I apologize for the extremely delayed trip report.
A brief background about me as poker player. I play in a home game about once or twice a month, extremely loose game with mostly family, but the stakes are pretty high for a home game in my opinion. I have some pretty young kids so playing poker regularly is a bit tough, but I started joining in the home games about two years ago. Game started out as 5-10 limit with so odd home rules. Example, sb and bb would start with 1-2 but anyone could raise to make it $5 and subsequent raises would be $3 with max of 4 raises. Flop bet is $5 and turn/river bet are $10, respectively. Each betting round had max 4 raises. With an extremely loose and aggressive group the betting can get pretty confusing as the dealer was normally playing also. Now a days we play mostly 1/2 nl because my brother and uncle hate people buying and they can't bluff. Typical loss would be $200-500 per day. Big winner may take home $1000, with biggest winner ever taking home up to $3000. I'm generally thought of as a tight player at home. So, to my surprise, my first trip to play poker in Vegas, I noticed that I was much more aggressive and loose compared to the typical player. Ever since two years ago I've had the chance to play in many other casinos, including Borgata in AC, Harrahs in New Orleans, Beau Rivage in Biloxi, as well as Atlantis in Reno. I recently played at Barona in San Diego. What I noticed was that the games in Vegas (I have also since returned last summer to play at MGM) are much easier, In my opinion.
The Venetian was a nice room. I had not played much in casino environment, at least not for poker, so I did not know what to expect in my first visit. I played the 4-8 game and ran pretty good. First day, two 4 hour sessions and I am up $775. After some initial gitters (I still get gitters each time I sit down for a session) I notice that I play many more hands and I can actually take down pots by simply raising pre and continuing post. That's been my basic style ever since. I play really tight for the first hour or two, then I hit some hands, build up a bigger stack and then play more loose and aggressive.
On the same trip, I jumped up to 8-16 and did ok as well as I won about $500 in a combined couple os sessions. With this newfound confidence, I decide to play the saturday noon turney. I think the buyin was $235 or something like that. Horrible play by me early on and I'm quickly out. I think that playing limit affords you more room for errors. In nl, 1 big mistake and it is much more costly.
My losing hand, I thing I make 3 mistakes. About third level, I'm probably 3rd in chips at the table, dealt AA on button. About 4 players limp 200 to me. Instead of making a solid raise, I bump it up to 800 only. Both blinds call as well as everyone else. Flop is K high, but with two hearts. All check to me. Instead of making a solid bet to weed out the pretenders I go all in. No, I didn't I string bet and pushed 7000 leaving about 500 behind. It didn't play into the hand but just showed my inexperience. Got called by a made set and I drag my tail to the pool where my wife and family laughed at my quick exit.
Overall, however, I gained a lot of confidence from that trip. I learned some from the tournament play, but I think that I am better at cash. At least i have more fun playing cash.
I also had a nice recent visit to MGM which I hope to post later.
Of the 10 or so rooms that I have played in since that first trip, I still like Venetian the best. It had the most variety to choose from and the room is nice, big, and attracts many players.