Continuing my weekday trip....

So far, up $$314 in $4/$8 at the Venetian Monday night, down $17 in $3/$6 at the Mirage Tuesday morning, down $142 in $4/$8 Omaha8 at the Rio, and down $160 in $4/$8 at the Venetian. 0 for 1 in the 11am tournaments at the Mirage.

Wednesday dawns brings and early and I make my way back to the Mirage. Yes, I am shameless, just as the others there, going for the aces cracked. I get them twice more in a bit over two hours, and again I fail to get either one cracked. That makes me 0 for 4. I do finish up $34.

The Wednesday tournament is not terribly memorable. I'm mostly card dead, although I did get a double up with pocket aces against pocket 8s. I'm just not able to make much in the way of moves, and as my stack gets short, I push with 88--only to run in to QQ and bust out 20th.

I head over to the Venetian for some $4/$8. I sit down in seat 9, and across the table, in seat 5 is a guy who is being pretty aggressive. I notice that on a number of times he is raising very light, in one case, with Q8o in EP. It's obvious he's playing a bit of a NL style in limit. So I wait.... And I don't have to wait too long. He raised in EP, and I smooth call in LP with AdKd. A coupe others in as well see a flop of J-x-x with 2 diamonds. He bets out and I raise on the semi-bluff. Everyone else folds, and he thinks for a long time--a *very* long time for limit--before he finally calls. A blank comes on the river, he checks, and I take the free card. the 9d falls on the river, he checks, I bet, and he calls. He turns over KJo after I show my nut flush. He mutters something that I don't quite hear, obviously disturbed, and I use one of my lines that I like to use to try and get under someone's skin and change their game; I say "keep raising light." Well that sets him off. He all but tries to get me to go outside (an amusing prospect as he's silver haired and older, and I can pretty much guarantee he's not the athlete that I am), but it also has the desired effect: he spots raising preflop so much. But he still can't let it go either. He keeps talking to the plyers at that end of the table about it. And later, when it's folded to me in LP and I raised with KQs, he accused me of raising light. I decide after 2 1/2 hours that I've had enough of that fun and leave up $45. I go take a quick dip in the IP pool (it closes at 6:00!!), then relax for the rest of the night.

I did wander over to the Bellagio because I wanted to inquire about the basketball game the following night. Thought about playing the $4/$8, but the list was too long. It looks like they finally got an electronic board. Yay! Of course, they placed the display way in the back of the room, so no one can see it at the entry. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

UP early again on Thursday and off to the Mirage. I get there at 8:45, and I'm the 5th player for $3/$6, and the one that gets the game started. Nothing really memorable happens. I don't get pocket aces at all, although I see flopped quads twice--in fact, at one point the table has seen flopped quads twice and pocket aces only once. I end up down $13. I do see a lot of big aces that totally whiffed flops. I did crack kings once when UTG raised and I called form the BB with Q-10s. Flop came J-9-x and I called the flop bet. K on the turn gave me the nuts. Later, lost to a straight from the SB.

The tournament begins and ends at almost the same time. I get it all-in in the first orbit with AKs on an A-10-x flop when a 10 hits the turn and I shove, and find myself drawing dead against AA.

I run into Chris and we have a nice little chat. He's always so pleasant to talk to.

I can't resist. I need to make one more trip to Hash House A Go Go. Same thing: the 1 lb. burger stuffed with cheddar and bacon. It's just as good the second time around.

Back over to the Venetian. It was a somewhat ugly session. Got KK twice early and got them cracked both times but preflop cold callers. Had to cut my session short to go watch the Celtic-Lakers game, down $48.

Headed over to the Bellagio to watch. The good seats were all full (I was running a bit late). I stood around for awhile, then a seat at the edge of the bar opened up. Nice place to watch the game. Paid way too much for a soda ($4.50 for a cherry Coke). Although I'd gotten a few comments durong the course of the day on my Celtics t-shirt, I was not happy with the game result. Swung into the poker room, but there was enough of a list on the $4/$8 game that I didn't want to wait.

I wandered out to the strip to do a little shopping. My goal was some cheap t-shirts for workouts. But the sidewalk was blocked. Ened going all the way back into Bellagio, back to the tram, then to Monte Carlo. A long, long way around. Got my t-shirts. Stopped in to CVS to try and find some stuff for the trip back, but couldn't find what I wanted--and then there's not way to get across the Strip at that point, so I had to go a long way south to get across to the Walgreens. It was a long, hot walk.

Once more, I made my way over to the Mirage, this time after I'd checked out at the IP. More than two hours, and no aces. Oh well. Got up a bit, and then a late raise with JJ fell to a Broadway straight in the BB, who held A-10, when a J on the river made my set and I had to make a river call, so I ended up down $15.

LVM is pointed out to me at the $1/$2 NL table, so I go over to introduce myself. I chat with him a couple of times. It's great to finally put a face to the screen name. I'll admit that (a) I'd love to just sit and watch him play, and (b) that I might have tried the $1/$2 NL game, but having one player I knew for sure was much better than I am did scare me off.

This was my best tournament performance, although I was disappointed at only 29 entries. I got up to almost T$8K at the first break (we start with T$5K), but then went card dead. I did make it to the final table, although I was one of the shorter stacks. What was good for me was that the two biggest stacks were to my immediate right. And just a few hands in, I was able to take advantage of that. One of them raised, and I pushed all-in (for just a little more) with KJs. Everyone else folded, and to my delight, my presumption was correct: he was trying to push the table around, tabling J8. But the poker gods were not kind; not only did an 8 fall on the flop, another one hit on the turn, and I busted out 9th.

It was hitting mid-afternoon, and I had a long trek through the desert to go. I hit the Costco in Henderson to fill up my tank, then went looking for the nearest supermarket. According to what I could find, it was an Albertsons back up by Tropicana and Boulder Hwy. So I headed up there, got some food and water, and headed out. But I didn't really pay attention to where my GPS was taking me, and it turns out it took me up north on 515 to 15, and then south, past the strip, in mid-afternoon, on Friday. Ugh. Traffic, traffic, traffic. I finally cleared the traffic, and Las Vegas, at about 4:30pm, a good couple of hours later than I had planned.

Unfortunately, I can't say this trip was profitable. I ended up being down $240 in tournament play. And overall, I was down $2 in cash games (although if I avoided the devil's game that is $4/$8 Omaha8, I'd have been up for the trip. Not a lot, but up).