PardoG's Annual WSOP TR (6/16-6/22)
Well, well, well! Hello friends. It's TR season and that WSOP summertime is upon us once again.
My June trip marks my 29th visit to Las Vegas, and my 19th summer WSOP trip. Have been out every summer each year for the past 21 years except COVID (2020) and the year after COVID (2021). Yes, that's right friends, my inaugural WSOP trip was indeed 2003, and well, you know what happened that year. For any of you who follow me on Twitter (probably not many), you'll recognize in my bio that I hold the claim to fame of beating Chris Moneymaker at a final table in an epic 45 minutes heads up battle, this was obviously not in 2003, and it was certainly not a notable event, but rather a 109 entry $300 dollar private club home game tournament. Nonetheless, that was an amazing poker fanboy experience and some say I shouldn't even ask for any WSOP tourney success since I've already had a poker fan dream of sorts once already. Pffft. The cat is not satisfied. Since my witness of Chris's epic run in 2003, fate has brought Chris and I together once since then, and I remain unable to escape poker's unrelenting grip.
A couple of years ago I broke my TR cherry, and then followed it up with another report in 2023. Links below for those who care to skim through to get a feel if you like the cut of my jib. For those unfamiliar, and not compelled to revisit history, here is typically what you can expect from a Pardo,G. trip report:
-Lot's of cash game poker (I started in tournaments like many, but been primarily a cash game player for a long time). PLO is the drug of choice, but of course we play 2 card chicken (aka the thing you humans call NL texas hold em), and we most certainly dabble in mixed games wherever and whenever we can. 1-2, 2-5, 5-5, and even some 5-10 (if you're lucky).
-I will certainly fire SOME tournament(s) - have to give the people what they want. Most likely 1100 Wynn Turbos, 800 Aria Daily, potentially 1K PLO at WSOP - the only event going on the week I am there I feel like playing
-Pit degeneracy - Coffee and Blackjack is often a theme for me as an early riser from the US east coast, and to mix things up. I will probably spin the devils wheel a bit, and maybe even throw them bones.
-Fancy Feast - Food, Food and more food - one of my favorite parts about vegas is the food.
-Wildcards - past reports included things like high roller, Meowolf's omega mart/Area 51, Planet 13 to get us LIFTED, comedy shows/Cirque shows etc. Gotta mix some stuff in
-Loafing - as a high end cat, I enjoy the occasional spa treatment, maybe a grooming, a little shopping for the mate etc.
This year, as every year for the past 10 years or so, we'll be staying at the Encore. For me, WynnEncore second to none, and we must indulge - plus love the PLO there and the tournies. Background about me can be find in the previous reports but Married, 2 kids, BIG corporate job, yet still a slave - working towards early retirement and a life of leisure hopefully between 55-60. We'll see. For poker trips I'm almost always exclusively solo, and will be again for this one. This is one of my shorter trips sadly, only 6 nights (used to go for 2 weeks, nowadays lucky to get away for just the week). Plan to get back to longer trips as the kids get older hopefully.
2022
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/108/l...
2023
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/108/l...
Looking forward to sharing this years trip with y'all - let's enjoy the ride together.
PardoG
Wild game so far….
Here’s a big one - V is a guy with money, or appears to be anyway lol….comes from 5/10 with his girlfriend.
We have previous history as I got three streets on him with AK for a $300 dollar pot, and his girlfriend with AK for a $130 dollar all in on an AQ3 flop after I checked it over to her etc.
Guy puts the straddle on the button so I’m in the big blind with QQ with about $600 and he’s got $400 after he topped off from the last hand I got him, so this is a perfect set up, I raise to $25, he just piles his entire stack in lol and I snap ….he actually has AK which is way more than I give him credit for there and we hold for a nice one.
More action!
V in this hand is really hard to read….i can’t tell if he’s good or terrible he’s been felted twice, once jamming the flop with a flush draw which was clearly a spew, but then the other he had QQ and ran into AA. He strikes me as someone who has basic understanding of the game but not really relative hand strengths and reading situations etc. but he also folds a lot so idk maybe a good tag?
Anyway Hero($1000) 8c7c UTG opens to $12, girlfriend calls, V ($380 ish) makes it $40, I call, girlfriend calls.
Flop ($120)
Qc9c5s
Hero check, girlfriend check, V bet $60, Hero raises to $300 putting V all in, girlfriend folds, guy almost folds then calls with…A9? Hmm ….board bricks out and we lose a chunk there.
Then Hero ($600 ish) open J9ss to $12 from MP, call and old lady reg who is paying $200 makes it 30, I call, Mp calls.
Flop ($90)
765ss
Lady bets $50, and we know she has a good hand but we can’t fold now and with A9 boy behind us we decide to just call as it’s the right price and to see if we can get some more money in the pot and A9 guy also calls.
Turn ($240)
4x
Woman now freezes lol, so we of course bomb $120 , A9 guy snap mucks, and lady literally almost folds for only 100 left, but eventually calls - no 8, no spade and we lose another one woof.
We then get $200 back when we make broadway with KQ vs AA for a nice $400 ish pot.
We rack up with a +$270
Dollar win, which isn’t the +600 I peaked at but if one of those big flush draws/straight draws went my way it’s a whole different session obviously and it’s too bad I didn’t win at least one of them but no rest of the weary , back to the Wynn. It’s PLO time. Games should be decent right now 4 tables going!
Fight the battle, brother!!!
Love to see the 1/3 sessions at Resorts World. If you can make hands there, you're almost guaranteed to win heaps of money.
We grinded the 1/3 PLO hard last night until about midnight but the game wasn't ever that good, the other tables had mostly regs so unfortunately, this was probably the worst game conditions for PLO I've seen in awhile there. I didn't have the energy to play through the night and the game almost certainly would have improved between 1am to 4am but just couldn't do it. In the end we leave -$20 so essentially break even and there was really nothing of note at all to report. Although I was pretty hungry I haven't been sleeping much at all and I figured I'd try to go to bed without eating to see if that would help me get to sleep and lo and behold that did do the trick as we got 5 solid hours which after sleeping 2.5 the night before, and 3.5 the night before that, I'll certainly take it. Overall, a down day yesterday results wise but overall not down too bad at all and we have two full days to grind and take shots here are the totals:
Wednesday:
Cash Games Total: -$90
Video Poker: -$100
Casino War: $150
Blackjack: -$100
Tournament: -$800
$-1040 on the day
Trip Total Sunday-Wednesday: -$1215
So what to do today.......
There is the WSOP Super Turbo Bounty Freezeout $1500 at 10am, which is very tempting and there is an $800 NLHE at Aria which has been getting insane turnouts for that tournament. If Wynn was running 1.1K Turbo at 6PM that would be top of the list, but they aren't today, and I only have one shot at that tomorrow night and most likely will play it. At this point it might also be just a full day of grinding cash and I might have to right the balance sheet at Bellagio, old reliable 2/5. To be determined friends!
Since Blackjack and Coffee has been a real struggle so far this trip, we decide to mix it up with a little video poker and blackjack. Diehard fans and previous TR subscribers will remember us hitting this for about 1250 or so last summer during a pre dinner session. We head to those $5 dollar machines and load up $300.
We max bet $25 dollar spins and we hit several three of a kinds, a straight, and even a flush but ultimately we go broke not getting the four of a kind we are looking for as the goal was to hit that and basically freeroll the WSOP event today. We actually played for quite some time and got a decent amount of value out of those spins but come up empty handed. Pits have been most unkind so far this trip for the most part which is to be expected but we’ve kept the damage on that to a minimum really.
We finished our coffee and head over to Paris, and it’s time to register for the $1500 Super Turbo Bounty Feezeout. This is a one day event and I play a 25bb and sub stack really well, and with the bounties, chance to break even/freeroll even if we don’t cash so myeh let’s go. We aren’t here at the WSOP to not play any events. Giddy up.
After registration we head to Bobby’s Burgers for an Egg Sandiwch since we haven’t eaten real food since 2PM yesterday. Just pretzels and granola bars. Given how hungry we are I know this will taste good. It’s a bacon egg and cheese with Bobby’s signature , potato chips on there and spicy mayo sauce thing. The sandwich is very tasty but is a total mess and I have to put it back together about 5 times and use 30 napkins doing so. Would have been a 9/10, but we gotta drop the score big time to 7/10 for this egregious construction. Also 25 bucks for that plus a Fiji water….lol Vegas are you OK?!
Today’s the day, I’m feeling great, confident and optimistic but with this structure we just need to make some hands so let’s go.
Time to run good. GL GL!
Good luck
25k starting, 20 minute levels, bounties worth 500. Dominating the table so far 😉 100-100 here we goooooo!
46.7K at first break going to 400-800, this structure gonna get crazy , let’s make hands!
Play good, run even better!
Second break - crazy fast structure. Won a flip and a bounty which is nice! Lost a flip though and I had to open/fold a couple times 35k going to 1k-2.5K woof 14 bigs though , everyone short right now for the most part though gotta find some heat let’s go!
Spin it up!!
Woof bad news friends, just can’t pick up a hand or a spot and get down to 10 bigs pretty quickly. Big stack to my right opens in the CO and we see A10o which looks like a monster in this spot and also considering how dead we’ve been….we jam and sadly, the BB wakes up with AK and we can’t get lucky. We are done after 5 hours of play. It was a fun tournament but crazy fast - even faster than I imagined. Time for some lunch and at least I got ONE bounty so at least only in for 1K I guess. Thanks for the support on that one.
We have to wait until 5PM to redeem our bounty which is brutal. Hanging around here waiting to redeem these things? Good lord. So I head over to get something to eat….run into a place that never I would have thought in a million years I would have eaten at - Guy Fieri’s sports bar and grill. Menu is interesting….lot of wild combos of “kicked up bar food” My mind is saying “just get like a salad and an appetizer, but I’m pretty hungry and end up ordering this fried chicken sandwich that has a thin layer of Mac and cheese on it and some hot sauce. As it sounds like, it’s a LOT. I pull it apart with the knife and fork and eat the chicken which is actually really good, but put the bacon and the bun off to the side, and we do eat some of the Mac and cheese which is decent for sure. The fries are OK - good seasoning, but nothing special. Give the whole thing a 6.5/10.
Lollllllll
Okay okay - we hit our number 14 on roulette for $25 (we had 200 out there) so we pick up a nice $650 win after we tip our guy $25 bucks.
Then we head over to Resorts world to settle in for what is hopefully a long, and profitable 2/5 session at resorts world! In for 1K - stack of green, stack of red legoooo!
Resorts world 2/5 game tonight was insane. Not only was it one of the swingiest sessions I ever played in 2/5 like ever, the characters were just incredible. The floor had to come over about 5-6 times. Two guys were almost kicked out of the room, both extremely drunk. Now, you might find it annoying however, in this case they both had piles in front of them, as did the rest of the table. I’d say 4-5 people had 3-4K each. Buy in 1200 so it’s not that crazy but just the game is playing very deep for a 2/5 game with a 1200 max. I feel like I could do an entire trip report just on this session lol so I’m going to come back to this when I can write it better and provide some hand histories. Net net I bought in for 1000, was up to 1500, down to 700, left down 100. But I bounced above and below my starting buy in at least 3-4 times including several all in lots of significance. The game finally slowed down and we decided to max late reg this 200 dollar tournament. It has 100 entries, first will be at least 3K, maybe 4, 4.5K , and that could be the cure to what’s been a mostly rough trip.
First of all TJ - my bad man, I wasn't looking at my phone because the game was so ridiculous. Sorry I missed you, would have been nice to say hello. Sorry it didn't work out for you there.....pretty wild room right now but you need to be able to make hands and hold and so it's super swingy.....
As for the tournament, I don't know if the late night one is always like this, but it was literally a mix of half the table who had no interest in being there, and just kept shoving all in even 20-40BB stacks lol.....showing things like 93o, 520, maybe it was just a couple of guys who knew each other, but I was at two tables during my time there and both times it was like half a mix of people who seemed to either really haven't played a lot of poker, or weren't interested in poker, and then a bunch of people actually trying to play poker....totally bizarre. Anyway, we max late registered as mentioned and attempted to spin it up. When we bought in, we still had 20 bigs, so not great, but plenty of room to maneuver with 30 minute levels. We stay pretty stead for a couple hours actually getting down to about 30 players out of 110, but again, we maxed late reg so at this point, we are very happy to have 22 bigs. Then the following situation occurs.
We are in MP with 55......been very card dead for the most part, just trying to survive until I get a spot to double.....I open to 2.5BB, and a shorter stack with about 7BB shoves, then one of the aformentioned players who had been just jamming constantly with no calls showing all these crazy hands jammed over the top (and he covers us).....I get ready to fold and wait for another spot but then he looks at his friend and they are laughing......I think about it, and say....I if I really want to have a chance at this thing, now is as good a time as any to put it in and try to spin it up so we can lock in for a 4-5 hour grind hopefully. It's a little lazy by me no doubt, but it's a 200 dollar tournament and we've literally been playing ALL day. I make the call and we see the following...
Short stack V has 108o ? lol. Ok. The guy who was laughing with his friend? J 3 spades. lol.
So basically we are in a very good spot to do what I described.....the flop comes 10 2 Q....woof, but we still have a chance to beat the J3 guy.....turn pairs the board....2....love it.....river Jack....lmfao.
At that point I'm just left shaking my head dumbfounded.........tournaments just going nowhere this week. Again, not the best play, I get that, but given my read on these guys and the table dynamic and combined with other things.....oh well.
Cab ride back to the Wynn as we are totally exhausted.....grab a chicken parm sandwich from the cafe which is open 24/7 and it's very good. Shove that down, crush a couple bottles of water...and it's lights out.
I'll post the Cash Game hands shortly.
Also…..
Idk what it is but people love to just make comments to me at the table lmfao….here is a sampling from yesterday:
“Hi Handsome” (super drunk Asian fellow who eventually got kicked out of the game and the room at resorts world)
“You look like a trash talker (sarcastically) after WSOP TD announced no cursing at players”
“You look like a very respectful guy”
“Seat 1 is a gentlemen. I can tell he seems like a gentleman. Seems like a straight up guy.”
“Vacation this week?
At least all, mostly good stuff.
lol
I see you are a fan of the Resorts World poker room.
The following are the things I like at RW:
1. Gives me a vibe of relaxed and laid back
2. I like the food court options, especially the Geylang Clay Pot
3. Drinks are free, it is a plus when having dinner at the food court
4. I really liked Randy's Donuts (please give it a try if you didn't try before)
5. I did well in the tournaments here and after the rush hour at WSOP and other locations this seems to be the right cure
6. In the one or two sessions I played here the 1/3 cash game was good
I see you are a fan of the Resorts World poker room.
The following are the things I like at RW:
1. Gives me a vibe of relaxed and laid back
2. I like the food court options, especially the Geylang Clay Pot
3. Drinks are free, it is a plus when having dinner at the food court
4. I really liked Randy's Donuts (please give it a try if you didn't try before)
5. I did well in the tournaments here and after the rush hour at WSOP and other locations this seems to be the right cure
6. In the one or two session
Totally agree with all of this. My last couple trips here I just viewed it as "nice but dead"......now I'm viewing it as my second favorite room for 1/3 and 2/5 behind bellagio in terms of the quality of the cash game. Also, much nicer experience then dealing with the **** show that is bellagio and I always stay at Wynn/Encore so it's close.
Okay so to recap the cash game from last night and man, what a wild one.....
We joint he table and immediately as we are dropping our chips and saying hello to the dealer, a super drunk asian guy next to me in Seat 2, shouts "hey handsome" ...lol, I just chuckle a bit nervously/awkwardly and say "oh wow, that's very nice of you to say"......"I say that to everyone he replies with a laugh".....as I'm sitting down, with Chips not even off the rack, I get dealt in and we look down at AJ0o, and I make it $25 to go....Asian guy folds, and SB calls, and the BB calls. BB is an Indian gentlemen with long hair/ponytail and he is currently drinking Appletini's. He has a gold watch, looks somewhat tired and drunk.
Anyway, the flop isn't favorable and we end up just check folding to the Indian gent, and immediately the Asian guy yells "WOW, you have NO Credibility now. You just got bluffed by the worst player at the table". Indian guy says nothing, and I just reply"ha! I don't want your credibility sir. I want you to give me no credibility." He then says...."ahahah I like you man, gives me the fist bump." I then smell the booze coming off him like whoa....and I'm like, "oh, what kind of whiskey you drinking there bud?".....he replies "Whiskey is for Hillbillies, SCOTCH is for gentlemen." Another guy at the table who is wearing a West Virginia college shirt (lol here we go).....says "oh yeah? is that right? so I'm a hillbilly then"......"yeah I guess you are sir".....Dealer "Ohhhkay guys...that's good."....Lol this is FIVE MINUTES into me sitting down.
Now, in the meantime, several hands have been played, and we've seen open, 3 bet, 4 bet, we've already seen two all ins, and literally every pot is not only raised, it's either called multiway, 3 bet, or 4 bet....holy smokes. I bought in for the max of 1200, but I look around the table...Asian guy has 3.5K, Indian guy has 3K, Canadian guy on the other end has 2.5K, young asian kid next to him has 4, and west Virginia Hillbilly has 2Kish as well. The 10 seat, let's just call him MMA fighter for now, has 3K. Literally, no one except 2 players have below the maximum. There is like 20-25K on this table in a 2/5 game.
With this....I hope I have set the scene....hands, and more incidents and outrage coming sortly in this multi-part post lollllll
