I apologize that this is as long as it is but it was originally written for some friends who couldn't make the trip with us and for my blog.

Tuesday, Oct 2nd - The 23.75 Hour Day:

Off to Vegas today to attend the Vision Expo trade show and since I won’t be seeing the kids for a few days I woke up early to take them to school. I couldn’t sleep too sound anyway last night from thinking of being back in Vegas after about 3 years. What I remember most from that trip was that it was the first time I ever played poker and I only played because the guys I was with were playing. Those were the days when I didn’t realize KK should be raised pre-flop and you can guess how that session turned out. Today I still have that last $1 chip from my $100 buy-in at Mirage. The other $99 lasted me all of about an hour or so. But I was hooked.

Had to work ¾ day today before our 5:30 pm flight. Park N Fly driver takes me on an unwanted tour of all DFW terminals after he tries to convince me my flight is at Terminal A. I arrive at my real terminal and gate just in time and Dale is already there with his half filled backpack and I instantly realize I’m packed like Imelda Marcos compared to him even though I just have a full backpack with wheels and a laptop case. I’ve known Dale for 21 years now since optometry school and we’ve always had a penchant for small stakes gambling whether it be on the golf course or casino and mostly just for the sport of it. My first trip ever to Vegas was in 1990 with Dale and we used to only play Blackjack. The 3 hour flight today was nicely uneventful. Left on time and arrived on time. I spent my time on plance watching some episodes of The Office and then started to watch The Illusionist for about 20 minutes but then it was time to land.

Dale and I made the long walk/ monorail ride from terminal to the ultra-convenient full service check-in desk MGM Grand has set up in the airport itself right near baggae claim In all of about 10 min we had our room keys, were able to take the $5 shuttle to the hotel and were in our room. Record time. I love efficiency. Cursory evaluation of the room was that it’s spacious enough with a desk in the corner and the standard TV armoire with mind-numbing remote and TV menu. Bathroom not big or small but it has that small sized vanity which I don’t like. The room is near elevator as requested and on ground floor as not requested. Why would I even want a ground floor room near the elevator?! But I have to say it was EZ in and EZ out. Efficiency. Now in exchange for this was the fact that our view from the room window consisted of an MGM service alley and not much else. No view of strip, no view of a pool or grounds, nary even a glint of sunlight. By the way the check-in girl told us we managed to get the last non-smoking room in the entire 5000 room hotel. Man, this is my lucky day! Roll eyes. Oh well, for $69/night plus $25 food/beverage credit I had zero complaints. So no prob as I just need a sleep and shower. I'll get to the beds and shower later.

It’s now after 7PM Vegas time ( 9pm CST) by now and we’re starving since there weren't even pretzels on the plane. But I heard buffet here at MGM is not so good so we hoof it over to Mandalay bay via the over-the-street walkways and the tram that runs from Excalibur to Mandalay Bay. Shankar (my cousin) is over there for his SAP conference and we figured we’d ambush him and have dinner with him before playing any cards. I call him from the buffet cashier line and he says he’s just finishing up his keynote speaker event and he says we should go meet him at the SAP exhibit hall where they have open bar and lot’s of food. Um, OK. At this point we just paid our $30 each to the cashier and are really just ready to chow down. But instead we ask for a refund for which they kindly oblige and as soon as the nice girl at the buffet gives me my refund I get a call from Shankman saying we might need a badge to get in. Thanks for the timely info bro.

Anyway he’s going to try and get us in so we make the long trek from casino floor to the convention center while each thinking to ourselves “I just got $30 of free bluff money!” and sneak past the 2 Mandalay employees watching the escalator to make sure people have badges. I pull my best James Bond and pretend to talk on my phone while half turning my back to them. Dale meanwhile literally does a meet and greet with them as we get to the top of the escalator. We get through anyway. Me and Dale look like IT geeks anyway, right? Then we get to the door of the massive exhibit hall where we then find out there’s a security guard there and Shanks can’t get us both in. Did I mention we’re starving? I grab his badge, go in and check out the scene. The place is teeming with SAP attendees all with their free SAP backpack on. Shanks says there are 6000 people at this thing. I grab 2 Sam Adams from the full service open bar and hatch a plan. I finally decide it’s going to be the old exit door strategy. So I head back to the front entrance area, open exit door, yell to dale to get in and then toss shank’s badge back to him. By the time we get to the back of the hall they are wrapping up food service and taking away all the chafing dishes. We manage to attack the carving station and get a healthy serving of roast beef and turkey. as well as a bunch of very fancy Italian herb marinated baby vegetables and mucho chocolatey desserts. The Shankster brings us some nice wine and we inhale grub at one of those stand up kind of round bar tables with no chairs. No matter. I don’t really like roast turkey that much because it’s just so…..uninteresting. But this one was superb and it didn’t hurt that they had this sun dried cherry and leek compote to go along with it as well as brown sage gravy. Even if I don’t find a better dish than this the rest of the trip it’s all good.

After eating I grab my glass of wine and we all head down to the casino floor to find the poker room. Shanks seems to know the brush at the poker room desk and she gets him seated at a 1/2 NL table (small blind is $1 and big blind is $2) immediately. Me and Dale want to play that game too and she types our names in and we show up on the big plasma under the 1/2 NL header. We head to the bathroom and not feeling very confident I ask dale if he wants to split wins/losses for the session figuring it will cut down on the variance no limit can have. He agrees and we head back to the room and they call us to take our seats. But we’re given seat assignments at different tables. So much for our plan. The chiprunner asks how much and I decide I’m going to buy in for the max as recommended by many cash players and I hand over $200. Even though there’s no chips in front of me the dealer lets me play a hand while announcing to the rest of the table “new player - two hundred behind”. Is this some kind of code meaning “sucker in seat 8” I wonder? The brush scoots a small table with wheels behind me for my wine glass. I’m the only one drinking wine here. Can I look any more donkish?

I scan the room and surroundings….very nice. It’s very open, right near the sportsbook and very tastefully appointed. There’s about 10-12 tables maybe and they all have autoshufflers. I had read on www.allvegaspoker.com that Mandalay Bay’s poker room is ice cold and if you see a player wearing a sweater or dressed warmly then it’s an experienced local rounder whom you might want to watch carefully and avoid playing big pots with. 2 seats to my left is a youngish guy wearing a parka. Shanks is at my table too and is 2 to my right. Between us is a clean cut guy in his 40s who looks like an SAP geek too. To shank’s right is a smug looking guy in a ballcap who looks Persian or Indian. he keeps twisting this cherry stem between his teeth and I already dislike him. To my left is this older guy with thick glasses who seems to have a perpetual scowl on his face and he sounds Turkish or something. In seats 2 and 3 are a couple of young asian guys. I settle in with my chips which are a bunch of red $5 chips and some white $1 chips. I sit by, order some coffee and watch the action for a bit without mixing it up.

standard raises seem to be about $10-12 preflop which is much more than the usual 3X the BB I'm used to. And no preflop raise ever takes the pot down. There's at least 2 callers to a raise. Gambling. I attempt to see a cheap flop with pocket 4s and 7s but to no avail. I have to fold to oversize raises and am losing chips. Finally I get to see a flop with a hand where I flop an open ended str8 draw out of the blind. I think the board is K,8,6. It' s just me and SAP Philly guy to my right. He bets the flop and I call. He checks the turn and I check. I don't hit my straight. He checks the river and I figure there's no way he can have much. I throw in four $5 red chips on a stone bluff and he ponders for a short while and calls. He turns over an 8 (middle pair) to claim the pot. It's gonna be like that, huh? Now I have to go into a shell for a bit and I end up spending some time befriending philly guy. I've given up on the wine and am now drinking bottled water. Evetually I pick up QJ and see a cheap flop. I flop top pair and Asian #2 bets about $12 and I call. Turn is a J and he bets $20. I think and min raise him to $45. He seems to make a reluctant call of my raise and I figure I'm good. He checks the river and I bet in the $30-$40 range and he folds. I toke the dealer (tipping ensures good hands, right?) and feel better. Just like that I'm back in the black. Breathing room.

I win a small pot with QQ later. Parka pushes all-in on a hand and is called by someone with a pair. Parka's been caught bluffing a bad player and makes his exit. Good. Soon Dale walks by and I'm not sure why he's walking around but I'm hoping it's not what I'm thinking. He returns and relates his tough beat where he flops a set of kings and even though he raised preflop to $20 he ends up busting to a lady who made a straight on river with the monster hole card combo of 5,7 offsuit! Ugh. I soon pick up the venerable AA and I'm in a blind so I get to see all the action before I act. There's a limper then it's raised to $15 by cherry stem. Shanks calls the $15 and so does a newer player at the table who's bought in short and who seemed more interested in joining a 4/8 game they're trying to spread. By the time it gets too me my heart rate has started to accelerate. You know that feeling. Reminds me of when I first took up poker. I decide I don't want this much action with my hand and I bump it up to $40 preflop. Cherry stem says I must have aces or kings and mucks. Shanks is short stacked and puts in the rest of his chips and new guy calls. Flop hits and I bet about half of what new guy has left. He calls. Hmmm. Turn looks like a brick and I put him all in. He insta-calls and dealer flips over the river card. At this point adrenaline is flowing and the board is an absolute blur to me. I just want the dealer to call out the winning hand. Shanks has KJ I think and new guy has what I'm told later to be a busted flush draw. Nice pot there and it loosens me up enough to where I flag down our jiggly (in a very nice way) cocktail waitress and tell her to ask the bartender to start pouring the Glenmorangie. Her name is Yvonne and she doesn't hesitate to ask if that will be straight up or on the rocks. She returns soon and life is good.

I pick up QQ again and isolate a guy who's a bit short stacked by re-raising preflop. He calls with a smaller pair and my hand holds up. My hand range loosens up significantly and in 1 hand I limp with J9 and get into a pot with my Philly friend who's held steady and seems to play solid. The flop is a beautiful KQT and he leads out like he has something. I call. He bets the turn and I raise him. Now he's on edge a bit but calls my raise. River looks harmless and I have the nut hand. he checks the river and I bet enough to where he almost has to call but doesn't want to but he calls and I scoop another good pot. He doesn't say another word to me for the rest of the night it seems. What a baby...just becasue I've been friendly to him he thinks I'm not going to go after his stack?

By this time I've switched to drinking Rusty Nails (Chivas and Drambuie) and am feeling alright. What time is it? Who cares? Shanks runs into an ugly hand where Asian #1 check/calls the flop bet as well as a very substantial $50 bet on the turn and the river was an awful card that had flush or straight written all over the board. Asian shoves and shanks calls with 2 pair. Asian shows a flush. Shakns tried hard to protect his hand but you can't get some players to fold there. Philly guy leaves and a guy Shanks knows from the night before sits down. Sam is his name. I call [censored] and ask him what his real name is. "Surindaram" he says laughing. He works for Intel and is supposedly a wild player. We have a good time playing and after my next rusty nail he orders one too. We get into a hand where I think he's bluffing and I have no pair but I do have an ace. He bets $35 on the river and I make a prop bet with him that if I call and lose he buys dinner the next night. He agrees. I donk off the $35 and he turns over bottom pair or something. We both just laugh.

I'm now jawing it up with Yvonne every time she comes around for drink orders and eventually challenge her into telling us something about her we would never guess. She's a good sport about it and it's all big fun. By now cherry stem is our friend too and says his name is Chris. [censored]. I press and he reveals himself to be "Chirag". Chirag loves to do a live straddle (making the big blind double while you are under the gun and haven't looked at your hole cards) and I loving giving him a hard time about it because he's never won a single pot doing this. But he made a nice comeback after busting when his flopped straight lost to a boat after being all in on flop. We play more and I’ve run well. I can’t recall any other hands here due to state of mind. I eventually rack up and cash out my chips for about $600.

I'm beat and don't want to take the tram back because there is some walking involved so we make the walk to the parking garage to catch a cab back to MGM. In the parking garage we see a very attractive young lady in a black cocktail dress with her hands behind her back in cuffs and standing in front of a police car. Vegas. I snap quick photo and jump in cab. We get back to our hotel quick in the cab and make the walk to the room. I shut my phone off, take an Aleve, pull the heavy drapes shut and hit the sack. I glance at the alarm clock and it says 4:45am. My body argues that it's really 6:45 am CST. Out.