4th of July and 5th

4th of july

Pool, subway, and I think roaming the strip.
Bet on giants / rockies under 8 runs. $30, one time, giants win 4-3! Come on…ouch giants lost, but won the bet.
I’ve heard everyone say that the Stratosphere is run-down and a piece of shit. But, I don’t think it’s that bad at all. I mean, it’s no Venetian or anything, but we are hardly at the hotel anyway. So far, we haven’t spent that much time at all in our hotel room. It’s either in the pool, gym, or heading out to another casino/ poker room.

We took a cab to Treasure island to walk around to some smaller casinos and just kind of roam for the night. Our ultimate plan was to end up at Caesar’s Palace and and play pokersss. We ate at a Japanese/Chinese/Korean food place at Imperial Palace. The food was decent to good, but when we got the check, they had already added 18% gratuity. Wtf, adding an 18% tip to a party of two is shady. Also, when it comes to sign for the check, there is obviously another line for gratuity. I’ll bet 25% of people do not see that gratuity Is already added and also give another 15% tip. This made me pretty upset, and my stealing-tendencies came back to me. However, there was nothing worth stealing, so I just took about 20 of their shitty mints.

We end up making it to Caesar’s. The game is $1-3 blinds, $500 max with a $5 max rake. I prefer $1-2 but I’ve also heard good things about the Caesar’s poker room. I met a cool guy from Canada who is here for a week playing poker. He gave me some good poker room reviews and we talked poker for the entire time I was there. But anyway, I doubled up with AA versus an Asian guy with KQ on a K-high flop, so that was nice. However, about an hour later, I lost my biggest pot of the trip to a 3 outer. I had AK and my dumbass opponent had AQ on an Ace-high flop, we get it all in, and the river is a mother fcuking queen, fcuk me. $600+ pot goes to the guy in seat 1. Blah blah blah, I still have about $190 left of my $200 buy in. I was pretty upset, and decided to walk around the casino for about 20 minutes. I came back, untilted, and pick up black Kings. 3 limpers in front of me, I raise to $20 and this dumbass lol girl calls. Flop is AK3 with 2 clubs, she checks, I bet $25, she min-raises to $50. I was about to raise because I didn’t want a club to come and kill the action. But I figured I’ll take a chance and hope for a non club. I just call, and it’s a beautiful red 6, she pushes all in, and I snap-call. She tables A5 and is drawing dead, lol u. So I quit shortly after a $193 winner, $793 winner sounds sooooo much better, oh well.

We end somewhat early tonight, and walk allllll the way back to Stratosphere, probably 3 or 4 miles. We stopped at CVS to buy some random stuff we needed. I found a watch that I really want, and it’s somewhat cheap, $145.

July 5th,
Bet on Cleveland under 10.5 runs. Lost that bet, and the $40 I bet on it.
So, as most people know, I’m addicted to watches. Steven and I were walking by Caesar’s Palace (I think) and there is a billboard with a Boccia watch and it’s price of $145. I instantly fell in love and I looked it up online that night. So, I went to the Fashion Show mall today around 3PM to look/buy it. I’m usually a nit when it comes to buying things, but if I actually WANT it, I just insta-buy it. I find the store, and they are sold out, fcuk me. However, there is another store on the strip that sells the same watch, at the Planet Hollywood shops. So, Steven plays poker at the Venetian and I make the trek over to PH to buy the watch. Its dumbass-hot outside, and I’m stupid enough to bring my backpack full of crap, and finally get there probably 25 minutes later. I try it on and blah blah blah, I buy it. I’m too tired to walk back to the Venetian, and I just play some pokersss at PH. I heard last year that a couple of the poker room managers were fired because of fraudulent activities. But anyway, it actually turned out to be the JUCIEST game I’ve ever been in on this trip to far. It was unbelievable, people would raise to $15 and $20 preflop, and there would be 4 to 5 callers almost every hand, it was sick. Long story short, I can’t catch a damn hand, and end up losing $237 for the session. It was painful to see so much money change hands and have no control over it. But, I had no control over the cards I was being dealt, and decided to leave once the old fish to my right decided to call it a night. I guess you can’t win every session. It turns out, the watch was more expensive that I thought lol.

One of things I'm learning to do in live poker is to look at the player to my left. A lot of times, the player that acts behind you will telegraph their action. For example, they will hold their hand and get ready to fold when the action comes to them. Or, they will hold "raising" chips in order to raise as soon as the action comes to them. So, if I am in the cut off, and I see the button ready to fold, it might as well be my button.

Another thing I want to improve on is my composure. I really respect the poker player that takes a horrible bad beat and just say "nh" and get onto the next hand without getting emotional. I would say i'm pretty non-emotional when it comes to poker. However, when I lost that $600 pot, i said 'fuck', i didn't yell it or anything, but I think the whole table was able to hear it. I've seen much worse behavior, but I think I've played enough poker to not act like the recreational player.