Tells from the felt

So I spent the past weekend in Fabulous Las Vegas. I was out there for my boy Gino's bachelor party, but the secondary goal was to play some real poker Vegas style. Gino and his brothers were flying in on Thursday night so I flew in a day early on Wednesday night and the plan was to play all day on Thursday. I got a reservation for one night at the Excalibur. For those who haven't been to Vegas it's a casino on the strip that's somewhere right smack in between really cheap and ghetto, and really fancy and glamorous. It's a good value cuz it's right there on the strip yet not too expensive. It worked fine for me. I got there a little before midnight and went up to my room. I was tempted to go down and look for a poker game right away, but I was tired from the flight and I figured the smart thing was just to get some sleep and start early. It took me a little while to fall asleep but I managed, and then I got up at 6:30am Vegas time ready to go.

I got cleaned up, packed my stuff, and went downstairs to check out. I went to the poker room and signed up for the 9am tournament right there at the excalibur. It was about 7:30am I think and there was a 2-5 No Limit hold em game going on. I didn't touch it and went to get breakfast instead to wait for the tournament (corned beef hash and eggs, giddeyup). The tournament was a $35 buyin with a pretty bad structure. You started with 300 in chips and the blinds started at 5-10 and went up every 15 mins. That's not a lot of chips so this thing wasn't going to last long. The Excalibur was pretty low tech so when you signed in you went to a table and picked up a card with your table assignment. There were 3 full tables so about 30 players. Honestly, I don't remember too much from the tournament (my poker memory sucks!). I played pretty standard tournament strategy. Pretty tight when the blinds are small and progressively more agressive as they get bigger compared to your stack. I made it to the final table with an average stack. By the time we got to the money (final 5) the blinds were real high and my stack wasn't that big. On the hand that I went out on I had J-5 suited I think. The flop came out with low cards, 2 of my suit giving me a straight draw, flush draw, and an overcard. I think I went all in and got called by a guy that had a pair of 4s. None of my draws came through and I was done and won a woopin $54. Peanuts but I was still pretty happy about it. At this point it was only 10:30am which tells you how fast that tournament went.

10:30 AM gave me plenty of time to cross the street and enter an 11AM tournament at the MGM. The MGM has a much nicer poker room then the excalibur. They have wide screen tvs with the different games going on and the lists for each game, and when you signed up for the tournament you got a computer print out with your table assignment. The tables also had automatic shufflers. The dealer has 2 decks and it shuffles one deck while you play with the other. Combine that with pro dealers and it keeps the games going pretty fast. This tournament had a better structure. $65 buyin, 2000 in chips, blinds go up every 20 mins and start at 25-25. This one was going to take longer and there was even 2 small breaks scheduled. And about 80 players which made for a much bigger prize pool. I played pretty well. I remember just a few hands. On one I think it went something like this. I had A-J suited. I raised pre-flop and got a couple of callers. The flop came out with an A and 2 cards in my suit. I bet again and got one or two callers. On the turn I hit my J, now I'm feeling really good about the hand. I can't remember if I checked or bet it, but either way I got myself heads up on the river, and on the river I hit my flush! So sweet. It was a pretty big pot and the rookie move would be to go all in, but I wanted to get called so I bet a pretty big amount but small enough compared to the pot, something like 500 into a 1000 pot, and he called me! He had a big ace, like A-Q and I had him crushed. I went through some ups and downs the rest of the way. I did get in bad shape once and managed to suck out. I don't remember what the hand was exactly but I think I was dominated, maybe A-Q vs A-K or something like that and I was either all in, or virtually all in so that if I lost I'd be crippled, but I hit the Q on the river and survived. The other key hand that I remember was when we got to the final table. At that point I had a medium to smallish stack. I got dealt pocket 9s and I made a pretty big pre-flop raise. I got called by one guy who may have been on one of the blinds. The flop came out 10-8-10. At that point I felt pretty good about my hand. I figured the chances of him having a 10 were small, and there was a good chance that my 9s were good. The guy that I was up against had a big stack and this was a good chance for me to double up so I went all in. He thought about it for a long time, and finally called me. He had something like J-8. He didn't think that I already had a made hand and was surprised to see my 9s. They held up and I doubled up. At that point I had about 28K in chips and was either 1st or second in chips. I didn't want to play tentative, but there were a couple of smaller stacks and I tightened up a little bit to let them bust out and get me to the money. I made it to the last 3 and at this point all 3 of us were fairly close in chips, but I was in last position and the blinds were getting really big. I got dealt a 10-4 offsuit in the big blind and went heads up to the flop with the guy to the left of me. The flop came our Q-Q-x. I checked and he checked. Turn came out a 4. I didn't think he had a pair, so I went all in, but he was sitting there with a Q and his check on the flop was a well laid out trap. That was it I was done. It's tough at that point because you have to be aggressive and if you happen to run into a bigger hand you have to use your reads to make the decision and I didn't give him credit for the Qs. The 2 guys left chopped it and took about $1300 each and I took about $600.

Needless to say I was pretty happy with my performance. My first time playing in Vegas ever and I cash in 2 tournaments in a row! It was about 1:30PM by then and I had a thick wad of cash in my pocket. Pretty sweet. Of course I then proceeded to lose all my winnings and then some playing cash games and table games, but that's another story. I still have a lot of work to do on my game but I'm looking forward to going back and playing some more!