The week before Vegas

The week before Vegas

Yo bloggers its only one week now till my regular annual pilgramage to the bright lights of Las Vegas and the 2010 WSOP.

As I did last year I have put together a mini schedule of events to play as I find it helps me focus better and have a better approach to the games than just going and playing whatever game I wander across.

These are the games I will be playing:

1: Golden Nugget 16th June Mini WSOP Series Seniors Event $240 NL
2: Rio 18th June WSOP Bracelet Event 34 Seniors Event $1000 NL
3: Binnions 20th June $210 NL
4: Golden Nugget 22nd June $235 NL
5: Caesars Palace Or Venetian date TBA $340 NL Deep Stack ( deffo Venetian )

Really looking forward to the 1st game on that list to be honest as I found last year the Golden Nuggett was a great place to play within their Grand Hall which they use for these events. Atmosphere is great and its the 1st time they have reduced their Seniors age limit down to 50 inline with the official WSOP entry age.
WSOP sees me return to try and improve on last years 97th place finish and then 3 more local hotel tournaments see me conclude my trip.

Staying at the newly opened Aria hotel which is within the newest complex on the strip and only in Vegas can you stay in 5 star luxury for less than £60 per room per night.

All in all theres over 20 from the NPF travelling across this year and should anyone go deep in anything then Im sure the rail we be awesome and atmosphere electric. Some great people and characters going over and just hope one of us pulls off a great result to match.

Lead up to Vegas has been very very low key tbh mainly due to my total zero interest in poker for whatever reason Im not totally sure. Force myself to play the monthly Circus £50 with £500 added and only went to meet a guy from the forum who had made a bit of a name for himself with some of his crazy posts known as Machine. Ive staked him into a few low buy ins on Poker stars and he always seems to get me a return so was looking forward to meeting him in real life. Sitting having a bit of pre game crack with a couple of the forum lads and a quiet un assuming lad wanders across and introduces himself as "The Machine" I do the honours of introducing him to as many forum members as I could before taking my seat in the far corner of the room right next to the noisy Chinese "dominoe". Decent table that includes James Browning, Joe Peel and Mark Trett sat directly to my left. Dont go anywhere with my stack mainly due to gutter shit crap being dealt to me and a couple of hands that get there against me. Have some fun with the "Az Bo" hand a couple of times and lose 20% of my stack on the last hand before the break when a guy gets there with his flush on the river and Im already in shove fold land when I come back from the break.
I ship AK to an early raise and he flips AQ on his committed call. Q in the window and Im out my seat but I turn the K and make the straight on the river to double up. I ship again to double through and with my knowledge of this fast moving tournie I know I need at least another double up to stay in with a chance and when 2 limpers come into pot and I find 88 in the cut off I ship in to find girl to my left in the vacated Mark Trett seat go into tank mode. Big Ace Im thinking and eventually she makes the call. QQ ffks what ya thinking about pet and she says " I thought you may have AK" !!! No help but at least out at a reasonable time of the night.

Sort of decide to not play anymore games but Stumpy convinces me its Friday night and Corona night at Aspers together with a deal to meet Gyposdog there if he gets finished from work in time. Aspers game on Fridays is great for a decent field but it also attracts a huge range of players but for £20 FO and over 100 runners its great value and you have to acdcept it for what it is. I get on same table as Mrs Stumpy but the rest of the table leaves alot to be desired. we have a young lad dealing who is very slow and not much idea about pots, I have a drunken stag do guy from Scotland on my left and 2 other lads at the table who have to ask everyhand " How much is it? is it my turn ? and take ages to make any sort of decision. 3rd bottle of Corona and doing my utmost best to stay with the game but I know Im fighting a losing battle. With still just above my starting stack of 4k and the mad drunken Jock hitting everything I look down at AK and a small stack makes it 400 to play on 50/100 with 900 behind so I move in to take him on and he duely calls and flips KQ. Q flop and no help for me. Few hands later I look down at JJ and drunken Jock limps in with one other before Chinese guy to my right moves in for 2k and I move all in for my stack of just over 3k. Drunken Jock calls now and so does the other guy. So 4 way action with 2 all ins and chance to quadruple up and the flop comes 10 2 5 rainbow. Perfecto and drunken Jock then announces "ALL IN" on his 2 way action. Guy folds and on ya backs time. 66 drunken Jock, me JJ and Chinese guy has 99. Blank turn but river 6 and its Ciao Ciao over n out. Cant be arsed now to hang around and simply walk down towrads the central station to grab a cab and go home.

Take call bit later at home from Gyposdog who eventually arrived in Aspers trying to get me to come back over and a while later he pops up on msn convincing me to play a couple of MTTs on Poker Stars. Massive fields but end up having a great laugh with him as we wind a few people up and then get into a fun convo with someone sat at our table from USA who we eventually get to sign up at the NPF by the name of "Pritzi"
Go fairly deep in a huge field but obv for crap return due to Stars structures but the main thing that came form the games was we had a greta laugh between us and actually enjoyed it. Maybe thats whats been missing from my approach and games of late and need to get back to enjoying them again with a positive mental attitude about them. Roll on Vegas and hopefully the spark I need to get back to normal.

Intended to play the Coral Masters at Leeds Gala this weekend before Vegas but have decided not to incase went deep and timing would be bad as our Newcastle flight to Gatwick is 6.30am on the Monday.

Finally incase he reads this, my son Scott is at this moment in time travelling across the USA with a party of strangers from New York to Los Angeles and then meets up with us in Las Vegas. Last time I spoke to him he was in New Orleans and hope hes enjoying himself and look forward to seeing him in Vegas