This is a late poker trip report, and I know it's outdated, (Paris has a new poker room now) but I figured... why not post this anyway?

Anyway... my friends and I departed Midway Airport in Chicago and arrived in Las Vegas for a 5-day bachelor's party for my friend's future brother-in-law. :-D So my friends were looking foward to lots of clubs, but I was the only one looking foward to playing a good amount of poker. My friends doesn't take poker as seriously as I do and they think 60 bucks is a lot of money for a cheap tournament buy-in yet they have no problems feeding the giant Wheel Of Fortune casino game $200. Wtffffffffff?!?!?!?!?!?

While my friends played slot games that does not take an ounce of skill to win, I walked up and down the strip checking out the various poker rooms.

First I started in the hotel I was staying at, the Flamingo. When I went there in Aug 2006, they had a small room that was sort of tucked in the side to the right of the main hotel reception desk. The room seemed sort of unkempt and it seemed like Flamingo didn't take their poker room too seriously. However, they were signing up for a 40-man No-limit texas hold'em freezeout tournament, and without hestitation I signed up and forked over the 60 bucks.

This was my FIRST EVER live casino poker tournament and I was a nervous wreck, lol. My hands were shaking and I immediately put on my sunglasses to help calm my nerves and avoid eye contact. I was seated on seat #4 on table #1 with 4 tables of 10 underway.

First hand in, the guy at seat #3 got knocked out by this older greek/indian-looking man in seat #8. Then a few minutes later, while the blinds were still 25/50, this 40-something bearded man sitting to my left in seat #5 went all-in against the same guy in seat #8 as well and got knocked out by a three-of-a-kind.

Already with only a few hands played 2 people were eliminated from the tournament and they were from my table. I haven't played a notable hand yet and when I got Kh9h when I was in the button I finally saw the flop:

Flop: Ah 5h Jh

I flopped a flush and I noticed I had the highest possible flush since I had the K of hearts and the Ace of hearts was on the board. I checked with the plans on trapping someone...

The greek-looking guy in seat #8 bet 150, which was 3x the big blind. Everyone folded around to me. I was pretty sure I hd this hand wrapped up, so I raised him to 300, 2 times his raise. He called and the turn came...

Turn: 3s

Since the guy in seat #8 has 3x the amount of starting chips from knocking out the guys in seats 3 and 5 both sides of me, I decided to throw a hefty bet his way in the hopes that he'd think I was trying to bluff him off the pot. I bet 500 his way, which was a bet I thought was low enough for him to call, considering his chip stack, and not high enough to make him consider to fold. Instead of calling 500, he raised me 1,000. Since the majority of my chips were now in the pot, I figured I was rather pot-committed by this point and I threw in my last 1,000-something chips in an all-in re-raise.

The guy calls and to my delight he flips over AsJd.

With only one more card coming on the river, I flip over my Kh9h. I expected my ace-high flush draw to hold and win my first-ever pot in live casino action... boy was I wrong... The river was disaster...

River: Jc

The lucky son of a gun rivered a full house, Jacks full over Aces. OWWWWWW.

I was out of the tournament and before the blinds even went up, I was the 3rd person eliminated from the table, leaving my original table with just 7 people and 10 people on the other 4 tables because the floormen have yet to balance out the tables. :( First live casino poker action was a disaster. :'( But it was a good learning experience. :-|

Anyway, after exiting Flamingo, I wandered the sidewalk on the strip in a daze until I came across neighboring casino, Imperial Palace. I decided to walk in to check out their poker room, only to find that they had a small room with about 8 or 10 tables tucked in the corner near the front entrance of the casino. They were signing up for a tournament that was scheduled to start in 30 minutes, so I signed up.

This is where I learned to read the fine print when signing up for tournaments, because I was unaware that it was a rebuy tournament and I was immensely annoyed when I knocked people out only to see them immediately buy back in the game in the first hour. In the first hour I was the only one at my original table who DID NOT rebuy. It was insane. People were playing with so many crap hands to the point where they kept sucking out on my early-favorite hands. By the time there were 11 people left out of the original pool of 40, I was one of the 2 short stacks at my table. In my last hand, I ended up with pocket 4's with the blinds approaching me in the next hand, so... not wanting to be blinded out, I went all-in. Before I went all-in, the other short stack to my right went all-in as well, and we both got called by this older middle-aged woman who ended up knocking us both out in 10th and 11th place. After my demise, the remaining people all started shaing hands together and I stood there disappointed at the thought that I just barely missed my first final table. :(

Oh well, what can you do?

After that, I hung out a while the next 24 hours with my friends walking up and down the strip in Vegas and hitting up the buffet at Harrahs. Then my poker bankroll took a hit when I overindulged in a hot asian stripper at the Olympic Garden, but in the end it was worth it. :-D

Next day:

I was in the mood for more poker, so I decided to check out the poker room at Ballys. When I got there I noticed they had signs with the tournament schedule for the poker room at the Paris casino, so I decided to check that one out.

Now keep in mind, the Paris poker room I played in was the OLD poker room that was in the center of the casino floor by the bar. I got to say: I LOVED this set-up. I thought it was awesome and I thought it created a nice eccentric atmosphere for a room that was dedicated to tournaments because it attracted walk-by traffic to play, which resulted in a wide mix of players playing. I thought it was sweet. :)
Why did they move the poker room? It's a shame because I think they ruined a good thing even though I have not been able to return to Vegas yet to check out the new Paris poker room.

Anyway, I signed up for the 40-man freezeout tournament and I was on a roll. I was cruising. I knocked 5 people out, despite that I still only had a moderate chip stack because I knocked out the smaller stacks.

Anyway... I really have to blame my friends for my early demise in this tournament, cause they came by saying that they were starving and that they were going to the buffet at the Mirage. When I heard the word "buffet", my stomach came to life and started growling in hunger. This affected my play because now all I can think about is food. :( It was down to 22 players and this aggressive long-haired asian kid ended up sitting to my right and he was bluffing every hand he got involved in with big pre-flop bets and huge continuation bets. Fortunately for me, I didn't get involved in any hands because I had bad starting hands such as 7/2 offsuit and other low cards like 8/3, etc. However, when I got pocket Kings I made a pre-flop raise, but kid ended up raising me, so I re-raised him all-in, which was probably a decision made by my hungry stomach than my head. He called and everyone else folded. So I flipped over my pocket kings and he flipped over A/T offsuit. wtfffffff. However, the flop came A6T and I was gone. :-/

All in all, I had a great time in Vegas. It was my first time getting live casino action and since then I vastly inproved my gameplay by playing a monthly underground tournament in the Chicago area and playing occasional tournaments at the great 21-table poker room in the Majestic Star casino in Gary, Indiana.

I have my 2nd trip to Vegas coming up in the middle of December before Christmas and I can't wait to get back to the Vegas felt. :-D I plan on hitting the poker tournaments at Binions, Planet Hollywood, Sahara all thanks to the reviews on this site. Thanks to this site my trip will be more prepared and I hope to come home with at least 1 or 2 tournament cashes. I'm a tournament specialist and I can't handle the monotonous boredom of cash games, but that's no big deal to me.

I also plan on checking out the new Paris poker room, possibly playing at MGM Grand, and if I cashed in any earlier tournaments then I might consider playing a deepstack tourney at either Caesar's Palace or the Venetian, I haven't decided yet but maybe some of you guys can give my your opinions on the CP vs. V deepstack tournies. :)

I know this trip report is a year and a half late, but hopefully one thing some newbie learns from this is to MAKE SURE whether you're playing a rebuy tournament or a freezeout tournament, cause they can probably save themselves the headaches I endured. :-p