[trutan]

In the spirit of my teammate SpaceMonkey's Ceasar's Tourney win, here is my Vegas report from last weekend.

Headed out to Vegas Thursday afternoon with 8 other guys for our annual pilgrimage. We do the cheapo downtown thing. Usually stay at the El Cortez and follow the plan of lots of booze, video poker, and cheap blackjack.


This trip, I decided to make it a point to play a little poker. So I headed over to Binion’s on Saturday to play in the 2 pm daily tourney. It is essentially, $70 for T2000 with one re-buy/add-on $40 for T1500.

They get 50 players the majority of which appear to be locals. My first table seems to be about 50/50 decent/poor players. Levels start at 20 minutes at 25/50. Pretty uneventful for the first 2 levels. At the start of level 3, our table gets broken up and I get a decent seat at the new table. Just left of a pretty solid player with a weak (and increasingly intoxicated) female to my left. I just stick to solid play and right before the break, I’ve built my stack up to a little over T3000.

Last hand before the break the blinds are 100/200. I get J,J in middle position and raise it up to 600. CO calls, SB folds, BB calls. Flop comes T,8,2 rainbow. BB checks and I push hoping to take down the pot right here. CO thinks for a while and calls. SB folds. I turn over my Jacks and CO shakes his head and flips up A,T. The jacks hold up and take down the pot. I decide to still take the optional add-on for $40 (T1500) so I go to break with around T8000.

Don’t remember much of the middle level action except this hand. I am in EP and look down at K,K. I raise it up and get just one caller. An older guy with a big stack from drawing out on 2 or 3 players already. Flop comes A,8,4 rainbow. I make a continuation bet and he flat calls. Turn is a J. At this point, I’m still not convinced that he has an A so I make another small bet. He thinks for a minute and then just flat calls again. River is a 6 and I check. I know, probably a weak play in hindsight but my thinking was I wasn’t going to get any action if he had a small pair of missed some sort of draw. After my check, he makes what appears to be a value bet but for some reason I just have a feeling like my hand is good. I say, “this is probably going to hurt” as I make a crying call. He flips over Q,8 and my K’s are good!

That takes me to around T20,000. From here, I coasted to the final table.

Side note: The FT was pretty cool. Binion’s has a table (with the glass botton hole cams) that is up on a small platform and has it’s own rail and lights. Kind of like the TV feature table in the WSOP.

FT has 10 players and they are only paying 6 places so still some work to do. Blinds are 1000/2000 with 200 ante. I manage to stay even through this level. We lose one and then there's a three way all-in pot with A,Q vs A,K vs J,J. The woman with A,Q (same one from my earlier table) draws a Q on the turn and we are down to 7. I was relieved when a couple people brought up the idea of taking $50 from 1st and 2nd to pay 7th $100. We all agreed and just like that, I'm in the money!!!!!!!!!!!>>

We get 2 more knocked out so we're down to 5. The blinds are 3000/6000 with a 600 ante!! I have about 10000 after posting the small blind. I have been extremely card dead at the final table. Action is folded around to me and I look down at Kh,2h. This is the best hand I’ve seen in 2 or 3 orbits so I push all-in hoping to take down the blinds. The big blind calls and turns over Ac,Qc. Flop comes T,8,5 rainbow. Turn is a K !!!!!! Now he's drawing to 7 cards (3 Aces or 4 Jacks). The river is ....................... J !!!!!! He hits hits his straight and I'm out in 5th.>>


End result is 5^th out 50. $110 invested and get $264. The river J hurt a bit since if I’d won that hand, I would have been 3^rd in chips with the payouts around 1^st $1500 2^nd $1000 3^rd $700 4^th $400.

Still quite a thrill for my first Vegas tourney.

[JHickle]

Fantasic finish.
The Binion's tournament I played last August was my fav of the visit (placed 8th w/94 players).
Are they taping the FT and offering up for sale yet? They were talking about that then but didn't have it up and going yet (had the FT as you described).
Did you experience Old Joe? A very old man dealing very, very, very slow (1 hand per 3 hands at other tables). To this day I'm not sure if it was good or bad thing at the time, but very funny. Everyone at table wanted to call the clock on Old Joe.
The locals are also very entertaining.

[bludevilstud5]

I hope Im as succesfull when I go! Great story.

[trutan]

Originally Posted by JHickle

Fantasic finish.
The Binion's tournament I played last August was my fav of the visit (placed 8th w/94 players).
Are they taping the FT and offering up for sale yet? They were talking about that then but didn't have it up and going yet (had the FT as you described).
Did you experience Old Joe? A very old man dealing very, very, very slow (1 hand per 3 hands at other tables). To this day I'm not sure if it was good or bad thing at the time, but very funny. Everyone at table wanted to call the clock on Old Joe.
The locals are also very entertaining.

No taping of the FT. That would have been pretty cool. However, they were taping commercials and lead-ins for the new UPC-Cash Game. I posted about it in another thread.

Don't think that I experienced Old Joe. All of the dealers were very friendly and seemed to keep the game moving nicely. I'll definitely play in another next time I'm in vegas.

[VARoadstter]

Originally Posted by trutan

Last hand before the break the blinds are 100/200. I get J,J in middle position and raise it up to 600. CO calls, SB folds, BB calls. Flop comes T,8,2 rainbow. BB checks and I push hoping to take down the pot right here. CO thinks for a while and calls. SB folds. I turn over my Jacks and CO shakes his head and flips up A,T. The jacks hold up and take down the pot. I decide to still take the optional add-on for $40 (T1500) so I go to break with around T8000.

I'm confused here... Jacks won?! That's impossible.

f'in jacks.

(Congrats on the money finish, btw)

[trutan]

Originally Posted by VARoadstter

I'm confused here... Jacks won?! That's impossible.

f'in jacks.

(Congrats on the money finish, btw)

LMAO..... That is exactly what I said after the hand was over. "I can't believe that the f'in jacks held up!". Of course, I didn't get much of a reaction from the rest at the table. Must be a CT thing