Vegas: Day 1 report
As far as gambling goes, there isn’t too much to report. I played a $55 NL Hold ‘Em tournament at the Luxor and busted out 8th of 33. Here are the highlights:
- Short stack moves in immediately to my right, I have QQ and move in for about 3 times what he has. Everyone folds, he turns over AJo and catches JJ (flop and river) to double up.
- I have AJo in middle position, minimum raise by UTG, I move in, he calls with K7s. Sure enough, he makes a flush on the flop.
- I move in with K7o and am called by K2o. 2-pair hits the board and we split.
- I move in with ATo and it holds up against Ax and Q6o.
- I play the waiting game and finally have to move in with KTo. Next player to act moves in for about triple my stack with KK.
All in all, I feel I played nearly perfectly. I was shocked how obvious some physical tells are when playing live. I’ve been playing online exclusively for several months, so I’ve had to learn more about the mathematics, betting pattern tells and other nuances. I was able to steal with absolutely nothing several times after the flop and that kept me in the game.
The tournament structure was a complete crapshoot. We started with 250 in chips, were allowed a 50-chip add-on immediately for 3 dollars (initial buy-in was 55), so we had 300 chips. Blinds started at 10/15 and moved up every 15 minutes (15/25, 25/50…). Also, we started with 11 people per table, so we didn’t even get around once before the first level of blinds was done.
Anyway, I lost, but I played well so I’m ok with it.
Then I played some 5-dollar blackjack. Ultimately, I broke even. I was up to about double my buy-in of 40 bucks, then dropped to 10 bucks, then doubled-up twice and left even. So I’m down 58 bucks for the day.