The (older) boys are back in town….. yet again

My apologies for the radio silence over the last 36 hours. The run in the $10k 2-7 took it out of me both physically and emotionally. I was knackered, and certainly flat throughout yesterday. Whatever happens in the last couple of days of my trip post that event, was always likely to be an anticlimax.

That said, I have been playing some poker. Late Tuesday I had a profitable session at the uncapped $1/$2 at the MGM. Yesterday I returned that profit by bluffing a big chunk of change into top set.

Between pai gow sessions, we also made our annual pilgrimage to Craftsteak. The hunger outweighed the desire to take photos, and the food was delicious as always. My 16 oz bone-in strip was perfect, and the carrots, corn and fries were all very good. The icing on the cake was that the rungood returned for credit card roulette; thanks for picking up the tab Oscar!

Guitarist has figured out that his most profitable foray in Vegas this trip has been the Buffalo slots. Whilst we all donked around on the Sigma Derby horse racing machine after dinner, he wandered off and made $700 on Buffalo. Must be nice!

I meandered back to my room via the Mothership in the Horseshoe. Phil Ivey, Jason Mercier and Danny Wong were still trading chips as the last three standing from the $10k 2-7. The levels of exhaustion I would have been feeling had I been good enough to join them, would have been off the scale. Fair play to each of them for the levels of focus required to stay error free for so long - I am in awe. Those three still couldn’t find a winner last night so they resume later on today in an unscheduled day 4. The winner of this event will be so deserving.

Today is my last full day in Vegas and to be honest, I’m ready to head home. This trip has been a bit of a mixed bag - some highs, some lows and everything in between. I’ll update more when I’m in the airport tomorrow.

For now though, I’m hoping the players at Resorts World are going to provide the trip saving cash session my bankroll desperately needs.

And back in England.

Throughout the two weeks of playing poker in the desert, I managed to avoid being sat next to anyone that smelled bad. In the 10 hour flight, I was not so lucky. Every time the air stewards came to collect drinks cups or food trays, my neighbour would lift his arm to hand stuff across me. It was horrible.

And when he wasn’t flapping his armpits, he was breathing with his mouth wide open, polluting the air with his disgusting breath. As bad beats go, this was possibly the worst of the trip.

And on to the trip itself. Poker wasn’t kind. Cash games were a wash, courtesy of a decent win at the Bellagio in my last session of the trip. Tournaments on the other hand were a $7k loss, including my piece of the shot taking in the $10k. (Somewhat vindicated by it being won by the incredible Phil Ivey). Other leaks or major expenses from the trip were pai gow (a $1k loss) and massages (for $700).

But there were some highlights too. In no particular order, my top 3 were….

- Catching up with the boys, of course. I only get to see Nigel, Oscar and Watbri once a year and catching up with them is always great.
- Our day out to Laughlin, Hoover Dam and Primm. It was a fab day, as I have already outlined earlier
In this trip report.
- The shot taken at the $10k 2-7 TD. That was a very memorable experience and having late reg’d, I went a lot further than I thought. Ultimately though, this ended in disappointment but a massive thanks to the investors, especially Ryan, for making this happen.

And finally, some thoughts on Las Vegas. This was my 23rd trip to the bright lights and whilst it has rarely been cheap, it has become brutally expensive. I accept this to some extent, but it seems as if the city has lost all sense of shame with the blatant profiteering. $52 plus taxes for a whole pizza, $18 plus taxes for a crepe and $10 a go for coffee is shameless.

I do love the addition of the Sphere to the skyline and am excited about the coming additions of the Hard Rock’s guitar hotel and the baseball stadium. Recent hotel openings are all a bit same ol’, same ol’. Fountainebleau is nice, but not nicer than the Wynn, Bellagio, Aria, Cosmo or Resorts World. It is just another luxury hotel and a little out of the way. But the coming additions will add colour and differentiation and I think Vegas will be better for them.

Lastly, a few thoughts on poker, and specifically the low stakes cash games. These tables play very loose, and looser than I remember them being before. This means the games are good of course, but only if you are making hands in the sessions. They should be long term profitable but they are higher variance, and if you only flop one set in two weeks as I did, it doesn’t do much for the bankroll.

Bellagio and Wynn have always been my favourite poker rooms to play, but I will now add Resorts World to that list. The service is excellent, the room is spacious and the chairs very comfortable. However, when we went up there mid-morning this week, there were no games yet running. And that brings me on to my final point…..

Whilst numbers at the WSOP may be ok, the poker rooms were noticeably quieter than during other WSOP years. Resorts World, Caesars, Bellagio and Wynn all had dealers commenting on the shortage of players compared to expectations. This could be a reflection on the economic times in which we live, or an insight into the lower stakes poker economy, the impact of Vegas’s pricing models, or just coincidence, but whatever the reason, it was a surprise. The silver lining of course is that wait times were much shorter and it was quicker getting into a game.

That’s it for another year. I still very much love Vegas, despite it feeling as if Vegas doesn’t reciprocate quite like it has on previous years. A week or two there is significantly more expensive than it used to be (poker aside) but it is still a magical and unique city and I’ll certainly be Jonesing for a return by this time next week.

Thanks for following along, for the encouragement when I took my shot, and for the general positivity during the last fortnight. I wish you all the best of rungood at the physical and online felt, and all being well, we’ll be back for more of the same in 2025.

Peace.

Thanks again, Doc. I especially enjoyed your final thoughts/reflections here. I'm not surprised to hear the cash game action was a bit lighter this year in terms of players....right now (at least in the US) there is a quiet recession going on. The job market is awful, companies are continuing to lay people off following the sluggish earnings from post COVID - amazing the effects are still having on the economy nearly 4 years later - it's incredible. While the stock market keeps plugging along, that is certainly not an economic indicator of wealth or prosperity for the vast majority of folks, most of who would be playing 1-2, 2-5, even 5-10 poker or being able to even take the trip to get there in the first place. Inflation still running hot, wages stagnant and cost of living high. To your point, Vegas continues to jack up the price of everything also, and the hotel rooms are much much less affordable these days generally speaking on strip. Flights are expensive etc. I'm interested to see how it is this week when I'm there.

Great recap, I agree with you on a lot of those points.

Thanks for sharing, Dunc.

While the $10k 2-7 didn't go how you would have wanted, just crossing that off the list and playing it seems like a notable memory.

Agree with you on the low stakes games. The biggest leak of this population is that they can't fold reasonable showdown value, but you can't exploit that leak unless you can actually make the best hand. So while it's the lowest and softest level, it might also be the most deck-dependent.

Interesting observations on player turnout. I suspect it's a confluence of multiple variables. The extreme price gouge of Vegas probably figures heavily. As I plan my own schedule for later this month, I wonder if it's worthwhile to play something like a $250 tournament when booking a $250 win would barely cover my overhead for that night. Between the cost of hotels and food, you are probably looking at a minimum of $100-150 per day to exist in Vegas. And that's if you do everything cheaply. It's easy to justify that if you're playing high stakes where you can win a lot of money in a single session, but not so much if you are grinding $80 pots in 1/3.

The constant gouge anywhere and everywhere means you are always swimming against the money current. That's not inviting for the budget customer.

I love Vegas, but it's very annoying how expensive it has gotten - in all categories. Eventually they might price me out as well, at least to the point where I have to consider alternative options for lodging and move play over to smaller properties instead of the big corporations. But that's another discussion.

Thanks for the report, DD. I agree that Vegas has become very expensive.

I'm still curious about this, though.

Yes, Vegas had been getting more expensive every year, but it took a quantum leap last year during the F1 race. Many thousands for a race ticket, rooms 3 or 4 thousand per night, you would think Vegas couldn't look you in the face while demanding those prices. But, like politicians, it has no shame whatsoever.

I'm in Vegas right now, and I made a thread about the shorter lists. It seems like the low-stakes players have a limit as to what they will put up with, and for many, it's been reached. Had I not been comped and/or received discounts on a lot of things for being Diamond at CET, these trips were unaffordable for me. I'm not having a lot of fun with the poker right now, in part because of my poor play. In recent years I kept wondering if I should pull the plug on the WSOP, maybe this is the year. It's not a trivial decision, because I have to put in enough play to maintain my card status for next year, on THIS trip, while the tier credit multiplier is in effect. That could be a thousand bucks or more saved by NOT gambling for the card status.

I'm not sure you can even call it a leak. It seems like an adjustment to the super bluffy nature of people watching streaming games everywhere. Sure, those are mega-nosebleed stakes, why shouldn't those same tactics work on nitty 1/3 players? Not necessarily my opinion but maybe of those guys doing it?

Sorry Sheep86, I don’t recall playing with this guy.

I think this is the reality for a lot of people and maybe the decision makers will realise this too. That said, even if they do, I doubt it would lead to a period of deflation for Vegas - more likely that they’d just not inflate for 12 months or so.

Thanks again for the TR, Dunc. Great wrap-up. Agree with the thought on Vegas' pricing. Miss the old strip-mall places where water/snacks/a slice weren't ridiculously priced.

another +1 to expensive Vegas thoughts. I’m worried if it’s got more expensive since the Grand Prix - I was there last wsop and didn’t think it could get any worse