I landed in Las Vegas last Sunday afternoon with a game plan in mind: Stay on Indiana time.

I stuck with that game plan and woke up at my usual 7 a.m. get-my-butt-out-of-bed-so-I-don't-miss-anything time and walked across the street to the MGM and was sitting at a table, three days in a row, by 4 in the morning Las Vegas time.

*Side-bar: I was staying at the Hooters Casino because they had an $18 room rate! I won more in one pot than my room cost!

When playing Hold Em I usually sit down with $300 in my pocket and buy in to the $1/$2 NLHE table for $200, keeping a short buy-in in reserve in the event that I've somehow offended the poker gods.

The first day I was up and down and ended with a nice little profit. On Monday I won my buy-in to the 11 o'clock tournament literally the hand before the tournament started. I've been limping a lot with jacks lately and it paid off again. My tournament play has been fraught with the dark side of variance lately however and this one was no exception when I flopped the nut straight and lost to runner-runner spades.

Day two I ended up a buy-in and then trotted over to Hooter's very lovely pool area, all before 10 o'clock.

This trip was a change from the norm. I'm a school teacher and for the last few years have taken three or four days off to play cards in Vegas after school lets out. I've been going alone because no matter what TBC thinks, it's been my experience that few women want to sit and watch a man play poker. Last year I sat for 22 hours in the same seat playing Omaha 8/b at the Orleans. Anyone who would sit and watch for that long would have to have the brain of a snail darter.

This year however I took a lady friend and so I actually got to see a pool area, which hasn't happened before. For those playing along at home; I booked the cheap room before inviting her along. Hooters is fine at which to stay alone. I wouldn't recommend it for a couple. She's was a good sport about it however :-)

Day three however was the score you patiently wait for.

At 4:20 in the morning I'd been playing for less than 30 minutes. I'm was sitting in the one seat in the small blind and I called a $5 raise, along with four others, with 22. The flop brought 9-10-2, with two diamonds. I checked my set and the original raiser bet $10 into a $25 pot. He had two callers before the action came to me and with a draw-heavy board I tried to take it down right there with a $31 raise (I like prime number bets).

The original raiser called and everyone else folded.

The turn brought an off-suit four and the villain bet $25. I raise $100 on top and he went into the tank, talking about what I could have out loud. Nothing he mentioned was even close to my set of ducks. He announced, "I call," AND TURNS OVER HIS HAND to show A10 with no flush draw.

Let me do the math for you... He was drawing dead! There was not a card he could catch! The dealer informed him that I was not all-in yet and he said, "I call anyway."

Yikes.

The river card landed and he said, "I'm all-in."

Thank you sir, may I have another?

I more than double up and it's not even 4:30 in then morning.

Bloody Mary anyone?

Needless to say I had a great time.

Thanks for reading.

Mr. Reed
"playing poker and teaching science"
www.mrreed.blogspot.com