I am going to keep this report fairly short. On a detour to the Fiesta Bowl I met my mother in Las Vegas for a quick two night stay at the Palazzo and then after I attended the Fiesta Bowl and a conference I decided to take another detour and stay at Caesars. I mostly play video poker I guess along with table games and variance was not on my side this trip so I'm always a bit more grouchy when I lose money!

The room at Palazzo was fantastic. We arrived on Tuesday afternoon (Jan 1) after I had braved horrible road conditions back home and we were pretty tired so we had dinner at Outback Steakhouse with my Casino Royale comps. My bonus coupons weren't ready and Mom's were worthless so we just ate and left without gambling. They have done a major renovation of the hotel lobby at CR and I think they have done a really nice job on the rooms as well. For bargain lodging on the strip you can do a lot worse than this place.

Mom has a limited budget which makes it tough to stay at the Palazzo. There were no seats at blackjack below $25 and Mom had awful luck so we didn't play long. This was very frustrating for me as I knew this was one of the risks we took on by staying there and actually paying $109 a night for a room (first time I have paid for a room in Las Vegas for a long time). We could have been comped at TI and not had to play such high stakes but Mom loves staying there. Anyway she turned in early and I played the 10 PM tourney at TI.

I really like the new room at TI. The dealers were already really good there and I ran into a few folks going to the Fiesta Bowl as well. The level of play is pretty average. I don't see too many just awful players here but I also don't run into many players that are all that tricky.

I played pretty well and got 10th out of 43 but I lost a big flip right before going to the final table and had to fold my blinds to big PF raises and then I drew the seat for the big blind right after I had gotten hit by the blinds.

I believe the blinds were 500/1000 and there were two limpers and the small blind folded when I had K 3 of hearts in the big blind with about 3000 behind me. I checked my option and the flop came K J 10 with two diamonds. I know this is a highly coordinated board but I didn't think folding made a lot of sense here so I pushed what little I had left and got a fold and a call from Q 9. The turn came a 3 so I at least watched the river card miss me.

As an aside I have been very frustrated with my poker results for some time. In 2011 I actually tried two $1500 WSOP events as something on my bucket list. Last year I played a $1000 event, a $560 and a $230 event at the WSOP as well and I play a few small tourneys when I can.

Leading up to the WSOP I had felt very good about how I had played in some of the Venetian daily tourneys and at one point I had won 4 out of 14 tourneys I played (with 30-40 runners each) , chopped one and cashed in 5 others.

Anyway in this particular tourney, I lost my big flip with pocket jacks against AK after I was the aggressor preflop. It turned out the guy hit his king on the turn so if I had been more conservative I would have been the chip leader at the final table. I still think a push over the top of a substantial pre flop raise was the right play here but I think at times my selective aggression (I am very TAG in these tourneys) may get me into trouble.

As far as TI goes: Great room, very good tourney for the money.

That was the only tourney I played on this part of the trip. I was happy to see that Mom made a nice comeback the next day.

We thought we would eat somewhere fancy but we really didn't. We ate at the coffee shop at Aria for breakfast and at Planet Daily at PH for a late lunch. I had to run over there and cash in successful sports bets. We like to gamble for (relatively) low stakes in the Aria high limit room. I was playing usually two $1 lines ($10 total bet) on spin poker and mom was playing 1 line ($5 bet) when this lady won $60,000 in the course of about ten minutes. She gave my mom and I each $100 for good kharma as I was rooting her on as she was playing I think $150 a hand on video poker VERY quickly along with some Keno. Anyway that put Mom up $60 on the day when we left and she had a GREAT run at Crazy 4 Poker later to keep her loss very low for the trip.

After my conference I decided to fly back into Vegas late on Sunday night and leave Tuesday afternoon before the CES. I was planning on going for a longer trip next week but work requirements have come up. On this trip I played the 9 AM at Caesars twice, the 10 PM at Caesars and the 1 PM at Aria.

I had a comped room at Caesars in the Augustus Tower. It far exceeded my expectations and wasn't the two room suite you get at Pallazzo but everything else was of very similar quality and the room was huge with the separate jacuzzi tub/shower in the bathroom..

I made some very successful bets on the Alabama game and the Diamond Lounge there is great. I watched the game with some diehard Alabama fans and the service there is top notch. The first 9 AM tourney was uneventful. There were only about 15 runners each day and I think I finished 5th each day. Again on day one the blinds got big, I pushed all in preflop with 77 and lost a race to A9. Play in this is fairly tight and I was a little surprised to get called with A9 actually.

The 1 PM at Aria ($125) had maybe 40 runners which is very small for that room but Caesars had a big tournament going on at noon that attracted a big field. I love the room at Aria and the tournament is always well run. Blinds were 100 200 with a 25 chip ante when I got cute and just called a raise to about 600 with AK off suit from the big blind and actually four of us saw the flop. This was about my tenth hand at a new table.

Flop came AK2 rainbow and I checked as one of the guys had overplayed weak aces two or three times in my short time at the table. Sure enough he leads out about 2000 and gets a reluctant call. I have about 8000 left (starting stack is 10000) and I go ahead and check raise all in. Original raiser calls with pocket deuces but I get a beautiful king on the turn only to see the last 2 hit on the river. I'm typically not good enough to get away from that type of a cooler. They called the tournament director over to show him this crazy hand which was kind of a sad badge of honor!

Players in this are again mixed but there are usually one or two players at each table I try to avoid. There are more bad players than you might expect though.

The 10 PM Caesars tourney had the toughest players I thought at least at my table. Again that big poker series is going on there so that may have led to more good players than usual. I did not win any hands in this tournament. I did not feel I could make any moves and my cards were really awful. I had a pretty weak passive image and when someone raised my blind I again shoved with JJ and the very aggressive guy happened to have KK. Oh well. This was just frustrating.

I'd say drink service at TI and Caesars were excellent. Aria only fair this time in the poker room.

I should have won the last 9 AM tourney I played in. I made a fantastic call (if I do say so myself) on a guy I had played with in both 9 AM tourneys. He was in the small blind and I was in the BB and there were four of us that saw a raise from a very straightforward player. Flop comes KK7 and this guy pushes all in for about 60% of the flop. I was very confident that this guy would do this with almost any two cards and I was also very confident that the original raiser had a medium pair or a strong Ace that she would fold so I called with A 3. Sure enough the other two players fold and this woman kept talking about what I great play I had made which confirmed my belief. Had she called I was done with the hand because she was very straight forward.

That got me the chip lead with 5 players left when I made a truly awful call with my pocket queens on the turn after I raised 2.33 times the big blind with my small blind to 1400. Flop came K 10 7 and I bet out 1500 and get called. Turn comes another 10 and I bet 2000 and get called. I am embarrassed to admit that when the river came with another seven (third heart also) that I check called an all in of about 5300 leaving me only 700 behind. This was just awful as even though the pot was over 20,000 chips there was nothing I could beat and I knew the guy wasn't bluffing. It was like I wanted everyone to see that i had such bad luck. Just stupid. The other guy had A 10 of clubs.

I managed to triple up the next hand with J 10 of diamonds and then triple up again with 10 10 to 6300 when I was in the big blind with A 9 of clubs and the small blind shoved over the top of me. He had shoved with 4 5 off suit but my luck ran out. He said something after I called that I had already been really lucky to win with my J 10 against his black pocket 7's and I didn't bother to tell him I was actually at least 50 percent in that hand. Again this tournament did not have great players and I am kicking myself for not winning it or at least going out for a different reason.

I have no complaints about any of these rooms outside of the relatively slow drink service at Aria (and it's not bad, it's just that TI and Caesars are excellent) and would recommend all of these tourneys

The last bit of advice I would give concerns video poker. If you are a quarter or above video poker player it is worth giving Casino Royale a bit of play. Once you are an established player they will give you cash back each month (mine is $50 but most folks will probably get $20) and some fun coupons. You must bet full credits on a $0.25 machine or above but you get $25 for a 4 OAK in VP. $40 (in January, it will change) for 4 7's 8's or 9's in VP and $40 for a straight flush. If you are playing 8/5 bonus poker at the quarter level there this will give you a nice edge and the Outback there is very very good if you can slowly build up enough comps for that meal. I picked up those coupons Sunday night and cashing them got to be a bit expensive but in the long run it's a great opportunity.

Anyway hopefully this report isn't too dry. I will lick my wounds and be back for March Madness on March 19.