Time for another Vegas TR! Now with fast cars. 21st November to 30th November
Well what a year it has been since my last TR!
However just when I thought my annual November trip would not happen I get a call from a friend saying that his nephew works for McLaren F1 and can get us pit passes for the F1 in Vegas if we wanted to go. Well I am not sure I snap called as quickly in my life. Flights now booked, hotel all sorted and pass from my better half all done!
Going to be a longer stay this time as my friend and I are going for 9 nights.
I am flying for the first time with Virgin Atlantic on the 21st from London
Staying at the Horseshoe (Bally's) for 9 nights. 7 of these are comped which includes the F1 weekend which I have seen have been going for crazy prices. So only had to pay for the last 2 nights we are there. Think it was around $180 in total and that stupid resort fee (will see if I can get that comped when there).
Plan of action for me is to spend the weekend at the F1. I am hoping all this pit pass and stuff provides us with plenty of free food, drink and some fun experiences. I honestly am really looking forward to this part.
Will plan some shopping again as I can get some Christmas presents for the kids and the fact it is Black Friday while out there, hopefully pick up a few cheap deals.
Poker wise as my friend is a tournament player I will be joining him in a few but plan to play cash as much as I can.
Also have to keep my diamond status so I am sure there will be some degen action!
As a LV local who would never venture down to the Strip for this race, I do hope you enjoy your experience.
fwiw ESPN is also showing the race live should you get sick of not seeing much up close....
Security decided to knock on everyone's door on the floor I am staying on screaming security check.
Opened the door, they looked inside and said all was good then left. Really frustrating
Does your room face the strip? This happened to me in 2022 during the Golden Knights parade. Discovered later it's a city law passed after the Mandalay Bay shooting for events on strip. But they were huge *******s about it with zero explanation as they screamed at every room.
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Amazing day yesterday despite the terrible start from security waking us up. Thanks for all the responses on that. Thinking back on it yeah I am mega pissed to be woken up like that as from what you will read it did ruin my day.
So after getting in at 8:30am, sleeping and then getting woken up by what it seemed like the police banging on the door at 10am P and I try to get back to sleep but to no avail. So we decide on getting breakfast.
Huge mistake to venture out to find somewhere as everywhere we tried had like a 45 mins wait just to get in. Feeling too tired we give up and head back to the food hall at the horseshoe. P is still a little wasted from the night before as he kept up with British tradition of trying to drink a bar dry.
At the food hall I told him it's probably best if he gets something greasy to sober him up a little. He goes for a Johnny Rockets and I just get a subway as that's all I can stomach. We eat this while we plan our next action.
The decision is to play some poker here at the horseshoe until we feel we can get to a point where we can get some sleep. Neither of us want to venture out too far. We walk on over to the card room and I get immediately seated at a 1/3 game. P was talking about playing the tournament which I thought he entered (more in a bit)
Again my table is the absolute worst. I swear it was something out of everyone's poker nightmare. We had one young American guy who was on the phone the whole time I sat down to when he left. He had his phone stand out and I thought he was recording to vlog or something but it turned out he was on facetime to some girl. His whole conversation to her was how mad he was at being down $100 as in his words "he was a winning poker player". I had to just roll my eyes when I heard this.
The next guy to my right would not stop talking. I mean he was the definition of ADHD or something as the focus had to be on him at all times. Now I don't mind this one bit if they are bringing action to the table but he was just nitting it up. I also had two players min buy in, set a clock as they both said they wanted to do this to check their comps were correct. So the dreaded promo hunters were here also.
To further more explain how bad this table was two players managed to only produce a $26 pot all the way to the river with AA Vs AK on a board of A7K5K. How stacks were not in is beyond me. I played for a hour at the table and that was enough for me. Maybe I should have asked for a table change but I was just not in the mood.
Cashed out for $304 for a whole $4 profit in a hour and the thoughts of thinking the cash scene in Vegas is potentially dead. With the 3 tables I have played so far and some of the games I played last year I am questioning things. I tell P that I am going to make some calls back home and try and sleep before the F1 later.
As I head back to the room I the lift fills up and people are talking about security banging on their doors. It seems like most floors got woken up too. This makes me feel a little better but no one is any wiser to why it happened.
P also gets back to the room and shows me he did not play the tournament and played cash also. He lucked out with his table as there were 2 Irish guys donating chips. He manages to get a 3 way all in holding QQ on a Q747 board. What a life. But some faith is restored that the games can be good.
We get some sleep which was greatly needed and after getting ready we had to the West Harmon Zone for some F1 action.
Not much to say about the F1 apart from I really enjoyed myself. We got to experience a Ludacris concert and the atmosphere was amazing. It's safe to say despite as much as this race is on the F1 calendar to please sponsors, show off celebrities and get as much cash into the sport as possible it attracts casual fans and brings massive exposure to the sport which can only be a good thing.
P had some friends here also so we met up with them, had some complimentary food and drink and sat in the cold watching cars go around 200mph around the streets of Vegas. Most of my decent content are videos which I do not think I can upload here so I will do a little photo dump instead.
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After the race we were both so tired we just went back and slept!
Onto today and it looks like the Orleans to take down their $200 65k gtd tournament
Watched a few minutes after the start, have a couple questions.
Are the casinos open during the event? Thinking of if I was there (not a racing fan), and decided I wanted to play at the Horseshoe. Is there a way for non-racing people to get "inside"?
Noticed several times a fair amount of sparks were thrown up from underneath the cars. I imagined that was the chassis scraping across manhole covers or some such. Any idea what the actual explanation is?
Glad to hear you had a good time, sorry to hear about the security and bad tablemates.
Do you play any PLO?
I talked about this in my TR… if you’re playing cash game poker for any meaningful stakes in 2024 and beyond, I think the action is farrrrrr better in PLO than an equivalent-sized NLH game.
You just won’t see that kind of gamble, or people making HUGE post flop mistakes, at NL like you do in PLO.
nicely done OP
Watched a few minutes after the start, have a couple questions.
Are the casinos open during the event? Thinking of if I was there (not a racing fan), and decided I wanted to play at the Horseshoe. Is there a way for non-racing people to get "inside"?
Noticed several times a fair amount of sparks were thrown up from underneath the cars. I imagined that was the chassis scraping across manhole covers or some such. Any idea what the actual explanation is?
Glad to hear you had a good time, sorry to
Skid blocks, sacrificial hunks of metal that wear down during a race. Cheaper that replacing a floor section of the tub.
WRT poker at the Horseshoe, that sort of game is not uncommon, as they have two types of promos always running. High hand promo, which people try to hit with a full house, and incentivizes you not to get folds if you have a set. The other promo is an hours-based promo which earns you a not-so-free freeroll twice a week.
Watched a few minutes after the start, have a couple questions.
Are the casinos open during the event? Thinking of if I was there (not a racing fan), and decided I wanted to play at the Horseshoe. Is there a way for non-racing people to get "inside"?
Noticed several times a fair amount of sparks were thrown up from underneath the cars. I imagined that was the chassis scraping across manhole covers or some such. Any idea what the actual explanation is?
Glad to hear you had a good time, sorry to
So yeah all the casino's were open during the race. The WSOP have a circuit event on and there were definitely a lack of runners for the first event as it fell into the evening and people were put off playing.
You could get into the horseshoe but it honestly takes forever as the roads are closed but there is a man made bridge which was single file so you can still get around just be prepared it will take longer and the taxis charge an extra $15 for the privilege.
The cars themselves have different ride heights for better or worse down force. What we noticed during practice 2 was that there were no sparks at the start of P2 there were during the end as the teams realised it was better to have the car lower for better down force and therefore slide less on the track.
Do you play any PLO?
I talked about this in my TR… if you’re playing cash game poker for any meaningful stakes in 2024 and beyond, I think the action is farrrrrr better in PLO than an equivalent-sized NLH game.
You just won’t see that kind of gamble, or people making HUGE post flop mistakes, at NL like you do in PLO.
I think I may have to play a few and see the difference. Granted though I PLO is no not my best game.
Fold all pairs 88 and below, two pair is a trap, and don’t go crazy with AAxx, pre or post. Pick a raised, multi-way flop when you have 4 cards working, and commit to the hand then, and trust your equity.
If you do this, you’ll be light years ahead of 90% of the player pool below 5/5 PLO. If you make some nice 5 card poker hands, a 5 buyin+ winning session is absolutely possible.
You just don’t see that in NL in 2024, outside of the rare drunk games stacking any two preflop and reloading deep.
Thanks for the TR-very fun read so far. How was the general mood towards the race this year? Reading about the lead up to it last year, sentiment seemed to be mostly negative. Am curious if people are more used to it by now.
It seems the locals still hate the fact Vegas is shut off because of the race but they seem to be warming to the event. Just the impression I got.
Atmosphere wise is pretty good though and everyone I spoke to seemed to be having a good time. Hopefully the upward trend continues
Day 4 in Vegas.
Well what another full on day this turned out to be. Woke up stupidly early again (6am) so went for a walk outside to chill out and get some steps in. I knew today was going to be a long session pokerwise.
The plan of action today was to play the Orleans 65k gtd tournament with a $200 and a $100 top up. Essentially a $300 one day comp. P and I get a bit of breakfast from the food hall downstairs as I did not fancy moving too far. I had pancakes from somewhere (cannot remember the name)
Again far too much and I barely ate any. Think I need to watch this as I have not been eating much at all this trip. Probably a good idea I start making a few reservations.
P does not like to late reg tournaments and wanted to get there at the start. Just the thought of having a 50k stack at 100/200 does not appeal to me but hey there should be easy chips in the opening levels. We get a taxi to the Orleans from the Horseshoe. .$44 including tip! Wow local taxis have pushed their prices up for sure. Will get an Uber next time.
Get to the Orleans, register and play what has to be one of the craziest tables of my life. We had some OMC hitting everything hard and getting paid. It was in the second level of the day we have a notable hand which you guys might slaughter me for.
I am sitting on a stack of 56k after winning a smallish pot earlier.
We have KK UTG and open to 700
UTG +1 Call
OMC UTG +2 Three bets us to 2500
Folds back to us and we 4bet to 7000
UTG+ 1 shoves for 27k
OMC re shoves his 85k stack
It takes me all of 10 seconds to just fold my KK face up and laugh.
We are shown the grim news when UTG + 1 has QT and OMC had 5 bet shoved with AK (when do they not have AA here).
As fate would have it there was an A on the flop and he scoops a large one and we are left thinking we could have been heading to the re entry desk lol.
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We managed to then start winning a few small pots by raising, getting 3 to 4 callers and taking the pot down on the flop with a cbet when we hit a piece of the flops. Always feels good when the players are just calling for the sake of calling and whiffing everything.
Our next notable hand comes at the 400/800 level and we had gotten to the dizzy heights of 70k (our aces got paid)
UTG+1 We find KJdd and raise to 1700
3 callers which includes the BB
She was a fair hot chick with large boobs. Not that this matters but it's content and I wish I got a picture for the lolz
Flop QdTh4d
Despite not hitting a pair or anything this flop has smacked us in the face 4 ways.
I cbet to 2500 and everyone calls!
Turn Ah (bink) nut straight and flush re draw
BB (which could stand for big boobs) now leads out for 12k. She has about 45k left and I want to play for stacks now clearly so re pop to 35k.
She now sighs, reships. Clearly we snap here and she shows AQo for 2 pairs.
River is safe and and we are scooping around 130k
Tournament was all plain sailing from there and we kept around 100bb for the next lot of levels. We are feeling good and our table is pretty basic. Our stack has risen to 205k at 1000/2000
We have JJ and it folds to us on the button. We make it 5k and the BB who was a local lady as everyone seemed to know her made it 15k. She seemed fairly competent and knew what she was doing.
Now having JJ can be an easy 4bet on the button but I do feel we disguise the strength of our hand here by calling and there is no need here to bloat the pot too much as she had us covered.
Flop KJ7.
She bets 20k on this flop. We think for a little and make a raise of 65k and we get insta shipped on. I am thinking is this one of these set up hands and does she have KK for a cooler. However we cannot fold here, make the call and we are shown AA.
Turn K
River A
A massive roll of the eyes, we say good game everyone and decide to not re enter as re entry was soon to close and I do not want to buy in for another 50k when blinds are about to go to 1500/3000.
It's soon dinner break so I sit with P while he eats and I plan my next move. Cash at the horseshoe was the plan so I get an Uber back to the strip. $16
The list for cash is massive and I refuse to wait so I head to ballroom centre to play the $250 WSOP circuit event.
25k starting stack and we enter the 300/600 level.
We have to fold for a hour until we shove A8 to a raise, get called by QJ and double to around 36k
Hover around 36k until we find this hand
KK Vs AK Vs AK for a lovely cooler where our opponents cannot find an A.
This tournament was again all plane sailing and we soon approach the bubble! Sorry that this part is brief but I was not taking any more notes on hands as it was getting super late and I had been up nearly 20 hours.
Long story short we cash for $520
Exit hand we shove K9o for 10bb on the button and are called by AJ.
Somehow despite cashing we are down a whole $30 for the day.
sounds like you got a lot of poker in. hope that makes you happy.
Old guys in tournaments are a different breed than cash games. level 2 is way too quick to label people OMC. from my experience they aren't buying green bananas and are much more wild.
Nice cash, another Hendon Mob mention.
Circuit Monster Stack today, just started.
Congrats on the cash. Something to show for the long day at least.
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So after getting to bed at a sensible time last night (just after midnight) I wake up at 5am. It honestly is the worst part for me as I thought I slept well but clearly my body is still adjusting.
I catch up with some things back at home and P wakes up at 6am having the same problem. We decide we should do breakfast and we chill as I have some work I need to do.
Breakfast was at Ellis island. Had a pretty ok steak and potatoes meal which was something like $15. The new York strip was cooked exactly as I asked for and despite it being a little fatty it was decent.
After breakfast P mentioned that he was wanting to get some card protectors for the poker league he runs. He wanted to give them out as prizes for those who win the league each month. Now apparently he asked the shop by the cardroom in the horseshoe and they wanted $50 each customised protector. I said that was daylight robbery and suggested we go to the gambling superstore near the arts district. He had no idea this place existed so we grabbed an Uber.
The store itself is pretty cool with loads of gambling books, some memorabilia and plenty of ex casino cards, dice etc. Low and behold P asks the store owner how much it would be for 20 and they quote him $150! So $7.50 each instead of $50. Clearly that was a snap call and they made the customised ones within 30 mins.
I treated myself to some peppermill casino dice as I thought it would be cool to own some. No idea why. We come back to the Horseshoe and decide to go to the Wynn to play the $200 daily as some friends are also playing it.
We enter half way round level 1 and I sit down and proceed to fold every hand for 2 hours. Utterly card dead until I am dealt TT on the button. There are 4 limpers I think at the 200/400 level (sorry my memory is terrible as I did not take notes). I raise huge to 4k leaving me with with around 17-18k left. 2 callers
Flop T34
It checks to me and I bet 4k again and we get immediately shoved on by UTG. She was a very active lady who was constantly complaining she could not see her cards properly because of some issue. To be honest I was so bored from being card and spot dead I was not paying that much attention. Anyway I obviously call
She shows 56 and gets there immediately on the turn and I fade the river. I am glad that hell was over so just leave. I had no intentions of re entering and decided to make my way back to the horseshoe to play the $600 monster stack.
Long story short in the monster stack is we found a bag into day 2! I will try and remember some notable hands tomorrow but my mind is mashed and I am beyond tired today. We come back tomorrow at noon and hopefully playing for ring and glory. On a side note Allen Kessler was playing today and all I could hear was him moaning about one thing or another. Is that man ever happy?
Back to it with 260,000 which is good for 26bb.
Now time to try and sleep
Great job finding a bag, with a very workable stack to come back to!
Run even better for Day 2!!
Awesome TR so far.
Wishing you nothing but the best on Day 2 !!!!
Go win some flips now!!!
Good luck tomorrow
You seem to be really good and love playing tournament poker. Two deep runs and a day 2 bag on the same day!
Keep it going, good luck with day2!
If you are looking to shuttle between Casinos, look for uber/lyft share at the shoe. A lot of people r in the same boat and don’t mind splitting the ride!
Congratulations on the bag!
Cool that your friend got to see the store for the first time. It's a pretty good experience.
Though he might've went with the vintage brothel tokens instead of custom card protectors. 😉
