Main Event Mania, Part I

How to drop $200 in less than 5 minutes!?!...

Primo and I left for Vegas on Thursday night. We had a 10 pm flight out of SA which is pretty much the last flight out of town. I had taken it before and it is not a bad flight. A 2 hour direct flight to Vegas at night and you get there just when things are kicking into high gear. The last time that I took the flight, we landed about 30 minutes early and had to wait on the runway for a gate to open. This time around was no different as we had to wait again for about 20 minutes to get to an open gate. I guess flying at night the pilots can take the more direct paths because this is the second time that the flight was early. Finally, we got off the plane and managed to get our bags within a reasonable amount of time. What we didn't count on was the line to get a cab which must have been a mile long. I had never been so happy to get into a taxi cab then I was that night. Everything would have been fine except he took us on the scenic route and screwed out of some money.

We finally got to the Treasure Island and checked in. Pokerstars had their own special check in line, so I moved right to the front. We got our keys and headed up to the room which was great. This was the nicest room that I had ever stayed in Vegas. I don't stay in cheap ones either, but I don't normally drop $99 to $149 a night while I am there. I was going to stay in this one for at least 9 nights maybe more. We dropped off our bags and took a 5 minutes rest. Afterwards, it was off to the Strip to get some poker playing in. We headed across the street to my new favorite place to play, the Venetian. They have a great room that I love to play in. It was Primo's first time back to Vegas since it opened so I wanted to show him the room. We got there and put our names on the list. The action was crazy and we got a seat fairly quickly. Primo and I both got seats at the 1-2 NL tables, but at different tables.

Once we were seated, I decided to buy in for $200. The very first hand that I was dealt I folded while waiting for my checks. The next hand, I got dealt Q-3 offsuit in the big blind. The action went around with a couple of limpers. We had four limpers and me in the big blind, so I checked my options. That made for 5 players and $1o in pot before the flop. It came out Q-5-3 giving me top and bottom pair. Not bad for my second hand in Vegas, so I was looking to get paid. I checked the flop and it went around to the big stack who bet out $25 into a $10 pot. The action folded back around to me. I check raised and made it $100 to go. At this point, it was only the big stack and myself left in the hand. With action back on him, he moved all in and forced me to make a decision. It was an easy call for me, so I pushed in the rest of my original buy in. He flipped over A-Q for top pair. I was ahead with my two pair and needed to dodge an ace. Wouldn't you know it...an ace falls on the turn. We both have two pair, but he is now way ahead with his aces up. To add insult to injury, the case queen falls on the river to give us both full houses. Of course, the other guy wins with queens full of aces and I have queens full of threes. I am down $200 in less than 5 minutes. Plus, I have only been in Vegas for about an hour.

I glance over at Primo and let him know that I am -$200 down already. Our conversation went something like this...

Me: Hey man, I am down 200 dollars already.

Primo: How many hands did you play?

Me: Two.

Primo: How long have we been here?

Me: About 5 minutes

Primo: That sucks...

I reach into my pocket and pull out the last hundred that I brought with me. I got my checks and resolved to get my money back from someone at the table. We play on for another hour and I managed to get $100 back and only end up $100 down for the night. Not bad considering how unlucky I got earlier. We got up about 2:30 in the morning local time and headed back to our room at TI. Primo played really well and managed to get up with some profit.

More Main Event Mania coming with the story of our trip to the WSOP Lifestyle Show...