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After a journey that's twists and turns Agatha Christie would have been proud of I finally arrived at my hotel around 10pm. last night. I managed to stay up until about half past midnight and even booked a $150 profit in the $1/2 at The Nugget. I crawled into bed around 1am. after a 30 hour day and was absolutely wide-awake at 5am.!

Details to follow about my journey including a puncture/blow-out on the M1, a delayed flight and being taken into the green room by US immigration and questioned for an hour before they let an extremely relieved me in.

To be continued...

 ;popcorn; ;popcorn;

At least you got in.........

http://terrencechan.livejournal.com/354717.html

Glad ya got there safe and sound.  Enjoy!!!

Good Luck Ralph, & we want Daily Reports, please.

I'm full of admiration for you. All the way to Vegas on your own, at your time of life, is something special.

To be fair to the immigration people you do have the look of a hardenend criminal about you... ;D

lol. Good luck Ralph. Hope you get the lot :)

Good luck Ralph. 

Enjoy your sushi ;)

Spill please.

Looking forward to your updates Ralph! Also, please win the world when out there!

Ooooh I do love Vegas reports. Best of luck Ralph.

Had a bad day yesterday, the lowlight being losing a $1300 pot playing $1/2NLH when I played AA somewhat less than optimally, followed by running badly which resulted in the day ending -$800,

It could have been worse, but not much.

I ran into the Scottish lads, Doubleup, Scotland Stu and their two mates at the bar in The Nugget last night who were en route to Hugo's Cellar the fine restaurant next door at The Four Queens, and had a chat with them for a while. They seemed in great spirits and I look forward to meeting up with them at The Venetian on Monday which is when I plan to dip my toes in the tourney water if I've not gone skint by then.

I did wander down to the strip yesterday for a bite to eat at Asia Noodles in The V but didn't spot anyone I knew. I was going to have a bet on Midday in the last Breeder's Cup race if it was odds-against but fortunately it never showed better than evens so I save some cash there.

I'm still waking up very early but am starting to feel a little better acclimatised each day.

Right then off for my American breakfast before launching myself into the recovery mission.

I'll do the details of my immigration grilling at a later date, but I will tell you that it flagged up a misdemeanour which ocurred in 1967, The Summer of Love baby...... 

Have a great trip Ralph.....





1967? weren't you too young to be prosecuted?

Ralph is being very cagey about all this customs stuff.

What went on in that green room, and how come they let him go anyway? Has he coughed and turned grass?

I should be careful what you say around him if I were you. he might be wearing a wire. It's amazing what some people will do for a crate of fine wine, a lifetime supply of Viagra, and a new boot lid for a Honda Legend 3.4 Coupe.

Wasnt the Summer Of Love 1988?? :)

Hope you win the world Ralph. GLGL

No, it was the year of Satanic Verses and Teenage Mutant Hero Ninja Turtles.

Doh!

Okay I guess I should spill the beans about my little problem with immigration.

After waiting in the green room over to the left hand side of the big immigration hall for about fifteen minutes while the guy in front of me was checked out the official beckons me to come over.

"Did you have a run-in with the law in 2009?" he asked. "No!" said I.

"Ahh" he said "I've got it now, you were deported from here in 1967"

Well I wasn't actually deported, I had lost my passport and had been in the country over six months and eventually did what is known as a "voluntary departure" paying my own ticket etc. but he thought that I was technically in breach of the visa waiver declaration although he could not pinpoint exactly where. In the end he was reasonable saying that he didn't think this law was meant for someone like me and stamped my form for entry.

Fortunately he was a reasonable man who used common-sense because had been an awkward jobsworth he could definitely have sent me back home which would have been more than a trifle disappointing.

I had a good day yesterday felting Tom's pal "de trapper" in the morning and booking a small win which just about covered my entry into Binion's 2pm. $100 deepstack freeze-out which had 115 runners. A decent tourney apart from the 20% house deduction from the prizepool!!! I had just got a playable stack when I ran KK  into AA effectively crippling me and I exited around 40th.

I took a break for an hour or so then got back into a decent looking $1/2 game back "home" at The Nugget buying in for $300 at about 7pm. and after originally dwindling down to $160ish I cashed out $1400 just after 11pm., trust me that is serious binkage in a $1/2 game, so I'm now back in profit for the trip thus far and feeling far better acclimatised.

I'm just going to grind cash today and the plan is to play the Venetian's $330 tomorrow.

Hasta luego.

Good to see you back in profit. I'm out there (staying downtown) end of November. Binions good tourny structure? Is GN 1/2 best cash game for a low limit grinder? Was looking to play non holdem tournys but can only find Orleans as one spreading games, you had any joy finding decent O8 or PLO?

And Brits moan at UK Cardroom charges! I often think - dream, even - of spending a few months in Vegas, just playing $100n & $200 Tourneys, but I'm pretty sure the juice would make it pretty tough.

N1 Ralph, enjoy, & win the lot.

If you see Chompy, tell him to get his finger out, too.

PS - Keep the reports coming, please.

I played my first Venetian Deepstack event of this trip yesterday, went pretty deep too.

The portents were good at the beginning of the day when after consuming "The Royal" for my breakfast (two eggs, two sausages, two strips of bacon and a short stack of pancakes with butter and maple syrup), I sat in the $1/2 at The Nugget's card room for 20 minutes and nicked $100. I then proceeded down Freemont St. to catch The Deuce bus and arrived as the last passenger to board just as it was leaving. So far so good.

When I arrived at The Venetian I got in the queue for the noon tourney and just as I approached the front desk a guy came up and asked if I wanted to buy $300 in tourney lammers for $275, I obviously snap-purchased them and felt pretty good about the day so far. I get to my table and seat three gets the button when the tourney starts and guess who's in seat three, yes me and the omens could not be better.

I t was a long hard grind with a bumper field of 424 runners and with just 60 left I got moved to the left of Scotland Stu and two more of the Scots contingent, Jim "the jacket" and David from Edinburgh were on an adjoining table. At this stage both Stuart and I had below average 50k stacks with blinds @ 2k/4k/500.

The blinds arrive and Stu and I are in them. A big stack raises from the cut-off and Stu 3-bet shoves from the SB, I look down to find AK and it's pretty much an auto-shove. Stu tables Q9o and duly spikes his Q on the flop. In the count it transpires that Stu and I have exactly even stacks and it's sayonara for me after a twelve hour shift fifteen spots short of the cash.

Good tourney though, I enjoyed it and feel like I played fairly well throughout.

All the best of luck to the Scottish lads who I hope have got through to today.

Back to the grindstone today then probably play another  $330 deepstack on Wednesday.

Hasta Luego.

more reminiscing circa 1967 pls

this please

sigh

and I was only allowed to sign him out of the home if I guaranteed he wouldn't do anything stupid.



ps gl to Dave Meyer who bids to keep scotlands dreams alive!

I'm hijacking Ralph's thread.

I got here yesterday - flight delayed 2 hours from Gatwick. I was determined to avoid the mistake I made last year (faling asleep at 8.30pm on my first night) so tried to stay awake after landing. This was helped by knowing that none other than Chis Morris was on one of the late night talk shows, so I stayed up for that. This also meant I saw Scarlett Johansson failing to play a trombone, but I fell in love with her a little bit more.

Just scooped $261 in a 7 hour session of MGM cash, now hot chocolate and bed. Will try to play tomorrow's Venetian event.

First I find out Kinboshi plays, now, just a couple of short months later, I discover AndrewT plays poker too.

Someone os going to claim Tikay plays poker too one day, and then I will know the whole thing is a level.

LOL Keith - how else do you think we'd have got here.

Played today's Venetian but AK's inability to race good v 99 means I'm here typing stuff by 4pm

Ridic.

Loving this thread and now we have Mr T there too, gets better and better.

Which page is your favourite Mo?



Come on guys, moaaaaaaaaaaaaar.

It's a Vegas thread baby so all of it....plus I enjoy both Ralph and Andrews stories. Morreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Not versus me it doesn't :(

Bugger it, I hate tourney poker sometimes it can be truly soul-destroying.

I got chipped-up early yesterday having 30k by the first break and reaching the dizzy heights of 95k when the average was 51k. My opening table could have been a calling-station's convention, it was totally unbelievable combined with the fact that a couple of times after a raise followed by a 3-bet shove I looked down to find KK which held both times.

Everything was rosy in my garden at that stage, then my table broke...

I got moved to a new table directly to the left of who was probably the chip-leader with well over 200k and there were soon three other very big stacks there too. I had gone card-dead and forced to raise-fold AT and AJ to big stacks in position. Blinds were at 3000/1500/400 and I had dwindled down to around 70k with the average now at 95k and 43 players left in, 36 of whom would cash when I find 99 in the highjack.

I open for 8k and it folds to one of the large stacks in the BB who dwell-raises a stack of red(5k) chips. I don't think I can really fold now as I feel as though I have become a bit of a target on the table and the bubble is aproaching so I stick them all-in. He tabled AK which was stronger than I was expecting and the first card out is an ugly K and that was all she wrote.

Disappointing really when things appeared to be running nicely but we all know that that is the whimsical nature of tournament poker. It still hurts though.

Big David Meyer managed a creditable 6th place finish in Monday's tourney which finished on Tuesday evening for $6k and the other four Scottish lads have gone back now. I saw AndrewT breifly at the first break yesterday and I'm sure that I'll see him again soon. No tourney for me today, will probably play Friday and then the PLO on Sunday.

Back to the grindstone then, after breakfast of course. I do love these breakfasts.

Hasta la vista.

Yesterday I did a 16 hour stint of cash at the MGM - 10.30am-2.30am for a loss of $19 (plus beer equity of about $50). Despite this it was a great session as I had a couple of beats (99 v T8 on a 79K board after oppo min c/r then 4bet with no fold equity, and two pair v up and down straight draw) which cost me a buy-in each and at one point I was stuck $500. Picked up one $150 pot bluff-raising turn v old guy who had the 'bet at me' bluff tell. Also stuck 66 in some guy's eye after I floated on A-high flop and he proudly c/f JJ face-up on turn.

After about 11pm the table got great from an entertainment viewpoint as a couple of Canadian guys joined who were great fun. All of the table chat had a 'you had to be there' quality which I could not effectively decribe here but we spent about three hours just killing ourselves laughing at stuff. I just treaded water from a poker point of view during that time as I was card-dead and the table wasn't condusive to bluffing. :)

Had an awesome dinner at Wolfgang Puck in MGM after the cash - steak skewers and incred BLT.

Today have moved house from MGM to Monte Carlo but still a bit tired from yesterday (was up from 8am yesterday and was after 4 when went to bed). Might have a bit of a lie-down before hitting the tables tonight.

Love reading these poker threads, I so much want to go one time.   Enjoy guys, looking forward to more :)

Enjoy the noise of the plumbing and the carnal activities lol!

Yeah - the toilet here is almost explosive in its flushing noise.

Anyway, just six hours of cash tonight for a rinsing of $363. Started badly (KQ < QT when he hit runner runner straight, then A7 v AJ on A537 board followed by J river) then never got going. One bluff went badly wrong - saw a flop with A4 v PF raiser. Flop was A63 and he cbet very weakly. Stacks were such my only raise was a shove and a guy behind me snapped me off with 66. Initial read was wrong anyway as PFR had AQ :(

Bad turn cost me more money when hit set with 66 on Q63 board v AA. Turn was another Q and PFR c/f as she put me on a Q - any other turn and I get paid massively. Table wasn't hugely great, plus really annoying Aussie directly on left (annoying personality-wise rather than poker-wise).

Again retreated to Wolfgang Puck for burger plus free beer following delay in burger arriving. Nearly burst out loud laughing when a party of three arrived for dinner - big fat 50ish guy (badly dressed - looked like he should be playing darts in 1983) plus two 20ish girls with dresses up their arses. Why on earth wouldn't he go get a bite to eat first, entertainment later? I set the line at $600 for the pair.

Again retreated to Wolfgang Puck for burger plus free beer following delay in burger arriving. Nearly burst out loud laughing when a party of three arrived for dinner - big fat 50ish guy (badly dressed - looked like he should be playing darts in 1983) plus two 20ish girls with dresses up their arses. Why on earth wouldn't he go get a bite to eat first, entertainment later? I set the line at $600 for the pair.
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It's VEGAS baby $600 EACH minimum

I didn't manage to play yesterday's Venetian $500 mainly due to the fact that after a hard day's grinding $1/2 at The Nugget and a few hours on Aria's $1/3 tables which seem very soft indeed, (either that or I'm running very well there) I decided to enjoy a cigar and a Henessy XO in my secret downtown cigar bar where a quadruple shot, which is almost half a brandy-glass, and a bottle of water costs an outstanding $12.

I'e had a good couple of days on the cash games despite dropping a buy-in($300) last thing Thursday night and am only down around $200 overall including tourney buyins and food/beverages etc. So I reckon I must be +c$1k.

I'm just going to grind a little more $1/2 at The Nugget for a hour or two then play Binion's $100 tourney across the street at 2pm. which despite the horrendous 20% deduction is still decent value and I've known some of the dealers for almost twenty years now.

I think that the $300 PLO on Sunday afternoon will be my next Venetian event with Monday's $300 NLH pencilled-in after that depending on how I run on Sunday.

That's all for now, it's breakfast time again.

Hasta luego muchachos.

Loving it.. x

GL Ralph really enjoying the updates.

When are you heading home buddy? Am coming back to Vegas as soon as middy busts the LA $5k, he is CL though....

Update on craps degeneracy please Ralph  :)

Coming home Wednesday evening, 8.30pm. BA flight.

Gooooooooooooooooo Middy  ;cheerleader;

Venetian Deepstack tourneys are pimping me, so far I've stumped up $1400 for four of them without cashing.

However overall that above figure is what my trip has cost me so far which means that my cash-game grinding has covered all of my day to day expenses including nice meals, many glasses of overpriced wine(they really charge a lot for anything half-decent here), a few cigars and several Hennessy XO's, so not too bad really.

I had another deepish run in yesterday's noon $350NLH exiting just before the dinner-break around 85/325, but I had a somewhat shorter run in Sunday's PLO when I made a rather spectacular 4-bet shove with my "nut" flush in a pot involving 3-way action only to run into a straight flush.

Terrible play by me in the tourney I was most looking forward to, I think Vegas has worn down some of my patience after nearly two weeks of fairly intensive poker.

Tom McEvoy was playing at the next table to me in the PLO, and JJ Lieu(sp?) was two to my left for a couple of hours yesterday. You really get a wide range of players in these events from complete donks to top professionals which makes them such a pleasure to play.

Just going to be grinding cash today before treating myself to dinner at Vic and Anthony's, the swish steakhouse in The Nugget for my farewell meal, then it'll be a little more cash tomorrow until it's time to go to the airport.

I'm about ready to come home now.

Hasta la vista.

Nice reports Ralph

V@A's is amazing don't ask for the wine menu it will take an hour to find anything less than $300 a bottle.

hope you have a result playing cash

Regards

M