Arrived Friday late afternoon and chilled out the rest of the day. Saturday I played for about 6 hours in 4-8 holdem at MGM and raked in about 700. Easy play, players seemed to get lucky (rush) for three or four hands and then dump everything over the following hour. Easy pegs.

Sunday was the highlight of the trip. I was at the Mirage for about 3 hours watching the Poker Showdown- about 15 tables left (maybe more but I didn't count). Cunningham was about 5 feet away from me and I could reach and touch Johnny Chan! Watched from afar Ivey, Corkins, Reese, Lieberman, Greenstein and Pham. Johnny Chan even tapped me on the shoulder when he was off to make a phone call! He is a little guy- had no idea that a man of his stature is about 5'2-4 feet and he wore the ugliest green shirt imaginable. But, the worst dresser was Kathy Lieberman... I understand that theres a comfort factor when playing for hours and hours- but OMG! At least she could match! Purple shirt with a hole in the sleeve, green sweat pants, and a hat that looked as if it was bought on the strip for 50 cents... plus a fanny pack!

Anyway, this is a trip report on poker not fashion. The highlight was watching a bad beat on chan. He lost about half his chips to a no namer. Pre Flop all in behind Johnny's raise. Quick call and Chan had JJ with opponent (no name) pocket 10's. Flop had nothing with two clubs. Runner / Runner Clubs to make opponent's flush. Big crowd ooooo's and Chan didn't loose composure too much. I heard that Daniel Negraneu was out in the first 5 hands of the torney and Helmuth was caught complaining at Ceasars on Saturday after he lost.

Sunday evening at 8PM at Venetian. Great tourney of about 6 tables. Sat for 4 hours and bubbled out in 11th place. Played great and I knocked out about 7 players. The claim to fame was knocking out Penn Gillet's wife (didn't know it was her until after it was over). Players were a little loose and not too much competition with easy reads on old techniques. Sat next to a dealer and he bugged the hell out of me with his sarcasm and "knowlege"... of course I knocked him out and he bellowed even though I had QQ and he had AK. Anyway- i lost to the chip leader. Blinds were 300-600 and I was BB with less than a minute on the clock. Had about 18k in chips and had Q/10 suited. 2400 raise on to my BB. I acted a bit and knew if I called he'd push on the flop anyway and the combo of protecting my BB in addition to the blinds going up after the hand - not to mention I knew if I won I'd be in the money... I took a stab at a push. I knew he had a Pocket Pair but I had just enought chips to maybe make him think. Well, it worked - meaning he thought, and thought, and thought until someone called the clock. he finally called and rolled pocket 6's. The flop hit my 10 and then turn was a 6. I lost but it was OK since I got a lot of play out of my 160 or so bucks.

All in all, a great trip. I am very interested in the Venetian's deep stack tournaments in June and may go back for a run at them. I've been told they will be getting 100's per day for these tornaments and the reason why Venetian is pushing it is due to the WPT and Bellagio's new deal to work together on the FRI/SAT tournaments. According to the dealer at the Venitian- the combo of the torney at bellagio (as is) and the name recognition of WPT demands an agressive stab into the torunaments for other casino's and that the Venitian is doing so with these deep stack tourney!