Vegas Trip Report

So this is a little bit of a belated trip report but what ever. I got back a week ago and had a great time. I came home with more money than I left with so that's always good.

Friday: I flew in with my best friend Ryan and another close friend. We all split a room at the Rio and got an amazing rate. We get in Friday evening and decide to just walk down to the Amazon room and see all the action. The 40k event is still going on at this point so there's recognizable pro's walking around all over the place. If you've never been out to Vegas for the WSOP it's pretty overwhelming at first. This was my first time and I was extremely impressed with how well organized everything was. We checked in for Event 4 (the 1k) starting on Saturday and got our seating assignments.

For dinner we decide to go to the American Grill restaurant in the Rio. We get sat in a booth in the back area where there's a large projection screen showing Game 5 of the Lakers and Nuggets. I didn't even believe it was him at first but Jerry Buss (owner of the Lakers) was sitting at the table next to us 10 feet away. I thought there was no way he'd be in Vegas and he'd be watching his Lakers play in Denver for sure, but apparently he'd been there at least a couple days because he played in the Omaha event the day before. He looked exactly the same as when he was on High Stakes Poker.

Saturday: We get up early and have breakfast. We end up having a lot of time to kill before our tournament so we walk down to the WSOP area to see what's going on. We walk over to where the cash games are being played and there's a table with a handful of people playing 25/50 NL. We walk over to see what's up and there's a guy drunk off his ass playing with at least 40-50k in front of him. He had over 20k just in cash sitting on the table. He was giving money away too, he won a pot and some guy said, "Don't forget to tip the dealer", so the drunk guy throws the dealer $100 and the guy who yelled says, "What about me?", so the drunk guy throws him some money too. On another hand he won a pretty big pot and the guy next to him sitting at the table says, "Nice pot, can I get some?", so the drunk guy tosses 3k over to him. It was ridiculous. The table breaks and we decide to see what else is going on.

As we are walking by the satellite room there's a chick at the door selling seats to a $65 sit-n-go. Ryan's like dude, lets play. These are winner take all sat's and I didn't feel like playing where only one of us could possibly win but he says, "Dude, I don't care. It's $65 just play..." So I wind up playing and shipping it of course. These satellites are ridiculously soft and the play is terrible.

As for the actual $1k tournament itself it was pretty uneventful for me. I lasted about 6 hours, almost making it to the dinner break before I busted out. I was pretty card dead and couldn't really get anything going the whole day. I never had much more than our initial starting stack. My final hand I got all in w/ 99 on an 8 high flop against A8o and the guy spiked an ace on the river to knock me out. I was pretty short at the time and it was pretty standard.

I end up playing two more $65 sngs and ship another one. I also watched the 40k for an hour or two when it was down to two tables. I saw Tony G lay down AKs when it was 6 or 7 handed against two all-ins. It turns out it was a really good lay down as the other two players had KK and QQ. I don't think I can lay that down there, he was pretty short on chips and winning a 3 way all-in would have put him all the way up to like 2nd or 3rd in chips. Of course there was an Ace on the flop and turn and Tony would have tripled up.

The day ends and Ryan is one of the 350ish people out of 3000 that make it through Day 1A in the $1k.

Sunday: I knew I was going to play another tournament today but I hadn't decided what I'd want to play until Saturday night. Since I had won those couple sng's I decided to take the shuttle over to the Venetian and play in their $560 deepstack event. I couldn't have been more impressed with the starting stacks and structure of this tournament. You start with 15k chips and 40 minute levels. Unlike the WSOP though the venetian has automatic shufflers so you still get in a lot of hands. You really get a lot of play. There ended up being ~600 people, generating a nice prizepool and an 82k payday for first.

Due to the large starting stacks and a relatively weak first table I loosened up a lot. I ended up putting a pretty horrible player on tilt early on. I had been aggressively raising, floating, and taking stabs. I'm guessing he thought I was making a move but he winds up raise/calling a shove with J2o when I had JJ. I get moved to an aggressive tough table and build up an above average chip stack with ~200 people left before I got caught. I get dealt JJ in EP and raise it up 2.5x. An aggressive player who had been re-raising and floating a lot in LP re-raises me. I had a really tight image at this table and thought there was a decent chance he was just making a play with garbage or a weaker hand and I shoved. He flipped over KK and knocked me out but I still think I made the right move.

I head back to the Rio and find out that Jordan Rich (a pro from Portland that I had met before) is at the final table of the $1500 Omaha H/L event. I join my buddies and his girl friend that are there railing him. He ends up taking us out to dinner during his break. Shortly after dinner break though he busts out in 6th place for $40k. I know he was pretty disappointed but it was a lot of fun watching him pay.

I played a little 1/3 NL cash game so I could just down and have some drinks. I'm not really much of a cash game player but I stayed out of trouble, got paid off on my big hands, and wound up winning $160. The table I was at was pretty mellow but I was drinking so I didn't really care. I must say, the Rio has some amazing cocktail waitresses too.

Monday: Ryan's day two of the $1k event. Just like Day1, we went to breakfast and played a sng before the event. This time it was a $125 sng and instead of winning it I chopped it but it was still really soft. I railed Ryan the whole day, which turned out to be a really long time. He made it all the way til ~1am before he busted out in 65th place for $8k. We had swapped a small % for the tournament so I made out pretty well too.

Overall the trip was a great experience and I hope to make it out for the WSOP again next year. I'm definitely going to keep my eyes out for more Venetian Deepstack events though, I'd love to play a few more of those before next year.

In other news I've been really busy with school and haven't had much time for poker. I have one last project to turn in before I graduate. I've applied for graduate school and I'm pretty sure I'll get in but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I'll be playing a lot more poker starting next week so watch out. I've been itching to get my grind on ever since I got back from Vegas.

James

Ballin' with Eric Lindgren

Okay not really, but I did get to play with him for 15 or 20 minutes. I played in the NW Celebrity Poker Showdown in Portland on saturday. It was helped put on by a guy that went to high school with Eric Lindgren so he had Eric come out and play. He brought a decent crowd, there was about 160 players with a $250 total buyin, and it sounds like they raked a decent % for charity. As the opportunity arose they moved Eric around so many people got to play with him. I was at the 2nd table they moved him to.

He comes over, folds a hand, and says, "Alright, so who wants a drink?". He ended up buying some beer for a few of us at the table, including me. Overall he played pretty loose, clearly playing to entertain and socialize. He had a $200 bounty on his head, at one point he shoved AIPF for ~ 8BBs and two people called him dark. Eric's 44 dodged a bunch of overcards and he tripled up. I didn't really get into any hands with Eric aside from calling one of his flop bets and shoving the turn with my top pair but there were others involved in the hand as well.

I felt like I played really well in the tournament. I took a beat a couple hours into it when my QQ lost to my roommates JJ AIPF. He took ~2/3rds of my chips but looking back I was very impressed with how I handled the beat. Most of that was probably due to losing it to my best friend but I was able to get past it. I chipped up and got back to almost all the way back up to where I was. About an hour later My AK lost to JJ for a pretty large pot with ~50 left and I was out. The structure of the tournament was really bad, standard for a non-serious live tournament. I had a great time and feel pretty confident heading into Vegas at the end of the month.

Eric seemed like a genuinly nice guy. He was signing autographs and taking pictures. He flew up from Vegas just for this tournament to support his friend. It sounds like they are going to make this an annual tournament and are hoping to have Eric plus a few more pro's next year. I heard them throw Gavin Griffen's name around so that'd be cool.

I'm going to continue playing online for the month and working on my game. I'm starting to mix in some $27 / 45 mans and aside from filling rediculously slowly, I haven't noticed much different than the $12s.

A little update.

It's been awhile since my last update. I really don't have much to say. I haven't been playing nearly as much as I'd like to be playing. Having a girlfiend isn't helping the volume either but I'm not going to complain there :-) April is the first month this year I didn't have a profit > 1k. I ended up pretty breakeven in April, I think I finished up maybe $200 or something. My sharkscope is looking pretty decent. I'm hovering around the $1/game mark and I'll pass that up pretty quickly. I'm doing well in the 12's and am very confident in my 45 man game. My 180 man is still a work in progress but I feel like I just need to put in more volume and the results will come. I still haven't shipped a $12/180 yet and that's starting to bother me. I have multiple 2nd places but just haven't had it flip my way yet.


I'll be in Vegas for the WSOP from May 29th - June 2nd. I'm playing in the $1k WSOP event for sure and depending how that goes I'll add in a $500 Venetian Deep Stack event or two. I've never been down in Vegas during the WSOP and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm staying at the RIO so if your in Vegas feel free to msg me and I'll give you my number.

I'm playing in the NW Charity Celebrity Poker Showdown $200 live event in Portland this weekend, apparently Eric Lindgren is going to be there. I don't know for sure what the prize pool is going to be like and it is a charity event but they've advertised as giving away WSOP seats so it should be pretty juicy.

My goals for the month are to keep Silverstar and keep working on my MTT game. I've been playing a number of deeper stacked rebuy and 2r+1a events to work on my game and I feel like that's helping a lot. I also played in the Sunday Million last weekend and got up to 30k pretty early before I took a beat and lost to a 2 outer. I'll probably look to play in another Sunday Million or two before heading out to vegas. I'll give another update after the live tournament this weekend.

Good luck at the tables,
James

Back from hibernation

Okay.. well it wasn't really a hibernation it felt pretty close to one. I was ultra busy with school last quarter. I'm currently in my last 2 classes to finish up my BS in Computer Science.

I've only played ~400 games in the last month and a half but holy shit I've been on fire. In those last 400 games I'm running at an avg buyin of $10 with a 113% ROI for a total profit of close to $5k. Most of that is in 2 decent scores in MTTs but I've also been doing pretty well in 45 mans. My volume was so bad in March I didn't even hit Silverstar. I'll end up about 100 points shy.

My goals for April are pretty simple, achieve Goldstar and make more than $1.5k in profit.

I'll be in Vegas for the start of the WSOP. My roommate and I decided to make the trip out and play in the $1k event. I'm super excited I've never played in any large live events before. We've already booked a room at the Rio for super cheap. I'll probably be looking to play in a couple Sunday Millions before the WSOP just to get some more experience playing in a larger buyin large field event. I have some fpps I'll use to buy in and I've done pretty well at the satellites in the past.

I'll be in Vegas May 29th - June 2nd, if your in town let me know. I'm always down to hang out.

Good luck at the tables

James, aka Amerzel

Okay... February you can stay

Well, the sngs can stay away. I'm down almost $800 in the $12 sngs this month, just haven't had any success in the 180s. I'm up ~$350 in the $6.50s though so that helps offset some of the $12 losses.

I'm looking to continuing my weekend success from last Sunday where I shipped $1k. I'm off to a really good start. I took 5th place in yesterday's PokerStars $10 30k gtd tournament for $2100. I also qualified for the 5kfpp Turbo Takedown tournament for 40fpps. I haven't played this tournament before but I imagine it plays a lot like the 200k. Like last week also I'll try and sat into the Sunday Mil but I don't know if they'll still be running by the time I make it into work.

Overall for the month I'm up somewhere in the $2600 range. I've been really busy with school and it's been nice taking a break from grinding. I probably won't be playing many sngs for the rest of the month, though I'll continue to play a few mtts. I'll need to get back into grinding to clear the $250 deposit bonus though, I think I'm only like 500 points into it.

With my recent success I'm going to buy myself Sirius Satellite Radio, I like to reward myself with something when I have a decent cash. It's nice to see something material that came directly from poker. The last thing I bought myself was a long term 24 hour gym membership two years ago. That's been the best reward I can think of as I still go to the gym multiple times per week.

Good luck at the tables.
Amerzel

February... go away... sort of

My sharkscope graph explains my sngs in February pretty nicely. I don't remember the last time I final tabled a 180 man. I've been playing the 12's and just haven't been able to catch a break. It doesn't help I haven't won a $12 45 man this month either.

Sunday Success
Luckily not all of February has been a waste. I decided to play 4 of the $11.70 double shootout satellites to the big PokerStars Sunday million this last weekend. I've always done pretty well in sunday million satellites and this weekend was no exception, I won seats in 2 of the 4 and decided to play the million. I've played the million a few times before but have never had any luck or cashes... until this weekend. I mincashed in like 1000th place for $530. But I wasn't done, I was also playing in the $11 200k gtd tournament and ended up taking 77th out of 30,000 for another $390. At one point I was 7th in chips with ~1.2 million but ended up losing a few flips. Those two tournaments combined with my other sunday million seat netted me a nice +$1k day on Sunday.

I won't be hitting goldstar this month, my volume just hasn't been there. I was sick for most of last week and just didn't really feel like playing much. I've also been putting in a lot of work on a senior project that has been in development for a few months now and that has cut down my volume quite a bit. I was happy to see PokerStars is lowering the VIP requirements next month though, it won't be a problem hitting goldstar in the future.

I'm not sure what I'll do with the rest of the month. I've been mixing 45 and 180 mans but I think for a week or two I'm going to just play 45 mans and do a lot of sngwiz'ing and hopefully find some leaks. If anyone's been putting in some volume at the 45 mans or just wants to learn a bit and exchange some hh's feel free to send me some. I'll probably also look to satellite into a couple more Sunday millions so lookout, it's just so much fun playing such a large tournament.

Good luck at the tables,

Amerzel

GoldStar, January Results, and 180 man pwnage

January Results:
Since people like graphs here's mine for January.
By The Numbers:
Total Games: 1216
Total Profit: $1384
ROI: 16.1%

The Good
6.50's (18 and 45 mans)
Games: 939
Profit: $1197
ROI: 19.6%

12's (45 and 180 mans)
Games: 80
Profit: $544.14
ROI: 56.7%

The Bad
16's (18 mans)
Games: 71
Profit: -$488
ROI: -43.0

Overall I'm extremely pleased with my January results. For the first time ever I reached Goldstar and I hit my 1k profit goal for the month. Both of these are due to playing and running well in the $12 45 and 180 mans this last week. Of my $1384 profit for the month $1k of it was in the last week. I had basically never played a 180 man until this week and I've found I really enjoy them (probably do to my success). They don't take nearly as long to finish as I had thought they would.

February Goals:

• Goldstar
• 1.5k profit
  
• Ship at least one $12 /180 man
• Don't have a negative ROI in the 16/18s for the month (this might mean not playing any lol)