I went out to LV this past weekend with a buddy of mine. This trip was a true "get away" in that my wife has been traveling alot and I haven't, so I just needed some "away from the house" time. This definitely hit the spot.

My buddy is not a poker player so I ended up not playing much of it and only played at Excalibur since he wasn't into some of the other places I suggested we go (TI specifically since it is hailed on this board). We came in on friday afternoon and hit the buffet at Main street station. It was seafood night and frankly for the price, they could have done more.

Then we headed to the Excalibur to play some poker. I played 2-4 LHE. There weren't any real significant hands or stories to tell. The play was average and I played moderately tight and walked away with an extra $30 which I used for the tournament the next day there.

My buddy prefers BJ to any other table game so we played that for around 6 hours and I ended up $10 ahead. At 4 in the morning we called it quits.

Woke up and hit a breakfast buffet and went over to Hooters for their $100 slot promotion and see what else was up. New slot sign-ups recieved $100 to play on their designated machines ($2 a spin and you either hit one of the jackpots and cash out or build up to 1700 credits. No cashing out before you do one of those two things). They also handed out a scratcher ticket (I won a hooters calendar) and some other deals including a free ticket to Bobby Slayton.

We went over to the Ex to play the 1pm tourney. The 11am tourney was just finishing which surprised me. I thought they were shorter. The tourney is quite fixed and fast. The blinds moved every 15 min and were doubled. You only start with around $350 in chips so unless you win a hand you can get blinded out fast in the 3rd level.

I don't have any good hands to report. My highest starting cards were QJo although I did win one pot with pocket 8's that became trips on the flop. Every hand was called so bluffing wasn't much of an option. I ended up getting knocked out in 14th place out of 40+. Money was for top 6. It was fun, but I will stick with the cash games. They are more my style. Thank you to all of you who encouraged me to try out a tourney.

I went back to the 2-4LHE and promptly got killed by the same villain who sucked me out on the river 3 times. Two of them were when I had trips Q's and trips K's and one time was when I had flopped the A-10 straight and they nailed flush on the river. I had to leave because I was about to tilt.

The rest of the trip we played blackjack, watched Bobby Slayton at Hooters(offensive to some, funnier than anything to others so go if you like hearing stereotyping with new twists. He is more of a story teller than a joker, which I kind of like) ate some wings and went to bed.

The real money though was in the slot tourney I played in. Terrible Herbst corp. took over stateline/Primm and so we went in to Whiskey Pete's to have a look around and use the bathroom before driving back to LA. I had a players club card from the Las Vegas casino and saw they had a free slot tourney that you just go up to, put in your club card and bang on the spin button for 2 minutes. Well I hit the 10,000 point combo and ended up as the 2nd highest score in the daily tournament. I just threw out my tickets because I thought that was only a $50 prize (like the one in Vegas). I did go to the promotions people to see if I had to be present to pick up the $. They said yes, but then told me for 2nd place it was $400. So I ran back to the trash and started picking through for my tickets. I found them with coffee stains on them.

The daily tourney lasted until midnight so I drove home and called this morning to see if I was still on the leader board and they said I came in 3rd which was $300. So tomorrow I will be driving to stateline to claim my prize. -- Maybe I will reenter the slot tourney and hopefully need to drive up thurs...