Whist in years past, my main allegiance was always to the Venetian (where I'd won the bulk of my decent sized tournaments), I have to say that from a comfort point of view, I much prefer playing in the Encore. It's more luxurious, and just feels like a classier room. Of course, the room is rapidly filling up with good 'ole boys wearing Bermuda shorts, faded baseball caps, and mostly missing a few teeth here and there, so it kind of lowers the tone back down again a bit. I'm glad my tuxedo is at the dry cleaners. I'd have felt overdressed had I turned up wearing it.
94 starters so far today, and a 30k initial stack on a 40 minute clock. They begin dealing on the table when just 4 players are seated, which makes for something of an interesting dynamic with the blinds and antes being so low. We'll plod along for now and see what transpires.
We're practically a full table now, and the trend seems to be that nobody, neither staff nor players, recognises me at all...until the point when they see the giraffe, or when I start speaking, then the penny finally drops. Maybe a bit of anonymity is not such a bad thing.
I'm still chugging away on a starting stack as we near the end of level 2. One player at the table just called an 1800 preflop raise with 23 suited, and smashed some poor guys QQ to pieces when he made two pair. The guy with QQ looks like he's ready to throw up and 5 minutes later is still talking to himself, mumbling stuff like "nice hand", and "nice call preflop". He busts out less than one orbit later. Gotta love tournaments.
I just took a small hit when I raised with KK, got 3 callers and an ace flopped. Two players decided to take off betting and raising, so I reluctantly released it. A10 won the pot. Overall, this table is a fair bit tougher than my starting table in the first Venetian event I played a few days ago. Nobody is really getting too out of line, but it's getting raised by a decent amount every hand making seeing cheap flops expensive, which is bad for me, as seeing cheap flops is a big part of my MO. On we chug.
First break, and I'm on around 20k. We come back at 200/400/400.
Into level 4, and it seems a bit like crash, bang, wallop here. I just saw 66 and AK get whole the lot in the middle preflop. I think that maybe since this is only a 2 x day 1 event, this being the final day, people seem quite happy to punt. I'd still rather outplay people than be forced to take a flip and just trust to luck. Horses for courses.
Finally at a full tale, and only in las Vegas... a girl arrives and sits on my immediate right. She has a crash helmet on, and has a huge adult 2 wheeled electric scooter with her. She then debates for a few minutes about leaving it parked right next to her chair (effectively blocking 1/3 of the table, and likely causing a cocktail waitress to potentially break an ankle or something). Thankfully, the floor come over, and they elect to store it over by the tournament podium instead of in the middle of the tournament area. I cannot, and will never be able to come to terms with the sight of a fully grown adult cruising around on what is basically an oversized child's toy. It's ridiculous.
153/196 remain. One guy with a decent sized stack just shoved all-in with 66 on a 742 flop. Maybe I need to borrow that crash helmet...
Up to level 5 at 300/500/500 and I'm still just under 20k. I've been pretty card dead since we started, making poker problematic, but I am trying to be patient, whilst grenades go off all around me. One guy who has quite literally ran like god (though I have no idea how god actually runs with all the other stuff he's got going on) just got his AA smashed by an all-in player's K10 off-suit, who flops two pair. He's bemoaning his bad run with AA, and I feel like pointing out that luckily he still has around 60k in chips, 20k above average even after taking that minor beat versus a short stack. I decide against it.
Onto level 6, and I've been without a decent starting hand for about 3 hours. Not moaning, stuff like this happens, and it can just as quickly change if you pick up a fluffy of decent cards. However, I've now dropped to around half my starting stack, and it's costing 1500 a round just to play. It's going to be shove time soon in any event if this keeps up.
Shove time arrives sooner than I expected, and I remember why these things can be so much fun. I look down from UTG +1 at AA, and whilst I'm debating on the best way to extract the most value from the table, scooter girl on my right makes it 3k to play. I deliberate for around 5 seconds, and go all-in for around 15k. If I win the pot uncontested, it gets me back around 20k, and if anyone decides to give me a spin, I'll be above starting chips again. Everyone folds round to scooter girl. My raise is over half her stack, and she fiddles around with her chips before finally calling. Happy days, it's the action I really wanted; to be heads-up with aces, all-in preflop. She flips over 99, and I table AA. "Of course you have" she says, and I get up from my seat as the first card on the flop is a nine giving her a set. Folding never seemed to be an option for her, despite her seeing me basically not play a hand for the last 90 minutes. But it is what it is. I don't improve, so I bust out and leave without rebuying. Going out with aces always stings a bit, but I'm a big believer in not interrupting your enemy whilst they're in the middle of making a mistake. Occasionally, they're going to get lucky on you, and today was that very occasion.
We're practically a full table now, and the trend seems to be that nobody, neither staff nor players, recognises me at all...until the point when they see the giraffe, or when I start speaking, then the penny finally drops. Maybe a bit of anonymity is not such a bad thing.
I'm still chugging away on a starting stack as we near the end of level 2. One player at the table just called an 1800 preflop raise with 23 suited, and smashed some poor guys QQ to pieces when he made two pair. The guy with QQ looks like he's ready to throw up and 5 minutes later is still talking to himself, mumbling stuff like "nice hand", and "nice call preflop". He busts out less than one orbit later. Gotta love tournaments.
I just took a small hit when I raised with KK, got 3 callers and an ace flopped. Two players decided to take off betting and raising, so I reluctantly released it. A10 won the pot. Overall, this table is a fair bit tougher than my starting table in the first Venetian event I played a few days ago. Nobody is really getting too out of line, but it's getting raised by a decent amount every hand making seeing cheap flops expensive, which is bad for me, as seeing cheap flops is a big part of my MO. On we chug.
First break, and I'm on around 20k. We come back at 200/400/400.
Into level 4, and it seems a bit like crash, bang, wallop here. I just saw 66 and AK get whole the lot in the middle preflop. I think that maybe since this is only a 2 x day 1 event, this being the final day, people seem quite happy to punt. I'd still rather outplay people than be forced to take a flip and just trust to luck. Horses for courses.
Finally at a full tale, and only in las Vegas... a girl arrives and sits on my immediate right. She has a crash helmet on, and has a huge adult 2 wheeled electric scooter with her. She then debates for a few minutes about leaving it parked right next to her chair (effectively blocking 1/3 of the table, and likely causing a cocktail waitress to potentially break an ankle or something). Thankfully, the floor come over, and they elect to store it over by the tournament podium instead of in the middle of the tournament area. I cannot, and will never be able to come to terms with the sight of a fully grown adult cruising around on what is basically an oversized child's toy. It's ridiculous.
153/196 remain. One guy with a decent sized stack just shoved all-in with 66 on a 742 flop. Maybe I need to borrow that crash helmet...
Up to level 5 at 300/500/500 and I'm still just under 20k. I've been pretty card dead since we started, making poker problematic, but I am trying to be patient, whilst grenades go off all around me. One guy who has quite literally ran like god (though I have no idea how god actually runs with all the other stuff he's got going on) just got his AA smashed by an all-in player's K10 off-suit, who flops two pair. He's bemoaning his bad run with AA, and I feel like pointing out that luckily he still has around 60k in chips, 20k above average even after taking that minor beat versus a short stack. I decide against it.
Onto level 6, and I've been without a decent starting hand for about 3 hours. Not moaning, stuff like this happens, and it can just as quickly change if you pick up a fluffy of decent cards. However, I've now dropped to around half my starting stack, and it's costing 1500 a round just to play. It's going to be shove time soon in any event if this keeps up.
Shove time arrives sooner than I expected, and I remember why these things can be so much fun. I look down from UTG +1 at AA, and whilst I'm debating on the best way to extract the most value from the table, scooter girl on my right makes it 3k to play. I deliberate for around 5 seconds, and go all-in for around 15k. If I win the pot uncontested, it gets me back around 20k, and if anyone decides to give me a spin, I'll be above starting chips again. Everyone folds round to scooter girl. My raise is over half her stack, and she fiddles around with her chips before finally calling. Happy days, it's the action I really wanted; to be heads-up with aces, all-in preflop. She flips over 99, and I table AA. "Of course you have" she says, and I get up from my seat as the first card on the flop is a nine giving her a set. Folding never seemed to be an option for her, despite her seeing me basically not play a hand for the last 90 minutes. But it is what it is. I don't improve, so I bust out and leave without rebuying. Going out with aces always stings a bit, but I'm a big believer in not interrupting your enemy whilst they're in the middle of making a mistake. Occasionally, they're going to get lucky on you, and today was that very occasion.
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