I wanted to play the 12:00 on Friday at the V, but got in too late(1:00). Spent the day doing the tourist thing and then had a nice dinner at Delmonicos with my wife. Played a little BJ and craps and called it a night around 10:00 up around $800, good start.

Saturday I signed up to play the 12:00 which was getting over around 8:00 normally. We made reservations at Tao for 9:15, which should be fine if all goes well.

Only 36 in the tournament. I lose about $2000 pretty quick with my 2 pair being counterfitted on the turn, no problem this happens at times. The chip leader sits at our table and within an hour I take about half of his stack when I have KcKh and I turn the nut flush(hearts) and he puts me all-in with the Qh. I am now chip leader(around 48K) with 8c9c and limp in. Flop A 8 9 rainbow. A short stack(13K) goes all in and I call. Turn 3, river 3 and I get counterfitted again, this is twice and now not funny. I make a couple of big bluffs against 2 locals and again I am the chip leader(88K). It is so much easier to bluff good players who know how to play. One time I had one guy lay down a set. We are down to 8 now and I get KdJd on the button(1-2K blinds), 1 limper in front so I raise to 6k, BB calls, limper folds. Flop K J 7, 2 clubs. He goes all in(near 50K). This guy was overplaying aces all day(he had them 3 times), I put him on aces and call, he flips over his aces and almost jumps 3 feet in the air. I show my 2 pair and bring him back down. Turn 3, river of course is the 7. This is the 3rd time I had been counterfitted. I am now down to about 30K and a little on tilt. 3 or 4 hands later I get it all in pre-flop with JJ against KK and I am gone in 8th place, paid 6. Oh well, I played well and just got unlucky. If I hit those 3 hands I would have been the chip leader by at least 3 times anyone else with 7 players left.

I now meet my wife in the room for our evening only to find her sick as a dog. She has a stomach bug and is done for the night. So what does any normal poker player do, he goes down and plays 5-10 NL until 9 the next morning. The game was filled with locals and it was very loose. Average hand had a raise to $40 with 4 or 5 seeing the flop. I bought in for $2200 and built that up to around $3900 when this hand comes up. I have Ad2d in the BB. 5 see the flop of A A 7. I call $80 from the SB, fold, fold, button rasies to $240, SB folds, I call, and hope for a miracle. Turn 2c, I check and button makes it $400, I think for a second and put him on AK, or maybe AQ, then raise to $1000, he thinks for about 2 minutes and calls. River Q, my stomach sinks a little. At this point I am willing to check it down, so I check and he makes it $600. His bet now has me thinking AK and I insta put him all-in in which he beats me in the pot and turns over AQ. We have exactly the same chip stacks, $2610 left, kinda of freakish, which ends up in front of him. I re-buy for $3000 and build it back up over the next 7 hours to almost $7400, which makes me a $2400 winner for the session, not bad, but very disapointing.

I really like the V for poker and everything else. The atmosphere of the hotel in general is just class. The poker room staff were friendly and competent in all respects. I played some 2-5 NL the next day and everyone was the same. I will be back soon.