Donkey Fest a.k.a My Vegas Trip Report

Holy smokes! The weekend leading up to the WSOP main event was a total donkey fest. I absolutely loved it.

Mikey and I rolled into LV around noon on Sat. He was up at the Wynn with his fiancée and I was staying down at the Monte Carlo. Not sure why but this was deal weekend. I think Mike ended up paying about $250 a night for the Wynn and I snagged the Monte Carlo for $130 a night. Not bad for Sat/Sun rates on a holiday weekend.

As soon as we got into town we hit the Rio and bumped into Pauly who was a little frazzled as he covered not one, not two, not three, but four tournaments! I thought I should leave him alone so he could work and I went about bothering players. I brought my Canon Digital Rebel with me thinking the better optics and zoom lenses would get me closer to the action than I was able to get on my last trip with my Canon Digital Elph. Here’s a lesson in photography for you: If you use zoom lenses, you need better lighting. Shooting fully pulled back the shutter speed was fast enough to capture clear photos. As soon as I tried to zoom in the shutter speed slowed to the point where I could go grab a bite to eat before the shutter closed. While someone on acid might recognize some of those photos, I unfortunately was not.

So, after shooting some mediocre shots of the pros we were getting ready to head out. We were out in the hallway when Daniel Negreanu comes bopping out of the main room. I figure, excellent opportunity to grab a shot with the man so I stop him and ask if he wouldn’t mind taking a photo with me. Now, if you ever attempt to shoot a photo with a poker pro or any celebrity you should bring along a friend who knows how to point a camera and push the shutter button. I failed in that regard. I get all set for the photo and Mike hits the timer button which now goes into a 30 second countdown. Daniel and I are standing there trying to hold our smiles (I’m sure he was just as happy to be having his photo taken with a famous blogger as I was to have mine taken with a famous player) but nothing happens. I can see Mike’s finger is nowhere near the shutter button so I apologize to Daniel and jump over to Mike and direct him to the shutter release. Netiher of us are aware that he’s activated the timer so now when I get back into my pose Mike clicks the shutter release and still nothing happens because the thing is locked into timer mode. The camera finally clicks off a photos of the carpet and I’m a little baffled at what just happened. I turn around to Daniel and tell him I really appreciate him taking the time but it doesn’t look like things are working with the camera. He smiles says it’s cool and to catch him later. But then I hit a three outer on the river. TJ Cloutier comes over to chat with Daniel as I figure out what went wrong with the camera. I catch Daniel again and tell him we’ve got it worked out and ask if he wouldn’t mind one more try. He obliges and TJ jumps out of frame. I say “No, please. I would love to have you in the photo.” TJ joins us and Mike starts having trouble operating the camera AGAIN!!! :-)Fortunately, he figured it out quickly and snapped one off. The results are below.

Daniel, if you happen to run across my blog . . . yes, I’m that jerkoff who stopped you in the hallway 🙂

After the Rio we headed over to the Wynn where we sampled the $4/$8 games while Mike killed some time before his dinner reservations. Ok, this is where the donkey fest begins. I sit down and it’s like a $1/$2 game at The Bike. Everybody is calling, going to the river, yadda, yadda, yadda. I pick my spots, ram and jam my hands, and win some huge pots. The number 1 seat had three players in a row who sat down, bought in for a $100, and then proceeded to play every single hand and call it all the way to the river. As soon as their $100 was gone so were they and the next calling station would sit down and repeat the previous player’s performance. My theory is that since $4/$8 is a minimum sized game that the Wynn was spreading that some of these guys were complete poker newbies or guys used to playing lower limits and were like deer caught in the headlights.

I decided to take off and grab dinner when my boat got cracked by quad queens. I know there’s no logic to it (other than psychological) but I always try to get up from the table when I suffer a brutal beat. I know I’m not going to play well for the next few hands anyway so in this case the fact that I hadn’t eaten dinner was a good excuse for me to take my profits and go.

In case anyone is interested, here’s the hand:

KK in the CO. Three callers and then a raise from LP. I re-raise it and he raises and I cap (the previous callers fold on the re-raise). Flop comes Qxx. He bets, I raise, he re-raises, I raise, and he calls. Turn is a Q. At this point, I’m only really concerned about AA and a damn Q so I slow down and just call when he bets into me. River is . . . Q. Three queens on board and he bets out. I make the crying call and he flips up Q9 offsuit.

I head back to my hotel for a bit and Mike rings me up and we meet over at the MGM. The wait was forever but we finally got seated at the same table. If the Wynn was a donkey fest, the MGM was an uber-donkey fest. These guys were here to gamboool and gamboool they did. Mike and I were killing the table. Around 3am or 4am I notice that Mike is starting to play a little sloppy so I coax him into calling it a night with a minimal loss and with me up a rack. Part of that rack was Mike’s money that came my way in a hand that we were suspected of colluding on. Mike is to my left in the SB and I raise it from the button with AQ. Mike re-raises and a MP caller calls both bets. I pop it again and Mike caps it. MP player calls the raises again. Flop comes Q high. Mike bets, MP calls, I raise, Mike re-raises, and MP finally folds. I make it one more and Mike calls. Now, despite Mike just calling here I’m starting to worry that I might have run into KK or AA. He checks and I check behind on the turn when a blank comes wanting to avoid a check-raise if he already has my queens beat (I really should have bet here and not let him take a free card in case he was overplaying AK). River is another blank and Mike checks so I bet and he calls. I show my AQ and Mike begins to muck when the MP player demands to see Mike’s hand. Mike shows KQ and MP seems satisfied that we were not doing anything funny.

We start off Sunday at the Rio again. Pauly’s only covering one event so he has some time to chat. Otis is there too so Mike, Pauly, Otis and I spend a few chatting. Mike and I end up signing up for some cash games and the donkey fest continues. I will say that there were 2 very good players and 1 good player at my table. This was the most talent I had seen at one table the entire trip. We mostly stayed out of each other’s way though because we had two giant-sized donkeys giving up the chips. One guy had a monster stack and was playing hands like Q4s for 2 and 3 bets cold. He was laying bad beat after bad beat on players and a very good player on my right was steaming a bit after losing two monster hands in a row to runner, runners to him. The guy to my right made some backhanded comment to the donkey and he just giggled at his own luck. In fact, that was his response every time he sucked out a hand. He would just laugh and giggle with excitement. Within an hour the donkey busted out and as he left the table shaking his head shell-shocked at how quickly he lost his entire stack I commented, “It’s a bitch when statistical variance returns to the norm,” which got a laughs around the table.

After the Rio we make the mistake of going to the Bellagio for the buffet. The food was pretty good (especially for a buffet) and at $40 the price was only slightly armed robbery but the wait was over 2 hours!! They kept tricking you by switchbacking the line so you kept thinking that you were almost there and then you would round a corner and realize that you weren’t even close. There is absolutely no food that good regardless of the price.

Stomachs full we head downtown for a bit for some black jack and craps at the Plaza and then back to our hotels. I’m still a little wired up so I sit down at the Monte Carlo black jack table and go on a mad rush. I sat down with $100 figuring I would just order some drinks and kill some time until I was ready to crash but next thing you know I’m up about $240. After that though, I couldn’t win or lose. I just stayed even. I figured that I was either going to bed up big or break even on the session so I put my original $100 in my pocket and bet $120 on the next hand. I hit two face cards for 20 and the dealer drew a 21 on 4 cards. Damn! I put the last $120 out there and I get 19. Dealer has a face showing and when she flips up the other card it’s another face. Well, like I said, I was either going to bed up big or break even and I went to bed break even.

Early morning check-out and an almost trafficless ride home rounded out a pretty good Vegas holiday weekend.