Vegas, Baby!

So I had 3 options for tournaments to play this month. There was EPT Poland, the L.A. Poker Classic, and the Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza in Las Vegas. I looked at the pros and cons of each. I’ve had by far the most success on the EPT, and I have never been to Poland and would love to go there. The L.A. Poker Classic has a great structure and lots of side events with a $10,000 main event. The Venetian DSE however is only a $2500 main event, and I have had the least success in Las Vegas in my career. So naturally, I chose Las Vegas.

I don’t know what it is, but you never realize how much you miss Vegas until you’re flying over the main strip and you get that tingling feeling inside of you. The hotels, the food, the shows, the poker. This time I’m going to seriously consider looking into buying a condo in one of the new buildings overlooking the main strip. Also, Vegas real estate has really taken a downturn over the last while so I can probably capitalize on some great prices. No, I’m not moving to Vegas, I’ll never move out of Ottawa. Actually, never say never, but let’s say 99%. I figure since I spend 2-3 months a year in Las Vegas and can also make a good investment at the same time, it might be worth it. Also, any time some family wants to come to Vegas they will have somewhere to stay for free.

I seem to have the worst luck with flying. Being the genius that I am, I decided to book the 6:10 AM flight through American Airlines so that I could get to Vegas in time for the $500 H.O.R.S.E. tournament which started at noon. Since I’m such an early bird , I arrived at the airport at 5:30 AM. Apparently American Airlines closes their check-in 45 minutes before the flight time. I was 40 minutes ahead. The lady was still at the counter, I asked her if she could make an exception since I didn’t have any bags to check and I could probably make it though U.S. Customs pretty quickly this early in the morning, and she declined and said it’s their policy. Okay, that was kind of my fault, so I headed over to the other airlines’ ticket counters to see if I could still make it to Vegas before noon. I found a WestJet flight that was connecting through Toronto for $500 or so. For some reason we sat on the runway for almost 45 minutes before taking off, and by the time we landed in Toronto, they let us know over the speaker that those of us who were travelling to Las Vegas had missed our connection. Sigh, bye bye H.O.R.S.E. tourney. The lady at the WestJet counter then said she would be giving us hotel and food vouchers and that there weren’t any more available flights to Vegas until the next day. Uh, yeah no. I’d rather watch ice melt in Nunavut than spend a day in Toronto. I told them that wouldn’t work, and after some debate I received a full refund for my airfare. Back to the ticket counters, and for $210 I found a flight on Delta that would get me to Vegas but I would have to connect through Cincinnati. As my only choice, I took it. Once again, a delay in taking off, bad weather caused a lineup of planes on the runway, and I missed my connection. Now I’m in Cincinnati, and Delta informs me that they have no other direct flights to Las Vegas today. I’m on some serious tilt at this point. I explain the situation, and they offer to give me a full refund,and give me a free first class flight to Las Vegas but I’d have to connect through Atlanta. Thankfully, the last 2 flights went smoothly and I’m in Vegas!

In summary: Ottawa -> Toronto -> Cincinnati -> Atlanta -> Las Vegas

Brag: I got to see all of North America in a single day and it was free

Beat: It would have been a shorter flight to Australia

In poker news, I had a rough week at the casino. I ran super bad and ended up losing 3 out of the 4 days I played, after taking Valentine’s Day off. I ended the week -$5000 and my overall casino profit dropped to $18,000. However, on Monday I made back the whole $5000 before leaving to Vegas. So my total profit is back up to $23,000. By my calculations, I’ve played just under 100 hours so far, making my earnings at the game around $250/hour with very little risk. This is only playing 3-4 hour sessions and I only play on weekdays. The $5/$10 NL doesn’t usually start up before 1:30 PM and I leave around 5:00 PM.

I’ve also started to dabble in online cash games again. I played some $25/$50 NL and $50/$100 NL and did very well, making around $50,000 in a couple of short sessions. I then proceeded to jump into the bigger Omaha games on Eurolinx. A mixture of running bad and tilting caused me to drop around $30,000. I took a couple of days off and then recouped some of the Omaha losses in $20/$40 and $25/$50 NL games. That doesn’t mean I have given up on Omaha though, it is my favourite game and as soon as I get my house I am going to 8-12 table until I improve my game as much as I possibly can.

Overall, it was a very good week and I’m pumped to do well in this tournament. I’m also excited about my return to the $50/$100 NL game at the Bellagio. This game was my bread and butter at last year’s WSOP and I hope it’s still running. My good friend Danny a.k.a. Sun Tan Dan (for at one time owning half of the tanning salons in Ottawa) will be arriving from North Carolina tomorrow and hopefully we will both final table the main event.