Poker results for this trip were much better than usual. I suck at poker. I admit this. I try very hard to improve and I think I’m getting better but I still suck. My WLP, however, is significantly more intelligent than I am and her poker game is improving a lot and she now seems to be able to make up for most of my losses. I played ½ NL almost exclusively and for the most part had positive sessions. The few losing sessions were big enough to eat up the winning sessions – I’d win 100 to 150 when I won but loose 300 when I lost. Here are the highlights:

- ½ NL at MGM (my favorite place to play). I get dealt QsJs and call some guy’s all in for about $20 (I already mentioned that I suck so this is the part where the stupid comes into play – a terrible combination). I don’t remember what he had but he won the hand. The very next hand I get QJ again but this time I get to see the flop for $2. The flop comes up XsXs4x – I have a flush draw! One guy goes all in for about 80 or 90 and my friend snap shoves for 200ish. I have about 150 so I’m getting somewhere around 250 to 150 (5:3) on the call and my odds are about 1:3 to win this hand against a set and a random made hand – so I call (see suck and stupid from earlier). The turn is a spade so I turn over my cards to show the flush and they’re RED! This is why people fight to get on my table.

- ½ NL at MGM. I flop top pair and a gut shot against a nice young woman from Oklahoma (it’s a real place, who knew?). She bets and I raise to see where I’m at and she just smooth calls. The turn gives me the nut straight and I think this gives her two pair (she might have flopped the two pair but I didn’t ask) and she checks and I bet about 2/3rds the pot leaving me with about $50 behind. She asks what I have (I know what she’s asking) and I tell her I have $50 behind. She clarifies her question so instead of telling her my hand (lying to people from Oklahoma isn’t nice) I tell her I have a story and ask if she wants to hear it. She’s very polite (an Oklahoma thing?) and agrees to hear the story. So I tell her about the QJ hand and she very politely asks what that has to do with the hand we’re in. So I tell her, I think I have the nuts but I just never really know what I have. She folds (Oklahoma people are pretty smart people, and very nice.)

-Lame tournament at Caesars Palace – It was a lousy structure and people were getting knocked out by the second round so there really wasn’t any room to speculate or try to take meaningful pots so I was forced to play the cards I was dealt. And I was dealt some lousy cards so I folded my way right out of the tournament. I finally pick up 7c2c in the small blind when it is folded to me. I have 3.5 big blinds left and it is late in the 4th round – these bad boys have to be live here. So I shove into the only person left in the hand (the BB who is also the big stack). And she calls with KJ – I was right, my favorite hand was live. Until the flop came KJx. The turn was a 2 and I knew I had a lock on this. The river? You guessed it, a 3! I lost with 72! I never lose with 72. I won a tournament holding 72! My f’ing WLP knocked me out of the tournament. I went over to the 1/3 game and won 50 of my $70 buy in back while my WLP went on to chop 3 ways for a $300 plus cash. We also had a last longer bet with my WLP and 3 other friends so she picked up another $20 from that.

The rest of the poker was fairly straight forward and mostly solid. I played a ½ game at MGM with a complete maniac who was just pounding on the table so I got to sit two to his left and managed to take almost all of his money. I won a huge pot when I flopped a set and he just kept betting and I just kept calling until I raised him on the river and he made a weird call with just a high card. Later in the session I just called him down to the river with pocket 7s and he again just had a high card. He moved to another seat 3 to my left and I decided to stay put since I didn’t think I needed position against him. I took some more money off him – he was a very nice guy. I lost a chunk when my AK ran into A2 against another player at the table when she made two pair. There was a time when this would have stacked me but I managed to keep my sanity and slowed way down when she showed a lot of interest in the hand. I also won $100 playing 2/4 when my friend and I sat down to do some drinking but decided against it when we saw how crazy the game was and we decided to try to win some of the money being thrown around. You know it’s a good 2/4 limit game when most of the pots are $100 plus. A lot of multi-handed capped pots. And I turned a royal in another ½ game and got paid off – nice.