I wake up at 07:01 that morning. Again, no surprise here. I grab a sleeping pill out of the bathroom but I’m a little icky about the whole sleeping pill situation. The leaflet that comes along with the pills scares the living **** out of you. These are some serious chemicals and I’ve been drinking heavily till about an hour and a half ago so that probably doesn’t help. I leave the pill on the bedside table an try to fall asleep the natural way but it takes me less than a minute to realize that is not going to happen. I take the pill, wish for the best and wonder how the hell Fratie can sleep with his legs standing upwards. They are supposed to work after about 30 minutes so I just stare at the ceiling and wait for something to happen. I can hear that the Corona’s aren’t to happy about this new guest in my stomach but they seem to get along after about five minutes and one power fart. I don’t feel much happening accept maybe the feeling that gravity is increasing. I look at the clock and see it’s 07:29 so they should be kicking in any time now.
The next thing I know is Fratie rushing out of the room to go and watch the second half of our local soccer club VVV-Venlo playing PSV Eindhoven. It’s 11:50 and I feel awesome. I hardy think our current team is worth losing any sleep over back home so here in Vegas where the sleep is much more needed I don’t bother rushing to catch the last minutes of this sure loss. I take a long shower and head for the Mirage where the entire group gathered for the match accept for Baars obviously who arrived at his room around 10 AM this morning…..
Today we go Downtown. We love Downtown and if you are any kind of poker player Binions is a must see on every trip. Taxi drops us of at Binions and we have five minutes left to register for the 5K GTD at 2PM. This simply the best tournament in town. A 20K start stack, 25/50 starting blinds and a decent structure for a measly $ 105,- and only 73% fee…. No less than 143 runners show up this Saturday. Hugo, Peltinho, Fraters, Iebus and I sit down for this potential long grind.
I’m definitely a better tournament player than I am a cash game player but the Dutch gambling tax makes playing tournaments outside our state regulated casino’s basically –EV from the get go. I used to sell percentages for four of five tournaments on the past two trips but given the fact that we are in town for only six days and poker is mainly for passing time between Clubbin’ this year, I decided against that.
Playing 400 BB deep always makes me way more creative than advisable and with the opposition holding on to third pair as if it’s their first born child I’m leaking chips fast in the first three 20 minute levels. The opposition is as to be expected in a Vegas low buy-in tournament; clueless. With 20 BB left at 200/400 I’m about to go on lockdown but I permit myself one last ‘open raise fold’ luxury. I open 44 in MP to 900 and get but one customer. This dude snaps my 50% C-bet on 35J rainbow. We check the A turn an T river down. My 44 beats his Q6o. Whut?
I run my stack up to 35K when I get moved to Fratie’s table who’s sitting pretty – like our Fratie can sit any other way - with about 100K. Fratie can’t tell you if a flush beat a straight so there should be some great stories behind that stack. We are down to the last four tables. With the blinds going to 1500/3000 I (MP) ship over an UTG+2 limp. No need to look at my cards in this spot imo. The woman tanks forever before calling with AJo. My K7o are live and what do you know? A seven from heaven on the flop. 80k.
I decide to spend my new found wealth wisely by raising six hand in one orbit and taking down five of those pots. Then JJ pops up when it’s folded to me on the cutoff. I get 3-bet by the female button. I’m not to happy because she looks nitty and strong but I can’t pass up this perfect 4-bet ship spot with the top of my range and my current image. She tables KK obviously and to give her a sweat we flop KTT. I would have liked my chances had this 200K and 2,5 average pot somehow found it’s way to my but it wasn’t meant to be. Scoring my 10th $ 1,- Corona on the way to the casino floor makes me forget this pot rather quickly.
Baars surprisingly found his way to Binions and has been playing blackjack all afternoon. Baars is tilted though that he didn’t see a single waitress while wagering a small car. He decides to join us on the $ 1,- Corona quest we are holding till 21:00 before we go to dinner. Disaster strikes however because Baars passes a blackjack slot machine. This allows him to play nine hands at a time. We all have to get out of the way because he has no clue yet as to how big his boner is going to be.
Baars is burning money as if he stole the damn cash but there’s no way he’s leaving this new friend for something as stupid as dinner. We didn’t make reservations and I immediately regret that when we enter Fremont Street. The street is packed beyond believe. There are Country Music Awards the next day and the nominees are performing on different stages on Freemont Street so we have to fight about 200 cowboys just to reach Golden Nugget. It’s good thought to see Downtown packed again. During our 2010 trip Downtown was having serious trouble. Binions had just closed their hotel and you could see the area was struggling to survive. I was happy to read Downtown picked up the glove and starting fighting back. The new D (Old Fremont Hotel) & lots of new bars and restaurants have pimped the area and from what I hear Binions will be opening their hotel again before the summer.
The Italian place at The Nugget can seat us in about 90 minutes. We are hungry now and somehow end up in Golden Gate’s dinner. Being a Downtown fanboy I like the fact that I’m eating in the oldest Casino property in Vegas as I found out on this great Vegas History Site but one look at the silverware and my hunger is out of the window. I spend ten minutes polishing that **** up to the point where I’m only relatively sure one lick at the spoon won’t kill me instantly. No way I’m ordering anything fancy in this sorry excuse for a restaurant so I go with the cheeseburger. I hear the boys ordering split pea soup, fish & chicken. Death wish all the way.
When they bring the split pea soup I don’t know whether I should start puking aggressively or just hyperventilate from laughing. I’m 100% sure that if you’ll hold this cup upside-down nothing will fall out. Fratie’s first bite actually leaves a dent in this soup. Unreal. My cheeseburger is only butchered slightly but I have to keep my eyes of the fish & chicken plates to keep it in my stomach.
Vegas starts taking it’s toll on everyone and tired al hell we head back for IP after dinner at around 22:30. Baars isn’t leaving his machine despite being down a bundle and we start to get worried whether or not this new VPC recruit still has control over his gambling actions. When we arrive at IP everyone runs for their room but my eye catches an open seat at the 2/4 game. Against my better judgment I order a Budweiser that will take me an hour and a half to finish. I decide to safe myself the embarrassment of saying no to the cocktail waitress for the third time and cash out $ 18,- more than I took to the table. First win of the trip. Booyah!
00:30 Bedtime. I pull the remote out of Fratie’s hand and turn the TV off. I fall asleep before my head hits the pillow.
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