Vegas Trip Report part 1

I've been too lazy to put up a Vegas trip report. Now I have forgotten some of the details, but I will try my best.

The last time I was in Vegas was with Mailman at Feb. 2008, which was also my first time ever in Vegas. This is my 2nd trip to Vegas.

June 14) I met 2 guys from Nautica that I play 2/5 with all the time in the airport, they re flying out to Vegas and stay at Rio's too. So after we landed in Vegas, we took a cab to his mom's house in Vegas, then we took his mom's car to drive 3 of us to Rio. Colin was nice enough to come outside and meet me up, we all know how bad I'm with directions. I could have gotten lost. After I met up with Colin, he gave me a a little walk thru with brief introduction to where's everything in Rio. After unpacking in the room, Colin asked me what I want to do? I was like " gambling man" this is freaking Vegas, you don't spend time during anything else. I aint no Data who managed to not wage a single penny during his week long stay in Vegas.

So right away, I went down to the Amazon/Pavllion rooms at the Rio's. My first impression when I walked into the room was "WOW". The Pavillion room is HUGE. It was quite a sight seeing thousands of poker players walking around. It's poker player's dream place. I immediately felt right at "home".


Colin took me to check out the Amazon room, which is right across from the pavllion room. The first pro I've ever seen in real life was Sam Farma. They were filming the ESPN final table. As I was walking toward the ESPN final table, I said to myself" so this is how they do it on TV".

Being a cash game player, I asked Colin to show me where the cash games are.
We walked back to pavilion room, and they had about 60+ tables of cash tables there spreading anything from 1/3 to nose bleed stakes. Colin said he's not playing tonight, he's tired. I talked him into playing some 2/5, it doesn't take much to talk a poker player into playing some poker.

So we both decide to play some 2/5, I went outside to use the restroom, and as I was walking back from the restroom, I saw a tall guy who looks familiar, in black leather jacket, and a black cap I've seen thousands of times on TV. As I looked closer," HOly shit, is that phil freaking hellmuth"? Man, I can't believe I'm looking at the poker brat. As I walked past him, I said to him" hello, mr. Hellmuth" paying my respect to the poker brat, he smiled back and said " hello, there". I swear that made my day!

POker wise that night, I don't remember many hands, but I did remember one hand. The board was 3567 with 2 diamonds, I had A4 of diamonds, and this euporean guy called my all in bet at the turn, I thought I was free rolling, but he rolled over 89 for the nut straight. And river came another diamond to complete my flush. I took down a 700 dollars pot with the suckout. First night total, +600 in 3hours. thanks to that hand.

June 15) Today, I didn't play much poker, after meeting up with Data at Wynn for lunch, we walked around for a bit. Went to check out Aria's and did a little shopping. Collin and I returned back to Rio's at about 2pm while Data continue his way of whatever he was doing. Seriously, how the hell do you wear a black suit in Vegas weather outside? I was feeling the heat with t-shirt and shorts, but Data was fine. Does that man ever sweat? is he possible of sweating? I told Colin "Data is cold-blooded, this is why he doesn't sweat with suits in 100 degrees weather".

Anyway, I played only 2 hours of poker At Rio's lost 300 dollars due to a stupid hand. I think I stacked off with J9 vs K9 on a 9 high board. I raised pre flop with J9 at the button, BB called and flop came 942. He checked, I bet out 40, he made it 100, he only had like 170 behind, Because Data just texted us that he's coming to meet us up to go check out downtown Vegas tonight, I was like "fuck it", I put that motherfucker all in. and he tanked forever because finally made the call and his hand held up.

The last time Mailman and I checked out the downtown Vegas, we played alot of poker there. Binion's has always been one of my favorite poker room because of the rich poker history there. But this time, we didn't get to play any poker, we just walked around sight seeing. Downtown Vegas is different than the strip, it's definitely worth a day to check it out. Colin and I took a picture with the "million dollars cash" on display, but we didn't want to wait 30mins and have to fill out applications to get a binion's card, so we never got the pictures. Colin and I discussed briefly of going to some strip bars, well it was quickly shot down by the Commander Data. There was no way in hell he was going to allow Colin to have some fun the night before the big tournament.

So I only played about 5-6hours of poker for the first 2 days, I made up my mind I was going to play ALOT of poker starting tomorrow...

Now that we got the non poker stuff out of the way, my trip report part2 will be REALLY POkEr HEAVY....