Tales from the Small Blind

I rolled over at 4:30 AM last night after reading “Another Kid, Another Dream” for the 3rd time in as many years. This was the first read-through since I had begun taking poker seriously, and sharing an appreciation for a creative outlet to sink my thoughts into, I figured I’d do the same and throw this out into the void. So let’s back up a bit:

One year ago, I left my second management consulting job in three years coming out of college. Consulting is one of those things that sounds awesome. You’re traveling anywhere and everywhere, learning from people at the top of their field, and doing it all with a scarcely-monitored expense account. But eventually the toll of an 80 hour work week set in, and I couldn’t do it anymore.

Of all the things I grew to hate, the team dinners were the worst. After a long day of meetings, Excel, and micro-management, you Uber back to your hotel and get five minutes of brief reprieve in your room, before joining your team in the lobby. These five minutes will be the best part of your day. You head over to a nice restaurant, and spend a meal that lasts far too long doing anything in your power to avoid discussing what awaits you when you get back to the hotel.

On the way back, your manager tells you to expect edits on whatever you’ve turned in that day. An hour later, you get a message telling you to check the documents for their vague comments, and work late into the night making unnoticeable edits to a PowerPoint, or adding massive assumptions to a data model to get a result that tells a good story. You look over at the clock, it’s 4 AM, and you’ve got to be at the client site for your daily stand-up, full suit and tie, by 7:30 AM.

That was my daily routine for three years. So to call my new 9-5, a cog in the corporate bureaucracy, mundane by comparison, is an understatement. For the first time in a long time, I had time for poker.

I wasn’t new to the game by any stretch, most of my time in college was filled with 5NL on Bovada and ACR, where I grinded out an acceptable 4.5 BB/100 win rate during classes and desk jobs to pass the time. I was at that peak in the Dunning-Krueger chart, as I took my roommates money playing 10c/20c every night, unaware that I really had no idea what I was doing.

But now I finally had the time to return to the game. I had a $2,000 bankroll I cobbled together over 2-3 years through exploiting overlays on FanDuel and sportsbook sign-up bonuses and it was time to put it to use.

This is the first of five trip reports from the last year, which I plan to pump out over the next few weeks. After that, who knows what the future holds.

A Krill among Whales (June 19th - 23rd, 2024)

Around 4 PM, I stumbled out of Best Western Casino Royale, a $200 Fire Link bonus off a 50-cent spin turning us onto front street for the first time that day.

Unlike the drunken tourists also stumbling for their step, my weak legs were due to a number other than BAC that was quickly climbing, my Apple Watch notifying me I had hit 13 miles.

I had long dreamed of my first trip to Vegas, and one of my aspirations was to place a $10 bet at every casino on the strip in one day, walking the entire thing. An ambitious plan, especially in June, but I was confident, and the days prior to a friend’s bachelor party presented the perfect opportunity.

My plan was to work my way up the west side of the strip, crossing over at the Strat, and working my way back down. Where I could, I would enter casinos as early as possible, and exit as late as possible, prioritizing a longer walk in A/C over a shorter walk on the sidewalks of the strip. I planned to grab a water and Gatorade at every CVS or Walgreens I saw to stave off dehydration.

Four friends, having seen my significant weight gain from my previous jobs and the weather forecast well above 100, doubted this plan, and each put down $100 at 2:1 odds, that I couldn’t do it. A 12-hour time limit was set, and side bets popped up tracking my biggest win, total profit/loss, and what casino I would find myself in at various hour marks.

A 5 AM flight was filled with nervous anticipation of poker’s mecca instead of much needed sleep, and quickly we found ourselves dropping off our bags at Mandalay Bay, where we had spent our MyVegas points for a 2-night stay.

At the 1/5th mark, I had met one of my prop bet opponents at the Bellagio Buffet, another friend in town for the upcoming bachelor party with comps to spend. After seeing me avoid all of my favorite kinds of meat, and instead scarf down several bowls of pasta and fruit in anticipation of my carbohydrate needs, he put together a buy-out offer with his fellow dark side compatriots. 50%, $200. No deal.

So that’s how I found myself hitting a half-marathon with plenty of real estate left to go. 4 miles and two hours later, I found myself finally checked into Mandalay Bay, just in time to sneak in a nap and dinner, before another long walk back to Caesars Palace for their $160 nightly.

What I had underestimated, is the sheer amount of distance maximizing my walking time inside would add. Even armed with a map pulled up on my phone, entering on one side of the casino and exiting the opposite was not a simple task. One wrong turn in the Venetian cost me 25 minutes and a mile, and it was far from my only misstep.

I would end the day at 20 miles, down $14 from our gambling, and up $400 from the prop bet. My crotch was on fire, a great condition to have going into a bachelor party. As for poker? I’ve rambled long enough, let’s get into it.

Caesars Palace Daily

At 400/800/800, we are introduced to our main villain and first whale, John, an Australian in a outback hat who referenced ‘The Office’ noting his love for Columbian whites, a substance he had made several trips to the bathroom to partake in. After punting off three stacks in the first three levels, I finally got moved to his table and watched him rebuy, pulling crumpled up bills out of his pockets to post the stake. A few minutes later, a cocktail waitress brings him two Coronas, and he pulls a rolled up c-note from behind his ear and hands it to her. The duality of man. I can only imagine the things that Benjamin has seen.

Sitting behind more or less a starting stack of 20k, we see QQ in the HJ and watch our friend limp UTG, with UTG+1 overlimping. We raise it up to 2.6k, a bit small, but as it folded back to John who flicks in the only call. The flop comes out T85 rainbow, and John donk leads out….”all-in”. A 2.5x overbet, but against John, a snap call. We hold against AQo and are up to 44k. John grabs one of his Coronas and is off to the ATM, mumbling something about always losing with monsters.

Before he gets back to the table, we get involved in another pot. There are three limpers to me in the BB, and I check my option with 8♥7♦. 3.2k in the middle, we look down at a J♥T♣9♥. It checks around, and not much changes when a 6♠ peels off the top of the deck. The SB, sitting on several of John’s buy-ins bets 1.2k, and we debate a raise, but decide to call as we see the LJ count his short stack. Sure enough the LJ shoves his 7k, and after the BTN folds, the SB decides to see another card. Calling and raising both seem fine, and we take the more aggressive approach, unfortunately getting a fold. The LJ is drawing dead with A♠J♠, and we are up to 69k.

John buys back in at 500/1k/1k, and again limps UTG. We raise it up to 3k with A♥2♥, and he sticks it in with his 20BB and fiddles with the strings connected to his hat. Against any other opponent, this is an easy fold, but John? We find the call. An ace in the window left me slightly more confident, and after a queen on the river, John announced he got me on the river. AQ? QQ? John turns over KQo and we give him the bad news. 90k, up to 130k with the $100 add-on.

On the break, we see John shaking the ATM, shouting at an employee trying to help him comprehend the “Withdrawal Limit” it displayed. We come back from break, and he was back as well, two fresh Coronas in hand, but unfortunately at another table.

On the final table bubble, at 3k/6k/6k, with 5 paid, we raise ATs UTG to 13k, and get an 84k shove from the BTN. Looking down at our 110k stack, it seemed like a close spot, and stick in the call. We get show AKo, don’t improve, and find ourselves out of the tournament the next hand.

As we walk away, we see John rack up close to 400k in chips, a big leader going into the final table. After a very long day, I decided not to stick around and see if he could find the win and break even. I like to think he did.

Bellagio $1/$3

We roll out of bed around noon, and head over to the mythical Bellagio poker room. After an hour wait, we get seated at a temporary table over in the sportsbook and get told of the 100BB cap at $1/$3. I didn’t expect any grinders at these stakes, but if there were any, the structure would push them elsewhere. We grind our stack up to $365, when we play our most interesting hand of the session. Despite the $300 cap, we are by far the short stack in the LJ, the hyper-aggressive CO has $900, and we are both covered by the SB who has yet to take off his headphones in 4 hours.

UTG drunk guy limps, and we raise it up to $13 in the LJ with A♣7♣. The CO and SB come along, and the UTG we were hoping to bring in folds. The flop comes Q♣8♣7♦, the SB donks $35, and with our equity we call, and the CO keeps the fun going. $151 in the center, all hell breaks loose with a 7♥. The SB calls, and with an extremely aggressive kid in the CO, we decide to call figuring things may get spicy if we give him a chance. Sure enough, he puts out two blacks and two greens and the SB goes way into the tank. Like way way into the tank. I order a rum and coke, which is in my hands before he finally decides to fold.

$200 to call, and $267 behind. I shrug, look at him and say “I guess we’re playing for it all”. Now lets do some math here. $768 in the middle here, and our villain has $67 to call. What hands in his range at this point can fold at those odds? Before I have a chance to slide my chips into the middle, he flashes Q♥T♦ and throws it into the muck.

We rack up a few orbits later, up $370, still unsure if we should be impressed at his snap fold getting 10:1 odds. Replaying the hand back in our head, we come to our senses, his line makes absolutely no sense, bluffing into two opponents who have both shown strength. Shoving was undoubtedly the right play, it’s a shame we didn’t get the extra value. But the session certainly takes the sting off of the loss last night.

MGM Grand Daily

We head over to MGM Grand for a quick dinner, before entering their $130 11 PM nightly, with $100 full-stack add-ons while at or below starting stack, and a $100 double-stack at the end of late-registration. On future trips, we’d recognize both the time EV and chip EV value in a max-late reg taking only the second add-on, but for now, we were in for all three, $330 and 100k in chips.

We join our hero after late reg down to 65k at 2k/4k/4k. We raise it UTG to 12k with A♠T♠, and get a call from the LJ. A♦K♦J♥, our 15k range bet gets a call, and the 6♥ brings two potential flush draws that makes a 38k shove the easy decision, and we dodge T♦9♦’s outs to go up to double up.

At this point in the tournament, things become a blur. The next hand we eliminate a short stack with 4’s. Half an orbit later, we 4-bet jam with AK and get called by AQ. Take out another short stack with KK and suddenly we are up to 400k.

At 10k/20k/20k, the LJ announces 70k sticking in a 100k with a couple 5k’s behind, and with A♠T♣ we slide in two big ones, putting her all in, or so we thought. Suddenly another 100k appears from under her hand and she makes a call. Lesson learned, target acquired. We check to her on a 975 flop with two spades and she bets the final 40k. We are getting better than 10:1 here, can we find the same fold our friend at the Bellagio made earlier? The ace of spades gives us enough extra equity here, we call. She slams K♦Q♥ on the table and is already walking away as I process we held on the river card. Up to 660k. A stack we keep until the bubble bursts, and we go down to our last five players.

At 15k/30k/30k a short-stack with 1 BB doubles through us, A7 vs K3. UTG the next hand he shoves again, and our QJs is no good against his 56s. We fold through the blinds, once, twice. Suddenly we find ourselves with 180k.

With 6BB, we shove the SB with KTs and get called by the BB’s K4o. We watch the runout….23A….Q….****ing 2 for the chop. We rip a “****ing hell” to no one in particular and get warned by the floor.

Two hands later, we get redemption, doubling up with TT. After a couple 3-bet steals, we found ourselves with the chip lead discussing a chop. It was 3:30 AM, one guy had a flight to catch at 6 AM and he needed to check out, and the rest of us wanted to go to bed. The short stack with 3 BB cites his “skill edge”, ridiculous, but well within his rights, and we play on. Two hands later, at 30k/60k/60k, we raise it UTG with A♦T♦ and the BB short stack, his 1 BB behind getting odds with pretty much any two, calls with 5♦6♦. An ace in the window and I start re-calculating the ICM in my head. I look back down and see the 6 hit on the river. Right next to it, the turn card, a 5.

I pay the BB and BB Ante, SB, and suddenly facing the impending BB, the former short stack proposes a chop. The floor, the dealers, all three competitors, wanted it over. I relented, and picked up second place for my troubles. $1,558 the richer for it.

Bachelor Party

We were wired, walking back at 4 AM. In one day we had doubled our (tiny) bankroll. I found maybe 2 hours of sleep before 10:30 when we hauled ourselves out of bed and met the Groom-to-be on Fremont street. Staying at the D gave us access to the Circa Stadium Swim. Of all the cool stuff Vegas has, Stadium Swim is up there. Dozens of massive screens played every sport imaginable. We sweat out some NRFI’s as people trickled in for the airport. After a change for dinner and a big bet on the Stanley Cup Finals, we found ourselves up $200, lost back quickly at a slot machine we only sat at for a “free” drink. Lindsey took her time with that Rum and Coke, and probably won employee of the month for her efforts. A far more seasoned gambler laughed at my misfortune and took me over to the bar top Blackjack, where $20 and some slow play bought me a healthy stream of cocktails.

We headed off to Caesar’s Palace, who was apparently more than happy to provide a limo and a fancy dinner reservation for a member of our group who was a frequent customer of their online sportsbook. We were escorted over to the tables where I learned this group hated one thing more than anything else, Players Cards, citing a broad conspiracy about games being rigged to maintain cosistent losses with small spikes. In what I’d later find out was my highest +EV move of the trip, I subtly slid my fresh players card and a $10 over to the host who gave a chuckle and a nod.

Seeing the minimums on a Friday night at Caesars Palace, I headed over to a bar top BJ machine to test my newly learned strategy. 4 rum and cokes and 2 propositions from some aspiring entrepreneurs, I left up $30 and headed over to see the whales in action. As I came back, I saw high-fives and got told to stand in a lucky spot as the winning streak continued. I made the wise choice to keep my mouth shut about their players card superstitions.

The celebrations continued into Nobu where the whales enjoyed their $500 wagyu, and I was pleasantly surprised when all I could eat of the best sushi I had ever had only came out to $45. Again, a $5 tip wrapped around a players card came in clutch, our waiter credited every meal to our players card. I’d later learn those extra tier points pushed us up to “Diamond in a Day”.

Apparently the bride-to-be had her own tricks up her sleeve, a connection at Tao Group led to a table at Steve Aoki with the minimum waved. Our whales bowed out right before the headliner finally came on at 2:15 AM. We closed the club down, and were greated by a Vegas sunrise in an Uber back to Fremont street.

Knowing our Vegas dream was soon to come to a close, we grabbed three bills and after an early breakfast, headed over to Golden Nugget for their infamous $1/$2 uncapped game. As much as I wish I had hands to post from this, our sleep deprivation was catching up to us. At this point we had 12 hours of sleep in 105 hours, including our walkathon and dancing all night adding to the exhaustion. Not helping things, we went card dead to a degree not known to be possible, and our 3-bets never found action.

The biggest highlight over a 6-hour session, we watched the old man on our right put his $40 stack in over a raise to $7 6-different times and get called 0 of them. We both cashed out around the same time, each up $3. I decided to pocket a $2 and a $1 and consult a pagan friend over rituals to cleanse myself of the session. They now live in the mouth of a jade frog.

A brunch, some shenanigans, and a dinner at Bavette’s later, we found ourselves on a plane ride home, dreaming of our next chance to come back.