The great thing about Vegas is there’s always another tournament, always more action, always a way out of the hole, any time, day or night.
In fact the very fact that Vegas is the Internet poker of the live game, with another game always about to start, can catch out some Vegas virgins, and prove a great danger.
I saw one UK pro, presumably in Vegas for his first time, and he had played eight tournies in three days! How you can ever be mentally on top of that, reviewed your bust outs, got off tilt, I will never know.
The reason for that is you can’t!
Anyway, after a few years of playing every comp I could, these days I carefully plan days off, any time there’s any distractions that would have me playing less than my best (England World Cup games and NBA Finals etc.) I schedule no poker and spend the day doing that.
Despite my preparation, and meticulous book keeping, where I keep tabs on all my spends on tournaments and cash sessions, to make sure I’m playing the right games, my WSOP hasn’t been a huge success.
The second event I played was a $1000 buy-in, 3000 starting chips affair
I actually started okay, and got up to 5k, but KJ v JJ on a KJx board was a cooler, and I did the rest with 99 v AQ.
Another $1500 event came and went without anything much happening. I got my 4500 to around 8000, getting there with a Royal Flush draw but I exited just before the dinner break, again losing a race, this time with 22 v A4.
I’d seen some ridiculous play in this event, but I just couldn’t seem to catch any as the chips flew around.
At 100/200 a fella make it 1100 UTG and called the all-in for 7800 with his pocket fours, holding against AK. Worse was to follow.
Pocket fours guy limped for 200, a young guy made it 700, both blinds cold called before pocket fours makes it 2800. The raiser passed, as did the small blind, but the big blind, playing 5500 total, called!
It came A55, the big blind checked, pocket fours guy set his opponent in with AQ, and the big blind called with A7.
The board ran out JK and the big blind got up to leave, before being told it was a split pot
Keen to take advantage of his good luck, the guy who had just taken the crown of table clown decided to gamble it up.
He raised to 450, got two calls before the button made it 1350. The big blind moved all in for 4500 and the clown called all in. The button also called and we had a showdown.
AJ for the button, KJ for the big blind, who presumably felt he was winning against a button squeeze, and 85 off suit for the clown, who presumably had wandered into the Brasilia Room looking for his seat at a conference!
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