Annual Thanksgiving Pilgrimage

Well we've safely returned from our Third Annual Thanksgiving Vegas Pilgrimage.  While I would love to say we had a great time and won loads of money, only half of that is true.  We had a great time!!!

We left DFW the Saturday before Thanksgiving, and returned the Saturday after.  We arrived at Caesar's about 12:30 and immediately went to our room.  My back had been bothering me, and we missed the noon tournament so I took a nap.  Headed down to the poker room prior to the 7:00 pm tournament to play some cash.  Bought in for $200, cashed out for $350.  So I was freerolling the 7pm tournament.

What happened in this tournament, and the cash game that followed, was really a microcosm of my poker play for the week.

I'm in the 1 seat.  Small blind for the first hand of the tournament.  Young man in the 2 seat (big blind) doesn't understand he has to put out 2 green chips (50) for his big blind.  Finally the dealer convinces him he has to do it.  I look down at Ad Qd.  British guy in seat 8 raises to 200 preflop.  I call.  And the still confounded BB calls.

Flop comes As 7s 4d.  I check.  BB bets 450.  Seat 8 makes it 2,000.  I call.  Clueless Big blind goes all in.  Seat 8 calls.  I shake my head and concede that I must be beat.  So I fold.  Big Blind turns over 2 spades for a flush draw.  Seat 8 turns over Ac Qh for top pair with a Q kicker (same hand I had).  No spade on the turn or river.  Big blind is out.  Seat 8 is more than doubled up.  Great.

2nd hand.  My button.  I look down at AhAd.  Seat 8 raises to 200.  Seat 10 calls.  I raise it to 750.  Seat 8 thinks about it for a bit, and folds his hand with the Ace of Spades face up...which gets me and the dealer telling him there is action pending with seat 10.  He apologizes and seat 10 calls.  Flop comes 9c 4d 7d.  Seat 10 bets out at it for 600.  I raise to 2000.  Seat 10 pushes all in.  WTF????  I call.  Guy turns over Jd 9d for top pair, with a flush draw.  I was flabbergasted.  Blank on the turn.  Diamond on the river for the flush.  I'm gone.  As I looked at him astonished, he says "i had top pair on the flop", as if me having an overpair, after 3 betting it preflop, was an impossibility.  Oh well.  I want to be playing with these players don't I?

Well Caesar's tournaments are "Re-entry" tournaments for the first hour.  So I re-enter.  Get seated at the same table in the 5 seat.  And watch seat 8 play the same way for the next hour before he busts out when he misses 3 draws in a row.  I got none of his chips (or my chips back from him).  I bust out before we hit the bubble and go play cash.

I sit down at a $1 / $3 table and buy in for $200.  After the first hour I had hit a flopped open end str8 draw on the river and have doubled up to $400.  Another hour of play and I'm up to $540.  Then this hand occurs.  I'm in the 7 seat (UTG +1) and limp in for $3 with 6d7d.  Guy in 10 seat (who had been raising with crap all night long) makes it $15, drunk lady in the small blind calls.  Flop comes 7c 7s 5c.  Yahtzee!!!  Before I can begin to thuink of my options the drunk lady pushes all in for $129.  Wow!!!  I consider pushing all in, but decide I have a better chance getting seat 10 in the hand if I just call her $129.  Maybe he'll think I'm on a flush draw.  So I call the $129.  He asks me how much I have behind.  I move my hands so he can clearly see that I have about $400 behind.  He says "I'm all in".  At which point my chips beat him into the pot.  Drunk lady turns over KK.  Seat 10 turns over QQ.  Neither of them had a club so I wasn't going to get 4 flushed.  I just need to fade 4 outs.  When Seat 5 says..."I folded a Queen".  Cool.  I need to fade 2 outs for the main pot, and only 1 out for the larger side pot.  Turn is a blank.  Case Queen on the river.  WTF???  $1,100 plus pot goes to the knucklehead who couldn't lay down Queens.  That does it for me.  I head up to bed.

To Be Continued....