The long beery road to Las Vegas

All packed, I jump on the tram out to the airport, arrive painlessly, the queues at airport not too bad and I am through security pretty sharp.

9:30 am and a pint of Brewdog's Punk IPA

starts things off, and what a fine way to start the day.

Its a slightly worrying kick off to the trip though, as the flight to London is already delayed, I've got close to 3hrs in London to catch the flight to Vegas, but a terminal change to do so at this stage I am still on track.

On the plus side, the delay means I can treat myself to another beer, I opt for Caesar Augustus from the Williams Bros brewery.

Oh yes, that hits the spot. Ok I can now see the plane outside, but I think there is time for one last pre flight treat and I opt for another of the Williams range, the wonderful Elderflower infused Birds and Bees.

Things are looking up.

A rose wine and a minute bag of crisps was provided enroute and we made it to Heathrow in good time. 

After 3 back to back winning beers it was onto the less good at Heathrow airport in London.  A pint of  Becks Vier lager was duly purchased and consumed in the interim, after this was tanned, I opted for a Sharps cornwall lager, again pretty dissapointing.

The US beckons and just the small matter of the 10 hour 40 min flight to negotiate and the home of craft beer is on the borizon.

An unexpected bonus was getting upgraded on the flight so a nice spacious seat, nodded off and woke up on approach to Vegas.

No queues at the check in so I dumped my gear in the room and made the 9pm tournament in the linq, and was introduced to the fine ,rebel IPA, by one of the players. Managed to make FT but busted before the money, lost some more at the cash table afterwards, but all in all, not a bad day, and a week of Vegas lies ahead.

The essential companion for your home game.

 

From the old worthy brewery in Broughton in Scotland.

Salted Chocolate Stout
Wild Bill likes dark beer. So Wild Bill gets a dark beer. Eventually. Aces & Eights was brewed for Marc’s old man… Wild Bill! She was also brewed to pair with Edradour 10 Year Old. Using malt from the distillery… this stout is brewed on a Pilsner malt base with black, dark crystal, Vienna, chocolate malts and pinhead oats. The hop bill is Phoenix, Wakatu, Herkules with a late addition of cocoa nibs and salt.

Biggest cash of 2014.

I managed a decent cash in the £110 - 2 day September event at the Genting.

About 50 players turned up for day 1B making 138 in total. I played some good poker, and I had a reasonable sized stack quite early on, but twice I was all-in against short stacks with AK and missed twice, and then not long before the end of day one, I got it all-in again pre flop, with pocket Q's v AK and this time the Ace hit - to decimate my stack.

Day 2

Of the 40 players returning I was 37th in chips with about 8bb's, not great but I was about to triple up with my first suck out of the tournament: Guy in early position raises, I shove over the top with pocket 7's, button also shoves all in and early raiser calls.

I,m up against AK, and pocket queens. Queens hold till the river when a 7 drops and I,m back in the game, with a decent stack.

I,m getting some decent cards now as well but I,m also playing pretty well, I call an overbet on the river with Ace high, he shows KQ and my AK wins a huge pot.

The wheels start come off the bus a bit though as I get involved in a few pots flipping with short stack all-ins and coming in 2nd.

Then the next key hand which pushed me through to the final table. There were 3 of us involved and a guy who I know has been doing alot of bluffing.

i flop an openender with a flush draw - J10 hearts on a pretty looking QKx board.

The bluffer leads out, I shove over the top expecting the fold and guy calls with AK! Whoops, I,m near enough busted when the 9 drops on the river and I,m alive again with a decent stack.

There was alot of mental hands, but ultimately at the final table the antes and blinds were massive and it was going to come down to key hand.

i went to final table as slight chip leader with just over a million chips, then lost a quarter of it early when I got jacks v villains kings, then stack dwindled to next to nothing, before building it up again with a couple of big re-raises with small pairs. Ultimately with less than 10bb, I shoved the button with AJ, got called by 8's and missed. That was that, £1150 for 5th place.

Happy enough with that.

Optimistic

The last few months have been a bit odd and I feel like I lost some of my enthusiasm for the game, so as a result I have been playing a lot less. I have been getting back into it more lately though and I am starting to place pretty close to the money again in some biggish fields, so hopefully will get things back on track shortly.
Vegas pencilled in for November.
Hell yeah!

Signs of recovery and odd game in Vienna

"Golden Times" 

Its not been a red hot month but a few cashes have dragged results back into the black.
7 MTTs played - 4 cashes.
Best result - £530 cash for a 3 way chop at Edinburgh's Genting.

Vienna - Two Casinos in one night

The strangest game was the one  in Vienna's Concorde Casino at Lugner City.

Due to other commitments I couldn't make the game I fancied which was a 2 day Easter special at the Montesino, so instead I went for the 30 euro game at the Concorde.
There were 50+ players and I had some pretty decent cards and played well enough, so that we got down to the final table of 9 players reasonably quickly. I,d forgotten that the Concorde give you a glass of champagne when you make the FT which is a nice touch. The FT went pretty quick as well as a few car crash hands were dealt pretty early on, so that when we got down to the last 6 players, the game stopped and we were told we were all in the money - but we wouldn't know how much yet, as we then had to make our way to the other Concorde casino in Simmering, on the other side of Vienna to meet up with the qualifiers from theirTw tournament. The game would then be played to a conclusion up there.
I played at the Simmering casino before and its a pretty memorable place, mostly because of the huge pictures of the girls on the wall next door outside the neighbouring "Golden Times" strip bar.

Concorde Casino Vienna

There didn't appear to be any transport arranged either but one of the other guys who had his car gave a couple of us a lift up so that was fine. When we got there though, their game had 180 players and they were playing down to the last 18..but there were still 35 left in.
The six of us had to wait for about another 2 or 3 hours until they were down to 18, they then had a break and the game restarted after we'd been given seats.
Now though due to the time elapsed, the blinds were absolutely huge in relation to the previously confortably chip stacks sizes we had brought along, as 5 or 6 levels had passed. To make matters worse for me I was given a seat at a table full of absolute monster stacks.

There was about 5000 euro in prize money, but the payouts were pretty top heavy with the first payouts just getting 60 euro and the next jump was to 78 euro for 18th.

I had about 8 BB left, but I figured with the stacks at my table, unless I got very lucky my time here was going to be short..a quick glance around established that there were quite a few in a similar or worse position so some shorties were going to bust pretty quick anyway - my target was to hit min 18th place as doubling my buy in seemed pretty lame rewards for the effort put in.

I hung on by shipping a couple of times and getting no callers and just managed to scrape to the 18th place taeget before the antes swallowed me and I eventually got picked off by a big Ace.

Your always happy to hit the money, but when the payout it that low after 7 or 8 hours of cards its a bit negative as well. Still a profit is a profit!

Lean pickings for Feb and March

Feb and and March results have been poor.

I dont think I,ve been playing particularly badly and its quite often just come down to not being able to win key flips or getting coolered at the critical phase, but it is still very frustrating...time will tell. 

Funnily enough I have managed a reasonable profit out of a couple of sessions of cash , which has always been my worst game.

Decent Start to 2014

January Summary:
7 tournaments played - 2 cashes.
One 2nd place from 68 for £532,
One 5th place from 30 for £62.
Decent start to the year.