because i’m definitely not the type to mope around the house. So instead, I mope around the blog. You guys will have to deal with it, but I assure its just a small portion of my total thought process. Stressing out for a few weeks a year, is a pretty small price to pay for not having a real job.

Also congrats to vizer on running sicker than any human can run (or so i thought). He shipped a trip to europe for free.

Run Bad in Vegas

Posted in Vegas on June 8th, 2009 by Damn Ringer

Well it’s official. I’ve been holding out for 2 weeks to say it, but I’m in my first downswing of 2009. I just can’t make anything work, and am getting annihilated on the tables. Since getting into vegas on May 17th, I’m down $430. With a wonderful winrate of 0.04 at 1/2 over 20k hands.

I’ve had downswings before, but this is by far the shittiest time to have one. I want to be living the dream out here, but I don’t feel like spending a dime when I dump crazy money on the tables. I think its mostly my own fault though. I’m getting leveled by the feeling that I need to keep up with the house. I made a point today, that i would slow down and relax. Sure enough I play 22/18 on the FR tables and dump 1k in a complete spewtard manner. I even went to bed early last night, so i could grind superhard today. Sure enough, an hour and a half in I tilt and need to get up. Very very frustrating.

Also last month ended up only being a 3k month… which is just horrible. I hate poker at the moment weirdly enough. On that note, I’ll try not to bring up the downswing but it’s hard not too when its basically all i’m thinkin about for the last few days. Alright enough about poor me.

My family came into town this past weekend and it was pretty cool. I can already tell ya though, i’m getting sort of tired of showing the whole Vegas thing. Its nice but good lord, is it exhausting and expensive to go out on the strip every night of a weekend. I also was trying to show my brothers and sisters a good time, while in a downswing. It was more than annoying.

I saw the show “love” which was a good show, but i think i still liked zumanity better as far as cirque shows go. I just like the risque theme better. Anyways, I’m gonna go lay down and see if i wake up untilted. PC.

Don't Drink and Fly

Posted in Vegas on June 1st, 2009 by Damn Ringer

I had a wedding to go to this weekend in DC. So I had to fly out in the morning early on friday to get there as the time zones really F you when you fly across the country. So what do we do thursday? Get shitripping drunk of course.

We started by going out go-carting at pole position. This isn’t that go-carting you are use to. These were the real thing. They went 45 mph and the course was an awesome twisty turny track. So of course we put down $50/race prop bets. I managed to finish last and 3rd (by 0.01 second)… so i was the go-cart fish. After that, we ended up going to the palazzo to watch the cavs games in the what use to be the 40/40 club. Honestly, that is the best sportsbook i’ve been to in vegas. It was like a lounge of just pure awesomeness. We managed to play some tables games first before we went though just so “we could get some beers”. That has to be the worst excuse for degening it up i’ve ever heard however. As you have to bet at least $50/drink even at a $5 minimum table. So, For the record, i think you are always better off not using that logic and just paying the $8 for a beer. Either way, we managed to play casino war… which might be the worst game in the casino. It requires no thought and goes ridiculously quick. No fun at all so we promptly got up from it. We soon moved to a $10/min roulette table. Muk managed to light the table up taking down about $1200 in a matter of 30 minutes. I basically broke even on gambling for the night. We got drunk and walked over to the sports book.

The game was good, and vizer was so I thought the drunkest member of our party. He challenged me to pool, which i was more than happy to oblige. We played $10/ball at first, and it was me and Muk vs. him and tiltbad. Me and muk absolutely ran the first game. They had 6 balls on the table, and so vizer yelled about how he was such a sicko at pool and for us to rack them up again. This time we break and tiltbad knocks in the 8ball on his second shot leaving 5 balls on the table. At this point, they are pissed and want to do double or nothing. So we agree to play for $20/ball. As fate would have it, Me and Muk managed to whip them again by 4 balls. It was a shellacking the kind of which no good pool player could take. That said, Vizer is a billiards fish.

The night ended up winding down with a beer pong tournament at the miracle mile. I managed to win my first match pretty handily but the alcohol was beginning to get the best of me. It was 1v1 10 cup beer pong so after you slay 2 beers in 10 minutes, ever match it hits you. I got my second pairing and saw it was a girls name. I was pretty excited and thought “i will crush this broad”. She walked up and was roughly the size of a refridgrator. She then proceeded to crush me and all the other guys laughed but they had busted out of the tournament in the first round (well except tiltbad, who beat up some dude who was dressed like he loved guys).

I then come to to the beeping of my alarm clock at 7am because I have a flight in 2 hours. I stumble out of bed go slap vizer around for him to take me. I manage to make my flight and be hungover as hell. The rest of the weekend, I was in DC for a friends wedding and it was pretty awesome. The highlights were a reception at ballin’ congressional country club and an appearance by the real hokie bird. Sick wedding life!

Anyways, back in vegas now, and looking to win mad loot. Peace ya’ll.

Easy Life IMO

Posted in Vegas on May 21st, 2009 by Damn Ringer

Its been a few days in vegas. I’ve had a great time. There is absolutely nothing better than waking up with a pool in the backyard and nothing to do. I have been just rolling out of bed, putting on a swim suit, and rolling out the door. It is the best cure for a hangover ever.

Princessdonk also managed to move into our house. She saw our place and all the dogs and got excited for bringing her dog over, so we told her she could move in until coordi got here. Its been pretty fun. Also, Tiltbad just got here today. We had our nosy neighbor call the owner of our place cause she thought his U-haul was being used to rob the place. Pretty ridiculous, but good to know she’s watching our house for robbery. However, it could be a serious problem if she’s too nosy cause the last thing i want is a neighbor who is constantly spying on our parties. Oh well, nothing we can do. Either way, it got the owner out so we got to talk first hand to the guy about all the problems with the house. We have two problems… the light in the pool doesn’t turn on, and the waterfall doesn’t always work. Tough life right?

We went to the strip last night. We played .5/1 plo at the excalibur. The problem really turned into p-donk owning me and vizer. We left that and decided to go to o’sheas for beer pong. It was a blast, and i will definitely be going back to o’sheas.

Two of my best friends are getting here tomorrow for the weekend. The utter debacle begins tomorrow around 1pm. I can’t wait. Hopefully, i’ll be taking alot of pictures. Easy Life IMO.

Vegas, Baby!

Posted in Vegas on May 18th, 2009 by Damn Ringer

We finally made it around 5pm today. The drive today was completely painless. We woke up and drove to a denny’s, had lunch and drove straight to vegas. The drive included going literally over the hoover dam which was pretty awesome. I didn’t actually get to see over the edge, but good lord the traffic came to a complete stop. It was about a 45 minute crawl until we got over it.

Tons of tourists as you might expect. I’ll have to go back there at some point while i’m out here. We also passed two other places i’d love to check out on the way home. The meteor crater and the grand canyon. Honestly, I passed more things in the 4 hour drive today that i wanted to visit than i had on the whole trip. The drive wasn’t nearly as painful as i thought it was gonna be. I was planning on it being just horrible horrible, but it really wasn’t. 12+ hours of driving isn’t that hard for me apparently.

We got to the house, and started to unpack. I got everything setup and realized the tables were pretty good. I fired up a session and managed to dump $600 in my first session in vegas. I then tilted and told vizer we could go shopping for groceries now. I spent about $115 on all the shit I needed for probably the next month. All the little things like condiments and that sort of thing add up. The walmart sells liquor which shocked me since i’m so use to them being sold only at an ABC store or a liquor store. Pretty awesome though.

The house is pretty much exactly like the pictures made it look. It is nicely sized, and didn’t come with any really shitty surprises other than whatever dish network package they bought has no channels i wanna watch nor have a channel showing me the basketball game tonight. Oh well. I managed to play one more session tonight, and actually broke even and then some. I ended up making probably a buyin or two on the day.

Tomorrow, I think i’m going to lay around by the pool and just chill the F out. I’m pretty much gonna take it easy til thursday when 3 of my best friends come into town. I think me and vizer might be the first full ring pros out here for the summer, which is totally cool with me, as I really have been planning this trip for basically the last year.

Sweet poolage tomorrow, I’m passing out now.

The Big Trip is tomorrow!

Posted in Vegas on May 14th, 2009 by Damn Ringer

Alright so I am going to be packing tonight, for my trip tomorrow. I am doing the trip in 3 days as explained previously. The first leg is from Charlotte to Little Rock, the next is Little Rock to Albuquerque and then onto Vegas. I posted my planned route here. I was planning to hang out with an old friend Little Rock, but he had something come up so I will be just stopping in a hotel there. If anyone else who still lives in Little Rock wants to grab a drink feel free to drop me a line. Either way, the big leg of the trip is the second one. It is suppose to be a 13 hour trip, but it shouldn’t be that big of a deal since I will just be driving to a hotel. Here’s the planned trip in map form:


(Click to Enlarge)

I’ve never done a drive like this so I am curious to see how well I hold up. If i’m completely miserable, I might just ship everything back home and fly… but somehow I have a feeling its not gonna be that bad. I am kind of a robot when it comes to driving. It’s soothing to me. I am a little scared though, because alot can happen in 2200 miles. I went through all the precautions of getting new tires and getting my car checked out, but somehow I’m still nervous about getting out there with no problems. I think i’ve planned for everything though, and covered all bases.

I am planning to download some audiobooks for the ride as those always seem to help me. Please please please if you have some suggestions for books, tell me now. I really like thinking books, with some action in them. Something along the lines of ‘angels and demons’. Also i’m pondering booking hotel rooms prior to driving, but if anyone who has done this before tells me otherwise, i might just wing it… cause who knows what kinda mood i’m gonna be in.

Once I get to vegas I will have very little time to get setup as 3 of my best friends are coming into town on thursday, and will wanna throw down. I’m very excited to just get everything setup and get into the pool. I am gonna relax I think from monday til thursday and probably try to put in some decent volume online. We’ll see how I feel when i get out there tho. So that’s basically all there is for the drive. I am ready to go! No bad beats in 2200 miles, one time!

On the poker front, this no hh converter thing for cake is driving me batty. I don’t know how I’m doing for the month. If i had to guess, i’m up about 3k and have played 18k hands. That’s just a stab in the dark though. I am running ok, but i keep taking bad beats in pretty crucial spots. Either way, I don’t care at this point. I will be taking a 3 day break from poker for the drive.

Talk to you guys in vegas!

Vegas Vacation Trip Report

Posted in Vegas on March 12th, 2009 by Damn Ringer

I just woke up from a 16 hour coma after pulling the last 48 hours of vegas without sleep. The total amount of money eaten is $1500 for the trip. Kinda sad in retrospect, since this is the first vegas trip I haven’t paid for the trip and then made like $1500. Oh well I guess it has to end at some point. I actually ended up doing alot of ‘real’ gambling this trip. I played a very decent amount of blackjack as well as some craps. Obviously, I had never put in any serious volume on these games before this trip so i’d reckon that would explain why I did sooooo bad. My friends that I went down with were not poker players so I basically had to go out on my own if i wanted to play poker, and I really wanted to have fun in vegas so I rarely did that til Vizer and Undugu got out there.

The first day we get there and we all sit down at a $10 blackjack table and kill it. We walked over the Excalibur because it was close to our hotel and had cheap blackjack. One of my friends makes $250 in 30 minutes betting the minimum and I actually ended up making around $120. This was the only good thing that happened on the trip as far as real gambling goes. I walked over to the poker room and noticed that they had all ‘pokerpro’ machine tables. Pretty crazy I thought (obviously I would be back to try them out). My friend RJ who had been flip-flopping on the subject of going out the a new club called ‘XS’ with me and pdonk, finally decided that he didn’t want to go. He was all about gambling since it was the first night. I tried to explain that he would regret not going out clubbing. Pdonk came and picked me up, and I left my friends. We went to this club which was stellar. I’ve never really been to a vegas club before but I’m not sure if I can ever do another club after this one. Wow. It was built around an awesome courtyard at the encore. There was a pool and tables surrounding it. As well as a dancefloor and tables on the inside portion of the club. We managed to get a table on the side of the pool and it was ridiculous. It had a 50in TV in it with bottles of bellevedre just chilling. It was like the homebase for the rest of the night, as it was quiet and just like our own little piece of paradise. I met a few other poker players who were real chill and proceeded to blackout. From what I understand, we left the club at 4 to 5 am and went and grabbed breakfast (my drunk ass ordered chicken and waffles). I was described as a ‘walking blackout’ by one of the guys haha. That sounds about right. I spent about $350 on the night, but I apparently turned into a balla and started telling people not to worry about money so much while buying more bottles.

Sunday is complete destruction. I woke up at around 2pm on pdonk’s couch with a massive hangover. I managed to get up grab some water and went back to bed til around 4pm. I went with Pdonk to get some ‘in and out burger’. Its a west coast fast food chain that Pdonk said was the best hangover food ever. She wasn’t kidding around. It was bomb ass hangover food. I was starting to feel good again, but still doing the walk of shame since my bag was back in the MGM hotel room. So I was walking around in nice ass dress clothes. I met up with the guys who I went on the trip with, and began to drink and play more blackjack. I think I actually won money at blackjack but it starts to get fuzzy. We were ordering shots and the other guys were trying to impress the girls at the table. My friend RJ was drunker than I’ve ever seen him, as he was slurring gibbish from drinking all day. I managed to convince the drunk asses that we should go play that video poker over at the Excalibur and we could play some 2/4 limit poker. They are pumped about drinks for $4 bets. We walk over, and I am half-cocked at this point. I am probably around 10 beers deep so I’m getting very toasty. We get them to fire up a new 2/4 table, which they did with ease because there’s no dealers and they just click a button to turn it on. I sit down at the table, and instantly get bored with it. I thought I could just F around and get free drinks but I immediately start thinking about playing the 1/2 game next to me. I get up and move over there. The table is super soft. There’s a canadian chick to my left who is clearly pissed i’m drunk and next to her. I start off creating a phenomenal image, and breaking about even in the process. I am raising alot in position and basically playing my online game. The one thing I loved about the pokerpro tables is that for some reason, people actually respected pot sized opens. The stardard open on the table was $7, and never went above $10. It was GREAT. I was clearly the favorite to kill the thing. I manage to start talking in poker terms, and after I lose a sizable pot on a river bluff, the winner of the pot announces to the table while looking at me ‘there’s more to poker than just what you see on TV son’. I obviously LOL and say ’so it would appear sir’. I manage to get in a few ugly spots. The only one I remember goes like this: I picked up AdQx in the cutoff after winning the pot before with a pre-flop raise from MP. I get 2 callers, both of whom are fish. Its the button and the SB who call. The flop comes down 5d54d. Canadian lady checks to me, and I c-bet for around $20. I get pretty snap-called by the button and canadian lady calls. I am putting him on a mid-pair or draw trying to take advantage of my aggressive play. Turn comes Kd. Perfect card to 2 barrel as the K is very unlikely to help the fish and definitely hits my range pretty hard. I bet $42. Fishy thinks for awhile and finally decides to call. Well I’m not too happy about that but i’m still putting him on something like 88. I figure he’s either got a flush draw with 88 or just doesn’t believe me yet. River is the 2d. Perfect card, I make the nuts and its sneaky as hell. I start putting on an act like I really had that 4-flush made and I bet $10. Fishy announces that he is allin which is another $120. I snap-call while announcing that I have the nuts. He gets a discouraged look on his face, and I know I have him. I tables the AdQx for the nut flush, and he just says ‘oh I have kings full’. He flips up the KK and I’m in shock. I never even saw that one coming and he clearly didn’t know how strong his hand was or how perfect the board is. The table then proceeds to cheer for the fish, while I rebuy. It was kinda hilarious actually. Canadian bitch lady literally high-fives him and I can feel myself tilting. Just then I hear over the intercom “anyone interested in a .5/1 PLO game please come to the front desk”. I fistpump while screaming ‘hell yeah i’m interesting in a 100plo game’. I managed to lose around $400 at the table with fish, but I wasn’t upset with how I played. I thought I did a dandy job of playing the fish and just got unlucky.

The 100plo game was awesome. The guys were drunk as well and were internet players. They were holdem players however, so I managed to completely tear them up. I finished that table up around $300 and had a blast with a ton of 3 betting and shoving draws. The pokerpro tables were perfect for PLO. It was dealt really fast, the pot size was in front of me, and just generally it got rid of all the awkwardness of a live plo game. It was a damn good time, and finally the table broke and I started to walk back to the MGM to sleep.

On the way I called my friend RJ just in the offchance his drunk ass was still awake and he picks up the phone screaming that ‘I have to come back to the trop’. I just laugh cause its 5am and this only happens in vegas that your friends are awake and shitfaced then. I managed to get solicited for sex 3 times on the way back to the Trop, one of whom was a black lady in a car telling me “to just hop in and we’ll have a good time”. I simply told her “I would like to wake up with my kidneys tomorrow while walking into the trop. I sit down with RJ at a blackjack table and proceed to donate around $150 to the table. I was really drunk at this point and kinda tilty. I was betting like $30 a hand and basically breaking all my own blackjack rules. We left around 6am and got breakfast at the ’studio cafe’ in the MGM. We then went and passed out. What a day.

Monday was a complete mess. Me and RJ wake up with just massive hangovers. His friends were saying lets go eat, and I was not interesting. Keep in mind it was 1pm. I manage to get convinced to eat and RJ is really really struggling at this point. We go down to ‘emeril’s restaurant’ in the MGM. As the lady is seating us she says that she’s giving us the big table so make sure we eat alot. I just think “i’ll be lucky to eat anything”. That’s exactly what happened as soon as I sit down I feel sick. RJ announces he’s going to the bathroom, and is gone for 30 minutes. He comes back and says he can’t eat. I agree with him and go walk around with him. We walk over to Walgreens and actually it makes me feel alot better to walk around outside. I decide I need to go back to the room and shower. To my surprsise another of our friends is in there, just feeling sick in the bathroom. Apparently he left emerils without ordering either. LOL, I just thought about what that lady said and then her seeing that her party of 5. After my shower, I lay down and watch PTI which comes on a 2:30 in vegas (west coast for the fail). I pass out. I wake up around 6:30pm and all my friends are gone. Well that was nice of them to tell me they were leaving. It was actually for the better though. I wanted to play poker in the MGM poker room. I also have a text from Vizer and Undugu. They get in today. I had forgot about that. I give vizer a call, and he was about to leave for the gym. I tell him to just come to the MGM when he’s done. I text undugu back and tell him the same thing. I then go down and hop on the 1/2nl tables (i was close to getting on a 2/5 table but I felt kinda shitty). My table actually is reasonably competent. I find myself actually playing scared. First hand of notice is as follows: aggro player in the cutoff raises to $7 and button calls. I wake up with AKdd in the bb. I 3-bomb him to $32. He snaps calls and other player folds. Flop comes 9hTd4h. I lead $42. He thinks for a sec and calls. turn comes a 9d. Great card for my hand. I decide i’ll just go with it. I bet $90 (but my hands start shaking as my bet goes in). I’ve never had a nervous problem at the tables but for some reason today, I didn’t have my mojo, and I guess I didn’t wanna lose anymore cash at the tables. He thinks for a sec and says ‘I have Q high, I guess i should fold’. He mucks and I win the pot with A high. The next 3 hours I proceed to run my flushes into full houses, my top pairs into a sets and my A9’s into KK on a T98hhh board (that’s right, that last one was a horrible play by me as I didn’t have the Ah). By the time, Vizer and Undugu show up i’m stuck around 700 and don’t want to play anymore at the MGM.

I tell them and they agree to walk over to the Excalibur to play. We all sit down and play there and its a great time. I was wondering if Undugu was gonna be a total dork like one would expect from a poker player, but he was actually real cool. Like would probably be a ‘real life friend who i’d go to the bar with all the time if we lived in the same place’ cool. We all end up running this 1/2nl table with all of us having over $500 in front of us at one point. There were a few hands of notice, Undugu got in a $600 flip with his AK vs. a fish’s QQ. He binks the K on the flop and ships the pot. Vizer just raped bitches. I was doing the same and got bad beated a few times in the process. I can’t remember the big pot i lost to a bad beat but I do know that I lost a hand with 55 allin against AK on a AA5 board. The river binked off a K. That was only for a $200 pot tho, so no big deal. We all made around $300 each, and went our separate ways for the night after the game broke. Vizer is hilarious, as he was drunk after about 4 beers. Me and undugu were just slamming them however. Vizer needs to get his tolerance up, or else he will have a bad time this summer.

Tuesday was the final day, the day which we would go to the rhino. I woke up at around 2pm again to an empty room. The other guys had passed out early so they woke up and were out the door gambling. I decided to just chill for a bit, and watch some CSI in the room. I did that and then walked downstairs to get some food. I decided to go to the Excalibur again to play cards. There was a .5/1 game running and I offered to start a shorthanded 1/2 table, but one of the guys from the night before came over and blew up my spot against a fish who was down. Just says ‘look out this kid is like a pro’. The two guys who wanted to play 1/2 decided that they didn’t want to play shorthanded with me. Well shit I thought. They knocked the table down to a .5/1nl table and I said ‘ok i’ll give it a go’. I managed to win $200 while I was waiting for vizer to come over. Vizer sat down just as I was getting ready to go. We walked over to the MGM to meet up with my friends and grab a beer before we headed out the door for dinner. We all decided we wanted to do a Hibachi Dinner. Undugu knew a pretty good play at Caesars so we started walking. The best part about vegas, you can drink outside. We pounded 2 beers on the way over to the place and put our name on the list. We played blackjack while waiting and everyone but RJ and his boy won money. We then went back to get our table. To our disarray apparently our chef had gotten sick, and had to go home. They offered us a table out at the sushi bar and said they’d pay for a round of drinks. This is the part of the show where Undugu blows this whole thing out of the water. He tells the lady that we think it would be more fair to have a round of drinks plus some appetizers. Hats off to Undugu, he got us $100 off the dinner. We got a japanese beer, a round of saki, and 2 $30 appetizers for free. We ordered the food and it was really dank. I love dinners in vegas cause there’s never a place with shitty food. Undugu also managed to convince me to try ’spider rolls’ which were cooked sushi. It was actually pretty good. I’ve always stayed away from sushi but I think I might be cool with it now after that experience. We finish eating tip our waitress who called us all by ’sir’, and left for old vegas.

We get to old vegas and there’s no cheap blackjack to be found. We were wanting to play $3 blackjack but it wasn’t happened. We ended up playing at the 4 queens til around 12:30. The 4 queens raped the shit out of us. We all lost around $200 except undugu who killed the games. We then took a cab to the Spearmint Rhino. We get there, and pay the $30 cover. God I love the Rhino. The place actually wasn’t that busy but that didn’t keep the girls from flocking to us. I slipped the front bouncer $50, and said ‘we’d like to have a seat’. He proceeds to take us to a table, while kicking other guys off the table in the process. It was hilarious. The power of $50. The girls are licking their chops as we sit down. We order a round of $8 bud lights and strippers start pummeling us. I turned into table captain as well ordering drinks and girls for the table. RJ and his friends are clearly in heaven. They wanted to go to another club and now they were glad I convinced them to go to the rhino. There were around 100 girls just lining the walls. Everyone was just picking the girls they liked. I managed to get a few dances and the girls that gave us dances would just sit on our laps. At one point in the club, we had a girl on each person’s lap and they weren’t getting a dance. Like I bought 1 dance from a girl and she sat on my lap for what had to have been an hour. It was overall completely ridiculous. At around 5am, I decide its time to call the rhino quits. I announce to everyone that we are leaving. The strippers sigh and the guys are more than ready to go. That was probably the best $150 I spent on the trip. We probably spent close to the perfect amount of cash/time there.

Me, Vizer and Undugu decide that its time to stay up all night and play cards. We get a cab to take us to the wynn. Me and vizer were hungry and Undugu went and put our names on the list. He ended up sitting down and by the time we got over to the table he had already managed to lose a buyin to a big fish. There were no seats either. We decided that we should go to the venetian. We walk over there, and I go find an ATM and vizer and undugu sit down. By the time, I get back from the ATM, Undugu is allin with a guy for a $600 pot. The board is 678 and the villain had 67 tabled. Undugu just mucks his hand, and says ‘i’m done for the night’. HAHA. that’s pretty ridiculous. Me and vizer play til around 8am. We both broke about even. I then proceeded to go back to the hotel room, pack and head to the airport.

The trip was fun, but spending $1500 is rarely fun. I lost most of it playing tables games and about $600 playing poker. Either way it was a good ass time, and now i’m tired of typing and don’t feel like proofreading. So deal with all the errors.

January… LOL

Posted in Poker Related, Strategy, Vegas on January 21st, 2009 by Damn Ringer

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