Vegas Trip Report: Day 3

Saturday

12:15pm-4:30pm: At the Bellagio with Felicia, Glenn, and my brother, Paul. I met some of my brother's friends at the Bellagio. Felicia is this great poker player who my brother knows and I quickly found out her husband was also pretty damn good too. Glenn was playing in a WPT satellite tourney while we watched. The winners get a free $25,000 seat in the WPT event that was starting on Monday and was going to pay out $2.7 million. I was excited to know someone who was trying to win and get a chance to play against the pros and some of the rich Hollywood types who buy in. If Glenn won, he'd be playing with some of the greats. My brother barely missed out on a chance to be in the same position as Glenn. How great would that have been if he placed in the online tourney? He and Glenn could've been at the same table. I was there to meet Felicia and root Glenn on. I saw several pros playing in the satellite. Eric Seidel was playing, so was TJ Cloutier, Evelyn Ng, Mel Judah, Paul Darden, and the douche bag, tool boy himself... Dutch Boyd. I also saw Howard Lederer.

Glenn did really well and survived some all in's. I was really pulling for him and saw him make some very good moves. Unfortunately he got knocked out when his set was beat by a higher set. Glenn played every all-in move as perfect as you could but unfortunately for all poker players... all-in works everytime but once. I was more shocked than when that fucker Mo Lewis beat me with his 4-9 offsuit calls. Second worse hand in poker means nothing to Mo Lewis. Sorry. Glenn did well and I was sad he lost. i was hoping to spend more hours watching him play. Felicia and glen were really cool. Glenn looked more calmer than I would've been. I'm glad I got a chance to meet them and only wish I had the chance to play with them. Glenn and Felicia took off to Binion's to play some more poker. Paul went to see Phish and after my ritual vegas pre-nightime poker nap, I headed over to the poker room at the Excalibur.

8:15pm-3:30am: Watching Glenn vying for a WPT event got me pumped to play poker. My steam was let out when I lost to a runner runner at the 2-6 table. My pocket QQ's lost to a runner runner Ace high flush. Got to love losing to 6-10 h with the Ah coming out on the river. I flop a set of Q's and lose to a knucklehead again. This guy wasn't British though. This guy was calling hands to the river with nothing all night. Countless times he had A high or J high. I raised this guy everytime heads up knowing at best he had a pair. He was a clown. I took most of his rack before he bought in again. I was running this table until 3 Vegas locals sat down. They were the "good ones." No degenerates in this group. I should have walked away but my ego got in the way. I played against these guys for hours and lost some cash but not much. I saw pocket AA's cracked 10 times in less than 45 minutes. It was crazy. It happened to one guy 4 times. of course, I didn't get the AA's any of those 10 times but at least I won one of the pots that cracked the AA. I had KK and flopped a set and won more money from the hand than the wheel spin got the cracked AA's.

There was this one crazy hand around 3am where I was at this table that almost won the bad beat progressive jackpot of $2700. The table would have split this money but we missed it on a technicality. 4 of a kind beat A's full. there was so much money on the table that the chips covered the one half of the table where the two betters kept raising and re-raising each other. An Asian tourist guy who looked like Jackie Chan had A-Q and this local named Vince had pocket 33's in the blind. The flop was A-A-3. the betting was crazy. The turn was a 3. The betting got crazier. The river was X. I forget. It didn't matter. Both guys were betting either way. Two cheap cologne wearing Guidos smugly say, "Stop with the raising and re-raising guys, we all know you both have an A so let's just end it and chop it up already!" I had been playing with Vince and several of the same locals and hard core tourists since I arrived. Vince was a nice guy who I talked a little poker with over the last few days and he knew his shit. I always saw him buy in for $60 and walk out with 4 racks of $1 chips. He was good. I knew he had 4 of a kind. He was in the blind. What a bunch of stupid Guidos. It's 2004! No wonder they had no money left after their 2nd rebuys. I mention that maybe someone has four 3's. They said, "No way."

I said, "You wanna bet?"

They declined and I was right. Vince looks over at my side of the table and winks. He flips over pocket 3's. His 4 of a kind beat the As full. We qualified for the $2700 bad beat pot! Or so we all thought until the poker room manager came over and advised that the bad beat loser needed to be holding two A's to qualify. $2700 was not ours. AQ fucked Jackie Chan and all of us. Jackie not only lost a huge pot to slick Vince but after Vince stack hundreds of chips up halfway to the ceiling, He also got to spin the wheel for his 4 3's and won $50. More insult to Jackie's injury. Ouch. Vince politely apologized to Jackie and Jackie graciously says no worries or need to apologize. That's poker. I would've gladly took your money if it were the other way around. That was cool of him. Jackie never saw it coming. No one did. Vince pulled me over during a cigarette break and laughed his ass off about the Guido conversation. He was pumped that I knew he had the 3's. Got to love those blind hands! I retired to bed shortly after that moster hand. Too bad that wasn't my monster pot!