Day 193

7-12-18 Thursday

Started out the morning with a McDonald’s breakfast burrito and orange juice—NOT on my diet, but hell, what happens in Vegas…you know.

I went to meet but they hadn’t had breakfast yet, so I told Terry I would be at the Golden Nugget playing poker and he can meet me there.  I got on a table right away.  Terry came about an hour later but was at a different table.

Once again, I had a rough time of it, at one point being in for $140.  What hurt was that I hit a straight flush draw on the flop three times, so naturally I had to stay to the river.  On all three times, people were betting and raising.  Of course, none of them came.  I know I’m playing right; I’m just having some bad luck.  I did take a quite a few pots, be they were all small.  Every time I got into a decent pot, someone would suck out on me.  That’s poker.  By the last hour, I did manage to catch some pots and end up losing $68 for the four hour session.  All told, not too bad. 

Terry was also having a bad session until he flopped a queen and he had two in his hand.  He bet every bet and two people came along and when the fourth queen hit the river, he got a jackpot of $156, which put him in the black for the session.

We quit at 1 PM, because we decided to go play in the Omaha hi-low limit tournament at the South Coast.  The three of us drove there and Louise went to play machines.  Terry almost  chickened out, but finally to agree considering it was only $60.  I convinced him that because we’ve been playing online for so long, it was time to dive in.  Twenty people signed up.  Terry and I were at different tables.  Of course, playing limit was new to me, so I just played very tight until I could see how it went.  I soon caught on.  I was very careful playing good cards and watching my position, which turned out to be the most important as players were constantly raising and re-raising over and over again.  I can’t remember one hand that it ever was checked around.

I caught some pots and managed to make it to the final table with nine players INCLUDING Terry.  The tourney only paid the top two, $540 and $360.  I went all in on one hand that had players capping raises every street.  It was nuts.  However…I had the high (flush) and the low (A/4 – there was a 2/3 on the board) and took the whole thing giving me the chip lead.  We got down to five and Terry finally went out.  The next hand, a player went out in fourth.  At that point, there were two ladies and I.  I was the chip leader, but not by a whole lot.  We all agreed to chop, so we all split the $900.  So, I cashed in my first Omaha tournament.  The money also brought me almost all the way back for the trip.

We had dinner (it was already 5 PM, we were in the tournament for almost 4 hours—nice play for $60) at the café there at South Point.  We then went and checked out the Palms.  I heard there was so much re-modeling, but it really was not that big a deal.

We got back downtown and walked to the Golden Gate to hit those 8/5 BP progressives once again.  The royal was now over $1350.  By the way, Terry did catch a straight flush that was dealt to him after I left for $178 last night.  I was the only one who caught any quad, three but no bonus, and finally after a couple hours, called it a night.  I lost $50.  I walked a bit on Fremont considering this is our last night.  There are TOO many crazy people and beggars for my liking.  I love the casinos there, but I’m fed up with the zoo on Fremont. 

Overall, a good day in Las Vegas.

The breakfast burrito breakfast at McDonald's was a bad idea as I ordered the meal with orange juice (something I should never drink) and that potato thing fried in grease and even the burritos were bad for me.  The whole thing was probably about 1000 calories.  However, I was a good boy at dinner having a Denver omelet and fruit along with a little of Terry's noodles.  I didn't do any jogging this morning and counted on my walking around to fill the goal and though I needed to put on another 2000 steps before going to bed, I did that, so good news there.  I have no doubt getting back to my routine of jogging around the lakes will be a chore, but I'm actually looking forward to it. 

Food intake: McDonald's breakfast burrito meal (1000); Denver omelet and fruit (500)