Played Vegas December 4th - 8th at Mirage, Bellagio, Wynn, Bally's and Madalay Bay.

Played $2-5 no limit at the Mirage two days. This is my favorite room and game in Las Vegas. They have a good mix of players and a $200 to $500 buy that gets money on the table a little faster than at the Bellagio. The staff at the room is also excellent. They also spread a $1-2 blind no limit game with a $50 to $200 buy in. They have also started to run single table sit ang goes after the evening tourny each day.

Played the $200 buy in $2-5 lind no limit game at the Bellagio one day and did very well. This is a good game with lots of action and agressive players. I wish that they would make it a $200 to $500 buy in like the Mirage. The staff is a little snooty and the room is crammed with as many tables as possible. I also saw more errors by the dealers than on past trips. One dealer made two bad deals in a row while discussing some backgammon hand that he was in with one of the pros. Nobody was too impressed. The 5 Diamond Classic was going on and the place was packed with big names. Chip, Phill, Barry Greenstein, Freddy Deeb and Gus Hanson were playing right behind out table in Bobby's Room. I heard they were playing $4,000-$8,000 mixed games. I also played two $130 sats for the evening tourney and couldn't make any cards.

Played two $330 buy in Tourneys at the Wynn. This is a nice room with good tables and decent dealers. The tourney had 120 to 137 players each day and paid out $11,000 to $13,000 to the winner. It is well structured with $3,000 in starting chips and 45 minute rounds. I couldn't get any kind of a roll going and busted out about 2 to 3 hours in both days. They also have a $1-3 and a $2-5 buy in no limit game. They do not have a mximum buy in and the stacks can be pretty deep with some players buying in for more than $1,000 in the $2-5 game. The $1-3 is the worst structured game in Vegas. It is played with $1 and $3 chips. Even the dealers have a hard time counting the bets and the pot with $3 chips. Why not just use $1 and $5 chip like everyone is used to?

Played a little at Mandalay Bay in the no limit game. Pretty soft crowd with lots of callers and not many preflop raised. Decent game, I came out on top after a couple of hours.

Also played at Bally's late one night in the $1-2 no limit games. Fairly soft game without too many prefolp raises and hard to get action when you do raise. This was my only major loosing cash game session dumping about $300 in 5 hours. Lost with with a set and a bad kicker and got out drawn once with the best hand. Maybe it was bad play or too many Buds.

Vegas was good. Up $2,000 in cash games and down $920 tourneys over five days. Can't wait to get back to the Mirage. My advice is don't drink and play craps, that turned my positive trip into break even.