After not having a vacation since my January trip with my mom and sister, and working consistently every other weekend and 55+ hours a week at my full time job, and trying to open my 2nd restaurant busy with a few partners, I go on to a much much much needed vacation to the greatest city in the world.

Played a mixture of poker and blackjack on this trip. There are probably segments of table games I'm leaving out due to bad memory and drunkenness. My good friend and I go on Wed and 3 of our other friends join us on Friday.

This trip started out with two comped nights at Bally's north tower. Waited 40 minutes to check in and ate an $8 turkey sandwich while standing in line. The room was actually really nice (I've stayed here once before at a 2000 sqft suite, and was really run down)and had a great view facing Bellagio and the strip. Went straight to the Royal Match Blackjack (RMBJ) machine in Caesars with a buddy. We are both addicted to this machine haha. Played there for a few hours and had a lot to drink and lost $200 bucks. Went to Mirage because my buddy played at the RMBJ machine and lost the other $300. Sigh. I only had $500 in my pocket and had $500 in the room so I went to the ATM and planned to sit at the Mirage poker table. I was pretty trashed at this point and I called an short stack's all in from a 6 handed table with A10 on a flop of A44. He had A9 and a 10 on the turn sealed it for me. I'm up to about $300+ now and the tables break up and I go to a new table. I'm sitting there wasted at this point, and the guy next to me raises to $16. He's been talking about how he won a ton of money at a tournament and how good he is. Since I'm so gone at this point, I push all in (Still +$300) and he flats and grilles me for a couple minutes before calling and turns over KK. Sigh. But wait! I suck out with a queen ahahahha! I apologize, laugh and feel sorta bad, but very happy. He shows me his check from the Sands for an amount of $18k and I feel less bad and more happy. At this point I'm only down $50 and call it a night.

I wake up the next day pretty hungover and head to Planet Hollywood and donk off $200 in about 20 minutes. I was able to get away from AQ with a Q high flop, but played on tilt and stupidly afterwards. If you read my other reports, I have some terrible luck at P-Ho. I will never play there again...until next trip. LOL. I go play some more RMBJ and make a small amount. Hungover, I go back to the room and nap for a few hours and meet up my buddy at the RMBJ at Caesars again. By this time it's about 4-5pm. We go get free red cards and slot play at the Wynn and lose it, and eat at Grand Lux. Got the Max Burger (bacon cheddar burger topped with mushrooms and short ribs) and a Stella. Delicious! My buddy has been drinking crown and diets since I was napping and goes and passes out. I go to Mirage to try to make the $85 needed for Caesars 10pm tourney.

Instead of winning $85, I lose my 200 buy in when my QJ diamonds flops a flush against A5 diamonds. I go to Caesars and play very solidly in the tourney. I get a good run of AA, KK, QQ, AK and make it to the final two tables with about 134 runners. This obnoxious old guy who could never figure out how much he needed to call got sucked out on pushing with AK and this douchebag commits his whole stack with 89spades and catches an 8. A couple hands later, the old guy raises and I look down at AA. I push all in and he says "this is for you" and looks at the douchebag and turns over 89 spades. Awesome. He catches two pair and I am crippled. I make it to the final table short stacked and have about 8-9 big blinds. 8 of the 10 people agree to a 10 way chop (would have paid $800 pp). Needless to say the big stack said no. Can't blame him. The tourney paid 9, but this lady at the table led everyone to put $20 in for the bubble. I push with QA and get called with QA for a chop. By this point I have about $50k chips and $1k antes and $4000/$8000 blinds. I call a raise from the big stack with 44 and tell myself if it is a low board I will push. Flop is 10xx and i push. He shows K10 and I'm out. Good run I thought. I play a little more RMBJ and call it a night.

The next day me and my buddy check out of Bally's and store our stuff at Mirage before checking in. On the way there, we are standing on the corner of Flamingo and LVB and the pedestrian bridges are closed as Barack Obama's motorcade is about to drive by. I get a video as Barack waves to us. We drop off our luggage and go to Pinks hot dogs and have lunch. Pretty expensive ($13 a meal with fries and drink), but worth the experience. I get a hot dog with pastrami on top. We then head off to NYNY to play live BJ as my friend is down about $300-400 at the RMBJ machine. We get to a fun table as my friend loses a couple hundred more and sits out. I continue to play a couple hours and make $200.

We head off to watch the main event and I am overwhelmed. I brought a sharpie but didn't want to be the douche that interrupts players at the tables to get autographs. The first celeb I see is DevilFish as another fan interrupts him at the table for an autograph and he graciously signs. Right afterwards, he smacks some lady's ass that walks by and flirts with her. HAHA! Other celebs I see: Patrick Antonius, Eli Elezra, David Williams and mom, Antonio Esfandiari. We watch the featured table for awhile, and start to head out when the tourney goes on break. I walk back out to the lobby and I see this guy that looks like Chris Moneymaker. He was so much smaller than I imagined I almost didn't approach him until I saw his "Pokerstars Team Pro" on his polo sleeve. I say "Hey Chris, can I get a picture with you?" and shake his hand. He is extremely nice and graciously takes a picture and signs an autograph. Really nice guy. I was shocked there were no fans around him. Maybe they were like me and didn't recognize him. That made my trip!

My friend goes to sleep after we check in at Mirage and I go play poker. I finally play some solid poker making good raises and reads and cash out up $100ish. The rest of our friends arrive that evening (Fri) and we eat at BLT Burger in the Mirage. Good burger. Bad service. We then get a table and drinks at Japonais and drink for an hour or so and head off to gamble. We play live and RMBJ at Harrah's and I'm the only one up. We end the night pretty drunk and eat a $1.99 footlong hot dog a Casino Royal and add chili for .75. Bad idea.

I wake up on Saturday feeling the chili and my stomach is rumbling. We get some Mickey D's to go and head off at 11:30 to watch Shaq vs Joey Chestnut have a hot dog eating contest on the ABC show "Shaq VS" at noon. The night before Shaq boxed Sugar Shane Mosley. It didn't start til about 1:15pm but people didn't want to wait in the hot sun so we all get up front. The camera panned the fans a few times so I should be on national TV! Joey Chestnut eats 30 hot dogs in 5 minutes and Shaq and his team (6 people i think) eat less than that, but on of his teammates, black guy with an afro, begins throwing a few hot dogs into the crowd, so they uneaten hot dog count at the end showed Joey had more uneaten ones, hence Shaq "won". When this show airs in August ya'll will know the truth!

From there we go gamble and me and my only other poker bud go to Mirage again. I'm in seat 4 and he is in seat 8. There are three friends in seats 1, 2, and 3. 2 and 3 were donkeys and 1 was solid. They were pretty entertaining and actually played large pots against each other so it was all good. My buddy bought in for $100 and I buy in for 200. I am in early position and accidently throw out 2 reds instead of blues with 33. It gets raised to 20 and I might as well call. My buddy and reraiser are also in. Flop is all low with no 3. My buddy raises and other guy puts him all in. I fold and he calls after some thought. He shows QQ and other guy shows KK and rivers a Q. HAHA! A few hands later, seat 3 is calling any of his friends (seats 1 and 2) raises. This happens here and there and we all laugh and he turns over J5 offsuit and other garbage. I get tired of the third hand in a row this happens and pop the $10 raise from seat two to $40 with Q9 hoping to just scoop it there. My plan backfires when seat two pushes all in with $107. I feel pretty committed and call and am too ashamed to turn over my cards. Flop is garbage. Turn J. River Q. All in shows 1010 and I win. The tight players around me are looking at me like I'm crazy. LOL. My buddy reraises a $50 bet after the river on a 4 club board and gets reraised. He wins with the A high flush as the other guy tried to bluff him with the 10 of clubs. He makes about $350 and I cash out up about $250.

From there, we all meet back up at the room and go to Spice Market Buffet from the reviews I read on vegaschatter.com. My stomach hurt even worse from the chili the night before, so I just ate 3 bowls of soup and 1 plate of meat (pot roast, lamb). It hurt too much for me to gripe about paying $30 and eating so little. I buy some pepto from the ABC shop and feel a little better and go watch Cirque Viva Elvis. I'm impressed with it. It isn't as good as Beatles Love (what is?), but is still great and worth seeing.

We are looking for another lounge to drink after the show, but couldn't find one without a wait at Bellagio, so we just gamble. I play some blackjack and lose $200 in 15 minutes. I buy in another 200 and cash out only down $80 after a couple hours at a fun table. From there we go to Rumbar. I felt very out of place. My bud wanted to drink outside, but there were no open tables and the average age there was like 35 or 40. After finally leaving, we go to Beatles Revolution Lounge for free with our room key. Pretty crowded. We have a couple of drinks, and head out.

I play poker again and lose $50 without hitting the flop on a couple of hands. I call it a night and crash.

Overall I made around $100. Good trip. Great fun! Can't wait for the next one. It'll be with the lady friend since I have two free round trips with United. Woot! Woot! Until next time...