The Summer Wind - A WSOP Trip Report …… and beyond!
Don’t ask me why I chose the title of an old Sinatra song to be the title for this year’s trip report, i have no idea, i
Showdown: Sai has a Ten Badugi. We need a heart ten or lower that doesn’t pair us. 7 outs.
We’re squeezing. When the hell did I become a squeezer?
It’s red!
4 across!
Oh baby!
Ship it!
Congrats! Great start to the trip 
I haven't played much mixed games, but I agree on the squeezing. Just turn your effin' card over! 😀
Regarding turnout, I've been in Vegas for a week and rooms are struggling to hit their guarantees on smaller stuff. I've seen some stuff overlay at Venetian. Wynn dailies have been small. NAPT just started at Resorts World. Turnout has been relatively sparse except for the big marquee events. The side events and satellites have been small. I think it's a combination of many var
Off-topic regarding turnbout, but here in Malta we just had two poker series at once named 'Battle of Malta' and 'Malta Poker Festival'. Both had gigantic turnouts and at times had to cap entries on certain events and/or cancel some because of capacity issues.
Main Event in 'Battle of Malta' had a €600 EUR ($689 USD) Main Event and ended up with something like 6050 (!) entries. 'Malta Poker Festival' had €550 buy-in for their Main Event ($631 USD) and got 1980 entries. Granted, these have a ton of start days and satellites and the option to re-enter. But the numbers are still pretty crazy, especially as they are both held at the exact same time (two different casinos who are 5-7 minutes walking distance from each other) and are competing for the same players.
I played a couple of the side-events and these also had great numbers despite at times being capped on entries. Fields of 500-800 players seemed to be the norm, at least for NLH. So poker is still widely popular in these parts at least!
Pretty sure that Vegas-poker (and other US locations) will pick up steam eventually though, as soon as Canadians and other butthurt people get over their asinine reasons for not travelling like before. But November is hardly peak travel time for most people anyway.
Congrats! Truly a Beast!
Off-topic regarding turnbout, but here in Malta we just had two poker series at once named 'Battle of Malta' and 'Malta Poker Festival'. Both had gigantic turnouts and at times had to cap entries on certain events and/or cancel some because of capacity issues.Main Event in 'Battle of Malta' had a €600 EUR ($689 USD) Main Event and ended up with something like 6050 (!) entries.
Wow [emoji50] Poker is alive and well in Malta. If only they’d put some, or more mixed events on the schedules I could travel.
The EPT’s usually have 2 or 3 mixed events now but €5k and €10k is too steep.
I am considering the Irish Open next year.
Congratulations!
As a lifelong Braves fan, I don’t love the Dodgers, but I do still love and root for Freddie.
The flight to Fort Lauderdale is uneventful and when I get there I find a row of seats with no arm-rests so lie down and manage to at least sleep for a couple of hours of the long layover.
The flight to AC however is one of the worst I can remember. Really bad turbulence throughout. At no point was the fasten seatbelts sign turned off. Was very happy when we finally landed.
You're lucky you got there at all, with the government shut down. They were short on air traffic controllers before, and now they aren't receiving paychecks.
I saw a Borgatta tournament on youtube - a $5200 tournament with a million dollar first place! Sounds awesome, although the Monster Stack is only $1500 and I haven't won that one yet.
Pretty sure that Vegas-poker (and other US locations) will pick up steam eventually though, as soon as Canadians and other butthurt people get over their asinine reasons for not travelling like before. But November is hardly peak travel time for most people anyway.
Vegas poker is further hurt because it's in Vegas. Where the hotels dgaf about screwing over the customer and aren't afraid to gloat about it publicly.
Congrats. Only downside to these small fields is it's still hard to win, and when you bink you'd sure like it to be for 5 figures minimum!
Wow [emoji50] Poker is alive and well in Malta. If only they’d put some, or more mixed events on the schedules I could travel.
The EPT’s usually have 2 or 3 mixed events now but €5k and €10k is too steep.
Yes, they had a couple of HORSE and 8-game tourneys on the schedule, but Malta Poker Festival ended up canceling the 8-game (which I actually had planned to play) due to capacity/not enough dealers. The mixed game tourneys on schedule mostly had buy-ins between €200-€330 buy-in, which is probably peanuts for you 😀
FWIW, they eventually re-scheduled the 8-game for 4 days later, but then I was busy with a deep run in an NLH side-event and couldn't play. And I would not be surprised if some of the players that had planned to play was already on their way home by then.
Great win David. Hopefully there’s a player of the tournament prize to take home when you win another event?
Yes, they had a couple of HORSE and 8-game tourneys on the schedule, but Malta Poker Festival ended up canceling the 8-game (which I actually had planned to play) due to capacity/not enough dealers. The mixed game tourneys on schedule mostly had buy-ins between €200-€330 buy-in, which is probably peanuts for you.
Yea I saw those smaller buy-in ones. It’s a good price point to get new players to try them but not worth it for me.
Borgata Fall Poker Open
Day Three - Wednesday November 5th
I slept later this morning as I didn’t get to sleep until after 5am due to being buzzed from the win. So no gym today but still time for the pool.
Had a little walk outside as well. The sun was shining but at only 60 degrees and with a cold wind it’s not sunbathing weather.
This is my go-to spot in the food court for lunch.
Penne in vodka sauce with grilled chicked today.
You’ve got to love Omaha 8. The average age of the field is up by 20 years compared to yesterday and we start with more entries than we got yesterday as well.
The poker gods bring me back down to earth with a bang. Cannot get a hand to hold up. I flop top set of kings 3 times and all 3 times lose when a flush comes, then when I have a flush lose to a full house when the board does pair on the river.
I’m down to 7k from the 30k starting stack on the first break. I have a better 2nd session recovering to 32k at the next break before treading water to record 27k at dinner.
We ended up with 68 entries today. Not bad, but still not great. Card dead after dinner I put my last chips in defending the BB with A45J but whiffed the flop and that was all she wrote.
Tired, I elected not to look for a cash game to play and headed up to the room.
On deck tomorrow: $500 HORSE
Borgata Fall Poker Open
Day Four - Thursday November 6th
Had a super sleep today. My alarm woke me at 8am as usual but I turned it off and slept right through until midday.
Started off okay in the HORSE tournament and had 45k from 30k starting stack at the end of late reg but then started losing hands as the limits increased and was eliminated shortly before the dinner break.
It did at least give me a chance to have a proper dinner in B Prime.
9oz Filet with mash potatoes and a glass of Cabernet. It was only meh 7/10.
Then I got a seat in the $80 / $160 O.O.E. cash game.
I kept making 2nd best hands and got stuck 2 racks unfortunately.
Raiders +9 was a no sweat winner on TNF though.
Some players left and when we were down to 5 players we added Hold’em and Triple Draw to the mix so it became H.O.T.E.
One guy who coincidentally was also called David absolutely killed the table in triple draw. He must have made at least 5 x 7’s and every time against 8’s to get paid off. One of them was against me unfortunately.
I did make a straight flush in hold’em though with Kc-Th on a Kh-Qh-Jh flop when the 9h came on the turn. Villain had Ah but folded to my raise on the end.
I was still stuck when the game broke shortly after 2am and booked a -$3,500 loss after 6 hours.
On deck tomorrow: $80 / $160 O.O.E. cash game again
Borgata Fall Poker Open
Day Five - Friday November 7th
Went down for the cash game at 7:30am and luckily got the last seat! We started at 8am but not much good to report. No chip porn and I don’t think I’ve scooped a hand in 2 days.
Death by a thousand cuts today rather than losing any real big pots. I waved the white flag after 7 hours, booking a -$2,400 loss and went to jump in the TORSE tournament at the first break.
Similar to yesterday I managed to increase the 30k starting stack to around 50k but then started losing hands at the higher levels and was out shortly after dinner.
So rough day. The O.O.E. cash game only goes Thursdays and Fridays so no chance to recoup losses there.
In the tournaments we move onto big bet now for the rest of the trip.
On deck tomorrow: $1,100 PLO. The only bigger buy-in tournament of the trip. Would be a good one to run good in.
Sorry, didn’t take any pics today.
Borgata Fall Poker Open
Day Six - Saturday November 8th
An abundance of weekend no limit hold’em warriors meant there wasn’t any dealers for the PLO tournament so the start was delayed about 40 minutes which I wasn’t too happy about, but took the opportunity to have a walk outside and get a bit of fresh air. Lovely day today.
Upstairs was full with the afore mentioned two card aficionados so we played downstairs in the back of the poker room today.
Playing 100/200/200 with 40k starting chips, 2 people got eliminated from my table in the 1st level. I didn’t have anything to do with either as I didn’t get a playable hand for the first hour.
I eventually did get some hands and found some spots and began accumulating chips and was going well when I made a speculative call of a small bet on the flop and was rewarded with the perfect turn card.
With the nut straight on the turn we got villain to stack off with a set of aces and a smaller straight and for once we held. Up to 100k
Then unfortunately, as seems to happen to me in these big bet tournaments I play a pot for all the chips and end up on the wrong side of it.
Playing 300/600/600 someone opens for 2k and there’s 2 callers when it gets to me on the button with QT87 which I call as do both the blinds so we’re 6 ways to the flop.
Flop: Q-7-2
It’s checked to me and I bet 8k (about 3/4 pot) and get 1 caller.
Turn: 9
Checked to me again. There’s now two flush draws on board and we don’t have either. I bet full pot this time 28k.
Villain doesn’t seem to like it but shoves all-in anyway for 69k
I think he’s on a big draw and make the call. Unfortunately he has Q-9-x-x His two pair is better than ours [emoji30]
I have outs to the straight but don’t hit and am left with crumbs which I dust off shortly after.
Dejected I decide not to fire again and go off in search of something to eat.
Gnocchi with sausage today and it’s really good.
Feeling a little better I hit the sportsbook determined to recoup the tournament buy-in.
2nd halves are my speciality. Winner.
Inexplicably they don’t have live betting on the LSU-Bama game on the kiosks. As I’ve said before BetMGM sucks so I Uber it over to Harrahs which is a proper sportsbook and a much better place to watch the games anyway.
I lose with LSU +9.5 but these are all winners. I also had Cal +3.5 live which isn’t pictured.
So a good day on College Football sees me in the black after deducting the tourney loss.
On deck tomorrow: Early NFL action from Germany then $500 PLO Mix (PLO, Big O, PLO 8)
No strong opinion on the early game. Lean Indy -6 and Under 48.5
In the later action if you line shop you can get Detroit and Buffalo as a Wong teaser.
Borgata Fall Poker Open
Day Seven - Sunday November 9th
Up early for the NFL game in Berlin and as I’ve got some tickets to cash from last night I decide to watch it at Harrahs. I walk there this time across the field.
It’s cold and windy today and the walk definitely wakes me up. I do good on the game getting on the Colts live when they were losing but it’s hardly a no sweat winner, quite the opposite in fact as the somehow manage to force and win it in overtime.
Back across the field to Borgata for the Big O tournament.
The first bullet is a blank. We whiff a big low, straight and flush draw. Re-buy!
The 2nd bullet is faring much better and we go to dinner sitting on 250k with 12 out of 67 players remaining, paying 9 spots.
Pizza tonight.
We resume after dinner and I knock the 11th place finisher out and now we’re hand for hand with 10 left, playing 3k/6k/6k. I have 350k, avg. is 201k
I lose 100k with Aces vs Kings when a King flops and I have to fold to villain’s pot size bet on the turn. (He showed his hand after I folded)
The bubble bursts and then we lose another so we re-draw for the final table of 8. We’ll start it with 340k. Avg. is 251k
Greek Phil is chip leader with over 500k
Break at end of level 16. I have 320k. 6 players left. Avg. 330k. Coming back to 6k/12k/12k
Halfway through level 17 and 4 left now. I’m the shortest stack with 300k. Avg. is 400k
Lost a big pot with top set. Had to fold on river when Phil bet pot after flush came.
I’m all-in with the nuts and re-draws but villain has the same straight and a higher flush re-draw!
The river is a blank and I’m happy to chop.
Level 19: 10k/20k/20k. I still have 300k and there’s someone shorter than me now. Phil big chip leader with 1 milly.
I had the short stack all-in but he wriggled out of it making a low on the river for a chop.
He then proceeds to triple up vs Phil and the other guy which leaves Phil with 900k and change and the 3 of us all pretty even with 300k and change.
The blinds are about to go to 15k/30k so we take a look at the ICM numbers for a chop.
It’s basically $7k for Phil and $5k for the rest of us. We agree and shake hands.
Normally I prefer to play but I’m not playing for trophies anymore, I’m playing for money, and having had the two bad cash game days I’m happy to lock up a $4k profit for the days work here.
I’m officially the 3rd place finisher. With the stacks even and the blinds going up, any of the three of us could have been the next one out for only $2,670 so as I said, happy to take the variance out of it and bank $5,000.
The NFL was a wash in the end. Did good on the early game, bad on the 1pm games, pushed the late games and won SNF with a decent bet on the Chargers.
On deck tomorrow: Last day. $500 Mixed PLO
