Vegas Challenge Day 3-5: Owned….
November 8, 2007
As you’ve probably guessed by now the Vegas challenge did not go so hot. After being cold decked in the poker cash games I gave casino war and sports betting a try. I even started hustling the beer pong tables at O’Shea’s.
I got hit hard by casino war, which was the biggest shocker in Vegas history. This goes to show even the great ones have their off days. Jordan and Gretzky failed from time to time. After building back up by being a beer pong hustla, I put my remaining cash on my Michigan Wolverines at Michigan State on Saturday. It was a great game, with Michigan making an awesome comeback. Sadly they only won by 4 and the line was -4.5, and I was busto. If I had the choice between winning the bet or winning the game, I’d take the game every time.
This bad news for me means you guys get the $500 freeroll. Details on that will come as I work on getting that set up. It was a lot of fun to attempt the challenge, and I will certainly do more like this in the future. Here are a few more pictures from the trip:
This is what I got Eric for his 21st birthday.
Enjoying a tasty brew at the Hofbrauhaus
This is officially the greatest bum sign of all time. I would have given him lots of money if he wasn’t in the process of getting arrested.
Vegas Challenge Day 2: Trying to Get Off The Ground
November 1, 2007
With only $420 after the first day I had a long way to go before I could even think about reaching my $5000 goal. When I started this I knew the hardest part would be getting out of the lowest limits. The day looked promising when I won a nice pot after flopping a set of 5s vs AK and KQ on a 5KT board. This hand put my roll up to about $700. Next hand I ran top pair, a flush draw, and a gut shot up against bottom two. I bricked out and was back down to about $450.
I ran very cold for the rest of the day before I decided to take matters into my own hands, and really put some pressure on everyone. I bluffed a few really big pots and worked my way back up to about $700. When I looked down at QQ late in the day it was the first time in the two days I had seen AA,KK or QQ. When the flop came AQX we got it in and he showed AA. That dropped me down to $500, and after two days of playing I was back to square one.
The palace was running a $60 buyin tournament, so I decided to give that a try. Winning that would give me the boost I needed to make a run at a higher level. We started at 3000 chips and I floated around even till the 100/200 level. 4 people limped, and I was on the button with A10. Everyone was playing typical live poker mega donkament style, so I was pretty sure A10 was good. I wasn’t as confident when two people called, but when the flop came down KT7 I didn’t have any choice but to push my last 1700 when they checked to me. I got ready to leave when both players called (the first guy had $1600 chips and the overcaller hand me covered). I was in surprisingly good shape when the first guy showed 88 and the second 67. The pot was about 9k and I would have been able to dominate the rest if I took it down. The river came a 3rd 8 and I got back 2oo chips.
The next hand might be the funniest hand I’ve ever played in a tournament. The whole table limped to me in the cutoff, and I tossed in my last 200 chips. The button limped, and the small blind pushed all in for 2500 chips. It looked like I had some protection, so I figured it would be a good time to look at my hand. For the first time in the two days of my Vegas trip I looked down at AsAc. I didn’t quite get the protection I wanted when 3 other people called the push. The flop came QdJd3d and all 3 players left got all in. The small blind showed AhQh, another short stack showed J3, the guy who had 88 the last hand showed Ks9d, and the last one in had 5d7d for the flopped flush. The turn rolled off the 2d and the old man won a massive pot, knocking 4 people out, with his 9 high one card flush.
That was all the live poker I could take, so I spent the rest of the night enjoying Halloweenin Vegas. Two days in the bankroll is only at $440, so I’m going to have to bring out the big guns to help me get off the ground. Most of you probably don’t know this but I am considered by many to be the Tiger Woods/Micheal Jordon/Brett Farve/Phil Ivey of casino war. In 15 sesssions I have come out a winner 14, which is litterally the world record. I wanted to wait till I had more money and use casino war to lock up the victory, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
Vegas Challenge Bankroll: $440
Vodka Redbulls Consumed: 24
Vegas Challenge Day 1: Voodoo Ninja Magic?
October 31, 2007
I wasted no time getting started on the challenge after landing in Vegas. With only $500 I was pretty limited to what games I could begin with. I wanted to find a very soft game with a buy-in of $100-$200, so I could build up a little padding in order to take some bigger shots over the next day or two.
The Imperial Palace $1/$2NL has always been the fishiest game I could find, plus they have by far the fastest drink service of any poker room I’ve been to. They’ve raised their buy-in to $300 max, but almost nobody buys in for more than $100. I went in for the full $300 just to make sure I had the table covered. If more people had full stacks I would have went in for like $100 of $150, but I wanted to have a little intimidation factor on the short stacks. Even though I can easily dominate this game risking the more than half of my $500 challenge money would be a good way to fail before I could even get started.
Only one guy had more than $100 on the table, and I though a reader might be using some voodoo ninja magic on me as he flopped top set vs my bottom set twice in the first hour. At this point I only have a little over $100 left of the original $500, and it was looking like I’d be hosting a $500 tournament putting up much less of a fight than I would have liked. Luckily the players were pretty terrible and I was able to pound on the limpers to build back up. At one point I rivered quads on a 9A989 board and got $100 on the river from someone with 33. After about 4 hours of play I had worked my way back up to $420. It’s not where I wanted to be after day 1, but I still have plenty of room to maneuver.
The game plan for today is to hit up the IP game again, and when I work up to $800 jump into the $2/$5NL game. Hopefully I can get something going today. If I don’t I’ll have to take some shots sooner than I’d like.
Vegas Challenge Bankroll: $420
Red Bull Vodkas Consumed: 15 (I wish that were an exaggeration)
5 Days in Vegas - $500 Into $5000
October 29, 2007
Early tomorrow morning I will be hopping on a plane to celebrate my little brother’s 21st birthday with him in Las Vegas. It should be mandatory that everyone turn 21 in Vegas. You only get to do it once, and Vegas is the only way to do it right.
In between the Vodka-Redbull fueled debauchery, there will certainly be some live poker played. I must admit, I’m not the biggest fan of live poker. I love everything about playing live, except the turtle slow pace. When I play online I get in anywhere from 600-1000 hands per hour. Dropping to only 35 per hour is like being sent to stay with your senile Grandpa in a retirement home for a week. Luckily most live players play like that senile Grandpa, which does a lot to make up for the pace of the game. Even with the fish factor and studying for tells, live poker leaves something to be desired. Don’t get me wrong, if online poker went away I could play live for a living, but I’m going to take rolling out of bed and playing online poker in my underwear over playing in a casino every time.
Instead of just hating on live poker I’ve been thinking up ways to spice it up during this Vegas trip. What I have decided to do is have a little competition with myself. What I’m going to do is attempt to take $500 and turn it into $5000 over the 5 days of my trip. Anything is game for the competition: poker, casino games, sports betting, even getting a job at the Bunny Ranch.
I also figured I’d involve my readers in this so, if I fail to do it I will host a $500 freeroll poker tournament for all the readers of this blog. Hopefully having all you guys cheering against me will be motivation enough to get the job done 
Feel free to talk as much smack as you can, I can handle everything you can dish out… and then some.
The Anti Work Movement Continues
October 17, 2007
After making a few pit stops I’ve finally settled on a permanent location for my blog. In my next post I will let you know what you can expect from this blog, but I thought I’d start this blog out just as I did the last. This post was originally made May 11th, 2007 and since it explains the theme of this blog perfectly I’m just going to re-post it here instead of reinventing the wheel. Thanks for reading my blog and I hope to entertain and educate you enough to have you back often. Without further adieu…
The Anti Work Movement
I knew from a very early age that the 9-5 life wasn’t for me. You could never call me a good employee and even though I did very well in school I was far from a “good student”. In every job I’ve had I always found a way to get my work done faster doing it my way instead of “the right way”. Apparently I never learned value of hard work because this never sat well with my bosses. My jobs would inevitably end one of two ways. First I would get in an argument with the boss over why their current methods were wasting time, and with me not wanting to continue wasting time and them having too much pride to admit things could be done better, we would soon part ways. The second way would be to request time off work, having that request denied, and me promptly quitting. Freedom has always been the most important value in my life, much more than knowing I will be getting a check every two weeks.
