Nitty By Nature 7: No Filler (6/6-6/16 TR)

Let’s gooooooo!!!

10 days until I get there.

LFG!

(Thanks for the reminder, I need to re-watch Fear and Loathing)

ODDS AND ENDS

- This will be my 7th annual WSOP trip. The anticipation seems to vary from year to year. Some years I begin counting down the days months in advance. Other years I am so busy that it sneaks up on me, and I'm boarding a plane before I know it. This year I can say that the anticipation was a 10/10 for much of April and May, but calmed down considerably during the past week. Now that it's actually happening, it feels surreal.

- No shoes and bankroll pics yet, but I've made my bank visit and withdrawn a chunk of starter cash. I'm hoping to keep the budget for poker around $5k.

- I already talked a little bit about my schedule, but I can't say much more because it's going to be very fluid. Beyond the WSOP events on 6/7 and 6/9, there's really nothing that I'm 100% certain to play. As mentioned, at least one bullet into the Venetian MSPT $1100 is likely. There is also a good chance that I will make it to the Orleans for the first time in my life. I've somehow managed to avoid the property all these years. In general, I probably won't know my plan for each day until the night before. What I can say is that I like to design my trips with built-in escalators, meaning early success can unlock higher buy-ins later in the trip. The $1500 WSOP Monster Stack and $1100 Wynn single day events are high on the wish list for next week. Hopefully I get to play them. If I'm buried after the first few days in town, I'll size down into RW dailies and the $500 Salute. The key thing for me is protecting the financial downside while also having pathways to play higher. I believe that I play more relaxed when I'm not shot-taking without having earned it. For me, $400-600 is just about the ideal range to stomach the swings. Going much above that represents a special occasion if I haven't built up financial momentum in the preceding days. Luckily there will be plenty of stuff to play regardless of what happens. The amount of options can actually be paralyzing.

- In past years I've talked about my desire to branch out and learn more games. I still want to do that, but haven't made significant progress yet. There will be great HORSE and PLO events happening at the WSOP while I'm there. It's unlikely that I'll YOLO either of those, but not totally impossible. If nothing else, maybe I can squeeze in a dealer's choice cash session at RW or elsewhere sometime on this trip to keep training my mixed game muscles.

- Since I last posted, I've done some additional light prep work. I re-read the NLHE section of Super System. While much of it is antiquated, there are still useful nuggets. I like to re-watch the old WSOP Main Events in the build up to my own summer trips. This time around I've been watching the 2007 WSOP Main, which was always the black sheep to me among the 00s peak poker boom telecasts because the final table was so weak. It's been more entertaining than I remembered and it offers opportunities to evaluate terrible lines. I also played my final warm-up tournament at the local room, where I was generally locked in with reads and making good decisions. About halfway through the field I gave away one free card in a big pot with a vulnerable hand and got punished for the mistake. It was a nice reminder to play vs. range and not specific "monster under the bed" hands because I really needed to be betting the turn with my hand. Subsequently, I went back and evaluated all my bustout hands from past WSOP events. Some of those were just your typical unavoidable coolers and flips. Others were clear mistakes. The biggest trend I noticed across the mistakes was overplaying medium value into clear strength from ABC players. I'll try not to do any of that this summer.

- If I can indulge gambler's fallacy for a moment, I think I've probably been running below expectation in the last 6 months of sporadic play. I won't bore you with all the gory details, but I am cautiously optimistic that I will progress to the mean on card distribution and all-ins during the few weeks. I like to think I've been saving my luck for summer. To reference something rppoker mentioned in his TR, I've also still never used my "one time". I hope that I reach a big enough spot this summer to justify burning it. "One time!"

- I've bought very small pieces of some horses in various events on PokerStake. I'm not anticipating any significant paydays here, but I'll have some small sweats in June. I may comment on that in the TR if anything exciting happens on that front. The most likely outcome is a negligible cash or two.

- You know how I said there was no possibility to extend the trip and/or book further legs deeper in the summer? Well, my work obligations may not be as concrete as I anticipated. I might have the flexibility to keep the parlay rolling if things go well in June. There may even be runouts that see me join TJ in the $10k Main field. All that being said, the situation is still fluid and it will take strong results to justify additional excursions either way, so I'm still very much in "carpe diem" mode for now. I will try to make the most of these ten nights and reevaluate my options when the dust settles.

A college favorite. I've also read the book a couple times.

Though not strictly speaking a poker movie, I contemplated giving it another spin prior to my trip. Ended up just watching a few choice scenes on YouTube.

Speaking of which, Pacers win!

I generally can't stand the NBA, but I like to follow how ex-Arizona Wildcats are doing. Aaron Gordon and the Nuggets went down, but TJ McConnel and I think Ben Mathurin are both on the Pacers, so I gotta watch. I also had to make a bet, even though I know squat about the NBA.

10 days is a long time in Vegas. Hope it goes well for you.

Some game last night. They lead for exactly 0.3 seconds the whole game but it was enough!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

DAY ONE - 6/6

After a smooth day at work, I made it to the airport with time to spare. My flight was delayed by about 30 minutes. As bad beats go, that's a 60/40. I won't complain.

When I finally made it to the ride share area at Harry Reid, I was greeted by the biggest crowd I've ever seen there. No thank you. As I said in a past TR, waiting in lines is -EV. I opted for the old school taxi ride instead. That line was short. One $21 flat rate and extortionate tip later, I was breezing through the doors of Excalibur en route to the royal tower, where I will live like a king for a few nights. I have to hand it to MGM. Their digital check in process is typically very fast and painless. True to form tonight.

I dumped my bags in the room and made the trek over to Paris, where I cashed my sports bets and promptly gave it back to the house in the form of poker tournament entries. I'm locked in for Colossus 1D tomorrow. For anyone wondering, the verification and registration process was quick. I waited 2-3 minutes in line to verify my WSOP+ account and CC. That allowed me to buy in to the Colossus immediately via CC (no fees as far as I know). I then bounced over to the old registration area and waited 2-3 more minutes to buy another ticket via cash.

As I was first entering the WSOP area, I stopped to take my annual obligatory picture of the signage. I didn't realize it until after the fact, but I had been photobombed by the most famous tournament player in the world, ManPoker himself.

A good omen? Hopefully Daniel will bring luck to the TR.

I contemplated unlocking my first bronze trophy of the trip by hitting Sbarro in the Horseshoe for a vintage 6.5/10 pizza slice, but opted instead to start working towards a silver food trophy. The first Earl's sandwich of the trip has been crushed. 1/3 down. I went with the Earl's Club, which was a satisfying choice. While I was eating, two unknown (to me) poker players at a nearby table were talking through some seven card stud HHs. I assume that they must have been in the $10k stud with Negreanu. The tournament had just stopped play for the day. I did not ask them to autograph my Earl of Sandwich wrapper, though maybe I should've. I could be like Dennis Phillips, with a filthy Earl's wrapper covered in poker player signatures.

The walk back to Excalibur brought an unexpected battle with an army of Coldplay fans. I've never seen the bridge between NYNY and the castle as jammed as it was tonight. It's funny how Vegas takes on different character depending on which events are running at any particular time. I've previously been in town during Minnesota Viking week, cowboy rodeo thing, Deadhead Sphere residence, and silver-laden Beyonce fanatic night. Tonight was clearly Coldplay night in Las Vegas. It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to solve that one, seeing as every third person I passed was wearing the same Coldplay tour t-shirt with rainbow text.

I hope to "Viva La Vida" for the duration of tomorrow's Colossus flight. The goal is to bag and tag. If I bust within the first hour or two, I might re-enter. If I bust mid-day, I'll probably tap out and play the $600 Venetian bounty in the evening. If I bust late in the evening, the 10 PM $135 satellite at the WSOP is calling my name.

Though I'm in Vegas, it's going to take me a few days to acclimate to the city's late hours. Vegas time and real world time are different. Most poker tournaments don't start until 10 AM-noon. I'm on a 8AM-4PM work clock, which means I am 100% certain to wake up way too early tomorrow. I'll be sure to use insufficient sleep as an excuse after I punt off my Colossus stack in level 1 on the backdoor trips draw.

Read all about it right here. Same Bat Country time. Same Bat Country channel.

GL my friend!

Go crush the tournament fields and see you at the FT!

Good luck! Hope to see you on Day 2

I missed most of the second half, figuring the Pacers were toast. Glad I caught the last ten seconds though!

DAY TWO - 6/7

The big item on today's agenda was the final flight of the $500 Colossus at the WSOP. As expected, I awoke prematurely and had to kill some time in my hotel room before marching over to the WSOP. My seat assignment was in Horseshoe blue. I did not recognize any of the names at my table and decided not to Hendon snipe anyone because I prefer just to see how people play organically without any bias or expectations attached. Before actually sitting down to play cards, I attempted to activate lucky breakfast rungood. The lucky breakfast was a staple of my 2023 poker trips. It consists of a cheese Danish and an Americano from the LavAzza kiosk in The Horseshoe. It has previously been a precursor to some of my best sessions. Behold it in all its glory.

I'm not actually superstitious or even a little stitious, but I thought the lucky breakfast would be an apt way to start the morning. Any hypothetical rungood attached would be a bonus.

Part of what attracts me to poker is the puzzle element, such as trying to solve the situation as we contemplate a massive call-off with bottom pair against a tricky opponent. The way I see it, chips can come the easy way or the hard way. It's often more satisfying to win chips the hard way, but they all count the same in the end. When we envision a dream session, it likely consists of lots of easy chips. Sure, we want to play well, but more than that we want to flop monsters, cooler people, and run like 2006 Jamie Gold.

Unfortunately, today's WSOP session was strictly the...

It was tough sledding out there today. I had to hero call TT on a J677J board facing a river jam. I beat A6 in that one. I had to find the call with ThTd facing a pot-size river bet on an uncomfortable Js9s2dTc8s runout in a 3-bet pot. I beat another ragged Ax bluff there. Late in the night, it folded to me in the SB. I completed with K8o with about 12-15BB in my stack. BB jammed for about the same. Maybe Kx or even Qx is a snap call here at this depth. It must be profitable to simply jam these hands ourselves, but I think there are merits to flatting too. When BB jams, we're often way ahead with Kx here, but it's still somewhat unpleasant to call off your tourney life with K8o. I threw in the chip and beat 94o.

I'm not going to say I deserve the Nobel Prize in poker for winning these pots. I'm sure a lot of players arrive at the same conclusions and make the same plays that I did. However, I think these hands illustrate the uncomfortable nature of today's session. I never got those easy spots where you flop a set and someone goes crazy, you cooler someone with nuts vs. second nuts, or you find AA in the BB with heavy action in front of you. By and large, whatever chips I got today were earned the Hardaway. I eventually grew the stack to 150k from 50k starting, but could never find the second rush to keep building.

By level 15 I was on roughly 80k at 3k/6k blinds when I opened 88 from MP for 12k. Active card rack big stack flatted a few seats over. Everyone else folded. Flop came 775 rainbow. That's about the best you're going to see with 88 in this spot besides flopping a set yourself. I continued for 15k. The big stack jammed. Ugh. Another tricky spot. This player was aggressive pre-flop. That he didn't 3-bet my open ruled out JJ+. I felt that TT and 99 were possible as played. When I racked my brain, I couldn't think of many natural bluffs. That was a big concern for me. What bluffs does he have here? Rainbow boards rule out flush draws. 86 seems highly unlikely to call pre. I think he folds that. He likely slow plays 77 and A5 on this board. That leaves TT, 99, and whatever random junk he decides to go with such as a KQ or AT leveraging his 300k+ stack to pressure me on the semi-bluff.

What's the play here? Do we fold an overpair with only ~10BBs behind?

After maybe a minute of tanking, I landed on call and was shown 99. He immediately boated up on the turn. GG us.

It's an unpleasant spot where his line looks very much like TT or 99, yet it was quite tough to get away from the overpair here sans the pre-flop 3-bet, even with no natural bluffs on the board. I'm not sure if this qualifies as tilt, misplay, a cooler, or maybe some slight combination of all that stuff. While I wasn't mentally tired, I was somewhat spiritually tired after 10 hours of scratching and clawing with nothing to show for it but the starting stack and some spare change. After a day of running up that hill, I didn't have it in me to fold the overpair and leave myself on the push-fold stack again.

I finished in maybe 1300th out of ~5900 entries today with ~900 cashing. I think I generally played very well across this session. Unfortunately it was a day where good was not good enough. Nearly anything short of flawless decision making was going to brick the bag given the situations dealt to my seat.

There may be days on this trip when I play much worse than I did today, but I am quite certain that there will also be days when I run much better.

Perhaps the rungood will start tomorrow with the $400 Orleans NLHE single day event. It's the next entry on my schedule. When we think of "carpe diem" in peak summer poker season, one day tournaments at the Orleans are probably not the first thing that comes to mind. However, I'm excited to give it a spin. I've never set foot on the property, so it promises to be a new experience. While I enjoy slow multi-day tournaments with huge fields, I also like smaller tournaments that offer better odds to make the final table and flirt with the real money. This event should provide a nice contrast to the Colossus from that standpoint. Furthermore, the low price point allows me to ease into the trip and try to build momentum in the early days without significant financial pressure.

How do you say "onward and upward" in French? I'll try to learn tomorrow.

Great report so far! I’m on my way out and wishing us both some near term rungood! I’ll be following along bro! Good luck!

Get there a little bit earlier than usual so you're not an alternate.

DAY THREE - 6/8

I made it over to the Orleans bright and early, arriving an hour ahead of the 11:10 AM start time. The poker room was nearly empty. Would it stay that way?

To be continued...

After registering for the tournament, I stopped by Copper Whisk Cafe for breakfast. The food was fine. However, the service was the slowest that I've ever had in a breakfast spot in Vegas. It took them 10 minutes just to bring me coffee and water. I waited maybe another 10 minutes to get an order in. After I finished eating, they never bothered to bring me the check. I ended up just leaving 5 x $5 on the table and walking out. The vibe among the staff was overworked and chaotic, but I won't dwell on this minor inconvenience.

Despite the extended breakfast, I made it to the tournament area in time for the first hand. I was expecting maybe 200-300 total entries in this event. As it turned out, this was not just a historic day in terms of being my first visit to the Orleans. It was also a historic day in terms of breaking their record for highest single day prize pool. The $300+100 event got over 800 entries when all was said and done, generating a hefty $250k+ in loot.

I was hoping to snag a chunk of that. I once again made a respectable run, surviving past the dinner break and creeping towards the bubble. Just like last night, I never had much in the way of chips. I peaked around 1.5x starting. As the blinds crept up, I missed a decent semi-bluff spot in a hand that could've helped my chances. After that I lost a flip to be eliminated approximately 100 spots shy of the cash. There's not much to say about today's poker because it was a very vanilla session. The HHs were generally not interesting. I'm happy with all of my decisions except for passing on that turn jam. Generally I played my B+ to A- game and once again just didn't pick up enough good spots when the blinds got punitive. I feel good about getting deep-ish in these last two tournaments despite not running particularly good. If I can make bubble runs without great card distribution, I like my chances whenever the deck finally decides to hit me.

Surviving past the dinner break afforded me a little more time to explore the Orleans. I was tempted to unlock a bronze trophy by hitting the Sbarro in their food court, but the lines were very long on break. Instead I wandered around until I found the bowling alley upstairs, which has a small snack shack attached. No line there, though the lanes themselves were packed to the brim with rollers. I think it might have been a local league or tournament. It looked like a good time. "Mark it 8, Dude."

Overall, I enjoyed my Orleans visit. A casino with a bowling alley and movie theater built in is just stacking winning on top of winning. The major downside of the property is the isolated location. Spending $30 on ride share fees burns a lot of your theoretical ROI when you are playing a $400 tournament. Not a problem if you have a car or friends to split the fare with, but as a carless solo traveler, it's an impediment.

The robust turnout for the tournament was a pleasant surprise, though it had an unpleasant consequence. We played 90% of today's session 10-handed. I am very vocal about hating 10-handed poker. The ranges get that much tighter and the physical space is noticeably more cramped. I try avoid 10-handed events when I can.

After busting the Orleans tournament, I still had energy to keep playing. I took a short break in the hotel room and hiked over to the Horseshoe, where I had a chat with rppoker before I registered for the 10 PM $135 mega satellite to try to win $1k in entry credit. I'm not sure which last longer, the conversation or my stay in the tournament. These mega satellites are the live equivalent of a hyper turbo. 15 minute levels. 10k starting stack. No time to get cute. I got my last 10BB in pre-flop with QQ and ran into KK. 18% was 0% tonight. I was sent packing after an hour of play. Quick and relatively painless. If you're going to get coolered, get coolered in the $135s.

I attempted to leave Paris through the Eiffel Tower doors and was surprised to find security guards blocking all the exits. There was some type of extreme police situation unfolding outside. The Strip was completely blocked off for the entire stretch between PH and Caesar's, with a legion of sirens and flashing lights. No car traffic. No pedestrians. I'm not sure what the fuss was all about. The tangible impact on me was that I had to loop around the back way through PH and then finally up the stairs towards the Cosmo. Along the way I may have stopped to crush another Earl's sandwich, bringing the tally to 2/3 on the silver trophy tracker. If I can't win at poker, at least I can win at sandwiches.

The last 2+ days have gone by in a flash. It feels like I just landed, yet I'm already fixing to check out of Excalibur. Tomorrow will be another busy day. I'll wake up, check out, dump my bags at Harrah's, and then double back to the ParisShoe to play the 10AM WSOP $800 NLHE. These two-day massive field NLHE events feel a bit silly since they're very much just a test of how good you can run, but if it's your turn to run good on that particular day, I imagine they can be a blast. Let's embrace the silliness and have fun with it. Maybe my bingo ticket will be a big winner. The event will play 8-handed, which is a win in and of itself.

I'm hoping for a deep run. If I crash and burn quickly, the 7PM Resorts World nightly looms as the backup plan.

As the French say, "En avant et vers le haut."

Ouch, 10-handed. But hopefully that was just an exception due to the huge turnout.

The police situation on The Strip was likely because a semi-famous YouTuber named Manny (from a channel called 'SinCityFamily' with 46k subscribers) apparently shot & killed another YouTuber (and their wife) right outside of Bellagio. My extensive 2 minute research indicates this was because the latter had said something derogatory about Manny's wife in another video or in a comment or something. Crazy stuff.

The couple that got killed was livestreaming a walk on The Strip, and thus the incident got captured on video (not gonna link it here obviously).

Edit, Todd Witteles sums it up here:

https://x.com/ToddWitteles/status/193199...

en avant, vers le haut

I think?

EDIT: NVM - you got there

DAY FOUR - 6/9

Today I played a WSOP event and made a final table. Sounds pretty awesome, right?

Well, sort of.

My attempt at the $800 Deepstack began with a relatively passive and easy starting table. I ran hot and got my 40k starting stack over 130k within the first 4 hours. Highlights included a cheeky 3-bet bluff with 92o that I was able to get through and show. That advertising probably helped get me paid in full a short time later when I hit a set against an overpair. As the day progressed, the table got much harder. A former winner of the $50k PPC joined our crew. He tried to run an insane bluff with 86s on a QQ7 board in a 3 bet pot against another bracelet winner and got heroed on the river by an unimproved AK. It was fun to witness that carnage. After busting on that hand, PPC was swiftly replaced by another tough player, who took a big chunk of my stack when I paid off the backdoored flush with top pair and a nut flush blocker. He had just arrived at our table (from busting the $10k 2-7) and gave off big "I'm here to run up a stack or go home" energy. I did not quite know what to make of it when he bombed the river on me. He seemed capable of running that spot with any two, but unfortunately he had the goods. I always find it extra challenging when you are put in a tricky spot against someone who has just sat down at your table, as you have no frame of reference. I was not able to make the correct decision this time.

I tried to right the ship after that cannon blast and managed to hang around for a while before losing a flip 77 < AQ after registration closed. I finished approximately 1,700th out of 4,481 entries, which is another decent showing, but ultimately not meaningful. That's been the trend among my tournaments so far on this trip. I get in position to do something and then hit a brick wall. The rushes are not coming when needed.

The one plus side of busting was that it afforded me just enough time to check into my room at Harrah's and rush down to RW for their $200 7 PM nightly.

I made it to my seat almost exactly as the first hand was being dealt. RW is a nice property that has struggled to find its footing both in terms of attracting general business and in terms of pulling crowds to the poker room. That mostly held true tonight. They only had 2-3 tables of cash running. Their daily event was playing down to the money bubble and had a respectable field of approximately 145 entries. However, the nightly only drew 32 entries when all was said and done. More people should be playing at Resorts World.

I had a fun time in this tournament and generally had decent chips until the blinds got crazy. I managed to limp to the final table, where the unfortunate seat redraw put me in the BB straight away with a sub <10 BB stack, forcing me to commit the BB and ante immediately. Big stack in EP limped (alarm sirens ringing). It folds to SB. She completes. I have 74o. I check. Flop comes 753. SB checks. Given my stack size and the odds being laid by the pot, I'm happy to get it in here with top pair and a gutter. Big stack predictably snaps with AA. We brick our outs and finish 9th for $0. As you can see, I played a WSOP event today and made a final table. Both of those things are true, but it wasn't nearly as exciting as it sounds. I'm still hunting my first cash of the trip and won't award myself the "make a final table" trophy for doing so outside the money in such a small field.

The one trophy I did manage to unlock today was the inevitable Sbarro slice, eaten out of desperation during a color-up break in today's WSOP $800.

After busting the RW event, I worked my way through Palazzo and Venetian, where I capped off the day with an order of the garlic chicken at Grand Lux. Having just spent several hours in RW, I could not help but notice the huge contrast in crowd density and energy between that property and the V. The floor at the Venetian was hot, with a palpable buzz of excitement in the air. RW has built the facilities to accommodate that type of action, but the crowds aren't showing up. Comparatively, it's a tomb.

I had originally planned to play the final flight of the Venetian $1100 MSPT tomorrow, but after three days of nearly non-stop poker that have resulted in exactly zero positive results, I may pause for an intermission of sorts. I may take a "day off" in the form of the $250 WSOP daily, which I seem destined to play at least once every summer. While it would be a bummer to miss the Venetian event, there are single day Wynn $1100s on the horizon that I can unlock with a positive result in the next few days. Those tournaments can scratch the itch for hunting a big bink in a tough field.

After three days of poker, I feel like I've barely gotten out of the starting gate. I'm running like a sloth in molasses, yet I'm still hopeful that there will be a Secretariat day or two before it's all said and done. Let's try again tomorrow.

I was happy for the Orleans that they got such a great turnout, but yeah, it was cramped in there. Not ideal.

I've heard a lot more about the shooting since making that initial post. Crazy situation and completely senseless.

One of those 'annoying' flops where we suspect the big stack have limped strong (I ran into two similar spots in tournaments in May, the limps were obviously KK and AA), but where our hand is too good not to go with given our stack size. UL, you still had a good number of outs to improve.

Can I ask what time you busted? Curious to how late into the night these tournaments go.

Tough runs Dog but keep at it. I’m in the hole on day 3 as well, and looking to book our first cash with the WSOP event today. If we blank, we are dropping down to some softer tournies and lower buy ins as well as some softer rooms. I do have a history of starting the trips out slow then coming around but we’ll see. Still plenty of poker ahead of you to be played! Hoping for a deep run for you!

I think it was around 11:00 to 11:30.

The nightly tournament has an interesting structure. You play 20 minute levels until reg closes, at which point it switches to 30 minute levels. That means relatively less time spent in the inconsequential blind levels, which feels like a courtesy to the players.

Did the slice of Sbarro taste significantly different from what was shown?

😃

I like to dunk on Sbarro, but the reason why I end up eating a few slices every trip is because it's quick and not terrible.

I'm not a vegetarian, but I usually go with the veggie options there.

There was a spinach and mushroom slice hiding under that cardboard.

It was more good than bad. I'll give it a respectable 7/10.