Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

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So, Day 1 was the $800 PLO8 @ Venetian.

The "new" Venetian cardroom is an absolute beaut, plenty of room to move about, luxury chairs, charging points at every seat, & really good & bright lighting. Oddly, it's not exactly in Venetian, it's really upstairs from Palazzo in the Olde Canal Shoppes.  

Anyway, regged in plenty of time & off we go.

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Bump into a couple of familiar faces before we start, Rob Price & Pete Wigglesworth.

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Only recognize 1 player at my table, Ivo Donev, who I know from 20 years or more ago.

He has a few dozen WSOP cashes & a WSOP Bracelet which he won in 2000. He's also a Chess whizz, an "International Master" or somesuch. Lives in Austria but is a Bulgarian. That's him in the blue, next to the Dealer.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivo_Donev

https://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=71

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He's a horribly abrasive & small-minded man who dislikes me, & the feeling is distinctly mutual. And I know it will soon kick off between us, despite my best intentions not to get involved in any bad blood at the table. He's the sort who can start an argument in an empty room & we have a lot of history.

Early doors & we play a small pot which is checked down, it's a chop & the Dealer splits the pot.

3 hands later he suddenly complains that the Dealer short-changed him by 100 chips. Imagine starting an argument over 100 chips....

I have no idea if he's right or wrong, nor does anyone else, but he's getting very agitated now. I cba with all this & toss him a 100 chip across the table with a bit of a cutting comment, "there you go sunshine, happy now?" sort of thing. He gives me the mother of all dead eyes & I know trouble is brewing...

But not a problem, as he tilts off his entire stack the very next hand with an inexplicably poor play & he's history. I just about resist the temptation to give him a send-off.

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The first few levels go rather well. Plenty of playable hands, & I was feeling strangely confident & self assured.

I make a few decent calls, am surprisingly & unusually aggro, & almost before we've started, the first break is on us. Average stack is 38,000 & I'm just shy of 60,000 in 11th place.

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A chap named TSZ Philip Shing joins us now. Good posture & body language & supremely confident, but never speaks a word.

I Hendon him & not surprised to see he's a bit of a hottie.



https://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=440560

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I continue to accumulate chips, & pretty soon I'm north of 80,000...

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This is not going to end well....

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And then it happens.....

I don't need to educate anyone here on how fast things can change in MTT's.

I get in a hand & flop the nut low & wheel draw. Bet, call.

Turn brings me the wheel & nut flush draw in spades. Bet again, he 3 bets, & in a flash all the chips are in the middle.

He has the wheel too, so we both have half the pot locked. 1 of us will get three quarters, one of us a quarter.

I just need to swerve a 6, unless it's the 6 of spades, as he has a 7 high straight draw. If the 6 misses & the spade misses I get three quarters. A spade gives me three quarters too.

It's a red 6, & suddenly my lovely stack is decimated & I have to settle for a quarter, & I'm down amongst the dead men...

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.

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This is not going to end well....

 

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I'm not going to blind off, time to find a spot quickly & try to get lucky.

A-2-K-J is a beautiful flipping hand & I try to iso the opener, but to my horror, 2 others come along & we're 4 way, I miss the High & get counterfeited on the low. Nice if we get there, but we don't.

Disappointed, obviously, but really pleased with how I played, & I enjoyed it immensely.

The problem of course when we build a stack is it is good play, or just run-good? It's hard to be objective & judge fairly. We'll never know, but in this case I fancy a bit of both. 

So that was that, $800 in the hole.

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From Venetian, I drove across to The Orleans to Late Reg the $240 Omaha 8/Stud 8.

Ran a nice stack up early again, over 80,000 from 30,000 starting, but hard to know where I stood as they were not updating the Plasma - this had to be wrong...

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Lost a bit of patience after that, & made several bad calls in the Stud 8 Rounds. Maybe too tired, more likely my Stud game is not up to scratch.

Soon it was gg, & now I'm $1,040 ($800 + $240) in the hole.

Back to my room with a foot long Subway & a choc ice, fell asleep on the sofa reading my book.

Today it's just a little $200 O8 over at South Point, with a 2pm start.