Going to Vegas for wife's annual convention. Arrive at McCarren Friday night, 7/31 and find no line for the taxis. Is the town dead? I'll find out shortly that the answer is: NO.

First time at MGM. Always wanted to stay there, but never again. Why? The walking. And this is coming from a guy who parks far away at stores for the exercise. But let's say your in the casino and forget your wallet back in the room. Say goodbye to a half hour.

Back to business. The $20 trick doesn't work as there are "no complimentary upgrades." Doesn't matter as we get a nice room on the 13th floor facing Hooters.

After dinner the wife goes to bed and I decide to play $4/$8 at Bellagio. I'll just cross the street then walk to Monte Carlo and take the free tram to Bellagio.

Ooops.

Tram is closed or no longer in existence. So I walk to Bellagio in 100 degree nighttime heat only to find 8 people ahead of me on the 4/8 list.

Oh well, time to try that Bally's aquarium I read so much about. Get seated at $1/2 nl quickly. One of my first hands: KK. Raise in front of me to $15. I re-pop another $30. He goes all-in. Obviously I have no read on him, but I'm not good enough to lay down this hand. I call and we all know what he has: AA. GG me. -$200

The next morning I get up early and get in a nitty $4/$8 table at Bellagio and play waaay too many hands. -$58 From my limited Vegas experiences from past trips, I make my limit money at 2 in the morning, not 9 am.

I go back to MGM and play a super fun $3/$6 limit game with 4 guys there from San Diego on a birthday party. I jokingly accuse them of being a "team" that infiltrates the low-limit poker rooms in Vegas. From then on, whenever they win a hand, they wink at each other and tell the table, "The team strikes again." Good times. +78

After they leave I go to $1/$2 NL. Although I didn't get a lot of good cards, I crush this table in only a half hour of play, mostly because everyone is either passive or just easy to read. +269.

Wife and I go to the MGM pool, which is packed, and full of trash everywhere. Not what I had pictured. We head to Excalibur where she plays $2/$4 limit and I get into another nl game. The guy on my right is here from an Air Force base in Utah and is completely lit. Guess he pilots Predator drones, (or so he says.) Nice guy, but for some reason he gets really pissed when the dealer makes an misdeal. Floor is called and everything. Nothing too exciting, except for the sexy dancer grinding in the little poker room. It's a nice touch. I cash out up $13 and watch the wife play her last hand, pocket AA, which lose of course, seeing as there were 13 or 14 people who saw the flop.

Next I hit the Bellagio again, where I'm paid off by the Ace high flush when I hit my straight flush. Later I bet heavy on a A 4 9 flop, bet more when the turn comes A and continue on a rag river. I show my A/J. The older foreign man in the 7 seat says, "Very nice," then slow rolls his A/K. On the bright side, security pulls me away before I can murder him. -$200

Meet wife and we head to O'Sheas for their 1pm $45 tourney. Yeah, I know: bad structure and juice, but our flight leaves at 5pm. We're not going to play Venetian Deepstack.

I love this little tournanment. Everyone plays waaay too passively. 40 minutes in, everyone has under 10bbs, so I'm suprised to see how much limping goes on. Anyway, I win a couple of races, make it to the final table, where NOBODY will call my all-in bets. The girl chip leader at the other end keeps limping in and folding, which means at that point I'm collecting $2k in chips each time.

Long story short, we get down to three. 60k chips in play, and I have 30k. Blinds at $2k/$4k. The overweight local on my right wants to chip, (he didn't want to chop earlier at 5 handed). I agree, so long as I get a higher share, based on how passively these guys were playing.

My negoitions upset the big guy, who faces me and says, "I'm going to whoop your ass." Couple of hands later I come over the top of him with my pocket twos, and he folds. I then take out the 3rd place finisher and me and big guy are heads up. I now have 50K chips versus his $10k, but the blinds are something like $4k/8k.

I reluctantly chop, (not evenly, I asked for $70 more), mainly because I would go on life tilt if he came back and beat me. And 2 double ups would have given him the lead. Your thoughts on the chop would be appreciated. +378 for first place chop - $45 entry fee - $20 tip = $313

We celebrate my "big" win at Margaritaville and head home.

Overall another fun trip. Next time I'll play limit late and try not to play every hand.

Thanks for reading.