I recently concluded my five day vacation (Aug 14th-18th) to Las Vegas. I had the dubious pleasure of staying with Yappy Dave, as some of you may know. The purpose of the trip was twofold: to test the waters of live B&M poker; and to spend some time with Dave. Fortunately, both fronts faired well, leaving me content.

After arriving at 11 am on Tuesday, Dave escorted me to his favorite sushi joint, Ka. After experiencing some good service and well-crafted specialty rolls, we proceeded onto Yappy’s apartment. He lives in a nice complex and does well for himself. After settling in and playing some Counter-Strike, we headed to TI. As it is for many, I’m sure, the Strip coming into view was an intimidating site, giving me a surge of adrenaline. I definitely felt like a small fish in a big pond. This is not the kind of stench I wanted coming off me in my first session of live poker, so I made an effort to talk myself down to the calm, reflective, and thoughtful persona I usually stink of.

I really owe some thanks to Las Vegas Michael. Michael, knowing that Dave and I were on our way to the poker room, put our names on the waiting list for the $1-3. As insignificant as an action that is, it really made me feel more comfortable than I ought to feel right from the get-go. I immediately felt welcomed. Michael was very polite and had an endearing nature about him. Dave introduced me to a few of the locals and dealers, and then we sat down.

My first session was in the six or seven seat at table three. Dave was immediately to my right, with Michael in earlier position. Now, I had built up my bank roll by playing online this summer. I played at UB, where the max buy-in is 100 big blinds. Since I had been used to that, I figured that would be the wisest course of action as far as buying in was concerned. It would potentially give me the same feeling of maneuverability as I was used to during the summer. Unfortunately, as I suspected, this was not true. This was not true because a standard raise at the $1-3 NL at TI is anywhere from $10-20. This is a bit more than the 3-4 x BB raises that accomplished the same thing online. With this notion in mind I naturally tightened up and waited to pick my spots, as I was potentially losing half of the range of playable hands that I had been accustomed to playing. After about two and half hours I was netting about $350 and decided to cash out. Needless to say I was excited with the result, but was quite aware of the fact that I would surely encounter the negative side of variance in the near future. Soon thereafter I sweated Yappy out at the mixer for a couple hours. With it still being my first day in the room, I was plenty content just being there, watching everything go down. There was so much energy. Oh, and the free cocktails were nice. Dave and I had Carver’s sandwiches delivered to us for dinner at the mixer table.

The next morning we got up and played some more Counter-Strike. You think having a cigarette and coffee in the morning is invigorating, try owning some random noobs in the face. Much to both of our surprise, an old high-school buddy of ours called Dave to say he was in Vegas and wanted to hang out. He was in town on a little trip with his girlfriend, who, by the way, he met on World of Warcraft. We ate at Metro Pizza where I was only able to finish half of a metro-style Gotham. It definitely lived up to my expectations, as Dave had talked it up pretty good. This friend of ours, Kiser, is also plays poker, but he decided not to go back to TI with David and I so that he could take a nap with his girlfriend, Dani. Wow, sounds like Kiser and Michael are brothers from different mothers.

We arrived at TI and sat at table three again with Paul the grinder and Tom. I was pretty patient all afternoon, winning a few smaller pots. The big score came when I scooped two all-ins, who, unfortunately, I both had covered, with the second nuts, a king-high flush. I was last to act on the river. First guy goes all-in, after the 3rd to the flush card came down, next person instacalls. Action is on me. Obviously I can’t get away from this hand. I just take a few seconds to prepare myself for the cooler and call, saying, “I really think I have the best hand here.” When all was said and done I netted $200 for the session. Again, I think to myself, when will variance own me in the face. While Dave, myself, Paul, and another solid player grinded each other out at the same table, Tom smarted up and moved to a fishier table and had 1k behind later in the night. Nice move Tom. We ate at Isla for dinner, courtesy of comps. After that we met up with our friend Kiser, and went to see the Bellagio fountains. Kiser then expressed interest in playing some poker. We headed over to TI and bought in again. Kiser was the first to drop. He picked up queens twice: once against my aces; and once against a paired king high flop. The ladies couldn’t hold that night. Yappy then cashed out in order to drive Kiser back to his hotel. I cashed out soon thereafter with a net of $15. That put my three-session net at $565.

The next day consisted of about the same as the previous two. We woke up, played some CS, ate lunch, and then headed over to TI. I had never eaten at an In N Out burger so Dave decided to take me there. It was tasty food. We got to TI and took our seats. It was this day where I finally ran badly. The only pots I won were ones in which I made moves. For some reason I was more eager to make calls this day to see an extra card in the hopes of peeling off some big stacks with marginal hands. I usually ended up folding to the next bet. This happened quite a few times leaving me with a short stack. I then made a frustration call with 10s on a queen high board. Villain flopped a set. Ooops. Good call donkey…I bought in for another $300. Poof! Gone. I left with a net of -$600, making my total net of -$35. Obviously at this point I was questioning my place in life and what it all means, but I was able to separate myself from the money and calm myself down.

Yappy felt bad for me I’m sure and treated me to the Bellagio buffet. This, though, was after chilling on Freemont St. eating $1 shrimp cocktails and Nathan’s hotdogs. Needless to say the buffet was excellent. I enjoyed it very much. We ended up heading back to TI later that night. Dave and I sat down at a hyper aggressive table with the Swedish vixen Pernilla and a few solid guys that just flew in from Atlanta that ended up befriending us. I make the decision to buy in for $500 this time. I feel that this can give me some more room to make plays at people as I felt that my reading abilities were getting better after each session. She makes it $45 to go the very first hand. She loses to a rivered straight. The guy called her with 4d6d. Hehe. That’s what she gets when she makes it $45 to go. It sends the implied odds through the roof. I played really tight at the aggressive table and waited to pick up hands in position. I won a couple of big pots and ended up leaving an hour and a half later or so with a net of about $310. This is definitely what I needed. A winning session was just what the doctor ordered after the afternoon massacre. This brings the total net to $275.

No need to type what we did the next morning. For lunch we hit up the Original House of Pancakes and headed over to TI. Dave dropped me off while he had some business to take care of at UNLV. I sat at a table with LV Mike and what appeared to be some other solid players. Again, I bought in for $500, feeling as if it also gave me an edge as far as my perceived image was concerned. I ran a huge play at a solid player to win a big pot, which also happened to be a splash pot…for $25….neat. I thought that only because he was so solid that the play would work. I thought I could move him off top pair, and it ended up working in my favor. I won another big pot and a couple of smaller ones. I ended the session with a net of $700. This brings the total net to $975.

Yappy and I then headed over to Dick’s Last Resort in the Excalibur where we were supposed to meet some of you AVPer’s, but unfortunately none of you showed up. Kurt, though, did show up. We ended up waiting an hour and half to eat expensive food. We also had a waiter who was decently nice to us. This was a problem. They are supposed to dicks to you at Dick’s, not nice. So our experience wasn’t what we anticipated. We three then headed over to Ellis Island where Dave and I used a POV coupon to drink free for two for 1 hour at the bar! HAHAHA! YES! We just had shot after shot and proceeded to become intoxicated. Meanwhile Kurt donkeyed off some money at video poker, where he continued to proclaim, “It’s all about the quads.” We then thought that heading back to TI would acceptable, as a mixer was in order. After my $700 net just a few hours earlier I didn’t have too much of a desire to play. I sweated Dave out at the mixer. A couple hours later I decided to buy in for $500. I was able to adapt to a fishier table, only making plays on the solid ones, and extracting maximum value on the less experienced ones. I ended up netting another $430. This brings my total trip net to $1405, $1100 coming in one day. We leave TI at about 7 am to go have breakfast back at Ellis Island. We take about 5 hour nap, then head back to TI so that I can buy the Big Kahuna at Kahunaville with my remaining comp. It was sweet. Dave then drove me to the airport. After a long, sweet embrace, I party ways with my buddy and head back to Indianapolis. No need to worry…I will be back soon. Also, I plan to post a room review on TI in the near future.