I don't post trip reports because I'm quite sure that my 2/4 limit escapades would be of absolutely no interest to anyone. I travel to LV monthly with my wife so I have no stories of wild debauchery or crazy NL stack-offs, no final table appearances at big money tourneys etc.

However, I did feel it noteworthy to post this, partly because it happened at everyone's favorite room (TI), and partly because it seems unusual to me that between my wife and I, we have hit 5 high hands in our last three trips, and 3 of the five were hard to hit ones.

As mentioned, wifey and I travel to Vegas about once a month or anytime there is a long weekend. We live in Vancouver, Canada, and can usually find some cheap (or free) flights from just across the border out of Bellingham or Seattle. This trip we flew Allegiant from Bellingham, but usually its Alaska from Seattle. I mention this because we have an Alaska Airlines credit card which I highly recommend as we have earned 14 round trip free flights in just over 3 years.

Allegiant sometimes offers incredibly cheap flights if you check their website often, but I have a real love hate relationship with them. Their planes are nice but the pilots seem very inexperienced. The flights can be really cheap but you pay for everything including water. The small airports they fly from are very convenient but I've had a few flights cancelled with no notice and some lengthy delays including a 3 hour one this time. Oh well, at least it was going home.

Anyway, I play mostly 2/4 because Wendy and I like to play together and just for fun. We have tried several rooms but for the most part always play at either TI or Golden Nugget, because they both have extremely well run rooms, they are both very comfortable, nicely decorated and not too large, both have good drink service, good comps ($2/hr at TI, $10 for 4 hrs at GN), and they both offer high hand jackpots. So basically, if we're on Fremont we play at GN and if we're on the strip its TI.

On Sunday, we stopped in at TI just to cash in some comps so we could go for a nice dinner at Kahunaville. I forgot my player's card so Troy was nice enough to access my records from my ID. We were early for dinner, so we figured we would play for a half hour or so. I lost my original $40 buy-in in no time with a whole series of missed draws, rebought for only $20 as we were getting hungry. Wendy had been winning some nice pots and so wasn't quite ready to leave.

The big hand. I was dealt KJ of spades and called a pre-flop raise along with 2 others. Wendy and I ALWAYS see a flop with any 2 cards that can make a high hand, which is a complete donk strategy that you can get away with in 2/4 limit and seems to be working for us. The flop included the 10 of spades and 2 rags. No pot odds of course, but I called the $2 flop bet prepared to abandon the hand on the turn when the bets double. Turn was Queen of spades which gave me a draw to the Royal, but more importantly to me, I was now open-ended, and with the other two callers still in and the original raiser still betting it was shaping up to be a decent pot.

The river brought an ace and all that registered was I had made my straight and with no pair on the board, I had the nuts. Wait a minute, there's three spades on the board my straight might not be the nuts. Wait a minute, I have spades in my hand, who cares about the straight, I have a flush. Wait a minute, that Ace of spades on the board means my KJ is the nut flush. Wait a minute. Wait just a minute here.

The preflop raiser who bet flop and turn, also bet the river. I didn't even bother raising for my last $3 since my wife was one of the players calling to the end, and at this point I just wanted to turn over my cards and keep them as far from the muck as possible.

I remembered at that point that TI had changed their high hands to set amounts to introduce bad beat jackpots as well, so I figured I was good for $250 for a straight flush, but wasn't sure about the royal since I don't hit those every day. When I turned over my cards, and the dealer said, "Oh my god, its a royal" I began thinking maybe it was more than $250. I asked about how much she thought it was, thinking to myself the royals at the Nugget are usually around $900 and she said around 2 grand. I almost fell off my chair.

Sure enough, when it finally came up on the screen, it was $1997 for spades. I almost could not believe what had happened. My wife looked at me and said, "Why couldn't you have done it with diamonds?" Apparently the diamond royal was closer to 3 grand. All was fun and laughs at that point. Wendy was hugging and kissing me and I was just too stunned to move or say anything.

We played another half hour or so, before cashing my comps and going for one of the best dinners ever. Every bite of my filet mignon tasted like 2 thousand bucks.

As mentioned earlier, we play any 2 cards that can make a high hand. On our trip last month, Wendy hit a wheel straight flush for $500. The trip before that in April, I hit a wheel for $903, Wendy hit an 8 high staright flush for $440, and quads for $50. Thats almost $4000 in high hands between the 2 of us in 3 short trips. I guess we'll keep our donk strategy going for a while.

Thanks to Troy and everyone at TI for running a great room. And thanks to all the staff at the Golden Nugget, where all our other jackpots were won. With or without these jackpots, we love these two rooms and will continue to play at both.