I went to Vegas last week for a conference and brought my fiancee with me so we could enjoy Vegas in the evenings and over the weekend. Both of us have been learning how to play poker online and were eager to play a live game in Vegas. I've been reading "Small Stakes Hold 'Em", and that book has the perfect strategy for every 2/4 limit table we played.

The conference was at Paris, so we played a few sessions at Bally's Tuesday and Wednesday. Since I was busy during the day at the conference, my fiancee did more of the playing. Easy pickings here, from the totally clueless to the simply bad. It was your typical no fold-'em game: 6-8 players to a flop was the norm (and that's including my fiancee and I folding the majority of our hands). I think there was one hand in the three hours I played Tuesday that had fewer than five to the flop. And usually at least a player or two would call you down to the river no matter what. Yeah, you'll get a bad beat now and then, but wait for a big hand and you'll get paid. They also have high hand jackpots at Bally's. My fiancee hit a diamond Royal Flush for $186 (unfortunately it had been hit recently - the other Royals were $300-$599). I won about $80 in a little less than three hours of play at Bally's, which is pretty good for 2/4 limit.

Thursday evening I went down to Excalibur poker room to join my fiancee who started playing earlier that afternoon. Again, the play was horrible. Not as many totally clueless players as Bally's. but there were quite a few who knew the rules just fine but didn't know good strategy. A couple even seemed to realize they were playing badly, but just liked to be in the action. There was a maniac at the table for a while who raised about 50% of the time and straddled every time he was UTG. Needless to say he didn't last long once people figured out his game. Overall, it wasn't quite as loose as Bally's but it was still an average of 5-6 on every flop. I did see the only blind chop I saw all week at this table. A few people would fold to bluffs but most people would call anything, even with king high. I hit some card dead streaks, but I hit a couple nut flushes vs. a couple not quite so nut flushes (both against the same poor guy) and got paid handsomely for them. I finished $110 ahead after six hours of play. My fiancee finished about $125 ahead. Overall a really fun table. We had a good time talking to the other players and a few of the dealers. We just smiled and took their money.

After the conference ended on Friday we moved to the Venetian over the weekend and played some more 2/4 there Saturday night. It's a nice, big comfortable room to play in. I expected the play here to be better than Bally's and Excalibur. It was, but not by a whole lot. I get the feeling the play at 2/4 limit is going to be pretty bad no matter where you play. There were a few skilled players but the majority were very bad. This was helped due to it being Saturday night; this was by far the drunkest table I played at. A group of three guys sat there for hours and dropped a few hundred on the table, knocking back drink after drink. For a while we were doing pretty well: I was up about $60 and my fiancee was up about $140, but one of the drunk guys hit a fantastic run of cards and pretty soon we were down to -$5 and +$40 respectively, when we gave up for the night. This could have been by far our most profitable night, but the cards just weren't there and you can only stay up so late. But in the long run, a good player would definitely hit it big at a table like this.

Overall we had a great time playing live poker for the first time and can't wait to go back. Every 2/4 table we played at was way looser than any .50/1.00 online table I've ever played at. Play disciplined "Small Stakes Hold 'Em" strategy and you'll make money. Even a couple live action newbies like us did pretty well.