I spent 5 nights in Vegas split in two stays as part of a road trip between LA and Arizona visiting friends. 3 nights on the way to AZ, and 2 on the way back to LA. I hope other trips will follow, although Vegas isnt exactly in my backyard as Im from Copenhagen, Denmark.

Hotels: my planned stay was right around the CES convention. Bummer - as far as hotel rates go. With a bit of rescheduling I found 2 nights at Mandalay Bay that were below my pain-threshold. I spend around $200 for two nights in a â€strip view room†(view was amazing) including tax and resort fees. I spend a third night at South Point at $70-something. I loved Mandalay Bay and SP was OK too – if you have a car. On the way back from AZ I payed $30 for one night at the IP and got a 2nd night comped from my play the week before at Harrahs/Caesars properties. Thats more like it! I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the room too.

Poker rooms/limits: I played only NLHE cash games. I played at Aria, Venetian, Wynn, Caesars Palace, Bellagio, Mirage and a quick morning session at the IP before I left for LA. Im used to a $3/3 game with a $600 max buy in in my local casino, so $1/3 suits me well and I can dabble in $2/5 (I didnt do that much though, because the $2/5 games looked tough in general). $1/2 is OK, but playing lower than Im used too, even though it isnt by much, I tend to start forcing the action. That happened in my session at the Venetian, so although that room is great in many ways, it didnt completely win my heart. Also, Im not a fan of it being 10 handed as opposed to 9 handed at Aria and Caesars.
My favorite rooms to play in were Aria, Wynn and Caesars Palace. Aria is great. Some of the games I played in at the Aria were tough, but as the nights went on I found decent games there too. Also many of the â€baller†contingent with their big headphones and bulky watches have a tendency to implode, if you can just be a little patient. I like that you can take a peek at the pros playing in Iveys room. Pro-sightings at Aria included Tom Dwan, Todd Brunson, Ben Lamb, Chau Chang and Huck Seed.
I liked playing at Caesars, especially because I found some really soft games there. I like the room and the staff, and I had a good $2/5 session there.
As mentioned, the $2/5 mostly seemed tough, in fact, at one time I asked to be seated in one of the $2/5 games at the Venetian. When I got there, everybody looked up, much as if I had just walked into a saloon in a small town in a western movie. They all studied me and were sooooo accomodating and friendly as I sat down. And I really got the impression that they were all regulars who were thrilled to see new blood in the game. I had better things to do with my time, so – to their collective dissapointment – I got up again without posting and went across the street to check out the Mirage.
I really liked the Mirage, but because they only had $1/2 with $200 max, I only played for about an hour there.
I loved the Wynn, although I did poorly there. Beautiful property and poker room, and I found both good and very bad players there (more on that further down).
Was dissapointed with the Bellagio. The room is nice, but the people (floor, dealers and cocktail waitresses) just werent very friendly at all. As a british old timer I played with at Caesars put it â€They act like they’re doing you a favorâ€.

Play/results: My play was very swingy in quality. I had streches of really bad, tired play and streches of what I feel was really good play.
Heres the breakdown:

Day1 – jan. 8th. First night I played a 3 hour session at the Aria and won $315. Nothing very memorable. Won most of it by calling bluffs from one aggressive player and stealing small pots from others.

Day 2 – jan. 9th. Afternoon session at the Venetian, lost $440 (Lost patience, played too loose, too many big calls and bad bluffs). Took a long dinner break, and then went to the Aria, where I played till 2 am and won $575. I lost a big pot in that game early 4-bet shoving two overs and an open ended straight draw on the flop. Got snap called with ’top top’ and missed my big draw. After the bad session at Venetian and now this, I was headed for stone cold tilt. Then I 3-bet QQ from the small blind and got called by the button raiser. I lead the K-x-x flop and he shoved. I talked myself into a bad call. I then hit my 2-outer on the turn against his AK. It was the perfect time to get lucky. It got me back to even for the session, and I turned my game around and booked the nice win.

Day 3- jan. 10th. I played at Caesars in the afternoon for a couple of hours and won $450 in a great game. Three players to the right of me had no clue, but were happy to spread their money around the table. One of their friends standing behind me told someone that before this trip he had taken all his money out from the bank and put it in his safe, so he couldnt acces it while in Vegas. Smart guy. Maybe he should even consider going somewhere else for his holiday? I took a break for dinner, then played for an hour at the Mirage and won $50. Back to Caesars where I jumped in the $2/5 game and won $700. In a memorable hand I 3-bet AcKx from the small blind against a middle position raiser to I believe $80. The big blind cold calls and the raiser calls. Flop is Jc 8c 5x. I make about a half pot sized c-bet of $120 and they both call. Turn is like a 4 thats not a club. Check, check, check. River’s another small card thats not a club and doesnt pair the board. Check, check, check, and I show down my AK high – which is good to drag the $500+ pot (big blind had AQoff, other guy had 9c6c)

Left Vegas for AZ with a profit of $1650.

Day 4 – jan 16th. First night going back, I had a session of tired, tilted play at the Wynn were I dropped $700. Should have just gone too sleep after the long drive from AZ i guess, but I live 5400 miles from Vegas and here I was. I started OK, building my stack against some (very) weak players. Then I made an aggresive (bad) 3-bet in the blinds with K10 against a good aggresive player on the button and proceeded to lose a big pot when he made trip 9’s against my top pair of tens and bet it perfectly. I was annoyed with myself and after that I played worse and worse as the game got tougher and tougher (bad players went home, and players from a broken 2/5 game joined). Finally I gave up and went back to my hotel eating the $700 loss.

Day 5 – jan. 17th. Played at Caesars an hour before dinner, then went to dinner and back to my room for a nap, before going back to Caesars and finding a seat at a table with some of the same players. It was a great game, but I had a long run of very bad cards. It was frustrating but I managed to stay level headed (as opposed to the night before) and eek out a win of $150 for the day as my run-bad tapered off a little towards the end of the night. That felt like a great result for how I had been running that day.

Day 6 – jan. 18th. I won another $100 at the IP the next morning in a 2 hour session before I left for LA. Although in one of the final hands I lost with AdKd against AJ in a $400 pot (all in preflop) against a maniac who had been playing in the game since the day before. He thus won back the chips I had taken off him in the previous hour while sitting comfortably to his left. (he hit a jack on the turn by the way). That cut my promising profit in the session down to $100. I played 2-3 more hands, and then hit the road. As I was leaving, a guy walked by dressed up as Zack Galifianakis from the hangover, when hes carrying the baby around. Looked just like him, so funny. He posed for a picture.

Total profit for the trip came to $1200. (only for poker, not including other expenses like hotel bills.)

Considerations: game selection in Vegas is HUGE. I’m kind of stating the obvious, but with so many rooms and games, there really is no reason to keep playing in a bad game. On this trip I played in both the toughest games Ive ever played in and probably in the softest games. I played against very solid players, but also for instance against a nice middle aged gentleman at the Wynn who reached for his wallet and started counting out 20 dollar bills to call, when on the river I bet more than he had in front of him. The dealer kindly explained the concept of table stakes to him and he then called off the rest of his stack with third pair and a big smile. At Caesars Palace a guy told the table that the night before a lady had asked â€Are any cards wild?†as she sat down in the $1/3 no limit game. So next time around Ill spend less time fighting it out in games full of serious players and wannabe pros before I go look for something less demanding.

And wow, driving throught the Mojave desert is amazingly beautiful by the way. Drove through at sunset both ways.

PS. one thing you don’t see in pictures are smells. I was really surpised at the amount of perfume/air freshener or whatever artificial crap it is they pump out into the air by the gallon in a lot of the casinoes/hotels. Especially Aria and (judging from the smell walking past on the Strip) The Flamingo. In the tram between Aria and Bellagio it was just insane. What is that about? Way over the top, in my opinion. I could smell it in my clothes the next day, and I sometimes felt I could’nt breathe that well. Id rather have a faint smell of smoke if thats what they are afraid of. Its not like it reduces actual exposure to second hand smoke anyway. Ok, end of rant.