Sweating and Partying

Since my last post I haven't played any poker myself. Vegas is becoming more and more of a vacation spot and less of a workspace, but that's fine with me.

I had the best time I've had in a while last week while sweating the $5k shootout final table. Nasr had survived and was one of the last five players so we decided to give him a huge cheering section. I think there were around 20 of us who were there to support him (does anyone have a youtube video of the stream?) and after we were all a few beers deep, we began some nice "Hey! Super Nasdog! Schalalalala!" cheers that came out pretty loud. Every time he won a pot we would cheer, it was really a sick atmosphere. Then he got it in with AA vs T9s and lost the "flip", making him super short as he busted with 33 vs 88 just a few hands later. It was a real disappointment but I hope this cheering section thing catches on, because it truly was awesome!

On Friday night the team formerly known as "Pokerstars.de Shootingstars" threw a party at the XS at Encore. People have said it is supposed to be the new uberclub, the club of all clubs. The club itself is insanely sick, though maybe not quite all it's made it out to be. The place is really huge, with the main dance floor indoors and then a ton of tables/cabanas and a huge pool outside. It's almost a little too spread out imo, I like it when the party is a little more compact. Still, I had an amazing time and of course I took some pictures for all my stalkers:

one of the hochgepokert.tv trainees jumped in the pool naked for $1300. you can't see it in the picture but the pool area is huge and everyone saw it

victory photo

security saw it too and did not appreciate it very much. they kicked him out right away

i said make funny faces

having long arms is good for a lot of things

the naked cowboy snuck back into the club TWICE haha

Nik thought he could pole dance

but security didn't appreciate that very much either. at least he was allowed to stay :)

passing out at a club is such a party foul

we ordered line dancing lessons so we can all make a good appearance at Stoneys, a nearby country club. we have one more set of lessons on Wednesday and then on Thursday it's time to show off our moves!

When in doubt, blog it out

I've been spending the past days taking advantage of some of the things Vegas has to offer other than just poker. I ended up seeing two shows (Mystere and Love) which are both part of the Cirque du Soleil family. Mystere at the Treasure Island was an incredible show, it's really fascinating what the human body is capable of doing if trained properly. I have mad respect for all the performers and their discipline, mindboggling imo.

Love is the Beatles show at the Mirage was entertaining as well, especially if you're a Beatles fan. I like most of their songs though I wouldn't consider myself any type of diehard fan. Still, the dance interpretations were pretty spectacular and in general the audience was kept in a very happy cheery mood. I wouldn't necessarily want to see the show again but it was certainly worth it to have gone once.

On the pokerfront, yesterday was day 1 of the $5k nl shootout. Less than 300 players registered so the field ended up being supertough with all the top live pros mixed with the online legends. My table had Antonio Esfandiari, Bill Edler and Noah Boeken among other online pros. I avoided big pots all day and gathered my chips by grinding. There was only one all-in situation that I ended up being involved in where I had KTs vs the 99 of Bill Edler. I spiked a T on the turn for the crucial double-up and ended up heads up vs him after 6 hours of play.

The final hand was a nasty set-up that was misreported at Pokernews (of course). They reported it as me calling his all-in on the turn with a gutshot and then hitting the miracle on the river. Though that would have been nice, in fact I had the nut straight on the turn (board 6534) with 78 vs Edler's 79. I had him barely outchipped so that pot sealed the win for me.

Today was day 2 and the tables were broken down to just 6handed. After grinding for most of the day I found myself 3 handed with Andrew "luckychewy" Lichtenberger and David "The Dragon" Pham. I had pinned them as the two best players at the table from the get-go so it was no surprise they had survived the table. I had just under average chips with 230k when I 4bet AKs blind on blind vs David Pham and he made the call with TT. It was a race for half the chips in play but the board bricked off :(

I guess my official bustout was in 11th place for $16,740 which is semi disappointing to come so close but that's just the way tourneys are. Still, two cashes out of three tourneys certainly isn't bad, even if they are relatively small payouts. I still have two more tournaments to play; the $5k shootout on June 30th and then the $10k Main Event on July 3rd. Tomorrow we're off to the Rio at 2pm to sweat Nasdog el Nasdog at the final table of the 5k shootout! He's shooting for the first German NL bracelet ever and with just 5 players left chances are looking good! Our goal is to be the loudest cheering section the Rio has ever seen, I think we can achieve it!

More WSOP, More Pics

My trip back home to Kansas came just at the right time this year. Getting away from Vegas for a long weekend is a good way to regenerate and that's exactly what I did. I spent most of my time hanging out with my family, as we went to Theatre in the Park and then a KC Wizards game the very next night. It kinda sucked that the trip was so short but at the same time I didn't wanna miss too much action in Vegas either :)

Things around the villa are same old same old. There seems to be a trend of people getting lazier and lazier by the day. In the beginning everyone was super motivated to play a ton of tourneys and go for bracelets, now it's evolved to where everyone would rather play Guitar Hero til 7am and then sleep away the day (with the exception of Flo Langmann, he plays through the night and goes to the Rio for every tournament regardless).

PokerToday came by for a visit (here's a link to the video, it's towards the end) while I was gone apparently and they hit us at an unfortunate time. I don't want to get into a rant about house cleaning, but this issue seems to come up every year. Obviously reading Intellipoker comments will not make anyone smarter but I still wanted to just say that we have a cleaning crew who come by daily to keep the house spic and span. The house is clean pretty much around the clock, just in the morning after a long night of partying things get a little messy. Apparently that's when PokerToday came to film, so they caught us a little off guard. Oh well.

Last night we all went to Pure at the Caesars together to celebrate Mr. Sicklas Heinecker's birthday which turned out to be a really awesome party! I think Pure is pretty much my favorite night club in town, what I really like is the fact that you can actually breathe there because it's open-air. Nothing sucks more than some overcrowded, smokey club where you inevitably end up smelling like a bum as soon as you leave. Here are some impressions from the night:

Nasdog and Klaeser guitar-heroing it up. red eye oops

obligatory limo pic to the club

Tobi and Sabine at Pure

me and the birthday boy

fresh runner up in the 5knl Fabian Quoss and Flo with some beauties we met from Mexico

More Vegas Updates

The $2.5k shorthanded NL tourney was my second WSOP event this year. I sold off 50% to friends to give them something to sweat and I guess that did well for my karma because I ended up cashing in 60th place for $6.6k. I built up a huge stack on Day 1 but lost half of it in the final level of the day, leaving myself with 35k and blinds of 600/1200 going into Day 2.

With the bubble approaching, I was all-in three times to keep my head above water before the bubble finally burst and people started loosening up. I began to accumulate some chips and became pretty active at my table. The guy to my immediate right was a real loose cannon so it was no surprise when he 4bet jammed the button vs my JJ from the SB, which I snapped and won.

At that point I had 100k and my stack bounced from 120k down to 60k after some lost blind battles and a 3bet pot where my KK was cracked by the good old A4o. With around 70k and blinds of 1200/2400, I made it 6k to go with AKo from UTG+1 and the button made it 21k relatively fast. He had accumulated a stack of over 500k by now after cracking Nazdog's AA a couple hours earlier, so he had around 4x average chips. I obv jammed the AK, he called it off with 33 and the board ran down QJ83J. I'm still pretty happy with the result and though it would have been nice to run a little deeper (which is something 99.9% of the field says after they bust) the tournament was still a pretty fun experience.

Starcraft money matches, it doesn't get much nerdier than this

Things around the house have been pretty cool as well. I think there are around 25 people here so it's hard to keep an overview of everything that's going on. We had a backyard BBQ on Friday, a few of us went out partying at the Pure on Saturday, then our soccer team won for the second week in a row on Sunday. Our house is still waiting for it's first significant cash (so far we have several 10th-15th place finishes) but I have no doubt that'll happen soon.

Our first house barbeque

Tomorrow I get to escape for three days, as I'll be going to Kansas for the weekend. I really love Vegas but it'll be nice to see my family and friends again for sure.

view from our table at the Pure, certainly one of my favorite clubs in Vegas

WSOP action

My first WSOP tourney was the $1.5k 6max NL a few days ago. My starting table was pretty decent, I only knew Eric "Rizen" Lynch and Helge (Rifter) who's stayed in our Vegas house all three years now. After a slow start I doubled up with AK vs 88 and was sitting on around 9k when I called a 3bet with QQ. The flop came down 553 and my opponent check/raised me all-in, which I snapped. He turned over AK, the turn was a K and I was out. Certainly can't be disappointed about my play so no big deal. Ramin made a deep run but busted unluckily in 12th place after losing a huge flip.

Yesterday I tried my luck at the Rio playing some live cash game. It took me about an hour of waiting before I finally got a seat at 10/25nl at a pretty tight and boring table. I spewed off 2k before winning a couple small pots and ending the session after around two hours only down a grand. I think my next session will be at the Bellagio, the atmosphere there seems to be a lot better and the dealers are certainly better. I don't want to go into a dealer rant but it is quite pathetic to watch some of the Rio dealers at work.

Things around the house have been pretty quiet. Haven't been doing too much, just the usual gambling as always. I think we're planning a BBQ for tomorrow before our first soccer league game, that should be pretty fun. Still no pics but they'll be coming shortly, be patient!

It's Vegas baby!

I have been pretty lazy with blog updates recently but now finally enough people nagged me so I figured I would make a new entry. The trip to Vegas was uneventful and after a small hassle at the car rental place, we made it to the mini castles and got settled in.

The property is really amazing. We have two houses right next to each other so everyone has enough space to spread out and not feel crammed. My master bedroom is just as good as I hoped it would be, ship it :)

The house is not surprisingly stocked with tons of beer and water, yet still we end up running out of it every few days or so. Our ping pong table should arrive within the next day or so, I really can't wait to start playing again. Furthermore we bought a PS3, Xbox and a Wii (nerds anyone?) so there are money matches running pretty much around the clock.

So far I haven't played any tourneys, my time has been spent sitting around playing Fifa and hearts. Yesterday we rented out an indoor soccer field at LV Sports Park where we played against a random group of local pickup players. Team Germany played really well and we ended up crushing in both games, I have a good feeling about our league games that starts this Sunday.

Other than that, not too much has been going on. We've gone out once so far to The Bank located in the Bellagio which turned out to be a really sick party. I'll start taking some pics the next few days and get them posted when I have some time.

Finally

I arrived safely in Las Vegas last night! The houses are just as sick as I thought they would be (pics to follow). The bulk of the group arrives this afternoon, Flo is already here to play the 4oknl tourney today. I'm off to run some errands, expect some updates in the near future!