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.

Casino du Lac Leamy - Poker Room

The day has finally come, Ottawa (okay Gatineau, close enough) has it's own poker room! Casino du Lac Leamy opened their new poker room on January 18th. I didn't get back from Australia until the 19th, so I missed the opening day, but I was there the following day.

There is a problem between the dealers' union and the casino agreeing on wages, so they are only able to use electronic tables until they reach a deal. I was so excited to get to the room that I got lost on my way in. I hadn't been to the casino in a few years and I was going on the directions that my friend had given me when I was talking to him on the phone earlier. If I had just looked at the ground when I walked in, there is a path of squares that say "Poker" leading all the way to the poker room. Duh!

I finally found the room, and I was amazed at what I saw. The poker room is one of the nicest that I've ever played in, and I'm not exaggerating. The room is separated from the rest of the casino by angled panes of glass, so it looks like it's open, but, without the noise of all the slot machines. They also have a really nice bar on one of the ends that is open to the other side of the casino. There are 13 tables in the room, but they are very spaced out, which means, there is room for a lot more tables. They have 2 VIP rooms that are behind red tinted glass, which host the higher-stakes games. The room is dimly lit, which gives it a lounge feel. I personally love it, and while it might not be as big as the room at the Bellagio or Caesar's Palace, it definitely looks as nice.

As for the electronic tables, they are much better than I expected. I played on them on my first trip to Australia back in early 2007, but only for a few minutes and I didn't really have the time to get used to them. It's almost like online poker except you can see who is sitting in front of you. There are pros and cons of course, the pros being that the game is much faster without having to shuffle a deck or count out chips. There also can't be any disagreements since it is all done on the computer. The only con for me is missing the feel of having the chips and cards in your hands. I love having a tower of chips in front of me. If they ever offer PL Omaha at the casino, I would 100% be in favour of the electronic tables over live tables, counting out those pot bets takes an eternity!

As for the service, it is top notch. The staff is extremely nice and they take care of the players very well (shoutout to Bob). If you have a suggestion or complaint, they are quick to address it as well as they are able to.

They even offered me the Presidential Suite at the Hilton for a night of my choosing and of course I accepted. I had the room the following Friday,and I invited around 10 of my closest friends to hang out for the night. Now I've stayed in some pretty expensive suites at the Bellagio and Caesar's, but this room topped them all. It was bigger than an average home that's for sure, sporting a full kitchen and bar, dining room with a 12 seat table, big living room with a Bang & Olufsen entertainment system. My favourite part was the gold-filled marble floors and the grand piano in the entrance.

We all had dinner at Le Baccara and it was amazing. We all chose the "surprise menu", which was a 6 course meal, where you didn’t know what you're getting. Each course was served with a different glass of wine. The presentation was exceptional, and the sommelier really knew his wines. Just to give you an idea of the level of service, my friend's digital camera died on him, and I asked the waiter if there was anywhere in the casino where we could still get batteries (it was 10:00 PM). He said he would go check. Five minutes later, he comes in with two double AA batteries served on a silver platter. All in all, it was a 5 star night!

Okay, back to poker. Now for the best part, the actual games! They spread $1/$2 NL to $5/10 NL and sometimes $10/$20 NL. There is also a couple of limit games, $2/$4 and $5/$10 I believe. I mostly go on weekday afternoons, and the $5/$10 NL game is usually going by the time I get there. The action is unbelievable. There are a few players with very deep pockets and not much card sense. Mostly older businessmen and the likes.

In future posts, I will recap hands from the casino. I would have liked to do it in this post, but it will make it much too long. I'm up around $20,000 in the first couple of weeks, which I'm very happy with, but I wish the $10/$20 NL game would run more often. There is so much money to be made here, I almost feel guilty leaving for Vegas in a couple of weeks!