Las Vegas: Day 2

Day 2 started with breakfast at Caesar's Palace with Zach and Sean and it was awesome. Will no doubt be going back today.

Then we headed out to meet up with everyone at the Rio to watch Fredrik play (he's in the WSOP ME remember). His registration ended up getting delayed through some fuck-up in the system, and he didn't play until we all left the casino. Last update I heard was he dropped to 20k (30k starting). All the luck in the world to ya Fredrik! (minus a little for myself this trip..)

Then Zach, Sean and I headed over to the MGM to grind for an hour before heading up to the cardschat party in Nick's suite. I came out a little more than a buyin up with a nice card rush. Some memorable hands:

Literally the first four hands I get dealt, I pick up preflop monsters and win about half a stack. I purposely show a couple of them to see if I could lay down an image and start running some bluffs later.

Very next hand (yes, 5th hand), I pick up KK, open, get a caller or two, and a young internet(?) player squeezed to like $35. We're both about $300 deep, so I 4bet to $90 or $85 or something. He folds, and I show again.

A little while later, a fishy player to my right who's friend says he's playing in the ME opens. His friend to his left calls in the SB, and I squeeze QQ to like $25 I guess, and cbet a 994ss flop. He folds.

Next I open AK in EP and get 3bet by a $40-60 shortstack from Toronto who's tilting like crazy. I ship obviously, and win the flip against 99.

Last, and definitely most interesting hand: UTG (guy who squeezed and folded to my 4bet) limps, a couple limp behind, and I iso to $15 or so with AK. Folds back to UTG who 4bets. I have serious doubts he does this with worse hands for value or bluffs often enough to get it in good. Not really sure about it though; on the one hand I'd been pushing the table around pretty bad, but on the other hand I had been showing lots of legit hands. Pretty sure a taggy utg limper doesn't just decide to turn JTs into a bluff there, but I could be wrong.

Not sure there were many other hands that session, but I do remember leaving an hour later to some grumbles. Probably felt I was hit and running.

Next, it's Nick's party. He has a ridiculously awesome suite up on the 357th floor of the MGM hotel, and catered with drinks and everything. It was tons of fun and nice to meet more people and get to know others better.

We all agreed to play a STT downstairs, and ended up playing two $60 games. Structure was horrible, starting with 20bbs and the blinds doubling every 12 mins. Was still fun; I busted in both getting my money in bad, and was left itching to play some 1-2. The game also featured some hilarious play and commentary by Jason, aka Alien Genius, including a hand where he lost an all-in, and fell backwards to the ground from his chair to the disapproval of the rest of the room. Had us all in stitches.

I don't know what was going through our sick little heads, but we decided to play each other with 1-2 instead of playing the fishy casino regulars. Obviously it's fun to have an all-CC game going, but I have to say I'm going to be avoiding these guys so I can actually play a significantly profitable game.

Some hands from the session (don't remember all that much after like 10 beers though...):

I open AJd in EP, get a flat from Zach in the SB. Flop is something like 2d6s8d, and he leads for like 1/2 pot. I bump it up, happy to get it in, and he 3bets me. Had Zach been anyone else at the table I'd have seriously considered folding there as the worst they have is a combo draw and monster made hands, but he'd been playing pretty aggro so I shipped it in. He later told me he had A3s or something for a gutter with a backdoor.

Later, Zach opens, I think Joe (Debi, aka Dakota-xx's husband) called the SB, and I squeeze AA to $26. Both Zach and I were like $250 deep and in retrospect I like a bigger squeeze pf, to like $30. Zach says he has AA, then when the flop comes Kh9xQh, he says he actually has JT. I cbet like $30, he raises to like $70 or something.

I can't see him stacking any one pair hand here; he doesn't flat PF then raise that flop with AK, and doesn't stack worse kings or other pairs obv. If he had a flush draw I don't really expect him to raise an inducing amount there; I expect him to jam or flat it. I mean if he has 67h there, raising and calling it off is just going to kill his equity since my hand range will be so strong that he'll only be drawing to a flush. Also, I really don't see him bluff-raising a wet board like this since it hits my range so hard. So I don't like my play of not raising more pf, since it gives him some room to call and make pain in the ass moves on boards like this, and gives him better odds on a set mine. I also don't like my play of jamming here, since basically he only calls with huge combo draws (like GS+NFD or 9x+FD) and hands that have me crushed. He snapped my shove and my heart sank: he had JTs.

Reload!

A few isolations later and a couple small pots lost, I'm too lazy to reload and I have like $160. I open QQ in EP, get a call from Tammy, and JD gets a little shaky-handed as he squeezes to like $35. I'm genuinely worried at this point; although JD had been a little aggressive today, in general he's a fairly tag player, and I put him on a very strong range. That said, I think the fact that we were shorter stacked, there was some dead money in there, and a significant chance he was squeezing AQs or TT/JJ and calling it off, I don't really see a fold here. I end up getting it in against aces and kick myself for not reloading when I suck out on the river. Sorry Brian!

Not too many hands after that. We all were playing fairly seriously until Zach started getting minraising wars going which was hilarious. He also posted an interesting hand in HA with minbetting involved, funny but interesting stuff.

Last hand was against JD. I open AK, he calls in the SB, we're heads up. Flop comes QQ2, he weak leads for like $12 into $16 or something. I put him on 33-99 pretty much exclusively, and figure raising definitely doesn't get folds on the flop, and gets too expensive on the turn if I decide to fire again. So I flat with the intention of getting aggressive on scary turn cards, and baluga'ing some blank ones because I strongly feel he has to fold 33-99 at that point. He bets like $30 on a blank turn, I raise to $80, he folds. At least I actually thought about one hand well and executed.

Don't remember many other hands; got to bed crazy late last night and somehow woke up early this morning, ready for more. Think I'm going to the venetian today which supposedly has an awesome card room. GL me!