I get to LV occassionally on business trips, typically overnight. Last night, I had a couple of hours to burn, so I went on over to the Excalibur, since it was relatively convienent to where I was staying out in Henderson and this site has told me it is one of the easier places to play. A real mix of players, a couple who knew what they were doing, a couple who had no clue, and the rest of us. It didn't take long for a seat to open up at the 1/3 NLHE table. The waitresses were kinda slow and not particularly interesting to look at either. The dealers were OK save one. It seemed like he was calling the floor over for some mistake he made about every third hand. Once he flopped 4 cards. Then he misses a call by a player and pushes the pot to another player. He collects the cards and is about to put them in the shuffler when the guy says "I called" (he still has his cards in front of him, which was pretty funny as the dealer was putting a short deck in the shuffler). Finally, the guy who ended up with the pot decides to split it with the guy who called to settle the matter. The dealer screwups were almost as entertaining as the poker.

Not much interesting until one hand about 90 minutes into the session. UTG folds. I'm in UTG+1 with about $160 and find a KhQd, so I decide to call. The guy to my left (V1, just sat down a bit ago with $140) calls, fold, call (by V2, LAGgy style with $550 who I noticed seems to like his hand), the button calls and the BB declines his option, taking 5 of us to the flop. Flop comes down QsQc4c. Since i read that V2 liked his hand and there were so many to the flop, I was certain that I'd get a chance to check/raise, so I checked. To my amazement, it checks the whole way around the table, pointing out a big screwup by me. Any club kills me now, except one (Kc), which falls on the turn. I decide to check once more to see what happens. V1 bets $25 and is called by V2, with everyone else folding to me. I make it $100. V1 pushes and V2 tanks. He is one of the two good players at the table, he liked his hand, so I'm very interested to see what he's going to do. I start counting out the remainder I need to put in the pot and V2 looks at me and says "I haven't decided." I just smiled and said "I know." About 10 seconds later he says to me "He (V1) has a flush, what I want to know is what do you have?" He finally folds face up, with QdAc. I call and turn over the full house, a bit impressed he was able to lay it down, given the way he was playing and catching cards. He was pretty jazzed he laid it down, as you might expect. V1 showed Tc7c for the flush, just like V2 predicted. I left soon after.

Thanks to AVP for pointing me to the Excalibur. When I get a few days in town, I'll try to get to TI and say hi to some of you regulars.