At 3:15pm on Monday I pick up Talon for the trip to Laughlin. Mike is taking his wife and the Sledgehammer. I stop by the SouthPoint to let them know I was seeking fortune down south and might get swept away by the excitement and glitz of Laughlin. They said, "its your day off, go away."

So we take the 1 1/2 hour drive to Laughlin. The five of us meet at Don Laughlin's Riverside Casino. What a strange coincidence that his name and the city are the same. Talon and I get there early so we eat at one of the gourmet restaurants. I had a "pan" pizza. I've been talking about the experience ever since.

About 6:30 we get to the poker room and started playing 4-8 hold'em. The dealers are nice and they only take $3 rake. the locals are really good. I lose $40 to one of the local sharks. On the way out we see our cocktail waitress playing slots in her uniform with her tray sitting next to her. Wow Vegas is nice but you want class go to Laughlin. The nicest thing about this room is that you actually can watch the river as you play. Kind of romantic.

We go next door to the Aquarius. It has two tables that are adjacent to the pit. They rotate pit dealers in and out. I am not proud about this. I am all in in my final hand. Mike's wife is in for the side pot. After getting the side pot, I say "throw your hand away!". Mike stops her and she wins the main pot. Then Mike accuses me of Angle shooting his wife. Why am I embarrased, I got caught, why else? I lose $100. The pit manager was nice, he opened a game for the five of us. Nice casino.

At 9:30 we go to Edgewater. They have a $9000 club royal. Mike and I figured out that it is valid for Stud as well as Hold'em. the five of us play Stud for an hour. An interesting point that we observed was neither dealer we had had ever dealt Stud in their 2 year dealing career. We had to help them with each hand. Poker has really changed in the last five years! I lost $60. Nice staff, small room.

The next room was the Colorado Belle. This is probably the busiest room in Laughlin. 10 tables. At 10:45pm they had three full games. They had a 2-6 spread limit hold'em game. I have never seen this before. It had a kill and the game went to 4-12 on the kill. I didn't think any spread limit games had kills. Nice room. Good staff. We bumped into another AVPer at the room, LocalRock. I lost $18

After dinner at the Tropicana Express we went to the poker room. This is where the trip starts to get interesting. We ask if they will start a game for us. The floor guy grumbles and says I just closed a table. The dealer talks up and says she will deal it. The floor guy says loud enough for us to hear,"you won't make a thing on this, friends at private games never tip." Talon tells me he hears this, so I go to Mike and say no, I'm not playing here. We get up to leave, but Mike goes back and gives him an earfull. For obvious reasons, we didn't play, so I broke even. My best showing in Laughlin.

The last stop was the River Palms. We play 2-6 hold'em, apprently the game of choice in the big city. We play for an hour. At this point I am exhausted as are the rest of the crew. We all get up and it unfortunately breaks the game. I lose $50.

At this point one player starts yelling at us and using his rather exstensive vocabulary of four letter words. I have kind of a funny quirk. If someone gets really mad at me, I stand there and smirk at them. So they will get more mad. At this point the guy changes his challenge from:I will take all your money,to I will beat you up.
Don't think I don't know that most of you were rooting for him. There are four of us (and Mike's wife) so I'm not scared. Security comes over and our group laughs at this and leaves. Our experience at the River Palms was still better then our experience at the Tropicana Express.

Road trips are fun. You play against new players, you see new things and have new experiences. My suggestion if you would like to go to Laughlin is stay overnight. The drive is a hassle but its a fun place.