Vegas Trip Report, Day 1

Welcome dear reader. I'm still trying to figure out who you are! I have returned. I did well, but not great. We'll get to the final tally later on in the week. Today, let's talk about Day 1 in Vegas.

Got in well after midnight local time on Saturday early early morning. I guess that counts as Day 1. But I crashed versus hitting the tables tired. So the real Day 1 started on Saturday, around 9am. Yep. I'm an early riser, for a poker player.

First thing we did is realize that the shuttle from Harrah's to the Rio for WSOP events didn't start running until 10am. Crap. So Ralph and I cabbed it to the Rio to get going.

I wanted to play a few Single Table SnGs. He went off to check on the ring game action. I signed up for a $175 buyin that paid out 1500 in tourney chips and $120 in cash. 10 runners. I did well on the 3rd hand, doubling with QQ vs 66 getting it all in on a T-hi board. I don't think I gave up the chip lead again until we got to HU play. What's funny is that I ended up HU with this guy. I didn't know who he was but there was a Swiss guy at the table. I made a comment to John early on about if he was a pro and the Swiss guy started laughing. I asked him what was funny and he said "You don't know who he is? I know who he is!". John spilled the beans after the HU match. I guess he found a new reader :) Pokernews is much bigger in the EU and AUS than in the US. I hope that changes for him.

But back to poker. I ended up HU with a guy who had a clue which was good and bad. Good, as he offered to chop right away, and we each took a chip. We kept the last chip and the cash in for the winner. Looking back, I should have made it winner gets the chip, loser gets the cash, but I was planning to win it, dammit. The worst part of HU play is that we were both playing TAGish, and there was a lot of raise/folding. It became a test of who was going to get bored first and make a mistake. I did get him in with A6 suited versus QJo and he caught a J on the flop. The turn J buried me and I was down to T2500ish versus his T7500. I battled back to even bit but finally lost with a K8o. I can't remember what he had, but I think he had an A and neither of us paired. Last hand we played blind at 300/600 as I had exactly 600 left on the button. After the flop I turned over AA. He had 2d4d. Flop was A 3 T with 2 diamonds. 5 on the turn and I was drawing slim. No river help and I was done. Such is life. I can't win those 60%ers. That would turn out to be a theme for the week.

Ralph was patiently waiting as the game took around an hour and a half and there was not much cash game action that early in the AM. As he was itching to play and thought about playing in the 4pm HORSE at Binion's, we headed downtown. I'd never played downtown in my previous visits, so it was going to be a new experience.

Got to Binion's around 11:30 AM and there was some low-limit action in LHE, O8, and NLHE. I was waiting for the PLO8 game or a Mixed Game to start up, hoping that we might get HORSE going as the tourney was that day. Meanwhile, I sat at the 1/3 NLHE. Within 30 mins they announced an interest list for 6/12 HORSE and within an hour it was up and going. I sit down in seat 5 and look over at seat 1 to see someone I recognize from CardPlayer. Might have been Vince Burgio, but I'm not sure. He was in PokerStars gear and someone commented that they like to play Omaha, but he writes about it. I didn't want to look like a tourist and ask so I kept my lip zipped. He was definitely in the "pro" category though.

About 20 minutes into the game a guy says "Hey, that's Oklahoma Johnny Hale! Let's see if we can get him to play!" He took seat 4. There's a bunch of missing records from early WSOPs, but I guess he has a few bracelets in Razz from back in the day. I managed to beat him when he had a possible 7-hi showing but I had 65 under. Nice to scoop a legend in his own game! I played for a few hours while Ralph played some 3/6 O8. We took a break around 3 and headed over to the Nugget for the buffet, as we heard it was great food. It definitely was great food, but the weekend price was a bit high and there was still quite a bit of breakfast-ish stuff for 3pm. Ah well.

I was a bit tired and went back to nap. Ralph decided to not play the HORSE (which was a good thing. It finally ended at 8am Sunday with an 8-way chop). Woke up and decided to meet up with Bleu to play. We met at Caesar's. The original plan was to grill out with the boys in Henderson, but he was supposed to be in a Freeroll at Caesar's. Being a poker player, he can't read a calendar and the Freeroll was on Sunday instead.

Anyway, Bleu and I met up at Caesar's and then headed over to the Bellagio to see what the action was like. There wasn't much going on there, so he got on the list for the 30/60 mixed game and we figured we had a few hours to kill. We headed up to the Wynn and got on the 10/20 O8 game. Meanwhile, we played some video poker while waiting. We went back after an hour (and I was up $2!) and I sat at 2/5 NLHE as we were near the top of the list. 2 hands in and they start up a new table as a must-move and I'm in!

The deck hit me pretty hard in the O8 game. I had some great runs. Bleu wasn't doing quite as well, but got moved into the big game. He said the action over there wasn't as good so when they called me up we decided to break instead. We called Ralph (who had been napping, taking the 2nd shift) and headed back to the Rio. I played 2 more SnGs, got knocked out of one quick and then chopped a 2nd one for another chip. Again, I had AT vs K5 and he flopped a 5. I couldn't catch up and ended up all in short with Q6 with 1200 in 300/600 blinds. Again, should have gone for cash to 2nd, but I learned. In good news I had 1000 in tourney chips for my 1500 buyin event. I was on a roll in cash and feeling great!

Tomorrow (or maybe later in the week) will be Day 2 of 4. Meanwhile, I'll cya at the tables.