Vegas Time! Show me the money

As I sit here, typing this, the time is 07:35am here in VEGAS babyyy! Me and my brother, Craig, arrived at The Palazzo yesterday at 4:00pm local time. This is our 4th summer on the bounce out in Sin City, 5th time total. Love the place. It always feels special stepping outside the airport doors after the long grueling flight, to feel your lungs fill up with the warm, humid air for the first time. This year was no different.

As i mentioned, we are staying at The Palazzo, courtesy of Party Poker. I won my package with them a while ago, and as well as entry into the $10,000 buy in WSOP main event, it included money for flights and a luxurious suite here in The Venetian's sister hotel.

The room is beautiful, spacious, comfortable, over looking the Wynn/Encore hotels, and has a touch of class about it. I have already Tweeted a couple of pics, and will do more, I aim to make a 'Cribs' style TwitVid of the room, to show what we're lucky enough to be dealing with.

I rarely see 10:00am let alone 7:00am back at home, so apart from being excited about seizing all my time whilst here, there is another reason why i am being so 'busy' writing a blog update at half past 7 in the morning. Of course the 10 hour flight takes it out of you a bit, and the fact that you gain another 8 hours back when travelling west across The Atlantic and America, makes for a very long day. We eventually conked out after room service at around 8:00pm local time (4:00am British) and here I am now. I hope i don't struggle to get over the Jet lag too much, I usually don't.

Enough of boring sleep stories, my plans for the rest of the day are as follows:
-Shower
-Grab Tea/Coffee/Croissant
-Register for Venetian $350 tournament
-Laze by pool (weather permitting**)
-[  ] Donk off $ playing really bad Live poker
  [x] Finally get my arse in gear and play some decent poker with real people!!

** Yes! Weather permitting in Vegas, as strange as that sounds, the last day or 2 there have been clouds, rain, even thunder and lightning! Hot, yes, but not the kind of weather i need to make sure i have a better tan than both my brother Craig, and my girlfriend Char (who goes to Ibiza, whilst i a out here).

I play the Main Event on Saturday (day 1c) which i am very excited about. I am hoping to get in some more valuable practice at the tables beforehand. Felling confident about my game, and except for my 34th in a $1500 side event at the WSOP in 2008, i dont feel i have ran great since, and I hope the Main is different. I have a strategy, as most good players should have, and i believe barring, coolers/bad beats etc, i can really do something in this monstrous tournament which potentially could pay 8 to 10 million dollars for 1st place. The structure really benefits the better players, and with 30,000 starting stack and 2 hours blind levels, there's going to be so much play to be able to rape the donkeys of their chippies.

I'm sure i will update my Blog before Saturday though, so for now, that is all i will touch upon for the Main event.

Since my last blog, there has been a lot of trouble for Full Tilt Poker. It's been on national news, so i won't bore you with details, which you are probably already aware of. This is why I haven't updated my Blog until now. I had an amount of $ on there, that i was prepared to lose after "Black Friday" if things did go "tits-up" for them. I had cashed out most of my bankroll, but continued to play there, as the fields were soft, and basically, I like Full Tilt. I ran pretty good the last week or so before the Alderney gambling license issue came up. I won the $163 45k gtd, and made a few other final tables, which obviously seen my bankroll go up quite considerably. I has pending cashouts, as well as another load still in my account when FTP lost its license. This leaves me with a lot of money in limbo. It's such a kick in the bollocks, that after playing some of the best poker, i have ever, and after riding a pretty nasty downswing on FTP for a few months, that when i finally hit my good variance, and ship a couple of good scores, i may not get to see my money . I am still remaining relatively positive, as news of a European takeover, would increase my chances of me seeing my money again a lot, but i'm not going to hold my breath. Expecting to receive it would be silly, and only set me up for more pain, where as this way, if i do manage to get my money back, it will be an absolutely brilliant outcome. I believe the Full Tilt brand has loads of value, as well as rush poker and some of the other gimmick that they have patented, which does make me hopeful, that they will some way or another get back on track. Poker wise, they had it pretty bang on, it's just a massive shame business wise, they were greedy, incompetent pricks (sorry for the language).

I have a couple of hands that I will share with you now. They are from a couple of different tournaments i played and got deep in on FTP, 2 weeks ago. Both hands, are pure instinct/reads based. And at first read, they may seem, a bit different/bad. (I have had them saved for 2 weeks now, and after just rereading them, even i thought twice about posting them, but i know how interesting reading other peoples lines/thoughts on hands can be). The point i am trying to get across, is trust your instincts. I believe my instincts are one of my major strengths in poker, sometimes, they can get me in trouble when they are wrong, but the majority of time (not just in poker, but in life too) people have an instinct about something, and it turns out to be 100% correct.

The 1st hand: $75 6 max tournament. I know villain as a very aggressive player, likes to 3 bet, and try and take pots. We are both deep. I led the turn, for 3 reasons;
-to represent hitting something, its a great card to bluff, and try to take it there
-to not allow him to check back and take a free one for pot control
-to set up a 3bet bomb, if he got tricky and reraised me. (which he did)

Full Tilt Poker Game #31213464909: $17,500 Guarantee (242185386), Table 25 - 120/240 Ante 25 - No Limit Hold'em - 20:17:03 WET - 2011/06/23 [15:17:03 ET - 2011/06/23]
Seat 1: SPRAGGS (16,407)
Seat 2: jimmie23 (20,105)
Seat 3: SlipperPoes (13,081)
Seat 4: aftajvila (5,367)
Seat 5: ronaldgrauer (5,650)
Seat 6: Olorion (16,067)
SPRAGGS antes 25
jimmie23 antes 25
SlipperPoes antes 25
aftajvila antes 25
ronaldgrauer antes 25
Olorion antes 25
SlipperPoes posts the small blind of 120
aftajvila posts the big blind of 240
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SPRAGGS [Th 8h]
ronaldgrauer folds
Olorion folds
SPRAGGS raises to 555
jimmie23 raises to 1,325
SlipperPoes folds
aftajvila folds
SPRAGGS has 15 seconds left to act
SPRAGGS calls 770
*** FLOP *** [7c 3c 9d]
SPRAGGS checks
jimmie23 has 15 seconds left to act
jimmie23 bets 1,410
SPRAGGS has 15 seconds left to act
SPRAGGS calls 1,410
*** TURN *** [7c 3c 9d] [9c]
SPRAGGS has 15 seconds left to act
SPRAGGS bets 2,840
jimmie23 has 15 seconds left to act
jimmie23 raises to 5,980
SPRAGGS raises to 13,647, and is all in
jimmie23 folds
Uncalled bet of 7,667 returned to SPRAGGS
SPRAGGS mucks
SPRAGGS wins the pot (17,940)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 17,940 | Rake 0
Board: [7c 3c 9d 9c]
Seat 1: SPRAGGS collected (17,940), mucked
Seat 2: jimmie23 (button) folded on the Turn
Seat 3: SlipperPoes (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 4: aftajvila (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 5: ronaldgrauer folded before the Flop
Seat 6: Olorion folded before the Flop

Second Hand: $55 6 max MSOP event. Again the Villain is very Lagy, and we are very deep (70bbs effective) His 3bet is small, and in position, i believed i could win the pot a large % of the time. His check raise on the turn, was odd, hence why my instincts kicked in to make the call, and the value bet when checked to on the river (of course making trips helped). However, his turn line was the important part of this hand, as he really wasn't repping much at all. He ended up paying off a small thin(ish) value bet on the river.

Full Tilt Poker Game #31214799597: MSOP Event #40 (238327969), Table 117 - 500/1000 Ante 125 - No Limit Hold'em - 21:26:46 WET - 2011/06/23 [16:26:46 ET - 2011/06/23]
Seat 1: primdisc (96,773)
Seat 2: SPRAGGS (70,150)
Seat 3: i freda i (38,301)
Seat 4: Mo1987 (59,760)
Seat 5: Einzeller (25,204)
Seat 6: PitBoss4001 (49,281)
primdisc antes 125
SPRAGGS antes 125
i freda i antes 125
Mo1987 antes 125
Einzeller antes 125
PitBoss4001 antes 125
PitBoss4001 posts the small blind of 500
primdisc posts the big blind of 1,000
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SPRAGGS [9h Kh]
SPRAGGS raises to 2,155
i freda i folds
Mo1987 folds
Einzeller folds
PitBoss4001 folds
primdisc raises to 4,500
SPRAGGS has 15 seconds left to act
SPRAGGS has requested TIME
SPRAGGS calls 2,345
*** FLOP *** [2d Qc 9c]
primdisc bets 6,000
SPRAGGS calls 6,000
*** TURN *** [2d Qc 9c] [7c]
primdisc checks
SPRAGGS bets 6,000
primdisc raises to 16,500
SPRAGGS has 15 seconds left to act
SPRAGGS has requested TIME
SPRAGGS calls 10,500
*** RIVER *** [2d Qc 9c 7c] [9d]
primdisc checks
SPRAGGS has 15 seconds left to act
SPRAGGS bets 22,000
primdisc has 15 seconds left to act
primdisc has requested TIME
primdisc calls 22,000
*** SHOW DOWN ***
SPRAGGS shows [9h Kh] three of a kind, Nines
primdisc mucks
SPRAGGS wins the pot (99,250) with three of a kind, Nines
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 99,250 | Rake 0
Board: [2d Qc 9c 7c 9d]
Seat 1: primdisc (big blind) mucked [Kc Ah] - a pair of Nines
Seat 2: SPRAGGS showed [9h Kh] and won (99,250) with three of a kind, Nines
Seat 3: i freda i folded before the Flop
Seat 4: Mo1987 folded before the Flop
Seat 5: Einzeller (button) folded before the Flop
Seat 6: PitBoss4001 (small blind) folded before the Flop

Both hands were made easier by the fact i had a little piece in both, but i think both show instincts are a big part of the game, and you can't go pussyfooting around opponents like these 2 villains or they will run over you.

Will update my trip report soon. Updates will be on Twitter, follow me http://twitter.com/#!/BenSpraggs