Kind of a lot has happened since my last blog post. Most notably was Poker's "Black Friday," on April 15th of this year. Here's a pretty good article about that, but the short of it is that the DoJ shut down PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. Now, PokerStars was able to return money to their U.S. players pretty quickly, but Full Tilt Poker has been unable to do so thus far. So, currently I can't play online poker, and have about $3,000 locked up in there that I can't even access, and am starting to get a little worried that I might never see it again. But we'll see what happens.
So in this downtime I've decided to look at my recent stats from before the shutdown, to do some simple analyses and maybe learn something about my game and continue to try and grow in this way while I can't actually play. So... here we go.
First, my data that I'm looking at right now are from a recent 4 month window, and consist of roughly 50,000 hands played across three levels of stakes: $50, $100 and $200 no-limit hold'em (with the $ amount being the buy-in for the game). To be precise, it's 51,709 hands and the breakdown is:
13,056 hands at $50NL
26,538 hands at $100NL
12,115 hands at $200NL
So what is 51,709 hands of poker exactly? Well, in a brick and mortar casino, you can expect to get dealt about 30 hands per hour. So if I were playing only in a brick and mortar casino, how long would it take me to play 51,709 hands? If you do the math, it would take me about 43 weeks playing at 40 hours per week to attain this.
In contrast, by playing online I was able to attain this in 4 months playing an hour or two per night and only whenever I had the free time, due to the fact that hands get dealt faster online AND you can play multiple tables at the same time.
Ok, now how much did I make? Well my raw profit at these stakes was $2,986.75 over this time period. One meaningful statistic though is your winrate, in terms of BB/100. That is, big blinds per 100 hands. So for example, if you are playing $100NL where the big blind is $1, and your winrate is 2 BB/100, then that means that on average, you are winning $2 every 100 hands. Also, I will note that when I play, I average about 600 hands per hour. From this, I can also calculate my hourly rate. So here they are:
$50NL: 9.80 BB/100 -> $29.40/hr
$100NL: 5.88 BB/100 -> $35.28/hr
$200NL: 3.24 BB/100 -> $38.88/hr
Ok so my BB/100 decreases as the stakes increase, which is to be expected since higher stakes means harder opponents, typically. On the other hand, I do make the best hourly rate at the highest stake of $200NL.
It's only marginally better though; at each increase in stakes I'm playing twice as big (i.e. risking twice as much) but only doing slightly better. But, two things: 1) It's always good to try and move up and be able to win against better opponents and keep improving your game, so even if my winrate suffers in the short term, I should strive to attain good winrates at higher stakes in my continual quest for improvement as a player, and 2) These estimates are actually subject to a lot of variability, even after 10,000+ hands that I have at each level. The variance of poker is so much greater than one might think. I haven't done the math yet but conventional wisdom says that you need to have about 100,000 hands before you can have any reasonable precision on your winrate.
So, even though $29.40-$38.88/hr playing poker may sound pretty sweet, I wouldn't bet the farm on me yet (it's pretty clear that I do *beat* these games, but just by *how much* isn't very clear yet). Also, and more importantly, we already know that I hated playing poker full time when I did it the summer before starting my PhD.
There's a lot more I can look at, but I'll end this here for now and maybe take a look at some other things later.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
Lish and Peter go to Snoqualmie Casino
Our getaway this weekend was to... wait for it... Issaquah! Ok, maybe not a very exciting town in and of itself. But we chose it for its proximity to both Snoqualmie Casino and the North Bend Outlet Mall. We stayed at a Hilton Garden Inn, the same type of hotel that we had for Aasthaa's wedding, and we've decided this is one of our favorite brands of hotel.
So we headed out there on Saturday afternoon, hit the Outlet Mall first, and then headed over to the casino. I had never been there before, and neither had Lish, so we started out just by taking some laps around the floor to check out what was available. My first observation was that the casino floor was WAAAAY more cramped than any other casino I had ever been to. The aisles between slot machines and table games were so narrow, it was practically impossible to walk through without bumping into people.
Lish was also quite disappointed to learn (while we were chatting at dinner) that there would NOT be free drinks at the casino. Nope, only Vegas and Atlantic City, I told her. And maybe some other places I don't know about, but I've never been to a casino outside of those two which served free alcohol. Nonetheless, we quickly went over to the bar to get a couple of drinks that I bought for us.
Then we hit a $10 blackjack table. I was trying to encourage Lish to play, but she wanted to just watch me. I tried to make some chit-chat with the old guy next to me but he wasn't too cooperative (gave kind of a strange answer to my question of "how has the table been treating you tonight?"), and the dealer was REALLY silent and un-friendly as well, so it was kind of a boring table. But I pulled $55 from it before we got up and tried to find some fun slot machines.
My definition of a "fun" slot machine is:
1) One where I know what I'm rooting for
2) Has a bonus game with possibilities of hitting a big jackpot
I know the bonus games are just gimmicks, but they at least make it entertaining. We had found a really fun game that fit this definition at the Bellagio when we went back in September of 2010... but we couldn't find quite this game here. We found similar ones though. Lish did hit a small jackpot for about 3400 credits... with each credit being 1 cent :) I think I dropped $45 in the slot machines altogether.
Then I took my $10 profit and we went to the club! Lish wanted to dance and I was happy to oblige, and it was $10 cover for guys, and ladies were free, lol. Much better than Vegas! And it was fun, I mean we decided we weren't a huge fan of the music they were playing since we didn't recognize a ton of it. And then of the stuff we did recognize... well, there was Katy Perry, and Britney, lol. But it wasn't all bad, and we did have a good time in there.
Finally we went to the Pai Gow tables, which we had been scoping out earlier too but they were full. Aannnddd... they were still full. Those Asians sure don't like to give up their seats, lol. They also only had two tables of it, which I explained to Lish was because they can't make as much money off of them compared to other games since it goes so slow. The other thing I noticed at that point was that, while previously the two tables were $25 minimum bet and $15 minimum bet, they now were both $25 minimum bet. When I mentioned this to Lish, she said "Oh, so you won't play at a $25 table?" Haha, it's not that I *won't*... it's just that, well, it's just nice to be aware that say a $100 buy-in only gets you 4 bets now, that's all. heh.
Anyways, after a few minutes of watching, all the players still showed no signs of budging, so we decided to just call it a night. It was almost midnight anyways, and we're getting old, haha. So we headed back to our hotel after a great night together. aww.
So we headed out there on Saturday afternoon, hit the Outlet Mall first, and then headed over to the casino. I had never been there before, and neither had Lish, so we started out just by taking some laps around the floor to check out what was available. My first observation was that the casino floor was WAAAAY more cramped than any other casino I had ever been to. The aisles between slot machines and table games were so narrow, it was practically impossible to walk through without bumping into people.
Lish was also quite disappointed to learn (while we were chatting at dinner) that there would NOT be free drinks at the casino. Nope, only Vegas and Atlantic City, I told her. And maybe some other places I don't know about, but I've never been to a casino outside of those two which served free alcohol. Nonetheless, we quickly went over to the bar to get a couple of drinks that I bought for us.
Then we hit a $10 blackjack table. I was trying to encourage Lish to play, but she wanted to just watch me. I tried to make some chit-chat with the old guy next to me but he wasn't too cooperative (gave kind of a strange answer to my question of "how has the table been treating you tonight?"), and the dealer was REALLY silent and un-friendly as well, so it was kind of a boring table. But I pulled $55 from it before we got up and tried to find some fun slot machines.
My definition of a "fun" slot machine is:
1) One where I know what I'm rooting for
2) Has a bonus game with possibilities of hitting a big jackpot
I know the bonus games are just gimmicks, but they at least make it entertaining. We had found a really fun game that fit this definition at the Bellagio when we went back in September of 2010... but we couldn't find quite this game here. We found similar ones though. Lish did hit a small jackpot for about 3400 credits... with each credit being 1 cent :) I think I dropped $45 in the slot machines altogether.
Then I took my $10 profit and we went to the club! Lish wanted to dance and I was happy to oblige, and it was $10 cover for guys, and ladies were free, lol. Much better than Vegas! And it was fun, I mean we decided we weren't a huge fan of the music they were playing since we didn't recognize a ton of it. And then of the stuff we did recognize... well, there was Katy Perry, and Britney, lol. But it wasn't all bad, and we did have a good time in there.
Finally we went to the Pai Gow tables, which we had been scoping out earlier too but they were full. Aannnddd... they were still full. Those Asians sure don't like to give up their seats, lol. They also only had two tables of it, which I explained to Lish was because they can't make as much money off of them compared to other games since it goes so slow. The other thing I noticed at that point was that, while previously the two tables were $25 minimum bet and $15 minimum bet, they now were both $25 minimum bet. When I mentioned this to Lish, she said "Oh, so you won't play at a $25 table?" Haha, it's not that I *won't*... it's just that, well, it's just nice to be aware that say a $100 buy-in only gets you 4 bets now, that's all. heh.
Anyways, after a few minutes of watching, all the players still showed no signs of budging, so we decided to just call it a night. It was almost midnight anyways, and we're getting old, haha. So we headed back to our hotel after a great night together. aww.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
A Tale of Two Casinos
The two casinos of this story are Tulalip, and the Fantasy Casino at Allison's (Lish's sister) work party.
My friend Chris e-mailed me during this last week asking if I wanted to hit up a cardroom sometime this weekend, because his wife was out of town. I did some googling and found that Tulalip has a $75 buy-in poker tournament that starts at 11am on Saturdays, so we decided to go for that.
It was pretty quick getting up there, like 35 minutes once we left my house. So we got there in plenty of time to register and everything. Chris sat at a cash game while waiting for the tournament to start, and I played some blackjack. Pulled down $55 there so a nice little score. I think Chris lost a bit in his cash game.
Then we started the tournament. Starting stack was 5000 chips, blinds started at 25/50 and 20 minute levels. So definitely a fast tournament. In one early hand, I managed to get away from top two pair where I would have lost my stack. A couple people limped in front of me, I called with QJo, and another person or two called behind me. Flop came down QJ9 rainbow, the BB bet 150, one guy called, I raised to 650, BB made it 1450, and then the caller woke up and shoved all-in. In retrospect I think it's a pretty easy laydown with all that action, but I really tanked on that for a while (trying to convince myself that one of them had a worse two pair, and maybe the other one just had a straight draw). But I think I'm absolutely never best there. So I folded, BB called with KTo for the flopped straight, and the other guy had my same hand, QJo. The straight held up to win, and I live to fight another day.
There was one guy who busted two people (on different hands) coming from behind -- he took out KK with AJ after they got it all-in on a J-high flop, and then he took out AA with 9T after flopping middle pair. Definitely was salivating at the prospect of getting into a pot with this guy. Then, another guy open-folds top two pair against him after getting shoved on. WHAT!! Didn't you see what this guy was moving in with?? yeah, there definitely was some weak play at this table.
My bustout hand came right after the first break. Blinds were 200/400 with 25 ante, I had about 5700 at that point. It folds to me in the SB, I have AQs and raise to 1200. BB 3-bets to 2400, I ship and he calls with JJ. I get no help and I'm out. I was talking to Chris about this one, wondering if I could get away from my hand there. My point was that, on the whole, live players have very narrow 3-betting ranges; online I'd ship this all day without a question. But I think JJ is towards the lower end of a typical live player's 3-betting range. Chris made the point that you can't let this go because the blinds are rapidly increasing and you just need to accumulate, and obviously if enough pocket pairs are in his range, it's an easy ship with that much in the pot already. yeah, I might need to think about this one a little more, but he's probably right.
Anyways, then I played some cash (1/3 no-limit) after that and pulled down $88 at a non-remarkable table. Definitely plenty soft, but nothing too interesting there. So I booked a little $68 win on the day after counting my tournament entry. Hey I'll take it; Chris said he was down about $300 on the day.
Then was the Fantasy Casino for Allison's work party. But first, we all went to the 5pm mass at Blessed Sacrament (Lish, myself, Allison, Bekah (another one of their sisters), Tisa and Erin). Tisa and Lish already had plans to hang out tonight, so I went with just Allison and Bekah to this work party. And it was really fun! All of the chips were just play-money, and you got raffle tickets for prizes at the end of the night based on how many chips you had won; the more chips you had, the more raffle tickets you got. They had blackjack, roulette and a poker table. We played a little bit of all 3. Roulette is probably one of my least favorite casino games since there's no strategy at all, but I think I had the most fun at that table! I got to explain it to the girls (in terms of how much you win for each bet -- there's really nothing else to it), and just hang out with them there.
All in all, a good day of gambling on all counts.
My friend Chris e-mailed me during this last week asking if I wanted to hit up a cardroom sometime this weekend, because his wife was out of town. I did some googling and found that Tulalip has a $75 buy-in poker tournament that starts at 11am on Saturdays, so we decided to go for that.
It was pretty quick getting up there, like 35 minutes once we left my house. So we got there in plenty of time to register and everything. Chris sat at a cash game while waiting for the tournament to start, and I played some blackjack. Pulled down $55 there so a nice little score. I think Chris lost a bit in his cash game.
Then we started the tournament. Starting stack was 5000 chips, blinds started at 25/50 and 20 minute levels. So definitely a fast tournament. In one early hand, I managed to get away from top two pair where I would have lost my stack. A couple people limped in front of me, I called with QJo, and another person or two called behind me. Flop came down QJ9 rainbow, the BB bet 150, one guy called, I raised to 650, BB made it 1450, and then the caller woke up and shoved all-in. In retrospect I think it's a pretty easy laydown with all that action, but I really tanked on that for a while (trying to convince myself that one of them had a worse two pair, and maybe the other one just had a straight draw). But I think I'm absolutely never best there. So I folded, BB called with KTo for the flopped straight, and the other guy had my same hand, QJo. The straight held up to win, and I live to fight another day.
There was one guy who busted two people (on different hands) coming from behind -- he took out KK with AJ after they got it all-in on a J-high flop, and then he took out AA with 9T after flopping middle pair. Definitely was salivating at the prospect of getting into a pot with this guy. Then, another guy open-folds top two pair against him after getting shoved on. WHAT!! Didn't you see what this guy was moving in with?? yeah, there definitely was some weak play at this table.
My bustout hand came right after the first break. Blinds were 200/400 with 25 ante, I had about 5700 at that point. It folds to me in the SB, I have AQs and raise to 1200. BB 3-bets to 2400, I ship and he calls with JJ. I get no help and I'm out. I was talking to Chris about this one, wondering if I could get away from my hand there. My point was that, on the whole, live players have very narrow 3-betting ranges; online I'd ship this all day without a question. But I think JJ is towards the lower end of a typical live player's 3-betting range. Chris made the point that you can't let this go because the blinds are rapidly increasing and you just need to accumulate, and obviously if enough pocket pairs are in his range, it's an easy ship with that much in the pot already. yeah, I might need to think about this one a little more, but he's probably right.
Anyways, then I played some cash (1/3 no-limit) after that and pulled down $88 at a non-remarkable table. Definitely plenty soft, but nothing too interesting there. So I booked a little $68 win on the day after counting my tournament entry. Hey I'll take it; Chris said he was down about $300 on the day.
Then was the Fantasy Casino for Allison's work party. But first, we all went to the 5pm mass at Blessed Sacrament (Lish, myself, Allison, Bekah (another one of their sisters), Tisa and Erin). Tisa and Lish already had plans to hang out tonight, so I went with just Allison and Bekah to this work party. And it was really fun! All of the chips were just play-money, and you got raffle tickets for prizes at the end of the night based on how many chips you had won; the more chips you had, the more raffle tickets you got. They had blackjack, roulette and a poker table. We played a little bit of all 3. Roulette is probably one of my least favorite casino games since there's no strategy at all, but I think I had the most fun at that table! I got to explain it to the girls (in terms of how much you win for each bet -- there's really nothing else to it), and just hang out with them there.
All in all, a good day of gambling on all counts.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
BWO: Boys Weekend Out (Vegas Dec 2010)
A little late on this trip report, but better late than never.
Back in November, I happened to talk to Rahul over e-mail, and he mentioned that he was taking his annual trip to Vegas with his boys over the weekend of Dec 10-12. This was the weekend before finals week at UW, but seeing as I had no finals this quarter... and also Lish was on her trip to Mexico, so I figured it was great timing! The surprising thing to me is that Rahul is generally against mixing his friends, so I felt really lucky to actually get an invite on this trip. The cast of characters for this trip was myself, Rahul, Dave (who I had actually met before), Danny, and Paolo.
Rahul actually arrived by himself on Thursday, a good 24 hours before anyone else got there so that he could get in some extra gambling time, haha. I seriously thought about joining him, but I couldn't take Friday off. So I got a flight out on Friday evening, scheduled to land in LAS around 11pm. As usual, I rented a car (I have perhaps an unhealthy hatred for taxis). Quick side-note though: the rental car desk for Enterprise closes at midnight, so it was already cutting it close. Turns out my flight was delayed, so that had me pretty stressed out. Couple of other things that happened at the airport:
BAD: Got my peanut butter confiscated at security. Bummer, I just like to have food with me on trips to try and minimize the need to eat out.
GOOD: Found a free Southwest drink voucher on the ground, and I was flying Southwest! So I considered myself even with the world at that point. Although I was still worried about making it to Vegas in time to pick up my car.
Fortunately, I made it. Not only that, but they gave me a convertible! For the price of an "Intermediate," too. That was super exciting.
The first night in Vegas wasn't too eventful; Danny was already in bed by the time I got to the Venetian, which is where we were staying. The other boys were playing/watching Craps. I wound up playing a little bit of poker that night and won a little bit (like $40).
On Saturday morning I woke up early (relatively, for Vegas -- like 9:30am) for a satellite into Venetian's $330 buy-in Deep Stack tournament. The satellite was $80 with top 2 getting seats. The play was nothing too notable, maybe a little weak-tight. I built up a decent stack early, by getting lucky with AQ against AK... but then my luck turned around. In another hand, I turned the nut-straight against two pair, we got it all-in, and he rivered the boat. I had him covered, but that took me down to about half the starting stack. Then just a few hands later, I had AA, got a couple of callers after I raised, got it in against a flush draw on the flop, which hit and I'm out. boo.
After this, I went to the Wynn for their noon tournament. $120 buy-in, and we had about 50 players for that. I don't really remember anything from this tournament except my bustout hand: I had AA, with a raise and a call in front of me. I was shallow enough to shove so I did... the raiser folded, but then the caller called, with 66. 6 on the river and I'm gone.
At this point I decided it was time to take the convertible for a drive. Oh! I almost forgot. I did drive from the Venetian to the Wynn (which are basically right next to each other, but Vegas blocks are really long)... anyways, for that drive I decided to put the top down even though it was just like 5 minutes. And it took me like 5-10 minutes to figure out how to put the top down in this thing! Turns out I had to move one of the parts in the trunk manually. Anyways, that drive up the strip with the top down was pure happiness :) It was just before noon, the sun was up, and it was about 60 degrees. A little chilly, but Seattle had been COLD before this! Here's a pic, can't remember if this is that drive or another one down the strip:
So anyways, after my bustout at the Wynn, I decided I wanted more. And I also hadn't eaten lunch yet. So, I decided to drive out to Red Rock Casino, where they have a Capriotti's :) For those who don't know, this is a small chain of sandwich shops, with locations in Newark, DE and Las Vegas, NV, among not many others. This drive may have been one of the highlights of the trip. This pic is from the parking lot of Red Rock Casino, with my rental car in the bottom-left corner:
The other highlight, though, was dinner that night. Somehow, because Dave is the man, his work was covering dinner that night at Del Frisco's, a fantastic steak house. I don't even fully understand the details about why his work was willing to pay for this, but it had something to do with collectors coins that the restaurant gives out and his office is collecting. Anyways, we ate like kings, with several appetizers and side dishes to share along with our steaks, and two bottles of wine. Total bill was about $600 with tip (for five guys), and I can honestly say that it was the best meal I've ever had in my entire life.
After dinner, we went back to the casino to all sit at a blackjack table together. This was super fun, but nothing really notable to report. I bought in for $200, lost that, bought in for another $200, lost about half of that, and then managed to break even before quitting.
Sunday all the boys left around noon for their flights back to NYC, and I was staying until Monday morning. So I had roughly a full 20 hours in Vegas by myself at this point. Word. My flight on Monday morning was at 6am, so I figured I would just stay up and drive to the airport around 4am. I also did some searching online for poker tournament schedules, and found that Caesars had a 10pm tournament that night. And also I needed to go to mass, which I would do at 7pm at the UNLV Newman Center. That was my schedule for the night, and if I busted out of the tournament early, I'd just play a cash game until it was time to go.
The afternoon actually was really nice, to have that to myself in Vegas with a convertible. I drove that around for a bit in search of a Starbucks, which actually took me a good 45 minutes (this would never happen in Seattle!) But I settled in there, and actually did some work for a bit.
The final bit of the story was the Caesar's 10pm tournament. It was an $80 buy-in, and we got just over 50 players, which made first place be just over $1000. There was nothing terribly notable about the play in this tournament either... but as I got pretty deep in this tournament, like around the break at 2am and we still had like 15 players left, I was definitely worrying about whether we were going to be done in time for me to make my flight. The top 6 were getting paid, and I was chip leader for a little while as we had about 15 down to about 10 players left. Some things were definitely going my way -- I was able to steal blinds at will, and I won a race with AK against TT. I did have one painful beat though as a short-stack shipped, I called with AJo, she turned over A5o and flopped a 5. But things still managed to go pretty well overall and we got down to 3 players around 3am. At that point, me and another guy had about the same chipstack, and then the 3rd guy had probably like 1.5 times that. We made a deal once we got down to 3: there was $2160 in prize money remaining, so we guaranteed everyone $600, and then winner would take another $360. The original payouts were something like $1040, $675 and $380 (although I see that doesn't quite add up right, so I'm a little off).
Anyways, long story short, I came in 2nd and took $600. And we finished right around 3:30am, just in time for me to drive to the airport. Perfect!
With all my other losses and gains (not all mentioned in this report), I finished this Vegas trip basically up about $600 even.
As I walked out to my car, it definitely felt a little surreal... it's not that I haven't been up this late in Vegas, but I was 100% sober, and my surroundings definitely were not. On our last couple of bathroom breaks, there were tons of drunk clubbers stumbling around (the poker room at Caesars is right next door to Pure), and as I was leaving after the tournament finished, there were drunk girls pole dancing on the PussyCat Dolls poles. So that was a bit of a sight for sure.
But I got to my car in the parking garage, and even though it was cold, I put the top down for one last drive as I went to the airport. Driving down the strip at that hour, completely sober, with all the lights and the cold air in your face was definitely was the perfect way to end one of the best Vegas trips I've ever had.
Back in November, I happened to talk to Rahul over e-mail, and he mentioned that he was taking his annual trip to Vegas with his boys over the weekend of Dec 10-12. This was the weekend before finals week at UW, but seeing as I had no finals this quarter... and also Lish was on her trip to Mexico, so I figured it was great timing! The surprising thing to me is that Rahul is generally against mixing his friends, so I felt really lucky to actually get an invite on this trip. The cast of characters for this trip was myself, Rahul, Dave (who I had actually met before), Danny, and Paolo.
Rahul actually arrived by himself on Thursday, a good 24 hours before anyone else got there so that he could get in some extra gambling time, haha. I seriously thought about joining him, but I couldn't take Friday off. So I got a flight out on Friday evening, scheduled to land in LAS around 11pm. As usual, I rented a car (I have perhaps an unhealthy hatred for taxis). Quick side-note though: the rental car desk for Enterprise closes at midnight, so it was already cutting it close. Turns out my flight was delayed, so that had me pretty stressed out. Couple of other things that happened at the airport:
BAD: Got my peanut butter confiscated at security. Bummer, I just like to have food with me on trips to try and minimize the need to eat out.
GOOD: Found a free Southwest drink voucher on the ground, and I was flying Southwest! So I considered myself even with the world at that point. Although I was still worried about making it to Vegas in time to pick up my car.
Fortunately, I made it. Not only that, but they gave me a convertible! For the price of an "Intermediate," too. That was super exciting.
The first night in Vegas wasn't too eventful; Danny was already in bed by the time I got to the Venetian, which is where we were staying. The other boys were playing/watching Craps. I wound up playing a little bit of poker that night and won a little bit (like $40).
On Saturday morning I woke up early (relatively, for Vegas -- like 9:30am) for a satellite into Venetian's $330 buy-in Deep Stack tournament. The satellite was $80 with top 2 getting seats. The play was nothing too notable, maybe a little weak-tight. I built up a decent stack early, by getting lucky with AQ against AK... but then my luck turned around. In another hand, I turned the nut-straight against two pair, we got it all-in, and he rivered the boat. I had him covered, but that took me down to about half the starting stack. Then just a few hands later, I had AA, got a couple of callers after I raised, got it in against a flush draw on the flop, which hit and I'm out. boo.
After this, I went to the Wynn for their noon tournament. $120 buy-in, and we had about 50 players for that. I don't really remember anything from this tournament except my bustout hand: I had AA, with a raise and a call in front of me. I was shallow enough to shove so I did... the raiser folded, but then the caller called, with 66. 6 on the river and I'm gone.
At this point I decided it was time to take the convertible for a drive. Oh! I almost forgot. I did drive from the Venetian to the Wynn (which are basically right next to each other, but Vegas blocks are really long)... anyways, for that drive I decided to put the top down even though it was just like 5 minutes. And it took me like 5-10 minutes to figure out how to put the top down in this thing! Turns out I had to move one of the parts in the trunk manually. Anyways, that drive up the strip with the top down was pure happiness :) It was just before noon, the sun was up, and it was about 60 degrees. A little chilly, but Seattle had been COLD before this! Here's a pic, can't remember if this is that drive or another one down the strip:
So anyways, after my bustout at the Wynn, I decided I wanted more. And I also hadn't eaten lunch yet. So, I decided to drive out to Red Rock Casino, where they have a Capriotti's :) For those who don't know, this is a small chain of sandwich shops, with locations in Newark, DE and Las Vegas, NV, among not many others. This drive may have been one of the highlights of the trip. This pic is from the parking lot of Red Rock Casino, with my rental car in the bottom-left corner:
The other highlight, though, was dinner that night. Somehow, because Dave is the man, his work was covering dinner that night at Del Frisco's, a fantastic steak house. I don't even fully understand the details about why his work was willing to pay for this, but it had something to do with collectors coins that the restaurant gives out and his office is collecting. Anyways, we ate like kings, with several appetizers and side dishes to share along with our steaks, and two bottles of wine. Total bill was about $600 with tip (for five guys), and I can honestly say that it was the best meal I've ever had in my entire life.
After dinner, we went back to the casino to all sit at a blackjack table together. This was super fun, but nothing really notable to report. I bought in for $200, lost that, bought in for another $200, lost about half of that, and then managed to break even before quitting.
Sunday all the boys left around noon for their flights back to NYC, and I was staying until Monday morning. So I had roughly a full 20 hours in Vegas by myself at this point. Word. My flight on Monday morning was at 6am, so I figured I would just stay up and drive to the airport around 4am. I also did some searching online for poker tournament schedules, and found that Caesars had a 10pm tournament that night. And also I needed to go to mass, which I would do at 7pm at the UNLV Newman Center. That was my schedule for the night, and if I busted out of the tournament early, I'd just play a cash game until it was time to go.
The afternoon actually was really nice, to have that to myself in Vegas with a convertible. I drove that around for a bit in search of a Starbucks, which actually took me a good 45 minutes (this would never happen in Seattle!) But I settled in there, and actually did some work for a bit.
The final bit of the story was the Caesar's 10pm tournament. It was an $80 buy-in, and we got just over 50 players, which made first place be just over $1000. There was nothing terribly notable about the play in this tournament either... but as I got pretty deep in this tournament, like around the break at 2am and we still had like 15 players left, I was definitely worrying about whether we were going to be done in time for me to make my flight. The top 6 were getting paid, and I was chip leader for a little while as we had about 15 down to about 10 players left. Some things were definitely going my way -- I was able to steal blinds at will, and I won a race with AK against TT. I did have one painful beat though as a short-stack shipped, I called with AJo, she turned over A5o and flopped a 5. But things still managed to go pretty well overall and we got down to 3 players around 3am. At that point, me and another guy had about the same chipstack, and then the 3rd guy had probably like 1.5 times that. We made a deal once we got down to 3: there was $2160 in prize money remaining, so we guaranteed everyone $600, and then winner would take another $360. The original payouts were something like $1040, $675 and $380 (although I see that doesn't quite add up right, so I'm a little off).
Anyways, long story short, I came in 2nd and took $600. And we finished right around 3:30am, just in time for me to drive to the airport. Perfect!
With all my other losses and gains (not all mentioned in this report), I finished this Vegas trip basically up about $600 even.
As I walked out to my car, it definitely felt a little surreal... it's not that I haven't been up this late in Vegas, but I was 100% sober, and my surroundings definitely were not. On our last couple of bathroom breaks, there were tons of drunk clubbers stumbling around (the poker room at Caesars is right next door to Pure), and as I was leaving after the tournament finished, there were drunk girls pole dancing on the PussyCat Dolls poles. So that was a bit of a sight for sure.
But I got to my car in the parking garage, and even though it was cold, I put the top down for one last drive as I went to the airport. Driving down the strip at that hour, completely sober, with all the lights and the cold air in your face was definitely was the perfect way to end one of the best Vegas trips I've ever had.
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