MuckPls vs BigWhale - a WSOP June TR

You are either the unluckiest player in the entire world or your sample size is small. I had a shoe at Paris 2 years ago I think where I won like 15 hands on a row + lost a total of 2 hands the entire shoe

Another quit hit at NYNY, on my way to Bellagio. +$95:

Wanted to go to Eggslut but the line is madness so went to try out Hattie Bs:

It's actually a typo, I am now up $400-something on cash games. But sadly it's too late to edit the post now, so I will correct it the next time. Thanks for making me notice though 😀

Also, if I actually was down I could care less about $38 USD 😀 Although it's sometimes hard to leave a game when you are stuck, the results of one trip are not really that important. It's all one long session.

Great thread, and nice hits in Golden Nugget.
In fact this thread has inspired me to possibly put up my own trip report (I was there last week).

I was in Vegas years ago with a buddy and decided to try counting again. I sat down at a table at random, my buddy said don't play there it's a 6:5 table. I told him it doesn't matter, I don't get blackjacks. We kept meticulous track of how many blackjacks I got for the next two hours. I ran out of money in two hours, zero blackjacks.

The time has sadly come to post an update from Harry Reid Airport, as yet another trip nears it's end for me. Hopefully 'MuckPls' can get some positive rungood towards the end of his trip to keep the thread going.

After checking out of New York New York and storing my luggage (this guy above waved me goodbye), I went over to Aria to get something to eat and also punted a bit with some -EV gambling (no huge losses). Eventually I got tired of that though, and decided to play one last cash game session. After some walking indoors we ended up here:

We got immediate seating into a $1/$3 game at Planet Hollywood, and after mostly folding the first 20 minutes we get a fun one. There is a raise to $10 from early pos, one call, and I follow suit on the button with 44. BB also calls, and we see the above average flop of 4-3-3.

BB leads for $3 (lol), the raiser calls the $3, an active OMC now raises to $15 and I have a decision to make. With a near lock on the board I decided to make an unusual slow play, although I am obviously running the risk of something with 77 or similar turning a higher boat. Both BB and the original raiser calls the $15.

Turn is a T, and everyone now checks to me. As always in these spots, I decided to bet small and throw out $25. Only the original raiser calls, and we see another 3 on the river. Should be a great card if he has a pocket pair or turned Tx, because I am obviously still beating those. He checks, and I bet $115 (into $150). He sighs, but pretty much snap-calls within 15 second and my hand is good.

My hand also takes the lead in the 30 minute High Hand promotion they have at Planet Hollywood, where the highest hand every 30 minutes get $50 extra. With only 4 tables running of cash, I had a decent hope of it holding up at least with 18 minutes to go.

Then there is a limp for $3, and tiny raise to $6 from the active OMC (sometimes he raised bigger as well). I call on the button with 22, and BB and the limper also comes along. We flop another set on 2-8-6 two clubs, and after it checks to the raiser he makes it $12. Although small, he bets into 3 others and I think he could be strong. So I raise to $50, but sadly only get quick folds from everyone.

I then have QJss from UTG and makes it $12, only to see EP1, EP2 and button call. The flop comes 5-5-6 one spade, and 4-ways I don't think this is the best board to start a bet on. So I check, and everyone follows suit. The turn is Qh, putting 3 hearts out there but giving me top pair. I bet $20 and EP1 is the only caller.

River comes a black 7, and I actually decided to check it. Not a ton of hands I can get value from and he is liable to have KQ or AQ here. He does however just check it back quickly and shows AKo (lol) with one heart. So yet another pot comes my way.

Unfortunately someone then makes 4 Queens (not the hotel) on another table with just one minute to go of the High Hand period. So I did not get my hands on some extra promo money.

I then make what I think is a mistake, when there again is a limp for $3 and the active OMC again makes it $6 to go and get called by Button. I have T8dd in SB and decided to call, but this hand does not play amazing multiway and I think it would be a much better 3-bet candidate against his silly sizings. He had shown up with some mediocre hands in these spots as well, so he doesn't have to be super strong.

Either way, as played BB also calls and we see 6-7-4 two diamonds. I have a gutshot, a flush draw and two overcards. I check with plan to check-raise, but it checks around. No worries though, as river is 9h giving me the nut straight. I bet $20 and get calls from BB and button.

River is 7h, which fills a backdoor flush and pairs the board. Not my favorite card, but I am still going to bet for value until someone tells me otherwise. I put out $42 (with view to likely bet-fold), and BB quickly folds. Button does however think for a few seconds before calling, and my hand is good. Maybe he ran into 7x and I could have sized it bigger?

I am up well over $300 now, and I get even more chips added to my stack when we have the usual action; limp for $3 and raise to $6 from the active OMC. I have KQo in BB, and this time we are going to 3-bet. I make it $30, and everyone folds back to him. He ends up calling, and we go heads-up to T-3-2 two clubs. I have none, but I still think his range will be too wide so I bet out small for $20. He calls.

Turn comes an A, so I have a gutshot at least. Plus, the Ace is a good scare cards if he was peeling with 66 or hands of that nature. I bet $42, but once again my opponent is sticking around with a call. I decided to likely give up on this bluff, except I didn't have to. Jd on the river, and we have backed into the nuts while the flush draw on the flop missed. Opponent has around $180 left and the pot is $188 if my math is correct. I decided to just move all-in, because if he has turned a good Ace he can even have two pair now with AJ (or slow played AT). I also don't think he will fold a hand like AQ to a jam.

He does however only think for a few seconds, says 'good bet' and that he cannot call - before showing A7cc. Makes sense then why he stuck around I guess, but obviously he cannot call river when he holds the nut blocker.

I hardly have time to stack my chips before finding AA the very next hand. There are 3 limps for $3 and I make it $21 from SB. I get no respect, as BB call and two of the limpers also call. So we suddely have almost $90 to the flop, and all my three opponents are sitting with around $100 or a bit more behind.

The flop comes K-T-9, and against these stacks I am not going anywhere with an overpair. So I decided to just move all-in (!) myself in front, banking on them not being able to fold hands like KQ and KJ to a jam (or even QJ) with relatively little behind. The plan works out somewhat, as an Asian player calls all-in with his remaining $96. Turn is a K, which I didn't like to see, and river is a 7.

I turn over my Aces, and opponent informs me that he made a straight and shows J8cc. Sigh. Had I won this hand I could have easily have been up $500 on the day, but instead he makes one of his 8 outs and gets the double-up (and then some).

In hindsight I am not 100% sure if a jam was the best option here, but I don't hate it either. It's obviously very exploitable as I have practically no bluffs when I do this, but I don't think it matters a ton given the level of the competition. They are still going to mostly look at their own hand strength and call based on that.

I lose a few more small-ish pots and also win one tiny, before the game actually breaks with some players leaving in quick sucession. That was however fine by me as I hadn't planned to play much longer anyway. I take my $245 profit after playing for 2.5 hours.

Then I started to head back towards NYNY, through indoor walkways. I have no idea what the inspiration behind this famous artwork at Cosmopolitan is:

I also had a quick chat with 'TJ Eckleburg12', who was on break from his $800 Aria tournament. Hopefully he can manage a deep run there! Then it was time to collect my luggage from the bell desk and take an Uber to the airport.

It has once again been an awesome trip, some ups and downs, but I am happy with the results below although I am not 100% happy with my play (and mindset) at times. But I will reflect more on that when I get home to Malta. For now, here is the classic picture to round of another BigWhale-trip:

Cash Games:

Hours played: 35h 0min
Won/lost: +$707 USD
Hourly rate: +$20.2 USD

Tournaments:

Won/lost: +$424 USD (7 played)

Thanks for sharing. As always, I appreciate the detailed HHs and intricate thought process.

These trips can really fly by. Glad you found momentum on the back half of the trip and finished strong.

It was great to meet you! Thanks for sharing. I learn a lot from your detailed hand histories and feel it has given me new insights in how to play. Have safe travels home.

Thanks for the outstanding trip report!

Surprised PHo got new chips for their poker "room". The $1 chips look cool.

My hand also takes the lead in the 30 minute High Hand promotion they have at Planet Hollywood, where the highest hand every 30 minutes get $50 extra. With only 4 tables running of cash, I had a decent hope of it holding up at least with 18 minutes to go.

Did you collect the bonus? In all the time I've played at Horseshoe, including this year's 50 hour "freeroll", I've never won a high hand bonus. Wait a sec, what was that Muck said about being the unluckiest guy in the world?

This is a weird spot because of the dry side pot. If it was heads up with 275 behind and 345 in the pot, then you're happy to slow play the flop because you can easily get it in on a later street if he makes a hand (edit: and because your hand is not very vulnerable). In this situation, I think a small bet to nudge the pot up does make sense because of the flush draw available. Although, in retrospect, this guy seems like just a typical tight passive player--3 bet to 3.5x OOP after 2 callers, not 5-bet ripping KK with all of the dead money--and he's not putting another penny in with KK on an A-high flop. I'd be interested to see what Bart has to say about this hand.

Great chatting with you!

Another FANTASTIC batch of trip report contributions.

Safe travels home.

Sorry, didn't see this post until now, but yes I am. Surprised you have even noticed me, as I am a very sporadic poster

It was mentioned that someone made 4 queens with a minute to go, and he did not get the high hand bonus.

Thanks to you and MuckPls for another great report.

I am still here for almost another week (sadly?) but things are going batshit crazy and bad so I don’t have too much to update about.

Today we are checking in to Nomad again for the salon double room and I have some free play to convert. One time?

Here are some random Cosmo pics:

I actually did win the $50 high hand first night after flopping quad aces.

It’s gonna be an interesting day!

Re the KQ->nut straight hand. We say, "I just kept betting at it until I got there."

For reasons I can't explain, I think the mystery statue has something do with Don Quixote. But I don't know where I might've heard that.

Safe travels, Whale. Thank you very much, as always, for the great TR!

This is me:

I’ll update if something interesting happens, but as far as anything goes the trip is over. Flying out Wednesday evening and will be a loooong long time before I’m coming back again. Sick and tired of everything Vegas has to offer honestly.

Thanks for following!

I am back home in Malta after a mostly carefree travel back home. Flight out of Vegas was fairly turbulent at times the first 3 hours, but then it got super smooth the rest of the way and I was able to sleep a lot. Got a hotel room at London Heathrow to sleep a bit more + take a shower, and then a quick and easy flight home to Malta last night.

Let me try to summarize all the thoughts I have regarding this trip, and how it was to be in Vegas during WSOP etc. It might be a long post, but you guys are used to that from me 😀

Let's start with hotels. As I have touched on already, I was quite disappointed with my room at The Plaza. I did not get the one I had booked, and although the 'Mini Suite' that I stayed in was very large I found it to be rather dark and depressing. Never quite felt at home there, and the AC was also way too loud and it was hard to get a good night's sleep. And housekeeping never came around to clean the room, even if I specifically told them one day that the room would be ready for cleaning soon.

That said, I enjoyed being Downtown otherwise and it was also very convenient when I made a deep run in my first Golden Nugget tournament (partly also the reason why I booked it). And the hotel has a nice gym, a decent pool, and some very good paytables on Video Poker machines (although it didn't help me win much).

I really enjoyed my stay at New York New York though; the room was really nice & bright and completely different from Plaza in that regard. I really liked the pool, although there is not much shade if you go there in the middle of the day. But it's really spacious and have plenty of room to swim around a bit. The gym was small, but more than functional to get in some good workouts.

In general I am very happy & relieved that I made it through the trip without getting sick, and that I was quite diligent about getting some kind of workout in almost all days.

Compared to what I had read about it in the past, I am actually quite surprised at how 'easy' it was to find Cash Game seats during the trip. While some rooms had long waitlists at times or even suspended their lower stakes games during busy tournament periods (Aria & Venetian at least), I always got a seat within 20 minutes at most whenever I wanted to play. The whole schpiel about it being 'impossible' to get a seat during WSOP seems highly overblown, or maybe there was just less poker players in town compared to previous years? I obviously have nothing to compare with in that regard, so it's hard to tell for me.

The quality of the cash games I was in was in general very good; certainly didn't feel any tougher than how it normally is when I go during other time periods. As always, I did not venture into any $2/$5 or any bigger games in general. In my defense, I didn't really feel like I 'had' to step up in stakes. While I do like a good challenge at times, I don't particularly feel the need to play against way more grinders and Euro pros at higher stakes. I am probably good-ish enough to compete at those stakes, but I am not sure that my winrate would be much higher in those games. Unless I got lucky to find a game with some fishy donators obviously.

As for Tournaments, it was really fun to play in some bigger fields and especially to experience the WSOP-atmosphere! Playing the $500 'Salute to Warriors' event was very fun and I felt extra consentrated and motivated in that one. Thankfully though, I have a lot of experience with playing tournaments of similar stakes so it was not overwhelming in any way. I was not overly scared of my tournament life in any way, but just approved it like any other tournament. I must also say that I love the WSOP+ app; it was so cool to have it and see who was seated at your table and just get your seat assignment on there. Even during the breaks, it's such a big advantage having the app telling you how much time you have left until play resumes etc.

I am a bit disappointed with how I played in the $300 MGM 2-day tournament (only a half day for me), as I was maybe not entirely as patient as I should have been that day. I am also very disappointed with how I busted the $300 1-day tournament at The Orleans that I played, as I tried to take advantage of a live read in highly unusual fashion and it backfired badly. That said, these spots will come up so infrequently that it might not be much to dwell over.

The overall result was 2/7 for cashes, which I am very happy with and it's much better than I had expected. I did play a bit fewer tournaments than I had originally planned though, and maybe I also should have stepped up a bit in stakes at at least tried one of the Aria $800 tourneys or similar. Both of my cashes came at Golden Nugget, where I had a very deep run in the 1-day $300 tournament (one coin-flip lost with 19 left) and also made a 6-way ICM chop in a $150 nightly tournament. The latter score even ensured that I managed to make an overall profit in tourneys for this trip, and was a really fun experience.

These two cashes really solidified for me that my approach in tournament poker is very smart; and that is to stay super patient even if I get short stacked. Good spots will usually come if you are patient enough, and I see so many people just punting away their stack with almost any two cards; thinking they are committed to just go with a hand when they are clearly not. Like, why call all-in without looking from the BB when you have 93 off and 4 big blinds left - instead of just folding and having a whole round to instead get it in first to act?

Vegas in general was absurdly hot, and walking anywhere during the middle of the way was a complete no-go for me. It was just way too hot, and thus had to rely on taking a lot of Ubers instead. In the evenings it was a bit more bearable though. While I do like hot weather, my general feeling is that this was a bit too extreme. Even the AC in my room at NYNY seemed to have trouble to get the temperature down to my preference at times.

While I am not 100% satisfied with my play at times, I am very happy with the results. I got an hourly around $20 USD in Cash Games, which is fairly similar to what I have had on many of my previous trips. That said, I have to stop giving away too much money with no-good overpairs. I did that in my first session at Golden Nugget with AA (easy turn-fold) and also the same with KK at Aria one evening (could fold on the flop). This is especially true as both opponents in these hands were useless nits who is not there to play poker and would only put in significant money with the near nuts.

But an overall profit of $1130-ish USD is definitely better than I had expected before I left, so I can't complain at all about that. When I read about good tournament players on here like 'DogFace' and 'TJ Eckleburg12' bricking practically everything so far, I realize that could easily have been me as well. So let's put it down as a decent 'WSOP'-debut for me, although there are many things to improve if I go back next summer.

Speaking of names on here, it was really nice to catch up with 'mrbaseball' (on a couple of occasions) and also 'TJ Eckleburg12' twice. Both seemed like really nice guys, and it's fun reading the TRs when you can put a face to some of the names. Also had tentative plans to meet 'rppoker', but we were only in town at the same time for 24 hours and our schedules didn't quite allign (read: I was tired and jet lagged).

I also got to meet Bart Hanson, which was very fun for me as without his teaching I would never even be here writing these TRs. Bart seemed much more personable than I expected, and actually seemed geniuniely interested in some of the things I was saying. Although it's probably also a skill he has developed after having done these things hundreds of times already (meeting subscribers).

The very first Vegas trip that me and 'MuckPls' took together (April 2018) was actually before I had joined Crush Live Poker, and although I managed a small profit that trip as well I just remember feeling so lost in some of the spots I was in back then. These days I hardly feel lost, I just need to be a bit more consistent with my actions and much more robotic at times.

Speaking of robotic, let's also talk about mindset real quick. I read the TR of 'rppoker' yesterday, where he wrote about sucking out with KJ against QQ in one all-in spot and his opponent getting very agitated about losing the hand despite having plenty of chips left. And all I could think about when reading that sentence was 'that could so easily have been me'. Like I have said before, while I am never berating opponents I still get way too frustrated at times after losing pots. I do think a lot of it has to do with entitlement issues; I get too greedy and feel like I should win every hand I play in Las Vegas. And when that does not happen (often because opponents make some idiotic play and get lucky, such as cold-calling 3-bets with 75 suited), I get frustrated with the situation. That ties in to what I wrote in the above paragraph; I need to be more robotic and not show outwardly that it affects me. Even if I mostly just berate myself it's probably still not a good luck. I sometimes see people do the same as me (muttering to themselves and being frustrated) and it does indeed look quite stupid and unncessary when you observe it from the outside.

Anyway, I digress. Vegas is regardless awesome, and I am already longing for ny next trip - whenver that will be. Probably sometime in the fall; I might take a birthday trip even if that would be just before the F1 race. But let's see how the offers look and what else is going on in my life (hint: not much) before deciding.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

Great write up [emoji106]
[emoji846][emoji41]

Been a fun time following along with all the updates.

How did you run in terms of video poker/table games? Seemed to be some big hits but always hard to tell total +/- on that front.

Definitely an overall loss. I just checked the stats at MGM properties, and I lost $900-something in total on those properties (despite the $1000 Royal that I hit one evening). I definitely lost a couple of hundred while staying at Plaza as well, although I have no idea about an exact number.

That said, we are not talking about any gigantic losses. If anything, I didn't really have the time to play as much VP as I wanted (might be a good thing though). So let's see what MGM thinks about my mediocre wagering when it comes to future offers.

Just a sensational trip report from start to finish, BigWhale. Thank you for so generously sharing.