I flew into Vegas (5th trip in 2 years) on March 3rd from Raleigh, arriving at 10:30 AM after not sleeping at all the night before or on the plane. I got a free flight from Southwest and 2 of 3 nights comped at IP, and only being charged $80 for Friday night.. I was travelling with my friend and we had one goal…to play as much poker as possible. We took the shuttle to our hotel and checked in. Since I was getting 2 of my 3 nights comped, I figured I should start with some table game action while my friend went to play some poker. I played some craps, roulette, and pai gow poker and ended up breaking even after playing for about 45 minutes. Since I was getting hungry I decided to hit up Burger Palace at IP, which is way overpriced for what you get and I probably won’t go back there. After eating I took a nap since by that point I was running on about 36 hours of no sleep.
After waking up at around 8pm, my friend and I decide to hit up Bellagio for some 4/8 LHE. We start a new table and are 5-handed for about 15 minutes until the table fills up. I didn’t mind this because I knew the table would fill up, and as long as we were short-handed the manager said there would be no rake. I play there for a couple hours and end up $57 ahead. Then I decided to go to Mirage for some 1-2 NL while my friend stayed and played at Bellagio. I played fairly tight and hit a few hands, but didn’t really end up getting paid off on them so I still ended up ahead $56 but I felt like it should have been more…oh well. After that I decide to call it a night and head back to the room for some well deserved sleep.
The next morning we wake up around 8:30 and head to the Bellagio breakfast buffet. All I can say is wow. This is the best breakfast buffet I have ever been to. For only $16 you get really high quality food, and I really stuffed myself on it. I wish I could afford to eat that every day. Then we take a cab to Fremont Street since neither of us had ever played at any of the rooms there. We get to Binion’s and play some $3 craps and $2 roulette to start off, which was very enjoyable since your money goes a lot further when the limits are that low. We play 2/4 LHE at both Binion’s and Golden Nugget for a little while and I end up winning $30 between the two places. I wasn’t really trying too hard, but we just wanted to play at these places since we have both seen them promoted a lot (WSOP and HSP). We walk around Fremont Street for a little bit doing the tourist thing, then take a cab back to IP to relax before dinner.
My friend goes to have dinner with some of his other friends who happened to be in Vegas at the same time, and I meet up with my brother who was in Vegas for some conference. He turned 21 the week before and this was the first time I saw him in a couple months. I ask him where he wants to go to dinner (my treat of course), and he says the Bellagio buffet. Yes, I ate at the Bellagio Buffet twice in one day (woe is me…lol) and it was quite an experience. I think my brother ate enough king crab legs to get both of our money’s worth.
After stuffing myself silly, my friend and I head to Caesars for the 7pm tourney. I really liked the blind structure and the 30 minute levels. I play fairly aggressively for the first couple rounds (I play much more aggressively in tourneys than in cash games) and chip up to about 12500 before going completely card-dead and busting out near the end of the 4th level. I would definitely play this one again. After not cashing, I am back to even profit-wise for the trip. The selection party at PURE was going on so I stop and see all the top pro's who are gathered outside the club before heading in. It was so cool to see them. I felt like my life was now complete...lol.
I decide to then head to Venetian for some 4/8 LHE while my friend continued in the tourney. He busted out a bit later and joined me at Venetian. I was running fairly average until I got aces cracked twice in 3 hands by the same player (2 to my right). The first time I was in the BB and raised preflop with 6 limpers and they all call. The flop is a jack-high rainbow which seemed safe. I aggressively bet and get 2 calls. The turn is a blank, I bet, and both players call. The river is a J and I get that sinking feeling that someone just hit their trips on me. I check-call the button’s bet and sure enough my AA got cracked by AJ…d’oh! Two hands later on the button I pick up AA again, and once again raise preflop with about 5 limpers to which everyone calls. The flop is Q3x, it checks around to the player who just cracked my aces and he bets. I raise, it folds around to the bettor and he calls. The turn and river are blanks and the player check-calls my bets on both streets. I flip up my AA and he flips over Q3…argh! I nearly lose it at that point and almost channel my inner Hellmuth, but I control myself. I am down about 70 at that point and decide to sit out a few hands to collect myself. After that I have a pretty hot run of cards and end up cashing out $70 ahead and call it a night.
Friday morning I woke up early because I wanted to go to Caesars and try to see the Heads-Up Poker Championship live. My friend and I get to the poker room at around 9:00 am and he sees Chris Moneymaker playing in a short-handed 2/5 PLO game. We head up to watch him play and he was loaded…both in alcohol and in money. He had at least 6k in front of him but was apparently down a significant amount since he had been playing LAG all night. He was pretty cool, showing my friend and I his cards and chatting with us even though we were not sitting at the table. The funniest moment happened when my friend and I were filling out the heads up bracket (we made a $5 prop bet on this). After filling out my first round picks, CM demands to see my bracket and promptly calls me a SOB when he sees that I picked Negreanu over him in the first round…lol. He also berates me for my other choices, but it was just funny to listen to him do so and I wasn’t offended in the least.
The poker room manager tells us that cash game players get the first opportunity to see the heads-up, so even though I swore I would never play cash games at Caesars again due to their obscene rake, I buy into 1/3 NL and decided I would play hyper tight. Well, it is hard to play hyper tight when the deck hits you on the head and due to AK hitting 3 times for me I end up cashing out $300 ahead, but not getting to actually see the heads-up matches. My friend was a bit luckier and his table got picked to get into the audience. Oh well…I would rather take the $300 anyway.
Then I decide to take a break from poker, heading back to IP to play some table games, losing about $40. For dinner I met up with my brother again and we went to the PF Chang’s at PH. The prix fixe menu was a really good value and a ton of good food. Then its off to MGM for some 1-2 NL. I only play for an hour, but end up cashing out $124 ahead thanks to a donkey paying of my AA with JJ (I would have been super pissed off if I would have lost 3 big pots in a row due to cracked aces).
I decided that I wanted to try some 8/16 so my friend and I head to Bellagio but they don’t have that game running. My friend stays to play 1-2 NL for a bit and I head up to Venetian to try my luck. They are not running 8/16 but I see they have an open seat in the HORSE game. I don’t get to play HORSE that often so this was a real treat, even though I suck at stud. The only complaint I have is that the $1 ante in the stud rounds is fairly steep, and I think the antes should be 50 cents. I lose about $60 in a few hours at the game, but I enjoyed it and to me being down $60 was nothing to worry about.
Our flight was Saturday at 4:15 and the shuttle was coming at 1:30 to get us. We woke up, checked out of the hotel, and decided to get our 2/4 on at IP to kill time. I go completely card dead and lose about $30, but I end my trip up about $325 before expenses.
All in all it was a fun trip and I can’t wait to go back!