Our Hero's stats for the trip going into Day 3:
+$103 poker, -$20 other bets

Some foreshadowing… either I need to play more sober poker or I just got lucky today. I suspect the truth is somewhere in between.

Last night I made it safely to bed at around 5 in the morning. I wake up at 8am and shower then head out to qualify and play in the 11am Hard Rock Free Roll tournament. When I exit my room, I notice there is a stairwell right to the left. I decide this must be a shortcut that will get me to the Hard Rock faster. I ignore the crazy printing on the door, open the stairwell and go down to the bottom floor. I find the exit. This time I notice the sign on the door which says something along the line of “Opening door will sound alarm at main station.” I then vaguely recall that you can’t go up the stairs at Imperial Palace because the stairwall doors lock behind you. I decide I have no choice. I fling open the door and enter the alley like an escaped prisoner. Luckily, although there might be an alarm off somewhere at a main station, there’s no alarm going off in my vicinity. I walk down a narrow hallway towards a gate. I get to the gate and guess what??? Yes, the gate door is locked. In front of me is 15 foot high fence. Of course, I scale it. Problem is I’m not very agile after 3-4 hours of sleep and 5-7 tequilla shots the night before. I manage to get caught on the chain links and cut my palm a little bit. No big deal. Funny part is I just scaled a fence near one of the entrances so several people are staring at me. I shrug (because I can’t think of anything else to do) and start walking towards the Hard Rock.

Actually, I’m not feeling too bad considering all of the tequila shots I have done the past two days. I did manage to sneak lots of water in between most of the shots. I highly recommend that if you are going to foolishly drink to excess, you make sure you drink plenty of water… especially if you are 40. In lieu of this, I decide today is going to be a sober day. Actually, the real reason is I have a work conference to attend over the next four days. I am here for work not poker… remember? Ha!

I get to the Hard Rock at about 9:30am and sit down in the cash game. 10 or so hands in the following occurs. (please see my strategy post for the details -> http://www.allvegaspoker.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=8299&st=0&sk=t&sd=a). Summary is I get dealt two Qs. Flop is all spades including a Q. I end up all in against two other players. One of the players has me beat with a flush draw and the other is trailing. I then hit the magical Ace on the turn to get a full house and rake a $700 pot. Great start to the day.

During the cash game, I end up setting next to a guy I met the day before. I ask him what he does for a living. “Oh, nothing much, I just make porno movies”. Pretty sure he was telling the truth as he talks about the side benefits of his job (please use your imagination here). Anyways, I thought I was living the life getting paid to be in Vegas while attending a work conference. Apparently not. This guy is the one who is really living the life. Kudos to him. I hope he does not go the way off John Holmes at a young age.

Anyways, I manage to rake in an extra $510 from the cash game by the time the free roll starts. Today’s tourney has about 20 players again. We get down to 10 players and the chop the cash conversations begin. A couple people say no. We get down to 6 people and I am one of the shortest stacks with about 10 times the big blind left. I have shoved a couple times without callers. I am in the big blind. A tight player limps in and the small blind calls. I act like I look at my cards and shove. I then actually look at them while they decide if they are going to call. Hmmm… nice 6-2 offsuit. They both fold. Next hand someone gets knocked out. Someone proposes a $200 each chop. Obviously I am all for it. Porno guy is the chip leader, but we talk him into chopping. I am quite happy to chop as I had been long relegated to shoving and hadn’t seen a real hand in a while.

I head to the work conference to try and register and check out the events. I discover that the only sessions open for the day are for full attendees. Unfort, I only have a free pass. I “accidentally” try to walk into one of the sessions, but get stopped by the door man. Oh well, I guess there is only thing left for me to do…. Nap! (you thought I was going to say play more poker didn’t you??).

My plan is to rest up and then try my luck at the 8pm Excalibur WSOP satellite buy in. Entry fee is $80 and winner gets a free spot in the $1500 tourney. I take a short nap, shower, and head over to Excalibur. I am feeling lucky and like my chances as there are only about 60 people entered. I get seated at my table and immediately have mixed feelings when I recognize one of the other players at the table, Micon. He’s the pro who wears the visor. I think he’s in his late twenties or so. I say mixed feelings because I had high hopes of getting seated with players worse than me. Obviously, no chance of that with him at the table. On the other hand, kind of cool to play with/against him. We chat it up and he laughs at some of my terrible jokes.

But guess what happens?? Exactly what should happen. Micon doubles up early and proceeds to build a big stack. I fold 73 hands in a row and find myself with only about 12 big blinds. Actually, I play some hands and push a couple limpers out of pots with garbage. Unfort I am mostly card dead for the tourney and get caught when I shove my 10-2 offsuit into the tightest player at the table who shows 10-10. Anybody want to do the stats on my chances of winning? Excalibur shows them electronically. I want to say it said 7% preflop, then 1% on the flop, followed by negative 5% on the turn, then you lose after the river. I walk over to the front desk and ask them how much I win for placing 43rd out of 60 people?? The lady looks at me like I just stole her purse and says, “Nothing. You have to finish in the top 5”. Oh, bummer!

Side Note: I watch the end of the tourney. Micon gets heads up against another guy. I might have the exact details wrong , but it goes something like this. Micon is trailing in chips about 3 to 2 when he raises on the button and gets re-raised all in by the other player. He is semi pot-committed, shrugs, and calls hoping for a race. Unfort. the opponent shows two 10s which hold up. I feel bad as Micon is a very likeable, laid back, nice guy. I doubt he was that enthused about placing 2nd and winning $100 or so instead of the $1500 tourney spot. I am now a Micon fan and will be cheering for him in future tourneys.

I play a sit and go and come in 2nd place (which I think paid about 15 cents). I then decide to sit down at the .50/$1 NL electronic tables. I actually really like the electronic tables as it makes it easier for me to follow the hands plus you can go back and look at previous hands and stats. At the same time, you still get the social aspects of being able to chat with others while playing. If you don’t know me or haven’t figured it out by now, I enjoy hearing myself talk while playing poker. Actually, I just enjoy chatting it up in general.

I have a new strategy for my cash game play. I enjoyed showing my bluffs yesterday so much that I have decided that for the rest of the trip I am going to play any 7-2 pre-flop and post-flop just like I would A-A (unless a real Ace peels off). And when I do, win or lose I am going to show the 7-2 to see if I can get people out of their comfort zone. This is going to be fun!!! It works as I manage to show the bluff and then a little later get a big hand which gets paid off by someone who thinks I’m bluffing. You can fold 20 hands in a row then finally raise, but people will still remember that one time you showed 7-2.

I then decide to play like a maniac and start playing a lot of flops. This is a lot of fun and I manage to turn my $100 into about $262 due to some luck while managing to dodge any real trouble. At one point, I glance at my session stats and it says I have seen 63 of the 57 flops for a 105% flop rate. Pretty sure that is what it said. Does that qualify as loose aggressive?

Anyways, I play till about 1am in the morning and decide to call it a night. This time since it is only 1am and I am not drunk, I decide not to run/jog all the way back to the hotel. Besides, I think I have a blister from all the walking I’ve done the past two days plus my palm is cut from my recent wall scaling adventure. The real truth is I decided to maximize my time by buying a 3 day tran pass since the conference is all the way over at Mandalay Bay and I will be trekking back and forth during the week.

PS. If there are any AVPers in town, look for the guy named Paul who has the sucker button as a chip protector. I’ll be here till Sunday morning.

Stats for the day:
+$510 at early morning HR cash game
+$160 for HR tourney (I gave a nice tip, plus buy in was $10)
-$80 excalibur satellite tourney
+$45 excalibur sit-n-go
+$162 excalibur cash game

Overall Stats for the day: +$797 poker, no other bets
Overall Stats for the trip: +$900 poker, -$20 other bets (still no silly bets on craps, blackjack, strippers or hookers)

Next up Sober Tuesday. It’s almost 3am in the morning and I need to get up early for the work conference. I have jotted down my notes from the day and will write up the report some other time. However, I will give you a little tease of what happens by saying “I am now considering whether I should ever drink while playing poker again.” Of course, I don’t really mean that…