Vegas

Another advantage of the house seems to be that I do a lot better poker-wise. On my first 3 trips here I stayed in hotels and I never cashed in a single tournament, whereas last year we got a house and I won a bracelet and cashed in another. I'm not sure how much staying in the house really had to do with that realistically, but I think being away from the strip definitely makes it a lot easier to relax when I'm not playing, which can't really be a bad thing.

I'm not sure what to make of my own form at the minute. I managed to get upgraded to Virgin's upper class on the flight over for about 1/5 of the normal price, but things went pretty downhill from there. First, our boarding was delayed for and hour, then after sitting on the plane for another hour we were told there was a problem and we would have to change planes. Another 2 hours later and $2000 lighter (I had a quick spin online from the departure lounge while we were waiting on the second plane) we eventually took off. Incidentally, the upper class seats were certainly a lot better than the normal seats and were probably just about worth what we paid for them, but I certainly wouldn't want to be paying anywhere near full price for them.

I've played a few tournaments online over the last couple of weeks and went quite deep in most of them without actually making very much profit. I feel like I'm playing well enough though, so I suppose that's encouraging. I'm intending to play 3 tournaments while I'm here, the 5k and 10k PLOs and the 10k main event. I might play another couple of small ones depending on how I feel like I'm playing. Obviously I'd love to get some sort of run in the 10k PLO event that I won last year. I'd also really like to get some sort of run in the main event. I've played it three times now and busted twice on the first day and once on the second day, so hopefully I can improve on that for a start. I don't like to set myself goals or targets, but if I can cash in one of these events, I'll be happy enough. If I manage 2 cashes or make it to the last couple of tables in one of the PLO events, then I'll be delighted.

First up is the 5k PLO event today. I'm toying with the idea of sitting out the first 2 levels as you can register late up to the 3rd level and still get to start with your whole starting stack. There have been a couple of times when I've done well at the start of a tournament, but in the vast majority of them I end up with with less than I started with by the first break. Maybe the sensible thing to do is just to play from the start and tighten up a bit though. I'll sleep on it.