The Return of the Talking Cat - 5th WSOP Trip Report (33rd? trip to Vegas lifetime) 6/7-6/14

Sorry Cat Bracelet Hunter told me to go with Hurricanes for tonight!

I am pretty sure the atmosphere in the stadium was electric. That last goal was crazy.

The Stanley cup game was so worth the 842 dollars I paid for the ticket. Considering I can dust that in the pit or in 1 hand of PLO in a big spot for example, to go to a finals game with an atmosphere was something as a big hockey fan I’ll never truly forget. The scene outside the game was nuts - the fans were all decked out in their VGK gear and costumes, face paint - the amount of attractive women there (I know it’s Vegas but typically at a hockey game I mean Myeh) was wild.

While you have probably seen the end result is not what we wanted and we lost our bet, in the end it was super awesome

After the game we come back to the hotel and order some room service. It’s Mongolian Beef FTW. Give it a 7.5/10. Not bad for sitting on the cats hind quarters and waiting for food.

I’ve now really hit a wall and I pass out to get my best sleep of the trip. I’m hoping with good sleep comes good playing.

Morning coffee at the Encore with a GoMacro bar for breakfast. Incredible morning weather - I give it a 10/10 would highly recommend.

Coffee and Blackjack produces a small 300 dollar win, and again, will take what we can get at this point!

After blackjack we sit down for a little early morning 1/3NL. I’m not expecting much, just trying to kill a little time before the day gets going and surprisingly, the game is decent even though we are now past the graveyard shift. There is a spot directly on my right, clearly the fish in the game, and a couple other weak passive lawyers from out of town , along with a fairly competent but a bit too laggy younger Asian guy - again we find what appears to be a pretty decent game.

We are we just slightly under starting buy in of $500 when the following hand occurs.

8 handed
UTG Kd10d we open to 13, we get flatted by UTG + 1 folds around to Asian guy, in the CO and he calls, then the fish in the BB to my right who has already rebought once and is now just above starting for his second bullet makes it 35 to go. We shrug call, and everyone else does too.

Flop $140

2d5d7d

BB checks and we decide to lead for $40, guy on my left folds, Asian gent calls, villain also calls.

Turn $260

As

The villain checks, we decide to now check for some deception and really hope either the CO takes a stab or that we will be able to get some value on the river from Ax hands.

River $260

Total brick 9c

Fish now leads out for $90

We see the Asian guy look very disinteresed so calling to get an overall is out of the question, plus that’s not the right play here anyway I don’t believe, so we jam the rest of our stack in for & 400 ish to polarize our range and look for a crying all out of a tilted fish who’s stuck a buy in 20 minutes into the game, and he does in fact make the call! He turns over:

Ad Jd for the flopped nut flush lmfao

We get the perfect spot in a 3 bet pot
Multiway, we get the fish to do exactly what we want and lo and behold he has a miracle cooler , the type we always imagine in our heads to have when we are on the plane ride out here. Well my friends, so much for killing time lol.

Felted and it’s off to the gym.

Plan is to fire the $800 dollar Aria NLHE today and give you all a deep run, and a good sweat. Let’s go!

That looks like a nice tournament, I think I would have played it if my trip lasted one day longer. I’ve never played at Aria and not making it this trip was a bummer.

Run pure!

Thank you sir! Yes - 30 min levels between 600-1200 ish type of buy ins are nice it’s also a 1 Day albeit a very long one hopefully!

We decide to hit the gym and blowoff some steam. This time, we head to the Wynn side, and use the proper gym. Nothing crazy - 45 mins of a little lifting with 20 minutes of walking uphill on the treadmill and we are done in about an hour.

Back to the room, shower then we pack up planning for what we hope will be a long day.

We grab a breakfast burrito downstairs at the cafe, and I can’t resist trying this Snickerdoodle pastry donut thing - I keep passing it day after day and even year after year and finally I give in. The breakfast burrito is actually much better than I expected with some has towns, avocado in bacon in there and it doesn’t taste like it was heated in a convection microwave thing even though it was. Pastry is awesome - I’m not a big sweets person but when I am, something like this is up my ally.
I give the combo a 9/10

After that we arrive on time to Aria and buy in. No later than reg today, this is all business. Not skipping any levels, and I’m planning on playing my A game all day, regardless of how the cards run, we are going to be a tough out today.

Looks like it could be a cronut or maybe churro? Cinnamon sugary crispy but tender? Yummy.

I believe they referred to it as a crawler (sp?) French pastry

34K after the second break in the Aria 800, we lost an annoying all in for a 40BB pot that cut our stack in half when 99<88.

Then we get in a sick spot where UTG limps, UTG +1 raises, 2 calls and we have AQo in the SB with 23 bigs or whatever. Cant call, it’s all in or fold. AK a clear jam, AJ a clear fold I think, AQ? My brain broke. The UTG limp from a very good player surprised, and UTG 1 has been playing very tight. In the end, I passed on it, and found out likely no one would have called pre and I would have scooped 10 bigs uncontested but can’t be results oriented and and I hope I don’t regret it oh well.

Cruller?

lol yes - Cruller

And we are out just before the third break in level 12. We went out somewhere like 80-85th out of about 310 entries. It paid about 40 places.

First we lose another key pot vs a shorty AK<AJ

Then, we somehow spin back up to 19 bigs, and we get TT in vs JJ and we can’t get lucky.

I am proud of how hard I fought despite not getting dealt (and when I did I either got not action or ran into it) and I mean look…

99<88, AK<AJ, QQ<AA, TT<JJ

It’s just not gonna be the one when that’s a summary of your all in confrontations.

We slam a double cheeseburger at posh burger, which I find to be very good, - always an 8/10 in my book.

We roll the catnip, smoke that doobie, and now we are
Chilling in the room watching the NBA finals

I’m much more tired then I expected given last night was my best night of sleep so far on the trip and I still felt like I was running out of gas at aria. I am starting to have some thoughts about firing the last flight of the wind 1600 multi day event which has a turbo day one tonight at 7 PM with late reg ending around 10 PM. If not, might just grab a nap and grind the Cash games. We shall see!

So I’m sitting in the room feeling sorry for myself, and the Knicks are getting crushed so I think of a plan on how I can fire this $1600 dollar turbo flight (the last flight of the Wynn 2M guarantee). Day 2 is tomorrow , so it works well with my schedule and I love turbo formats , they are my forte.

I decide we are going to bet $400 dollars on the roulette wheel inside. My 10 best numbers with 50 dollar bets on my absolute favs (0, 2, 8, 14, 26, 35)

0 comes in for 1800 dollars and we profit 1400 bucks in one spin.

Oh but wait, there is more, we take 200 of the 1800 in our hand to casino war. One hand

Our hand: Q

Dealer: 3

+1600 profit and we are now in this $1600 dollar tournament for free lmfao. Well, technically it’s profit I’m putting at risk but cmon. In poker terms, LFG

Lets find a bag as the kids say, and a Day 2

44K on the first break going to 300/600

204-244 left, we play down to 12% of the field to find a day 2 - and the Knicks won - tide is turning - let’s work!

Gogogogo!!

Wow, that's wild. The Knicks were still down heaps when I left the Venetian.

I guess after the Magic-Pistons game 6, I take nothing for granted anymore.

Very hard to come back psychologically once you've punted a game that egregiously. Knicks in 5?

I hope the basketball game isn't the only punt that works in your favor tonight.

Second break - 27K going to 1K/1.5 (18 bb)

Reg is over and this got huge 404 with 285 left. Top 48 or so will bag.

I have some WILD hands to post. I grinded up to 100K one level ago and two massive hands wrecked me.

A few other interesting spots also

spin it up!

Spurs the literal biggest chokers in NBA history. You love to see it.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Well ummm I have to say, I'm a bit shell shocked about what went down. Let me try to sum it up and also, let's go over a few hands.

So after the awesome Roulette and War spin up, we are freerolling in this thing and we are feeling good. Still, we want to play like we pulled this right out of our roll (because we still technically are, and we want to keep this momentum and really capitalize).

So, as far as the starting table goes. It's average - I have a grindy reg on my direct left, as well as EuroPro, and then there are a couple total donks with the rest somewhere in between but I'm happy.

We grind up to 60K fairly quickly by the first break. We are starting to get dealt a bit more, but more importantly, we are hitting the flop, and in a way where it's also interacting with our opponents hands. We make a full house where our opponent has a flush, we pick up some big hands to 3 bet pre and take some a few nice pots etc.

One hand we felt really good about was vs. the Euro pro on my left who at this point is playing super laggy - opening essentially anytime it folds to him, and 3betting a tremendous amount.

Folds to us on the BTN and we have Jh8h at 400-800.

We open to 1800, SB folds, EuroPro calls.

Flop (4800)

9c 5d 3s

BB checks, we check behind.

Turn (4800)

Qs

BB leads out for 2K, and we call......

River (8800)

3h

BB leads for 3500, and we raise to 8000 (trying to appear that we are milking him to value town, but more importantly, putting him on essentially air, and forcing him to either Jam it down our throat, or give it up). he folds, and we turn it over to stick the needle in a bit lol.

I then pick up QQ, and win a very nice multi way pot where I was the original raiser, got 4 callers, some how a clean run out to a villain who flopped a J, and we get THREE streets of value. Holy crap we have 100K at 500-1000 (and these levels are flying but we are in such great shape).

And then.....the following hand occurs:

folds to us in MP with 33 and and we make it 2300 to go. Button villain who we have a little history with but not anything super relevant makes it 7K on the button. He has 40K behind. I consider just folding, but I decide to set mine, because I'm finally making hands, I have chips, and he has a decent stack, but not one so big (like we aren't 300-500 BB deep here) so I call.

Flop (15000)

A J 3 (rainbow)

We check, he goes 5K, I make it 15K, and he calls.

Turn (45,000)

Qd

He checks, and we go for the rest - we put him in, and calls, and shows us the bad news.... He has JxJx for a set over set situation and takes us backwards by 40K.

Next hand, I will spare all of the details but essentially, MP Villain with a fresh late reg stack of 40K opens to 2 bigs, we flat the button with 76ss, the SB and the BB come along. We flop a flush. It checks to me we bet 6K on a 3 spade K high flop, and they ALL CALL.

Turn brings in a Queen so the board is now reading (K105Q) with three spades. Checks to me again, there is 33K in chips (almost a full starting stack in this pot), I decide that's enough and Jam 50K over the top (cover all players). SB folds, the BB calls for his remaining 20K, the MP also calls for his remaining 23K.

The both have a high spade (one the As, the other the Qs,) and the ****** SPADE comes home on the river. The guy with As scoops a 100K chip pot after max late registering and playing 3 hands. GTFO bro I am left with 27K as we go to the second break.

2 levels later we get AJ spades in for our last 13 bigs vs. QQ in a Button vs. blind situation (BARF) and just like that, the magic we felt coming disappears. WOOF.

Brutal, but that's tournament poker. Easy come, easy go.

On a positive note, this is one to frame and show to the grandkids someday.

Trip Totals:

MTT: - $3500
Cash: - $1970
Sports Bet: -$500
Black Jack: -$300
Slots: +$250
Roulette: + $1400
Pai Gow: +$500
War: +200

Total: - $3920

So Four days down, 4K in the hole (-1K per day). Could be worse I guess? Lol. As TJ says, it comes, it goes. We still have 3 FULL days ahead of us....plus half day sunday.

Funny thing about Trip Totals, we are doing good in the games where we don't have much control!

Hope to turn things around midway through the trip. No big deal, all we need to do is have a few Grey Hounds and Strawberry drinks!

I know - one of my past TR like 3/4 years ago the bailed me out of like a 4K loss into a 5K lol. Rare but nice when it happens.