Ceasar's, Binion's Ladies Tournament

Saturday

Today’s big event is the Ladies NLHE Event at Binion’s, which all the ladies are playing (all = myself, zooks, drandead and ELM).

Zooks and I woke up unnaturally early AGAIN and although I was awake, I did not want to get out of bed. So instead I went over to zooks’ bed and laid there semi-passed out while she uploaded Vegas Pics, wrote up some posts, and chatted on AIM with Snarf and MacAnthony. SNARF? WTF is snarf doing online? Oh he’s just playing AIPS TWO HOURS before he has to leave for vegas. What a degenerate. I finally drag myself out of bed, shower, and we decide to first head over to the RIO to do some pro gazing.

As usual I start with my phone calls to all the effers to see who wants to come along. When I call ELM I find out that am is playing in the Flamingo morning turney and is doing quite well. So, I wish him luck and tell them to contact us when they are done. Just for the record (because I don’t know when in my story I will get this in), our wonderful friend ELM gives killer back rubs. And when I say killer, I mean KILLER. She can put you into a trans in 0.5 seconds, and she does this little trick she calls “the piano”. I offered am a buy out on the marriage, but he didn’t go for it.

I was grumpy, tired, a bit hungover, and HUNGRY this morning – you will pry be able to tell when I get pissy about a few things.

So, we (zooks, dran, mr2jt, zerbet and myself) start the walk over to ceasars to catch the RIO Shuttle. I was in a bit of a hurry because I was STARVING, little did I know that zooks had a nekkid statue fettish, and it would take awhile to get thru ceasars. But two hours later we finally make it into the RIO and we stop and get some food.

That’s when I get the call, “AM WON! HE WON THE TOURNAMENT!” wooooot wtg am! Then I get am on the phone and he says he chopped 4 ways for about $450 (I think).

We check out the gift store and try to get into the Amazon Room to get some pics of Virge playing, but none of us can remember his table number. Altho, it didn’t really matter, because they weren’t allowing spectators at that time. We did manage to sneak in with DraNDead when she registered for the Ladies event. So there I stand outside of the registration line with Zerb, gazing upon a full Amazon room. It really is a sight, poker at an orgasmic level.

This is when I see zerb start to pull out

his camera. I tell him not to do it! But nooo ooo ooo will the old man listen to me?! He just has to try focusing his camera on a light, he’s not even taking pics. From being in the Amazon Room before, I know, that when there are no spectators allowed, and you sneak in, you pry shouldn’t use a camera. Somehow the guards think “oh that’s a spectator, lets go eat him” and sure enough, our local female Gestapo was on her way over. gg zerb.

As I wandered around I did find a way into the Amazon Room, but I couldn’t find Virge. After piddling thru the WSOP gift shop, we finally headed over to Binion’s to register for the ladies turney.

We get registered and walked around buying some things from pocketjjacks.com (she makes great ladies poker stuff) had about 4 glasses of water at the bar, tried to get out of my funk etc etc and then it was time to get seated. This is when we found out that Ladies Poker is the new softball. I have never seen so many Lesbians in one room in my life. There were whole “crews” with “spotters” railing and keeping an eye on everyone in the crew.

We met up with ELM and am, figured out where everyone was seated so we could keep an eye, and it turned out that DraNDead was not only at my table, but directly on my right. I’ve played with Dran enough to know, this wasn’t a good thing for me.

And sure enough, the first two hours I watched Dran run my table over and triple up her chips. I was just treading water, staying even. Our table was a pretty good table. I was afraid being a ladies turney it might be tight/passive, but I didn’t feel like it was. There were a couple of weak players at the table, and they were gone in no time, allowing for more weak players to enter. Our table pretty much ate them up.

Enter – young poser girl

That’s when a very beautiful young lady gets sat at our table. Well, she might have been beautiful, if I could have seen her face. She was very tall and thin, but had on a hat, sunglasses, ipod, sat with her legs up to her chest and came to our table with a massive stack. She immediately tried to play every pot and push some of the better players at our table around (including me) but ended up doubling the two short stacks, and bleeding chips off to the rest of us. By the time our table broke, she was on the short stack and most of us had doubled up. I was actually dealt AA twice, when in a pot with her that she had raised pf. Both times I pushed and she folded. Both times I thought she would call.

This player had a ton of potential, but she really needed to learn how to pick her spots.

On this trip I had a few discussions with some people about the luck factor in tournaments. The more I play, and watch others win, I realize you have to get lucky to win. Yes, you have to be skilled enough in the other instances, but you have to win races, and suck out occasionally. I had that moment happen when I was short and looked down at AJs and moved in. When a tight player behind me moved in, I knew I was in deep shit. Sure enough she flipped up AKo and I was praying for spades. Instead, the poker gods brought me a J on the flop and J on the turn, and no diamond on the river to give her a flush. WHEW.

When I left this table I had doubled my chips, but I was still pretty short, just a lil over 10 bb with the way they were increasing. As in most turneys I found myself winning a pot, only to have the blinds increase and leave me at 10x, again. When my original table broke (table 30) I was moved to table 29, which meant I was the next table to break. Sure enough, 5 mins later, our table broke, and I was moved to table 28! 3 mins later, this table broke and when the turney director came over I said “If you throw me table 27, I may have to hurt you” card comes “table 27 thanks guy” and he just keeps saying “its all completely random ma’am”. Finally, after table 27 I was moved to table 22, and if it weren’t for this move I wouldn’t be telling a story about cashing in this tournament.

I was on the shortest of short stacks here, I believe I had about 5-6k in chips but the blinds were 800/1600. There were two big stacks at the table, but the rest of the table had similar stack sizes to mine. As I sit and watch, waiting for my pushing hand, I start to realize this is the MOST PASSIVE TABLE I HAVE EVER SAT AT IN MY LIFE. I watched a woman with LESS CHIPS THAN ME fold AK, and she woulda made a boat. Then I listened to her reasoning about why she folded it (someone was all in ahead of her) I was astounded. So, that’s when I started pushing. I felt I had the read I needed, even the two big stacks weren’t calling allins, and the blinds+antes were over 3k. Every time I pushed with a good hand (med-high pair or AK/AQ) I would show, so that I could keep pushing with lesser hands. Sure enough, I left that table with almost 20k in chips, and I wasn’t called once.

We had a break, and I went over to check on the effers and these guys are playing razz with no ante! They had convinced Binions to spread a one/two razz game with no ante and they only rake pots over $5!! What a HOOT! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Binion’s is the greatest casino to ever be. If you go to Vegas with out playing there, you’ve completely missed out.

Anyhow, dinner break over, I get my well wishes from my razz friends and head back to the tournament. We are reseated with 3 tables left, 30 players, 25 pay. The first 10 only get their money back, and the TD comes around to offer that $500 be taken off of 1^st place so that the 5 that aren’t itm get their money back. I was cool with it, I figured it would get the ss’s pushing if they knew they got their buy in back.

We get down to two tables in no time and right away I have a few big hands. The first is when I am in the bb and utg +2 limped in, it folds around to me, and I look down at KJs. I decided to check my option here. I had only been at this table for about an orbit and I didn’t really want to raise w KJs out of position. I figured it would be best to hit my hand and trap the limper.

So here comes a rainbow K high flop. That was pretty much what I was hoping for, so I check, hoping to go for the check raise, when the limper moves all in. I go into the tank a bit here, I look at her and I say “wow, I was going to check raise you, did you really limp with Aces?” She sits back in her chair and folds her arms and I just stare her down. She looks nervous to me, and not in the good way, I can see her chest heaving a bit, shes trying to breathe slow, consciously. So, my read was that she was weak, I wasn’t sure if she had a mid pair or an Ace, but I had her beat.

Now I had to convince myself to go with my read. I wasn’t a big stack, or even middle of the road, I counted down my chips and thought she had me covered by maybe a chip and said “alright, lets rock n roll… I call” the girl to my left says “ya baby!” and I flip over my top pair and she flips over AQc. I had to sweat a few outs, especially when the turn brought another CLUB! But, damn I was hawt, what a great call.

A few hands later I felted another chick when she over played her KQ vs my AK. It was funny because she had been at my first table, and I had noticed she was playing KQ like it was going out of style. And I had decided then I was going to trap her playing the second best hand.

We had been reseated, and I didn’t like my spot. I was seated with super LAG asian lady on my left. I knew I couldn’t play position with her on my left and I wasn’t happy.

Now for the mother of all hands.

I was in the bb, and LAG lady limps utg, two seats after bets a standard raise, player two seats later goes all in, for about twice the original raise, it comes around to the sb and she moves all in as well, she has less than the first all ins chips. And wouldn’t you know, I look down at TWO RED LADIES. Oh boy, any day online, I muck this so fast, and I was about to do it here. I mean when you play a mtt online and you have a bet, raise and two all ins, QQ is no good. But before I muck I sit back and look at my table. Could I really muck QQ here?

When I look around I see that the two all ins were so short, they pry had less than 6 bb’s, this means their pushing range isn’t small, its pretty wide. The original raiser was starin me down with this scared look on her face, and I knew she was going to fold, and if there was this much action, I doubt limper LAG lady was limping with aces.

So now I look at my stack, I’m short too, not super short, but I have about 10x, and I’m here to win, I already have my buy in back. So I say “Screw it, I’m all in”. The table of ladies gets all excited! The limper and raiser fold, and I find myself against TT and AJ… my ladies hold and I felt two people and win a HUGE POT worth over 60k.

Ya that’s hawt.

Oh and I can’t leave out the split deals goin down. It was so ridiculous and I was actually embarrassed. At TWENTY people, TWO TABLES, the short stacks start cryin for a chop, a FUCKING CHOP AT 20 PEOPLE. And not even a fair chop, these whiney ass bitches wanted EVERYONE, even the chip leaders to chop an even 1200 each. Cause they wanted to be “nice” and be sure everyone got to play in the ladies wsop event the next day.

It was so pathetic, every few hands, or when someone else busted, another chop offer from the shorties, not ONCE did they offer to compensate the chip leaders. I refused the deal every time, and I wasn’t a big stack. But I do have pride. Then some bull dike says “you know poker is about getting value, not just winning” WTF does that mean? So I say to her “you mean it’s valuable for someone with 20 times your chip stack to win the same amount of money as you have?” And the people at my table acted like I was the only one refusing the deal, there were about 12 of us left by the time they cut the shit out, and the big stack was at the other table and she was having NONE of it.

SO EMBARASSING and there was another turney going on in the same room, I can only imagine what these people were thinking.

Well as expected, the LAG asian woman was the end of me. The blinds were huge, I think around 2500/5k so after the blinds passing me a few times, I was back to an average stack at the table. Of course I get ATs in the sb, LAG in the bb, and it folds to me, I do a standard raise, she calls, I lose. Couple orbits later, I get KQd otb, I do another standard raise, she calls, I lose.

I pushed in a few times with no callers, and finally again with 88. LAG lady calls w AKo and hits a T on the river for broadway. I make the call with AKo too, but just the fact that it was HER and it was a GUTSHOT ON THE RIVER hurt a bit. I went out in 11^th I think, but it could have been worse (zerb said 15th or something), I wasn’t really paying attention since it wasn’t first.

Thank goodness we were at Binion's and they agreed to spread a 1/2 razz game with no ante and only raked a pot when it was over $5. Dekker(right) and Mr and Mrs Snarf(left) had gotten in as well, so plenty of fun to be had. I sat down for a bit before we decided it was time to give up for the night.