First Vegas session in the books

I woke up at around 8 AM and laid in the room just messing around online to about 10, showered and got ready and drove myself down to Bellagio to play some. Jamie and Shawn were still sleeping but I figured they could always take a taxi down there and catch up with me. I came down to the Bellagio poker room and as soon as I got in, I heard them call out "Immediate seating for 5-10 No Limit Hold'em." and I sat down and bought in for $1000. I played for about 45 minutes and I never won a hand or ever really got involved in a hand, I lost $60 and went over to play a $130 satellite into a $530 daily tournament at the Bellagio. It was a single table, ten man tournament that paid two seats to the tournament. I hung back early, never really played many hands, started playing hyper aggressive around 100/200 and increased my stack from T900 to about T2400 without a showdown. The blinds went up yet again and I kept up my raising, I still never had a single showdown but I picked up some big hands. I had AKs, QQ, AQs, 99 all within six hands. I never got into a showdown with any of them. With four people left, I had T4900 with 15000 in play so I held about a third of the chips and was in the lead. The man who was under the gun, asked the dealer how much longer until the blinds go up, I took that as a direct question "How much longer do I have before I need to make my move?". She responded "Forty-five seconds", he looked down at his cards and pushed all-in immediately. It folded around to me in the big blind and I asked for a count, it was 1500 more and I had K-Jo. I decided to call thinking his range of hands would be quite wide at this point and he had A-Q and his hand held up. I was down to 3000 but still in decent shape. A couple hands pass, and I pick up K-10 of hearts. The current chipleader folds under the gun, I push all-in, it folds to the big blind who has 2100 chips. He calls instantly with pocket threes. He won that race as well, when a three hit the turn and gave me a flush-draw but I missed the flush on the river, and I was down to only 900 chips with 200/400 blinds. The very next hand, the chipleader is in the blind and I'm under the gun four handed. I look down at Q2o. A highly marginal hand but it's either this hand or the next hand, I put it all-in thinking I might not get anything better than queen high in the blind. It folded to the BB who called with 83 and my hand held up and I doubled through. Then I forfeit my big blind to a raise, and move in from the small blind with Q4 against the big blind who was a super tight player but who happened to have AK of hearts. I hit a queen on the turn and a four on the river for two-pair and was back in the game. The blinds were now 300/600 and I pushed all-in a few times picking up blinds to stay afloat, we knocked out the fourth guy and I had 4200 chips with 300/600 blinds. I was first to act and looked down at T-5 of clubs, yet again extremely marginal but with 900 chips out there, and both of them playing quite tight I decided to push. I grabbed my chips, stacked them on top of each other and was about to push them in when I got a real bad feeling, I stopped for a second but decided to push anyway. Small blind insta pushes over the top of me and I know I'm done, he flips up pocket queens and I went home in third on the bubble.

I then went to play some 2/5 blinds NLH, bought in for the max ($500) and the game was ramming and jamming. I saw a guy raise to $50 preflop in early position with K6 of hearts, bet $120 on the flop that held a flushdraw and then call $380 more all-in and spike a flush on the turn.

I raised to $25 with AQ, the same guy reraises me $75 more for a hundred total. I don't like my hand too much in this spot but had a feeling I might have two overs, it was a decent size reraise and I gave him 8's thru jacks, which may or may not have been correct, I called. Flop came down 5-3-2 with two diamonds, I have the ace of diamonds. I check to him, he bets $150 into the $250 pot. I thought for a moment and thought I most likely have 10 outs with some fold equity considering he's a half maniac, incase my read was off and he's just holding air... that was my train of thought that led to my very poor check-raise all-in push that had him call with two queens. I now was reduced to 7 outs that failed to materialize and I left the game thinking "Wow, I'm really a donkey."

I went over to the $10/20 NL and sat down with $2000 in the game. I ran into a guy I play a lot with down in Tunica, at the Horseshoe, what are the odds? He was also in the game and I knew I recognized him from somewhere and I was in the middle of trying to figure out where when he said, "Tunica, Horseshoe right? You have a house outside Memphis?" I said, "Yeah, I was trying to figure out where I've played with you!"

Anyhow, I win a couple pots and I lose a couple pots feeling quite confident about my play still. I usually play 2/5 or 5/10 NLH so 10/20 is a step up for me. I have only played 10/20 once live before and a handful of times online but I felt pretty good about it as I right off the bat identified about four or five mediocre to poor players. It was a very loose and aggressive game. A guy opened up under the gun for $100, second to act calls, I call with 10-7 of diamonds, two more people call putting $530 in the pot going to the flop. The flop came down Ad 9d 6s giving me a flushdraw with a gutshot. The pre-flop raiser bets $300 into the pot, and I'm thinking he's got a big ace, second guy folds and it's up to me. I look down at my stack and I have $1500 and change, I thought about how to play it and figured I'm just going to shove here as my hand is big enough to warrant it and it might get a few hands to fold. I shove, it goes back around to him, he asks for a count. The dealer pulls the $300 and starts counting but the man interrupts him and says, "Nevermind, I call.", I'm thinking please get lucky this time I've been running poorly lately so just give me a diamond or an eight and get it over with. Turn comes with a deuce of diamonds giving me a flush, dealer burns and turns and river is a brick. I'm thinking "Ship it!" when he rolls over KQ of diamonds for the nut flush. Wow, that's one hand I didn't put into the equation. I tap the table, tell him good hand, shake the hand of the guy from Tunica and said I'll probably be back later and walked off to the garage and drove home. That sucked.