I have always been horrible at planning things. I waited till the very last minute to make Vegas arrangements and figured it would be better to room with an acquaintance from Miami than a complete stranger from online like I did in 2012. He said there would be 5 of us staying in a nice house off the strip with a pool & jacuzzi and that I would have my own room. He asked for a $500 bank deposit for the month stay which I promptly took care of.
What actually ended up happening when I arrived was we had to go buy sheets/pillows/sleeping bag because we were staying at the roach-infested Budget Suites which had no linens and a shower head shorter than me. There were three of us total in a tiny 1 bedroom shithole so I slept on a sleeping bag on the couch while the other two shared a dinky bed. Twice I woke up to the manager banging on the front door and then intruding, threatening to evict me because rent was due. Shane was paying the rent by the week and pocketing whatever was leftover from my $500.
Shane immediately begged me for a stake when I got to Vegas and acted like he was the one doing me a favor since he had so many backers lined up. I declined multiple times since I have had so many bad staking/loaning experiences but I eventually gave in under the stipulation that we would settle up every single night and I would be playing in the same room to keep an eye on him. He owed me playback from the tournaments I put him in last year (none of which he cashed) and he was only going to be playing 1/3 on a 2k bankroll so I figured I had a high chance of getting my money back.
The first 4 or 5 sessions were close to breakeven. Every time we settled up he would show his discontent by inelegantly spitting into his hands and slowly counting the money before throwing it in a manner that caused it to scatter everywhere and make a scene. The one night I was not there to watch him because he went off to the Rio(instead of the usual Aria) and didn't answer his phone he claims to have lost the whole roll in one day. Although he is an extremely terrible player I have no doubt in my mind that he outright scammed me. He is a homeless loser who was behind on his child support and had a phone bill coming up. This single handedly ruined the trip as aside from the fact that I was scammed out of roughly 2.3k I was never able to take shots at bigger cash games without worrying about what was going on with the stake.
The group of guys that I had planned to go clubbing with flaked but I wasn't going to let that stop me. I showed up to Omnia by myself and got absolutely wasted off 7 Fireballs, 3 Stellas, and 2 Lemondrops. I ended up getting cucked into buying drinks for girls that already had boyfriends. Paying to get girls drunk so another dude can smash...thanks bro! This is no different than some sucker paying for his girlfriend's boob job then having another guy enjoy his money when she leaves him...thanks bro! I also got niggered by niggers, meaning a big muscular black guy stole the girl I was with twice. The BBC love is real.
After this cuckery I left enraged and decided it would be a good idea to take out my anger on the baccarat table. I somehow picked up this asian MILF in her 40s. After taking her to breakfast we went up to her room and I jumped into her bed with only my boxers and socks on. She used some ridiculous female logic and said that ever since I showed up to her table she went on a losing streak so she would only sleep with me if I agreed to her ridiculous proposition. Since she felt I was responsible for her losses she wanted me to give her $1800 as a baccarat bankroll and she would put up $1800 of her own money, after which we would split the profits when she decided to quit. This was not a working girl so I was completely baffled that a normal girl would try something like this. Needless to say I left with the worst blue balls ever.
When I first got to Vegas I found myself on the good end of some supercooler hands...
However after the rush ended I quickly came to the conclusion that going to Vegas just doesn't make any sense unless you are there for the tournaments. It doesn't make sense to fly all the way out to Vegas just to play 2/5 and win no more than $30/hr while paying travel expenses when you could just stay at your home casino and produce a much higher winrate without the expenses. RobFarha sums it up nicely in this quote from this blog:
I just left the casino and a friend of mine walks up to me and says a bunch of people who were planning to stay in Vegas for the duration of the WSOP left because "the games aren't any good". I'm a Las Vegas local and the poker games going on this year (and every year) during the WSOP are absolutely amazing, I haven't sat in a bad game.
Poker is all about perspective, these guys are hopping back on a plane because their Florida, Nebraska, Chicago, Detriot games are better than Vegas, even when Vegas has it's best games of the year. What you have now is every hometown hero from every corner of the country here to play during the WSOP and the fact of it is that they aren't that good. They are sharks in their little pond but aren't good players by Vegas standards, hence why the locals love the games and the tourists (winning regs in their own town) hate the games. It's all about perspective and how good you are. The average Vegas regular is much better than anywhere else in the country.
On average I spent $100 on food and $20 on taxis everyday during this trip. To pay for this I played baccarat every single day, winning near 4.5k on the trip. However, shortly after returning to Tampa the casino collected their G-bucks in full when I lost 6.4k losing 7 hands in a row. It is almost as if I put all my Vegas expenses on a credit card and then paid it off in full (with interest) as soon as I got back.
My poor cash game results didn't serve as much cushion for my tournament disaster. I lost around -6.5k playing tournaments going 2 for 16. Add to that the -2.3k from the scammer and -6.4k from baccarat and you can see how devastating this month really was. I'm shooting for 300hrs next month in July in an attempt to recoup these losses quickly.
The life of a grinder, great content!