I've now been in Vegas for almost a week. I spent the first few days with my girlfriend Lauren doing completely non-poker activities. It was a fantastic few days and really enjoyable for me to finally spend some time in Vegas which wasn't totally poker-related and/or with poker friends. I saw three Cirque du Soleil shows this week and all of them were quite enjoyable. My favourite was definitely "Mystere", as some of the athletic feats were just mind-boggling and I was thoroughly entertained for the entire show. "KA" was also very good, with "Love" (the Beatles musical) being my 3rd choice. If you were to see only one, I would definitely recommend Mystere.

I've also managed to spend a lot of time in the World Series poker room this week. I've played in 4 events, with zero cashes. In fact, I haven't even made a dinner break yet. It's been fairly disappointing, however cash games have gone well so I've basically been freerolling the tournaments which is nice. To be honest, I didn't really have many interesting tournament hands. Although, my bust-out hand in today's $3000 NL Event was especially frustrating...

We started with T6000 chips and I've run it up to ~T11,000 fairly early. Amir Vahedi arrived late at our table and had since run his chips up to roughly T12,000. He opens from UTG to T300 (blinds 50/100), and I 3bet KK from MP to T825, he calls. Flop comes Q73hh. He check/calls a 2/3pot bet. Turn is an offsuit 2. He checks and then shoves all-in (effectively a pot-sized raise) over my turn bet. This is not a fist-pumping situation for me as he can definitely have a set of 7's or 3's here, but its still a pretty automatic call. I call, and he rolls over Q2cc for two pair. The river bricks and I'm left wondering how this amazingly terrible poker player has won a WSOP bracelet and is known as one of the "poker professionals" that 99% of America thinks is "world-class". He's terrible.

One semi-interesting tournament hand I played was my bustout hand in the 3rd event I played, the $1500 NL. This event sported 3000 of the worlds finest donkeys and fish. The field was amazingly soft, as to be expected in a weekend small buy-in event. Although, the disappointing part is that the structure is so poor that it's still fairly difficult to navigate through such a large field with very shallow stacks. Here's my bust-out hand with a bit of analysis:

I managed to run my T3000 up to roughly T6000, a little under average after the 2nd break. Folds around to a nice early-30's-ish whitewashed Asian guy I'd been talking to occasionally and he opens the button for T900 with T150/300 blinds and a T25 ante. I have A9hh in the SB and without much thought, I ship it all-in. My play here is pretty standard because he's definitely opening the button with a wide range and the pot is quite big with the raise/blinds/antes. Folding is just too tight and we're not deep enough to just call. He tanks (lol) and then finally calls with AKo and it holds. To validate my play, lets toss some numbers around:

After his raise, the pot is T1675. So I'm putting up roughly T6000 to win T1675. I'm fairly certain he opens the button with any pair, any ace, and any broadway. He also probably opens some other junk for a generously small total of about 27% of all hands. The fact that he TANKED with AKo leads me to believe that he's only calling my shove with AK/66+/AQs. This accounts for 5.6% of the time, or roughly 20% of his button-opening range. So 80% of the time, I will win T1675 without showdown. The other 20% of the time, I will be a 35% underdog against his calling range.

Summary:
80% of the time he folds and I win +T1675.
7% of the time, he calls and I win the showdown, +T6675.
13% of the time, he calls and I lose the showdown, -T6000.

So... Chip EV = .8*1675 + .07*6675 - .13*6000 = ~ +T1225

So in the long-run we increase our stack by roughly 20% every time we make this play, given the worst case scenario for his opening range.

As expected, the deepstacked cash games I've played have provided way more interesting hands than the straightforward tournament play. Here are a few that I can remember, all at NL10/25 no max buyin at the Rio:

Hand 1: Bit of history: AEJones is at the table, a very good online player. It's my first day living at a house full of online poker players including AEJ, and he doesn't know it yet as we haven't been introduced. However, I knew who he was as someone had pointed him out. He's playing/raising a ton of hands and as expected, both the old nits and loose-passive terrible players are all mumbling and muttering about how the "young kid" is "playing fast/speeding/wild/etc.." as he takes all their money.

AEJ opens from EP, something he's doing a ton. I call 77 from MP, all else fold. Flop is KJ7r. He bets, I call. Turn is a 7 bringing a flush draw. He hammers again, and I tank a bit. Finally I make a sloppy one-chip-at-a-time call. River is an off-suit 9 and he bets 2/3 pot, $850. I tank for a while before making it $2350. He thinks for a short while before shoving for my last ~$2000 and I insta-call with the nuts. He shows KJo for what at first seems like a mesmerizingly terrible play. But the more I thought about his play, the more I really liked it if I had been atleast $2000 deeper. And I'm willing to bet that being mostly an online player, he wasn't fully aware of how deep my stack was. His river shove is turning his hand into a bluff, as from his perspective I can never have a full house. I would re-raise KK/JJ preflop, not to mention that he has 2 of those blockers making it even more doubtful. K7s/J7s/99 are all not very reasonable. So from his perspective my most probable hands are trip 7's, QT for the straight, some sort of bluff, or quads. He should also be aware at this point that I'm most probably a thinking online player that is definitely capable of folding out everything but quads to his shove. His play at the time made me super-confused but in retrospect, I really like it if I'm deeper.

This next hand is fun. DJ Sensei is at the table, a really good online player who has significant live experience and can be tricky at live deepstacked tables. The button straddles to $50 and DJ calls from the blinds along with a few others, as I call Q9dd from the CO for a 6-way flop of KJThhh. DJ leads out for pot, an older nit who'd limped from EP calls after some hesitation, and I think/call with my straight. Turn is a brick, 5s. DJ and the nit both hesitate/check, and I bet 2/3 pot. DJ think/calls, nit think/calls. At this point I'm fairly confused because I'm almost 100% certain DJ leads the turn again with a flush. I'm also fairly confident (yet not as certain) that the nit would bet the turn with a flush after DJ checks. I'm decently confident that DJ never has AQ, and that the nit probably doesn't either. So I'm a bit confused to get 2 calls on the turn. The river is another brick, the 4c. Both players think/check, and I need to think about whether I should value bet. I decide that I just simply don't think either player has a flush very often and that I might get paid off by a weirdly played set or a stubborn two pair that thinks I just had the Ah for the nut flush draw. I bet half-pot, and DJ tanks with a hugely winceful look on his face. He painfully calls. The nit then begins tanking. It's at this point that I realize that my $1500 river bet effectively put him almost all-in. I also start to realize that its entirely possible that I might get DJ to call with a worse hand here, while the nit folds out a better one if he did manage to get to the river with a slightly oddly played flush or AQ. But the nit finally calls. First DJ rolls over KK for a slowplayed top set, as he expected the straddle to get re-popped preflop. I roll over my straight, and the nit then triumphantly rolls over AQ for the nut straight. It would have been so sick if he managed to lay it down and I effectively made a two-way river bet, one for value against DJ, and one to bluff out the nit. But nonetheless, it was an interesting pot. In retrospect, I should not have bet the river. Mostly just because in live poker, player's ranges are far less defined as they are in the typical online games that I'm used to playing. Players take more unorthodox fancy-pants plays in live games and thus you can never entirely discount hands from their ranges. After talking to Cole (cts), I should probably have just folded the flop with such terrible reverse implied odds. I agree, and the thought had definitely crossed my mind during the hand. The other option would have been to raise the flop and fold to a re-raise, or try to get to showdown cheaply if called.

The next hand isn't so much interesting as it is fun. Dude raises in MP, I call with Q9hh from LP, and an older "live poker professional" calls from the BB. He's clearly terrible but from his convorsations I gathered that he spends a lot of time playing in live games without much understanding of the fundamentals of poker. Flop comes A94hh. Check, check, I bet 2/3pot, and the BB quickly check-raises fairly big. MP folds, I think/call. Turn is the 4c. This is actually a good card for me as 44 is one of the hands I'm most scared of and now its much less likely. Especially when he insta-bets the turn with a big bet, as he would most certainly have Hollywooded a bit with quads or a full house, and he most probably would have needed some thought before betting again with an Ace if he happened to check-raise an ATs type hand on the flop. So at this point I'm almost certain he's on a draw of some sort, or even just a pure bluff as these people are incredibly bad. River is the Ac, and he thinks and checks. At this point I'm 99% sure I have the best hand with just my pair of 9's but its not really worth value-betting. In retrospect I should have bet something retardedly small like 1/12th pot to either humiliate him when he has to fold, or snap him off if he decides to bluff-raise. But instead, I opted to toss the dealer a $5 chip as tip before rolling over my cards. This is one of my favourite things to do in live games as it shows that you had a total grasp on the hand for you to be cocky enough to tip the dealer before showing down your hand when you don't have anywhere close to the nuts and your opponent showed only aggression up until the river. I'm pretty sure the hand tilted him a a bit as he mucked his cards and muttered a few things.

The last hand is fairly interesting, especially if the circumstances change a bit on the river. The same guy from the last hand opens from EP to $150. He has clearly been sizing his preflop raises according to the strength of his hands, so his range is definitely skewed towards the top of his range when he opens for such a big amount. One caller in MP and I call in the blinds with 99. I flop the world with J94hh. I check, EP bets, MP folds, and I raise large knowing that there's a good chance he has a big hand. He calls, and now I'm certain he's got a big one and I just pray for the board to brick out. The turn is the Qd and I hammer for pot. He calls. River is the Ah completing the flush draw. I'm forced to check as now I'm really only beating KK and a few other hands. Luckily for me, he checks behind his KK and I rake in the pot. It would have been a really really tough spot if he had of jammed the river. AA and a flush draw were both significant parts of his range, and I just don't think he's all that capable of turning KK into a bluff.

That's it for now. Tomorrow's event is the $2500 NL 6-max event, one that I should have a huge edge in along with all the other online 6-max cash players. Hopefully I can run up a stack and make my first dinner break!