Weekend Visitor, Celebrities, WSOP - Round 5

It's been 6 days since I've blogged, and I actually have quite a bit to write about, so apologies in advance for the long entry!

I played two small tournaments at the Venetian last week and had a huge rollercoaster ride in one of them, building a big chip stack, losing it, building it again, before finally losing it all. I made it a good way through each tournament, but I was unable to cash in either.

On a more positive note, my cash game luck seems to have turned around. Cash games aren't my favorite to start with, but I was definitely starting to lose confidence in my ability to play cash games after 5 or 6 losing sessions in a row since I've been here. However, that all changed with two sessions on consecutive days. First, I played 2-5 no limit at Caesar's on Friday, and after buying in for $500 and playing for about 6 hours, I cashed out for around $2,200. Then on Saturday, I played 2-5 no limit at Mirage, bought in for $500 again and cashed out for nearly $2,600. I can't say I did anything too special, I was just catching cards like crazy for the first time this trip, although I did make a couple of aggressive plays to win big pots.

My friend Britt visited this weekend, and despite being a short visit, we had an awesome time. I picked him up at the airport on Friday night, and we had a relatively low-key night, playing some blackjack and hanging out at a chill bar for a bit. I am proud to say that I hadn't gambled at all before this weekend (poker isn't gambling!), which is good because it would have been a big mistake to hit the blackjack tables early on in my trip when I was frustrated from losing so often at poker.

Saturday, we hung out at the pool and played poker during the day before going to a great steak dinner at the MGM Grand. It was a pretty fancy place, but ended up being relatively reasonably priced. After dinner, we played a little more blackjack and headed over to Prive, the nightclub at Planet Hollywood. We had run into some promoter on the strip earlier in the day who gave us his card and told us to come by later because there was some big NFL players party going on at Prive. We weren't sure if we believed him, but we were nearby, so we figured we'd check it out. We slipped the guy a little money when we got there and were escorted to the front of the line and into the club without waiting. Prive is a pretty cool club - lots of open space and good music. Turns out the guy wasn't lying - what a sick party! It was indeed some big NFL thing, and the place was littered with football players and other celebrities. We definitely didn't recognize all the players that were there (probably at least 50 of them), but the people we spotted included Jerry Rice, Willie McGinest, Warrick Dunn, Tony Gonzalez, and Brandon Jacobs. There were also a bunch of actors there, and we got a kick out of seeing the guy who played Shooter McGavin in Happy Gilmore! Sorry I couldn't get any pictures - my blackberry doesn't take great shots in a relatively dark club.

We ended up gambling a bit more after the nightclub and made it back to my condo around 5am, just before the sun was coming up - definitely a great night. Sunday was a bit more chill, as we slept in and grabbed a bite before a quick blackjack session and a trip back to the airport to drop Britt off. Overall, we both were up at the blackjack tables, which I guess is a nice surprise.

I went back to the Rio yesterday at 5pm for my 5th WSOP event. It was event 41, mixed hold 'em (half limit, half no-limit), $1,500 buy-in, with just over 700 entrants. Humberto Brenes was sitting two seats away from me at my first table, and was quite chatty and fun to play with. Spectators kept coming by and taking pictures of him, and he would take out his trademark shark (a small plastic trinket he uses as a card protector) to pose for the photos.

After starting with 3,000 chips, I short-stacked myself early on, but was able to triple up with pocket aces after my preflop all-in bet was called by two players, one with AQ and one with 74 (?!?!). I then made a super-aggressive (and probably crazy) play with 54 of diamonds trying to take down a big pot. I played it strong to the river, when I luckily hit two pair, and ended up doubling up against QQ, pushing my stack up past 10,000. I then took a huge hit during a limit level, when I flopped a flush with K9 of clubs. There were 4 players in the hand after a bet and a raise, I re-raised, only to see the betting capped at 4 by another player. Two of us saw the turn, which was another club, and I called his betting the rest of the way and the other guy showed Ace of clubs, queen of diamonds. I found it pretty ridiculous that he had capped the flop with just a flush draw, but either way, it cost me more than half my stack, and I was crippled.

I played tight after that, and ended up getting it all in with QQ during another limit level. My final bet went in on the turn of a board that read10 9 6 2, and the other player in the hand called with KJ. Of course, the river was a K, and I was eliminated in around ~270th place (72 paid). It was the first time I was knocked out of a WSOP event on a pretty sick "bad beat" - the guy had only 5 outs on the river. I was pissed, but in retrospect, I was short-stacked enough that it would have been a tough climb even if I had doubled up there.

There aren't any WSOP events this week that are well-suited for me (in type of game and buy-in), so in all likelihood, that was my last WSOP experience of the trip. I know I had a great success in the Caesar's tourney, but I am still disappointed that I was unable to cash in any of the WSOP events. However, as I've said in previous blogs, the structure of the $1,500 WSOP events requires you to have a lot of luck to make it deep into the tourney, so I suppose I can't be too upset. If I ever decided to do this again in the future, I would probably only play WSOP events where the buy-in is a bit bigger and the structure is more conducive to skillful play.

This is my last week here, as I fly home on Saturday, so hopefully I can get in a few more winning sessions at the tables and maybe a little golf before I leave. I will try to blog once more before I head home just to wrap up the reporting of my trip. Until then!