While visitng family, I managed to sneak in some poker. Unfortunately (or fortunately based on the results of this trip) it was always late night.

Started off trip by playing the 11 PM NL tourney at the Sahara. I agree with most, the Sahara has excellent value for the buy in. 20 minute levels with a 40 plus 2 buy in and 1 $20 rebuy in the first hour. I played pretty tight at the start and progressively loosened up as went deeper in. I think this worked well as many players in low stakes tourneys seem to do the opposite in the quest to gain a big stack early. It also gave me a tight image early in the tourney. Big hand on the way to the final table came when I was holding pocket 7s in the big blind and called down a guy who kept trying to buy the blinds in the cutoff by going all in every time. He had A, 10 unsuited and I flopped the set to take it down and move in into top 3 in chips. At the final table, chip leader made proposal that 2nd 3rd and 4th place take $625 with winner taking 1400. Everyone agreed (especially me since I was low man!). I sucked out on him on the holding Q,J against his pocket 10s with a river J to cripple him. Sucked out again heads up. Had 8,9 spades against A,10 unsuited. Once again the river was my friend when I made a straight to pull even with him. At that point we agreed to split.After tipping, walked out with about $950.00. Great start to trip and nice bankroll for the weekend. Like I said, well run tourney. Only problem was action should be recogized by dealers verbally more consistently. Got burnt when I didn't see a low stack push all in from the 1 seat and called thinking I was just calling the minimum. From the 9 seat I couldn't see around the dealers arms.

Caesers is a very nice looking and well run room. Once again played late night, actually missing the 11 PM tourney. Played 1-3 NL cash game instead. Bought in for 250 and cashed aout for 330 after about 2 hours. Only critique was that dealers weren't all that friendly and somewhat sarcastic (at least the ones at this table).

Last day I played a couple of sit n gos at the Monte. Good dealers. Many opportunities for sit n gos here. Well run. Unfortunately, I didn't cash.

Overall finished up about 875 for the trip and , as usual can't wait to go back -maybe with "just the guys" this time. Good luck to all!