So I've spent about 3 hours trying to convert and successfully upload my video blog but somehow it never seems to work. It stinks I have to upload it to YouTube or Google Video because apparently it takes a whole new system to be able to view videos on this page (which as far as I know is true because the 2 video blogs that any other sites have done all involve YouTube).

So let's recap the entire trip of Vegas. I got here with Danielle on the 15th late at night. After meeting our roommates (Craig, etown/Brett, and scandieslol/luke) we went to bed. The next day we met up with Jay/SEABEAST and his girlfriend Annette and now we had our house. My birthday was the 19th and at midnight we went to this club Mix which I believe was at Mandalay Bay. Craig somehow managed to take 199 pictures and it was hilarious because they got progressively worse throughout the night. It was a lot of fun though and I'm pretty sure ended with me sprinting up the stairs to my bed.

The next night I had rented out the Celebrity Suite at the Palms hotel. I was kind of disappointed with the way I was treated by the Palms hotel staff - despite renting out one of the marquee suites in the entire hotel, I was denied pretty much any concierge-related help, Danielle and I were called "kids" by the on-site manager, and it took forever to get anything while in the room, including about 20 minutes to "run up" 4 bottles of water. It sucks that the Palms will never get any of my gaming action ever, but that is their loss I suppose.

There were quite a few pictures taken at the party; however, they are all on Craig's camera. I will upload them as soon as he does. Additionally, Brett took some video camera footage, and is uploading that as well. The party seemed like a success and it made me really happy that everyone was telling me it was a great party. I brought in a poker table + professional dealer (apparently Blair Rodman's wife) and also had a professional bartender. The dealer got really really nervous before everyone started showing up, but calmed down when she found out everyone was really nice. It makes me feel bad because she asked me what sort of guests were coming, and I said a lot of poker players who are young and more successful than they should be at their ages. She all of the sudden got really nervous and I assume it was because she was expecting to get berated or something by the players (assumably due to past experiences) which is a shame that this occurs, but I told her that everyone was appreciative of their situation and was very nice.

I have to make an entirely new paragraph to thank Danielle for majorily planning the party and coming up with some fun ideas, but also to thank Aaron for helping us put together everything the day of. The party would not have been nearly the success it was without either of them.

A couple days after my party, I decided to do the whole live poker thing. The night before I played in my first WSOP event (PLO8 FTW!), I sat down at a $25/$25NL table at the Rio when myself, Craig, Brett, and Luke went to play. To my left is some youngish glasses looking kid with lots of chips. I bought it for 10k completely in chips like a typical live idiot and we were ready to play. I start typically raising most of the hands and about 10 hands in I call an UTG raise of 125 OTB with 92ss (he had 10k!). That kid to my left squeezes and I decide that I am going to try to: 1) win a 20k pot and 2) show down 92ss. So I call but fold a flop where I hit a backdoor flush draw due to about 50 live strength tells.

So after the hand the kid stars making the standard I'm-an-online-player-and-I-want-to-find-out-your-screen-name comments, such as "**** live poker," so I ask him if he plays 25/50 online. He said no he plays 5/10 and sometimes 10/20, and asks what my screen name is. I pretend not to hear and ask him what his screen name is. He says SmartLAG on FTP (jfish on 2p2) and I introduce myself as Greg Brooks. Vishal seemed nice but left after about 10 minutes (fortunately for me, because I like to raise a ton and didn't want someone active-ish to my direct left with 10k as well).

So let's chat about some hands! The session went really well and I booked exactly a 23k win after tipping my change. The table was fairly soft (there were about 5 live pros at the table after all! ). For almost all of these hands I had a psychotic image, so take that into consideration as well.

Ok so this hand I didn't have that image because I had recently gotten to the table. I raise T7o in the CO, BTN calls, SB (old man) calls. Flop comes KQ5 and I cbet... SB calls. Turn comes a 7 that puts a backdoor flushdraw up there, and the SB c/c again. The river is a blank 5, but the guy stares at me and donks 1000 into the 1700ish pot. I take that into heavy consideration (staredown = weakness trying to intimidate) and make it 2600 total. He calls and shows AK. I flip over T7o (ALWAYS show bluffs at showdown, because if you muck people might not understand/notice that you bluffed).

The game starts to break to 4 handed, and I probably have like 8k at this time. I 3bet a CO open who is some tightish kid with 74dd, and he calls. The flop comes 783 with two spades, and he c/r my cbet of 550 (into the 950) to 1800. I call planning to fold to a turn shove because I don't think he has the stones to bluff the turn if it comes a blank. The turn is a Jack, however, and we check through. The river is a ten (873JT) and the flush misses, and he jams for 4500ish. I go into the tank for probably 15 minutes and finally fold. I asked him if I could get 2 guesses as to what he had (he said he "wasn't happy" with the way he played the hand) so I said 9T and J9. He said "those are weird guesses" but I'm pretty sure he had T9 regardless.

So the very next hand I raise K4hh somewhere in EP, and get 2 callers, including some live pro SB. Flop comes Q57hh and my cbet of 400ish gets c/red by the SB to 1200. We have about 6k behind because I reloaded for a little. I call. The turn comes a 6, giving me the OESD and the flush draw, and when he bets 1800 I decide i Have 0 FE. With 3700 behind after the call, and assumably 14-15 outs agaisnt his set, I have over 4:1 and need only slightly more than 2:1 to call. So I do and spike a lovely 9h river. He checks, I shove, he complains and huffs and puffs for a few minutes and calls. I win and my session is saved because I definitely about to quit. The pot woundup being like 14-15k which just demonstrates how big live plays.

So I'm up a little now continue to play lots of hands. The 3 live pros at the table are button straddling, which means they bet 50 OTB blind, and now the first player to act preflop is the SB, then BB, then UTG, etc. It's ridiculous and later in the night I had 2 live pros to my direct right so that was annoying since every one of my blinds was a straddle hand.

Button straddles in the 7 seat (I'm in the 4) and the 10 seat makes it 225. I call with 66, and so does one other person. 700ish in the pot. Flop comes J53 and 10 seat checks. I bet 550 and 10 seat calls. Turn K, check check. River 9 he checks, I fire 1750, he calls and mucks.

2 more live pros sit down to my direct right - Ben Roberts and Joe Beevers. I had no idea who either of them were at the time but found out my next live session. Actually, everyone was calling Beevers "Joe" and he was wearing a FTP shirt, but I had no idea how many "Joe's" there were on FTP nor what Joe Beevers looked like. He was a nice guy but I owned him a few times. It was annoying though because they both were loudly talking about all of their investment properties and congratulating each other on the other one's success.

The most interesting dynamic exists with live pros. When those two sat down together you almost felt like they were going to play a friendly game of trying to outbest the other one (not outplay each other, but like outplaying the rest of the table more than the other). I keep on raising and I guess one of the live pros had told them I had been playing really loose because both of them instantly were giving me lots of action.

At the suggestion of Craig, I decide to get a massage at the table. Craig told me everyone plays like a nit when they were getting a massage so despite the massage being good, I wanted to keep playing lots of hands.

I get my first big hand of the session while OTB during the massage. Some EP live pro limps and so does Ben Roberts in the CO. I raise AA to 250 and they call. The flop comes A83r (lol), but Ben Roberts c/r my cbet of 450 to 1200! I think I owned him here - I told the masseuse to please stop massaging me for a minute, and went into the tank for abotu 40 seconds before calling. The turn is an 8. I figured Ben had to have a set when he bet out 2300 on the turn, so the 8 was actually a sick card. River comes a 3 and he fires some amount in the 4000s. I shove for what effectively was less than 1k more and he folds. Talk about a failed attempt at impressing his friend Joe (masseuse-aments?).

A little while later I raise 88 in the HJ, get 2 callers and the flop comes 86A with a flush draw. I cbet 300, BTN folds, and the SB (who has been there the whole time since the 74ss hand) jams for just under 4000. I call and to my chagrin both the flush and staight draws get there, but he still mucks when I table my set, so I guess he had AT or something. lol image-aments.

At this point Joe Beevers comments that I am running hot, which certainly is true, but I still get angry on the inside because I'm been busting my but trying to get an image that allows someone to stick in 3700 over my cbet of 300. I decide to take a break and get a little dinner and come back to notice that Joe has magically moved from my right to my left. At this point I'm looking for his to try to outplay me, and in a straddled hand I raise A7o to 250 in MP. Only Joe calls and the flop comes out K68 with 2 hearts. I cbet 550 and he quickly makes it 1550 total. I'm pretty sure he realizes I rarely have anything on this board, so I ask how much he has and he says about 10k. I raise to 3025 (which is actually 3575 but they had already taken away the 550) and Joe shakes his head and mucks. I flash the A7o and he says nice play. Then he says I made a nice read and that he was bluffing too, but then stopped because I guess he realized I had to put him on a bluff in order to re-bluff him.

So Joe goes on tilt at this point and calls most of the time when I raise. I pick up AKo in the CO and raise. Surprisingly, Joe calls in the SB. The flop comes out KKJ and I cbet. Turn comes a Q and I bet again. River 4 and I overbet 2025 (I wanted to do 3025 but it was too much of an overbet) into the pot of about 1600 and he snaps with something. He mucks and says something to the tune of "I knew it."

I wound up leaving shortly thereafter because of the stupid button straddle. I found myself with almost 35k on the table, and against a swarm of live pros (~7 at this time) stradding to 100 on the button (I didn't even know this was allowed). Because it was such an overbet to the blinds, it plays like 50/100NL, but makes it correct to play a lot tighter than no straddle, or even a $50 straddle. I wasn't going to sit there and play really tight because that wouldn't be fun so I quit.

The next day I played the PLO8 event and lasted just over 2 hours. I played really well, but managed to get 2 outed for a pot to swing from my scoop to the other guy's scoop. Then, I got it all in with 2349 vs 34TJ on a A69 and managed to lose everything (~70% to win, which is impossibly large for 08). So much for that.

I think it was about this time when Mike (gordo16) moved in with us. It's a lot of fun to watch him play PLO because he's probably the best HU player in the world, and also plays really loose. One of the first nights I was sweating him and he gained enough of an image to induce a 3bet shove in a 3bet pot by T983 (12k deep at a 25/50 match) on an AKA board. I cannot think of any other time I've ever seen someone drawing dead on the flop all in in PLO.

I played the $5k 6m tourney the other day, but that was unsuccessful as well. I had a really aggressive image again, and was really comfortable with my table. I had a biggish stack (20kish, starting with 10k) and raised UTG with 96dd. BB calls and donks an A83r board. I call with the BDFD and BDSD planning to bet at any opportunity and fold unimproved on the turn to a bet. The turn is a lovely 7 and I call again. The river is a K, he checks, I shove for 1.1x pot effectively, and he starts to make that speak that involves folding at the end, but actually calls after 4 seconds with AQ. Obviously his river play is bad (It's pretty hard to put me on air, I'm checking back with all worse aces, never VBing worse, etc) but I never expected to fold AQ with my river bet anyway.

The very next hand UTG+1 raises to 350, CO (young live pro who was chatting with Dutch Boyd and Dimitri Nickels or w/e) calls, SB calls, and I make it 1650 with Jacks and 14k-ish left. UTG+1 folds (I was actually still folding to a shove from him), and CO ships it in. I call and he shows 99. He spikes a 9 on the turn and I'm out.

I actually played another live session the day after the 6m event, and won about 13. I will post more hands in my next entry, but my parents are in town and I am going to hang out with them for a little today, and go see Love tonight.

Online I've been slightly better than breakeven in the past 5 days or so, and now I'm getting the boatloads of **** like my straights losing to overpairs all in on the flop, etc etc. I, of course, cannot complain.