SATURDAY
My cell phone starts vibrating on the table a foot from my head, and I reach over and grab it. As I open my eyes, I see that BIL (brother in law) is still not in bed. Thinking it may be him, I answer the phone. It’s one of my buddies asking “where the eff are you guys at”. I tell him I am in the room, BIL is still MIA. He says “let’s go grab breakfast”. So I get up and look at my watch. 8:45 AM. I think I am still drunk, because I don’t feel tired, and I know I should. I just went to bed a little over 2 hours ago. As I am about to head out the door, my BIL walks in. I ask him if he wants to grab breakfast. He grumbles something and collapses into his bed. So my 2 buddies and I hit the buffet at Grand Luxe. It was ok. Good omelet, good bacon, good hash browns, bad scrambled eggs, bad sausage, mediocre coffee. Afterwards I head to my buddies room and watch some college football. I missed betting on the early games – oh well. We spend the rest of the morning watching football recapping the evening – which seems even funnier in retrospect than it did when it happened. I tell them of my adventures with Pepsi Guy at the $1/$2 tables – and they are both in shock.

At about noon I head down to the sportsbook to place some bets on the 12:30 games, and then head to the poker room. I buy in for $300, and settle into a seat and order water and a black coffee. I proceed to play for about 2 ½ hours, in what was probably the driest run of cards I have ever had in my life. I won a total of 4 hands, and about 99.5% of the flops missed my undercards. My best undercards in the first 2 hours was KQ offsuit. And when I say the flops were missing me, it was even with hands I was folding. Absolutely nothing was hitting. After 2 ½ hours of waiting for the winds of change, I finally leave, down about $100. The buddies and BIL are heading to the pool for a couple of hours, and since I missed this excursion on Friday, I jump in with this. The pool was great, and we all start getting our drink back on, with the Corona again flowing. While we are all hanging out at the pool, we decide that a second night at Christian Audigier nightclub is in order. My buddy calls his guy – here we go again! Downside is that I am for sure on the hook for the bottle service tonight.

At about 6:30 we head to the room to freshen up and get ready for dinner. We head to Delmonico’s for a fantastic dinner. Afterwards my buddies and BIL head to the craps table. I decline, and instead head upstairs to make some calls and relax a bit. The plan is to head over to the club at 11:00. While up in the room watching football, I inexplicably fall asleep for about 45 minutes. Geez, how could I be tired? I mean I got over TWO HOURS of sleep this morning! My internal alarm wakes me with a start, and I look at my watch. It’s 10:55. Crap! I head downstairs looking for the guys. I find them at a crabs table, they cash out, and we head to TI.

The vibe at Christian Audigier was a LOT different Sat night. I think it was because so many people came just to see Heidi Montag. For us it was just a bonus. My BIL and one of my buddies greased a few palms to get a picture with her, since all of our wives watch whatever show she is in. We get our party on, and before I know it, it’s 4:00-something in the morning, and we have just gone through 4 bottles of Grey Goose! Methinks it’s time to go. We had back to the V. BIL heads to the room and crashes – he is absolutely done. One buddy heads to the blackjack table. Myself and the last buddy head to the poker room. I spot Pepsi Guy and point him out to my buddy, but Pepsi Guy is not playing. I run up to my room to get some more dough (having dropped a bunch at the club), and when my buddy and I get back to the poker room, Pepsi Guy is gone. Damn! Looks like there will be no replay of last nights festivities.

Buddy and I both get seated kitty corner at the same $1/$2 table, and the waitress comes by. I order 2 crown and cokes, having had my fill of vodka for the evening. I then ridicule my buddy for ordering water. First hand – fold. Second hand, pocket aces! One guy raises it to $10, and I call. Pretty sure it was just the 2 of us. Flop comes (all low cards, looks pretty harmless to me). First guy makes a $50 bet, and I look at my cards again (nice touch – like I don’t remember what I have!), then grab $50 in chips. As I am about to push them in, I stop, then say, “ehh, I’m all in”, and push my whole stack. The guy looks at me, as I wonder out loud where waitress girl is at. He then pushes his remaining $100+ into the middle, and flips over queens. He wilted like a flower when he saw my aces. He gets no help on the turn and river, and in about 2 minutes of play, my stack is now at about $480. Then my buddy gets incredibly hot with the cards, and before we know it, he has about $800 behind him (about $100 of it mine). I was catching some decent cards too, and got paid off on a couple. Our table breaks up with us 2 drunk guys pretty much steamrolling over everybody. We get moved to another table, and things cool off for both of us.

At about 7:30 AM Sunday morning, we call it quits. I cash out about +$200, my buddy about +$500 - +$700 (not exactly sure what he had). We grab blackjack buddy and head to breakfast. After breakfast, I cash in my winning college tickets at the sports book (broke even), make some NFL bets, and head to the room at about 9:00 in the morning. My BIL was leaving today, so I wake him up and see if he wants a late checkout. He tries to get one, and fails. Well heck, no sense in putting my head down in this room! I pack up my stuff and move next door to my buddies room. After getting things situated, I half sleep, and half joke and yuck it up with my buddies, revisiting last nights craziness and watching football.
I end the day +100 in poker, even in sports bets, and approx -$900 in nightclub/dinner/etc .

SUNDAY/MONDAY
At about 1:30 Sunday afternoon, we finally get our act together, get cleaned up, and head out to just wander Vegas a bit. Before we head out the door, we all bid adieu to my BIL, as he is headed to the airport. We head over to Harrah’s and I enter into their 3:30 $100 Tournament with one of my buddies. I was unsure if I wanted to play in this tournament or not, and within 15 minutes of playing, I started realizing I just was not in the right mindset. Right before the first break, I have QJ offsuit, and the flop comes with a Q and J. Bingo! I make a decent bet, to have another guy raise me. I think for about 2 seconds and push all in. He calls and flips over pocket queens. I am done. I really could not put the guy on pocket Q’s or J’s. I thought he had A’s or K’s. Would anyone here not have pushed in this situation? I guess my original thought that this tournament was just not going to be for me wound up being correct.

With 1 buddy still in the tourney, the other buddy and I do some wandering around the shops in the Venetian. Pretty cool inside there I must say. Not exactly sure what we did, but we wound up just kind of doing nothing the rest of the afternoon, and before I knew it, it was like 6:00. We headed back to the room, got cleaned up and headed back to Grand Luxe for dinner (ate in the bar so we could watch the Cowboys/Packers game). 3 turnovers inside the 20 for the Cowboys – are you kidding me! There goes my Cowboys/over parlay bet.

After the game was over, we walked over to Palazzo and checked the place out. Very nice. My buddies talk me into playing craps over there, so we saddle up to a table. 45 minutes later I am rubbing my backside, as another $300 has been violently extracted from me. I ask myself why I let my buddies talk me into playing craps again. Ughh. We head back to the V, hang out and drink some beer for a while (free drink tickets from sportsbook), and call it a night early. I am up in the room by midnight, and I get all my stuff packed and somewhat ready to go. I am asleep by 1:00, and have the best 4 ½ hours of sleep I have EVER had in Vegas.

I wake up at 5:30, feeling pretty darn good. I take a shower, get dressed, finish packing, and the 3 of us head out the door for breakfast. We go to Denny’s for a change of pace. After breakfast, I go cash in my football tickets (lost about $50 overall), and then head to the poker room for one last time. I cash in for $300, and sit down to play at 7:30AM. It is a pretty hot table. The money is really moving around the table. There are many HUGE pots getting taken down. I take down a few, and lose a few. And the battle continues. I look at my watch, and it is 9:55. Time to go. I look down, and have 3 stacks of $100, and 2 $1 chips. I give the $2 to the dealer, and cash out for the exact same amount I cashed in for 2 ½ hours ago - $300. I head to the room, collect my stuff, hook up with my buddies, and we head for the airport, with a lot of great memories of our 3 night stay in Vegas.

My Sun/Mon results were: -$100 poker, -$300 craps, -$50 sports bets, pretty much even on misc/other

Overall money stats: I left Vegas with $900 less than I brought. That includes paying for rooms (which were mostly comped anyway), food, drinks, nightclub – pretty much everything except for my flight. If I hadn’t played craps, the whole weekend would have cost me $300 + flight. Next time I will remind myself to just say no and stick to poker!

Overall thoughts: Another great trip to Vegas. The Venetian is great, and is a great place to stay. I can’t say anything more about the V’s poker room than you all have already heard. It is a great place to play poker – what more can I say. I would be curious to know if any of you have ever run into Pepsi Guy in your travels in and out of poker rooms in Vegas, because I know he was a local, and all of the dealers knew him.

Until next time.