Anniversary trip with my wife from 12/17-12/20 Stayed at Mandalay Bay. Sat. 12/17 Picked up a quick $850 in profit at the craps table at the QUIETEST 45 min. roll I’ve ever seen. The wife was sick from mixing too many different drinks so, I played 2-4 NL ($200 buy-in) at Mandalay that night from 9pm – 3am. Played pretty tight against a few local (young guys) and the rest of us tourists. Overall, all the players played good solid poker and I picked up $150.00 for the session. Played 2-4 NL Sunday while watching all the NFL games from 11am – 4pm. Seemed to be all tourists and again the table was solid and tight. The guy next to me said he was stealing some pots and it was perfect table to do it. Unfortunately, every time I tried someone had a good hand. Ended up the session down $65.

After a great dinner at Del Monico Steak House (in the Venitian Sunday night), headed over to Bellagio with the wife. I didn’t play any poker but peeked in Bobby’s Room to find Doyle, Barry Greenstein, TJ and a few others playing. Doyle had a HUGE stack and seemed to be doing quite well. Hey Barry, SHAVE THAT BEARD!! Swung by the poker room at Mandalay (at midnight) to see who was playing before I went to bed. Monday – woke up at 6am and headed down for a couple of hours before the wife woke up. The 2-4 NL table had 1 opening and I noticed 4 or 5 of the same people still playing from midnight (2 of them were the young locals from the other night). First hand I have QQ next to button, I raise to $25 and the local in the BB reraises me to $50. I put him on AKs and tell myself if rags flop, I’ll go all-in. Flop is rags and he checks, I go all in. He calls flipping over AA to my QQ, as I am digging to rebuy, a Q hits on the turn and I double up!! The very next hand the same young guy gets run down by some Fish next to me. The Fish had 67o and was on an inside straight draw, called his all-in and ran down his set of 10’s. The young guy was devastated and was now a spectator. After catching 2 sets, a flush and a full boat, I left the table up $550 within 2 hours.

Went to MGM to play in the $65 11am tourney. It really is an awesome room and a well run tournament (Ray the tourney manager does a great job!!). Busted out of the tourney in 14th place (out of 100) and went to a very tight 6 person NL table. Maybe it was the time of day, but it was very tight and boring. Switched to a 4-8 limit game and didn’t catch much against more very tight players. Ended up down $40. I really liked the layout of the room and it is probably really rockin’ at night. I can’t wait to go back and check it out. Monday night at Mandalay I tried the 4-8 Limit game and that game is just too boring for me. I wanted to play 6-12 or 8-16 but did not see any higher Limit games then 4-8 at Mandalay or MGM. Played NL Monday night from 11pm-3am and the table was all local Pros except for me and another guy. Most of these pros seemed VERY good and were talking about high stakes games at Wynn and the Bellagio. I didn’t know why there were playing at Mandalay that night. Anyways, I held my own for the session and ended down about $30.00. Overall, my winnings covered all of our expenses which totaled about $1300 thanks to a couple of hot craps tables and NL holdem.

The Mandalay Bay room was nice (but small) and it’s a great place to watch games while playing. The management was very good but drinks came pretty slow. The MGM room was very impressive and I highly recommend their 11 am tournament. I WILL spend more time in this room and other casinos (Mirage, Bellagio and Ceasars)on the next trip (no wife). Go Bears!!