Well, it was good to be back in Vegas again. The last time I was here was June when Dan and I played in the World Series of Poker. This trip was planned to be a longer trip than I usually do for Vegas. I arrived Wednesday noonish and was staying until my flight left Tuesday morning around 7am. This trip was a little different, with everyone that was coming to Vegas arriving and leaving on different days. I already mentioned when I came in, David showed up later Wednesday and left early Monday. Dan showed up later on Friday and left Monday afternoon. Chris showed up later on Thursday and was leaving Wednesday. Brian showed up Thursday and left late Monday night. David, Dan, and I stayed at NY NY, and Brian and Chris were staying at the Imperial Palace. So all in all five of us were out there, and there was lots of poker to be played.
I had some time to kill prior to meeting up with David, so after making a poor decision to play a little craps at NY NY where I lost $107, I decided to take a stroll down to the Bellagio to play in their poker room. I got my name on the $2/$5 No Limit game, and found out that the Bellagio had changed the format a little bit. When I was here in June that game had a buy-in of $200. It now had a $200 minimum with a $500 maximum.
I looked around the room to see if there were any recognizable faces, as a lot of the pros play here in Bobby's Room, which is a separate room within the poker room at the Bellagio, but none were to be seen. The poker room was rather busy though, as the WPT's Five Diamond Classic had just wrapped up on Tuesday, and there were still a lot of people playing at the poker rooms that were here for that. I didn't see any of the poker pros until my name got called. I went to get some chips and saw Erik Seidel talking with either a fan or a friend while he was waiting in line at the cage. He got in line behind me, and since there were a couple people in front of me yet I decided to turn around and say hi and acknowledge the guy. He was friendly enough. I commented on his pair of Full Tilt commercials, which I'm sure no one has EVER mentioned to him before, and then I got called up to the window. While I was being helped another cashier asked Erik to step up to the cage. It turns out he was either cashing in some chips or getting some smaller ones because when he put his chips on the counter he had several $5000 chips there. As I was trying to count his stack I heard his cashier ask, "I'm sorry sir, but do you have ID?" at which point I almost started laughing. I looked at the cashier and told him, "Umm, I can vouch that he's Erik Seidel as can most of the room." The cashier looked briefly at me then turned to Erik and asked, "Well, do you have a player's club card?" Now I had to laugh! Here is a guy who's won seven WSOP bracelets and probably plays in this room with the big hitters on a regular basis being asked for ID! Erik handled it pretty well, giving the guy the "don't-you-know-who-I-am" look, but pulled out his ID for him. I just couldn't stop laughing as I got my chips and headed to my seat.
I took my seat and early in to the game I found myself holding Ad-3d in early position. I made it $15 to go, and was called by two players including the big blind. The flop hit me pretty hard as it came 2d-4s-5s with two spades. I decided to bet my wheel hoping that an overpair would raise it, but my bet drove out the late position players and the big blind called. The turn came King. The big blind checked to me so I bet a little over half the pot hoping that if the player was on the flush draw they'd just go away, but this player decided to raise me. I was trying to put the player on a hand with which they would check-raise me. Since I was holding the second nuts I guessed that he was on a flush draw that paired him or maybe even had now two-paired him (maybe with the Ks), so I decided to reraise all in. I was called immediately. Now, unlike most casinos' cash games once players are all in and the betting is complete the Bellagio makes you turn over your cards. It was then I got the bad news. He was holding the 3s-6s, so he had flopped the higher straight when I flopped the wheel and he had a redraw to a flush and was open-ended for the straight flush. By the way, THAT's a good hand with which to check-raise. The river didn't matter and I was down pretty quickly. Rather than rebuy right away I decided to head back to the hotel since David was going to be arriving a little later. I figured we'd grab a bite to eat and get on to the next session someplace.
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