As u might have gathered from previous post(s) I recently went abroad to escape some of the wet winter weather. Was toying with just going somewhere tropical and playing a bit online but in the end decided there was enough action in Vegas with a deepstack Venetian festival on and managed to tag on 2 days in London playing in their plo festival before I flew out from Heathrow.
London was fun, I hadn't played at the Vic since 2009 and lined up a £275 plo mtt and a £220 plo hilo mtt the day after. Arrived to the plo tired after travelling up from Cornwall in the morning and had a few drinks while playing more to perk me up than anything. Nothing went right though except outlasting the re-entry period to save another buyin. Played some £1/£1 plo though and got lucky enough to win back the buyin whilst obviously getting a little drunk.
The next day I won a bit online in the morning before a 4pm kick-off in what was probably the weakest field in a plo hilo event I had ever played. Never had my stack in danger until the final table where I was shortish and needed to make a move to make the top 5 it paid. Got it in a bit bad 3way but had a decent side pot going and knew I was gambling and got lucky to take 4/6ths of the main pot and 3/4 of the side. I then proceeded to chip up on the bubble and I think I peaked at about 30% chips in play with 6 left. Hit a wall then though and managed to lose chips in 5 or 6 pots in a row. Bubble burst though and I ended up 4th for £710. Decent enough start to the trip.
Monday I flew to vegas on ba for the first time. Was similar to virgin but staff were a bit more professional imo. Was lucky to get 4 seats to lie down on way out and got 2 on the way back !
Arrived late evening but pushed myself to stay up beyond midnight to adjust to the time diff. Weather was warm the first 2 or 3 days but only late in afternoon. Rest of the 12 nights trip it was too cold to lie outside, I could still have used the hot tubs but managed to pick up a chest infection the 2nd week which is only just finally clearing as I write this.
Most the first week was nearly all cash games, namely 1/2 plo. I did play at Aria 1/3plo game for the first time as well but that didn't go as well and I didn't really enjoy that card room as much as venetian so didn't return. The plo went well and I actually only had 1 losing day out of the 9 days I played. 2 or 3 were break even days and the others I ran good on the allins. The latest thing in vegas now is how nearly everyone wants to run everything twice. Ignoring 4 handed when we were trying just to keep a game going when the superbowl was on I only ran it twice 1 time the whole trip as I knew I was moving to a mtt shortly after so didn't care either way if I spun up/lost or broke even. The looks and even bordering on "abuse" you get when you only run it once is ridiculous though, 1 guy even threatened never to run it twice with me because I ran it once with him , LOOOOOL. Guess they have all seen it with pros on tv and think its the cool new thing to do. Obviously there are regs that want to lower variance happy doing it but the rest of them are just following the trend without understanding why they are doing it.
My biggest wins came Fri/Sat at the end of the first week when I spun $300 up to $2,000 on each day. Only loss was following day for -$380 and I ended up +$4,290 for 1/2 and 1/3 plo, lots of run good there though. At the end of that first week though I was bored of it and luckily had a run of mtts to keep me happy as 7 days straight of near plo only had taken its toll on me.
I did play a plo mtt the first week but after getting a double stack early bust during the 5th level. I also played a $400 deepstack NLH mtt to test my patience. I played it very aggressively but didn't really chip up as I didn't hit enough hands I think. Was happy how I played though and busted several levels in when I was check raised allin on a KsJs5c3c board with A9cc. I had cont bet the flop and barrelled a flush draw on turn with A9cc and didn't take long to call off the rest as was getting near the right price to draw towards a big pot. As it turned out I was ahead of the 64ss the other guy turned over but river 4x bust me on a pot to go to 30k with average at 21k ish.
The 2nd week I felt I had lost weight as the chest thing meant I wasn't drinking (confirmed 1/4stone loss end of trip, that's last 2 vegas trips ive lost weight lol) but had 5 mtts to focus on. They were all survivor games and $300 which meant barring deals $2,000 payouts to the top 12% of the field. I managed to cash/deal for $1,610 in the limit O8 without ever being near the felt the first day. HORSE didn't go too well Tuesday and similar Thursday with O8/Stud8, realise this trip my Stud8 was weak due to lack of play , need to work on this before WSOP time. Wednesday though I managed to play the PLO8 really well and never had more than 1/3 of chips at risk on any allin prior to cashing the full amount. Field was arguably even weaker than the London Vic one, some of the stuff was just crazy. Friday I was gutted in the Big O to effectively bubble before the remainder did a deal but I was very happy with my patient short stack play to get as far as I had. The hand I bust on if I win I almost certainly cash the way the table was playing. Couldn't complain though and met a lot of new people im sure I will bump into again and again in June.
So a nice chunky profit in the end less a bit I lost in the casino. I split it up into Jan/Feb profits roughly £2,000/£1,700 and more than covered the total trip cost of circa £1,600. 12 days was maybe a bit long outside of WSOP time , if I do this trip again maybe a week - 10days and a week somewhere hotter would be optimal. Also as noted above work at mixed games and stud8 before WSOP time.
Back home ive been severely jetlagged all week and not played well the 2 times ive had sessions so far dropping near £1,000. Intend to play a wad today if the tiredness doesn't kick in this afternoon like other days when ive slept ! Thank god for the winter Olympics to cure boredom when ive been awake at 5am most mornings !
WSOP schedules just come out so all eyes on that at the moment. Events I might play are:
$1,500 O8
$2,500 O8/Stud8
$1,500 HORSE
$1,500 Stud8
$1,500 PLO
$1,500 PLO8
$1,500 8Game
$3,000 PLO8
$3,000 O8
$1,500 10Game
Bolded ones are the more likely ones between 10th and 27th June I would play unless they clash with something PLO8 related elsewhere, eg $500+ PLO8 somewhere else I would play over most of the non PLO8 WSOP ones.
The tough decision at the moment is what to book and when to book. I could wait for Venetian and Golden Nugget schedules but they might be 4-6 weeks away. At the moment im thinking roughly 3 options:
1) Fly out 2nd in time for O8 on 4th, Fly back 30th after $3k PLO8
2) Fly out 2nd in time for O8 and do the lot and fly back 5th July
3) Fly out 8th in time for O8/Stud8 and fly back 5th July
Option 3 gives me more events than option 1 but I could always change my plans if its going well if I do option 1. Theres a big gap between my first 2 events currently being 4th and 10th June. Ive not priced anything up at all yet but will look very soon for sure.
Anyway enough waffle for now .... :)
