So Dhruv is pretty ill right now (I think it's a viral infection). Lots of coughing and spluttering...which means I have to fend for myself in the big world of Vegas whilst Dhruv rests in the hotel room. We did venture out this morning to play the $240 Pot-Limit Omaha tournament at the Golden Nugget downtown. The structure was excellent but alas I couldn't make it deep in this tournament.

I've got to add here that it is very hard to find healthy food around here...this morning we had to go to a place called "The Grille" for brunch and I ordered what I thought was just a plain Hamburger and fries. However, the burger came with lots of melted cheese and fried onions...OK not so bad. But instead of a burger bap, they used fried bread??!???!?!? I kid you not, they must have made the sandwich and literally deep fried the whole thing because the bread/toast on the outside was dripping with fat :( Needless to say I made no attempt to finish my brunch. I felt like needed to find a treadmill asap afterwards!

After the tournament I met up with Ben for a meal at Sushi Samba at the Palazzo and it was pretty spectacular. We both had a tasting menu and it consisted of Sashimi (raw fish in amazing sauces), Miso marinated Sea Bass (probably the best thing ever) and some exotic sushi. It was all finished off with a surprisingly traditional chocolate and ice cream desert (also pretty special). I think it came to just under $90 each, which considering the other poker boys spent $800 each the other night at L'Atelier (3-star Michelin restaurant), sushi seemed like a bargain!

After dinner, Ben and I went down to Planet Hollywood to play some poker cash game. Within an hour I made $700, mainly thanks to some drunken French guy. Merci beaucoup!

So I played the $10k Pot-Limit Omaha yesterday. First prize was around $600k and the top 27 would get paid a minimum of $25k out of a field of 300. My first table (when it filled up) was not too bad:

Tom McEvoy, Simon Trumper, Nik Persuad, Chris Ferguson, Amnon Filippi, Adam Junglen, Random Chicago guy, John O'Shea (sick online Omaha record). It was quite funny actually because John didn't know who Adam Junglen was (yes...over $300k in wins) and he was asking why he was wearing a Full Tilt badge (he is now sponsored by them). Adam is very humble and didn't really mention his big wins...so Nik teased John by saying Adam won a few small $10 buy-in tournaments on the Internet...poor John seriously asked Adam if he made much money from $10 buy-in tournaments!!!

Anyhow. the table dynamics were fairly tight and I was off to a bad start when I looked up John O'Shea with top set but he had back-doored a straight. After that things went a lot better and I took a few raised pots in position and generally played my A-game. I did get my whole 30k stack within the first level when I raised with:

A-K-K-J

Flop:

K-Q-T. Pretty ideal flop! I check behind on the flop and the turn brings a blank. We manage to get our whole stacks in the middle and I obviously have redraws to make a full house while he has just A-J. I miss my freeroll outs and we split the pot *sigh*

Then comes the crucial hand:

My cards: As-5s-9d-8h
My stack: 42k
Adam Junglen stack: 30k
Blinds: 300/600

I raise to 1,550 in early position since the table is pretty tight. Adam Junglen flat calls in position and we see a flop of:

9s-6s-2h

Basically this is pretty perfect with nut flush draw, gutshot and at least top pair. I lead into Adam for 2.5k, with a plan to bet/3-bet all in. Adam is a very good Hold'em player and I think his style in Omaha will be tight aggressive. Therefore when he duly raises pot, I instantly raise all-in. He has to call and flips over:

Ks-Kd-Qs-Jc

Basically his flush draw is no good and I have to hit:

Any spade (7 cards)
Any ace (2 cards)
Any 7 (3 cards)
Any 9 (2 cards)
Any 8 (2 cards)
Any 5 (3 cards)

That's 19 cards in total with 2 cards to come, which puts me at a 69% favourite to win the pot.

Anyhow, the turn and river bring no joy and I am down to 11k. Those kinda edges in Omaha don't come too often, particularly against a solid player such as Adam so I'm pretty gutted it didn't come through. After that I went all-in with A-A-J-T and lost to K-K-Q-J all in preflop. ARGH!

The tournament was very much there for the taking, particuarly since Omaha is my main game and a lot of the field are great hold'em players but aren't necessarily at the same level with Omaha.

Have a few more tournaments left on the trip, a few with 5-figure first prizes so I'll keep plugging away at those but this year I won't be coming home with the 6-figure score :(

OK so another quick update since it's 4am and I'm desperate to get some sleep (although the snoring coming from Toby may become a hindrance). Myself, Ben and Toby played the Wynn $120 (and one optional topup) with 50 players and a first prize of $2.8k. Key hand:

Blinds: 600/1200 Ante 100
Stack: 6.5k
Hand: T-T

UTG shoves all-in for 5k. I re-shove UTG+1. Folds round to small blind who thinks...and then calls...but then he flips over 3-3 before big blind has a chance to act!!! Having seen the 3-3, he calls!!! He was originally scared that the small blind had a big hand but now the hands at showdown are:

UTG: A-6
UTG+1(Me): T-T
SB: 3-3
BB: 8-8

Board comes:
A-6-8-9.......T!

Pretty lucky and that gets me back in business.

When we were 7-handed (only top 5 got paid), we made sure that 6th and 7th got their money back. Shortly after when the blinds went up to 2k/4k (average stack of 50k), someone suggested we do a chip count deal (i.e. since I had 28k, which was roughly 8% of the chips in play, I would be entitled to $640 since the prize pool was about $8k).

However, someone it was agreed that there should be a minimum payout of $1k for each player, and that the remaining prize pool should be split by chip count! Pretty insane for me, since it meant I was due a $1,092 pay day...thanks very much :)

Toby got $1,118 so it was a pretty successful tournament!

We went to see Wayne Brady at the Venetian and the first part is basically his take on Whose Line Is It Anyway, but a lot more emphasis on audience participation. It's an comedy improvisation show and it was absolutely hilarious - I'd highly recommend it (Wayne Brady is huuuugely talented). The last part was Wayne singing/plugging his album, which was OK but not what I imagine most of the audience had expected...

Just got back from the softest cash game ever...played $1/3 NLH in Treasure Island and made a tidy $400 in an hour. The game broke up pretty soon after I won a big pot so here I am back in the hotel room ready for my big day tomorrow. $10k Pot-Limit Omaha Championship. I'm due a score in a major...could this be the one?

Just got back from playing the $2k WSOP event. Went deep as usual but just when I only needed to run average, I ran pretty bad. Pretty much card dead for 3 levels and it's pretty soul destroying when Aces constantly pops up left and right! Busted out with 300 left out of the starting 1700. Don't mind too much but it's got me pretty hungry for the $10k event on Saturday.

Golf was awesome yesterday with some of the guys. Weather was perfect and I struck exactly 100 (a record for me!). Toby is pretty awesome, shooting a 77. Absolutely shattered. Played for about 9 hours today so going to sleep now zzz

Right just a quick update on how things have gone so far. On the first day in Vegas, Dhruv convinced me to enter a $75 tournament at the Mirage. 60 runners, $1,350 first prize. I wasn't keen since I was going to try and stick to my schedule...however peer pressure set in and I found myself at a table with Dhruv & Toby (our other room mate!). To cut a long story short...I cruised to the final table and ended up doing a deal with 5 other people (including Dhruv!) so we all cashed for $525. Not a bad start!

I've just busted out of the Venetian $340 with 70 players remaining and only 64 players out of the 740 getting prize money...OUCH! Nevermind - I was really happy with how I played. My bustout hand:

Blinds: 2k/4k Ante 500
Stack: 110k
Hand: AKo

I raise in midposition to 11k. Button shoves for 350k (it's a nominal shove since the blinds only have 80k). I insta-call and he flips over 8-9o.

Board comes: T-6-2-4...8.

Thanks for wasting my last 11 hours! Chipped up in the middle stages well, particularly with a nice squeeze from the small blind with 9-5 off (raiser folded T-T and squeezed folded A-Q). YUM!

Anyhow, my brain is fried right now so tomorrow is strictly away from poker. In the morning we're going to the Wynn buffet (possibly one of the best buffets in Vegas) and then Jambon, Ed, Toby and myself will try squeezing in a round of golf at Desert Pines (apparently meant to be awesome). Hopefully we'll squeeze in a Cirque du Soleil show in the evening. Bring on the $2k event :)

I think I told only a handful of people about this blog so this post is to let you know that you've come to the right place and I am updating it. I've just arrived at my friend Dhruv's house before we fly out to Gatwick in the morning. So just for those who don't know, I'm off to Vegas for just under 2 weeks with some old university mates. In total I think there will be over 10 of us out there playing lots of poker!

After months of faffing about, I've FINALLY figured out my schedule for this year:

15th June - Cash Games
16th June - $340 Venetian - 12 noon
17th June - Golf/Cash Games/Show
18th June - $2,000 - WSOP - 12 noon
19th June - Cash Games/Show
20th June - $10,000 PLO - WSOP - 5pm
21st June - Cash Games
22nd June - $340 Caesars - 12 noon
23rd June - $240 PLO Golden Nugget - 12 noon
24th June - Cash Games
25th June - $560 Caesars/Venetian - 12 noon
26th June - Cash Games
27th June - England

I've tried to have big tournaments on alternate days so that I don't burn out. Off to sleep shortly, but for those who are fairly new to the poker world, here's my poker background :)

http://uk.pokernews.com/news/2006/6/interview-david-lu-part1.htm
http://uk.pokernews.com/news/2006/6/david-lu-interview-part2.htm

Sorry for the lack of updates, this past few days has been hectic! So on Monday we all entered the Caesar's Palace $235 freezeout. The event drew 505 runners and so first prize was about $28k. I had a pretty easy table and from a starting stack of 7,500, I managed to build up my chip stack easily early on at the dinner break I was sitting comfortably with a stack of 55,000 (average was 32,000).

After the dinner break, I was really happy with my play. One of the key hands:

Blinds: 2,000/4,000 with 500 ante
My stack: 170,000
Hole cards: Q-J

I raise in late position to 10,000, the guy to my immediate left calls on the button (with a stack of 125,000). The blinds both fold.

Flop: Q-T-6 (Pot 28,000)

Now I've seen a few hands by my opponent and he's very aggressive and has definitely been calling with speculative hands in position and trying to push people around a lot. I'm almost certain he likes to make big aggressive moves. He has been leaking chips following this strategy and I see him as an easy target.

So I bet 12,500. The intention was to make this seem like a weak continuation bet and to try and induce a raise from him. When he announced "all-in", I instantly called and flipped over my top pair. He turned over T-7!!!!!!!! He missed his 5 outs and I had an awesome stack!

By the end of Day 1, there were 16 players left and I was 2nd in chips with 404,000. Strangely enough there were 5 people from England left in the field all on the same table! There is this rule in the poker room where you can only talk English only, so you can imagine the surprise when these two (very funny) scousers were talking to each other and were told off by the tournament supervisor for "not speaking in English"!!!

Anyway, we resumed Day 2 at 2pm on Tuesday and I was feeling pumped up and ready to win the $28k. The top 53 players got paid so we were well into the prize money and were already guaranteed $800. Then things didn't go according to plan...

To cut a long story short, my A-A got crippled by 3-3 when the big blind decided to set-mine for a quarter of his stack pre-flop. Afterwards, he even said he knew he made a bad play?!?!?!?!? ARGH! Anyway, after that I was playing a short stack and surviving by shoving all-in on tight blinds.

I eventually got knocked out when my A-6 ran into A-9 and ended up 11th place for a cash of $1,050. What's more frustrating is that the guy with 3-3 went on to win $16,000. GRRRRRRRR!

Nevermind, I'm hoping I get all the bad luck out of my system because I'm going to playing my first World Series of Poker event in a few hours: $2,000 No-Limit Hold'em. I've no idea how many players there will be but I'm hoping I can get a good first table. My first good omen is that apparently the number '8' is lucky in Chinese and my first seat is:

Table 8 Seat 8!

Toby reckons I could sell my seat for $5,000, but I think I'll keep it because it'll be worth more than that to me :-)