After much too long an absence I finally made my way back to Las Vegas, this time for a solo trip Super Bowl weekend.

DISCLAIMER: This is going to be one of those excessively long, rambling, travelogue-type trip reports. Furthermore the biggest game I played was 3-6 limit, so there's not going to be much by way of specific hand discussions/strategy. Finally, my hedonistic party days are a good two decades behind me now, so all in all a pretty tame (and/or lame, depending on your definitions) excursion by Vegas standards. If that still sounds like your cup of tea, then enjoy the read. If not, then you've been warned. Anyhow...

FRIDAY
Following a two hour delay waiting for our connecting flight to be de-iced in Dallas I was airborne and Vegas bound. God bless Southwest and direct flights. I love flying into Vegas. The desert mountains are just gorgeous from the air, and the city and The Strip are such a surreal juxtaposition against that natural beauty. With the delay I arrived at McCarren around 4pm and was pleasantly surprised to see that there was no cab line. My driver didn't try to tunnel me or push any strip clubs. He actually didn't say anything until we got to my lodging, the glamorous and ever-luxurious Casino Royale.

I've posted a more detailed review of the Casino Royale in another thread here, but suffice it to say it provided perfectly sufficient accommodations for a solo trip. The room was clean and quiet, and as an added bonus had a coffee maker and fridge. I could also watch the volcano show at the Mirage from across the roof of the CR casino. But the best feature was definitely the location, which, combined with the small size of the property, made Strip access almost instantaneous. It also made it incredibly easy to pop back to the room for a quick decompression break, which I found extremely useful and therapeutic.

After getting settled I wandered south down The Strip, checking out casinos and poker rooms along the way. Throughout the trip I actually did plenty of just walking and gawking at casinos and their patrons. One cell phone app that I found remarkably handy as a relative Vegas neophite was Vegas Casino Maps. If you're not familiar, it's basically just what it says – a compendium of casino floor plans. It made it very easy to find a few landmarks and get myself re-oriented, particularly in the larger and more sprawling properties.

I eventually made my way to Le Burger Brasserie at Paris. I had a burger with goat cheese, caramelized onions, and roasted peppers, plus waffle fries and a Blue Moon. The burger was quite tasty and so big I could barely open my mouth wide enough to fit it in. [Insert your own crude joke here.] I ate at the Burger Bar at Mandalay Bay on my last trip, and I'd have to say that they have a slight edge in the food and a much better beer list. The atmosphere (more open and more sports bar-ish) and particularly the waitress outfits are better at the Burger Brasserie, however, so it's probably a push between the two of them.

I also had my first brief video poker session at Paris, and when I went to cash out the machine refused to print my ticket. Fortunately when I pushed the help button a very friendly and courteous woman showed up almost instantly and got me taken care of with a smile and a thank you. I have to say after reading some recent posts on AVP I was a little nervous about the quality of customer service I could expect in Vegas, but with exception of a few people at the Flamingo poker room I received nothing but very good to excellent service everywhere I went. Maybe I was just experiencing some customer service run good, but I certainly can't complain. I also must admit that I love all the phony city streets and such at Paris and NYNY. Somehow it doesn't work so well for me at the Venetian, maybe because they're trying so hard to stay upscale while somehow being campy at the same time.

I also wandered through the new Cosmopolitan and the City Center. The Cosmopolitan was very nice, though a bit too hipster upscale for my personal taste. Look though I might, I didn't see any horrible acts being performed on any kittens or bunnies. I do have to admit that the chandelier was pretty dang cool, and their restrooms were the nicest of any of the casino crappers that I had the pleasure of visiting. I agree with others who have said that City Center is nice enough but feels like a generic upscale downtown shopping area. It was also a confusing beast to navigate. The poker room looked very nice, though. I peeked over the rail on the off chance that missingflops or miamicane were there and I could say howdy and thanks for the blog, but if they were around I didn't see them.

Eventually I made my way to the poker room at the Monte Carlo. After a very brief wait I was seated at a 2-4 table. The poker room had a very comfortable homey vibe, and I thought the dealers did a good job of maintaining that comfortable feel while also keeping the game moving. The table seemed to be a mix of tourists and older locals. I also got to meet my first local bonus nit. He was a friendly enough guy, just very eager to tell me about the various high hand jackpots he had hit and how he had cleaned up at the opening of the new Binion's bingo hall. In my first big hand I snapped a big pocket pair with 34s and the guy (another older local) stared at me for a good minute after the hand like I had defamed and possibly defiled his sainted mother, so that was entertaining. I didn't say anything, just smiled stacked my chips. It's not like I'm ever folding that hand from late position in an 8-way limped pot. After some turnover the table got a bit more aggressive. Later in the evening I had my own big hand snapped off by a runner runner flush made by an ace-rag off-suit that called the whole way. Unfortunately that combined with the following stretch of card-deadness slowly awakened the loose-passive tilt demon that lives in the darkest recesses of my poker soul. I started calling with all kinds of crap hands regardless of position and then sticking with them way longer could ever be justified. I managed to spew off the better part of my $100 buy-in before I was able to tell myself, “Listen dipshot, you're obviously tilting and don't have the discipline to correct it right now. You need to leave.” Net result for the three hours: -$85. But also a lesson learned, so not a total waste. I hopped the tram back to the Bellagio and wandered back to the room for the night.

SATURDAY
Still being on Central Time, I was up at a fairly decent hour. I traipsed across the street to the sports book at the Mirage and made my first ever sports bets. I put $20 on the Steelers money line, $20 on the over, and $20 on the Texas A&M men's basketball team with the points. I wasn't particularly confident in that last bet, but they were my undergrad and I was betting more for fun than profit. I could never be a serious sports bettor, even in my NCAA brackets I'm always way too emotional and way too much of a homer. Hell, I don't even do fantasy sports. I just want my teams to win and our rivals to lose, hopefully in spectacular fashion.

I then moseyed down to the Forum Shops and had breakfast at Max Brenner's. It was everything I had hoped and more! If you're not familiar, they're an upscale gift shop/restaurant/bar/temple of chocolate. The menu had 2 or 3 pages dedicated to just varieties of hot chocolate. They also had what sounded like some fantastic chocolate-based cocktails. I had the Mexican Spicy Hot Chocolate, which was made with red chili, nutmeg, cinnamon and pepper with dark chocolate (every hot chocolate drink had the option of white, dark or milk chocolate). For breakfast I ordered the Maxican Omelet – Swiss cheese, onions, black beans and avocado. The home fries were a little overdone for my taste but wonderfully seasoned. The omelet was good and the salsa on top was fantastic with a great smoky flavor. The buttermilk biscuit was life-changingly good. I couldn't swear to it, but I think I briefly saw a bright tunnel with grandma at the end. The biscuit was dusted/crusted with sugar and came with little bowls of butter and chocolate for dipping. The service was also spot on. After the waitress woke me up from my food coma I picked up a few things from the chocolate shop to bring back for the gf and swung by the Apple store to mooch some free wifi and browse ipod cases.

My plan was to head back to the book at the Mirage to watch the A&M-Baylor basketball game, but by the time I got there we were already down 13. After starting the season strong we've just gone to hell in a hand basket. Staying and watching would just piss me off and/or depress me, so instead I trotted back across the street to the room to drop of my purchases and re-group. Did I mention how convenient the Casino Royale was?

After a little rest I headed out to play some poker. I stopped in at the IP, but they only had two half-empty tables going. I kept walking and found myself at the Flamingo. With their 4am – 4pm promotions running the room was pretty busy, particularly considering it wasn't quite noon yet. I got quickly seated in a 2-4 game. The dude at the front desk was very friendly and welcoming, but the cashier was a grumpy old man of Matthauian proportions. On my second hand I was dealt pocket jacks and flopped quads on a JJA board. I wasn't sure how big the pot had to be for the HH bonus and knew I wasn't allowed to ask during the hand, so at some point I put out a bet and accidentally scared everybody off. I then folded without showing on the assumption that the hand had to go to showdown to claim the bonus. It wasn't until later when I got up for a potty break that I saw and read the promo poster and realized what a complete dumbass I had been [facepalm]. So there's another $50 lesson learned. I did manage to crack two pairs of aces in one hand when my qjs flopped top two and turned a full house. I couldn't figure out why nobody was folding! Later I had aces myself but ran off everybody on the turn. By that point the pot was big enough that if they were cracked my net profit would have been about the same, so no real loss. The dealers at the Flamingo were a mixed bag – some were good, some were slow but personable and entertaining (which I didn't mind so much since I was playing more for entertainment than profit anyways), but some just didn't seem to want to be there at all. I was also able to watch the basketball game from my seat. The Aggies finally closed the gap and forced overtime, but then they choked it away. Oh well. Three or four hours later I left up $41 on the poker, but out $20 on the sports bet.

When I got up to get racks and sat back down to load them a drunk guy who had been doing a lot of grumbling and talking to nobody in particular looked at me and said, “You're not the guy.” He then yelled at the dealer, “He's not the guy!” That was all he would say to me. The dealer didn't say anything and the player next to me said, “Don't worry, nothing he's saying is making much sense.” So I just smiled and stacked my chips. It wasn't until after I left that I figured out he was accusing me of sitting down and stealing chips. I'm not sure if he was trying to make a joke or was serious. I had put my sweater back on when I got up, and with his condition that really might have been enough to throw him. The Flamingo was an interesting place with interesting inhabitants.

Puzzled and bemused, I headed back to the room for a little breather and then did some more walkin' and gawkin'. It wasn't until six or seven that I started thinking about eating again (breakfast had been around 9:30). It wasn't even so much that I was hungry, more just that I thought with all the walking I had done it might be good to eat a little something. I browsed a few nearby food courts and toured the Canal Shops but wound up back at the Subway at the Casino Royale. I just ate in my room – it was much cleaner and more pleasant than the casino dining area. Then it was out for more wandering and poker.

I eventually settled on the IP for some evening play. Being right on the casino floor wasn't as distracting as I thought it would be, though the low ceiling and tight quarters did create a bit of a claustrophobic feel. I'm also not a fan of no cup holders. It was a friendly and chatty table, including a particularly talkative guy at the far end of the table who tried to buy a lot of pots. I was able to be patient and take a hand or two off of him. The dealers were all plenty good enough. One in particular was very good at enforcing the rules while also keeping things light and friendly, although his name escapes me. Not much else to report except that I think I very briefly fell in love with our cocktail waitress. After three or four hours I left up $16. That's right, I'm a balla.

I headed back to the room for a brief powder. On the way I stopped for a quick slice from the pizza place in the food court between Harrah's and the Casino Royale. It was pretty typical nasty, greasy food court pizza, but it really hit the spot. Then I headed out to find a late night game. First I crossed the street to the Mirage, but then I decided to look elsewhere since I'd be playing there the next day for their Super Big Game promotion. I, along with the cast of the Jersey Shore, took the tram over to TI, but they didn't have any limit games on the list. I considered crossing the street to try some $4-8 Omaha8 at the Venetian. I really prefer Omaha8 to Hold'em, plus it rewards my tendency to see monsters under the bed (in Omaha they're usually real!) But on my way I realized that I was getting way too tired to play anything vaguely resembling decent poker so I wisely chose to call it a night and headed back to the room. [In literary criticism, that last sentence is what they would call foreshadowing.]

SUNDAY
Sunday morning I was again up fairly early, so I headed out for breakfast. I do enjoy The Strip in the early morning. Almost seems like an entirely different place, plus it's a new day with new possibilities. I headed down to the Hash House A Go Go at the Imperial Palace. It was everything everybody says it is. (By this point astute readers my be noticing a bit of a breakfast leitmotif running through the trip report, and they'd be right. I do love breakfast food.) I ordered the veggie House Hash. It consisted of large home-fried potatoes mixed with artichoke hearts, mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes and fresh spinach and was served with eggs and a biscuit that was bigger than my fist. The whole thing was served in a full-sized skillet piled high. I also had a cup of coffee and some fresh orange juice, both of which were very good. The hash was fantastic and everything tasted fresh. Even so, I think I ate less than half my plate, er, I should say half my skillet. And I'm not a small guy with a sparrowlike appetite. A dude at the table next to me got a blueberry pancake, and I swear it was 14” across and an inch thick.

Fully sated and then some, I headed back down to the IP poker room. They were pretty dead, so I wandered back to the Flamingo. I was again in the one seat. I do enjoy sitting next to the dealer, but don't care much for the jackpot box banging into my leg. In the three seat sat a tall skinny rockabilly looking cat who I recognized from my table at the IP the night before. He was a friendly guy who said he was from San Antonio, although his accent sounded like he was from New Zealand. I managed to lose two large pots to him. In the first I played TPTK a bit too fast and recklessly. In the second I was on the button and the table folded to me. In the 12 or so hours of 2-4 I had played to that point that was the first time I had seen that happen, so I blame what followed on sheer shock and surprise. I went for a blind steal, but my fellow Texan re-raised me from the bb. He was the only player at the table who I thought was savvy enough to spot the steal and attempt a resteal. We had a scary looking flop, so I decided to continue representing strength and rather stubbornly refused to give up my charade. After that loss I went pretty card dead, but managed to be disciplined and just folded junk hands for the next hour or so. I eventually got up from the table down $49 for the three hours. I wandered back to the room to rest up a bit before the big game.

I wasn't sure how early I should show up to ensure that I got a table at the Mirage's Big Game promotion, so I arrived a bit after two. I was glad I did. The room was hopping, there was a decent line at the front desk, and the wait list for 3-6 went off the bottom of the screen. Even so the women at the desk seemed on top of things and I was seated in the 4 seat of table 19 within about 15 minutes. After spending so much time at the IP and Flamingo it was nice to be in a higher-end room with quality chairs and tables (albeit still without cup holders). The hot chocolate at the Mirage is also very good stuff. I was seated at the old man end of the table. Seriously, the median age for seats 1-5 was about 60, while for seats 6-10 it was probably around 35. To my right was a friendly local gentleman whose wife was playing at another table. She would occasionally stop by and bring him candy or handiwipes. It was very sweet. To my left was grumpy older guy who spent more time away from the table than playing. Without hyperbole, he was gone from halftime to the end of the game. I didn't mind so much, because it meant I had more room and it wasn't like we had to worry about the table going shorthanded. Of course it was pretty rude to anybody waiting on the list. During one of his brief appearances at the table he seemed convinced that I had missed a chance to claim a HH jackpot on flop of x22, when I won without having to show on the river. It was very odd (though given my previous dumbassery at the Flamingo not necessarily unwarranted). I had JJ which remained an overpair to a fairly ragged board.

Despite only being a slight bump up in stakes, $3-6 seemed to play a bit differently than $2-4. There was a lot more folding preflop, and it was a bit easier to reliably assign hand ranges to people. Heck, there were even multiple opportunities for blind-chopping. So there was less chance of getting multiple callers on your nut flush all the way to the river, but also less chance of getting beaten by weird runner runner garbage hands. It also made it a little easier for me to stay focused and disciplined. Of course my sample size is just one session of $3-6, so it could have been the stakes, the venue, my specific table, or just plain ex post facto rationalization on my part. Regardless, when I left five hours later I was up $57 on the poker. Baby gets a new pair of shoes! (Granted, they have to be shoes from the sale bin at the Shoe Carnival, but still.)

The Super Bowl and accompanying promotion were a lot of fun as well. I'm a lifelong Steelers fan, so I was excited to see them back in the big game despite the fact that they had looked vulnerable all season. There was a good bit of whooping and cheering throughout the room, both for the game itself and for the multiple drawings. Being so close to the sports book and bar just added to the energy. I won two $50 drawings from the 4 seat, though I toked the floor who was running around dispersing the chips $2 each time and tossed the dealer a red bird, so I was only taking home $43. But heck, it was free money and the dealers seemed genuinely surprised and appreciative, so definitely worth it in my book.

Sometime around halftime our table was joined by a young quasi-ipod/hoodie type kid in the two seat. He was a nice enough guy, just seemed excessively eager to show off his poker skillz, soul reading, guessing other players hands, etc. He bought in pretty light, maybe $40. He then rebought for $16 and later $25, which I thought was a little strange. At one point he folded to my friend in the three seat and said, “Nice kings.” The three seat acted impressed and a bit indignant, but I'm about 95% certain he was just shining the kid on. He later folded to me with a, “Nice AK” with a ragged ace high flop after my preflop raise and flop bet. I just smiled and stacked my chips, but he was way off. (My bet was more to see if he possibly had an ace.) In the fourth quarter he requested a seat change to the ten seat when it opened up and the two seat was quickly filled by a local woman. Literally on her second hand she won $50 on the Packers game-icing touchdown. The kid took it pretty well, though not without a bit of grumbling. The rest of the table had a hearty laugh at his expense.

Of course the football game and the drawings slowed the poker game a bit, but nobody seemed to mind. I certainly didn't. All in all it was a jovial and festive atmosphere and a good time seemed to be had by all. Or at least most all. Chris and the Mirage deserve mad props for putting together such a good promotion and then making it run so smoothly. I waited a bit after the end of the game to cash out to avoid the rush, but unwittingly managed to get to the front desk right as the last minute stragglers were trying to get into the 7pm tournament. The folks at the desk looked pretty harried and tired by that point, but they still did a fine job of getting everybody taken care off.

I headed back to the room for a little R&R. Up to that point my longest session had been 3 hours, so the 5 hours at the Mirage had been a bit draining. Refreshed, I headed out for a bit more walkabout, including a swing by the Mirage book to pick up my big time sports winnings. It was about 13 hours since I had eaten breakfast, and I was finally ready to consider eating again. My body was telling me that a salad would be a pretty good idea. I wound up at the Grand Lux at the [Hey, it's Enrico] Palazzo, partly because I had read on AVP that it could be less busy than the one in the Venetian and partly because I hadn't had a chance to check out the Palazzo yet. The 30' animatronic rabbit out front was kinda cool and kinda creepy. What happens to something like that after they take it down? Is there a market for second-hand 30' animatronic rabbits? Anyhow, I had a Manhattan Salad which came with every kind of vegetable imaginable. It was quite tasty and exactly what I needed. Refreshed, I headed out for my last poker session of the trip.

First I swung by the poker room at the Venetian. There was a pretty long list for $4-8 O8 and I didn't feel like waiting around so I headed on. It was cool seeing all the tables set out for the Deep Stack. I liked to think of it as the poker room rising up and seizing control of the rest of the casino floor. Viva la Revolucion! I considered heading back to the Mirage, but I had just spent five hours playing there. Instead I wandered down to the IP. I walked through the doors just in time to catch the tail end of a Chinese dragon (or maybe lion) dancing performance on the front steps, so that was pretty cool. None of the tables in the poker room looked particularly fun though, so I headed on down The Strip. My plan was to try out Bally's, but as I was sauntering past the Flamingo I decided I was too tired to walk that far and popped into the Pink Chicken instead. That probably should have been a sign that I was also too tired to play poker, but damnit, it was my last night in Vegas!

I walked up to the front desk and was greeted by the most disinterested “What?” from the floor that I have ever heard. I said, “Could I please get on the list for 2-4?” and was met by an unblinking blank stare and five or ten seconds of awkward silence. If anybody is familiar with the writings of HP Lovecraft, he had what I would call the Innsmouth look. He finally sighed heavily and said, “I need your name.” Now that's customer service!

Anyhow, I was seated at a table within a few minutes. Pokerwise, it was not a particularly interesting session. I did manage to lose with KK four times. Generally, I would get down about $40 to $60, then claw my way back to even. Rinse, repeat. The real lesson for me was that I was already too tired when I sat down and then I played way too long. (I sat down at 11 and got up at 5. Good Gawd, I may be turning into a degenerate.) I started playing worse and worse, began disregarding and eventually completely failing to recognize the texture of the board, and towards the end I was even having trouble following the action. I am pretty sure that's what they refer to as Level minus 2 thinking in poker texts. I would tell myself, “I'll go as soon as I get back in the black,” or “The table's shorthanded and will probably break if I leave. That would be rude.” But the truth of the matter was that this was my last night and I didn't want the trip to be over. So it wasn't until I was having trouble keeping my eyes open that I eventually left, down $48 bucks. Another moderately expensive lesson, but hopefully one I've learned.

More interesting than my own personal brand of stupidity was the the cast of characters that came through the table. I spent almost the entire six hours playing with a very friendly, very heavy drinking (and pot smoking, by his own repeated admission) younger guy who was downing Jack and Gingers like they were water (although he would occasionally mix in an actual bottle of water). But like I said, he was very friendly and remarkably coherent for the amount of alcohol he was consuming. At some point we were joined by two excessively drunk young Canadians who were trying to pretend that they didn't know how to play poker. Why you would try a ruse like that at a $2-4 table is beyond me, but they were way too drunk to successfully pull it off either way. After a few hours one left, but the other drunk Canadian stayed and proceeded to get even more drunk. It was to the point that the cocktail waitresses were trying to force him to drink water, be he would refuse. He would also call out things like, “Twenty-four dollars!” or “All in!” at random times. The dealers were very inconsistent in how they would enforce the rules at those moments and just generally in how much they would try to control the increasingly wild and boisterous game. Some tried, some didn't, some just said, “It's $2-4, we don't worry about the rules so much.” One even yelled at the players a few times. I do have to mention that Willie did a very good job of controlling the table while also keeping the party going. Eventually the Friendly Drunk (FD) had had enough. He just wanted a fun table and the Drunk Canadian (DC) was harshing his mellow. So FD was doing everything he could to get DC to leave. He even managed to get it all in preflop once for about $26 each. That's a lot of raising when you're going in $2 increments. FD had AK and DC had AJ. Of course a jack was in the door, so that didn't work. Even so, the FD eventually succeeded in talking the DC into leaving. That put an older woman at the table into a snit because it made the table even more shorthanded and she was afraid it would break. But she and the FD eventually made up and we had another few hours of wild but friendly shorthanded play.

In addition to the major players in our little melodrama we also had a few interesting minor characters. There was a guy wearing a cheese head at the far end of the table. He claimed he wasn't a Packers fan and that instead he was from California and wanted the world to know that California made the best cheeses. Later in the evening a friendly young Aussie from Perth sat down at my immediate left. He and I butted heads. Literally. He dropped his cell phone and we both bent down to pick it up at the same time. Made a sound like hitting two coconuts together. He managed to score quads at 4:03 am, just making it into the double bonus window. Sometime very late I also had an exciting trip to the restroom. The first stall I tried literally had crap all over the floor. How drunk do you have to be to miss? Once I found a clean stall and settled in for business I heard a group come in followed shortly by intense and prolonged retching interspersed with what would best be described as wailing and the occasional supplication to the Almighty. I just hunkered down and waited out the storm. All in all, the night had a very Tom Waits sort of feel to it. It was great, but also a bit unnerving.

MONDAY
The walk back up The Strip at 5 am was actually mildly creepy. I never really felt unsafe, but at the same time it was pretty deserted and the few people that were out were not people you would want to make eye contact with. I actually kinda missed the porn slappers. When I got back to my room I was faced with the decision of just staying up or going to bed and hoping I'd be able to get up in time for my flight. I finally opted for three quick hours of sleep. When I woke up I realized just how wise Gram Parsons was (“Spent all night with the dealer trying to get ahead, spent all day in the Holiday Inn just trying to get out of bed. Oooh Las Vegas, no place for a poor boy like me.”) I did finally manage to stumble out of bed and started a nice hot shower to get the blood flowing. Unfortunately about 30 seconds in the boiler apparently ran out of hot water. Definitely the worst beat I took on the trip and my only real knock against the Casino Royale hotel. So after about a minute more of icy shower I got out, got dressed, got a quick and sad little fruit salad from McDonald's next door, and got out of town. If anybody's interested in keeping score, my totals were:

Sports Betting: -$20
Poker: +$32 (including $100 promo nitting at the Mirage)
Machines: -$1

I told you I was balla! Plus $11! Yeehaw! I think it would be fair to attribute about $100 of my poker losses for the trip to the two major errors I made (monkey tilt at the MC and playing way too tired at Flamingo), so I'm at least semi-confident that I can do better next trip. Now I just have to figure out when I can make that happen!

In closing, here's a few random observations and questions that didn't fit in anywhere else:

-No fashion accessory classes up a $1,000 suit quite like a $30 drink worn around the neck.
-Hipster db types seem to congregate at the cab stands. Curious.
-Being forced into Carnival Court every time you're walking down The Strip gets to be a bit of a hassle, only partially offset late at night by the go-go dancers at the bar.
-Clearly I'm not wearing enough man jewelery or Axe brand hair products.
-Lee Jones was right – if you're playing strong cards and flop two pair, there's going to be some draws out there.
-Despite traveling as a single guy and spotting numerous hookers I wasn't propositioned once. It almost became insulting. What, am I not john material?
-Why do the moving sidewalks at the Venetian go the wrong direction?
-On both Saturday and Sunday night I got to watch Harrah's Security escort somebody out of the building. Once with lots of screaming (though not from security.)
-When you see a pack of guys all wearing Ed Hardy shirts and carrying backpacks, what are they carrying? And do they all really need their own supply of it?
-It seems horribly unsanitary to take your drink with you into the mens room, even moreso after my experiences at the Flamingo Sunday night.

I'm glad I warned you that this was going to be a long rambling trip report. If you made it this far, then thanks for reading. Thanks also to the members of AVP for creating such a great resource for trip planning. In particular, thanks to Local Rock for all the advice on the current state of affairs in Vegas low limit poker and thanks to Mirage Poker for putting together such a great event.