BigWhale & brother (feat. MuckPls) does Vegas - 2025 edition (21st-31st March)
Hello people,
I can't believe it's been 6 months since I have been in Vegas, and we cannot let that go on for much longer! I will fly to London on March 20th after work, relax at a hotel there overnight, and then fly direct from there to Las Vegas on Friday the 21st (just in time for March Madness).
My brother will finally join in as well; he actually has a business trip to the US coming up in a few days, so when he is done with work he is already in the country. He will also head out to Vegas on the 21st of March.
A late addition to the trip is also 'MuckPls' who said YOLO and booked his own trip as well. I'll let him post the details on his end.
With this being the middle of March, and MGM having slashed my previous reasonable offers, it was not super easy to find cheap hotels. As of such, I have to stay at 3 different hotels to take advantage of the comp nights I had available (although I have to pay full resort fee). I will be staying at:
- Excalibur (2 nights)
- Flamingo (4 nights)
- MGM Grand (4 nights)
That said, it won't be too much stress to switch between the hotels. For MGM properties I can obviously check in and get digital room keys through the app. And for Flamingo I will just show up early and pay the (ridiculously high) early check-in fee to avoid gigantic lines.
It's March Madness time in Vegas when we are there, so I have high expectation of there being a lot of games to play and hopefully some good action as well. But regardless, it should be a fun and hopefully profitable trip. I will come back with some more thoughts + picture of shoe and bankroll in a few days.
As always, you guys can expect a lot of hand histories as well as random pictures from my end. Hopefully I can get brother to post a bit as well. And MuckPls will obviously also contribute with his own degen stories 
This is only the first of many trips to Vegas for me in 2025, but we can get back to that later. I am regardless stoked for the trip, and it will be nice having someone to share the excitement with as well!
Buffaloooo hand pay on 1c denom max bet $3,60:
I am getting close to Vegas; chilling at SFO now waiting for my next and final flight before arriving.
6.5 hours layover seemed brutal, so I found an Alaska Air flight that leaves 8pm instead. I am $200 USD lighter as a result, but I will arrive in Vegas 3 hours earlier. Seems like a good deal to me - well not really, but I will win it back at the tables 😀
No joke this time, I have finally made it to Las Vegas and checked into my room at Excalibur (Royal Tower). First impression is reasonably favorable, looks clean and not in absurdly terrible shape.
Met up with 'Enhanced' (brother) for around 30 minutes, but that's all the action for tonight. I think it's around 70 hours since I started my trip from Malta on Thursday, and today I have been awake for 25 hours now. So let's take a long and warm shower, and get some sleep.
As I missed one day of my trip, I only have this room for tonight before moving over to Flamingo. Not ideal having to pack up and leave only 12 hours after checking in, but I have never found it too stressful to switch hotels during trips. So I am sure it will be fine.
There will be poker tomorrow, but we can get back to that later. For now, good night from Las Vegas.
Glad to see you made it without further catastrophe.
Should be great cash action all over town due to NCAA tourney, the pits have been buzzing about poker, wsop circuit as well at the shoe. Go bink a ring for a souvenir.
Hopefully a 10 hour sleep and then some gambol
You should treat yourself to a very nice meal tomorrow
[QUOTE=feel wrath;58932811]Hopefully a 10 hour sleep and then some gambol/QUOTE]
I got 6 hours of sleep, almost as good! Man, this AC in the room is noisy though.
View from room is slightly better than for 'MuckPls':
But we are in Vegas and life is great 😀 Gonna head downstairs and use my meager $50 free play.
I know you guys seldom stay at Caesars hotels, but they have this going:
10X TIER CREDIT MULTIPLIER
Valid: March 23 - 28, 2025
That puts Diamond card status in reach (15,000 tier credits), which means no resort fees and free parking through 2026. There are also daily bonuses, but only pre-10x bonus credits count towards them.
This one is not available to us. Assume it's invite only for pure degens? 😀
Lazy-ish day so far here in Vegas. Played a little bit of Video Poker and Buffalo Slots for an hour, and then I met up with 'Enhanced' for breakfast at America (NYNY). Eventually 'MuckPls' joined us as well.
Then it was time for me to check out of Excalibur. Wish I had a bit more time to explore the property (didn't use the gym or pool), but maybe another time. Room was not terrible, except that the AC was a bit noisy last night.
Then headed over to Flamingo via the Monorail, paid the $40 early check-in fee and was rewarded with a room-key to a Flamingo Room. It looks decent as always:
In a bit there will actually be some poker, but we will start with a tournament. Both me and 'Enhanced', and also 'MuckPls' it seems like, will join the $250 WSOP-C tournament starting at 3pm today. Should be fun, and likely a big field with nice payouts if one makes a deep run.
Also, look at the view from 4th floor at Flamingo. Hardly any better than what 'MuckPls' have at NYNY:
That's weird, because I'm only a tiny degen compared to you. It's been years since I played blackjack, for example. Maybe the email I first got was a mistake, because I haven't seen a repeat like I usually do. Did some employee tell you that?
BTW, GL GL GL in the Circuit event!
Good luck in the tournament!!!
That’s directed at ALL of you.
That's weird, because I'm only a tiny degen compared to you. It's been years since I played blackjack, for example. Maybe the email I first got was a mistake, because I haven't seen a repeat like I usually do. Did some employee tell you that?
The offer I got is tied to a reservation, if you don’t book it with the offer you don’t get the 10x:
Wow, I had not seen that before. Or maybe I just never noticed.
In other news, I’m buried a TON in everything. Absolutely brutal. Will share a hand history from Venetian yesterday to illustrate.
9 handed 1/3 table. I have $375 stack or so. UTG straddles for $6, UTG+1 makes it $45 and the entire ****ing table calls. I look down at AKss in the bb and the decision is fairly simple, we ship it in for $375. Folds to the last to act who now tanks and sweats and has no idea what to do. He’s deep in the tank, several times he picks up his cards to fold and eventually flicks in the call.
Board runs out like 97542 or something like that and he shows A4o to win the $1000 pot.
I ask him what he put me on and he says kings.
Been absolutely crushed on everything else, probably missed 15 draws in a row at UX…
Excellent gif usage that perfectly encapsulates the mood.
It’ll turn.
I am still alive in the $250 after end of late reg. Have 65k, blinds will be 1500-3000-3000.
Also just said hello to 'TonySoprano' - nice meeting you 😀
Wow. These last two days have been the most exhausting one I can ever remember. Back in my room now at Flamingo, completely dead. But let us turn back the clock first. Went over to this location:
And together with 'Enhanced' I regged the €250 WSOP single day event, which was being played in the upstairs ballroom where they also hold the Daily Deepstacks during WSOP. Pretty cool to actually see one of these signs in real life and play a tournament under their umbrella:
In total the tournament got 212 entries, and it had 20k starting stack and 20 minute blinds. I lost a bit in the beginning, before doubling up with quad Queens versus a full house (AQ vs 99 on Q-Q-5-7-Q), which took me up to around 28k.
Stayed there for a long time before finding KK after a new bigstack raised pre and a shortstack woman pushed over. I rejam, and got snapped by the bigstack JJ. But we held up for a nice pot and was up to over 70k.
A while later I raised A7s pre and only SB called (a decent female player that looked somewhat familiar). Flop came K-T-7 two clubs one spade, and I chose to check it back this time around. Another 7 on turn, and I bet and got called. River was a 6, and after she checked I bet fairly hefty.
She surprised me by check-jamming all-in, which looks very strong here. I actually took a couple of seconds with it, but I struggled to see what she had unless 89s or something. So I made the call, and beat her very weirdly played ATo. She got a bit angry and accused me of slowrolling, and although I tried to explain to her that it's not she was not in the mood to listen. Oh well, at least I had her chips.
After that hand I had 130k and basically stayed in that range for a long time, while players got eliminated quickly. Before we knew it we were in the money and secured $507 USD. Because of the weird payout structures WSOP uses though, the increases from here were super tiny unless you made the Final Table.
And by some miracle I actually did make the 10-handed final table. I was grinding the short stack for ages, never really getting any huge hands but often picking up the blinds and staying alive while others busted.
Before the Final Table we had to fill in a quick questionaire with a few details + we were informed that the winner will get a free seat into the Tournament Of Champions, which for some reason is held in LA. My chances of getting there was slim though, as I came in with 4.5 bb after not having won any hands for a bit along with escalating blinds.
Sadly I was the first one eliminated after I got severely crippled, jammed A7o, but ran into TT and could only halfway improve (hit a seven). I got $656 USD for my efforts.
I don't quite know how to feel about that. I am completely exhausted, I have a headache, and I could hardly sit upright at the end. But I am actually somewhat proud of the fact that I managed to keep my head in the game despite this, and not punt of my stack. Obviously the decisions was fairly easy towards the end though, which helped.
But it feels bitttersweet being that close to a $10k first place, and sadly I have had too many finishes like this the last 1.5 years or so. I am great at staying patient and picking my spots, but I am not great at amassing a big chip stack in late stages. Thus I often come in to final tables very short, and need a lot of luck to be a contender.
Now I am going to take a shower, hopefully sleep for many hours, and from tomorrow we will be playing some Cash Games.
Was nice to meet you. Congrats on the final table and cash.
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