Left with my brother-in-law around 8:30 AM on Wednesday, January 2. Had an easy drive, about 3 hours on the dot. Got to Paris and started scouting. I had only been to Vegas one other time and had only visited the casinos around Flamingo and LV BLVD. I had only played poker at the Flamingo. We walked through Paris and Bally’s and headed up to Venetian. Took a look at the poker room and kept moving. Crossed the street to TI. Again, kept moving. It was still fairly early and I didn’t recognize anyone. Came back down to Caesar’s then back to Paris to check-in.

We each had a comped room through the Harrah’s Total Rewards. Thought about trying the $20 trick, but didn’t bother since it was just a guys trip. We were put in rooms across from each other on the 7th floor, although we had no view. The rooms were very nice, especially for free! Clean, quiet, nice beds and a big bathroom.

Headed down to Bally’s for a little blackjack. My brother is still getting into poker, so this wasn’t an exclusively poker trip. After dropping $50 in about 15 minutes, I told my brother I was going to move to the poker tables right behind us. Got seated at a $1-$2 table right away. Played for about 30 minutes, nothing big, but finished up $70. My brother was up $100 on blackjack.

We then headed over to Planet Hollywood for the 7 PM Grinder tourney. Registered just after 5 and grabbed some dinner at the Earl of Sandwich. Not bad. Signed up for the player’s club and used our $5 match play ticket in the race book. I hit an exacta for $50 on the only race running!

Headed back for the tourney. No Grinder, so the $300 bounty was added to 1st place. 70 runners plus 13 buy-back alternates. I got hit by the deck right off the bat. I raised the first hand in middle position with AJ. One caller. Missed the flop, but took the pot with a c-bet. Next hand raised with 99. Two callers. Flopped top set. Got it all in on the river against one lady. She mucked and was busted. Few hands later, took down a decent pot after the flop with pocket Q’s. By the end of the first level, I had more than tripled up to 14,000. Cards went quiet for awhile. Made it down to final 3 tables with about 9000. Started playing more aggressive and building the stack. Dipped back down when my AQ ran into short stack’s AA. Still, I made it to the final table a little below average. 9 spots paid, so the first player out put the rest of us in the money. Got down to 8. Had 39,000, blinds just hit 4000-8000 when I was in the BB. UTG big stack raises to 30,000. Folds around to me and I look down at AcKc. Thought about it for a minute because there were 2 other stacks shorter than me and about 2 others with the same stack. I felt that if I could outlast 1 or 2 we might get a chop. But, I knew I had to push. UTG called, of course, and showed KsJs, so I was stoked. J in the window on the flop, but 2 clubs, 1 spade. Then comes runner-runner spade to add insult to injury. As they say, at least I got it in with the best hand. Got paid $143 and left $15 for the dealers.

My brother got knocked out about halfway through and unfortunately hit the $25 PH blackjack tables. Apparently he took a big hit to his bankroll, so he didn’t play much the rest of the trip, and no poker.

Headed back to the Bally’s poker table around 11:30. Almost all the tables were full, specifically $1-$2 NL. Waited for a little bit and they opened the final empty table. Had a bad vibe right off the bat. Just a table full of old grumps. The guy to my right kept getting into hands with the guy on my left. Lefty kept calling raises and hitting two pair with hands like K6 and J7. Righty was getting pissed. I get KK in early position, raise and get a couple of callers, including lefty. Flop comes Q high rainbow. I bet out about 2/3s of the pot. Lefty is the only caller. Turn is a rag. I again bet about 2/3s of the pot. Lefty calls again. River is an A. A couple of hands come to mind, with AQ being one of them. I check, not wanting to get raised. He makes a relatively small bet and I make the crying call. He shows the AQ. Just a bad play on the river by me. In hindsight, I should have made a small blocking bet/value bet. If he re-raised, I could have then gotten away for less.

Lefty is now sitting on about $700. I didn’t really want to stay at that table, especially with the smoky bar right next to me, but I knew that if he kept playing, he’d be giving back those chips. He did, but unfortunately, I couldn’t get many of them. Once he was down to about $200, and I was down almost $300, I decided to take a look at the Paris poker room. This room is essentially in the sports book, and therefore they are very unforgiving on phones being out. It was about 2 AM and there were only 3 $1-$2 NL tables going. I played for about 30 minutes down about $50. After a series of players decided to call it a night within a 5 minute span we were down to 1 table. I built my stack back over $300 when a big hand came out. There were 4 young buddies at the table from LA. I had heard they regularly play at Commerce. They had been trash talking each other, all in good fun. UTG+1 on my right, one of the young guys, raises to $10. I look down at AA and raise it up to $25. A couple of folds and then another buddy re-raises all-in for $96. I expect buddy 1 to fold, and I’ll happily call buddy 2. However, buddy 1 goes into the tank and starts talking about how much he wants buddy 2 to get felted. He has me covered by about $150, and just calls. At this point, there is about $225 in the pot and I have about $290 behind. I announce all-in. I don’t think buddy 1 heard me because we were waiting awhile for him to make a decision and it didn’t seem like he was thinking about anything. It seemed like he was just waiting for the dealer to put the flop out. Anyway, he ends up calling. I turn over my AA, buddy 1 shows A4 (???) and buddy 2 waits to show. Board comes 997-6-6. Buddy 2 mucks face down, but I believe he flashed Q10. Very nice to rake the $700 pot! I cash out at $760 a little while later as it is now about 3:30 AM.

The next day, I registered for the $200 noon tourney at Caeser’s. 7500 chips and blinds go up every 40 minutes, so there is a lot of play. We start with 46. I wasn’t really getting much. Toward the end of the first level, after dropping down to about 5000, I get AA in the SB. With a couple of limpers ahead of me, I raise to 5xBB for 250. I end up getting 3 callers including the guy to my right who had already knocked out 2 guys with flushes. Flop comes 3-5-6 rainbow. I bet out 750. Folds around to the guy on my right who calls. Turn is a 2. I bet out 1500, leaving me 2500 behind and the guy calls again. River is a 7. I check, and the guy puts me all-in. I certainly don’t put him on a 4, so I really just have to worry about a set. The fact that he limped-called before the flop could certainly put him on slow-playing 55 or 66. I’m not happy with the way I played this hand and end up calling. He says good call and flips K6. That gets me up over 10,000. I play into the middle of level 4 without many cards. I am down to a little over 4000 with the blinds at 200-400-25. Early position with about 6000 behind raises to 1100. It folds around to me on the button with 88. I push. OR tanks and eventually calls with AJ. Flop comes A-J-x and I’m done in about 24th. I really like the tourney structure and the room, but just couldn’t get anything going.

Explored downtown that even. Had the $7.99 prime rib special at the Tony Roma’s inside the Fremont. Tried the fried Oreos and Twinkies. Not bad, but I don’t think my arteries can handle ever eating that again. Played a little $3 blackjack at the Golden Gate. Checked out the Binion’s poker room.

Came back and the Bally’s poker room was filled and hand a list for $1-$2 at 8+. I saw that Paris only had 1 on the list (the boards show both rooms) and headed back over there. I got seated immediately at a table with a bunch of guys who seemed to be having a good time. I ended up $200 over about 2 hours with only 1 memorable hand. EP raises to $7. I have 1010 in LP. I re-raise to $20. EP and I see a flop of 8-8-10! We both check. Turn comes with another 8. I do have to worry about the case 8, but it is unlikely that he would raise and call before the flop with 8-x. I see this as a good card because he could easily have a middle pocket pair and put me on two big cards with my check of the flop. He fires out 25 and I just call. The river is a 6 and he fires out 50. I think about it for a minute and announce raise. Bump it an additional 75, but he mucks. I had noticed him getting very aggressive when he was in a hand and someone showed weakness. So, he probably had the two over cards.

Left relatively early Friday morning. Had a good time, but 2 nights seemed too long to be away from my wife and daughter. I’ll probably stick to the local Indian casinos for awhile and the next trip will probably be a quick 1 night hit. Those are a lot easier when you only live 3 hours away and you can get free rooms. My wife does have a medical convention in Vegas in October, so I should be back then. I certainly liked the Paris room over the Bally’s room. It felt more like a poker room as it was away from the noise of the slots and pits. Overall for the trip, I was up $300 on poker, up $50 on sports bets, and down $120 on blackjack and video poker.