Low Stakes, High Society (August 1st-6th, 2025 - Las Vegas Trip Report)

First timers always sunrun. I certainly did. If I didn't have to catch a flight home, I probably would've won.

I'm in! GL to you and Mrs. Walsh.

We need a picture of wife to determine the quality of this TR!

Just kidding 😀 Although these were standard requests back when 2+2 was mega-popular 15 years ago.

GL, have fun, and use many CLP-concepts to crush opponents!

We landed in Vegas, dropped off our bags, and headed to Ellis Island for craps. $5 tables were alive and well and we slid into a packed table for 10 AM on a Friday. My wife knew absolutely nothing about the game, so we ran over the basics, bought in for $200, and hoped she had a hot hand. The dice came around quickly and once she announced it was her first roll, everyone threw some action on the ATS. Some hefty action for a $5 table.

She started checking off numbers, blissfully unaware to what was taking place around her. Just needing a 2, I called for the aces. “But the point’s on 5, that’s what we need to win, right?” She wasn’t wrong, we were just playing pass line and odds, but larger forces were at play here. The craps came soon after and the table went cold again once the dice got passed to me and beyond.

In for $200, out for $54.

In-and-Out, Pinball Hall of Fame, then it’s showtime. We were going to stake her, but she made her $60 and more binking the PKO last night, so I guess she’s just good for it.

Both a hair under two starting stacks (10k) at the end of late reg. I convinced her to fire the second bullet, it’s going well!

Virgin shooter never fails

I busted out in 7th shoving A4o (BTN) for 11BB over raise from a very loose player (CO). Seems marginal. Ended up running into queens.

Wife bubbled in 4th, with ATs against queens against the same player in the same situation. That one I know was correct.

She played very well. I mean 5BB deep 4-handed bubble play is not something we covered, but she found the deviations from where situations she knew what to do. I wouldn’t be shocked if she actually had an edge on the field.

-$330 roughly, to start the trip. Like a phoenix, we will rise.

In. Good luck!

Top of Binions was top-tier as always. El Cortez was generous and we left up $75 mostly due to a hot Blackjack table offsetting an atrocious run at slots.

At this point we got up for our flight here….22 hours ago. Walking over to Omnia now where the headliner won’t even be come on for another 3.5 hours. Coffee, Red Bull, and the nicotine contact-high from casino cigarette smoke is the only thing keeping the ship moving forward.

The last ~40 hours have been hectic beyond belief.

Closed down Omnia on Friday night with Martin Garrix. Great show as always, and his new set has a lot of early progressive house throwbacks.

Woke up far too early (after our 28 hour-Friday) on Saturday to see Tiesto at Palm Tree Beach Club. MGM Grand did a great job with a layout that actually makes sense for a beach club.

After that was dinner at Carbone….just simply the best meal we’ve ever had. $150+tip for 2 people which I’d happily pay for that experience again.

We skipped Zedd last night to finally catch up on sleep, and we used every second of the 11 hours we had.

Woke up this morning to the big surprise of the trip, the Garden Table at Sadelle’s. They have a table hidden in the middle of the Bellagio Conservatory, and it was a dining experience we will remember forever.

After that was Potted Potter, a cute show well worth 2 for $50 if you’ve got Harry Potter fans in your family. I’ve not read the books or watched the movies in probably 10+ years and still found it extremely entertaining.

Caesar’s WiFi seems to have a vendetta against me uploading photos to specifically this site, but y’all don’t care about food pics. This isn’t Instagram, it’s a poker forum.

Grabbing drinks at Flights before Din Tai Fung, the wife heads to the airport after that, and poker will kick off for real. It’s looking like I won’t make the Wynn Daily, so will play it by ear. The structure at Bellagio isn’t great, but always brings out a fun crowd - so we’ll likely start our poker for the week there.

With the photos, you know you can just copy/paste or drag/drop them into posts without using tapatalk now, right? Or use the little postcard with mountains button in the post toolbar. That Garden Table sounds incredible.

11k off 40k starting after the first level of the $400 Venetian Deepstack.

Punted off a 75BB call on the River with K9 on an AA99A board not realizing we were playing the board. Really wish I ordered that coffee. Or took my time. I think that’s the worst mistake I’ve ever made playing poker.

Chip and a chair, we’ve still got 28BB, so it’s not over yet.

And we’re out. Blinded down to 5.2k where I jammed 77 UTG at 300/600/600. Got 4 callers and we were sent to the rail. I still don’t know what I was thinking there on the hand that took us short.

Off to the Wynn for their $200 daily. I’m friending for some watermelon juice. Let’s not completely punt it off this time. That buy-in is gone, time to completely forget about it

Dealer talked me into a Pina Colada. Not going to replace my watermelon juice but pretty damn good.

27k off 25k starting at the start of Level 4.

My favorite drink at the Wynn is the strawberry Julius

22.5k off 25k starting at the first break. In 2.5 hours of poker today we’ve had an openable hand 4 times. Would rather be card dead now in a $200 daily than when it actually matters.

Watermelon Juice #1 had hit the table.

300/600/600 BBA

UTG raises to 2k, LJ calls, CO calls. We have AQo in the BB and raise to 10k.

UTG jams for 16k. LJ calls for 8k. We call.

UTG has AKo. LJ has TT.

Board: T84….Q….T.

LJ wins the main with the 4th quads we have seen today. We are back to 24k….somehow.

Drink #3 acquired

Made it to the end of late reg. 36.5k off 25k starting. 20 left off 48 entries.

Two floor people were talking behind me about how it was their worst attendance in a very long time, they couldn’t remember the last time they didn’t hit their number. They looked through Bravo and Atlas. Aria didn’t make their guarantee. Resort World didn’t make it. Venetian technically made it but is giving up their rake.

We’ve all seen the news about Las Vegas tourism. Sure, it’s a Monday afternoon, but the poker rooms are seeing it. I’m curious to see what direction these resorts move in. Try to juice more out of their whales? Or finally go back to the value proposition of a cheap but fun vacation that brought people in for decades.

Anyways….lets ship this thing.

Busted shortly after the end of re-entry. We had built a nice stack getting thin value in small pots. Cash had made us great at doing specifically this. We had 47k in what ended up being the last hand of our night.

At 1k/1.5k/1.5k UTG and the BTN limp to us in the SB with A6o. We raise it to 6k and get called by the BB and UTG.

21k in the pot the flop comes Q♥J♦T♥This feels like a great range bet spot against two loose players, and we fire off 8k. The BB calls after some hesitancy and UTG gets out of the way.

8♣ on the turn and we fire the last of it 22k into 37k. My logic on it is his strongest holdings are going to find an easy check-jam on the flop go clean up their equity against all the draws I’m betting. Any naked 9’s he has are folding to the flop bet. We’ve got some equity with the straight outs, and need a fold 50-60% of the time?

We get snapped off by KT. This isn’t online, people will call down with third pair, what are we doing.

Overall extremely disappointed with how I played today. The Venetian Deepstack was over before it started after the worst mistake of my playing career. I was playing well at the Wynn, but that last hand was as bad decision after bad decision. Pretty much every live tournament bust I’ve ever had has been taking the aggressive option with a marginal holding - perhaps I should learn something from that.

I wish I had the enthusiasm for a 3rd bullet, but after a start like that taking the night off seems wise.

am late to the party but am hoping you'll turn this ship around

I'm here now as well. Got in last night and played V Bounty. Played the Wynn tournament today. I don't think I was at your table.

I have a decent frame of reference because I make many LV trips and was also in Vegas early August last year. Feels notably dead in the rooms at the moment. Low turnout all around town. RW is struggling mightily. They are throwing new things at the wall trying to see what sticks, but they can't draw flies in their daily tournaments. Sad situation. Wynn and V were relatively dead the last two days. Things feel a little "off" at the moment. I think it's a combination of a tourism downturn and the natural post-WSOP lull. All the Euros and tourists skipped town at the end of July. What's left is just randoms. Even a lot of the regs seem to be using this time to take a breather from poker.

Venetian multi-day $400 running Wed-Sun should pull some bodies back to the tournament tables. The one day stuff has been doing low numbers. I'm trying to enjoy the different vibe after engaging with the mega fields earlier this summer. While the guarantees are modest, it's nice to play events where you can see all the tables.

That's all coming from a strictly poker perspective. The bigger picture with LV crowds is more complicated, as you alluded to.

Alright, back to it, time to play smart. Life is one long sessions and we can’t do anything about the mistakes of yesterday.

27.1k off 20k starting at the end of late reg. Coming back to 400/800/800.

Fairly card dead, but we’re hitting flops and making difficult folds where necessary.

Best hand so far is 200/300/300 where we raise K♥9♥ in the HJ to 1k and get 3 callers.

The flop comes K♣6♥3♣. SB and BB check to us, we put out a bet of 1.3k, and only the SB calls.

On the turn 7♠ we check back for pot control.

The river is a 9♠, and when it checks to us, we have to get value here. Pot of 5.6k, I think 2.8k can get called by naked kings and worse two-pairs.

Surprisingly, she calls and flips over QQ, flatted pre from the SB despite a field caller. God I love these dailies.

And we’re out. Got dealt 0 playable hands through levels 6 and 7.

Sitting on 20BB the LJ min raises, BTN calls, and we have 66 in the BB. I’ve studied this spot in GTOw. I know it’s a jam. I know it’s especially a jam against these two V’s who are opening wide and over-folding.

Sure enough the BTN didn’t immediately snap with JJ, but obviously found a call and we were out. Against a villain who’s thinking for even a single second with JJ it was great above.

I mostly had hands that played themselves, and looking back through the notes I can’t find a mistake we made. This is the best I’ve felt about losing $200 in a while.

Perhaps running card dead over 2 days of cash would have been cheaper, but with the mistakes we made yesterday, it wouldn’t have been.