I had despaired I'd bot even be able to get to Vegas. The annual conference I attend (and produce a daily newsletter for, making for several 15-16 hour days in a row) was in Long Beach this year, and I figured the perfect place to decompress was Vegas.

Only thing was, it turned out the weekend was not only the opening weekend for March Madness, is was St. Patrick's Day weekend as well.

Even the Imperial Palace was charging $100+ for Friday and Saturday night--and that's with the TR discount.

But I persisted. Searching the travel sites, seeing rates go up and down, wondering if I'd catch a deal anywhere that wasn't a total dump. (Actually, a few dumps were offering tantalizing rates, but after reading TripAdvisor reviews, I wisely stayed away.) Finally, I spotted what was, for this particular weekend, a good deal. A place called the MicroTel Inn & Suites, down by the outlet mall south of the airport. $200 for the 4 days (not per night, total). Free buffet breakfast, free wifi, no dishonest resort fees. Booked.

Got out of the Long Beach area a bit late, checked in later in the afternoon than I wanted. Got a nice room on the 3rd (top) floor down at the end of the hallway. Nice and quiet, just the way I like it. Decent size flat screen in the room, as well as a small fridge & microwave. Sweet.

OK, off to Bellagio, where I'd had success in the $4/$8 game in the evenings the past couple of trips. Got a seat right away. Game was pretty typical, fairly loose passive. But I was card dead. And when I did get the occasional good hand, I was getting sucked out on, like when an Internet kiddle who'd been trying to run over the table rivered his gutshot to my flopped set. Ouch. Went through my $160 buy in, and my $60 rebuy didn't to too well either. Was felted for the last time at 11pm and called it a night, down $220. Just plain u8gly session. No amount of patience saved me. Session like this happen. But still.... (Thing is, the game itself was good for my style of play, but just was running bad.)

Up early the next morning to head over to the Mirage. The breakfast at the hotel was pretty good. Got to the Mirage j8st about the right time to get the $3/$6 game started--only to find that in changing from short to long pants, I'd left my poker bankroll wallet in my shorts. D'oh!

Now understand that the hotel is about 5 miles south of mid-strip, and when there's not any traffic, it's about 15-20 minutes one-way, including the walk to the poker room from the garage. Except this morning, the drive back was hell. Turns out there had been a major accident and car fire on southbound I-15 at Tropicana. Only one lane, the left lane, was open, and it was a parking lot all the way down. It took 45 minutes to get through the mess (the car, BTW, was a burned out crunched shell), and by the time I got back, I didn't get a seat until 10:30.

Even so, this was a pretty good session. Got up a good amount, and then in the early afternoon, the game broke. I was up more than $100, and hung around to see if it'd get restarted. It did shortly afterward, but I basically treaded water until I gave up at about 5:30p, up a total of $116 for the day.

Actually, I left then for a purpose. My team, the Huskies (the Washington Huskies, not the Connecticut pretenders) were playing at 6:45. I found that there was a Pizza Hut only about a mile from my hotel. Headed over there, orde4red the $10 pan Supreme, and brought it back to my hotel and chowed down, watching a great game. (The Pizza Hut makes far better than I've had here in the Bay Area.)

Up early Saturday and off to the Mirage again. Started at 8:30am in the $3/$6 game and just had a horrendous morning. Totally card dead. Was mostly blinding off my chips. Missing flops with big aces. Missing sets with pocket pairs. Lost my original buy in, rebought for $60, lost that, bought in for $100 more.

And then I hit a run. One of the better dealers sat down in the box--not that this story has anything to do with the dealer, as they have no control over which cards come up, and most of the dealers there are, I think, above average--and just after he sat down.....

A regular who I know likes to raise light PF did so. I found 99 and made it 3 bets. Couple others came along and I flopped 966. Woo! Got one to call to the end too. Then had another big pair, raised PF, it held up, the next hand, a big A, raised PF, hit an A on the flop, it held up, and took down one more the next hand. 4 hands in a row, a couple some big pots. In fact, during this one down, I took down 6 pots. The run brough me all the way back and then some, and I cashed out a 3:45 up $82.

Headed over the the Imperial Palace for a Hash House burger. Yum. Then wandered down the the poker room to see what it'd offer this busy Saturday night. Interestingly, they had a $4/$8 game going. I sat down, hoping to log in a few hours on my TR card. Unfortunately, the game was short (5 players when I sat down), although one woman was really, really bad. More unfortunately, although I took a couple of pots off her, the game broke after just a half hour; no new players sat down, and a couple wanted to play the 7pm tournament. At least I got up a winner. A whopping $1.

While it was nice to find a game that "big" there (they usually get only $2/$4 going), I was disappointed that it couldn't stay going longer. I really wanted to get some hours on my TR card.

Sunday was my last day in Vegas. Had to be back n the Bay Area for a Monday night class, so I couldn't even play my normal last-day promo morning at the Mirage. So Sunday was it. And the last Sunday was a long, uneventful one, although it started out more exciting that I'd planned. The Huskies were playing North Carolina. I expected them to get crushed, but they actually led a large part of the game and were in it to the end, until they couldn't execute a simple inbound play with just seconds left. Again, I treaded water most of the day. I left up (a whole $12), and the most memorable hand was one I wasn't even in.

A local I'd seen before had come to my table. I knew he was a tough and aggressive player. Almost always, if he was in the cutoff or button, and especially if it was folded to him, he'd open-raise. Unfortunately for me, he sat down right on my left. I was able to trap him once, but not really for anything significant. But out table broke mid-afternoon. Got move to another table that had what seemed to be a bunch of buddies sitting together. Specifically, was in seat 1, and buddies were in seats 3, 4, and 5. Seat 3 was a quiet Asian guy, but seat 4 was loud and boisterous (and over-aggressive), while seat 5 liked to try and overanalyze hands (he was usually wrong). A short time later, the strong local came in and sat in seat 10.

In this hand, seat 4 popped it (not at all unusual, and it got to either 3 or 4 bets PF, with both the strong local and seat 3 in the mix. Multiple bets hit the flop, and again on the turn when 3 to a flush saw its way yo the board. Now here's where it gets interesting. The river was a blank. Seat 4 bets. The local calls. Seat 3 thinks a bit, say that pot is too big, and calls. Seat 4 hems, haws, tries to slow roll, and folds, saying he was bluffing. The local turns over.....king high. And then seat 3 turns over....A high. Not a flush, mind you. Just king high and ace high. Not even a pair in the bunch. I knew than that this game was waaaay to crazy, too high a variance, and I'd already put in a long day, so when the blind came around to me, I picked up and left.

Final results for the trip:
Bellagio, 3.5 hours, -$220
Imperial Palace: .5 hours: +$1
Mirage: 22.25 hours, +$210
Grand total: -$9

BTW, I got AA only twice during bonus times. Once was the second hand I saw one morning, when we had only 5 players at the table. I got neither of them cracked.

Saw a number of familiar faces, but no one from AVP (that I know of). Got to chat with Chris a bit, but he was kept hopping as busy as the room was all weekend. All in all, yet another good time.