The plan - five days in Vegas (May 3-8) - nothing but poker, with a some sleep, eating and drinking thrown in. My friend and I stayed at the Golden Nugget - this is by far the best hotel downtown and I doubt I'd be too eager to stay at any of the other ones (the Plaza was passable a couple of years ago). We had never played poker downtown before, so we were somewhat apprehensive after reading on here (and elsewhere) that the Nugget and Binions featured two of the tougher 1/2 NL games in town. I will put the summary of the games right up front and just mention some of the more interesting details of the rooms and characters below. I came to LV with $2100 and left with $2,400 after all food & drinking expenses, so I consider the trip a poker success, in the sense that I am not a great player and consider poker a social activity. Most of the +'ve cash flow came from getting a 3-way chop for 1st and a 3rd in the Binions $110 ($70+$40 re-buy) and a 2-way chop for 1st in a Nuggest $105 ($65+$40 re-buy). I finished no worse than 12th in any of the tourneys I played, but only got paid those 3 times. Unlike the cash games, I was confident I was the best player at every tournament table I played, except when I played with Leif Force (of 2006 WSOP fame) in the $200 Binion tourney on Sunday. It's hard for me to say how good he is, since most players were scared of him and I was card-dead, so I never played a hand with him until I had to go all-in, and his trip J's beat my Q-high. ;-) The Binions tournaments have a very enjoyable blind structure that allows for a lot of play, considering the relatively inexpensive buy-ins. The players you are typically up against are either rocks who won't play anything worse than AQ or the youngsters who fancy themselves "playahs". The funniest was a kid (dealer I think) who tried to re-raise me off my QQ twice pre-flop within 10 minutes (the first time he folded the other 2 queens to my all-in re-re-raise, and the 2nd he was out the door with J7) when I had showed nothing but a "rock" image. The Golden Nugget tourneys give you more chips to start (5000 after re-buy vs 3500) but the blinds escalate much quicker, and skill becomes much less of a factor. The only reason to play tourneys at the Golden Nugget over Binions is the much nicer room, great looking cocktail waitresses and the really friendly staff. The night manager (god, memory - Mike I believe) is a particularly friendly fellow who was liberal with the comp vouchers. As long as we are on the topic, might as well mention comps and food. Essentially, we didn't pay for any meals until we went off-base, as the Nugget guys basically gave us $10 food vouchers whenever we asked (we were there a lot and they obviously noticed) and Binions paid $2/hr of play. The Nugget 24-hr cafe served perfectly good breakfasts at any hour, and the little sandwich place by the Binions poker room serves great sandwiches. The day we played at the Luxor, we walked from the Nugget to Harrah's (I know, crazy) and were rewarded for our efforts by discovering a fantastic tiny Thai restaraunt - I can't remember the name but it's just a couple blocks from the Stratosphere, 50 ft off LV Boulevard. It's attached to a Thai gift shop and has a "Best of Las Vegas 2006" banner - maybe the locals will recognize it. Anyhow, this was my 6th or 7th Vegas trip, and this the only GOOD restaraunt I've encountered (and, yes, I have eaten at all the expensive places on the Strip).
Back to poker. As predicted the 1-2 games at Binions and GN were tough. We were expecting a $20-to-play game, but instead it was all trap and post-flop play. The pros were typically limping in with anything including AA KK QQ JJ, and waiting for the idiot tourist or drunk locals to raise it up and get stacked off. I must say it was intimidating playing at Binions when some of the other guys at the table were sitting with $6-$7K behind. The first pot I saw was for about $3K. I bled off about $250 to these guys, mostly because my QQ ran into AA. That was my one major error on the trip - I read him for AA, but then proceeded to "think" myself off the correct play. Being a social player, it was not an enjoyable game, since these guys were "working" and there wasn't much in the way of friendly banter. This was part of my "bad" day in LV - I lost about $900 overall on the day. I never made any big hands at all, and had some bad luck to boot. I lost $600 on 2 hands at the GN - (1) I have AJ to an AJx flop all spades - guy makes a big bet, I read him for protecting a big A, I push, he calls with AK (K of spades), spade comes. (2) I limp with AA under gun, drunk idiot raises to $250 (yes, with $5 in the pot) with 33, I put in my $240 or so, 3 comes. ;-) The game at the GN was smaller, since I don't think any of the "pros" ever sat down with more than $600-700, and there were more tourist types willing to play. One particular unpleasant aspect of playing 1-2 downtown was the number of local degenerates playing - the kind of guys that might have done time for sex-related crimes. There was one guy in particular who seems a GN regular (any locals can tell me) with square prison-issue glasses and sing-songy kind of voice in his 40s/50s - if this guy isn't a child molester, my people-reading skills are way off. ;-) Overall, the GN room is very nice and the staff is fantastic from the managers on down - I just wish they would make their tourneys a little more skill-friendly.
Finally, we played the 1-2 at the Luxor for 8 or 9 hours one day. Much different experience. It was like a holiday from the downtown games. Obviously, with small buy-in ($50-100), the amount of money in play was small, the players were all tourists aside from a few dealers, and the social atmosphere a lot more pleasant. Nevertheless, I was in the hole $150 probably because I was playing too many hands given the stack sizes. Luckily, a nice young man from Holland sat on my right, got some big pairs, but couldn't fold them. :-) He stacked off 3 times, particularly painful being when we each had $200 and my 77(75)5 was up against his (AA)77x. I really felt bad for him, since I don't think he had a whole lot of money to play with, but I did let him know with the betting that I knew he had AA or KK, so caveat emptor. I recommend the Luxor room for 1-2 if you don't have a lot of money to risk, and if you enjoy being able to have some friendly conversation at the table. The locals who played with us were terrible, mostly because they thought they were good. ;-)
So, on the whole a very good trip. I made money, my poker skills markedly improved over the 60 or 70 hrs of play, and I actually found a restaraunt in Vegas worth going out of your way for. I played about 45 mins of limit while waiting for seats and found the experience unbearable. Hopefully, the review is informative and I am happy to provide more details.