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(Sorry, very long)

Just got back from 3 days of nearly round the clock poker. I'm not nearly as good at remembering all the details of individual sessions or hands, but wil try my best.

Went for my little brother's (PnkFlyd here) 40th. PnkFlyd's, his wife and my other brother stayed at the Imperial Palace. The three brothers played poker while my sis-in-law played mucho slots and signed up for as many slot players clubs as possible - they may need a new mailbox. IP was inexpensive, unremarkable and well located. Thanks for whoever had the tip about the elevators by the Tiki Bar, it can be quite the wait otherwise. I tempted fate with a 13th floor room.

As for the poker room itself, the staff was friendly, the cookies (and donuts yesterday morning) were there as promised, but to me, the room had no life. We had originally planned on playing there quite a bit as it was our home base and the $2/hour comp was pretty good. However, based on our reading of this site, we did a tour of several rooms as curiousity got the best of me, and wound up with less time there than I would have thought (the frequent plans vs. reality discussion that is often mentioned here is true, but not such a bad thing). I'm also a chip collector with the rather common "rule" that I won't take a chip unless I've played at the casino which lead to our poker wanderlust. 2 sessions of 2/4 and their morning tourney and I believe I broke even on the limit and got busted out 11th or so of 20 by my brother (oh well, it was his birthday and I believe he finished 3rd). Went all-in as the blinds were catching up to me with A9h. He called with A9c, only fair that brothers chop, but the deck didn't know that and gave him the clubs.

Started my poker odyssey by spending a half hour at Circus Circus. I feel the need to justify this visit to that dump. Other than one more missing chip, my sister-in-law has a rare penchant for Slots-of-Fun which is where I was to meet them when I arrived. Lead-footing it to an early arrival I had time to kill and tried my luck at some 3/6LHE and took about 40 bucks off of the worst players of the entire trip. Management was indifferent and the room was sterile at best.

We went across to the Riv, my birthday brother had placed in a tourney there last year and had an unnatural affection for this place. My early luck at CC continued so I minded it less. The manager opened a table for us as the tourney was breaking, and the three bros and two strangers opened a table. We don't cheat, but we don't really compete against one another either. Fortunately, the table filled up within a couple of hands. I wouldn't go back sans brother, but it wasn't Circus Circus awful.

Later in that day, after the first HE session at IP, we took a walk to TI, the Wynn and the Venetian. We definitely moved up in class, as well as limits, and although I don't think the players were any better my cards stopped coming once I hit quad jacks at TI and was second on their high hand list, which would have netted me $100 in slot play had it held up but, alas, it did not. Fortunately for me, some poor guy caught a full boat so it was quite a profitable hand. An interesting side-note: less than 15 minutes later a tablemate caught the same quad jacks/king kicker that I did, but didn't qualify as I got mine first (and they only pay 2 per day).

We had the pleasure of meeting Chris the manager who introduced us to AVP Mike. Mike is as affable as he sounds here and welcomed us as the poker ambassador that he is. Mike gave us some newly minted AVP chips and being the collector that I am, I very much appreciated the gift which now serves as my chip protector. I I promised him this report. My comments on the chip over the next couple of days, some from fellow AVP readers. A nice experience playing there and I won some (about 50, thanks in larger part to the quad jacks). As he mentioned, we saw him again the next day on our return visit. No quads that time My only nit, and perhaps it was my own fault for not researching, but we planned to use our comps at the coffee shop for last nights dinner and found out once we paid that they don't take them there, nor did they accept the comp across the way at a gift shop. Once someone explains the error of my ways to me, I'll use them at my next visit.

Heading over to the Wynn, my goal was to only play a little 4/8 LHE for awhile (a little steep for my poker budget unless I'm up or late in the trip). I felt the room was clearly classier, but also more cramped. I had the misfortune of running into 68c against my pocket rockets with a guy who didn't know to fold a pre-flop re-raise. Much as I tried to bully him out, he hit his third 6 on the river which took a large chunk of my stack. Some nice folks at the table, watching a hockey game, it's amazing how much you start to care if the person seems like a nice guy and you don't really care how it ends up otherwise. Fortunately for him the Devils won in a shoot-out.

Another nice table/bad cards event at the Venetian. I think it and Caesar's are the best of the big rooms. Very comfortable and cozy, we played against some very nice people at a table which stayed together for awhile. Suprising that a big room like the V would have 2/4 LHE. One of our new friends paid for a massage for my brother once he found out it was his birthday. The young blonde was as talented a massuese as she was beautiful according to him. After getting beat up there, I was finished Saturday down, but not by a lot thanks to UNC's miracle cover the night before (brother arrived a day earlier and placed a bet for us).

Yesterday brought the aforementioned tourney loss, the second session at TI, and a trip to CP. I really enjoyed that room and the other players there at our 3/6LHE table. I happen to know Elaine, one of the managers there, from some home games before she moved to Vegas and seeing her helped brunt the dissapointment of my small loss. Despite my early wins, I was now down about 150 or so.

My brother wanted to try to TI tourney, but I'm the devoted follower of this site which meant that my cheapo tourney $ was headed over to the Sahara for the 11 pm $62 event. My brother, the non-birthday one, accompanied me but chose some LHE instead.

102 runners and after playing the IP tourney was thrilled to have a little time to play with the longer blinds. I like NL tourneys as I get to try my hand at NL without the larger swings. Time at the poker table was in ample supply as I survived quite late into the tourney. I doubled up early as I was called by an aggresive player with the weaker hand. I wished I remembered the specifics, but as you'll see, I played an awful lot of hands. I had pegged him as pretty good, and perhaps he was, but he was a little reckless as someone at the table had noted that it was only the second hand I had seen the flop in the first 3 times around or so. With that, another hand and the add-on I was about double the T$5000 by the first break. By this time, there were several people from my table I had tagged as pretty good, and they may have been but it wasn't their night.

As this report is getting incredibly long, I'll skip ahead 4 hours or so as I found myself among the 14 remaining players at a break. I checked out the chip stacks at the other table and figured I was about 11th or so realizing I either needed to make a move fairly quickly or hope some sucker got sucked out. Not too long thereafter, I pushed with 77 and ran up against QQ. The poker gods were with me as I sucked out for a straight on the rvier. That double up all but assured me the final table and cash. Another all-in with big slick against AQ that held up and had a nice stack. Others went out rather quickly including two at once to bring the table from seven to five. The eight place finisher went all in with the worst of it and lost and went on a tirade -against himself, not the opponent. I was told he placed in the 7 tourney as well.

The big stack going into the final table was next and all of a sudden we're down to 4. There was a new huge huge leader and the rest of us were fairly close, although I had 30-50% more chips than the other two players. At that time, a chop was proferred with the leader taking first and the rest of us chopping 2/3/4. I politely asked if they were willing to give me a touch more, pointing out the chip differential. I think I offended a guy who mocked me and refused the chop, which made me instantly dislike him and not unhappy when somebody besides me took him out and left us with 3. More chop discussion but the guy who I sucked out on with the Q vs 7 battle, a very nice guy, was overruled by his girlfriend who said to go for it. Either of the potential two chops would have netted me a little more than the $470 I received for third (no spectacular hand I just ran out of cards and chips), but I really didn't mind as I had a ball and was willing to take my chances at winning. From 10 to 2 took an awful long time, as finished at around 4:30, leaving before the oher two finisehd things. The 3rd helped both finanically and was a great capper morale wise and was just plain fun. The tourney itself is well run, Jimmy the manager and most of the dealers were great. I pity the poor waitress who had the entire room of 150 or so players to herself.

I've not commented on other drink service in general as I'm not much of a drinker, but never seemed like a problem for my coke or water. The winner of best looking waitress went to an unnamed server at TI. That room wins my best dealer award by far. Just some nice, talented dealers.

I needed to take unbirthday bro to the airport around 8:30 so sleeping seemed pointless and I was rather wired from the excitement. Stopped at the Palms (never had been there) for a chip and a little poker but once I sat down realized how tired I was and how boring limit seemed after that tourney. Back to the IP, an hour of sleep, to the airport and back to the IP where I took advantage of the $29 late check out and slept until three in the afternoon before driving back. Thanks to anybody still reading and for the dozens of prior reporters who made my trip all the more fun.

Final Score +200, quad jacks and a 3rd at the Sahara tourney. Best rooms

TI (medium-sized)
Caesars (big boys)
Sahara (tourney)