I got to Las Vegas on December 26th, and left the afternoon of December 29th. I did not play a huge amount of poker, but got in a bunch of small sessions and ended up on the trip. Below is my review, room by room and in the order I played. It is a long report, but detailed with mini-reviews of several of the rooms.

MGM: During my last trip to Las Vegas, I wanted to check out the room and did not get a chance. This time, it was my first destination. I was not disappointed. At about 8 o'clock on a Monday night, my brother and I were both immediately seated at (different) 1-2 games. I was seated at a table along the rail, not far from the bar. The music got loud occasionally, but it was reasonable. Perhaps on the other end of the room the noise can be worse.

For a 1-2 NL game, the play was typical, with an average set of players. There seemed to be quite a bit of action, including one pot with three decent-sized all ins. I bought in with only $100, but my table had two players with $800+ dollars and someone else in the $500 range. The two large stacks were relatively passive and I moved to get away from the one aggressive guy being on my left, so it was not a big problem. The play was average. I ended up $110 over three to four hours and had a nice time. (A nice feature of this room is that they have an electronic seating system, so you don't have dealers and employees shouting throughout the room to indicate open seats. It's a wonder that Caesars and the Wynn don't have this, given that they both clearly spent a good deal on their rooms.)

Plaza: The next day, I went to the Plaza downtown to do a sit and go. Now, they not only have $25 (20 + 5) shootouts, but also have $35 sit and go's, which pay $225 to first and $75 to second. In fact, they seem to rarely run the shootouts anymore. The $35 sit and go's are a much better buy. I had to wait about an hour to play, because the room didn't have enough dealers to start the game, despite having a full list. Apparently, a dealer had called in sick and they were waiting for another to arrive. I could have entered a 2-4 game while waiting, but decided to wait around instead. I won the sit and go, so it turned out great! I had a lucky break with a split pot when I had A7 v. A9, but other than that, played solid sit and go style poker. Ronnie and everyone else at the Plaza room are nice and helpful.

Caesars: After seeing Jerry Seinfeld's show Tuesday night, my brother and I went to check out the new Caesars room. It is very quiet and nice, if plain. The tournament area is large and was mostly empty, and there is no sign that they are running any sit and gos. I got seated in a 1-2 NL game pretty quickly. The play was somewhat boring, without much action. There was a mix of a few locals and four or five college types, who generally played tight (with one wearing sunglasses, of course). The game seemed like a grind and I left after two hours down $10, after a bad run of cards that made me mostly just sit there.

The room's management seemed to be doing an okay job, but there were an awful lot of dealers shouting to floor people about open seats at tables. In fact, we played most of the night nine handed, because we were in a corner and the floor people were not coming by frequently (and when they were, they often did not notice). Moreover, a dealer mentioned they had been told not to shout that loudly, limiting what they could do. Caesar's needs to improve on this score.

Imperial Palace: I played at IP last summer, too, and had a great time there. This time, I had an awesome time again, despite my chips being temporarily swiped! While IP might be run down, they have a great set of dealers (competent and also pleasant), and also seem to attract a relatively pleasant set of players. When I arrived, there was one 1-2 NL game going that was full with 10 players. When the 1-2 NL list came to have 5 people, they asked us if we'd like to start shorthanded, so we did. The manager told the dealer only to take a half rake until a 6th player came. This was not an issue, though, since we got up to 6 or 7 players within minutes. At first, the players were pretty passive, and with some pretty good cards, I managed to pick off a lot of pots early. Then, as the table filled to 10 and some of the poorer players lost their money and left and some better ones came, the table became tougher. Buying in for $40 (intentionally buying in low), I worked my stack to $200. Over time, I dropped a bit on some small pots here and there and one large pot, in which I won the side pot but lost the main pot (the side pot was enough to make it a small net loss).

Then, I decided to go to the bathroom. Upon returning, I heard the dealer calling my seat open! I had left about $160 there, so I had no idea what had happened. Apparently, the guy to my left had won a large pot while I was gone, and swept up my chips by accident! I did not remember how many chips I had exactly, but knew it was $155 or $160 since I had counted before I left. The guy was willing to give me $160 and we settled it that way, which was a lot quicker than if we had to go to the security cameras and everything. I asked our dealer if he had ever seen anything like that, and he said no. At any rate, I ended up cashing out at about $140, which was not bad.

Bally's: With a an hour and a half or so to go until I had to leave for the airport, I walked over to the Aladdin, and they had one 1-2 game going, which was full. So my brother and I walked to the Paris, which had a 4 person waiting list for 1-2 NL but no game in progress. (They only had one 2-4 game going). Paris and Bally's have their electronic waitlists linked now, though, so you can see both waiting lists at each hotel. As a result, we knew that Bally's had a 1-2 game going. So, we ended up at Bally's, which had a tournament table breaking up as we arrived. Given the long waiting list, they started a new 1-2 game. By the time I got seated and the table was all set up and ready to go, I could only play for about 25 minutes. The blinds passed me, I limped on hand, and that was it, so I was down $5 and left, seeing less than 20 hands. The "room" seemed decent enough. The players were a mix of average to weak (One guy threw away a nut flush!), with a few who were just strange.

On the whole, I was up on the trip and it was a good time. I am looking forward to going again!