The Summer Wind - A WSOP Trip Report …… and beyond!
Don’t ask me why I chose the title of an old Sinatra song to be the title for this year’s trip report, i have no idea, i
Why is the deuce the key card in 2-7? It’s the 5th tiebreaker.
Is it because starting with 7-2 or 8-2 means you can’t accidentally make a straight?
Without a deuce the best possible hand you can make is 86543 which is #9 and as you say there is more danger of making a straight.
Meanwhile your opponents with a deuce are drawing better and smoother so you’re unnecessarily handicapping yourself from the start.
You can of course play hands without a deuce in steal or blind defend spots but if there’s been significant action then continuing deuce-less is going to cost you money in the long-term.
PGT Mixed Games Series
Day Fourteen - Saturday February 14th
Not had that many sit down restaurant meals this trip so decided to treat myself at Caramella tonight.
I went for the Branzino with penne pasta washed down with a couple of glasses of Sauvignon Blanc and it was really delicious. 10/10
Despite it being served upside down lol.
What's this? Or did you have to turn it skin side up?
Great TR!
The issue with skin side down is that it loses the crispiness from being on the bottom. Obviously it's personal preference and some people don't like the skin at all.
PGT Mixed Games Series
Wrap-Up
So I deliberately went at it hard this trip, but didn’t realize how hard until I just added up all the hours. Between tournaments and cash games I played 138 total hours this trip, 48 tournament hours and 90 in cash games. Maybe I overdid it a little lol.
Tournaments
The main purpose of the trip was to take a couple more shots at higher buy-in mixed events. I played 3 x $5k’s in the PokerGo Studio and came away with a min-cash and a 2nd place. I was confident going in but that’s probably better than I could have hoped for.
The atmosphere in the Studio is very relaxed and I felt comfortable and really enjoyed playing there. Of course the fields are very tough but I gave as good as I got.
As well as the 3 Studio events we played a Satellite at Aria and 2 LAPC events at Commerce.
Tournaments Played: 6
Bullets Fired: 7
Total Buy-Ins: $19,300
Hours Played: 48
Cashes: 2
Final Tables: 1
Total Prize Money: $46,500
Profit: $27,200
Those are the 100% numbers but I did sell 60% of my action for the PGT events which resulted in a nice return for my investors and meant my personal profit for tournaments on this trip was +$9,500
Cash Games
I logged a lot of hours in the Bellagio $80 Mix over 8 sessions including a couple of good winning sessions and a couple of bad losing sessions. The games were on the whole good and at times super good. I think I ran below expectation for the trip but was still able to be profitable albeit at a very low hourly rate of $43 which I will be looking to improve upon on future trips.
Hours Played: 90
Profit: $3,900
I love playing in the high limit area at Bellagio and they look after us really well.
Expenses
Flights: $736
Hotels: $606
Taxis / Uber / Gas: $180
The flights were more expensive than they should have been as I originally booked a 1 week trip even though I was 90% sure I would stay for two, and the original ticket I booked was the very basic fare so I had to pay a penalty to change it.
Did good on hotels with the exception of the two nights at Commerce that accounted for $300 of the spend.
I paid the gas for the trip to LA which was about $60 each way.
On Deck
More than a month at home now. The next trip will be back to Las Vegas for the WSOP circuit event at the Horseshoe in March, after which we might fly straight to Prague for WSOP Europe.
Congrats on a successful trip.
What's the line on Tony firing the $50k PPC within the next 3 years?
No pressure, but you might be trending in that direction.
appreciate your open book sharing
was there a mention of food? all comped?
tilde;read: quick math is ~11,900 ahead ~97 hourly (~86 net accommodations) for playing your hobby
nice business trip
More than a month at home now. The next trip will be back to Las Vegas for the WSOP circuit event at the Horseshoe in March, after which we might fly straight to Prague for WSOP Europe.
See you in March (coming in on the 24th). Do you know where you will be staying?
Congrats on a successful trip.
What's the line on Tony firing the $50k PPC within the next 3 years?
I was more thinking within the next 6 months!
appreciate your open book sharing
was there a mention of food? all comped?
tilde;read: quick math is ~11,900 ahead ~97 hourly (~86 net accommodations) for playing your hobby
nice business trip
I don’t really keep track of food spend. A lot of it is covered with comps. We get $25 per day for playing the $80 Mix as well as the $2 per hour so that covers most of it and anything extra is just paid for with chips so I guess it’s accounted for within the cash results.
We also got a $30 food comp for each PGT event. They had food runners and you could order from anywhere in Aria.
Unless I get any new offers looks like I’ll be splitting between Horseshoe and Excalibur.
Am thinking about Horseshoe for wsop. Because it’s a vacation as well as a poker trip for me, I generally end up going for a higher end property (and have Vdara booked too) but Horseshoe looks more than ‘fine’ and the $$ saved is probably almost an mtt buy in for me.
You’ve enjoyed/been good with staying there to this point?
Am thinking about Horseshoe for wsop. Because it’s a vacation as well as a poker trip for me, I generally end up going for a higher end property (and have Vdara booked too) but Horseshoe looks more than ‘fine’ and the $$ saved is probably almost an mtt buy in for me.
You’ve enjoyed/been good with staying there to this point?
It's no Vdara but Horseshoe is indeed fine for purpose, especially during the WSOP. I have 11 days booked there already for summer. I would much rather stay at Vdara of course, but personally can't justify the price difference.
It's no Vdara but Horseshoe is indeed fine for purpose, especially during the WSOP. I have 11 days booked there already for summer. I would much rather stay at Vdara of course, but personally can't justify the price difference.
Are you just rolling the dice on the dates, or do you have inside information, being that you're a leading member of the poker community?
Are you just rolling the dice on the dates, or do you have inside information, being that you're a leading member of the poker community?
schedule has been released
10th to 20th for me
It's no Vdara but Horseshoe is indeed fine for purpose, especially during the WSOP. I have 11 days booked there already for summer. I would much rather stay at Vdara of course, but personally can't justify the price difference.
Thanks. Do you have a preference of Versailles or Resort tower?
yea Versailles rooms have been refurbished and are nice, its just awkward to get to. If I stay at Paris I don't want Versailles Tower, I prefer the older rooms in Bordeaux Tower.
yea Versailles rooms have been refurbished and are nice, its just awkward to get to. If I stay at Paris I don't want Versailles Tower, I prefer the older rooms in Bordeaux Tower.
One thing that Versailles is closer to is the Paris casino, and as mentioned before, the HS poker room, and also PHo. There have been visits where I planned to spend most of my time in the HS poker room, and in front of my favorite vp machine (is it sad that I have a favorite vp machine?) in PHo. But I couldn't get a Versailles room.
Update
It’s funny, after two weeks on the road I’m ready for home, but after two weeks at home I’m ready to hit the road again.
Still another 19 days before my next trip but I was getting itchy so looked into short trips to both Horseshoe Hammond and Wynn Millions to fill the gap but ultimately decided against them. Patience Tony.
Maybe it was brought on by running bad here in the 5 card PLO cash game. My last two sessions I’ve lost big pots both times with the top full house beaten by quad deuces. I mean I don’t even play hands containing two deuces. Flopping a set is no good, you pretty much have to make quads to win, but try telling that to these donkeys. Anyway rant over, you see crazy **** a lot with 5 cards which is one of the reasons I much prefer the 4 card version.
I did finalize the logistics for the next trip and booked all the flights and hotels. I will go straight to Prague from Las Vegas, but will only play the first week of WSOP Europe, mainly for the $3k mixed PLO. After which I will stop off in Tenerife to visit my parents before heading back home to Medellin.
In the meantime I’m studying here by watching, and in some cases re-watching all the Poker Go content from the Mixed Games Series we were just at. (It’s all available for free on YouTube btw)
Funny story - Ali Nejad was playing with us in the $80 Mix at Bellagio and he played through the night and all the next day before going straight to the Studio to do commentary for Day 1 of the $100k. I thought he’d be incoherent but he never missed a beat. There’s 18 hours of coverage from the three days of that tournament and the commentary and analysis by Ali, Chris Vitch and Alex Livingston is absolutely top notch. Highly recommend.
Can totally relate. I can get drilled in Vegas, think I won't want to go back for months and then within a week I'm already plotting my next trip. Goes the other way too, have a great trip and think I'll be itching to come back, but then have a bunch of pleasant family stuff and have zero desire to leave home... which is when the local gets me 😀
Update
It’s funny, after two weeks on the road I’m ready for home, but after two weeks at home I’m ready to hit the road again.
Still another 19 days before my next trip but I was getting itchy so looked into short trips to both Horseshoe Hammond and Wynn Millions to fill the gap but ultimately decided against them. Patience Tony.
I played in a Circuit event in the Horseshoe Hammond some months ago, and as I wrote in my thread at the time the casino is in an awful area, and the tournament took place in a dreary auditorium that had zero personality. You commented at the time something along the lines of the photos I posted were extremely uninviting.
I suppose it doesn't matter once you are at the table and simply focused on the cards and your opponents, but you dodged an aesthetically terrible venue.
I played in a Circuit event in the Horseshoe Hammond some months ago, and as I wrote in my thread at the time the casino is in an awful area, and the tournament took place in a dreary auditorium that had zero personality. You commented at the time something along the lines of the photos I posted were extremely uninviting.I suppose it doesn't matter once you are at the table and
Ah yes I remember your post now, but had forgotten that was Hammond. Very glad I passed on it in that case. Another friend of mine who goes to most of the circuit stops also said it's one of the top 3 dangerous places in America. He went once a few years ago and has never been back. He's probably exaggerating a bit, but not by much it would seem.
It’s the arm pit of hell
