PCA Trip Report: Part 2

One thing I forgot from yesterday. A guy that lives in residence with Mike won the Stars Million for $200K. So jealous. He's not even that experienced a player, though he played pretty well at the final table. There was another kid in the hotel lobby playing at that final table on his laptop, with like 75 people around him cheering him on. I was up in our hotel room with Aaron and Mike forming the 3 person ch0ppy fan club. He basically single-handedly took out the kid playing in the lobby, it was actually pretty funny how badly he outplayed him. It's kind of scary to think how good Mike and a few of his friends could get, because they're all super smart young kids.

Day 5

Today I got up and headed down to the poker room to play the $1000 tournament. The structure was pretty awful and I never really got many chips. However, Aaron was owning it from the very start and I was running around the room trying to watch how Steve and gobbo were doing, and also keeping an eye on Aaron. Steve and gobbo's day are pretty well covered elsewhere. They came up short finishing in the low 20s for like 30K or something.
For dinner we went to the buffet with aaronbeen, actionjeff, and some others. I'm pretty sure aaronbeen lost credit card roulette, though I don't remember mocking him so I might have days mixed up. The dinner buffet was good, and I basically tried almost everything. Also, Mike is a huge luckbox. He had already won like $2000 on the trip gambling on coinflips, and at dinner he added to that. He flipped jonlewis for $100 twice, splitting those flips. He then won 2 consecutive flips for $200, the next for $400, and another double or nothing for $800. Jon quit at this point down only $1600.
***
I ended up going to play the big nightly tournaments online, and went on a sick run in every tournament I was playing. Unfortunately I bubbled the $1000 tournament on Full Tilt and donked out of the $129 tournament on UB in 3rd place in spectacular fashion:

We're 3 handed. I've been playing pretty aggressively. The guy on my right has 320K and I have around 280K, and GB2005 has 150K on my left.

Hand 1: I'm in the SB and the button folds. Blinds are 4K/8k and I limp in with 86o. GB checks his BB. The flop comes K55 and I autobet 12K. GB quickly calls. Something about the timing of his call and the fact that I'd been very aggressive made me really think he was floating me with nothing here planning to try to take the pot away later, since I figured to have nothing either.
The turn was a Q, completing the rainbow. Going with my read I decided not to give up on the pot and bet 24K. Unfortunately, this might not have been the best way to fight for the pot, a checkraise all-in was probably a better plan. GB2005 went ahead and raised to 65K. My first instinct was that I still didn't really believe him, and I thought he was leaving himself room to fold if I pushed. My second thought was that pushing allin with 8-hi, no draw, here was completely suicidal, what the hell was I thinking. But I talked myself into going with my read and pushed him in for his last 65K. He instamucked and berated me in chat for "never being able to fold". I told him I had a big hand for some reason.

Hand 2: After the last hand I decided that I was, in fact, invincible. I raise to 24K with AQo and the other guy calls in his BB. The flop comes TTx. He checks and I continuation bet 30K. He min-checkraises to 60K. Unlike in the last hand where I had actual reasons to think he was bluffing, I randomly decided to call and take this pot away too. I finish the hand with like 50-60K in chips.

Hand 3: Folded to me in the SB and I autoshove 73o. GB beats me into the pot with 99. GG.

After donking out of my other tournaments I headed down to watch Aaron. There are 5 players left and he has the chiplead. The funny thing about Steve and Aaron, is that they play nothing like their personalities. Both are fairly quiet, unassuming guys. They're not the least bit cocky and they're both pretty nitty with the money they've made, and you might expect them to be similar at the table, playing a careful, tight style. But in reality, they are two of the LAGiest LAGtards ever when they play live. Aaron had to be raising at least 75% of the hands it was folded to him in any position. The players on his left simply did not know how to adjust and he was dominating the table. Unfortunately I brought my bad luck down to him and he finished 3rd for $20K, after taking a tough river beat, and losing a flip.
***
Day 6

This was by far the best day of the trip. Mike left this morning. Lol, that's only a small part of why though. The plan for today was to lie out in the sun all afternoon and get our burn on. But first, waterslides!! I'd never done the water slide thing before, so I had no idea what I was in for. So I get on the first one, and you actually get moving pretty fast! OK so that was fun! Now we go do the big one. Aaron warns me that I'll actually lose contact with the slide for a split second on this one. Hmm, ok that sounds fine. I was thinking maybe you'd go for a little bit and then there'd be this drop, because I couldn't actually see much without my glasses on. Well, no. As soon as you get moving there's a huge drop. And it's not a split second, I'd say I was off the slide for closer to a full second, and you get moving fast in a hurry. It definitely got the blood pumping, but was really fun, so we did that again and also the tube one before going to lie down in the sun all day. Unfortunately, by this time our beautiful sunny day had clouded over and it was spitting rain. On the plus side it was still early enough to go play the $1500 tournament, so we did that instead.
***
Unfortunately, I busted in the first level with KK vs AA but decided I wanted to play live more. I was trying to get a seat in the 5/10 NL game but it was full so I had to wait. As I was waiting they started a 10/20 NL game, so I figured why not, and got in on that one. Just as the game was about to start a seat opened at the 5/10 table, but the 10/20 game actually looked way softer so I decided to stay there. And what a game it was. 3-4 to every flop for a raise, and while most people seemed to know how to play fairly well postflop, there were a few that were complete maniacs. I ended up making $3K by winning a few small to medium sized pots along with this big one:

Hand 1: I'm UTG and and place a live straddle to 40 before looking at my cards. There is a raise to 125 and 2 callers before it gets back to me. I now look down and find KK, and make it 600 to go. The raiser folds but the first caller pushes me all-in for around $2000. I quickly call and say I hope it isn't happening for the 2nd time today, but he has 99 and my hand holds.

***
I find some other 2+2ers in the card room and learn that they've got a table for 12 booked at Nobu, the expensive Japanese/sushi place in the casino. Fortunately there were a couple extra seats, so Aaron and I could join them. To make things simple we all decided to get the chefs specialty 7 course meal at $150 a head. Throw in some sake and wine and we paid almost $200 each. The food was pretty good, and the service was actually fine (everyone else I've talked to complained the service was awful). Each of the 7 rounds was really small, but it added up to a satisfying meal. It definitely wasn't a $200-good meal though, I've had much fresher sushi in Toronto for example, but after running so good at credit card roulette we needed a big meal to knock some money off my room card anyways so that it wouldn't go to waste.

After the meal we got some more drinking in before heading to Senor Frogs, a bar in Nassau. We bumped into a few of the Ship it Holla Ballas on our way to find cabs, and instead we shared a limo with them. They're actually nice guys, people get the wrong idea from the awful name and their website, but they're just trying to have some fun and get some publicity. The night got even better when we arrived, as apparently several cruise ships were docked at Nassau that night, and the bar was packed. Not just of nerdy poker guys, but also some attractive ladies who weren't dating said poker players for a change. Lots of drinks, good reggae and hip hop playing, a (female) booty shaking contest up on the stage, and a bit of dancing. Not a bad night at all. After Senor Frogs closed we went to some other late night place and partied until around 5am. Great night.

Day 7
When I come to it's after 12:30 and we need to get cleaned up and head down to sign up for the $2500 tournament. I know it's going to be a rough day after last night, but I'm getting backed in the tournament, and I don't want to miss out on my last chance to make some money down here.
***
The tournament went a lot better today, but again I fell short of cashing. This is long as hell already so I'll go with the short version: AK vs TT aipf bingo A on river. AQ vs AA aipf turns broadway obv. I basically lost every other pot I played though and I wonder why I ever bother cont. betting the flop because I swear they raise me every time. Anyways I get moved to a new table and belowabove is on my right so I'm just waiting for a chance to reraise him. He opens on the button and I jam A3o from the SB. Unfortunately I don't have enough chips to get him to fold QTs and he decides to call and pwn me.
***
After this I went to the Stars closing cocktail party, but I didn't have it in me to drink anymore so I left early and went to a comedy show Steve + family, Aaron, and davidross + wife. I really enjoyed two of the three comedians, and even the guy in the middle wasn't bad. We say goodbye to some people and get our stuff ready to leave in the morning.

Day 8

Get up in time to go kill the last $50 on the room card at breakfast and get checked out by 11. Aaron leaves for his earlier flight and I'm on a flight with Steve and family at 3. The trip back is uneventful, Steve drops me home, and it was pretty awesome to see a bunch of people I hadn't seen in a while over at the house for one of Dave's dinner parties. Maybe Waterloo isn't so bad.

Mike