I guess I'm just not very good

Or very lucky this trip. On the gambling front that is. On the blogger front I have been very lucky as I have met and spent time with Lightning36 and Lucki Duck (not to mention Ms Lucki Duck) who have all been terrific. But more on that later.

It's been a frustrating last few days at the poker tables for me, not to mention at every other table when you come right down to it. I was hoping to keep blogging everyday so that I can keep up to date on things but everytime I hit the room for any downtime I'm so tired I start to fall asleep in front of the keyboard. We are staying very busy and really the room in a hotel for me is where I lay my head and keep my water cold. Anyway when I left off I said that it got better for APQ and boy howdy did it ever.

The next day Lightning and I both played poker again. I had some bad luck as people kept making hands against me, especially flushes, but I also have to take the blame on one beat as I didn't bet high enough on the turn to push the guy out. Of course the way he was chasing, he probably calls my all in bet that I should have made anyway and then I am even broker. I had not gotten great cards in my first day at the tables which may have kept me out of some bad situations but I was able to bluff a bit more than I usually do. I have gotten more aggressive as of late when I enter pots to make sure I am telling a consistent story and be able to take down hands I don't hit. It is mostly working with a couple of bad exceptions (I truly screwed up one hand 2 nights ago when I was tired and it was late) and again I bet sized poorly but think I still take the hand down if I remain consistent.

Anway the cards rewarded me this day preflop. Early on I get KK in mid position. I raise 5x the big blind and of course 4 people call. I noticed at Ballys poker room that people routinely call good raises with just about any suited connector type hand. Flop is nothing, no help to me but with 2 hearts. I bet 25 which knocks out maybe one player. Turn is a black card, queen maybe. Now there is about $130 in the pot. I have about $160 in front of me. I should have pushed in and made this guy put all his chips in the pot but instead I only bet $65 which gave him just the right odds to call as everyone else folded. Heart on the river sinks me. He checks but I don't bet so I don't give him any more money as he shows AJ of hearts. Now he had most of his stack in the pot so he called my second raise for most of his chips on a draw but its still my fault for not pushing harder on the turn.

I get JJ and get whacked by another flush, this time I pushed hard on the flop by going all in. The same flushing donk called with a K-10 after he made a pair of tens with a flush draw and of course hit. This time I didn't give him odds but that was the way it went that day. Later I hit a broadway straight with Q-10 but of course three clubs were on the board and not one but 2 people had club flushes. I gave up poker for the day when my next all in preflop with KK gets sunk by some guy hitting two pair with 63.

I went to the 3 card poker table where the All Poker Queen was busy adding to her kingdom (queendom?). She had already hit 3 of a kind and a straight flush by then but had given some back in her attempt to annex Ballyville. Maybe it would be my time. Nope. But I did get to see the Queen in all her glory. The dealers changed right when I got there and Dewayne started dealing. The queen said to me, "Dewayne already dealt me a straight flush today". About 4 hands later he did it again. I was surprised Ballys security wasn't called to the table to escort her from the room after that one. She had this stack of black and green chips for over $1000 in front of her by then. She fed me some chips to keep me playing while she tried to add more to her queendom. We went on for a while, her keeping about even but feeding me some more chips. We decided to cash out when I finally hit something which was the 6 card bonus. I was playing a hand with 77J hoping to at least win the hand. I knew i would get a few bucks from the Pairs Plus bonus. The dealer flips over his hand and unfortunately beats me with JJ. But amazingly we made a full boat with our hands together and that was a nice $125 payout for the neophyte, my first decent one of the trip. We cashed out not long after that with APQ grabbing a little over a grand from the cage and me taking about $150.

More later, till then stay lucky you nuts.

The Eagle Has Landed

and is glad he finally did. The flight out from Tampa to Phoenix where we changed planes was pretty good though I was ready to get off the plane when we did land. We were on an Airbus A320 which is a pretty comfortable plane all in all, much better than the 737 we took last time. Phoenix was a mess of course, not surprising as everytime I go through Phoenix it seems there are problems. This time though I didn't want to fly through cities like Denver, Detroit, Chicago or even St Louis as the opportunity to be weather delayed in February is always there when you go through those cities.

We were delayed over an hour in Phoenix. The flight from Phoenix to LV was totally packed but we were in an Airbus A321 which was even nicer than the 320. Needless to say however we were ready to get off the plane an hour later when we landed. Baggage claim was ok and the shuttle to Ballys was a piece of cake. Check in had a little line but after we got there it got packed. We got there and the gal at check in was great. She upgraded us to a North Tower room without us even asking. For Free. This room is nice! Huge king bed, nice desk where I am typing this missive, roomy, etc. Only thing the room needs is a coffee maker and a fridge. Anyway we got in and settled and tried to take a nap but though we were tired, we couldn't get to sleep. So the Poker Queen, PQ for short - alias my wife, decided she wanted to play some Video Poker. Down we went down to the casino and played some for awhile. We were able to make some cash, well she did anyway, but nothing to write home about.

After a while we got hungry so we started walking around looking at different food places. There is a connecting corridor between Ballys and Paris and she wanted to check out the places there so we headed that way. We were a little way up the corridor lookiing at the Frenchy burger place when a guy asks us what we are doing that night. Before I can say anything my wife says nothing. I immediately chimed in that we were planning on playing a poker tourney but the guy asks us if we want to go to that night's Barry Manilow concert. He had 2 tix for free as comps and wasn't going and saw us walking holding hands and figured we were both old enough to remember Barry's hits and wouldn't be fighting in 3 hours when the concert started. And he just gave us the tickets. PQ was thrilled. Barry was the one show she wanted to see but it didn't look like we would be able to as he only was playing Saturday and Sunday night.

With some time to kill we end up eating at this Southwestern/Mexican place in Ballys. Nothing special but it was a decent meal and not too expensive. After dinner PQ decides whe wants to play more Video Poker but I was wanting to play some regular poker so I pointed out these machines that she might like as I played on them a little bit and did well and then headed over to the Ballys poker room. We're only going to play for a little over an hour because we have to head over to Paris for the show I get on the list to play 1-2 no limit and in a short time I'm in seat 5 with $150 in chips in front of me. I watched for a bit before sitting down and I had no hands to speak of for a while so I took stock of the players around me. The guy directly to my right was young and pretty loose aggressive. I watched him raise one pot in early position and when everyone folded get this disgusted look and fold like he had a monster pair. When he folded he flashed his cards up and I could see he was playing J-10 off so I put him down as a guy who would push preflop with near anything and if I had a decent hand, I was gonna push back hard. His buddy was few more seats to the right in seat 1. He was just crazy. He was willing to push and call on hands with less than premium holdings, like 3rd pair, even going so far as to call reraises with this crap. I guess he felt he was not gonna be bluffed. There was also one older guy in seat 10 who I thought had a big tell and I kept watching him. I have been reading a book of tells from Joe Navarro and he mentioned how people move their mouths and tongues when their weak. Now I'm not the most observant guy but I could see this exact thing in this guy. And everytime his mouth told me he was weak he ended up folding to bets. Unfortunately I never got to put this into use as we never got into hands together.

I played for about an hour and was doing well taking my chip stack from 150 to a little over 200. No major hands or anything but I was feeling good and the table was pretty loose so that even though I didn't have great hands, I was making people respect my raises. I don't think I showed down one hand. Then came my slight downfall. I called from the button with a 4-6 suited along with 2 other guys and the blinds. Flop is J64 rainbow. Checked around to the guy in seat 1 who puts out a pot sized bet of $10. It comes to me and I reraise him to $25. I am maybe putting him on air, maybe on a jack or draw. He calls. Turn is a 5 and he checks so I put him all in for his last 50 bucks or so and he calls and flips over a 75 for an open end straight and a pair of 5s. Of course a 3 rivers and I lose my profits plus about $25. I maybe played it wrong by not raising the flop bigger but seeing the way he played, I think he calls a bigger raise to like $40 so maybe this was one of those hands I was fated to lose. I didn't feel too bad as I got it in good as a pretty big favorite, it was just one of those poker breaks. But I hated losing that hand because winning it puts me up to about $300 and I would have liked that.

PQ comes by a few minutes later and I have to leave to see Barry Manilow with her. Now many of you are probably laughing hysterically but those of you who are a bit older can probably remember that in the late 70s there were really 3 singers/bands that dominated pop music - Billy Joel, the Bee Gees, and Barry. So even though I am not a huge fan of his, I remember all of his big hits and many of them I still like. My wife really likes to hear him sing as well. Yes we are old apparently but I'll take Barry Manilow over Lady Goo Goo all day long. When PQ walks up she is holding 3 tickets from the Video Poker machines totalling about $500 in winnings. DAMN. She is no longer the Poker Queen, she is the Video Poker Queen. And it gets better later.

Anyway the concert was really nice. Barry Manilow is a good entertainer and VPQ had a great time. I enjoyed it myself. After the concert we wanted to stay up a bit later and get into the western time zone way of life so we decided to sit down and play some 3 card poker for a while. VPQ really likes this game but outside of the first time she played it (she hit a straight flush on her 2nd hand) the game has not been kind to her so we usually avoid it. But it was a good way to kill some time so we sat a while and played. She started off badly but I did ok and then she got hot and we both made some cash while we killed some time. The dealer was nice too so we had some fun and placed some bets for her as well.

By the time we went to bed after that we were pretty beat. It was a long day but a very full one and we had a lot we wanted to do the next day so we headed up to bed a little before 11. Though I was down a couple of hundred for the day, VPQ was up well over that so we felt pretty good. A lot happened the next day but this post is long enough as it is so I'll leave off here. Stay lucky you nuts, luckier than me at least.

It's the Final Countdown

T Minus 5 everyone until we blast off to Sin City for some fun and games. Checked the weather today and they seem to be 10 - 15 degrees cooler. Guess I have to pack a bit of cooler weather gear like long sleeved shirts and at least one jacket. I won't be outdoors too much but with 6 days of fun and games to experience, I expect to travel a little. I got my hair cut yesterday and my barber said I need to go out I-15 to Utah through the Virgin River Gorge just to see it so I might.

Damn I'm getting excited just thinking about it. Its only been about a year and 4 months since I last went there but every trip to Vegas just brings so much fun. In 2009 when the wife, who shall be now called Poker Queen or PQ from now on, (her demand errr request) and I last were there we suffered a lot of losses early on but it all turned when we went downtown and played there for awhile. We went to Fitzgeralds and signed up for their Players Club. They had a bank of Video Poker machines that had a sign over them saying they would give a free steak dinner if you hit quads. So we sat down. These machines were a lot bigger than the ones we were used to playing on. No matter, we both sat down and started playing Double Double Bonus. Before long she hits a nice quads for $200. I tell her to cash out and now we find out why these machines are so big. They pay out in Quarters. There is nothing like the sound of 800 quarters being distributed to get your heart racing. I think Vegas made a mistake going to all these machines that pay out with tickets. The sound of coins hitting the pay slot just makes you feel all warm inside. We play for a good while hitting quads 5 times between us. We never hit the biggest paying quads but we each walked out with about $400 more than we went in with plus free steak dinners to boot.

After that our luck turned for the remainder of the trip. We hit more quads on other Video Poker machines, mostly at Casino Royale where we enjoyed playing the most. I played a good bit of craps and made some nice cash off this guys monster roll. Fooled around on the roulette wheel for a little while and noticed the dealer had a bias in the way she was spinning it. I noticed a bit late in her shift unfortunately but this other guy also saw and he cleaned up. I made a bit of cash for the short time I played. Went back to Video Poker with PQ and was doing nicely while she wasn't making much. The she grabbed my leg and said "Oh honey look at this" and I look over to see the club royal flush on her machine. Bingo! $1,000 here we come. We had a great time for the rest of our trip and it was nice for both of us to come back with more money then we left with.

This trip I think we'll play more poker than we did. We'll play more tourneys for sure as I think we only played one or two and I think we'll play a bit at the cash tables as well. I am definitely going to play craps again as I really enjoyed it last time. PQ and I have been checking out different daily tourneys to see what's going on. This is gonna be fun.