Vegas in July Part 2

Part 1 detailed my recent Las Vegas trip, from Sunday night through Tuesday.  This will detail Wednesday and Thursday, including the Venetian Deepstack event Wednesday.

Wednesday I woke up and ate some breakfast, in preparation for the deepstack event.  I was playing in the $400 NLHE Bounty event.  The start time was 2pm, and I headed there around 12:15.  I was meeting up with Coach.  While I've read his blog for awhile, follow him on twitter, and even count him as a friend on facebook, I'd never met him before.  He's a good guy.  We talked awhile about sports and poker, and I got registered for the event.  He intended to hang out and rail me for the event, which was fun and quite helpful.  I started the event at 2pm, with this being the largest buy-in for a tournament that I'd played in to date.  We started with 12k chips, 50-100 blinds, 30 minute levels.  Bounties were worth $100 each.  I was folding often early, having few cards to play.  The table was quite aggressive to start, with very little limping being allowed.  One player in particular was a combination of aggressive and getting good cards, chipping up quite a bit.  I raised a few hands, but when I had big cards the flop was low, and when I had small pocket pairs the flop was high.  It was level 3 before I won my first hand.  I was down to 4900 at one point.  I doubled with Ad10d, when I turned the nut flush draw with 2 overcards to the board, shoved over a bet, and rivered the flush.  I won a few more pots, and even knocked out a player to earn my first bounty.  Awhile later, with 18k in chips, I was in the small blind.  There were a few limpers, and the button shoved with about 7k.  I looked down at KK, and re-shoved.  1 of the limpers thought for a bit and called, having less chips than I did.  Button showed 9h4h, and limper showed AxQx.  There was a Q on the flop, but the turn and river were safe and I had 2 more bounties!  I hit another flush with AQ to knock out a 4th player, meaning I was free-rolling the tourney.  We had lost several players, and the registration was closed.  We had 145 entrants total, 15 got paid, starting at $597 and going up to $9800 for 1st place!

At the start of level 12, we had 37 left and I was at 77k chips.  I won a small pot, and reached my high water mark of 80k.  I was moved to a new table, which would be my downfall.  I observed a bit, then had AdJd, flopped an ace, and lost to AQ.  Next had I had AK, lost a lot of chips to J-10 which had flopped a boat, when I rivered an ace.  The final had I started with around 50K in chips.  I was in the BB.  There was a raise ahead of me, and I looked down at AK again. I 3-bet to 9600, and the raiser shoved.  With nearly 20% of my chips in the middle already, and a huge chipstack if I double up, I made the call. I could have folded and looked for a better spot, as I was likely flipping at this point, or possibly way behind AA or KK.  I just felt that in trying to win, the double up would put me in a great position and I would be able to see all 5 cards.  The opponent had JJ, I couldn't pair the A or K, and I was out around 31st place.  I started to doubt my play immediately after it happened, but I think that getting it in there wasn't terrible. 

Not a bad showing for my biggest tournament thus far.  I was nervous early, and being card dead didn't help, but I was able to overcome that and make a solid run.  I earned 4 bounties, making this a free tournament.  I would love the opportunity to play again another time.

After the tournament I walked to Harrah's with Coach, to catch the monorail.  I called my wife.  They were eating dinner, so I grabbed dinner at Toby Keith's.  I headed to  Bally's after I finished, and we gambled for awhile.  I lost some money playing blackjack, craps, and poker.  I realize that playing poker late at night after long days walking in the sun is less than ideal for me, and decided that in the future I will have to make better decisions about when to play.

Thursday morning we went to Paris for their breakfast buffet.  As the women were getting ready, I decided to check out the high limit room at Bally's.  I had set a goal on how much I wanted to bring back, and was above my goal.  I noticed a $100 slot machine.  I couldn't help slipping a bill in and giving it a pull.  Unfortunately, I was not a winner!  We headed back to the room to check out and head to the airport.  We got there around 11:45 for our 2:30 flight.  There was no line at the Allegiant desk, nor at security, so we were through in little time and waited for our flight.  Unsurprisingly, there was a delay, and we were 2 hours late getting home.

All in all, it was a great trip, and everyone had a great time.  I'm now going to focus on school, earning my Master's Degree, and once that is done, I'm going to look at jobs in Vegas and start researching for the possibility of moving out there!!