For the third and final night of this Vegas trip, I would find myself back in the poker room at Caesar’s. This time though, I’d have to wait. When I got there and signed up for the 1-3 no limit cash game, I was like 20th on the list; great… more time to kill= more money to lose… haha. So I grabbed another cigar and played some slots (ugh!). It was about 30 minutes later when my name was up; here we go.
Right out of the gate with my $200 stack, I found myself at a decision point. With Q9, the flop came Q, 9, 10; good right? Well, not when my decent sized bet was raised all in by some big tough dude in the middle of the table. Of course, he must have flopped the straight, right? I asked him. He said “probably”… I was brand new at this table; I didn’t know how this guy was playing, just his tough demeanor on the outside; I wasn’t sure to believe him or not, although his bet was telling me otherwise. Maybe he had QJ? Top pair with an open ender. I called, for about 3/4 of my stack about 5 minutes in; may be an early night… He didn’t turn over his cards, so I didn’t turn mine over either… that is, until another 9 came on the river. Bam! Full boat… give this man his money! Not sure if he had the straight or not, and I really didn’t care; I was off to a great start on my final night in Vegas.
Easy come easy go they say… shortly after playing a little looser than normal with my bigger chip stack, I toned it back down… until I woke up to QQ. A few calls, a few folds when it came to me pre flop; I bumped it to $10. I think there were 4 in the hand. Flop came absolute rags; I placed a good sized bet, and again, was raised all-in. This time, the dude who did it was pretty cool; I was chatting with him for most of the night up to this point. I asked him if we caught Aces or Kings on me… he didn’t raise pre-flop, so… that kind of threw me off. Actually, I put him on JJ… so of course, I trusted my gut and called. He turned over KK… slow rolled them, after getting burned on them multiple times that evening per his comment. Lucky me. Took a big stack from me on that one.
Then I hit the biggest hand of my life… I believe it was Q9 again, clubs this time. Believe I had top pair and straight draw on the flop; guy was betting into me. I smooth called after the flop, and again after I turned the straight. I was good at that point, finding out later that he had 2 pair, so the card that came next, the King of Clubs, which gave me the straight flush, actually hurt me. He checked. The pot was pretty big already, so I just went all in with my remaining stack, which was less than half the pot. The lady who just sat down next to me wished me luck; I thought… don’t need luck on this hand. Of course, he didn’t call, and there was no “big hand” payout, but I had to show… K-9 straight flush in Clubs… wowza!!! I was back!
It was about 4am now… I was tired. I thought, let me just walk away now; I didn’t. This is my last night. I’m going to pull an all nighter, like I did plenty of times before both at home and in Vegas while playing late night poker; throwback time. Well, after 4am, I started shedding chips; I was down under $50 now… feeling like just walking away from the table with something… I stayed. I woke up to KK. I tripled up on that bad boy, and after winning another hand just after 5am, was almost even. I finally did decide to walk away and get an hour or so of sleep. On the night, I lost $35. Not bad for 6 hours of entertainment…
I was very happy with my play. Sure, was I a little loose when I was up early; yes. But overall, played very solid… 10x better than the night before. It gave me hope for that poker career… haha. All in all, about $300 down for the trip, which thanks to the $500 my wife won, meant we were coming back with more cash than we left with. Not too shabby…
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