Here are a few random thoughts I had about things I noticed in Vegas

#1) I got friendly with a couple players during the 5 days. I played at MGM almost the whole so I ran into the same guys alot. One young asian local who was pretty good was one of them. There was a hand where I limped 88. He limped. A crazy German raised to $25, there was a call, I called and the asian guy called.

Pot was $100. Flop came 234. The Gemrna pushed all in for about $80. EP limper folded. I knew I had the German beat but didnt know about the asian kid. I called. We wer both pretty deep and hes a bit of a nit. He wanted to call but was obviously afraid I had A5. He said it out loud. He called and then sheepishly asked if I wanted to "be nice". I didnt say anything. The turn was a 7. I said "ok, I check and he checked also"

River 5. We checked it down. The German had AJ and won. The Asian kid had 22. Was he really being nice? I thought so at the time. Or was he really afraid I had A5? He has to know there no way Im checking down A5 or 56. Very strange....

So on to the next day....I played all night because the game was UNREAL. It was insane. 2 more crazy Germans came at about 5AM but I couldnt play anymore and went to bed. I came back at about 11AM and the game was still going. I couldnt get in the game so was watching. Then this hand was played....

I missed preflop action but the pot is about $75 and the flop comes [Qd][5d]. The BB goes all in for about $110. There are 2 other guys in the hand. The asian and another guy that both I and the asian were friendly with. I'll call the other guy "chubby" because he was. He claims to have built a big roll playing $500 SNGs at Party. Hes pretty decent.

I see Chubbys hand because Im standing behind him. He has [8h]. He calls and has another $300 behind. The asian guy nows starts shifting in his seat. He covers chubby. The asian guy finally shoves all in and tells chubby he has chubbys kicker beat and that he should fold. He sounds sincere and I think hes trying to be nice because chubby was stuck when I left and must be stuck even more now. Chubby flips his hand up on the table. The Asain kid says "hey you got 3 outs, if you want to call its up to you". They talk a bit more and chubby folds. Asian kid wins the pot with [6s]. I walk away in amazement that chubby doesnt knock the asian kid out of his chair.

#2) Earlier that night Chubby tells me the story of the worst bad beat of his life. It just happened earlier that day at Caesars. I did play with the guy at Caesars the day before so I think hes telling the truth.

Its $2/$5 NL but its uncapped. He and villain both have $4K. Villain raises and chubby reraises with QQ. Villian flat calls.

Flop comes KQQ. Chubby leads out with quads and gets raised. He calls.
Turn is whatever....They get all in somehow for $4K each. Yes folks, you know whats coming. Villain has KK and the river is a K.

#3) Dealers are the worst poker players

#4) Cactus Jack is a super nice guy even though he seems a bit grumpy here. I even played some $4/$8 limit with him as I waited for a table at Casesars. I won $1 in about 15 mins. MVP was a no show all week as he was trying to solve his car troubles. I didnt get to meet him.

#5) People are very easy to read in person. One guy habitually raised to $10. he woul dget 3 callers, then it would get to me and I would pop it to $65 or so and they would all fold. I did it 4 times in an hour and the best hand I had was QT. The guy kept eyeballing me from across the table. He wanted a piece of me and never got it. One time he raised to $10 and got in a multiway pot. I folded preflop and the guy lost about half a stack with his AA because he let a guy in so cheap. I know he was trying to trap me into reraising. Its very easy to look like a maniac bluffer and still be playing tight overall. I would watch a guy raise to $15 several times and raise to $25 several times. Once I knew he was adusting his raise amounts based on his hand strength, I would use that to get an image. He would raise to $15, I would reraise to $65 knowing full well he couldnt call a reraise and then I would show my [9d]. I made sure I had a hand that could flop big if I got called. After showing one or 2 of these, I could still play tight and get action.

#6) I noticed that my voice cracked when I said "all in" and was bluffing biut it didnt when I had a monster. I doubt anyone noticed it because I only shoved in as a bluff once so that was the only time my voice cracked and I didnt showdown so they dont know what I had...but after that I stopped saying "all in". I either shoved my chips in, or just made a 2 handed waving motion kind of like Humberto Brenes does. I dont think hardly anyone elses notices these little things about themselves or anyone elses. You would think a dealer would see these things but the dealer that I played that sucked had the most blatanlty obvious tell Ive ever seen. When his gin card hit, he made a fake disgusted face.

#7) They have stupid house rules at MGM like no checking in the dark. A guy checks in dark and the dealer says he cant do that and deals the flop. Then the guy has to say "I check" again. Idiotic.
In protest, one guy checked in the dark and the dealer said he couldnt and dealt the flop. The dealer said "check or bet?". He sat there long enough to get a clock called on him and with 5 seconds left to act, he checked. Duh, no shit he was gonna check. Stupid rule.

#8) An older Asian regular told me I was the tightest player he had ever seen. The next day he told me I bluff way too much. I played with for 4 days and when I left he told me I was one of the best players he had seen in that game for quite a while. I outplayed him constantly. Im sure hes a winner because hes good enough to take money from tourists all day but he cant beat a good player.

#9) The poker room management at MGM is mediocre at best. I waited an hour to get into a really juicy game and I was 1st on the list. The list got long enough to open a new table so they called all of our names. Me and the older Asian guy were playing 1/2 at the next table over and watched the table to see if the other players came. Only 2 guys sat down so the game never started. I told the lady at the desk that I would move if the table got any players and she was well aware that i was waiting for the other game. When the new game didnt start, the floor manager wiped the list clean and started over so I got bumped. I threw a fit and they finally agredd to put me back on top but by that time, the 3 crazy germans left the game to go to the Grand Canyon.

I wanted to get a lock box to put my cash in. They have like 200 of them but the floor told me they were only for "poker players" I said "its 5:30AM and Ive been playing for the past 13 hours, what do you call me?" He said they were for "regulars". I said, "well, Ive been playing here non stop for 2 days and plan to do the same for the next 2". They had like 50 empto boxes. Was he expceting a flood of "poker players" to fill all the boxes in the next hour? He was rude and gave me a hard time but finally let me keep my money at his casino. Thanks for the favor, moron.

How much did you win?

you didn't miss much by not seeing MVP

About $3K but I donked off about $500 at Blackjack while waiting for tables to open up.

Maybe I missed this, but you said that the guy who told you the QQ vs KK quads story was playing in a 2/5NL game, but it was uncapped. Is this to say that uncapped 2/5NL games are the exception? Were you playing in capped games?

Oh. I had a different definition of capped in mind. I was thinking "capped" like the games on Full Tilt where they call it no limit, but you can only bet a predetermined portion of your stack and be considered all-in. I hear that most of the big NL games are like that, but I was kinda surprised when you said the 2/5 games were capped. Obvious now that you were talking about capped buy-ins though, not capped bets.

They should at least give you some green. I'm sure those would be used.