Venetian $2600

I left Vegas a week ago, but that week has been even more hectic than the weeks I was in Vegas, so I’m just now getting back to my tournament write-ups:

I arrived at the Venetian DSE area, which is actually in the Palazzo, at the stroke of noon. I confirmed the start time with the woman who sold me my seat, because it sure didn’t look like a poker tournament was about to get underway. Six dealers sat surrounded by chip stacks at six tables, surrounded by a dozen or so empty tables. A few people milled about, but the tournament area was largely vacant.

I glanced at the information screen: I was the 26th player to register. Not much of a turnout, but the upside was that I didn’t recognize anyone else in the room, and none of them looked to be particularly good. Had I discovered some hidden gem whose value was unknown to all of the other professionals in Sin City?

I had not. The field continued to grow as players late registered, and the ones would couldn’t be bothered to show up on time looked to be consistently stronger than their more punctual counterparts.

Still, I felt pretty good about locking in a weaker starting table with my on-time arrival. Better yet, we would be among the last to break, so I could count on playing with these guys until I had all their chips and they were finally replaced by tougher competition.

I had Kings in the only significant pot that I played in the starting 50/100 level. I opened to 300 in the HJ, and the CO made it 750. We started with 30K, so I’m not looking to get all-in preflop. I also think that 4-betting is going to put Villain on alert and make it tricky to play my hand postflop since even in a 4-bet pot I won’t be looking to go to the felt unimproved. So I just called.

I checked and called a bet of 800 on an 842r flop. The turn was a 2, I checked, and Villain bet 900. Perhaps against his weak sizing I should continue slowplaying, but now I was confident enough in my hand to raise. I made it 3200, and he folded.

I didn’t play too many pots early on because the guy on my right was playing a lot of hands aggressively and badly. He’d run up a bit of a stack and I was just dreaming of how nice those chips would look sitting in front of me when the floor showed up to whisk him off to another table. Lovely.

It got worse though. The table didn’t break, but within an hour I too was moved to another table, one of the recently opened ones full of late registers. Probably every player at this table was better than every player at my last table.

There was again a really aggressive player, but this one seemed to have a much better idea of what he was doing. I had about 35K at 100/200, and he covered when he opened to 500 UTG. He got one call, then I made it 2K with Qc Qs on the button. Without hestitation, he 4-bet to 4500, the other guy folded, and I called.

He checked a Kc 9c 6c flop, and I was happy to check it back. I may, however, have made a mistake checking the 2c on the turn. You have to target some pretty weak hands, including non-flushes, in a spot like this, and against weaker players it’s probably best just to check here and look to get one bet on the river. This guy, however, may have correctly read this check, followed by a bet on a 5s river, as strong, because he tank-folded.

For the umpteenth time, a player who seemed to know what he was doing revealed himself to be a fish by running his mouth at the table. He had a strong New York accent and looked like he spent about three hours a day in the gym. After losing a medium-sized pot to one of many bad river cards, he told his opponent, “Nice river. If it had come a blank, I’d have busted you.” Then, turning to another player not involved in the pot, he said, “And your ass should be out the door too.”

Turns out he was referring to an earlier pot in which he’d not been a major player but in which this other player had won with a straight. Apparently the New Yorker had several outs to a full house, and had he made that hand, and had the other guy played his hand the same way, and had the other guy then paid off a river check-shove, said other guy would be “out the door.” I’m not sure where the “should” comes from, though.

New York stormed away from the table and quickly became the subject of conversation and laughter, which died down upon his return. “Somebody say something about me?” he demanded. “Were you talking about me?’ addressing this time specifically to the guy whose ass apparently should have been out the door.

“I said you were from the east coast,” which was the truth, if not the whole truth.

“I hope if somebody said something about me he would be a man and say it to my face, not whisper it behind my back like a pussy.”

“I just told you what I said. I said you were clearly from the east coast. Because of your accent.” There was some more back and forth, and the floor had to intervene when New York kept making threats.

After paying off KQ with probably just an A on an AKQxK board, he asked no one in particular, “This gonna be all day today?” Then he repeated the question. “This gonna be all day today?” Then he repeated it twice more, word for word.

Needless to say, I was eager to get into a pot with him. I overcalled one of his raises with J7s and flopped a flush on a KT8 board. He called 1200 on the flop and 1700 on a K turn, then snap checked back a fourth diamond on the river. I tabled my hand, and the dealer indicated the board cards I was using to make a flush.

Peering from across the table, New York demanded, “Put it over here. I wanna see too. One of those fucking days. Another 2500 down the fuckin’ shitter.” Then he tilt shoved Ace-rag over a raise for a stupid amount and sucked out on a better Ace. Then he pretended to tilt shove an even more ridiculous amount with KK and got called by a bad Ace that sucked out on him. That one he actually took pretty well.

Although I got off to a good start, I went card dead after the antes kicked in and just couldn’t make anything happen. The table continued playing aggressively, and I was nitting it up. The few times I tried making a move or even opening a less-than-premium value hand (ie 99 UTG), I got reraised by players who, despite the generally high level aggression, really would have had trouble being light. We’re talking cold 4-bets, UTG+1 3-bets, etc.

It’s one of those things where all signs point to strength but you have to wonder, since you aren’t seeing the cards, whether you just keep running into big hands or if you are getting run over. Then you finally pick up a big one of your own and get no action. One of those fucking days.

The one successful move I did make began with me opening JTs to 1100 at the 250/500/50 level. The player on my left, who’d just cold 4-bet the first light 3-bet I’d made all day the hand prior, 3-bet to 2400. I called.

We both checked a K84r flop. A Q on the turn gave me an open-ended straight draw, but with about 14K behind it was too much to shove, and I didn’t want to bet and get shoved on. So I checked, he bet 2K, and then I shoved to take it down.

Other than that it was a lot of patience and folding. I hung around with 20ish big blinds through the dinner break and most of the next few levels. The best hand I saw during that time was AKo, which the first time I had it ran into another AKo.

The second time, I made a small 3-bet and got 4-bet. Then the big blind cold 5-bet shoved. Had he been deeper, I actually would have folded, but as it was he had even fewer chips than I did so I shoved after the original raiser folded. The 4-better came along, and we all turned over AKo.

Then, with half an hour left in the day, the second most aggressive player at the table opened from the HJ. The most aggressive player called on the CO. I shoved AJo from the button. The raiser shoved and the caller called. Both turned over QQ, which was about the best I could hope to see, but I failed to get there. Somehow they just had it every single time. One of those fuckin’ days.