Hi all,

Just returned from the first Vegas trip of my life - hopefully not the last!

We stayed in New York New York Hotel, deliberately avoiding a hotel with a poker room - if it all went wrong, it's the last thing we would want to see. But we needn't have worried.

4 of us who went on this trip all play poker regularly back in Ireland - myself, Phil, Jimmy and Gerard, and we played a mix of $1-$2 cash and low buy in tournaments throughout the week.

We started off in Tropicana at the $1-2 tables. This was easily the worst game we saw anywhere all week. We started off slowly in this but as the week progressed, we finished up over $1200 from this room. This included a night whereupon I kept telling people I would flop the nuts and not to call me - queue two full houses on the flop / turn (one with AA the other with AK), followed by QQ flopping quads and stacking a guy who turned the nut flush. Very enjoyable. One or two regulars who were easy to avoid, the rest of the players were fairly poor and predictable.

On to the Luxor - if I never see this place again it will be too soon. 3 of us lost a buy in or two that night at $1-2. Had 6 high pockets beaten by a variety of methods - flopped sets, a turn straight and the obligatory top pair top kicker which hit a runner runner flush. The play was again very bad, but the poker gods were not with us and between the 4 of us were were down around $500 here.

Venetian - only played one cash game session here early in the morning at $1-2. I think we ran into a table of leftovers from the night before - some bizarre play. I did a bit of a hit and run and trebled up and more when flopping a nut straight with KdQd, but two of the other guys stayed on and fairly mopped up the table, pocketing almost $1000 between them +$1200

Also a few minor sessions in Ballys and Harrahs, no major wins or losses there.

On to tournaments - where it gets really interesting!

We went to the $70 + $40 add on tournament at Binions on 2 occaisions during the trip. In both, I could never get going, losing momentum with a succession of bad beats in the first and losing a race in the second which would have put me in with a shot at the final table (40th/125, 25/112).

On the first, Phil played brilliantly to make it to the final table from a hopelessly shortstacked position to be one of the chip leaders. A 7 way chop saw him scoop $1100 for a nice win.

On the return to Binions, Jimmy made a similar recovery from holding 3 chips at one stage (ok they were big chips) and coming back to split the top 2 money and pocket almost $2700 (and a T-shirt). We'll not mention the all in reraise with AsTs against the only guy that could bust him... let's just say we liked the 10 on the river :) So Binions left us about +$3400.

The other major tournament we played was the daily 12:00pm tournament at the Venetian ($150 buy in). With 7500 chips to start and half hour levels, this was easily the best structure we encountered and it attracted 45 runners.

Jimmy and Phil busted out just before the second break, Phil running 99 into AA after a low flop, and Jimmy misplaying AK and running into trips which hit an uncessary house on the river.

Just before the break was the critical time for me - Hit trip 2's to get a much needed double up, followed a few hands later by AA twice in a row to eliminate a few short /medium stacks. This left me in the chip lead with 2 tables left, and I would hold this until 6 people remained at the final table, busting a few shorties with some nice hands / nice flops. I managed to maintain my stack with a few steals before busting the 6th place finisher all in pre with AK vs Ad6d to burst the bubble. One more bit the dust before a deal was agreed - a 4-way chop for $1200 each, which I was more than happy with having gone card dead for almost an hour.

So from 3 tournaments played we had 3 major cashes - result! Overall, we finished in and around $6000 up which isn't bad for a bunch of Vegas newbies. We're already planning the next trip!

As far as card rooms go, the Venetian was a thing to behold - great room, good service and a great tournament. Binions also had a great atmosphere and was very enjoyable, if not quite so good a structure. Tropicana was fairly dingy, but the standard was so poor that it could not be missed as a bankroll booster. The Luxor experience has been blanked from my memory.

Roll on next year!