Vegas Day Two: Out Early

I woke up at around 6AM after falling to sleep at 3-4AM. I think it was because I had a sore neck. It was probably for the best though since we needed to be at the Aria at a decent time. I gathered up the troops for 9AM including MiamiDon, Skiddoo, and Josie. We were all STARVING or so we thought. We decided to cab down to the Aria and see what they had. We were going to eat at one of the restaurants but then Skiddoo was like "Hey, I am starving, lets hit the buffet". Little did any of us know the buffet was like a million miles away from where we were. We kept walking, and walking, and walking, following the buffet signs. I was about ready to kill Skiddoo. Finally we make it there and sat down to an AWESOME meal. Tons of food was there including beef, shrimp, eggs, bacon, waffles.. everything!! We all vowed to eat our twenty five bucks worth but none of us got a full second plate. I guess our eyes were bigger than our stomachs.

We headed off the the Aria poker room and signed up for the tourney after. I was feeling pretty awake with some OJ in me. I was part of the VeryJosie, Lightning, and Waffles last longer team. Unfortunately I would be the weakest link.

The first table I got had a few people I knew like Dr. Paulies brother Derek, Grubby, BrainMc. Also the illustrious author Mr. Fox. I told him his book "Why you lose at Poker" was written for me.

I started off the day trying to be optimistic. I mean I know I can be a bit pessimistic. Like when I was flying out to Vegas. I was in line and they were doing body scans and pat downs. As soon as they saw me they shut down the body scanners and stopped doing pat downs. I mean I know I need to lose a few pounds but really? I can not even get groped or oogled by a fucking $3 an hour TSA agent? I run fucking bad. How about the craps table? I am walking down the side of the casino and all these people are having fun rolling craps. As soon as I walk by a guy throws they dice and EVERYONE goes "UGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!". Is it really pessimism if it's true? Which comes first the pessimism or the bad luck? Fuck the egg man.

I get involved in my first large hand with some old guy. I am not sure who he was. I see a flop with QJ s00ted and the flop comes 8QJ. Now in general this is probably the best fucking flop I could ever see. I lead out here and get called by the old dude. The turn is an 8. I start running through my head what kinds of hands could beat me now. Obviously overpair is possible. However there was no action pre-flop. Something like AQ is very possible and something with an 8 in it maybe. I decide to lead out here and I am immediately raised to 1500. I decide to call because I really think the guy is full of shit. The river is an Ace which is probably the worst card I could see here. I check-call a smallish bet. The guy turns over A2o for the runner-runner two pair. I am angry. Nice to see poker has not changed.

The next hand I get into I raised AKo. I decide I am going to win this fucking hand no matter what. I get called by the same old guy. The flop comes QQ8. I bet. He calls. I look at him and notice he is nervous. The turn is a blank. I know he does not have a Queen. So I check to him. He bets about 2K. I then shove my entire stack in. I decide this bluff has some chance to succeed and I guess I sold it well because he folded JJ face up. In order to piss him off I showed my AKo bluff. Fun hand.

I started paying people off a bit too much and got down to 5K from my starting 8K stack. I just was not getting good reads and not folding when I should have. I then get pocket fives. I limp and call BrainMc's 3x-4x raise. Brain had not been playing many hands. The flop comes A5x. Rainbow. Bingo. I check-call the flop bet. On the K turn I check again. BrainMc bets a decent amount. At this point I get this feeling. I am SURE he has Aces. I know it. I decide to jam my stack in. He obviously calls with his Aces and I am out early. Once I learn to trust my reads and make big folds like that my game will improve.

Nobody else thought I should fold there. I mean we have a rainbow board with nothing on it. However I strive to be better than everyone else and I think you REALLY need to go with your feelings if your that type of player. If you are a math guy then you can just lose if the odds say you are supposed to.

I also wanted to say the Aria was AWESOME. The chairs were soooooo comfy. The room went out of it's way to make us feel welcome. Taking pictures. Doing our wacko hammer requests. All kinds of nice little perks for our 100 person tourney. Very impressed with them. Mucho thanks to Al, April, Suckbox, CK Bendy Bendy, and all the others who made this happen and got all the extra perks added. Fantastic job!

I was kind of bored since I crashed out early. So I sat down at a video poker machine and threw away a twenty. Luckily though Carmen was around. She said that she had to do an errand and wanted to play some video Keno so off we went. It was nice to catch up with her and spend some time together. She taught me how to play Keno. I can kind of see the appeal a little. It is all audio stimuli. You hit the button and listen for the *bing**bing*bing* sound of your numbers hitting. I doubt I will ever enjoy them as much as she does but it was a nice distraction.

This post is getting a little long so you will have to wait another day to hear how I slept with a blogger also someone learns the cardinal rule - never make eye contact with the retard.