My Trip to Vegas
Posted: 2008-02-20 15:10:58By: Shawn Rice
I flew into Vegas from Lubbock on Thurs. Jan. 31th for Super Bowl weekend and to to go to the Sammy Hagar concert at the Pearl Theater at the Palms the day before the big game. I had 4 onstage tickets for the show and invited my friends Paul, Kelly and poker player friend David Plastik. David many years ago was a rock and roll photographer and has been to many concerts, We have gone to a few before like Robert Plant and VH1 Rock Honors. This was a killer times being onstage with 40 or so other Redheads as Sammy with Michael Anthony and the Wabos rocked the place.
Super Bowl Sunday was a very bad day for me as I bet on the money line for New England to win the game outright, I layed 4 to 1, a rather large bet, I thought there was no way New England could lose this game, I figured they are by far the best team in the NFL and the Giants might be the 3rd best team in the NFC. Oh well, I will let you know when I get over it.
On the following Tuesday Lynn (SassyTexan) flew out and we had 1st row tickets for the Beatles Love show at the Mirage, This is by far the best show in Vegas, I also love Mystere at Treasure Island but Love takes the cake. In fact it might even be a better experience if you don't sit so close and sitting back would be a much better overall view. Do yourself a favor and check this show out and the owner Guy, whom plays on High Stakes Poker could sure use the money. I am kidding, He is a true success story and love hearing stories like his.
The following day Lynn and myself played the Venetian Deep Stack tourney and she got bad beat early and I felt like I played really well. One key hand I remember was having 4 limpers for 200 without antes on my big blind, So with a 1000 total in the pot, I look down at AK off and I raise it to 1000 more and everyone called, I was thinking damn, looks like it's going to be hard now to catch and Ace or a King with everyone calling. The flop was KK2, now the pot has 6k in it, I have about 4700 chips left of my 6k in starting chips and the small blind pushes 2k of his 4k stack into the pot. I Think about it, there is no way this guy is folding for 2k more and I want to act weak as I was the preflop raiser and really take my time to call the 2k more and hope I can try and convince someone with a bigger pair that they might be goods So I call, everyone folds and the turn card is a 5 and the small stack pushes all in as I expected, I know if he had 22, there is nothing I could do with my hand with our stacks, I called. He shows me 55 for a 2 outer on the turn. I guess I could of pushed the flop and he could of folded the 55, but with many other behind me I think I made the right play in the situation, This cripples me and I was out soon afterwards. It was not a total loss as I had 10% of Jason Stern (He got 2nd in the WPT Reno 2 years ago) when he made the final table and won like 13k.
On the weekend, The Venetian has 1k buyin tourneys and Lynn said she would rather play the Ceasers Palace $330 buyin and play vs. a weaker field. Being I don't get a lot of chances to play tourneys with Lynn, I decided that I would also give it a try. Long story short I think I played as good as I possible could and I bubbled 6 handed at the final 2 tables when my AQ lost to KK.
The following Monday my friend Kelly and I went over to Tommys house to watch The Best Damn Poker Show on FSN. Tommy use to work in customer support for UB and now works for ClubUBT. Also there was Mike "WiscoMurrary" whom was also on the TV show. I loved the show and think it came off much better than expected. I think Fox did a super job in putting this together and the Phil Vs Annie theme really works well for TV. After the TV show I called up one of my best friends son named Seven who is a drummer for a band called Opiate for the Masses. They have a new CD out soon called Manifesto with a tour to soon follow. Seven is probably the best drummer I have ever seen and I have been to many concerts, His nickname is "The Hitman" and he really puts on a show when he bangs them drums. We meet up over at Jet at the Mirage and he has a table with 5 other friends they had a couple of bottles of vodka, I am not a vodka drinker so I I asked how much for some Crown Royal, The waitress said it was $510. I said WTF, if I am gonna be a suker I should be a quiet one. I don't care I really just wanted to have a good time. I was dying to see this bottle that I was going to spend $600 for after tip. It was a small bottle of Crown. At least give me a big bottle of Crown if you are going to rob me, lol. We saw Mike Tyson there with women all over him. I thought that was pretty funny with him having a past of bitting ears off and being convicted of rape. Seven invited me to go to a party the follow day at the Ghost Bar where all the drinks where comped but I was still hurting from the night before. I told him I would check out the Opiate show in LA on March 1st when I am there.
Friday the 15th I decided to play the Venetian $550 Deep Stack tourney as I have not been playing as many tourneys as I have wanted because I have been recording videos for the UB Cross Canada Tour teaching seminars with Phil and Annie along with KK, Debo and P0ker H0. I showed up a few hands late and I messaged Jason and asked if we were swapping 10%. He said he was not feeling well and and would miss todays tourney and I told him to get to felling better. I felt like I had a really easy starting table with the only danger was on my right. This guy would play 30 to 40% of all the pots, I knew I would be able to trap him soon if he kept this up, we started out with 10k in chips and 40 minute levels. Still in the 1st level he makes it 300 to go with 25 and 50 blinds from the small blind heads up. I look down at AK and knowing how he plays and his range of hands I really loved my AK in this situation. I make is 1050 total and I can tell he really wants to fold by his actions and he is in shock as I have not played many hands and have a really tight image at the table. He didn't know what to do there and really took his time and reraised me to 3000 total. I pushed all in knowing at worst I had a race and hoping he would overplay a big Ace. He turned over 55. I felt good as I felt there is a good chance of many aces being left in the deck with all the preflop players folding. He out flops me, out turns me, I river the King and now I am a little over 20k in chips. All of day 1 I played really good and was really making sure I was not ever gonna make any emotional decisions and take my time and pick my spots. I have seen many mistakes when other players would reraise me and I was forced to call with my 66 because I was getting over 4 to 1 on their all in and they would turn over A2 and I am thinking "You know I have to call. What hand could A2 match up well against that I would raise with?" I am always shocked in live tourneys that the skill level of players whom put up hundreds of dollars to play tourneys is so terrible. We get to the end of day 1, 10 handed. The only player I know is Dan Goldman, former head of marketing at Poker Stars. We all decided to play 10 hands at one table instead of 2 tables of 5 handed because this way we would not be hand for hand for the almost double payday between 10th and 9th place money. A player to my right whom is super aggressive raises to 35k with blinds of 5k and 10k w/ antes, Dan from an early seat pushed all in for 135k total and it gets back around to the aggressive player who takes a good 5 minutes to make the call with AT, no hand he could like vs. Dan is played super solid. Dan flips over AQ, , The Flop is AQ7, giving Dan top 2 , but it didn't save him, as the turn and river came K and then a J to make a straight for the now monster chip leader. Dan was totally sick as he got his money in so well. We bag up our chips and come back at 4pm the following day, I am 6th in chips with 2 monster stacks on my left. I have 225k with blinds now 8k and 16k w/ antes at 3k , whats a little different about the Venetian tourney is it costs more than antes than it does in rounds every round, so I think you have to open up your aggression factor a little bit more than you would with smaller antes. It folds to me on the button and I look down at J8 and with only 225k in chips and little over 50k in the middle I knew what I was going to do, SO I pushed and the big blind thinks what seems to be forever and called my all in with TT, flop come JT8, I am sick but I know I needed to make that play. The only way I knew I was going to win this tourney was to damage these bigger stacks on my left and gamble when I am desperate and hope to catch or make them fold. I turned a J and filled up and now am at 500k of the 3.2 million total chips in play. A few players get knocked out and I am in the small blind with KT and I limp, knowing 100% this player would raise my limp, and I was going to reshove and if he called I was going to race vs him. I limped and he way over shoved, I knew he was afraid of my reraise and that told me his range was very big and probably didn't have me dominated and at worst cast I was 40% unless he happened to have AT. No chance I put him on AK with this move, I was hoping he didn't also have KQ or KJ as It would also dominate me, I knew if I made this call and won, I would be the favorite to win this tourney and would cure my problem of having 2 monster stacks from good players on my left, So I took the gamble, he showed AJ and I flopped a T and it held up. At 4 handed I had 1.7 million of the 3.2 million chips, I double up the short stack twice, then another player, then we all have about 700k to 800k in chips, but I was in no way gonna quit or let it affect my play. I knew all I can do I try and play my best, I am 1st to act and raise all with 66 and get called with AKc, I now have him crippled and have a monster stack again, the gentleman with the AK now bust and I have 1.6 million and they both have about 800k each and I normally don't like to make a deal, but these blinds got to be so high it was an all in fest. We all made a deal and left a little to play for and I ended up with a little over 35k.
I saw the TV show last night again with Wisco and my friend Kelly and thought it came off really well and very entertaining to watch. It's like the WSOP Tourney of Champions was a prequel for this show as Annie played Phil heads up and won $2 million. They are fun to watch together and have a very opposite style of playing and it's a great way to learn 2 very successful styles and find out where the often agree on how to play certain poker situations. I am very proud to be apart of the show and can't wait for to film the second season. The coming weeks with be much more exciting as the better players move on and you really get to watch some great poker.
Proud UB Team Member
Shawn Rice
