Posted Mon Mar 07, 2005 7:45 pm GMT by Geno
Ok, I've finally recovered and it's finally here, read on if you dare, it's nearly 2,500 words I've just realised 
Day 1 - Off I head to Heathrow at 9am for the flight to Las Vegas weighing in at 14hrs total in two halves - one to Washington and then on to McCarran. I land at Washington and have to stand in line for an hour as a non-US national while I fill in tedious forms and have both my thumbprint and picture taken. Better still, I head on thru the security check and can't stop setting off the metal detector thing. A scary looking, limping young man hobbles over and escorts me to the frisking area where he takes far too long and far too much relish in touching me up. After that incident, I head to the gate for the flight to McCarran and sit down. On the flight over the pond I managed to sit next to a lady with the shits and it gets no better at Dulles where I inherit a 400 pound lady who boards the plane holding more McDonald's than your average family would eat on a day out. She devours the lot, stinking the plane up nicely and I am just about ready to slit my wrists. Great days. I finally hit Vegas soil, and find Adam and Carson (after much side glancing trying to decide if it really is them or not.....) and we grab a limo back to the Venetian. Wow, what a place, I feel a bit overwhelmed by it all and spend the next hour sitting down eating a club sandwich on room service trying to take it all in and relax a little. We briefly head down to the Venetian casino where we meet Mike (General Sal) but I have been up for 24hrs straight and I crash about 1am.
Day 2 - We roll out of bed about 11am and head on to the Strip. There are tournaments planned for the week but I need to get my feet wet at live games so we head over to the Mirage to try and get on the list. The list is too big and they say it could take up to 3hrs to get seated at a 3/6 game so we head to Harrah's where we get on a new 4/8 table within 20 minutes. We each buy-in for $200 and sit down with a mixed bag of people. The crapshoot begins as a guy sucks out on me for a runner runner straight and I begin to wonder if my online luck is going to carry over into real life and bankrupt me on the first day! A couple hands later and I get KJs in late position. I raise and two call including Carson. I flop the flush and we all 3 bet it to the river, capping most of the way. A guy of course flips A3s and Carson flips 57s meaning we ALL flopped the flush. Ouch. In the end, I cash out down $104, Adam up $145 and Carson about even. I got my feet wet, that was the plan........
In the evening we head downtown to Binion's to check out the tourney action but get in a game at the Golden Nugget instead for $130 buy-in with unlimited rebuys in the first hour and an add-on. Carson bankrolls me agreeing to split any profits 50:50 and refund the buy-in. We get some food and agree that if at least 2 of the 3 of us make the money seats, we will chop the prize 3 ways. We sit down and play some solid poker early on, no-one really making any mistakes. I cripple a cocky Aussie guy after flopping a set of queens and getting him to bet into me. I slam the cards of Phil Hellmuth style and I'm chip leader 
I get moved to a new table and sit down next to some Vegas local who takes an instant dislike to me. Everything I do is apparently 'wrong'. The way I stack my chips, the way I hold my hands on the table, the way I supposedly hide my cards and chips from him and other people. I just keep my mouth shut and ignore him as he tries to get inside my head by staring at me for minutes at a time. He eventually busts out on some crappy hand and I bid him a fond adieu hoping to not bump into him again. I continue to play solidly, keeping my chip count in the top 2 or 3 of the tourney and we make the final table about 3hrs in. Adam makes it but Carson does not and before long we are 6-handed with the top 5 paid. By this point, I'm about 4th in chips and I basically sit it out until the shortie goes in and busts out. Sweet, my first live game and I make the money, guaranteeing at least $580. Alas, 5th is all I can muster and I soon bust out after flipping ahead (I forget what) and getting sucked out on. Adam takes 4th and after splitting and paying back Carson, I make about $300.
Day 3 - I get up early to explore the Strip while the guys stay in the room til about 4pm when we head off downtown again to the Nugget game. I bump into my old pal from last nite who starts deriding my 5th place saying that it was all the cards so I pretty much tell him to go f*ck himself and walk off. I sit down at the tourney and who is to my left?! That same f*cking moron Well wouldn't you just know it, he starts telling the table how I get all the cards and can't play very well and soon busts out in about 20th place out of 22 players. Good riddance you miserable old bastard.
We continue to play and we get down to 2 tables when there is some commotion over on Adam's table with some old cocky English guy whinging about someone betting while standing up. He claims that the bet doesn't stand despite the fact that it is security that makes him stand up as they retrieve the tip box from the dealer. At break time Adam tells me that the guy is a bit of a nob and he is not wrong.........
Final table with top 4 paid and we get down to 5 handed with the same Englishman one of the 5. He pretty much decides that Adam and I are there to be moaned at so starts giving it a load of attitude whenever he goes all-in and we fold. He becomes an all-in machine and in a sweet moment that was a highlight of the trip, Adam calls his A2 with 77 and knocks the f*ck out. I banged the table when he lost and I wanted to cheer him on his superb bubble finish. Sod's Law strikes again and I finish 4th flipping K3 against Q7 for $660 but Adam takes 2nd for $1,560. After paying Carson back and tipping the dealers, I make $250 and it's been a good 2 nights work.
Day 4 - I get to bed at 3am and get up at 6am to go to the Grand Canyon with Carson's parents and their friend who are in town also. We head to a diner and get the 'breakfast special' for $1.39 a plate. We need that sort of shit in England, that was proper living
On the way to the Canyon, we pass by Lake Mead and The Hoover Dam which is a big ass place and we stop for some pictures. The Canyon is another 4hrs away so off we go down parts of Route 66 and up the highway. Before long we are there, check into the hotel and head off to the Canyon. Wow, what a place it is, words and pictures can't do it justice, you simply have to go there. We watch the sunset and then go eat and grab an early bed cos we are going to watch the sun rise also.
Day 5 - We get up at 5:45am and head off to the rim to watch the best sun rise on Earth which makes the negative temperatures worth it. We go to a few more vantage points we missed the day before and then head back towards Vegas. We get in about 5pm and hook up with the guys who are just rolling out of bed. We trot of to the Mirage for the pot limit holdem tourney registration and grab some food.
The tourney kicks off and the first 10mins is pretty much spent with the dealer and some players arguing over how to play pot limit games. This f*ck with my head and before long I am short stacked and looking for a way out. I get AJ and it flops AJx all one suit. This guy goes all-in who I'm 99% sure has flopped the flush but I call anyway looking for either a big pay day or a way out. Sure enough, his 86s is good and I wander off not taking the rebuy. Adam and Carson follow pretty soon and we bid adieu to that crap! I think we hit some Crazy 4 Poker and Three Card Poker then but I forget, either way it was not the best evening for gaming 
Day 6 - It's our last full day and I head off up the strip at 10am starting at Mandalay Bay hoping to get a $1 chip from all the casinos I can get into before 1pm. I manage about 11 chips to add to the Binion's and Golden Nugget ones I already have and take a load of pictures. I head back to the Venetian and we go grab some lunch at the Mirage and sit around waiting for the big NL game at 7. This one is $230 buy-in with a single $200 rebuy and no add-on. The field ends up at 97 players with the final table all paid and a top prize of $9,280. Nice.
Carson and I are starting at the same table and within about 10mins I spot that there are about 3 poker players at our table and about 5 chumps. We hit the first break and we are both a little up on our starting chip count and looking ok. During the break Carson informs me that the two people flanking him (who I had pegged as two of the three decent players....) are Sam Grizzle and Connie Kim. Oh bollox, we have two pros at the table and now that I know it, I start head f*cking myself about it
The first hand back after the break and I get K4o in the SB. The BB is called 5 times before me and I fold deciding that it's not even worth taking a shot for $25 despite having about $1800 chips. Well, don't I regret it as the flop comes K84 rainbow. It's checked all around and the turn is a T. It's checked to Grizzle who bets prompting everyone to fold. he sighs and shows AA. Yes, he slow played Aces and I would have had him for probably all of his damn chips if I had just limped that K4. Pissed at myself but not too upset, we go on......
Eight hands later I pick up AQo UTG and limp it. Only the SB (Connie) calls and the BB checks. The flop comes Q78 rainbow and I check it. Connie bets 200, the BB folds and I go over the top for 600. She shoves all-in and I suddenly start fearing the set but I am pot committed and push in my last 425 or so chips. She flips 78 and dumps my ass out. I'm not too pissed at myself because I still don't think that limping AQo UTG is that bad a play to make. I just felt that with the quality of those players, making a small raise and then being re-raised pre-flop would have made me fold and been a waste of chips which is why I chose to limp. She got the perfect flop all round and I couldn't get away from it once I had gone over the top of her but that's life.
Adam busted pretty soon after but Carson went on to take about 13th which was damn close to the final table. Sam and Connie both busted soon after me and no-one particularly wonderful made the final table. We didn't bother to watch it all in the end, Mike came to meet us and we sat for a while before playing some farewell Craps and Roulette. I learnt from that that Craps is a pretty sucky game
Day 7 - and it's home time  We say farewells and I get my flight to Chicago where I have a nightmare trying to retrieve my baggage and get thru security. I am one of the last on the flight to back to London and feeling stressed to hell but it all dissolves when I find myself sat next to a hot girl all the way back. What a nice change from the freaks I had been sitting with on previous legs of the journey :D
Highlights of trip besides meeting Adam, Carson and Mike included watching Carson win over $5,000 on two spins of roulette after telling him to bet #34. The bastard had spun in 3 times in the last 20 so I suggested he bet it and it spun in the next two spins. Scary stuff!
Placing twice at the Nugget was sweet although I'd have preferred two heads up encounters with Adam of course it was Sod's Law that the two tourneys I bankrolled myself both ended with no reward but that's life I guess!
I made a net loss on the trip of $600 but I went with $1,500 expecting to lose it all so I am pretty pleased. That $430 final nite tourney skewed the result a bit too of course.......
To sum up - I  Vegas :D
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Posted Mon Mar 07, 2005 8:20 pm GMT by Fat Tony
sorry i was unable to make it down, but it sounds like you guys had a blast!
Posted Mon Mar 07, 2005 8:29 pm GMT by Sean_in_NJ
Yeah...sounded like fun...
I would've been involved in the Day 6 festivities, but we got our wires crossed and never got together. There's always next time.
Posted Tue Mar 08, 2005 8:50 am GMT by ScanX
All this story to miss the most important point :
Did you make sweet love to the hot chick in that plane or not ???!!!
Nice trip ;)
Posted Tue Mar 08, 2005 8:55 am GMT by Dave B
Thanks for the report. Only Vegas can make you happy about losing $600. Sorry I missed it. I was depressed all weekend thinking of what I was missing out on.
Hey ScanX, Webby, others-when are y'all flying over?
Posted Tue Mar 08, 2005 9:17 am GMT by ScanX
Yeah I would like to do that in june and hit one of the WSOP tourneys (not the main one) but I gotta see if that'll be possible with my job.
If it aint in june it'll be definitely somewhere in this year anyway.
Posted Tue Mar 08, 2005 11:50 am GMT by ScanX
We were discussing about your trip on IRC andy :
(17:52) (@ScanX) can u believe he wasted a day visiting the canyon ?
(17:52) (@ScanX) instead of playing poker
(17:53) (CodeSLAVE) Iwas wondering about that
(17:53) (@ScanX) there wasnt even a girl with him, why would he bother ?
(17:53) (@ScanX) not like he had to do some romantic crap
(17:53) (THP`Craig) and we grab a limo back to the Venetian.
(17:53) (THP`Craig) posh geeks
(17:54) (@ScanX) by the way he's acting badass on that 200 pounds girl
(17:54) (THP`Craig) his day 2 starts out very homo-erotic
(17:54) (@ScanX) I'm sure he banged her
(17:54) (THP`Craig) or she turned him down
it was all 2nd degree by the way ;)
Posted Tue Mar 08, 2005 11:57 am GMT by crack
Pics?
Nice report, now we need images.
Posted Tue Mar 08, 2005 12:27 pm GMT by Dave B
I was wondering why Adam and Carson stayed in the room until 4pm????
One can only speculate.
Posted Tue Mar 08, 2005 1:20 pm GMT by Geno
| ScanX wrote: | We were discussing about your trip on IRC andy :
(17:52) (@ScanX) can u believe he wasted a day visiting the canyon ?
(17:52) (@ScanX) instead of playing poker
(17:53) (CodeSLAVE) Iwas wondering about that
(17:53) (@ScanX) there wasnt even a girl with him, why would he bother ?
(17:53) (@ScanX) not like he had to do some romantic crap
(17:53) (THP`Craig) and we grab a limo back to the Venetian.
(17:53) (THP`Craig) posh geeks
(17:54) (@ScanX) by the way he's acting badass on that 200 pounds girl
(17:54) (THP`Craig) his day 2 starts out very homo-erotic
(17:54) (@ScanX) I'm sure he banged her
(17:54) (THP`Craig) or she turned him down
it was all 2nd degree by the way |
Jealousy is an ugly thing guys 
Posted Tue Mar 08, 2005 1:56 pm GMT by wEbMaStEr
Great Trip report Andy :D
You can always say you made 2 final tables in Vegas Pretty frickin good going.
Don't listen to those who say you shouldn't have taken time out to visit the GC, every top tournament player needs to take time out now and then
| Dave B wrote: |
Hey ScanX, Webby, others-when are y'all flying over? |
Supposing i don't make it for wsop in July (which frankly i'm not too bothered about) I can't see me realistically making it out there till Autumn, i believe that's sometime in the Fall.
Run up to summer is the busiest time for a golf company, and getting time off is hard, so September time would be ideal.
Posted Tue Mar 08, 2005 2:27 pm GMT by golddog
Thanks for the report Geno. Sounds like a good time was had by all.
I'll try to make one of these adventures. I don't think I'm in the class of players of many on this board, but it sure would be fun.
Then I could slink back to the low-limit tables...
Posted Tue Mar 08, 2005 3:26 pm GMT by General Sal
Naked picture of Geno! I don't know why he was pissed in this picture. I have two more photos I'll post up. There was a hand where he had pocket 5s all in and the opponent had pocket 7s. I thought Geno had the 7s and I was so elated when I saw the flop come with a 7! I saw them pushing the pot to the other guy and thought to myself quietly how stupid I am.
It was fun having him out here... Carson, Adam, and I had discussed trying to get him into faking an American accent with his English voice, but he would have none of this! Bummer.
Posted Tue Mar 08, 2005 5:48 pm GMT by Geno
You caught me off guard so I pulled a face there
I'll get all my pics on a site soon but til then, here is a pic of Mike, Carson and Adam:
Click for full image
Posted Wed Mar 09, 2005 12:23 am GMT by General Sal
Man, that picture of me sucks. I have a really badly receding hairline. At least we could have taken the picture with a cocktail waitress next to us or something like that. It'll draw the attention away from my forehead and what not.
Posted Wed Mar 09, 2005 12:57 am GMT by PuckJunkieNY
...and Vegas loves us all!
Thanks for the report. I hope to get back there someday soon. A bit tougher living back east again. When I was in Phoenix it was too easy to hit LV. Sigh...
Posted Thu Mar 10, 2005 11:18 pm GMT by Sean_in_NJ
Brief rundown of my 3 1/2 days there last weekend:
Played in the $110 Binion's tourney on Thursday night, and busted out with 3 tables to go. Limp reraised all-in with KK in EP against the big stack at the table who was starting to push people around. He had JJ. Flop came club, club, club. 4th club on the river. Guess what I didn't have...
Spent the rest of the weekend playing $10/$20 at the Mirage. I dropped a $500 buy-in on Thursday, another on Friday and was all-in with what was left of my third buy-in on Saturday before I went on a huge rush over 6 or 7 hours and recouped $1600 of my loss. Some highlights from the cash games:
1) 1 for 6 with QQ on Friday. My only win was heads-up with an uncontested flop bet. I lost to two runner runner draws, one inside straight draw and two undersets, one of which came on the river when someone called all the way down with 66 and no other draw.
2) I had quads once each day I was there. Only really got paid for one of them though.
3) I won a 4-handed pot with K high when everyone missed their draw.
4) The funny one. It was the running joke at the table for a while. I got 44 in LP. A raiser in MP and I call so we go heads up. Flop comes JJ7. A bet and I raise to see where I am. He just calls. Turn 5. Check, I bet and get called. River 5. He bets in to me, and I say, "I think you got really lucky there" and folded my 44 face up. He says, "No I didn't" and shows the other 2 jacks. Entertainment ahoy!
5) Open-raised in MP with 68c. One caller in the BB. Flopped a straight. He got aggressive on the river with his KK after two more blanks fell. He said, "How can you raise with that?" I said, "You could have folded preflop and saved yourself the misery."
6) In the SB with 4 7. I limp for half a bet. Flop comes A 3 5. BB had J T. 2-outer never came.
That was about it. My days consisted mostly of the monorail from the Hilton to the Mirage, a 10-14 hour session, the monorail back, dinner and bed.
Posted Fri Mar 11, 2005 8:07 am GMT by BeerWench13
| Quote: | | My days consisted mostly of the monorail from the Hilton to the Mirage, a 10-14 hour session, the monorail back, dinner and bed. |
You slept in Vegas??? How does one accomplish that?
Posted Fri Mar 11, 2005 8:25 am GMT by Dave B
How much is the Hilton? Mirage is only $99/night if you play 6 hours a day.
Posted Fri Mar 11, 2005 8:30 am GMT by BeerWench13
| Quote: | | He said, "How can you raise with that?" |
My question is how could he not re-raise with KK? Nice play.
Posted Fri Mar 11, 2005 10:55 am GMT by Sean_in_NJ
| Dave B wrote: | | How much is the Hilton? Mirage is only $99/night if you play 6 hours a day. |
$0. I got comped. Might be the last time though since I didn't play blackjack this time around.
Edit: I realize I didn't actually answer the question. I think the Hilton is, on average, $90-$110 a night.
Posted Fri Mar 11, 2005 11:01 am GMT by Sean_in_NJ
| BeerWench13 wrote: | | You slept in Vegas??? How does one accomplish that? |
I'm getting old. 36 feels like 63 some days. 
Posted Fri Mar 11, 2005 11:09 am GMT by JohnnyCache
| Sean_in_NJ wrote: | | Dave B wrote: | | How much is the Hilton? Mirage is only $99/night if you play 6 hours a day. |
$0. I got comped. Might be the last time though since I didn't play blackjack this time around. |
You got comped 100%? How does one pull that off?
Posted Fri Mar 11, 2005 11:24 am GMT by Sean_in_NJ
| JohnnyCache wrote: | | You got comped 100%? How does one pull that off? |
A lot of hours at $100 blackjack tables.
I only got comped the room. I gotta pay for incidentals.
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