Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

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The Golden Nugget cardroom really is one of THE most pleasant cardrooms I've ever been in. Not as well-appointed or furnished as, say, DTD, Venetian, Wynn, the (now closed) Aviation in Paris or some of the Grosvenors, admittedly, but everything about it is near perfect.

Big high ceiling (in USA-speak it's technically a ballroom), perfect light levels (it seems like natural light but it's not), loads of space, it's just a relaxed & comfy room to play in. I think it's just the ambience created by the high ceiling & wonderful light levels.

It just relaxes you to play in there.

There was a Seniors Tournament in progress, & I struggled to recognize anyone with the obvious exception of Greg Raymer, who had quite a bunch of chips when I saw him.

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By a remarkable coincidence I was seated next to a British chap, Danny Newman.

His Hendon has cashes dating back to around 1992, with results all over the UK including the long-defunct Rainbow, London, Vegas, Paris, I.O.M., and a handful of WSOP cashes including an 8th place in a $3000 Omaha 8 or Better WSOP affair no less than 28 years ago.

https://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=568


The weird thing is I've never once seen him in the UK, but see him every year here. He has family here but he still lives in the UK.

Note the happy Dealer too. It's that kind of place.

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After all that scene-setting, I don't have too much to report about the Tournament.

We started with 30,000, & at the first break I had 37,200, 2nd break 54,500, 3rd break 83,000 (blinds now 2k-2k/1k) before progressing further to briefly rise above 100,000.

After Danny, to my immediate left, departed, I was badly handcuffed in the PLO orbits by a really good PLO lad who FT'd for 6 figures in a WSOP $5k PLO a fortnight ago, & he took Danny's seat. I just could not handle him in PLO, he raised & re-raised relentlessly and had well over 300,000 which was triple average at the time. In a way, a delight to watch, he always knew where he was in a hand, & played what were, to me, some weird combos & had great PLO imagination, which I lack. If I had found the right PLO hand I'd have gone to war with him happily, but I didn't.  So I concentrated on the Big O orbits once he started getting all aggro, I know where I am in a hand much better in Big O.

But after proudly topping 100,000 I'm not sure I won another hand.

I did just about smell the money, but was getting short so went for a Big O flip (A-2-7-J-Q) only to run into our man who flopped trip Kings v me on a high only board (pre-flop a flip) & that was that, 16 places paid & I was going home 24th of 103. Nothing to be proud of or ashamed of. 

Decent effort, but continues the trend of deep but not deep enough.

Very enjoyable though, tempered only by digging my 2026 Vegas hole $400 deeper. At least I swerved a rebuy. Gotta take the positives...