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.

Results - December and 2013

December was a patchy month. I felt like I played some decent solid poker all month but, couldn't nail much.
Busted 4 tournaments at the Genting, pretty much on flips.

Busted the mint casino in London with 9,s on a JJ2 flop.

Busted the Concorde in Vienna on the bubble. (4th place finish from 33) with a pair v 10,8

Busted the montesino in Vienna in 16th from 233 with Aj v a7 all in preflop for a €100 cash.

All things considered, I,m happy enough with a modest profit from the year and achieved my Target of a free holiday in Vegas. Same target for 2014!

Dreadful call - bizzare hand.

I got involved in a fascinating hand the other night which left me with a bit of steam coming out of the ears.
There were 75 players in the tournament, a £50 entry fee ( £10 + 2 x £20 for 22000 chips).

The Villain
Early on in the tournament I was sat next to a Canadian guy who had amassed a huge stack of chips early on. He called about 90% of the raises, with literally any two napkins, and was hitting the flop big time. When he wasn,t catching the flop he was taking down some big pots by pushing his stack in the middle pretty regularly.
He,d already taken out a pre flop raised pair of pocket aces with a 6-2 off suit.
Fast forward a few hours and we,re down to the last 25 - 3 tables and I,m sitting on about 45k, round about average.
The villain has got alot more, around about the 80-90k mark. Blinds are 1600/800/200.
The Villain limps and its folded round to me.

I pick up jacks on the button and do a 10k raise (I know he is calling), everyone folds apart from him.

Flop comes down 3,7,K. rainbow.

He leads out for 5k, I reraise to 20k leaving about 15k behind.

The villain says "I call" and throws his cards onto the table face up! Ace, six off.

No connection, no draw. The turn comes a 6, giving him a pair. So I push the last 15k of my chips in. he calls.

River is a nice big black ace...and busto!

Bruised but not battered by Vegas.

On paper October has been the worst month of the year for me so far, but seeing as I,ve just been to Vegas paid for by winnings, I,m not losing too much sleep about it!

Vegas was a blast - as ever - results were pretty crap overall. I managed a couple of cashes at the Aria, but nothing too meaty. I chopped one tournament at The Golden Nugget as well to keep losses in check and I impressed myself by managing to have the discipline to avoid playing cash for the full week. I find that with all the free beer and whisky on offer at the Casino's that when the tournament enters the later phases I tend to be a bit less on the ball than I might be and I find that the locals pick off any mistakes pretty ruthlessly.

Its probably my favorite week of the year, but is pretty full on, making the move from playing a couple of times a week to all day every day for a week, I struggle to keep the focus abit.

 

Aberdeen

Another first for me was playing at the G Casino in Aberdeen. The G casino,s must have a bit of money behind them, as they are pretty amazing. The last time I played at one was in Dundee a few years ago and the places are pretty glitzy with light shows going on in the roof and the like. The casino is pretty cool and its got a decent card room with about 10 tables. Only real gripe is the plastic chips! When your used to proper heavy chips, the plastic ones feel so cheap. They,ve spent so much money on the place, it seems like a crazy economy its not like decent chips are that expensive.

I,ve not been in Aberdeen for a few years and could not believe how wealthy this place seems. From the cars people are driving, to the shops and to the houses you can see this is a seriously rich city. As long as the oil keeps flowing from the North Sea, I guess this will be the case.

I was only there for a day so the game that was on was a "free" entry (£3) With 2x £15 add ons. Wasn,t a bad turnout for a mid week tourny with about 50 runners.  It was a bit of a minefield game. Two guys at the table in particular, weren,t interested in grinding out a result and were going all in blind, calling blind, raising blind etc but fortunately we managed to lose them after a while. The game was a bit turbo in structure but I managed to avoid any coolers and somehow ended up in the last 3. At about 3 in the morning with the blinds and antes absolutely huge, I was quite happy to take a 3 way chop for about £350. So the month ends as 3 figure loss rather than 4!!

Fontainebleau - The great blue elephant.

The picture does't really do the size of this place justice. I was interested in seeing this place after seeing a documentary about it a year or so ago. 

This 68 story high hotel casino had 2.9 billion dollars spent on it before the bank pulled the plug and its now derelict.

Its the 2nd highest building in Vegas, and would have had a cool 4000 rooms. Its reckoned another $1.5 billion is needed to finish it. It may well never be finished as alot of the interior finishings bought for it have already been sold off to another casino who was having a refit.

It did strike me as a bit of a gamble building something that size at that end of the strip, as the north end of the strip struggles to get the tourists away from the lure of the south end with the Bellagio fountains, The Mirage, Paris,  Venetian etc. If you walk up the Strip, the Wynn and the Encore are like the sort of cut off of the modern bit and it gets more rundown the further up you go.

I read alot about Vegas being on its arse, but theres not much sign of it at the south end of the strip - Bills Gamblin Hall is being demolished and rebuilt, the Imperial Palace has been replaced by the quad, and the New York and Monte Carlo casino's undergoing upgrades.

Long day

I was playing a home game last night which finished at about 4am, then had to get up at 6 to catch vegas flight. 11hrs later and I,m here. i did think I might wilt a bit after entering the $125 game at 7 at the Aria, but I needn,t have worried about a late night. Of the 77 that entered I went out in 70th..after an hour and a half..

it was all pretty quiet to start with and then it all went wrong. I limped on the button with q8 along with 3 other players. 

Flop came down KJ9. 

It got checked round. Turm card comes a 10. Loose italian guy who is first to act fires 700 at the 1500 pot. 

i reraise him to 2100. He eventually shoves alll, and he,s got me covered. i call and he turns over pocket tens for a set.

River pairs the king, and I,m out.

not so good!

Vegas bound shortly and Sep results

I finally managed to cash again...not a massive one for £130, but at least it puts a stop to the form slide. I made a loss for September, which isn,t too disappointing.., as it breaks my win lose win lose cycle I have been on all year, and as I,ll be in Vegas in one weeks time that means I,m going to win big!!....hmmm. Aria here I come.

Sliding downhill rapidly.

I on a pretty wretched run just now. I,ve not been playing that much as work has been pretty full on, but results from tournaments I have entered are poor.

Last night at the £40 tournament I had I built my stack steadily for 2 or 3 hours and lost the lot in one v the table nutter. 

I,d raised with AJ flop came down j 7 3. I c bet, he raised me and with out too much ado I shoved my stack in. He,d been pulling the reraise move all night and did a similar move on me earlier (with pocket 4,s).

He instacalled and showed his pocket 7,s. No miracle arrived and I,m toast.

Then I dipped into the cash game for a few hours and managed to lose a £100 buy in after blowing most of it with AK on a king high board v a guy who turned a straight.

Not great preparation for Vegas next month but  the month ain,t over yet I guess..

August results - a month to forget

August has been the worst month of the year for me so far with a cool £444 loss for the month.

8 tournaments played, zero cashes.

I,m not panicking at this stage as half of this is due to the one larger buy in tournament I entered at £240. I was on the wrong end of a cooler in this one and sometimes you,ve just got to take it on the chin in cards. I,ve been reasonably happy with how I,ve been playing. and I have had a few deep runs in the month.

The year continues with the profit loss profit loss cycle, which worryingly means that if the year continues like this, my next losing month will be october when I,m in Vegas..

Still, on the plus side, I did best a field of ten at a very drunken homegame last night to put the brakes  on my form slide.

Birmingham Roadtrip

I was looking forward to this roadtrip for a while. I had to go to London on the Sunday night so the Broadway casino in Birmingham seemed like a good staging point for the Fri and Sat night.

The Broadway has been my lucky casino and a bit like a bank machine for me over the last few years, so I was hoping to boost this months figures a bit and have a decent drinking session with some buddies at the same time!

Birmingham Broadway Cardroom

Cash Or Tournament?

If a picture can tell a thousand words:

The red line shows my tournament results for the last year or so and the blue line is the cash game  results. Just to really hammer it home I played cash last night for the first time since March and dusted my buy in within about 30 mins.
I,ve been pretty disciplined in giving the cash tables a swerve, I,ll just put last night down as a minor wobble.

Incidentally the screenshot above is from the profit tracker software I use on the ipad. I mentioned it in a previous post but I,ve had to take it down as it seems to attract spam bots and I,ve been getting inundated with spam comments on the post.

Running good with the ladies.

When you go deep in a tournament you,ll have used your get out of jail card at some point along the way. Last nights great escape was..exactly that.

I entered the £30 bountyhunter tournament and I went on a heater right from the kick off. I flopped quads v a set for an early double up and never really looking back.

The Great Escape

• Its late in the tournament, blinds are 6000/3000.
• Table is 7 handed.
• I,m on the button.
• No one has put money in the pot yet until it gets to the Villain who min raises to 12k.
• My hand is pocket queens.
• I reraise to 25k.
• Everyone else bails out except for the Villain who calls.

 Flop comes J,8,7.

• Villain checks.
•  I bet again
• Villain calls.

Turn card comes another 8. 

• I bet again 
• The villain shoves all in for not alot more. 

• I snap call the bet and he flips over 8 9 offsuit. Bollocks!
• ...but alas for the Villain, I now have the pokergods looking over me.
• A bit of divine intervention and the river card is another queen.
• My full house sends him packing.

I go on to take the bounty hunter tournament down and bag another 10 bounties on the way for a £100 bonus on top. Oh its nice to be running good...

Poker Gods Follow Me

I managed a couple of cashes in June, but not enough to turn a profit, so the win / lose / win / lose cycle continues. However, I did pick up an extra special follower to the twitter account so maybe a change of fortunes is on the cards!

The Poker Gods

@ThePokerGods_

We are the force behind your poker profits & losses. We dealt you those aces. We cracked them. We runner-runnered you. But we also gave you that huge stack.

above every poker table

Polo Towers Vegas

All done and booked now. I got a good deal staying at Polo Towers on the strip, so that will be HQ for my October Vegas jaunt. Right across from the Aria so should be perfect for stumbling across the road in the early hours after another tournament bust out. Looks like a nice pool, but somehow I doubt I,ll be in it.