Wsop/vegas Trip Report

[AcesUp46 0]

I've always enjoyed reading trip reports, so here's my WSOP trip report. It's long.July 30Get into Vegas with my gf. We waited in line to get tickets to watch Cirque du Soleil's "O" at the Bellagio. Show was really really good and worth the $150. The waiting line was right next to the poker room so I peeked into Bobby's room and saw Chau Giang, Benyamine, Greenstein, Harman, Minh Ly, Farha, David Grey, Phil Ivey and Chip Reese. Antonius came in for a while to talk to the players. The rumors about Benyamine winning a lot in the big game may be true cos I saw that he had the biggest stack at the table (not so sure about the denominations though...they seemed like the $5000 chips from afar). Wasted some money on slots after the show. Had the buffet dinner at Caesars...not impressed.Went to the Rio to watch some ME action. Watched Negreanu for a bit. Overheard a railbird say "Negreanu always raises so that it confuses the opponent since they have to compute how much the raise was".July 31Checked out the rest of the casinos on the strip and wasted some money on penny slots at all them. Buffet dinner at the Bellagio. Excellent. Checked out Bobby's room again and saw that Minh Ly was still wearing the same clothes that he did from yesterday. So I guess that he must be stuck. Played 10/20 at the Mirage. Game seemed like a rock garden. After 2 hours, the game broke down and I went over to the Venetian and played the 9/18 there. Kinda funky to be playing with $3 chips. Game was super loose and happy. We even played Indian poker for one hand and it was an absolutely donktastic hand. Everyone called preflop and flop comes A-A-3. SB checks, BB (with Ace on his forehead) checks, everyone (inc me) checks and button (with an 8) bets. SB (with a 9) calls, BB thinks for a while and folds. He then finds out that he folded the Ace. We laugh. Everyone else folds. Turn is a 7. SB check calls. River is a 9. SB check calls and finds out that he has a pair of 9's and rivered the boat. Button had the case Ace in the hole. We all had a good laugh till the supervisor came over and said we can't play it anymore. Left 2 hours later up about $150 for the night.Aug 1Aladdin lunch buffet. Quite good. Watched Popovich's pet comedy. Kind of a rip-off but I'm a sucker for animals. We then played the Wheel of Fortune penny slots and the Monte Carlo and Harrah's LV and hit the 10000X payoff twice and the 5000X pay off once to win slightly under $200 in total. Quite a fun -EV game.Aug 2Gf flew home since she has work. I play in the Mirage 10/20 game, won about $100 before playing in a $230 tournament at the Mirage. Slightly under 100 players entered. Very good blind structure with 30mins levels. Card dead for first 2 levels and couldn't find a spot to play a hand. Near end of 3rd level, I was down to 9X BB and pick up red Aces in MP3. Folds to me and I limp, figuring that since my stack is so small, I need to maximize my AA even if it means someone may hit a freak flop. Button calls and blinds check. Flop comes K-high with 2 hearts. SB checks, BB bets 1/3 pot, I insta-shove, button and SB folds and BB calls with K-8, saying that he thinks I'm on a flush draw. My AA holds and I'm just under average into the first break.Card dead again in 4th level and I'm down to 8X BB. Folds to me in MP3 and I move in with KQ. Get called by button's AK. Suck out a Q on the flop. I do a small fist pump and say "yes!" in relief. One guy remarks "I hate it when ppl get lucky and do that. You should apologize man...". One guy two to my right agrees that I shoud apologize. I just keep quiet. Stack is back to slightly under avg.At begining of 5th level, UTG with slightly under avg stack moves in. Folds to me in SB and I squeeze out AA and call. AA holds and I have a 1.5X avg stack.Next level, the dude who said I should apologize raises 3.5X BB in the CO. I wake up with AA in SB and decide to shove my 16X BB stack. He thinks for a while and calls with A-5s. My hand holds and I now have a 2.5X avg stack. I finish him off a while later.Down to final 20 players. CO raises 4X BB and folds to me in BB. I find AKs. At this point, CO has a 25X BB stack and I have about 35X BB. I suspect that he may be raising with a small pocket pair and decide to move in on him, figuring that with his stack, he may not want to gamble in a situation where at best, he is in a coinflip. He thinks for a while and he calls. I groan for a while, expecting him to flip up 77-TT where he's a slight favorite. I get a nice surprise when he flips up KJs, board bricks out and my Ace high wins. I now am the chip lead with 4X avg stack.Anyway, I enter final table as the chip lead and did not get involved in many pots as a lot of hands were all-in preflop. Soon we were down to final 4 players and we discussed a deal. We decided to chop according to chip count and I take home the lion's share of the deal, approx $4.7K.I then went down to the Rio to register in the next day's $1K NL event but find out that it's sold out. Decide to register in the $1.5K event instead. Got a $10 food voucher for the $135 juice that I'm forking out.Aug 3Play in the 10/20 and 9/18 cash games at the Mirage and Venetian. Also played in the same evening tournament at the Mirage. Got crippled when I made a bad call with AQ vs AK preflop. Knocked out shortly after.Aug 4Played in 10/20 cash game at the Rio. Then had an early night.Aug 5Event 41. $1500 NL HE. Tournament had slightly over 1000 players. My table had no pros, except perhaps for this one Scandinavian player who said that he's a sponsored player. First hand 25/25 blinds, 1500 starting stack. 3 limpers, I fold and Scandinavian player bumps it up to 150. SB calls and everyone else folds. Flop comes Ace-high. SB checks, Scandinavian bets 300, SB check raises to 600 and Scandinavian moves in. SB thinks for a while and calls with A-10. Scandinavian flips AQ. Turn is a brick and river is a 10. Scandinavian lets out a cry of agony "Nye!". Just one hand and all out.Anyway, my table has a lot of bad players with quite a lot of limping. Still at first level and after a limp by a weak player, I raise to 150 in MP3 with 88. Get called by SB and limper folds. Flop is a a bingo-bango-bongo-boom 7-8-7 with a flush draw. Blind checks, I check. Turn is an offsuit 10. SB checks, I make a weak looking 200 bet, get check-raised to 650. Now I wonder if he has pocket tens but figure that I'm not good enough to read him for pocket tens and make that laydown. I move in and he folds.2nd level 25/50 blinds and I have 2200 behind. One limper and I raise it to 200 with AKo. Player from above moves in behind me for 850 total. I know that I'm in a race and with such a good price, I call. He flips over 99 and I brick out. Down to 1350.Get moved to a new table. Still at 25/50 blinds. EP raises 3X BB and I have 10-10 in MP with 1200 behind. At this point, I didnt' really have a good read on EP and was just hoping to get a non-Ace flop to shove in. Flop comes all rags (7-high) with no face cards, EP bets 1/2 pot, I move in, he contemplates and folds A-7s face up. Back up to 1575.2 hands later, folds to me in CO and I raise to 3X BB with 55 and pick up blinds.A guy gets moved to my right and he looks like someone I've seen on televised poker. Asked him who he was and he's Chad Brown. Next hand, still at 25/50, get Ks2h in BB and it's a 4 way limped pot. Flop comes A-2-4 all spades. Checked around. Turn is 6s, so I make the 2nd best flush with the 3-5s making straight flush. SB checks, I bet 150 and loose button calls. River is a blank. I bet 225 and he calls with the Qs.Last hand before break. 25/50 blinds and I have 2200 behind. Chad Brown limps UTG and I squeeze out AA. I raise to 200 and short stack button moves all in for 425 total. Chad Brown folds and my AA holds up. I enter first break with 2800 chips.No significant hands in the 3rd level. Chad Brown busted out. UTG limps and Chad raised 4X BB. UTG reluctantly calls. Flops comes 5-7-10 with 2 hearts. UTG checks, Chad bets 2/3 pot and UTG check raises all in and has Chad covered. Chad thinks for a while and says that UTG has a heart draw and calls with QQ. UTG shows pocket 5's for a set and board bricks out. Chad Brown seemed like a friendly guy and told us that he's finished 2nd twice in WSOP bracelet events. Also told us about a sick beat that he took in a WPT prelim. Anyway, I'm glad that the best player at the table had busted out.I enter 4th level with 2500 in chips with blinds at 100/200. Already in push-botting mode. Get moved to a new table and find Barry Greenstein two to my left. He had only about 800+ chips. Kinda surreal to be playing with him. Anyway, I asked him if he was still giving out an autographed book to the player that busts him out and he said yes and jokingly said that the book changes pot odds a bit. 3 hands after I get moved, Barry moved all-in in EP2 with A9s and gets called by AK. AK holds and Barry signs his book and gives it to a young Vietnamese guy. Barry seemed like a friendly guy and everyone at the table said that he's a great gentleman. Anyway, table seemed loose and I was just waiting for a spot to put my chips in. My final hand. 100/200 blinds with 2200 behind. MP1 and MP2 limps and I sense that they had marginal hands. I squeeze out A9s in SB and decide to move in to take down the pot preflop. I think that given my stack size, this play is a no-brainer. Unluckily for me, BB wakes up with AK, calls and cripples me to 225. Next hand, I move in with KJ and get called in 2 spots and I'm out. Not really too sure where I finished but it was somewhere in between 350-380 out of 1007. Not too shabby I suppose.Next few days, I just played cash games and a couple of tournaments at Caesar's. Nothing interesting to report.So that's all for my WSOP trip. Still kinda bummed about busting out of the WSOP event, but no regrets. Overall a great trip. The Mirage tourney paid for my trip and I left Vegas up $3000+ overall.

[AcesUp46 0]

EDIT: Mike Matusow played at the table right next to mine. His nickname as "The Mouth" is definitely well deserved. He was yapping and yapping the whole day long.Also saw Men the Master playing in a 5-10NL cash game.

[XX44466XX 0]

NO KFL interaction?!You pussy.

[matt21sz 0]

Always love reading the trip reports. I'm heading out to Vegas in January again so reading these gets my psyched. Sounds like you had a good trip.P.S. You're girlfriend left you in Vegas to go back to work and all you did was play cards?? Or did you omit some things fearing that she would read this? Only kidding man, glad you had fun.

[AcesUp46 0]

NO KFL interaction?!You pussy.

Actually, when I was playing in a cash game at the Rio, I saw Kathy Liebert getting a massage at a massage chair just 10 ft away from me. She was wearing her fanny pack.

Always love reading the trip reports. I'm heading out to Vegas in January again so reading these gets my psyched. Sounds like you had a good trip.P.S. You're girlfriend left you in Vegas to go back to work and all you did was play cards?? Or did you omit some things fearing that she would read this? Only kidding man, glad you had fun.

You'll definitely have a good time. If you want to play tourneys, I suggest Caesar's Palace and Mirage cos they are relatively cheap at about $200+ and the blind structures are friendly.I actually left Vegas a day earlier than I had planned. I was still kinda bummed out about busting out of the $1.5K WSOP event and played really bad in a Caesar's Palace tourney that evening. I figured that I wouldn't be playing my best at cash games so decided to just head home instead of spewing chips.

[FourFlusher 0]

Excellent report, very well written.I honestly don't know how you guys remember all those hands, but, I'm glad you do, it's fun to read.

[XX44466XX 0]

Actually, when I was playing in a cash game at the Rio, I saw Kathy Liebert getting a massage at a massage chair just 10 ft away from me. She was wearing her fanny pack.

Pussy.

[AcesUp46 0]

Pussy.

Why do you call me that?

[XX44466XX 0]

Why do you call me that?

'Cause you didn't have the balls to go kiss her.

[Balloon guy 158]

'Cause you didn't have the balls to go kiss her like I have done many times in the past.

FYP