I started out Sat morning in recovery mode. How the hell being as tired as I am, did I only sleep 3 hrs and wake up 2 hours before my alarm again??!? Food really wan't an option but wow did an OJ hit the spot!

Met Keane for breakfast at Binion's cafe before the 10 am tourney. ($55 buyin) One open seat at my table ends up being filled by Scott Schmidt (sp?). Anyways Scott's a regular APL player from MN. What the hell can't I go where in LV and not run into someone I know?

Well get knocked out after about 90 minutes when a short stack (2 BB left) pushes, and one caller before me I push all-in with 9s with 4200. Caller also calls me for nearly all his stack as well.

My 9s vs Q8o (short stack) vs AJo (villian) BOARD: 2-6-J-x-x DONE!

Ok off to the cash game...

Sit down to a 1/2 NL game in Binion's newly remodelled room. Very nice room. But as I soon find out and realize everything I read was true. The table is completely full of rocks. I played for nearly 3 hours and I'm only up about $24. Now here's a tid bit about the 1/2 NL game here. Typically, the table buyin is $200 max. This table ONLY has a MINIMUM of $100, with a piece of tape over the max that says 'none'
So there's about $40k on the table, for a 1/2 game!

Ok table loosens up as more and more folks get bounced out of the tourney and start filling up the room.
First hand these guy sits down with the $100 in late position. Now our table has been playing starting raise to play has been to $7-$12 thats the standard limp in. I limp in with pocket 8s UTG, as does 4-5 more folks before this guy. He re-raises to $25. His raise gets the button and blinds to fold. I make a quick call to try to show I'm a taker. And everyone else gives up.

FLOP: 8-J-3 I just bet out $75. He looks at me, and says, 'It's going to be like that?' I just nod 'Yup.'
He shoves and turns over AJo. I finally make some cash. And just about the same time. Dave Clarke texts me that he's on the list at MGM, but he said it's a long list. I leave the table and use my comp pts to grab probably the best home-made bacon cheeseburger EVER from their old school, snackbar.

Takes me while to get from downtown back to the strip. I park at Hooter's as I'm guessing that's where'll be at the end of the night. I get on the 1/2 list and wow is it long 10-12 names ahead of me! But within a couple min. Their morning tourney finally ends and the their last table opens and put me to the first of the line. I'm standing behind tables one and two notice Dave's at table one and is well over the double buyin for the table. Nice! I'm seated quickly at #2, I immedately ask for a table change to #1. I follow the betting pattern of everyone I have watched come into a table. Play without chips until the cage can catch up to you. By the time my chips arrive I already have $14 in front of me and my table change comes up! So I litterally played on hand at the table without chips and leave.

I start in seat four but after crazy suckout guy leaves with 2 racks of red. I move to seat 7, Dave is in seat 6. He's telling me how he got pocket Aces and flopped a set and got paid off. Well low and behold if it doesn't happen again! WOW. Shortly after his hand. I limp in (meaning call a $12 bet) with QhJh. A few players to flop. FLOP: 10-Kh-8 On tilting guy who made initial bet, leads out for $35. I hesatate for a second. But with a open ended straight draw and a back door flush draw. I smooth call him.
TURN: 9h He shoves all-in, WOOT! I call and show the NUTS, to his Big Slick, and drawing dead. River: blank.

At some point I was up over $450 on a $200. But as the day progressed I was getting more and more tired. Dave and myself cashed out at about 7 pm. Dave had a nice payday but I slowly dwindled myself down to just a $25 profit.

Sat evening was basicly uneventful as everyone just hungout at one of the bars at Hooters. Called it night around midnight, and drove back downtown. I hungout people watching on Fremont street for a little while heading to bed.

Sunday: I think I actually slept for almost 6 hours. I told my time getting really and checked out of Binion's by 9 am and threw my bags in the trunk of my car.

Met Dave Sanchez for breakfast at the same cafe in Binions and then took a quick tour of downtown collecting the chips I didn't have.

By 11:00 Dave headed back to the Nugget to sit and play BlackJack at H-2-O poolside. I headed to Hard Rock to get an hour of play time in to make the bonus for the 1:00 tourney. I get to the Hard Rock a mad house as everyone is waiting in line for the opening of the Rehab (MTV show) Beach Party. HAHA should have came with me! Many sights to see....

Any how, I literally get signed up and seated at a table at 11:59. Right off I bat I notice crazy drunk guy from Florida that is so hammered he can't stack chips! They're just pushed in front of him and the house is letting him get away with the dealers having to take whatever he bets out of the pile, because he can't. This is going to be a long hour... A few guys at the table at the table are running a side bet as to how long it will take to felt him. Well it doesn' take long. As I think, he was felted three times by the same guy for over a grand. Well on his final reload before the tourney I ended up in a hand with him. Where four players went to the flop after drunk guy made it $15 to go. On the flop I had hit top-top with A-J and just called his bet of $25. FLOP: 4-6-J TURN: 3 He bets out another $25. I raise him his last $50. But he doesn't notice. And tells me, 'You can fold I'll show you' Dealer tells him, 'Sir you've been raised and put all-in if you want to call. He calls and flips over Q6o. RIVER: QUEEN. Ok, I cash out down $50 and head into the tourney.

Tourney: $50 for T4000 $5 Addon for T1000 1 hr play time another T1000.

Third hand, blinds 25-50. I raise UTG to 200 with A10s, player re-raises to 600. FLOP: 10-10-Q. I don't even try to cute I shove for T5300. I get called. I turn first and see he gets bent and shows A-Q. Except he RIVERS a 2-outer Queen on me, for boat over boat. Luckily, he didn't play first and I still have a T1000+ left. I limp until I'm down to 2BB on the BB. And shove dark. I Lose A-J to A-K to super tight player. You can rebuy during the first 3 blind levels and the structure was pretty good, so I do so. Now here's the wierd part. I draw one of the remaining open seats, but someone else is eliminated and somehow my ticket is moved to the exact seat I just got eliminated from. Well I go on a mini rampage and eliminate 4 players in a row. I end up making it to the final table but end up eliminated in 5th (Bubble) When my allin with Big Slick gets called by J9s and flops a Jack. So luck isn't with me during tourneys. Oh Well. Oh BTW, I ran into one of the Poker Room Dealers, here who recognized me from Canterbury.

Go and sit down and grind out $60 at Pai-gow before deciding what to do for dinner. I head over to The Orleans but it was packed and I wasn't feeling the vibe. So I headed over to the Palms. Now everyone has raved about the Palms in the past I found it to have the worst service and food of my entire trip. I only ate at their buffet as I got a 50% comp on signing up for a players card. I think I still got robbed.

I'm running out of 'daylight' I only have about three hours left. I thought about the 3/6 game at IP but I didn't want to go anywhere near the strip. So I headed south and decided to take a look at the new Silverton Poker Room. When I got there, they were only spreading limit games. The Manager said we could put an interest list together but I told him I couldn't wait and headed out.

Now I'm down to two choices, South Point or 'M' I read somewhere online SP's poker room isn't that great and I heard good things about 'M', plus I already saw their room on Thursday and it was very nice.

When I got to their poker room, The list was short, but it still took almost 20 minutes to get seated and signed up for a players card. By this time it was nearly 8pm. I was thinking if it got any later I would have to skip poker and try to grind out some cash via BlackJack or Pai-Gow.

Their max buyin for the 1/2 is $300. But I look around an see a girl coloring up racks of red. I guess she's been playing everything and hitting monster after monster. She'd sitting on nearly $5k+ And the rest of table is showing a number of other players in the $800-1000 range. Wow, this might be tough.

I had no idea. I bought in for $200 but after only 30 min. I had to load another $100 to get back near $200. I won a couple small hands but my stack was still going down quickly! It was not uncommon to see three bets totaling nearly $100-$150 pre-flop. or the entire table limping in for $2 or $10.

On one of these, 'limping hands' Someone makes it $10 and I limp in with everyone else with one of my favorite hands, 2d-4d. FLOP: Ad-3d-5d I flop the straight flush wheel. At this point I only have $106 left. I lead for $50 and get 4 callers. TURN: 9d Another Diamond! Anyone who was chasing caught it! I checked, and so did another, third guy bets a $100 and is instant called. I push my remaining $56.

Side pot was A-K vs A-Q high flush. In the end I also won high hand jackpot for the day knocking off Quad Aces that was earlier hit on my table for a $300 bonus. One hand turned what was going to be a nightmare finish for me into a slight profit after all said and done. In the end the hand worth something like $875 including the bonus. I stuck around for my remaining time but cashed out $825 at 10pm and headed towards the airport to return my car and check-in on time.