Back in June I headed to Las Vegas with the hope of winning alot of money. My mind was on the prize and not what it would take to get the prize. I don't want to say that I didn't have high expectations for this trip, but I wasn't focused on winning money. Whatever happened I just wanted be mentally and physically prepared everyday and play my best poker. I went to bed fairly early each night and I did some stretches and excercises each morning.
My first event was the $550 Deepstack on Saturday. I started off pretty good chipping up to about 30k in two hours from a 15k starting stack. I took alot of those chips from a crasian who loved to bluff. He was able to build his stack back up and he raised from utg. I'm on the button and call his raise with 55. Flop comes 345. He bets out and I call. Turn is a q. He checks. At this point I put him on two over cards or a medium pair. I bet and he min check raises me. Now I am thinking he could have aq here or a flush draw so I flat and plan on letting him bluff the river. River is an 8 and didn't complete the flush draw. At this point the pot is about 24k and he bets 12k leaving 3k behind. I put him all in and he turns over A2 for the wheel. UGHHHH. I didn't even think he could have A2 or 67. I hit my set and was focused on getting as much out of him as I could. I doubled up a couple times and survived for another 2 hours or so but couldn't really get anything going.
That night I played the Venetian nightly $120. It drew about 135 players. My first table was extremely weak and I built my 7.5k starting stack to around 25k in the first hour. I had one solid player at my table and the others were unbelievably easy to read. They were folding to my cbets and if I thought they were weak I would check raise or raise their cbet. I felt like I couldn't do anything wrong. I have never just ran over a table like that playing live. A couple hours in I lost a big pot when my QQ < JJ. And then I isolated a shorty's all in w/aq offsuit. He showed up with aq offsuit also. 3 clubs came on the flop and the 4th on the river giving him the pot. I went into short stack ninja mode and was able to make the final table. I went out in 9th place for a little profit.
I played the O8 limit on Sunday. It had 135 runners and I went out 45. I felt pretty good about my play considering there were some really good O8 players in the field. I lasted until around 9pm so I wasn't able to get into the Venetian nightly again.
On Monday the V had a $350 NLHE event. This would be my last deepstack event so I wanted to make it a good one. I drew a pretty tough table and was down to about 10k from 12.5k starting stack in the first hour. With blinds at 75-150 two late position players limp in and I find jc9c in the bb. The limper in the hijack position had limped with strong hands several times already. I check my option. The flop comes QT7 with 2 spades. I check and hijack bets pot. Previously I saw this player check call all the way down when he hit top pair. The last hand he won he limped with TT and bet the big when he flopped a set. I felt he had at least 2 pair and maybe a set here. If I hit I knew he would pay me off so I call his flop bet. The turn is the Kc giving me the straight and a straight flush draw. I check and he bets almost the pot. I raise and after he tanks for about 3 minutes he shoves and I snap call. He has TT for the set and rivers a K for a Full House. I'm not so sure about getting it all in here. Since I was pretty sure he had 2 pair or a set I could have flatted his turn bet and made sure the board didn't pair. The river K may have scared him and I could have gotten to showdown without going broke. Got my money in good just unlucky.
That night I played the nightly Venetian again. It drew about 150 players this night. I drew a pretty lag starting table and was getting horrible cards. I was down to around 8bbs when I got one of my best starting hands of the night 5d7d. I obviously shoved and got 2 callers. The flop comes 578 and I triple up. As we neared the bubble the table tightened up and I was able to get a few valuable steals and resteals. I won a big pot when we were 6 handed on the final table bubble and went to the final table 2nd in chips with about 200k. Even though it seemed as if I had a big stack, I only had about 20bb with an M of 8. I stole a few pots but avoided any confrontations and we got down to 5 handed. Blinds were 8 and 16k with a 3k ante. 39k in the pot and i was sitting on about 210k. The aggro player at the table raises from utg and I find AQo on the button. I shove and he calls with TT. I see a Q coming on the top card of the flop cards! As the dealer slides the 3 cards across the table, the bottom card is a Ten. sigh.... But wait flop is QT9, turn is an 8. I can chop it with a Jack! Jack. Jack. Jack. Deuceeeeeeee. Damn out in 5th for $800. First was almost 4k. During the tournament I was talking to the guy that busted me out. He won an FTOPS jersey back in August.
The Deepstack events seemed to be a little bit tougher than they were in June. I saw more pros at the Venetian than I ever have in June. There seemed to be less tourists in the Deepstack events this time around. However the Venetian nightly seemed to be alot softer. I also played 3 satellites this week and 3 way chopped 2 of them. I played some craps, pai gow, and stayed away from the roulette tables.
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