2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Seven

Las Vegas Morning Alpenglow Originally uploaded by abostick59.

I woke up at 1:30 AM, after five hours, after more than five hours of sleep. I was thinking about getting dressed and going back to the Rio. Lynn was awake, and planning on going out to get some groceries. She offered me a ride. I accepted, so I got dressed in a hurry. We got a little bit lost trying to find the back way into the Rio convention center, but after a side trip to the Strip and back by way of Spring Mountain Road. We found the Rio's employee parking lot, and I went around the back of the Poker Kitchen tent to find the entrance of the convention area.

I got into the stud/8 game, but it wasn't very good, no action players, mostly the usual tough regulars. There was a 150-300 mixed game going, and Cyndy Violette was playing in it. In the mix was badugi, ace-to-five single-draw lowball (almost like home, except without a joker), triple-draw deuce-to-seven, and razz. I like triple-draw and lowball, can play basic razz, and can cope with badugi. Cyndy told me I should play, and that I should make adding eight-or-better stud to the mix a condition of my joining the game. That made sense ... but I felt like she was maybe being a little to encouraging. Mixed games are how pros take advantage of other pros, by giving up equity in games that aren't their best games in order to get people to play their best ones. This was not an great mix for me, even with stud/8 added. I decided to decline, and go back to the straight stud/8 game.

But that game didn't get any better, and I was struggling with a small loss. After taking another turn around the cash game area, I settled on 20-40 limit hold'em. The game was half-decent, although it had too many solid pros. Eventually the soft spots either busted out or picked up and left, leaving only the solid pros. after a round or so of blinds like this, I picked up. "All wolves and no sheep," I said. as I racked up my chips. The game broke. I cashed out a bit more ahead in the hold'em game than I had been down in the stud game, leaving me with a $78 win for the morning session. I got back to my room at about 7:30 AM, and to bed before 9.

I woke up again shortly after noon, and put myself together to run some errands. I wanted to top off my bankroll. By the time I got dressed it was after 1:00 PM. Lynn had told me there was a Bank of America not far away, at Wynn and Twain. I got confused, in this part of Las Vegas that hitherto has not been part of my stomping grounds, and headed up Valley View to Desert Inn (The Wynn is the site of the old Desert Inn, right?), and wound up being swept by the roadway over the railroad tracks and the freeway to the Strip. I opted to head north to downtown, where I knew the main Las Vegas B of A branch was located. I reloaded my bankroll and also got more walking-around money. Then I filled the car with gasoline, and then headed to the Lucky supermarket at Decatur and Spring Mountain. I was meaning to get a small box of laundry detergent and some mayonnaise for making sandwiches, and it occurred to me that I could get some other things as well: sandwich fixings, breakfast cereal, and so on.

Driving around in that part of Las Vegas, it seemed, every strip mall had its own massage studio.

Back to the room again, to get a post up about the previous day, my bustout from the tournament. Then in the late afternoon I headed back to the Rio to play cards. I got into the stud/8 game just as they were starting a second must-move game. But the room managers screwed up the feeder game pattern, having the third game feed both prior games, leaving the players in the second game feeling frustrated that they couldn't move into the main game. Some of them did, anyway. Some of the players in the main game wanted to change it to a straight high-only stud game. The floorpeople decided to start a 75-150 stud high game at another table, and that took the live players away. The three games were collapsed into two, and the floorpeople decided that the second table (to which I had been moved) was a must-move game again after all. It was a thorough clusterfuck, and no one was happy about it. I got moved to the main game, consisting of nothing but frustrated good players, and decided to bail out. I cashed out, up four stacks of green, and headed back to my hotel, to fetch the car and check out the poker action on the Strip.

After more confusion trying to get around on the streets, I made my way at length to the self-parking lot at the Venetian, and journeyed through the shopping arcade and across the casino to their poker room. Their offerings didn't seem very appealing to me: no-limit hold'em up through $10 and $20 blinds, some low limit hold'em and Omaha. There was an interest list for a 20-40 hold'em game.

I walked from there to the Wynn. The Venetian gets up my nose, by being almost nothing like the real Venice despite the architectural copies. (The Paris doesn't much resemble the real city of Paris, either, and neither does the Orleans resemble New Orleans past or present.) I would like to see someone open a casino resort called the Las Vegas Las Vegas, which would be a Vegasized version of Las Vegas itself. The main casino floor would be called the Strip; the penny slots would be Downtown, and the luxury suites would be in the Henderson Tower. It would be a gaudy fantasy of what Las Vegas never really was.

I got to the Wynn, and played more 20-40 hold'em. In this game, most (but not all) of the breaks went other players' ways rather than mine, and in this all-night session I wound up taking a dive half again as large as the win I had booked in the earlier part of the evening. I did make some nice plays, though, winning a significant pot with one bluff, and making one good call to catch someone else's bluff. Another bluff of mine was snapped off; and I made four or five bad bluff-catching river calls — and that means that both in bluffing and bluff-catching I was dramatically ahead of break-even. This softened some of the impact of the evening's loss.

The game broke in the early morning, and I headed back to home base just before sunrise. This time I remembered to get a picture of the morning alpenglow.

2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Zero
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day One
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Two
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Three
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Four
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Five
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Six
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Eight
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Days Nine and Ten
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Days Eleven and Twelve

Tags: poker wsop world series of poker las vegas trip report travelogue eight-or-better stud holdem rio venetian wynn