Recently returned from a much needed 4 day stint in Vegas with a buddy. Happily married with two great kids, but sometimes it’s nice to pretend I’m single again. This is the 7th time I’ve been and we stayed at Caesar’s Palace for the first time. The plan was to drink and play a lot of poker and based on that criteria the trip was a huge success. Can’t remember too much on exact hands, but hopefully this is at least worth reading…

Monday
Took the nonstop mid morning Austin-Vegas flight on Southwest airlines. Got thru three of the eight drink tickets that I had purchased off of Craig’s list. To me non-stop is the only way to make this trip.

Picked up the luggage and caught a cab to Caesar’s for check in. I had booked the room thru hotwire.com and paid $286 for three nights figuring that we would be in the Roman tower. Instead of the $20 trick we upped it to the $50 trick. I was worried when I got called up to the counter by a middle aged woman, and sure enough she basically ignored the Grant. However after pleading a few times for a complimentary upgrade we were moved from the Roman tower to the Forum tower. This was WELL worth it. The room was redone with a flat screen TV, nice beds, and a sweet shower. The view wasn’t exactly breath taking…we were on the “50th” floor. Not sure how these floors work but it is the first floor from the lobby and we looked out over the A/C units of the main casino, and could barely see the strip with the Coliseum blocking our view. But for free, can’t complain too much.

Met up with some other friends from Texas and wandered around for a bit as they had never been to town before. Made $20 on roulette at Bellagio. Eventually we settled at TI for some Pai Gow poker…if you have never played pai gow consider yourself lucky. It is an evil game that ate into my profits. Of course I probably didn’t help myself by downing gin and tonics as fast as they would come and not sticking to the same bet every time. I felt like TBC trying to win back my money after every losing hand….either way ended up down $140 for the day but happily intoxicated….

Roulette +$20
Pai Gow: -$160
Trip: -$140

Tuesday
Got up mid day and headed to the Venetian where we planned on doing our serious poker playing. Forgot how nice the room was, it is definitely among the best in town. Signed up for the players club (which later got us a free lunch thru comps). The cocktail waitresses were amazing, the drink service was spot on, and the dealers did their jobs well.

Bought in for $300 which I quickly doubled up thru a couple of big hands, flopped a boat once and hit another one on the turn a few hands later. My winnings were eaten into with some hands I probably shouldn’t have played so I tightened back up again.

Saw some dramatics at the table thanks to the preppy middle aged California dude who made sure to let everyone know that he played in the big game earlier in the day. A few hands before he sat down a middle aged black male sat down wearing a paper face mask, don’t get me wrong I thought it was a little weird but no one actually said anything….until preppy. He sat down in the 1 seat with mask guy in seat 2. Pretty quickly he can’t resist and starts asking the guy about the mask and making comments about how he had a fever last night. The funniest thing he said was telling the guy that he really worries about gingivitis. Needless to say the mask took the first available seat change to get away from him. So in comes a very solid female player in that seat who came to the table with her husband. In one hand the action folded to the button in the 10 seat who had to talk across the dealer and told them she would not get in the way of a chop. Preppy thinks she is asking about a chop and can’t figure out why she would since it doesn’t apply to her. He refuses to chop and plays the hand out with the female in the big blind. In the end he looses a $50-60 pot as she flopped a set of sixes, and when she is collecting the money tells him “that’ll teach you to chop”!

Not much longer after that preppy has rebought, gone up a bit, and thrown most of it back. With about $75 left in his stack decides to announce that he needed to leave 20 minutes ago and is going all in in the dark. This picks him up the blinds twice. The third time around I look down and see two lovely ladies. After thinking longer than I should I make the call and they hold up against his two rags to bust him out and get rid of him from the table.

Won another big hand that night on a flush holding K-10d. Approximately nine hours after sitting down I got up and cashed out for about $750. Met up again with the rest of the group and my dumb ass sat down at a Pai Gow table again. This time I only dropped $100 and got up when that was done….

Poker: +$450
Pai Gow: -$100
Trip: +$210

Wednesday
Knew we wanted to play in a tournament so after sleeping till mid day and grabbing some food we headed to TI for the 2p $65 tourney. While waiting sat down at a $2-4 limit game, never done that before, and proceeded to have a great run. A few hands into it I hit quad 10’s to get to spin the wheel where I made $50. Cashed out a bit later just in time for the tourney up about $60 plus the $50 from the wheel.

The tournament was a great time and was run very well. In the end I think we had 27 buy-ins and I managed to grind it out to the final table. Several people busted out in succession getting us to the bubble at 5. I was probably about the 2nd highest stack and waited around for the bubble to burst, which it soon did. At that point I went card dead and finally had to make a stand with J6o, I caught a 6 on the flop to take the lead but a king fell on the turn and I busted out. Cashed in for $156, in the end a nice first tournament in a quality poker room.
Headed back to the V for another long session of 1-2. Got up about $100 early with KsKd. Flop went K-10-x with two spades. Heads up in position to a $30 bet, smooth call. Ace of spades on the turn, guy pushes all in for another $70 or so. So he’s probably got the straight, but I’ve got a lot of outs so I make the call. 4s hits the river for the flush and I take down the pot (he had the Ace high straight).

Rest of the night was pretty uneventful and I leaked away my winnings and more, ended up walking away with about $100 of my $300 buy in after about 7 hours. Funniest/most uncomfortable moment at the table involved a guy with a prosthetic left arm sitting in the 10 seat. A new dealer had come in a few hands before and didn’t realize it was a prosthetic arm and he was resting it on the rail. At one point the dealer says “sir, you need to move your arm so I can see your cards”. Guess since it was out of his peripheral he didn’t realize his mistake. The player took it in stride and didn’t make a fuss about it.

On the way back to Caesar’s about 4am we got to play a fun game I like to call hooker prop betting. We set the line at 5 as the number of agreed upon street hookers. It was close but in the end it was right on, discounting the high class ones wandering around inside Caesar’s. Thinking back we should have also incorporated drug dealers as the tie breaker. If you’ve never walked the strip past 3am it’s an interesting experience to say the least, but I wouldn’t do it alone.

Poker (TI): +$200ish
Poker (V): -$200
Trip: +$210

Thursday
Last day of the trip, had about 6 hours of poker time after checking out before having to head to the airport. Went back to the V and got our comps that we used for lunch in the Grand Lux café (very nice laid back restaurant by the way)

Pretty much card dead the whole day, again got up early with a nut flush against a strait, but after that couldn’t hit a flop and leaked it all away. Ended the session with AKo in early position and about $50 left in my stack. Went ahead and pushed all in. Got called by the extremely drunk lady on the other side of the table who told everyone several times that she sung happy birthday to Cher the night before. She flipped over pocket 5’s and board comes up rags, turn and river are no help either and big slick fails again.

Killed some time on the slots and a little blackjack while my buddy stayed at the table. Cab to the airport and after a slight delay we headed back to Austin.

Poker: -$300

Trip Totals
Poker: +$150
Other games: -$240

Total: -$90

All in all an awesome trip with some ups and downs. Need to work on my leaks and stay the heck away from the pai gow tables in the future…

Hope this wasn’t too long and I’m curious to see some comments.