The Final Chapter –

Conference ended Thursday so I now have Friday and Saturday wide open to spend as I wish. My wife wakes up with a horrible tooth ache (which turns out later to be a sinus infection). It is too cold to hang out by the pool and she doesn’t feel well so we decide to walk to the Mirage. I want to check out their room (based on LVM’s great descriptions of it) and am also hoping we might run into him so we can say Hi. Unfortunately, once we get there I ask around and find out LVM left earlier in the morning due to wedding-related plans for the day. On a good note though, we both really liked the Mirage. Per LVM, the location is great (situated in the middle of the casino for easy walk-ups) and the level of play was below average. In fact, one guy at our table had clearly NEVER played before. It did not take him long to lose his $100 buy-in (mostly to my wife). Me? I continued to run kind of poor and managed to somehow lose $60 during the five hours we played there. Not a lot of excitement with the hands that occurred there I just kept missing every flop and didn’t attempt many bluffs as the table was mostly calling stations. I only saw a pair over 99s once and it was against my wife. Preflop I raised in early position to $10. One player calls and my wife calls as well in the small blind. The flop comes out Q-J-10. I can’t remember if it was rainbow or not. My wife leads out for $20. Thinking she won’t bet with anything less than AQ (including a draw) I just call and the other player folds. The turn and river brick as we both check it down. We both flip over two KKs. Nice! We both liked the room and plan on playing there again next trip. Seems to be run well and the action is good. I can see why LVM likes it.

We decide to move on, catch some food, and head back closer to the hotel. We end up eating at MGM, but both of us aren’t feeling well so we decide to take a nap and then hit the MGM poker room late night. I think we sleep a few hours and make it back to MGM around midnight or so.

We put our names on the $1/$2 list and hang out. I glance around the room and notice an impeccably dressed man sitting at the $1/$2 table closest to the podium. He’s all decked out in splendor. He honestly looks like a gangster from the 30s. Hair tied back neatly in a pony tail, suit, cuff links, white shoes, etc. It all looks pretty slick. I say to my wife, “That guy looks like the Duke.” She asks who is the Duke. I explain it to her (for those who don’t know who the Duke is go check out some of Sam’s stories in the “Tales of Las Vegas” discussion forum.

http://www.allvegaspoker.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=29

She then tells me to look at the screen for $2/$5 interest. It says “The Duke”. No way! I tell her that I thought the Duke only played downtown (where he could buy in unlimited and show how much money he has). My wife tells me to go ask the podium if that is the Duke. I ask, they say yes and tell me I should say Hi and that he would appreciate it. Anyways, I look towards the Duke. He has a beautiful mound of chips in front of him, a perfectly balanced pyramid structure that appears to contain about $600 (at the $1/$2 $300 max). I slowly approach. He sees me. I ask politely, “Are you the Duke?”. He replies, “Why yes I am and how did you know?” and stands up. I tell him I have read about him. He asks, “where?” I say in Sam O’Connor’s stories. He says, “Oh. Sam. Good to hear.” Or something like that. I can’t remember exactly because I am so excited to meet him. Everything about the Duke is majestic from his clothes and his style down to his manners and affable smile. I stand there like a giddy schoolboy and shake his hand. He says “Very nice to meet you.” He hands me his business card and then says, “Call me if you ever need anything.” I look at his business card and decide that if anybody hits a one outer on me my last two days in Vegas, I know who to call. Below’s a picture of his card. I apologize for the glare on the photo. I assure you the actual card is glossy and very professional looking. Apparently, if you ever need someone murdered gangster style The Duke is willing to oblige. I pocket his card wondering if I might need his services later.

Shortly thereafter, we both get seated at two separate tables. Two players at the table immediately recognize me and say Hi. I immediately decide this is probably a bad thing and decide to move to my wife’s table (bad decision). She is in Seat 9 and I get seated in Seat 10. About 10 hands in my wife loses her entire stack when her nut flush gets beaten by a disguised four of a kind on the river. Villain flopped a set and she flopped the nuts. Villain hits his four of a kind on the river and scoops a $700 pot. My wife rebuys for another $300. The bad news is she goes on to lose another $200. The good news is I actually think she played really well. In fact, she opened her game up and bluffed successfully a couple times. She just hit a bad run of cards. I suspect some of her husband’s incessant daily nighttime babbling about poker strategy has worn off on her. Meanwhile, I am leaking chips. I have taken a couple ill-fated stabs at pots while consistently missing every flop possible. Upon hindsight, I picked the wrong table. Seats 7 and 8 weren’t drinking and were extremely solid (though we enjoyed their company). The rest of the table came and went. We didn’t change tables because we didn’t want to get broken up. Anyways, after about five hours of fun our end of the table decides to all call it a night. I slowly leaked chips and ended up losing $310. However, I met the Duke so it was well worth the visit.

Friday Results: lost $60 at the Mirage and lost $310 at MGM, wife wins $200 at the Mirage, but loses $500 at MGM
Running Summary
Cash down $142
Tourneys won $444
Wife: down $320

We sleep about five hours and then get moving Saturday morning. TBC sent me a PM on Friday asking if I was coming downtown. I tell him I am staying on the strip but can meet up if he is in the area. We settle on meeting at Imperial Palace around 5pm. My wife is still feeling like complete hell and plans on hanging out at the pool till we leave for IP. I, of course, decide to play more poker and head over to the MGM. I play about four hours and end up winning $126. No big hands, no big losses, no crazy bluffs. Pretty standard. I head back to the room. We get dressed and start walking to IP. My wife is feeling like death incarnate at this point. I suggest a cab but she prefers to walk. I say we can just hang out in the room but she would rather just suffer in public. We have to stop and let her rest a few times along the way but eventually make it to IP around 5:40pm. There is one $1/$2 going and it is full. I immediately recognize TBC and walk over to say hello. I introduce my wife and tell him that she is feeling sick and is going to go lie down on one of the massage chairs. I walk my wife to the massage chairs upstairs to relax. I tell her to text or call me if she needs anything and head back down to the poker room.

I talk to Tony while I wait for a spot to open up. Eventually a new table opens and we both move over to it. After about an hour my wife comes down and joins us at well (I can’t begin to describe how lucky I got to marry her. She is a real trooper!). The table at IP was easily the worst I encountered during my trip. There was one guy in seat 10 who was solid but very tight (Dave another nice, fellow AVPer from Connecticut. Hi Dave! Great meeting you!). Tony was in seat 9, I was in seat 8, my wife was in seat 4 and the rest of the table was a mix of truly horrid players that were coming and going (including one guy who had never played before, another guy who would call down with a matchstick and a napkin and several other typical passive players). I managed to crack someone else’s AAs for a change when I flopped a set of 88s. Unfortunately, my opponent only had about $140 but I was happy. Sadly, I botched a hand later on and gave all of it back. Seat 1 was playing a lot of hands and generally had no clue. After a bunch of limpers I raised on the button to $12 with A9 ( I was playing very LAGgy as it was easy to read folks post flop). Flop comes A-2-2. Villain leads out for $15 into the flop. I read this as weakness and raise to $50. Villain calls. I can’t remember the actual turn and river cards but I end up calling a $25 bet on the turn and then a $20 bet on the river. I get shown AJ and pay him off. The bets were so small I couldn’t help but calling. My big mistake was the raise on the flop. It had no purpose as I should have just smooth called down at best. A reraise on the flop scares away the hands I beat and only serves the purpose to build a big pot with a marginal hand. At the time I knew he was scared of my hand. For some dumb reason I put his range wide enough for my A9 to be ahead. Oh well, but I disgress again. Many of you want to hear about Tony.

My thoughts on Tony's play… He does an good job with his preflop selection. He also showed a real good feel when he got his stack in with a full house against a made flush when the turn made both hands (he knew villain had a flush...though granted all the money was probably going in anyways). I thought he made one bad call with his 1010s into a completed board that had a pair and an ace and no draws on the flop. A bluff by Villain did not make sense to me. This was only a $25 call so it was marginal. I didn't see any real bad plays, but Tony never was on tilt. The thing I did notice is that tony is relatively easy to read. I'm sure we all expected that. However, I don't think this is a big deal at IP or Osheas or Bills where people just aren't paying attention. I think Tony could be a winning player as a regular at IP if only because the average player there is so bad. Plus, his tight/aggressive style suits that game as most players are buying in for $100 or $150 and are scared to commit their stacks.

I also noticed that Tony is continuously obsessed with how much he is up or down (it has to affect his play). I don't think he's capable of looking at anything long term (probably related to his autism). Last thing I will say is that I was pleasantly surprised talking to Tony. I wasn't annoyed at all and enjoyed playing with him. I do think that most of Tony's attributes that sometimes annoy others are COMPLETELY out of his control. I don't think he's capable of controlling his emotions if he wanted to. I don't think he is ever capable of understanding Britni for who she is. Tony sees Britni as a friend so that is all that matters. Tony is in the here and now and always will be. He plays poker, he sometimes gets upset and he gives money to scammers like Britni. Nothing is going to change. I'm not saying autism is an excuse but this is who he is and I can accept that. Here’s an interesting hand involving Tony that I posted in the strategy forum.

http://www.allvegaspoker.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=12265

I HIGHLY recommend IP. It was easily the worst collection of players I faced in my 8 days in Vegas. We would have stayed longer but my wife was exhausted and sick. On a good note, she won $335 while sitting at the same table (sick as a dog to boot). I managed to lose $67 as once again I kept getting my money in good and getting drawn out on.

Here’s a picture of Tony shortly after he doubled his stack up to around $600.

So the wife and I decide to leave IP and call it a night. As we are passing O’Sheas on the walk home, a short man dressed entirely in green confronts us and shouts, “Hey buddy, are you interest in a duck?” I pull him aside and tell him, “Not this time. Can’t you see my wife is with me?” I then say, “Check with me next year.” Looks like I have about 350 days till I return to Vegas .

Saturday Results: won $126 at MGM, lost $67 at Imperial Palace
Wife won $335 at Imperial Palace

Final Tally:
Wife wins about $15
Cash down $79
Tourneys won $444

Normally I would write a final summary of what I learned in Vegas but I’m tired of writing at this point so instead I’m going to provide some quick thoughts.

- Not as many drunk people or fools willing to throw their money around. However, there is still tons of bad play.
- NLHE is all about winning big pots. I felt like I played really well but I failed to get any of those magical nuts vs near nuts hands that pay off so nicely. Instead I often found myself on the other end of it. In fact, I don’t recall another time where I ran into so many flopped sets when I had big pairs. I really only hate how I played on two hands… though I did get caught bluffing here and there. I ran pretty well online during February and March before I left for Vegas so I suspect it finally caught up with me.
- If you play a solid tight patient game you can profit at $1/$2 NLHE in Vegas. However, the real money is made by getting into flops cheaply and knowing when to pick your spots and build big pots or pull off big bluffs. (this is still a work in progress for me)
- I vow to play more at IP next time.
- I really enjoyed meeting a bunch of fellow AVPers. Next time I hope to run into more local AVPers if they will allow it.
- I actually left out a lot of hands and stories. Vegas is so much fun and so easy to write about. However, I am happy to come home to my steady job and loving family.

Thx for reading everyone!!!.