LONG READ. I COULDN'T INCLUDE EVERYTHING FOR MY OWN SAFETY!!!!

Flew into LV for convention/expo/trade show @ Paris. Landed in LV on Good Friday @ 11P from Honolulu. Picked up the rental and headed to the Rio to sleep and get ready for $550 NLHE tourney @ the Venetian the next day. As usual I had a hard time sleeping in LV.

Got up around 10A and headed over to the V to register. That smell @ the V kills me. 96 runners and the prize pool was big enough for me to get excited (1st paid $15K+ while 9th paid $1300+). John Strzemp got moved to my table on the 4th level and it was like a godsend. First off I was thinking, WTF is a rich dude/Vegas big wig playing in a $550 buy-in tourney? I didn't care after he doubled me up after I sucked out on him on the following hand - Blinds 200-400, 25 ante JS raises in EP w/ 1010, folds to me in the cutoff. I have 99 (and short stacked) and reraise figuring he has AK (I folded 77 a few hands back to one of his EP raises and I was tired of laying down to him). So he puts me all in and I call. The flop brings KQJ rainbow and before the turn comes out I say to the dealer, "Give him a f*ckin' set!" Amazingly the 10 comes on the turn giving me the straight and JS a set. River is a blank and the dealer says, "Straight" to which JS replies, "Yeah straight. I see it!" I say, "Sorry Mr. Strzemp", but I can tell he's pissed at me.

Another hand I was involved w/ JS - Blinds 300-600, ante 50. I raise in MP w/ AKoff, it folds to JS in the BB who calls. Flop comes A22, he makes a pot size bet figuring I don't have an A. So I go into my acting bit, sigh a little and move all in. He calls I show AKoff and he nods showing his Ah10h. Turn and river our blanks and I double up through him again.

Anyways, we get down to the final table. A few hands into it I look down @ AQoff left of UTG. Blinds are 2K-4K, 500 ante and I have 39500 left. I push, folds to the SB who calls, BB folds. I table my cards and he shows QQ. Turn brings a straight draw, but, the river is a blank. After 9 hours I bust out and get paid. Luckily, I bet on Wash St. in the NCAA tourney during one of our breaks and made profit from that also. JS was @ the final table which showed me that he is one hell of a NLHE tourney player (like coming in 2nd to Stu Ungar in 97 WSOP ME wasn't proof enough for me??!!). My back and bladder was killing me and I was hungry. Gotta love tourney poker! Rest of the night was shot because of my poor physical state.

Woke up Easter Sunday, ate breakfast @ Paris w/ some conventioneers who paid for breakfast. I was a straight carnivore @ the buffet. Everything was good, but, I kept eating the roasted lamb which was excellent and I finished off breakfast w/ some crepes and chocolate covered strawberries.

Headed to Imperial Palace sportsbook to place bets on NCAA tourney. Watched games and drank Heines @ the bar and went 2-1 when Gtown screwed me over. Ate a cheeseburger and fries @ IP Burger Palace and the stomach started protesting. The combo of the breakfast, the constant Heines, and the burger and fries was raising hell in my digestive system. Headed back to the Rio to talk to myself on the toilet and shower. Headed to Binion's because my friend, Kevin(LV local), wanted to play the 8P tourney. I was to drunk to play tourney (I don't like playing tourneys when I'm drunk) and my stomach was churning so I sat @ a 1-2NL game instead. Foolishly the Heine touching continued. My LAG play goes hand in hand w/ drinking and profit was hard to come by. Two hours later Kevin comes up to my table and tells me a bad beat story about how his aces got cracked and busted him out of the tourney. So we head back to IP to do some more drunken 1-2NL.

Started a new 9 handed table, I buy-in for the $300 max w/ two other guys and everybody else buys in short ($60 - $100). Win a few pots and drank three Heines in the first hour. One of the guys who buys in $300 w/ me (his name is Maxx Power) looks like the lead singer for Great White (80's/90's hair metal band) I tell him that and he takes it well. A few minutes later this guy gets on our table and looks like Skippy, the geeky kid from Family Ties. So Maxx asks him has anyone every told you you look like someone on TV. Maxx turns to me and says you know who he looks like and I say Skippy from Family Ties and the whole table busts out laughing except for Skippy who gets up after a few hands and says he has to go. I ask him if he's leaving because we were teasing him and he says no he really has to go. I turn to Maxx and tell him, "See what you made me do".

Two interesting hands went as follows - I reraised an EP raiser(the Villian) w/ JJ in LP. He reraised all in and I folded. He said he had KK. Two hands later in MP I raise w/ AhKh and as I raise I say I'm steaming from laying down JJ earlier. So a player in LP calls and the Villian calls also from the SB. Flop comes Qd8h4h. The villian bets 2/3 the pot and I stare at him with a pissed off look. I stack my chips in one high tower and push. Other guy folds and Villian calls my $200 + all in. I table my flush draw and two overs and he tables QhJs. Turn is a 10h and river a blank. Ship it to me baby! Villian shakes his head and I tell him I was a fav after the flop w/ my two overs and my flush draw. So Anyways, I profitted about $250 after two hours and decided to give my 1-2NL profits to the beautiful women of Sapphire. What happens in Sapphire, stays in Sapphire so no details on that. Went to sleep about 4A.

Woke up 8A Monday w/ a major hangover, attended a few meetings at my convention @ Paris. Got done @ 12P and ate lunch w/ some conventioneers because they were paying. Did the required shopping for the wife and kids and took a little nap back @ the Rio. Woke up headed over to Binion's again and Kevin and I were planning to play the 8P tourney. A whooping 6 players were seated @ 8P and the TD looks @ us and begs us to register. We say forget it and head across the street to Golden Nugget.

Played 1-2NL for an hour. Room was to small and cramped so I decided to go play some Paigow. I lost $200 in an hour because the dealer suggestive sold me on the fact that I wasn't going to get comp ratings if I didn't bet $25 and up and because I started touching the Heines again. Kevin suggests we go over to Palace Station where he usually plays Paigow.

We go to PS and I start saying to the Paigow dealers, "Where's OJ"? They didn't find that funny. Proceed to lose another $200 and drink to much Heines again. We got so drunk that I was asking the Ethiopian dealer to teach me how to say FU in her native language. She smartly declined as she knew I was going to use it on her if I kept losing. Headed back to the Rio about 3A for some sleep.

Tuesday woke up @ 8A to go eat breakfast @ Paris w/ some conventioneers because they were paying. Headed over to the V to play in the $150 12P NLHE tourney. Different crowd, but, same result as the $550 Saturday tourney. Made it to the final table busted out with a small profit for 6-1/2 hours of work. Played w/ a middle eastern guy who looked like the fat guy, Flounder, from Animal House and a fatter older version of Tim Robbins. Easier to steal from this crowd as most players were very tight and let me steal as opposed to Saturdays players.

Ate some dinner @ the Rio Seafood Village. Always good and as usual ate to much. Rested and digested a little before Kevin, his bro-in-law Gilbert, and I ventured back to Sapphire. I'll give a little detail about what happened. Once you go back to the VIP room w/ one stripper the rest are on you like flies on shit for the rest of the night. Also paying $12 for a Heine wasn't good. Got back to the Rio @ 2A.

Woke up 6A Wednesday, headed to Paris for 745A seminar. Ate breakfast at the buffet again and devoured mass amounts of roasted lamb, crepes, and chocolate covered strawberries again (I didn't learn my lesson from the first time). Walked the expo/trade show w/ my friend Bloated Vin Diesel (I call him that because he looks like a bloated version of Vin Diesel). Anyways, Diesel (dressed in shorts and shirt) and I (dressed in cargo pants and an IM ALL IN shirt)decide to walk the expo/trade show w/ a glass of fat tire beer in each of our hands. Let's just say the suits were eyeing us up all day long. A George H Bush look alike in a suit asks me, "Where did you get that beer?", and I replied, "In the casino Mr. President". He didn't catch the joke. Drank more fat tire beer @ the bar in the casino and waited for one of my business associates to call me and the Diesel up as he promised to take us to the World Extreme Cagefighting event @ the Hard Rock. He never called and the Diesel and I were stuck drinking Heifewezen @ one of the bars @ the Paris w/ the conventioneers in suits.

The clock struck 12A Thursday and Cinderella had to catch his 230A flight back to Honolulu. BACK TO REALITY!!!

SUMMARY

1) The V $550 Saturday NLHE tourney is an awesome deal(Daily 12PM $150 tourney is slightly less awesome, but, still a good deal)
2) Imperial Palace is the place to play 1-2NL if you want to take advantage of drunk tourist. Just don't end up being one of those drunk tourist.
3) Breakfast buffet @ Paris was okay and Seafood Village buffet @ Rio was good as usual.
4) If your in the mood to pay $30 cover charge for out of towners and $12 Heines Sapphires is the place.

THANKS FOR THE READ. GOOD LUCK TO EVERYONE!!!