Landed on Thurs Sept 20th checked into TI. I like the hotel. They have the only pho place on the strip and since pho is great for a hangover, I ate there a lot. They also have a oxygen bar at a place called Khunaville. One day I was still hungover at 5pm, I went to the oxygen bar and after 20 minutes of pure air, a free vodka and cranberry, and a message the hangover was gone. I'm now a firm believer of oxygen bars. It cost 20 bucks but I would have paid way more. It saved my night. On to the poker...

After check in, we went to the TI poker room for their tourney and some free beers. There was two tables and I was one of the first people out even though the play was really passive and weak. I started drinking heavily and tried to run over the table and ran into a few people that flopped hands. My friend got third place and it was good for like a hundred.

We walked over to the Ventian next. First and foremost, I don't buy into all the Ventian hype here. It's a good room, especially for someone like me that likes to play Omaha and 8-16 limit but that smell and the color scheme drive me nuts. Also I played there last Feb and on both trips have never had slower cocktail service.
My friend doesn't play much poker and is very ABC. I told her she should try 'the rarefied air' of higher limits such as 8-16 instead of 4-8 and 1-2 nl. She was leery and stuck with 1-2 and lost. I made 150 at 8-16.

It was getting late, I was drunk, and we had a wedding to go to but I had to check out the Wynn poker room. They had an 8-16 mix game going on. I just had to get all up in that. The game was tough. I lost a nice chunk of change because I discovered the game Baducey. It's a split pot game where you play 2-7 triple draw and badugi. It took a while to get, especially because I was drinking but I really enjoyed it. I loved the Wynn's poker room. It's seculded from the casino a bit and the chocolate walls add a nice soothing vibe.

Fri Oct 1st was the wedding. It was a day wedding. After we got done with it, we hit the pool at TI with some guys from the wedding that were also staying at TI. The pool was average. Nothing to write home about. Bud light cost 7 bucks there and I think they are required to play 'Boom Boom Pow' every hour.

We hooked up in the evening with people from the wedding at Bellagio. They all wanted to go The Bank. I went into the poker room and saw they had an open seat at 15-30. I had only 300 dollars to sit down with and I had been drinking since I woke up at 9 a.m. (it was now around 10 p.m.), I thought, "What could go wrong?"
Nothing that's what! I won about 550 in the game. I got a message, the coor lights were flowing like water, and I hit a great run of cards.
I was at the table right next to the upper deck. They had one game up there. I asked the floor woman what game was that and she said 80-160. It looked nice up there. Rarefied air indeed. I still Bellagio should been considered the Mecca of poker. It has the biggest games, Bobby's room (which was dark on a friday night at 11pm?!?) and looks a hell of a lot nicer than the Ventian. FYI. The floor was very nice to me.

For some reason I woke up the next morning around 10 a.m. My friend was wrecked and wasn't getting out of bed anytime soon. I went over to the Ventian to play 8-16. I felt fine until I sat in the game. All of a sudden it dawns on me, "I'm going to throw up." My stomach convulsed and I almost threw up in a trash can right in the poker room. I was able to keep it down and stepped lively to the men's room. I threw up the second I got into a stall. I felt fine after. I swear I think it was that smell in there that sent me over the edge. I went back to my seat, ordered a coke and was going to leave as soon as I got it. It took about 25 minutes to get there because of the slowest waitstaff in the state of Neveda.

Saw the show Mystere at TI that great. It was great.

Sunday I bet $100 on my Steelers to beat the Ravens. Had that won until the last minute of the game. Tainted the whole day.
Went to the Mirage's 7pm tourney. Had dinner at BLT burger. It was great. Had a lamb burger and a twinke milkshake.

I used to love the Mirage poker room. I liked the 5-10 omaha game, the 10-20 holdem, and once took a shot at 20-40. Hell, I even played and liked the stud game they had. I don't like the low limit tourist incarnation it has become. At the tourney, two older games were in a hand. One turned the nuts. On the river, he tapped his hand looking like he checked. The dealer said check and the guy with second best hand said, "I check too" and turned over just a pair of queens. The guy with the nuts went nuts. The dealer and other guy in the hand explained he tapped his in the check manner when it was his turn. He pointed at the dealer and other player and said in, "F@#k you and F@#k you! I didn't check!" The dealer called the floor over and the guy had to sit out a roatation. I know that's the typical punishment but I think the guy should have been taken out of the tourney and not given his money back.

On the last night of the trip, I made a late night stop at the Wynn poker room. Which was evening more soothing to me than the first night. I won a few bucks playing 4-8, left around 3am before getting some sleep and my flight home.