Revising The Gameplan

Good morning everyone.  After my torrid pace of playing poker and posting here upon my return to the desert, I'm taking a "moment" to revise my plan of attack.  This began last night after my sessions at the Flamingo.  Well, in actuality, this began a couple of days ago.  After an unsuccessful day session playing 2-4 limit (I have to stop playing this game, or at least start getting better hands) at the Flamingo, I decided that I'm tired of playing against the same people on a daily basis.  I decided to change my sleep schedule (after I actually caught up on my sleep), which had me arriving on the Strip at sunset and returning  home after sunrise.  A problem that I hadn't anticipated was "dinner breaks."  I had dealt with this before when I lived in Las Vegas (and even read about it recently in Rob's blog I believe).  Fast rewind (you like that?) to last night, when I sat in a 2-4 game, less than 4 hours shy of qualifying for the freeroll tourney that starts 7 1/2 hours from now (see how much I love y'all?).  Well, I sit at a full table, and it's not ten minutes before one, and then another person gets up.  After a while, you can tell that they're not returning anytime soon.  And then a few players leave the game, and we're down to 5 or 6 players.  This has all happened within 45 minutes.  I know that the number is 45 minutes because that's when I finally decided "that's enough of this."  I left the game but remained in the poker room, surfing my phone while taking great pleasure in watching the diners stuck in the shorthanded game when they returned...  :P  I was actually on the list for 1/2 NL (I didn't stay there JUST to be petty), and my name was called for a new game.  The key hand came after I was down to about 70 bucks (100 buy-in) when I was dealt QQ.  In early position I decided to limp in.  This was a pretty tight game, and I didn't want everyone to run from a raise.  Well, the guy 2 to my left made it 12, and picked up about 4 callers before the action returned to me.  I shoved my "stack" at this point, and although the original raiser folded, I managed to get two callers.  Queens against TWO hands - wonderful...  Well, they were all-in also, so after the pots were straight, I flipped my QQ, and an overcard NEVER SHOWED on the board.  One opponent mucked and the other flipped over AJ suited (tell me again how awesome no limit players are when you complain about limit)...  :)  Anyway, by the time I qualified for today's freeroll, I cashed out up exactly one bill (100) for the session.  This is when I decided to take a field trip to check out some of the nearby poker rooms that aren't on my freeroll list. 

First I returned to the Mirage, the site with the poker room that my brother brought me to several years ago that put all of these crazy ideas in my head...  :)  With the new competition in town, the Mirage isn't the same room that was referenced by Matt Damon in 'Rounders.'  However, I was pleased watching from the rail to see the "quality" of one of their 1/2 NL games, reinforcing my belief that I have to sit in the touristy late night games around town.  After a nice rest in the Mirage Sportsbook (much to the degenerate Pete Peters' liking, as I was able to get some info. for him - oh, and photos of both the book and the poker room are on Twitter and Facebook), I ventured over to Treasure Island's room.  They have moved since my last visit, but still appear to be struggling for business.  The room has "glass walls" (some might call these windows, I don't know...), but they have several promotions going on according to Bravo.  They only had one game going however, so I ventured back across the Strip to the Venetian.  HOLY WOW...  They did an EXCELLENT JOB of redoing this 59 table room!  They still had over 10 games going at like 3:00 a.m.  If I ever get good at this game, I may have to play there.  I saw some people ordering some FANCY FOOD (they have 24-7 poker room service from the cafe there).  When I say "cafe," don't think school cafeteria food.  When I asked to see a menu, the waiter specified that I could only order from two pages at that time.  Those two menu pages had A TON of food, and everything that I saw wheeled by looked GREAT!  The menu is separated by what's available at each time of the day (breakfast, lunch, dinner, late night), and the Venetian pays $2.00 an hour in comps.  I watched a couple of guys playing heads-up 4-8 Omaha Hi-Lo (there was also some heads-up 2-4 at the Flamingo before I left - don't ask me), I watched some 15-30 Omaha Hi-Lo with a 1/2 kill (much more interesting), and I just took in the room itself.  Pretty awesome...  :D

Okay, so back to me.  My only freeroll this weekend is today's Flamingo.  I decided to pass on the Quad because their 1/1 NL game doesn't go consistently, instead opting to try my luck this weekend at night against some of the tourists (Mirage, Venetian, etc...).  I also plan on getting eight hours at the Flamingo before Monday, while starting on my Monte Carlo hours for next Saturday (2 weeks to get 13 hours).  I may visit MGM or Mandalay Bay if I'm ambitious...  This should make me one tired camper after I finish Monday's 9:00 a.m. Flamingo tourney, at which point I need to study some football.  Today is the 15th, and the college football season kicks off on the 28th - WOO HOO!!  :)

Anyway, that's the recap on where I'm at right now.  Have a great weekend and I'll see you soon!