Tearing up Vegas

This past weekend, two full time MPT'ers (Squeaky and myself) and one part timer (the Milk Man) went to Vegas for r&r. Being faithful MPT'ers (long live the 47o! amen!), we HAD to play some poker whilst out there.

We walked the town to find the best spot, and ended up at Sahara on Friday night for the $42 + $20 add-on. Let's just say it was nothing like the MPT. No calling down with any random paint on a board with four suited cards. No cheat sheets for the hand rankings.

I'll cover Squeaky's experience in the Friday night extravaganza first, since the summary will be short and sweet. Squeaky looked down at pocket Ts. The flop was T9x. He declined to bet the trips. A Q was on 4rth, and Squeaky took this opportunity to push all in, which was called immediately by two people who both went on to river a straight. He at least got to play in Vegas a couple hours.

I, however, ended up playing a tad longer. I had assumed that a $40 Vegas tourney was going to be a lot like a $20 MPT tourney. But to my shock, people respected my raises. I picked up small pots along the way, staying out of big confrontations.

I hit KK twice and they held up. Once a standard raise 'stole' the blinds. Another time, I took a decent pot. My favorite hand of the night was when I held 23o in the BB. No raises. Flop was 22x. One guy hit top pair, and I doubled up.

There were a fair amount of characters out there. One local we nick-named "Phil Vermouth." He had the beginning of a combover, and his glasses that he would pull down over his eyes any time he was bet into. He was fond of asking for stack counts, and agonized over several close situations. He folded TT only to see a T on the flop. That didn't make Phil happy. Incidentally, Phil was back on Saturday wearing the exact same pants and shirt. NICE.

There was a father and son - an older Mexican looking gentleman, and his kid. Two brothers played. And there were several "Bill Filmaff" wannabes with thier skull caps and glasses on and attitudes. It was pretty funny.

There was even an Iven clone (I'll call him Texas) who on Thursday threatened to beat up a guy who checked out of turn, only to re-raise when he was bet into.

I was generally around par or a little above by picking off pots here and there. I had been planning on changing styles and speeding up to take advantage of my table image, but opportunities never presented themselves. I stayed out of difficult decisions, made a couple good laydowns, got a little lucky.

I was the short stack with the blinds approaching when I looked down on rockets. Two guys got all in ahead of me, and I tripled up. The final table had a happy blonde, Texas, the older Mexican gentlemen, the two brothers, Phil Vermouth, a 22 year old kid, and a couple others.

One interesting hand came up when the older brother re-raised younger brother by pushing all in. The pot odds were like 10-1, so little brother had to call. But he hemmed and hawed, and big brother told him to fold. He ended up calling, but had he folded, I would have been pissed.

Anyway, it got down to Phil, Old guy, Texas and myself. I was again the short stack, but managed to pick up two huge pots in a row to become chip leader. Old guy took out Texas, and I took out Phil. Heads up I had a 2-1 chip lead. I started the heads up by raising every pot, no matter what 2 cards I held, and he folded 3-4 in a row.

Then I made a big mistake. I looked down at AJs, and pushed at his bb. In the moment, I thought maybe he'd be sick of folding and call with any decent hand. He turned over AQ and it held up. Had I just raised, I would have saved maybe $40,000 chips.

I made a comeback, but was still severely outchipped. With only a couple minutes left in the round, I was at push/fold time. Next round was BB=my stack. I saw 33 and pushed. He called with 55 and it was over.

There were 157 players, 140 rebuys, and I took second in my first live Vegas tourney. Pretty happy with the result.

(edit: The flop on my favorite hand was 22x, giving me trips)