The Summer Wind - A WSOP Trip Report …… and beyond!

****ing butterflies

When I first started going to Vegas (ca. 2003), I'd stay in Palace Station and take their shuttle to the strip. Wish I'd known that Herbs & Rye was just down the street. That steak looks awesome.

Of course, it may not have been, then.

Thanks again for the TR, Tony.

As far as your VLOG, good stuff. Meant to respond earlier. I love the suggestion of a brief explanation of the games and/or basic strategy as it comes up. Only other thing I'd suggest is more editing out of the "downtime". I personally didn't care to see lots of dealing etc sped up- show me only the hands you were involved in! 😀

As an occasional mixed game player who just played Dramaha 49 for the first time a few weeks ago, I am really worried that the above hand has 0 typos in it and I have no ****ing idea what is going on.

In Ari, there is one community card (a 5, in this case) that can only be used for high. It's a split pot triple draw game.

What he said.

Ari is usually a good action game with big multi-way pots. The key is figuring out who is going low and who is going high. If you’ve got a lock on one half of the pot then it’s easy, but if you haven’t, you need to proceed with caution as it’s easy to get chopped up.

WSOP-C Horseshoe Las Vegas
Day Ten - Friday March 27th

Started off well in the cash game today winning 7/8 of a capped Big O pot early on.

I flop the nut flush with nut low draw and get it in against an inferior flush and the same nut low draw and we go twice.

It was looking like plain sailing when I got it in a couple of rounds later with AAQJ pre in a capped PLO pot and the flop came A-7-2, but I’m not running that good unfortunately.

On the run-out the final board reads A-7–2-3-4 and I lose to Jimmy who had capped it pre with K752ds and rivered the straight.

He sheepishly apologies and said he just felt like gambling because he was losing.

Gambling is an understatement I would say. He tried to light $1,600 on fire and got rewarded for it. Why can it never be the easy way?

That put us back to even and then we went about $2k down before recovering to be $1k up just before the game broke.

One of these days I’m going to win 10 dimes in this game, but not today.

On the way back to the hotel I thought I’d try a new pizza place I’d heard about in BLVD called How Ya Dough’n.

First time I’ve been up there and it’s a good location. Pretty quiet, away from the hustle and bustle and with good views.

The pizza was okay but their style is not my personal preference. They go for a crispy well-done pizza whereas I prefer more runny and floppy.

Early night tonight as I’m pretty tired. Last day tomorrow.

[emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]

Your Mom explained it pretty well but I’ll expand a little.

Ari is a high/low triple draw game with 1 community card turned up before the first round of betting. We call it the spit card.

The spit card can only be used for high. Not for low.

So using the hand I posted I have A2346 in my hand which is the 2nd best possible low hand. (A2345 being the best)

And for my high I use the 2346 in my hand together with the 5 spit card to give me a 23456 straight.

As I said a straight doesn’t often win the high as it’s a lot easier to make flushes, full houses and even quads with the help of the spit card.

Thank you, that was more than sufficient.

Sounds like a fun game. Casino AZ has a crazy amount of mixed games, but I don't think I've ever seen that.

Is it named after that mixed game player?

I believe it's just a split off from Archie, another similar game?

Ari Engel is a really nice dude though, he probably deserves to have a game named after him. Once of the nicer players around for sure.

Obviously you are just getting started in the vlog game, and who knows where it takes you.

That said, I thought you might be interested in this article from poker.org with the headline, "Make content, get paid with the WSOP Vlogger Program." The link is ...

https://www.poker.org/latest-news/make-c...

Yea I’d seen it. Only another 4,880 subscribers to go [emoji23]

WSOP-C Horseshoe Las Vegas
Day Eleven - Saturday March 28th

Last chance for some sun and a swim. Prague will be much colder.

Before heading to the office

Two games today and we’re on the main table but would rather be on the must move which looks far easier.

We play tight and have a pretty uneventful session. Never up or down more than 1k. We end it at our high point to book a +$1k win.

Then it’s Knight time again.

Another eventful game. The Capitals raced out to a 3-0 lead before the Knights scored two short-handed goals within 25 seconds of each other.

The Knights completed the comeback and took the lead 4-3 but gave it up and the game went to Overtime just like it did two nights ago.

This time no goal in OT and Vegas couldn’t score in the shootout either. The Capitals did mange to convert once and took the win.

So that will do it for the Vegas part of the trip. Will add up the numbers in the airport tomorrow. Not looking forward to the long journey.

It's a start. To quote a Chinese proverb, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

Shorties are the best! (When they're for your team, of course).

WSOP-C Horseshoe Las Vegas
Wrap-up

Let’s take a look at the tournament numbers first:

Tournaments

Played: 6
Bullets Fired: 11
Total Buy-Ins: $6,400
Hours Played: 43
Cashes: 1
Final Tables: 1
Total Prize Money: $2,169
Profit / Loss: -$4,231

Really good turnout for the mixed events here with a lot of recs and overall a poor standard of play. We couldn’t take advantage however and only managed to cash once resulting in a losing trip tournament wise.
A little spewy on the bullets which was mainly down to the PLO events.

Writing this at the airport while I eat and do some vlog editing. No TSA problems here. I was through in about 15 minutes meaning I’m overly early for my flight.

Cash Games

We played 11 sessions in the $80-$160 Mix at Bellagio with the following results:

Hours Played: 53
Profit / Loss: +$3,100

The overall profit and hourly is nothing to write home about, especially in a game like that, but I feel like I’m improving all the time. The more hours I log in the game, the more I get to know how all the regulars play and how to adjust my game according to the table dynamics on any given day. Still work to do there though as I know I was too loose in certain lineups earlier in the trip.

Expenses

Flights: $830
Hotels: $432
Taxis: $50

For the flights I just split the total cost of all the flights both for Vegas and Prague and accounted for half here and will put the other half on the Prague trip.

As for the hotels, the 4 midweek nights at Horseshoe were comped but had to pay for the weekend nights at Excalibur.

Summary

Slightly disappointed with the trip. I had hoped to be leaving Las Vegas well in profit and be free-rolling the upcoming WSOP-E tournaments. I guess we’ll just have to make a big score in Prague.

Great trip, even if the bottom line was unsatisfactory.

Good luck in Prague!!

Thanks for sharing and good luck in Prague.

The Vegas poker ecosystem is small enough that after a while you start to recognize most of the local regs. I imagine that this the effect is far more extreme in the mixed games world. Now that you are a reg in these venues, I assumed you must be making adjustments to your game based on history and reads. I suspect all of these sessions will pay major dividends when summer comes around and you are sitting in big mixed game events at the WSOP with far more inexperienced players who are going to be leaking EV left and right.

Not a great trip results wise but I think it’s important to note that it also wasn’t a terrible trip.

Not losing a tonne when running badly is a really important skill. And your cash game wins and the one final table are great ways to protect the bankroll and bolster you up for the run good to come

I hope Prague is fun and profitable

Thanks for the read. Wishing you better outcomes in Prague.

Just uploaded a new vlog.

Another word for it is "efficient".

There’s a bar / restaurant next door and I have a pizza and beer before turning in.

On Deck tomorrow: €3,300 Mixed PLO

Now THAT'S A BEER!