Ongoing VP TR, PART 2!

Jamming all day with ATo vs a super wide limping range. You have to take your plus ev spots in a hyper.

And no reason to need to show a bluff vs players already calling way too loose. You don't need them to call you even looser (vs players who have a clue I agree with you on the respected idea, too.)

I hope the main tournament had at least a little better structure...

110% shove if limped to.

Yep,shove A-T, and D’s advertising plan would probably be wasted on that audience.

Easy shove with structure and player profiles, then tell the bad beat story about 10,000 times when A7o gets there.

Agreed, with structure and player profiles this reputation is unlikely to matter, definitely not as much as the chips risked.

Edit: I didn't see Tony Soprano's more succinct post.

Yes, I suspect D's prior experience with cash was driving his thought process. 99.99% of all my play was cash back in the day. Limit hold em was (is) so mechanical that I typically didn't have to make any big deviations, and in the online space it didn't matter anyways.

I'm sure I'd be perceived as a much more fun player now than back in the day. I was wearing sunglasses at the table in 2001 😀 Used to take that sht, and myself, way too seriously.

Day 3

I sleep in a little bit longer and head downstairs. We've got breakfast at Jardin at 9am, then nothing on the agenda until a drawing for a seat at the final table at 11:30, then the main tourney starts at noon!

I open with dealt quads number 3!

Spoiler

Show

Not enough.

Thought this one way pretty crazy. Held an ace, get regular quads and 4 aces on the draw.

Good draw here.

One straight flush, and one straight flush that matters!

I moved to the multiline quarter machine so I must have started losing, badly.

Hold an ace, get premium quads on the draw...

I believe I lost 2k that session. Not ideal but not a big deal either. I head back to the room, grab a shower then D and I head to Jardin.

8/10.

After breakfast, we play craps at Encore and it's god awful again. I lose 5k, am stuck 7k for the day now. D has taken a great opening session and now is basically even for the trip 😮 We need to bink this tourney!

I head to VP to kill some time before the tourney. It's ice cold, and I'm down ANOTHER 5k. So now I'm stuck 12k for the day and I can feel upstuck creeping in. D and I had a long convo during breakfast about the tourney- he's looking forward to it, I'm scared. Specifically, I'm preparing myself to get screwed by luck here. We've simply got this one shot, and as +EV as it is long term, on any one day anything can happen. I'm terrified what the schooling fish effect/bad beats are going to be. I know this sounds stupid but the fact that skill is a factor here makes me much more worried that I'm going to get screwed. If this were just a slot tourney where it's obv it's all luck I'd just take my shot. But make no mistake, I'm REALLY worried about run bad here. I know there's nothing I can do, but still...

I grab some food before the start. Actually not bad for buffet style food.

Eventually, it's time for the drawing. Shocking- we didn't win. So now it all comes down to the tourney. I have to say, I was a little disappointed. There weren't many tickets in that drum and I've put in a lot of action since I've been here, most of it on Thurs when I was playing huge for hours (you get more entries based on amount of play). So we take our seats-

25k starting stack, up to 50k bc I bought all the rebuys/addons yesterday.

So the way they have the rebuys/addons is kind of weird. Everyone has a voucher for everything they've purchased. You can redeem any time between hands. No one at my table has redeemed anything so we've all got 50k. On top of that, I heard one dealer saying you can get a REFUND??! for any unused rebuys. That sounds wrong (and eventually is proven to be wrong), but at the time all of the sudden I was incentivized to NOT use my rebuys right away. I decide I will use them to keep pace with the biggest stacks at the table, and perhaps protect myself and not use them if in fact there's a good big stack here.

Sneak preview- not having a max stack didn't make a difference. I never missed value nor put unnecessary chips at risk prior to using my rebuys.

So we're underway. It's pretty clear I have the WORST seat at the table this time. I'm sandwiched between two ultra-loose aggressives. These guys are playing and raising with trash, but they are very unpredictable and sticky. OK, I'll hunker down and wait for cards. I use 2/3 rebuys early simply to keep pace with the stack on my left, who has taken a ton of chips from the stack on my right.

If we assume everyone has done all rebuys possible, that's a starting stack of 25+25+25+30+35 = 140k. Blinds start at 100/200, but levels are only 15 min. So we're deep stacked to start, but people are going to get short fast! I need hands.

Only 55 runners, they were expecting 60.

Not much to report for the first few levels. I stole the occasional pot, saw a few flops and basically played quiet for a while. Then, a key hand comes up. I'm dealt qq on the button. 3 limpers to me (EVERYONE LIMPS), I believe blinds are 400/800. I make it 4000 and one limper and the BB call.

Flop comes 226 rainbow. They check, I bet 10,000 and the BB calls all in. We turn over our hands- she has ace 5 sooted. OK, so she called the 4000 with about 10000 behind with a weak ace, and called all in with just an ace. I'm... confused but here we are.

I immediately joke to the table, "looks like she has 20 outs". Someone who was trying to play well literally thought I was serious and says, "how does she have 20 outs?" I say, "well, she's got an ace, so we know there's like 19 of them left in the deck". I'm in good shape... but scared...

Turn is a second spade. She has spades. Oh no, here we F'ing go AMOTHERFCKINGSPADEONTHERIVEROFCOURSEFFFFFFUUUUUUURUNNERRUNNERBS!!!!!!

Sometimes you just know. OK, so she survives, I still have a decent stack but those chips sure would have looked good in them. Nothing to do now but rebuild.

I slowly but steadily chip back up. I'm playing well, for sure. In general I'm playing my hands and position, but I have a few of the weak tights pegged and buy a few pots. And then...

Blinds 1000/2000. I'm one off the button and I've got near a starting stack (so 70BB give or take). Squeeze one card... ace. Squeeze second card...ace.

Yeah, I'm probably getting it all in here.

Two limpers to me and I make it 10k. Only the SB calls.

Flop- 554. That's about as safe as it comes. She checks, I bet 15k and basically commit myself. She check raises me to 40k and I just put it all in. She has me covered. She's got... 66.

PLEASE DON'T LET ME GET SCREWED HERE.

Turn is an innocuous 2 and I know I'm dead. You all know where this is going... I don't even have time to ask for help, the poker gods to not F me etc and the dealer just burns and obv rivers a 3. I make a WHEEL!!!! SWEET.

I'll admit, I threw my cards at the dealer and sarcastically said nice hand. I actually don't hate the way she played it, just of COURSE I'm going to get screwed by runner runner, AGAIN. ZERO chance a 6 peels on the river. It's gotta be a three, to just twist the knife a little more.

I rage grab my stuff and find D. I start telling him the story but he's concentrating on his hand... 77 for D, A8o for his opponent... 8 on the flop. No runner runner for D and we're both out within 30 sec of each other.

So, yeah. I'll admit right now I was tilted for days after that. Two key hands- two key overpairs, two runner runner bad beats. How about no rungood, just no run bad?

I feel like I should grab all the foods from here, but I'm so sick I can't eat.

D and I hightail it out of there. I am seriously on some monkey tilt right now. Our one time, just gone in a puff of smoke. I start thinking if I could have somehow played the hand better before I stop myself. It's irrelevant now anyways and it's not like I'm joining the tourney circuit after this. I text TonySoprano to commiserate- I have no idea how you tourney regulars handle this crap. When I played for a living I never went on tilt, but since I've been a casino gambler tilt is a regular thing for me. I know I've run so hot in my life before, but the bad runs definitely sting more. Tony advises me to grab alcohol which I immediately do, but I'll tell you folks right now- I didn't calm down until 3 days later. SO, SO TILTING.

Day 3 so far- -12k

Rest of trip coming soon...

Ouch. Just so gross. I would be tilted, too!

hahahaha yes it's amazing how often **** like this A5ss calling 1/3 stack pre then the rest with basically nothing gets there in things like this. I viscerally feel the feels man. Would have been ragetilted yuge.

Also, throwing in with the chorus that the AT is a jam, and advertising in a game like this is literally pointless.

Yea, you want these calls. This is what you want. This is your edge. But you know that sometimes it goes to crap.

Throwing your cards isn't great. Be mad at the luck. But come on, you know that dealer dealing a freeroll that isn't getting paid crap for this -- he doesn't deserve your crap.

Just a pet peeve of mine.

Looking forward to the VP recovery

Obv I agree with you. To clarify, I didn't technically throw them at the dealer. I flipped them up with a lot of arc so they tumbled end over end like the worthless pieces of plastic they were, so they landed haphazardly in the muck. But it was childish for sure.

Doesn't sound like a big deal, and I have probably mucked my cards in a semi-annoyed way once or twice after getting eliminated in a big spot. As long as you don't use negative language towards the dealer or your opponent, you should be allowed to have a frustrating reaction for a second IMO.

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Random VP questions; can I ask how many bets you usually start a sesssion with? Do you always put in so much money that it's almost impossible to go broke on that amount, or do you sometimes have to reload? And do you have any rough estimate on how many hands you play in a regular session?

That tournament result makes me sick. Damn that sucks.

The amount of these tournaments you lost is getting ridiculous now.

I'm curious how these poker tournaments play out. 2 hours? About how many hands dealt to win? Checking the numbers for the warmup tournament structure there would be about 200bb total in play after the first hour. How fast are players' actions? 50 hands?

I generally feed in 1k at a time. I try never to put too much money in at once- I know from experience how easy it is to put in a 10k ticket, say "I'll only play 5k", insta lose that then keep playing bc it's funny money/a number on the screen. So, I'm often reloading.

I know EXACTLY how many hands I play- I keep count. For instance, I just crossed 100k hands in my latest cycle (I keep track of total hands, dealt quads, dealt trip aces, stuff like that). So it completely varies session by session- some sessions I might not even last 500 hands, other days like today (sneak preview, I won), I cycled in 4500 hands at the local.

Keep in mind I'm basing this on an N of 1. I got knocked out almost 2 hrs in, and half the field was still there. My guess is the tourney probably went another two hrs. The players actually played pretty quickly for the donks they were. I guess calling regardless of bet size, position, or cards is pretty easy LOL. My guess is 20-30 hands an hr.

Rest of trip

Let's get this done.

Enraged after the tourney result, I message TonySoprano who advises me to start drinking. I think that's a good idea. I'm aware that I'm on tilt right now, so the best thing to do is to NOT gamble but rather cool off for a bit. In this state, I could lose 20k and literally not give a SHT until later.

Eventually, I calm down and hit hi limit again. Maybe all the rungood that was lacking in the tournament will come to me here?

Those were the only hits of the session, and I'm now stuck an additional 2k, or 14k for the day.

D and I find a craps table. He's on life support, and I'm barely clinging to a win. We both play small, but that just means we lose slightly less than before. Ice cold- point/out/point/out over and over. I'm now stuck another 3k for the day. We've got dinner at Casa Playa, and we limp over there with our tails tucked firmly between our legs.

This is a "double" of tequila??!

Salsa prepared tableside.

The green rice here really is the bomb, 10/10. I recommend anyone going here get it. Everything else 7/8-10.

After dinner, we try craps again. We decide to buy into the game for 1k each- that's really small for me. We're going to bet 160 across, and press any number we hit twice before collecting. So effectively we have 9 rolls for some magic to happen, but the numbers could get pretty big fast enough. All we need is some heat, right?

Point/out. NINE. TIMES. IN A ROW. FFFASDFDFSXV

OK, I'm tilted again. We've got some serious bad juju following us around and we need to something to change, drastically. We decide to walk to Venetian. I literally don't care about being rated anymore- I'm so over losing money to the Wynn that I'd rather play somewhere else. Plus, D can still get rated there.

Everything blocked off for F1, gotta make sure no one who didn't pay can possibly catch a glimpse of the race.

So. We belly up to a table where there are a few guys at the other end shooting. They seem rather clueless, but certainly friendly and having a good time. I'm sure they wouldn't have minded if we joined mid-roll. D is supposed to buy us in- we're in for 1k a piece, and since he's going to be rated he's got to buy us in.

So D is doing the polite thing and waiting. Meanwhile, I'm still on tilt and just want action, NOW. The shooter rattles off 5 10s with quite a few other numbers as well. I'm getting REALLY antsy. Eventually he 7's out and we're in. They leave. We would have made decent money had we jumped in when we first walked up.

D and I are going to do 220$ inside numbers. We split the buy in half, so we've both got effectively 5 rolls.

Point. Out. Point. Out.

😡 WTFWTFWTFWTF

I'm seething inside. Point. 11, 11, 3, 2, 2, 3 etc etc etc. I forgot to mention but many of our rolls this trip have also been this nonsense, when it wasn't point out. SO MANY USELESS outside numbers. If we were playing crapless craps it would be awesome. Obv these numbers never show up at the crapless table. It really was uncanny and at this point I feel like the gambling gods have well and truly turned against me.

Eventually, 7 out. NOT ONE NUMBER hit, but plenty of back to back crap numbers, etc. I don't care at this point and just want it to be over.

I set down 25$ on the pass line and shoot. 3 craps. Another 25$. 12 craps. Another 25$. 3 craps.

WTFWTFWTFWTF!!!!H!H!!H!!!!!

Normally, I don't sweat craps numbers on the comeout. It's "just" 25$ and hey, it's part of the game. Actually, I'm a favorite on the comeout, so whatever. But at this stage in the trip, given my buy in, and the sheer ridiculousness of it all, it takes my tilt to another level. I didn't think it was possible. I fling the dice as hard as I can against the back wall. Number, 8. OK, fling it again-

I'm almost felted. I don't even have a full bet. D is shooting, I bet my remaining crumbs. He hits one number which I immediately use to bet another number. 7 out.

FELTED. How many awful back to back to back craps sessions can we have?! Seriously.

We walk back to Wynn. It's 9:30pm on a Saturday night, I'm stuck 19k for the day. BARELY, BARELY up for the trip. D is effectively felted.

Sometimes I hate this town. We both head upstairs to bed. I'm asleep at 10pm on a Sat night in Vegas.

Day 3 result- -19k
Overall- +2k

Final Day

I, of course, get the best night of sleep on my final day. My flight leaves pretty early, so when I wake up I know the smart thing to do is sleep more, but this is going to be my last shot this trip... might as well not kid myself. I'm going to play, and I'm prepared to book a small loss.

I shove every ticket I have into the machine and hit multiline.

Multiline sucks. Lets' move to single line.

Dealt quads number 3 coming up!

Spoiler

Show

Just not enough at this stage.

Keep going.

I hover for a while at that machine, but ultimately I lose 10k the final AM. I'm stuck 8k overall. Not a bad result in aggregate, but ABSOLUTELY FING RIDICULOUS given how much I was up after the first day and the fact that we really were here first and foremost for the poker tournament. I had to run like absolute ass after the first day to wind up a loser, and OF COURSE that's what happened.

I cannot wait to get home. I actually moved my ride to the airport up, expecting with the government shutdown that I'll need extra time. D and I grab a room service breakfast and say our goodbyes. Turns out, not only did I not need to move my ride up (airport is surprisingly empty for a Sun morning), but my flight is delayed over an hr!!!! So now I'm stuck in this town longer than planned. I just want to get home, lick my wounds and see my family...

Eventually, I make it home. I'm tired, tilted and stuck.

Day 4 result- -10k
Overall- -8k
Dealt quads- 3
5 digit hits- 2

Postscript- It took me days to get off tilt from that tournament result. I was hoping to get our usual home poker game going when I got back but we didn't have the people. In retrospect, I'm glad we didn't play. I'm 100% sure I would have yelled at my mom or any other player at the table if they played less than perfectly and cost me a penny which obv they don't deserve.

I know that I want the idiots at my table. I know that in the long run, the worse they play, the better I do. I know all of that. But obv, in the short term, variance can be a M-Fukker. Given the beating I took and the fact that come 2026 I can't play VP bc of the tax changes, I seriously debated maybe picking up cards again as my primary gambling fix. I'm pretty sure if I got myself up to speed I'd once again be a favorite at most games. But, that thought pretty quickly was set aside.

I don't want to grind anymore. I know that. I'd rather just stay home. And this weekend proved it- I've been away from the felt too long. I'm ok losing money. I simply cannot handle losing money to another human, at least in games big enough that I care. If I picked up poker again I'd play 5/5/10 PLO or 5/10 HE at a minimum- anything else is too small. And, if I lose pots at those levels to bad beats, guaranteed I'd care.

Gambling is a funny thing. You can know all the numbers, but depending on where you're at in life the same result is completely different. When I was building my poker roll, the thought of giving 100$ to the house seemed ridiculous. Now that I've won/lost millions to the casino, the thought of playing poker for 50$/hr seems like an utter waste of time, despite that fact that from an EV standpoint there's no question what's the better move.

Ahh well. Can't win 'em all. Thanks for reading!

Oof. What a grim descent from such an incredible first day!

Thank you for your time and generosity in writing it up so well

As always, thanks for the detailed trip report win, lose, or draw.

Refreshing compared to others that only post trip reports when they won gobs of money..

Anymore trips planned before end of year? Feels like this is the end of an era for those of us who have followed this thread for awhile.

Yeah, need a 12/26 - 12/29 report!!!

I do have one more 2025 trip lined up, which obv will be primarily VP given the circumstances.

As far as future TRs, don't worry. I'll always be a gambler and right now my plan is to pivot back to craps as my main game. Actually, some people may not realize but my first TR was way back in 2014? when I played craps and I titled it ?high roller craps TR or something like that. Obv at this stage I play a lot bigger and am used to far bigger swings thanks to VP, so I'm looking forward to playing dice again, but rolling in with a typical VP bankroll vs my old table games trip bankroll which was 10k at best.

I'm also curious how my tier credit and ratings will be affected moving forward. I expect them to go down, but we'll see. In past long sessions at the Wynn, I've actually been shocked how many tier credits they've given me- time on table matters a lot, and some sessions in craps where you get to play for hrs, the credits can really add up. I'm also going to have to have a conversation with my host asking for freeplay chips instead of free credit and why- curious how that will affect his opinion of me as well. Ultimately I'll still be playing a -2% expectation game anyways so who knows? Personally I'm far more likely to donk off money with a number on a screen, but I'll bet there are other players at the Wynn where it's the exact opposite- make them feed in bills and they don't bet that much, but put chips in their hand and they go nuts.

So, a fair amount of things I'm looking forward to finding out about. I already know I'll have sessions where I wish I could just belly up to a machine to blow off some steam. Also hoping for sessions where I set new personal bests at the dice table, given a larger avg bet and larger sample size.

Oh, and I think the 2026 tax situation has unequivocally answered whether I continue to play at FB or not, and the answer is no. My understanding is they rate table games there for Sht, and I can't stand their plastic chips at baseline. So when I switch completely to dice I have zero incentive to play there.

It's a shame- I'm 2/3 to Royal status there again and as I've said I want to like them more. But the comps I get from there just aren't worth it, and there's no reason to retain royal status for 2026 for a place I don't play on playing in. Now I wish I hadn't given them action over 2025- all of that action could have gone to the Wynn (probably with better results too since I just can't seem to win at FB ever).

Still want FB to do well if for no other reason than to give Wynn competition and force them to stay competitive.

I’m really interested in your craps TRs for 2026. Craps is something I haven’t dared to try yet (except for a quick stint at a casino on the California/Nevada border but that was for fun only). Main reason is that it seems incredibly difficult to learn and it’s expensive to learn it at even a $25 table.

I have played some bubble craps, especially crapless, during my last TR but that was only for fun and I have no clue what I’m doing. I play the come out roll then 2x the odds and bet all numbers except for the point + the ATS until I 7 out.

I highly recommend craps for fun, even more so than VP. It's not hard to learn either. There's no other game in the casino where money can pile up so fast and you end up making bets many times bigger than your starting point. Plus, you can play with friends which just increases the fun/spreads around the misery when it's bad. Seeing total strangers hi fiving and hugging each other at the craps tables shows you how humans are capable of love for total strangers in the right circumstances 😀

Seriously, except for the occasional lightning strike at VP or slots, craps gives you a real chance of winning some serious money. Actual negative expectation is fairly low for most bets as well. It's actually less expensive than VP- I've seen you play UX for dimes at a bad paytable. That game will chew you up way faster than craps. If anyone wants me to post a good way I've found to balance fun/longevity, let me know and I'll do it.

I would love to hear your opinion on balance in craps, I’m looking to switch over in Jan as well but still not to confident in my craps play.