MuckPls & Whale - a March Madness TR part III

Because I always do. It adds character to the story. If you don't like it, I am sure there are other threads for you.

Today is 'go-home' day for me, and although it's sad to leave I did at least not spend the night alone in my room last night. That said, with my back issues I guarantee you guys that this story is much less exciting than it sounds!

Either way, I checked out of my room at 1pm (extended check-out) and eventually made my way over to Bellagio to say hello to 'MuckPls'. While there I got the (stupid) idea to actually join a $1/$3 game and play for a little bit.

I was however in no shape to play good poker, as although my back is now 95% the flu-symptoms have come back full force. I was coughing and had sniffles, and although I tried my best to not inconvenience my table mates with it I will apologize for even playing if any of them read this.

Really only two interesting hands to go through. In the first one I raise AQo (red cards) to $12, and an active Asian who looked a bit like Rampage Poker calls in Small Blinds. We go heads-up to T-8-6 rainbow and I didn't see much point in betting this board. It goes check-check.

Turn is a K putting up a backdoor flush draw in clubs. He checks, and I bet a small $10 with the plan to continue betting river and hopefully get him off some kind of pair on the flop. He calls, and another K lands on the river. He now puts on his thinking cap for a bit and then throws out $35 (he had some weird mannerism while doing so, which I wasn't sure if was acting or not).

This one feels close, as both flush draws and open-enders missed. I do have a Q, but I do not have a club which is good. I ended up making an optimistic call, although it might be too thin as he should seldom lead as a bluff on card that is good for me. He actually showed up with K5dd for trips, which feels a bit spewy pre. If he has that many Kx in his range (I thought he would 3-bet AK and KQ) then my call is obviously massively losing.

This pot plus a few others had me stuck over $100, and I was so exhausted that I didn't bother topping up. So I start the next hand with around $185 USD.

There are two limps for $3 before an active guy (who 3-bet me when I had KQo earlier) makes it $21 in MP. A inexperienced guy calls the $21 on the button and I have AJo in Small Blind. Seems like a good spot to 3-bet, although I am committing my stack almost no matter which sizing I am choosing. I made it $110 leaving only around $75 behind, accepting that I have to call if he jams. But everyone just folded, so I got a nice pickup there.

Shortly after I just cashed out down $67 USD after 1 hour and 45 minutes of play. I'll take it, as it was a mistake to play anymore in the first place.

I then went outside in the sun a bit and took some pictures. Thankfully I had no hotel room anymore, otherwise I would have been tempted to bring with me a Flamingo to chill with (kidding obviously).

Now I am at Harry Reid Airport and another Vegas trip has come to it's end. I am a bit too exhausted to reflect too much about it now, but I have upgraded to a Premium Economy seat on the flight to London. This should hopefully give me more room to move around and be a bit better for my back (although I am not worried about it right now).

I will have to reflect more when I am back in Malta on Sunday. Stats below looks decent though - I updated the tournament total to 3 played, as I forgot that I entered one of those MGM Grand evening crapshoots early in the trip.

Now let's just hope for some smooth and relaxing flights, and as always - this picture bid you guy farewell:

Cash Games:

Hours played: 39h 15min
Won/lost: +$1255 USD
Hourly rate: +$32.0 USD

Tournaments:

Won/lost: +$2051 USD (3 played)

Still, with numbers like that, ever feel like you're wasting your time working at a real job?

Great trip report, from ALL contributors!!

This. Fantastic write-ups, thanks to all. Hope you get to feeling better soon, Whale.

Not really no. I love poker obviously but it can be rough at times + uncertain. I used to play for a living many many years ago for 3 years and it was brutal, I promised myself I’d never do it again.

It’s a backup tho if anything goes sideways

Fantastic TR guys! Safe travels.

Safe travels both.

Great to catch up with you Muckpls. Think I will be using that referral link for Revolut real soon ��

Thanks for the TR it's been a great read.

A quick reflection on Vegas poker from a Euro who has played poker professionally (in Europe, online and live) many many years ago:

1, the games are absolutely insane, especially for someone who’s not spoiled by American poker and all the poker rooms.

2, My argument still stands. This trip I’ve played at 3 rooms. Venetian, Bellagio and Aria. By far the best action has been Aria and it’s not even close. To such extent that the last 2-3 days I simply had to take a break from playing there as every single time we would play for $3-4000. It’s nuts.

3, Opponents. Jesus Christ where do I start? I think over 100 hours of play these two weeks I came across one or maybe two good players, the rest were absolutely terrible. People miss value, way too passive, don’t know what to do against 3 or 4-bets. They overcall with bad hands only to fold etc.

I think overall Vegas is still an absolutely amazing place to play poker if you can adjust to players, timing and location.

I still want to do a trip where I focus solely on poker, but who knows when that will be.

Last but not least, here are my stats for 1/3 only from the past 5 years and for Vegas only:

One final update:

I didn’t have time to go out anywhere this trip to take photos, way too busy! And what do you know, a peregrine falcon flew by my hotel window this morning. Delivered to the room almost haha!

dude you played like 94 hours of poker in one trip

Yes, but I also worked and spend a ton of time on various other gambling. 94 hours over 16 days might seem a lot but I’m used to 12-14 hour days at the poker table. For 16 days that’s only 6 hour daily average which I personally consider bad.

I haven't been able to keep up with the thread, how did the other gambling go?!?

Definitely + but not entirely sure how much, it’s a big mess. I will have to sit down and check everything. I did a bunch of shopping, sold $ but also lost some.

I've only played at Aria a couple times, but it seemed nondescript to me. I'm glad it wasn't as crazy as it was for you.

I made it home last night, slept for 14 hours and woke up 4:30pm my time. Still sick though, so I will wait with a comprehensive summary until I feel a bit better. My back is however 99% recovered, no issues at all with the travel in that regard. Just feel a bit 'tired' in general in my body, but it's probably more the fever causing it.

Glad to hear you got back safely! Couple days, you'll be right as rain.

^^^what he said

I’m not sick but insanely tired. I didn’t really feel like playing or doing anything yesterday after the late checkout at 2pm + had a lot of valuables in my bags so didn’t feel like staying. I headed to the airport at 2 pm Vegas time, had some food and the plane left 8:30 pm towards Amsterdam. A gruelling 5.5 layover followed by a quick 2 hour flight and I’m in Valencia exactly 24 hours after leaving the hotel.

Random Amsterdam pic:

This is a fairly bad answer and I don't know how it adds anything to the story.

There is an entirely different issue about you playing at the poker table while being sick.

But I am glad you had fun.

Just thought of a couple questions.

When you guys buy something here (whether goods or food), do you mentally convert the dollars to euros? I find myself doing the reverse when in a foreign land (though it doesn't matter--I'm going to buy whatever anyway).

Is there a pattern between Europe and US in terms of value of goods/services, or is it that some things are better value, and some are worse?

I mean, besides the $20K value VP, of course. 😉

Just a guess but I would say the VAT in many Euro counties make it a bad deal.