Went to Vegas for New Year count down. Absolutely insane! The whole strip was closed off, tons and tons of people. You practically have to fight your way through the crowd to cross the street. Fireworks was quite short, but spectacular. It literally lit up right on top of your head (we were near the fireworks on top of the Flamingo Hilton).

Back to poker, went to downtown to check it out. The Golden Nugget looks pretty good, guess they remodeled it. Nice swimming pool, with water slides going through a huge fish tank with sharks in it! Awesome! Poker room is small, and very smoky, ventilation is terrible. Sat down to play $1/2 NL. A couple of local calling stations. A guy called an all in raise of about $200 after the flop AKK on board. rag and K came later. The gal who original raised thought she was dead, fearing the calling station called with an K. She was happy to know that the calling station donked off $200 on a flush draw after the flop. She won with AA, making a full house. The calling station lost without a K, but made his gorgeous flush.

I looked down on my 5-3 suited and called with $2, both small and big blinds called. Flop 3-5-J rainbow. Checked all around. Turn another 3 with possible flush draw now. #1 checked, #2 bet $20, I raised to $40 to protect my trip. Back to #1, thought for a moment and called reluctantly, #2 called again. River a rag without flush possibility. Both checked to me, so I bet $20 value bet for my trip. The guy who missed his flush threw away his hand in disgust, next guy called without much hesitation. I flipped over my trip and was about to rake in the pot of about $160, only to see the other guy flipped over K-3! What's the chance of that? I just couldn't get any cards for over 1 hr, room was stuffy, so I left to catch some Z.

Next day, on New Year's Eve. Went to Caesar's Palace to play their $130 noon tourney. Bubbled at #10 2 wks ago, and trying to redeem myself this time. Considering it's a big holiday celebration, I thought there would be at least 180 ppl to play. There were only about 20 ppl when I registered at 11:30am. Ended up with 8 tables only, very strange. Anyway, couldn't catch any cards for the most tourney. I played for 5 hrs without seeing AA or AK, got KK twice, AQ, AJ, A10 once, and occasional med pocket pairs. Fought myself to the final 2 tables. Blinds at 1000/2000. A very solid bully player (he only flipped over AA, AK, pockets) raised again (quite frequently) 3X to 6000. I looked down at KK and raised all in with my 20000 chips. He called instantly and flipped over his AA again! My hope and my head just fell. Flop A-K-rag, 2 spades. Both of us made trip! Turn rag but another spade. Now I am on spade draw. River another spade! River River! I cracked AA with my beloved Kings. Nobody believed it, and "awe" "wow" "whooo" is everywhere. Even the tourney director and dealer were surprised. I almost gave the dealer a big kiss! Talk about big suck out, or bad beats, depending which side you are on. I cruised to final table this time, and I just went berserk. I didn't really care about the money, I just wanted to redeem myself and I accomplished that. Raising with A-rag, K-rag. Eventually my K-6 ran into AA in a 4 handed game. What's the chance again on that? AA in a 4 handed game??? Went out 4th with $772, and need to file W2 form. Kind of suck if you think about the tax problem, esp you spent $130 on it. You really don't net much. Well, I will take it any time, any day. Played for 6 hrs and had a blast!

BTW, I busted a brunette out, and later found out that she was a porn star! All the guys hated me after that LOL!