Kudos to those, too, who recognize the song title.

My wife and I celebrated our birthdays (Oct 17th and 18th) with a comped room at Wynn, the best hotel I've ever stayed at...and I stay at over 20 hotels, motels, and such per year from Baker City, OR to Washington DC. Pay the poker room rate if you must, but check it out.

We both play, and logged a lot of time at the 4/8 tables at Wynn. The room is almost perfect, with a few of the dealers having brain cramps from time to time, but the players were quick to indicate the winning hand(s). Management is great, I had one very crabby old (and I mean old, I'm 51) player at the table, but the cardroom manager was paying attention and came right over and soothed the crank whenever he got out of hand. It seems that Wynn skimmed the cream of the cardroom staff from Bellagio, Mirage, and other rooms, and the staff all seem to be very happy to be working for the hotel and the players. Everyone from the chip runners to the poker room manager was polite, friendly, and took care of things. They recently started hosting tournaments, and they run satellites starting at 8 AM for the noon tournaments. Top two places earn entry. The one day that they had a tourney, it was still running strong until about 7:30 PM, so very good competition. I didn't play, as we only had a few days and I wanted to work on my limit game.

One day, we wanted to play a low buyin tournament, and saw that Luxor has a $30 no addon, no rebuy daily, which was fine by me. First hour is limit, then it goes to no limit, but I barely made it past the first hour due to second best cards or busted draws. I did, however, play both the 2/4 aqnd $50 no limit games before and after the tournament, both of which were moderately profitiable. One thing about Luxor, a lot of people complain about the location and size, but it is one of the few rooms in Vegas that has been open since the casino opened, so the staff is very knowledgeable and friendly. The players, not so good, so a few more bad calls that paid out, but only one or two really bad players, which helps with the odds.

We played some more 4/8 at Wynn that night, and I got an unbelievable run of cards, took 12 pots out of 30 hands. The players always seemed to consist of one or two locals, some of whom were actually pretty odd players (e.g., calling face board pairs with suited low cards), one or two decent tourists, and a lot of clueless players. Choose your competition, and you can do well. I wound up $654 to the good at my 4/8 game with about 16 hours of play, and that profit is after tipping dealers, chip runners, and drink servers. About the drink servers, they are uniformly GORGEOUS. I though the Venetian had some beauties, but these women were knockouts.

Our last day, we had about four hours to kill and went to Orleans, as my wife had gotten tired of some of her tables. The competition at Orleans is at least 50% tough locals, so the suckout factor is almost non-existent. Fortunately, we had friendly locals who were happy to chat a bit, and some visitors who knew the game. The dealers and managers here are great old school, too, who take no grief from the players. No need for any table captains. I wound up a whopping $5 ahead after four hours.

All in all, a very good trip for our 51st and 52nd birhtdays, and a profitable one for me. Especially with the comped room at the Wynn, which will most likely never happen again. We will, however, spring for the rooms any off peak times. I tried to make reservations for President's Weekend 2006, but was quoted a rate per night that was more than I paid for my first car per night.