Started the trip well (Sunday Nov 19th)with a good 1/2NL session at the Orleans. Bought in for $100 and tripled-up in 3 hours. Went to dinner (they held my seat for almost an hour). Came back to find the ATMs had left, replaced by a mumbling unibomber wannabe, and a couple solid locals. Dropped a hundred over the next 3 hours and left up $200. Prior to dinner I was making good reads and set a nice trap when I flopped Qs full of 9s and let a gal catch her flush on the turn and broke her on the river. Much tougher to put people on hands w/ the after-dinner group.

Played the Monday 9am tourney at the MonteCarlo, card dead but should have gone further. Had pkt. 7s and flop came 235, the guy I was heads-up with I put him on a big Ace, so I was worried about a 4 and any AKQ so I bet the pot to keep him from getting odds to cathc his card. He called and the turn was a 6, still felt good w/ my 7s so I pushed the rest in (he had me covered by a couple hundred), and he called even though he was only getting 2:1. We flip and he has AK, and the A rivers, so much for pot odds meaning anything, lol. Had 40 players and I end up 18th,At least I feel good about my read on that hand and for going as far as I did with rags.(as I take the walk of shame).
Now minus the $50 Buy-in, I'm up $150

Returned to play some evening 1/2NL at the Orleans and joined a "shark-tank" where I was the only one that didn't know all the players and the dealer. Card dead again, flopped top 2pair w/ 2 clubs showing. I bet the 1/2 the pot and got a caller, turn's a blank and I bet 1/2 the pot again (which was all-in for me) and another club rivers and sure enough caller turns over 4-7 of clubs~flopping 2 pair has been my hand of death lately, and this just sealed the deal! Dropped $100, now I'm up $50 for the trip.

Tuesday play the Orleans Noon NL tourney, definately outclassed in this one, at our table I'd say 3 guys I could outplay but 4 guys were better players than myself. I fill a J-hi straight on the turn only to lose a K-hi straight when a jack rivers. Finished about middle of the pack in a 60 player field. Not good play on my part but was good to play around so many better players. Played some 2/4 fixed limit that night, the play was laughable and I watched my decent starting hands go to crap as the hands progressed since I couldn't chase anyone off their draws. I'll never play 2/4 fixed-limit again, just an agaonizing effort in futility! After $85 tourney buy-in/rebuy/bonus and dropped $80 in the 2/4 donk-a-thon I'm now
-$110 for the trip.

Wednesday was planning on 2/5NL at Palms but couldn't get on a table so just played in an evening tourney at Aladdin. The room is now upstairs (should move into a permanent upscale room next month) and is a big improvement from the roped off area downstairs a few months ago.
Again I got dreadful cards but was able to make some decent steals and a few bluffs to stay above avg in chips through the second break. The players in this one were avg at best and I felt good about my chances. Unfortunately the cards never came around and as the blinds went up I could no longer push people off w/ my junk and was eventually blinded down and moved all in w/ my best hand of the night AQ of diamonds. Lost to pkt 5s, but again I felt decent about my play w/ the cards I got, and unlike the Orleans I felt like I was one of the better players there.
minus teh $60 Buy-in I was -$170 for the trip.

Took Thankgiving off from poker and moved from the Orleans to Silverton and had a fun day w/ the wife playing video poker, watching movies etc.

Friday was our last play day so I played in the Silverton AM tourney. Hats off to Jim, the poker room mgr. top-notch guy and really apreciates the players. The room only has four tables now so the room isn't cramped and is a very nice small room (I heard they're planning a big room soon). The tourney only had 20 players but was a fun game and I played fairly well. I made the 4th place bubble as only top 3 were paid, but as was the theme for the week I did as well as I could (in my opinion) with the cards I was getting. That night I played 3/6 fixed-limit and was about even when a 1/2NL table opened up. I played OK and built my stack up to $160 from my $100 initial buy-in. There were two players that I didn't want to mess with but on one hand both were there and I had 10-J of hearts (this was my best preflop hand all night too). I had the button and the BB raised to $10, the cutoff called and I called. Flop drops 5sQhKh, SB bets out $20 and with my 15 outter I raise to $60 and he calls. Turn is 10c, SB puts me all-in and I call, he flips over pkt 5s and a blank comes on the river to bust me. I'm still trying to figure out if I played this as well as I could, maybe on the forum you could critique it, I'd apreciate it! So after dropping another $100 on the ring game and $45 on the tourney I'm down $315 for the trip total.

Summing up, I was planning on playing the deeper stack noon tournies at Venetian/Caesars but after seeing the caliber of players at the Orleans tourney I figured I'd better work on my game and give them a shot next trip in March. Definately a learning experience and a reality check and a big motivator to improve my knowledge of this game. Thanks AllVegasPoker for giving us all a place to share our poker journies.