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Only Happens In Vegas

I write this blog on the front end of leg three of five in a work turned leisure turned tier point run trip. Seattle airport isn’t particularly nice, less so when there is a strew of construction being performed and a severe lack of open lounges.

My convoluted route had me stop by LAX for an overnight which lent well to a visit of the nearby Hollywood Park Casino. It was busy, and the $1/2 game there certainly soft. They have bizarre buyin rules meaning I was only allowed to do off $100 at a time, but fortunately I found a way to do off 3 bullets worth.

I landed in Vegas where I was greeted with their toned down but still incorrect slogan of “What happens in Vegas, only happens in Vegas”. My primary purpose of the trip was attending BetBash (a conference on sports betting) in order to accost people into handing over their accounts in exchange for attempting to make them a small fortune. However, by design, I had arrived a week prior to ensure the appropriate tithe had been paid to the local $1/3 economy.

The first game was at the Venetian – a friendly $1/2 game that quite literally culminated in the closure of the entire poker room forever. As somewhat of a cupcake connoisseur myself I was pretty dismayed by the sugar drowned lump I was given to celebrate such an event, but they did also produce what I presume was Lambrini to wash it down with.

The new poker room at the Venetian, or rather the shopping mall linking the Palazzo and The Venetian is lovely. There are three Caesar’s sports betting kiosks in spitting distance for those wanting to lose at two forms of gambling at once. Sadly for fellow nicotine addicts who need to be within 5ft of a vaping area at all times, the room is useless. So I didn’t play there despite it being genuinely really quite pleasant.

The rest of my $1/3 volume on the Strip came at The Encore where the games seemed to be juicy at all times of the day, there was no pissing rake up the wall with absurd high hand, hand of the hour, bad beat jackpot, or other such nonsense, and the bottled water appeared to not be recycled swimming pool water. The Encore remains one of a handful of venues in my database (of recreational play) where I am winning, that is if I had managed to walk past their restaurants and buffet.

The conference started off with a poker tournament at the Golden Nugget – $200+50 with it being unclear where the rake was going. I immediately got roped into a $500 last longer with a group of fellow hasbeens, fish, and no doubt some sharks. It was fairly irrelevant as I busted un-triumphantly in the early levels. It was a good excuse to mingle around the bar and the tournament was the perfect ice breaker for myself and my team before the effective main event of speed networking the next day.

For those that haven’t done one of these before, you get 6 minutes to talk to 15 people back to back to back. It is extremely intense and taking a notebook would have been a fantastic idea. What essentially happened was I got a general gist for what the person did, and added their phone number if it sounded vaguely useful and if I remembered to ask. The next couple of days were a mixture of seminars (I went to 4 or 5 but found they weren’t targeted at me) and meeting partners old and new.

I managed to fit a few more sessions in at the Golden Nugget in the downtime, including losing my biggest pot in Vegas where I somehow find 250BB each in the middle with 55 on 2346 against 33.

The final event was a black tie dinner and drinks which was great fun – a special shout out to our waitress who had no qualms in exchanging the left over bottles of wine on other tables for $10 and duly enabled myself and chums to go and do their proverbials on the dice table.

Prior to my absurd routing home (LAS-SFO-SEA-CLT-DUB…-EDI) I had the foresight of booking the Mandalay Bay hotel just opposite the airport. The hangover was substantial and I was absolutely delighted at the check in staff offering me up a room at 11am. I had fully intended to play the $300 Encore weekly as a last hurrah but the prospect of negotiating strip traffic on a day where the vice president is in town soon put paid to that and I settled for the $60 daily. My colleague ended up finishing 3rd, I got a good nap in, then won the nightly $100 myself for $1600 [1].

After a bit of a sweat with the first flight being delayed, I did manage to get into Seattle around 5:30pm, perfect for the Sunday nightly at (checks notes) Silver Dollar Casino Renton. It’s a relatively tired room – the staff were very friendly and the regulars too albeit quiet. The Mariners were up 12-1 and no one at all seemed to care, but they did come to life a bit when I jested how good the DJ was when N*Sync came blurring over the tannoy system. I declined paying 5th when the structure paid four, and held out on a heads up chop much to the dismay of the staff and my opponent. I gave in eventually though after he very accurately pointed out how many more chips he had than me and that we could all get on with our lives.

I felt relatively comfortable making the 10pm 0.3 mile walk across to the neighbouring Fortune Poker Room but an additional couple of grand more in my pocket and I may not have risked it. These rooms are quite strange – seemingly in the middle of no where and people had clearly travelled to play. This reflected in the reg-fest I faced at the Fortune $3/5 table where people seemed to be making a good portion of their living from hitting high hand jackpots. I am a bit salty because having refused to straddle I did agree to an orbit of bomb pots – something that seems to have seeped into the modern game as they look for new ways to put robots out of their comfort zone. I did my absolute bollocks on them and lost back all the tournament winnings and more – the two main gems being getting in 95 on J95ss vs J5 and then not getting in JT on 789 before then getting it in on the 8 and A turn against AA and an alleged 77. It’s an interesting game because the maximum bet/raise cap is $300 so by the time the river comes down there’s a lot of betting 25% of pot for $300 despite stacks being considerably deeper.

All said and done I managed to lose in three cities, so I suppose it doesn’t only happen in Vegas after all. A fantastic trip and a shout out to my girlfriend for convincing me to sit by the pool some days, and my colleagues for making the conference considerably more manageable.

If you are a serious sports bettor, get in touch and maybe we can do something together.

[1] What, you thought I was going to blog when I didn’t win?

The post “Only Happens In Vegas” was first posted on Rupert Elder’s Blog.

David Colclough

Back in 2004 when I first starting playing poker, I played on a site called Bet365. David Colclough had a column for the site and I obsessively read them trying to pick up tips. I particularly remember one article where he discussed the benefits of 2.5’ing vs 4x’ing in tournaments. Another article discussed a satellite he’d recently played where they were on the direct bubble and someone who had more or less locked in a seat called an all in with kings much to the dismay of Colclough as he was one of the shorter stacks (the kings ended up holding anyway).

Before ending up at the University of Warwick in 2009, I did a brief half year stint at Imperial College London. At the freshers fair, David came and played the tournament and after busting ended up playing a bunch of heads up sit and go’s against all comers. I didn’t get to play him but I did get him to pose for a photo with my then favourite hand 97. He thought it was some sort of set up, hence his look of somewhat dismay, but I was absolutely chuffed.

Rup and ElBlondie

I was an early signup to his poker forum Blonde Poker and for the last 11 years have spent more time than I care to think reading and posting on it. I still read it pretty much every single day despite playing less and less poker myself.

Down the years I ended up seeing David on the scene, in particular around the Midlands casinos (Birmingham Broadway and Walsall usually) always in seemingly soft games. I played with him in a few tournaments, even busting him from a couple. I chronicled him owning me in a couple of pots here (lol 2010 poker).

I grind away and get up to 19k before raising AKss UTG at 75/150 to 475, something like 3 callers and i’m first to act. Flop is A23 two tone, I bet 1125 and David Colclough is the only caller on the button. The turn is 4d giving me a flush draw. I think checking and betting are close, I think he might even fold a flop FD if I bet and even hands like AQ AJ he’s not loving so might only continue with two pairs/sets/straights/sometimes FD. He checks behind and river is a 7. Pots about 4k I think and I bet 2825 which is pretty big bet and obv for value. He raises to 5825 and I make a massively spewy call and get shown 85ss. Pretty awful call but nevermind.

The last time I saw David at a tournament was the APT Philippines in Manilla. I’d won some sort of joke package on iPoker which involved me spending $1k to play a $2k tournament. After I busted I jumped in one of the softest $10/20 games I’ve ever played. Across the room in the $25/50 was David surrounded by Phillipino and Chinese business men [1].

Along with Daniel Negreanu, David was my original poker hero from his Bet 365 articles, playing with him the The Hendon Mob League, watching him on Late Night Poker, and of course, Blonde Poker. I have always found him to have time for people, be easy to talk to (albeit often quiet), and pleasant at the table. Rest in peace, David.

[1] Incidentally, this is where I played with Elton Tsang and a month later after winning San Remo I sent him a message offering to stake him. He declined, which is good for him, he just won the €1m one drop for €11m.

The post “David Colclough” was first posted on Rupert Elder’s Blog.