Subject: WSOP 2001 Trip Report - Part I Date: Sun, 20 May 2001 08:03:43 GMT From: "Sgt. Rock" Organization: Ada-Z Systems Newsgroups: rec.gambling.poker We flew Seattle to Vegas on Friday, April 20, went straight to Bellagio, checked-in, and started playing WSOP side-action. This was the fifth consecutive year that we visited Vegas for WSOP but never went downtown. Last year we planned a two week trip and stretched it into three, so this year we just booked three weeks- actually four weekends- and parked it at Bellagio until Monday, May 14. I dunno why, but we always go home on the day the Big Dance begins. We knew up front that the Bellagio Poker Rate room charges, plus tax, for our 24 night stay was gonna run over $3,800, and we wondered just how good our expectation had to be to justify that expense. The shift-boss we talked to upon arrival told us that we would have to play some in the "upstairs games" to justify the safe-deposit box that he hooked us up with. We had come to town planning to play $30-60 and maybe check out the $80-160 if it looked good. Heh. Turned out that we mostly ignored the $30-60, and played Tag-Team Marathon $80-160 for 25 straight days. The $80-160 main game generally went for days on end, but occasionally it broke briefly between dawn and noon. In the afternoons and late into the night there was usually a must-move or sometimes two must-moves. At Bellagio, if two or more games of the same type are spread above the $30-60 level, a must-move system is used. I love it. The house again granted us "Couples Rule" privileges, so when Mrs. Rock was in the main game and I was in the must-move, I stayed at the top of the move list, but in the second game, until such time as she got up. Only then was I required to move. In this way I could go get some sleep, come back, get into the rotation, and work my way to "first up" from the must-move game. Then, whenever she felt like it, Mrs. Rock could leave the main game- I took her seat- and she could go sleep for a while, then come back and start in the rotation herself, eventually replace me, and so on. During one period early in our trip there was one of the two of us in the main game at all times over five consecutive days. The downside: I had to sleep alone ;-( The $80-160 games were awesome. The $30-60s looked pretty damn good too, but we were busy. All the Usual Suspects were there, plus quite a few new faces. There were a couple very good, several good, and many really bad players. We were pleasantly surprised at how comfortable we felt in these games. On the other hand, the swings were... well, let's just say that we both took wild roller-coaster rides. We each came to town with our own, fairly healthy trip bank, although hers was 20% bigger than mine. Over 3 weeks+ I watched my original stake grow by 30%, then get cut in half, then DOUBLE, then, finally, shrink to 135% of its original size. Meanwhile, Mama got hit by a freight train early in the trip, and blew nearly half her BR. Then she fought her way back, and by the time we went home she had grown her starting BR by 40%. I felt a "Dangling Carrot" effect, because right up to the end it looked like, for once, I was gonna out-perform her. Yeah, right. Over the final couple days I hit a big downturn, while she climbed steadily upwards, and the Gold Medal was snatched from my grasp again. Bad beat. --- Showing Your Losing Hand "Vincente" is a caballero from south of the border, but has lived in Vegas for some years. He plays mid-limit HE at Bellagio almost every day. He's a really nice guy, always (OK, usually) a gentleman, and we're buddies. On two consecutive days I saw flops heads-up against him, and both times I knocked him off the best hand, where he held an Ace and I didn't. One time there was an Ace on board, and he folded to my bet on the river; it seemed like he was saying "Well, I didn't hit my kicker, and you must have me out-kicked." The other time he folded to my bet on the turn, when I only had a draw, and his no-pair was better than my no-pair. Just how weak his laydowns were or were not is only of secondary importance. What's really critical- the horrible mistake he made and then made again the next day- was that HE SHOWED ME his hand as he released it. How often do you see Hold 'Em players show their losing hand? How often do you show somebody (anybody!) the hand that you're folding, or that you've just lost with on the river? When should you show the hand you're releasing? NEVER! What are you looking for, sympathy? Or maybe you want them to admire your awesome laydown? If you show your opponent the hand you're folding, what you're really doing is TEACHING HIM JUST WHAT HE CAN KNOCK YOU OFF OF! Think about it. And if you ever see me show the hand I'm releasing, please slap my face. Wait a minnit. Completely apropos, I just now read PokerFish's rgp news flash about Phil G's amazing preflop laydown of KK against Phil H's all-in AA on Day 4 of The Big One. OK, I did say NEVER, but if there are ever exceptional circumstances, approaching that final table might just be one of them. In general, tho, never show the hand you're releasing, unless you are intent on educating the enemy. --- HFAP says that you should fold JJ preflop if it's raised and re-raised before you, right? Abdul's published preflop strategy disagrees, differentiates between games of various "personalities," and advocates sometimes four-betting with JJ. Well, one day a loose-aggressive guy open-raised two off the button, and a looser, more aggressive guy 3-bet right behind him. I was on the button, looked down at 99, and FOUR BET. That was a lifetime first for me, but I felt that the situation justified it. Turned out that BOTH these guys had bigger pairs than me, but I got lucky and flopped a set. :-) --- Major Suckout I 3-bet with AKo and the guy on my left 4-bets. One blind calls, and we see the flop 4 way: QT4. Bet early and called around. Turn is a blank, and I call one bet, but it's raised right behind me, and when it gets back around to me there are 28 small bets in the pot. I call. Jack on the river makes my Broadway. Boy, did I get lucky again, or what? :-) --- Dee W. open-raises in late position with KhTh and I 3-bet from the SB wih AA. Flop comes 7h,9h,4d. Bet, raise, raise, raise, call. I worry that she may have flopped a set. Turn: Kc; check, bet, call. River: Ks; check, bet, call. I guess I saved some chips. She wasn't going anywhere anyway. :-( 30 minutes later a yo-yo open-raises from middle position, I 3-bet right behind him with AdAh, and Mickey C. 4-bets from late position with KK. Mickey is one of the two or three best mid-high limit Hold 'Em players I know, and so I just call, thinking that some deception might be of value here. Flop comes: Kh,7h,4h. Oops. I just KNOW that he has flopped a set, and he just KNOWS that he does not want to see another heart. He bets all the way, and I just call him down. No heart. I guess I saved some chips. He wasn't going anywhere anyway. :-( These were the kinds of situations where the guy who just lost with Aces will often show them to everyone. Not me. No way. Let 'em wonder. --- A European tourist comes in to "play-over," sits into an seven-handed game two to the left of the BB, but posts $80 anyway. The man wants to gamble RIGHT NOW, and that's certainly OK! UTG mucks, and the new guy doesn't know that he has to act. The dealer has to explain to him that he can check or can raise. I'm right behind him, and Mickey is right behind me. While ding-dong is deciding what to do, the two guys behind Mickey both get impatient, look at their hands, and TELL us that they're folding. Finally, the new guy checks. I decide to raise unless my hand is REALLY horrible, look down at T7o, and raise. One blind and the new guy call, but they both release on the flop. Afterwards, I just can't resist quietly telling Mickey what I had played. He pretended to believe me, but I don't think he really did. --- May Day = National Quads Day On May 1 (Day 11 of our trip) I flopped 7777 on my first hand of the day, and turned 8888 on another hand 40 minutes later. Later that evening I made QQQQ, showed it down, and proudly declared "Eight titties!" --- Did you know that Lady Luck and Lady Liberty are sisters? When I was a kid growing up in LA in the 50s and 60s, my parents and grandparents drove to Vegas for the weekend sometimes (never once took me) and would usually come home with silver dollars. If I was a good little boy, they might even give me one or two. In those days I don't think there was any such thing as a $1 chip, or a $1 casino slot coin; they just used silver dollars in all games and machines until 1963 or so. When we started going to Vegas in 1991, I looked back to the early 60s, and started carrying a couple silver dollars with me and keeping them on my stack in the blackjack games, just because. I just like silver dollars, OK? When players ask me if I collect them, however, I tell them "No, I was gonna, but I decided to collect hundred dollar bills instead." Trevor is a frequent $15-30 player and we've been pals for a few years. Where I just kinda like silver dollars, he's a serious collector, attends shows, does the Ebay thing, buys and sells coins all the time. I been bugging him for over a year to pick me some "Junk Silver Dollars," which is what they call real silver (1935 and earlier) dollars that are usually in mediocre condition (very circulated) and are not a rare year. Well, one Sunday he comes in with a bucket of 72 such coins, hands it to me, and asks "You want 'em?" Then he walks away, doing his Arnie imitation. "I'll be back." So there I am in the $80 game, stacking 72 silver dollars (plus the 3 I already had out) around my three racks of chips, playing with them, shuffling stacks of them, having fun. If the other players already thought I was strange, this clinched it. One time I made a blind-steal raise with, literally, Jack-shit, but then protected my hand with a big stack of silver; kind of a reverse tell, if you will. Seemed to work. :-) So, when Trev returned and told me the market price, I paid him cash for the lot. I have a few extra "antique" wood racks, and keep one on my desk at home. Where it was mostly empty before, now it is nearly filled with silver dollars. I like it. Hey, please remember that the main reason I play poker is to win enough money to afford some therapy, OK? Also, I like to give them away now and then. Gave one to Abdul. Gave one to Izmet. Gave one to a couple other guys. Laid the same line on my favorite high-limit floorlady and my favorite mid-limit floorman that I laid on both ladies in the Poker Room office. "Does anyone ever come in here who is so cheap that they toke you just one dollar?" Then I toked them "just one dollar." Went over pretty well. --- Viva la France! We saw several visiting French players for the third or fourth year in a row. I guess these guys are accustomed to playing pot limit all the time, and I'm sure they're very good at it, (Yeah, right, like how would I know?) but they just don't seem to understand limit games. They'll constantly try to knock you off your big pair with any kind of a draw. I guess that can often be successful with a BIG bet in a PL game, but they still expect it to work in limit. It usually doesn't. One Frenchman in particular, "David," who we saw this year for the first time, was really a trip. First time I saw him he came from the must-move into the main game with four racks, and left two hours later with nine racks. ($80-160 is played with Orange $20 checks, so a rack is $2000.) When you play nearly every hand, you're gonna have dramatic results, one way or the other. David is a young and handsome guy, with kind of a Tom Cruise look, and some of the hottest cocktail waitresses were drooling all over him. He played $80. He played $200-400. He played $300-600. He played pot limit. He knew no fear, and had PLENTY of money. We shot the bull a few times, and I had some trouble keeping a straight face when I asked him what he did and he told me that he is a Professional Poker Player at the Aviation Club in Paris. --- Bizarre River Bets Pop quiz: There are only two possible reasons that you should want to bet on the river. What are they? Answer below, but, first, a word from our sponsor-- Please don't think I expect you to believe that the advice above about never showing your losing hand, nor the advice below about river betting, nor any advice I give in any post, is represented to be original thinking on my part. It's not. It's mostly stuff that I read somewhere. Sometimes I can recall exactly where, and sometimes not. I have a big library, and I read a lot. If I ever have an original insightful thought, I'll probably keep it to myself, as it will most likely be quite lonely. Meanwhile, I'm just a messenger, a shameless plagiarist, regurgitating the wisdom of others. Many others. OK, thanks; glad we got that out of the way. Now, back to the quiz. Nearly everyone I ask this of says the same thing: Bet the river if you think you have the best hand. Wrong answer. Thinking that you have the best hand is NEVER a good reason to bet the river. The ONLY valid reasons for betting on the river are: 1- To be called by a weaker hand, or; 2- To make a stronger hand fold. Period. As usual, there may be some exceptions, but I can't think of any. Can you? Before you push those chips out there on the end, you must first decide: Why am I betting? What weaker hand can I put him on that he will call with? What stronger hand can I put him on that he will muck? If you can't come up with a good answer for any of those questions, then ask yourself: If I just check, will he bet a hand that he would have folded to my bet? Here's an extreme example. Suppose you're in a situation, on the river, where there's a-- - 95% chance that you have the best hand. - 0% chance that your opponent will call your bet, unless he can beat you. - 20% chance that your opponent will bet (try to bluff) if you check. In this case, what do you gain by betting? Probably nothing. Now imagine some more cases, where those 3 percentage values are adjusted, some up, some down, whichever way you like. For any situation, the "Two Reasons for Betting the River" rule will ALWAYS apply. Well, in those $80-160 games, time and again I saw guys make bizarre river bets, like bottom pair against three opponents, when there was no good reason to bet. Their hand was too good to bluff with, and too weak to bet with, but they would bet it anyway. Occasionally they would really amaze me by getting called and still winning a showdown with such flakey river bets. I guess that if an Ace high will call you, then just about anything can be bet for value. :-) More often, however, they would show down hands that they probably should not have bet, and they would be beaten in two places. Many times I was heads up with, like AK or AQ, had flopped top pair, and some guy in the blind, or some early limper was trying to chase me down. He might have the same big pair as me, but with a weak kicker, or maybe just something like second pair. Then, when a scare card hit on the river (or even if a blank hit), he would suddenly bet out. I would call, he would show his hand, then I would show my better hand, and take it. Why did he bet? His bet might have made more sense if, say, he had missed a draw completely, and was purely bluffing. But with his marginal calling hand, a bet makes no sense. They seemed to be saying "Well, I'm gonna call you anyway, so I may as well just go ahead and bet." Huh? That might make sense sometimes on the flop or on the turn, but not on the river. [Note: As I write this Fri Nite 5/18, I'm listening to the audio webcast of the final table. Viva Carlos! - and the 'net.] --- Continued in Part II (separate post) Sgt. Rock http://sarge.virtualave.net = Newly restored Google links to my old reports and essays here. Subject: WSOP 2001 Trip Report - Part II Date: Sun, 20 May 2001 08:04:02 GMT From: "Sgt. Rock" Organization: Ada-Z Systems Newsgroups: rec.gambling.poker (Continued from Part I, a separate post) --- Jujitsu Poker Jujitsu n. a method of defending oneself without weapons by using the strength and weight of an opponent to disable him or her. [Random House Dictionary] Most poker literature teaches us that "Tight, aggressive play gets the money," and I think we can all buy into that concept. My above-described preflop 4-bet with 99 and raise with T7o are about as aggressive as I can get, but they were also situational. In most situations, those same plays would probably have just been stupid. Aggressiveness, yes, certainly, but only when appropriate. It is not always appropriate. I still think that "The Delta Factor," which I described in detail in an rgp essay a couple years ago, is MORE important than raw aggressiveness. Delta as in "Difference." I still say that the single most important thing you gotta do to beat the game is "play DIFFERENTLY than the other guys." Duh, you say? A lot of the guys I faced in the $80-160 were VERY aggressive- often OVERLY aggressive- and I just played pretty tight Jujitsu Poker against them. When they were also real loose, then I loosened up just a little too. When they bet out on or after the flop and I thought I probably had them beat, I often just called, and let them continue to bet. Example: loose-aggressive guy raises from middle position and I call from BB with ATo. Heads-up flop comes A (or T) high and I just check-call. I might just check-call all the way, depending on the other guy's tendancies. I figure there's a good chance I have him beat. If I'm wrong, and he has a big hand (for a change) then getting aggressive will just cost me money. Sometimes it's hard to remember that dummies get Aces just as often as you do (and make two pair, trips, straights, flushes and boats MORE often than you do.) If I DO have him beat, and if I raise and he folds, I've gained nothing. There are many times that Jujitsu Poker is NOT a good idea. Letting a guy draw cheaply, or playing top pair passively against several opponents are probably things you DON'T want to do. But when heads-up against a loose aggressive opponent, it sometimes seems best to just let him bet as much as he wants to. On the other hand, there were a couple guys I saw day after day who would, in particular, bet/raise as much as they could with pretty much ANY draw, pot-odds be damned. When heads-up with these guys, and if I thought they were drawing, I made it as expensive for them as I could. --- I Remember Abdul Very late one night- well, actually around 3:30am- Mrs. Rock and I quit our respective games around the same time Abdul came into the room, and we all three went to the Bellagio Coffee Shop, had a big breakfast, and traded lies for a while. I kinda wanted to reminisce with him about the first time we met, but we talked about other things instead. So, hey, I'll reminisce with you. Rewind to Christmas/New Years 1993. Mrs. Rock and I head to Vegas for our 4th annual year-end Blackjack Trip (OK, the first annual was actually Reno) and spend the first week at Four Queens, spreading green in their single deck games, where I blow over 80% of our trip-bank. On Dec 30 we check-out, walk across the street, and check-in at the Golden Nugget. Boy, those were the days. We were comped RFB in both places. At the Nugget I went straight to my favorite $25 single deck table, but, because it was New Years, they had made it $100 minimum. I only had $1700 left in my pocket. My remaining stake was too small for the $25 game, so it was ridiculously inadequate for a $100 game. But I was on tilt, and I played it anyway, flat betting the minimum. Soon I noticed that the floorman was coming by the table every few minutes and using his pencil to count down a couple stacks of White checks (with Red and Blue accents) in the dealer's rack. I knew that Black was $100, Purple $500 and Gold $1000, but "What are those White Chips?" I asked. "$5,000," they told me. They had brought out the big guns for the big holiday. "Really? Can I see one?" I had never seen a $5,000 check before. "No." The floorman was clearly nervous about them, and kept counting and re-counting them. Well, I flat-bet one black chip for quite a few hours, deviating only my strategy with the count. Mrs. Rock played in a $5 game. Around 3:00am I left my game, went to her table, said "Well, honey, we gotta go to bed now. I only have one chip left," and dropped a White Flag chip on the felt in front of her. Lady Luck had helped me run my $1700 up to exactly $5000. (rgp'r "fich" was there with us and saw the whole thing. Remember, fich?) After some sleep I returned to the same table, bought back in with my Flag Chip, and after a short (14 hour) session I had TWO Flag Chips. Nearly all the time I played, there was this guy playing mostly alone at the table just to my left. Takes one to know one; I soon saw that he was counting cards too. It was Abdul. You may have guessed that Abdul Jalib is not his real name. I introduced myself, and he gave me his business card: Abdullah bin Mustafazool Jalibinski, Sr. You can see why he shortened it for the internet. Examining the other info on the card (he actually had a job back then) I saw that, hey, this guy literally is a Rocket Scientist! Wow. Anyway, we chatted some when the pit critters were out of earshot, and became acquainted. I kept flat-betting one black for the whole weekend, and ended up winning about 100 bets more than I lost, thus restoring our BR. We went home about even, but we had a great time. Plus, we made a new friend. It just don't get any better than that. --- Back to the present. More $80-160 hands from this trip. A really funny guy, a Vegas local and consummate Bellagio habitue, who, a couple years ago, introduced himself to me as "Asshole Mike," open-raises from early position, and I 3-bet right behind him with 55. I think this kind of reraise is the first one on John Feeney's list of "Mistakes Good Players Make," and the Doctor is surely right. Re-raising preflop with a small pair too often is a mistake that I certainly used to (still?) make. This time, however, "it just felt right." The guy was on tilt (again), was likely to raise with just about anything, and he's another guy who tends to show me too much respect. I've got lucky against this guy so many times that he's afraid of me. Well, I got lucky again, and flopped a set, but he released on the turn and never saw it. --- Move over Move? Somebody said that "Leonardo" is exactly 21 years old. He's new in Vegas, plays pretty fast, and with much (too much?) confidence. Nice looking kid, and I call him "Leonardo" because he has some resemblance to that guy played the heartthrob in Titanic. Anyway, UTG raises, but gets 4 callers, then I call with 77 from the SB, and Leo calls from the BB. 7 way action; 14 bets in the pot. Flop comes 683 rainbow, but it's checked around! Turn comes another 3, and I bet out. Leo slaps a raise out there in 2 milliseconds, and everyone mucks around to the button, a chase-anything tourist, who calls after a slight hesitation. I pause. I hold up a finger to signal the dealer for time. I been watching Leo, and he's been watching me. After a few seconds I decide that he's putting a move on me, and I slowly and deliberately re-raise. The moment I cut the third stack, Leo mucks just as quickly as he raised. Button STILL calls, and I wonder what he's looking for. River comes 4, so board is now 683,3,4. Check, check; I show 2 pair and take it. Faced Leo many more times over the next couple weeks, and several times when I came into a pot he moaned "Oh, no, not The Rock..." and showed me considerably more respect than I deserve. I like that. --- One evening this jokester came through the game. Older gent. Didn't stick around very long, but for the brief time he sat next to me, he seemed to want to tell jokes nonstop. Couple of them were pretty funny. One in particular, a one-liner, really made me laugh, but when I repeated it to other people later, I found that many of them didn't seem to get it. Telling this joke became sort of an acid-test; I would tell it, and then watch most people say "Huh?" Anyway, you try. Here it is: "Did you hear about the plastic surgeon who hung himself?" --- A Suck and a Re-suck Having just moved up to the main game and posted behind the button for my first hand, I open-raise with 8d9d, and "Danny Oh Oh" 3-bets from the BB with QQ. Board comes 894,8,Q. Ouch. At least he bet out on the river and I only raised him once. :-) --- I've Got Your Number Man, everybody and his brother has a cell phone on the table in the $80 game. You wanna shake somebody up? Find out your opponent's cell number, and program it into your speed dial. Wait 'til you're heads-up at opposite ends of the table, and hold your phone out of sight in your lap. As he's reaching for chips to bet the turn, punch the button. [Ring...] "Hello?" (He's betting with one hand and answering his phone with the other.) "Hi, Mickey. This is Sarge. Just calling to say... RAISE!" --- A yo-yo open-raises, Muriel 3-bets, and I 4-bet from the BB with KK. Board comes T33,8,3. Muriel raises me on the turn, and I check-call the river. She shows me AA. Boy, do I feel stupid. She really got me that time. Or maybe I got myself. --- Character and Psychology Everyone's true character shows itself sooner or later in the poker game. Good, bad or ugly, every opponent will eventually show you what they're really like, deep down inside. You may not like what you see. If you're there to win money, then you're there to take advantage of the other guy's character flaws, his tendancy towards denial, his emotional instability (tilt), and sometimes, his simple stupidity. This must be why Abdul advises us to "Surround yourself with idiots." Everyone knows that poker is a combination of math and psychology. Most think that the "psychology" part pertains to your opponents- reading them, deceiving them, psyching them out, and defending yourself when they try to do those things to you. Well, that stuff is important, but even more important is understanding that the player who can do the most psychological damage to you, your game, and your bankroll, is the guy you see when you go to the restroom and look in the mirror. --- I have 7d3d on the button and SIX guys limp in ahead of me. I flop two pair, and the flop goes five way for four bets. Then I turn a boat, and get action there and on the river. Oh, baby, I think I feel a rush coming on. Very next lap, I'm in late position, one off the button, FOUR guys limp in ahead of me, and I limp with 9hJh. Damn, I almost raised. Flop comes KdQhTh. Damn, I SHOULDA raised! French David check-raises me when a blank hits on the turn, and I hope like hell he doesn't have AJ, or, if he does, that another heart will fall. Kh or even 8h would be particularly nice. River comes Ac, and I figure we're chopping it, but, no, he has no Jack. He was trying to put that pot limit move on me. Viva la France! Late next morning I DO make a Royal. Held KsQs, flop came As,Ts,?, and I'll be damned if the Js didn't hit on the turn. I even got called in one place on the river. Been playing Hold 'Em for 7 years, and that was my tenth Royal Flush. I know one guy been playing 12 years says he never had one yet. Go figure. --- Gary Heller One more flashback, OK? Mrs. Rock and I attended $3-6 Hold 'Em Grammar School at the Stardust throughout 1994. During that calendar year, we made 31 air round trips to Vegas to play 3-frickin'-6; can you believe it? We were there more weekends than we were home. Anyway, there was a Mirage black chip games player named Gary Heller who used to drop in now and then to visit friends, and sometimes he'd sit in the 3-6 just for fun. He seemed to know ALL the dealers and other staff, and when he wasn't around, they all talked about much dough he had made in LA real estate, how high he played, and how good he was. A couple times he sat next to me, and we got to talking, and became friendly. In fact, now that I think back, I recall that he even offered to stake me in the Mirage $10-20. He wasn't looking to make a sound investment, but rather was just trying to be nice and help me find the confidence to try a bigger game. I demurred, but I was really touched by his kind offer. Gary always played the 3-6 VERY FAST, and tried to run over everyone. Finally I asked him one day "Hey, you're supposed to be the best player in the room, and yet you're playing every hand. How can that be?" "Look," he replied, "I just lost $18,000 in a $300-600 game. I'm just here to blow off some steam. It's better than going on tilt in the big game, isn't it?" "Oh." His reasoning kinda sorta almost made sense to me at the time, and I just let it go. Lately, I've started to better understand where Gary was coming from. A couple times on this trip (when I was trying to make a transition from buried to stuck) I said to Mrs. Rock, "Hey, let's go over to the Stardust, buy a rack or two, sit in the $3-6, and play like maniacs!" She just gave me that look- you know the one I mean. Sometime soon, tho, I'm gonna drag her over there and we'll try it. I look forward to reporting it on this forum. I don't know what became of Gary. His health was poor. Anybody out there know him, or know what became of him? --- This was the first trip in recent memory where I had no desire to extend our visit beyond the planned return date. After 25 nonstop days and nights of $80-160 Hold 'Em, we were both fried to a crisp. For the last couple days I was spaced-out and playing on autopilot half the time. That's not good. On Monday, May 14 we packed-out, checked-out, played 'til 6:45pm, then limped to the airport for the 8:20pm nonstop to Seattle. When Southwest said there would be a 40 minute delay, we wanted to cry. We were exhausted, and just wanted to get into that 737 and collapse. Fortunately, the delay was only 30 minutes, then we were on our way. Between us we won enough to pay our big hotel bill about 5 times over. Good trip. Now we're sitting on air tix and room reservations for a Bellagio arrival next Saturday morning, for Memorial Day weekend, then on to LA the Tuesday after for a few days at the Commerce, then back home on Sunday, June 3. We're still not recovered from the WSOP trip. All I've done since we got home was sleep, go to work, and write this stupid report. All she's done since we got home was sleep, sleep, and then sleep some more. We're hoping to get our batteries more fully recharged over the next few days. I think we can cut it, See you next weekend, I hope. Sgt. Rock aka WoodRack-777 http://sarge.virtualave.net = Newly restored Google links to my old reports and essays here.