Flew into Vegas bright and early Saturday (8-2)and hit the ground runnin’. We stayed in a “go” room at the Flamingo and it was clearly the best room of our group (the others staying at IP and the Strat). Unfortunately, we were the only ones of our group who couldn’t check in early. I even tried to $20 trick just to check in early, no luck. No matter I was in Vegas again. We grabbed some breakfast and I headed to IP for the aces cracked promo. Only 2-4 going, but put my name on the no limit interest list. At 31, I think I was the only one at the table who was not a civil war vet. Broke even for 60 minutes of play when at 11am on the nose, the table broke as four old timers left to head to Bill’s for the next aces cracked promo. I met my friend Andy and he sat down at the only spot on a NL table at O’sheas. It’s an interesting atmosphere for a poker game literally almost right on the strip with the front doors open. His first hand was AK and he raised with two callers. Flop comes K, x, x, with two clubs. Andy is first to act and fires $25, next guy folds and last raises all in for something like $225 into a $60’ish pot! Of course Andy calls and the guy is on a flush draw…a flush draw for $225? Yup you guessed it; he hits it on the river. Andy is a class act and shakes his head and rebuys hoping to get in another hand with him. Eventually, we head to the Flamingo for some more NL. The wait was minimal for a NL seat and we were fortunate enough to be seated together. No hands of interest come to mind, but I felt the room was run well with decent waitresses. Our table was soft with a lot of limpers with pre-flop raises less than half the time. I dont remember if I won or lost, but either way it wasnt more than $20. Later that evening, the six of us met up for dinner at the always elegant Outback and some low limit gambling at Casino Royale. Free double vodkas and a quality showing at the craps table made for a great night. The fellas left up $450 and we headed to Margaritaville for drinks with the wives. The band at Margaritaville was really good playing a variety of music, but the best part of the bar is the open area viewing of the strip. We stood out there smoking cigars and watching all of the eye candy and there was candy everywhere! Overall, it was a solid first day in vegas and hit the sheets about 2am.

On day two the wives signed up for the Stripper 101 class at Planet Hollywood. They met early and had a few drinks of liquid courage while the guys played in the poker room. It was nice to see four tables going at noon and I jumped on a table before my friends arrived. The competition was a little better this time, but I didn’t lose my shirt and overall the room was very nice with a solid wait staff. I only remember a couple decent pots: I raised to $10 with kings only to be re-raised to $30 by the chip leader on the button with jacks. I pumped it to $80 and after tanking for a minute; he mucked and said my kings were good. He asked if he was right and I told him he’d have to call next time, but I hate when someone calls my hand. The other hand of note was a preflop raise by an aggressive player in late position with one caller in the blind. Flop comes A, J, 10 and the blind bets $25. Late position re-raises to $120, the blind folds, and late position shows pocket eights. I smiled and wondered if maybe I’m in too deep of water. As luck would have it my friends arrive and within five minutes, a new table opens and the three of us get to sit together. Within no time the trash talkin’ is a flyin' just like a home game. My friend AJ who is sits down for his first foray into nl is hitin’ cards and quickly up $130 with half of that coming from his two friends thinking he was dumb enough to bluff. It turns out we were just dumb enough to call. Again, we found ourselves at a friendly table with minimal raises. We had the half the table chanting “friendly” to scare off raises. Our dealer was fun and kept the mood light and the table smilin’, thanks “Chico.” The one hand worth mentioning went down like this: Andy is short stacked with about $80 when I raise to $10 with aces in mid-pos. He re-raises to $30 with queens and I re-raise him all in. Q on the flop and I take my only tough beat of the trip. I donk off a few more pots and now I am short stacked, but I was 2 for 2 on all ins and leave up $13, not bad I guess. The stripper class ends and the women are tipsy saying it was the best $60 they had spent. They had a blast with pictures to prove it! The wife and I clean up and head for the Winn to see Le Reve. The show was really good, though I hear O is better, but we couldn’t pass up Le Reve for $50 off per ticket on smartervegas.com. After the show, I tucked the wife in and met the guys to push our luck on the craps table again. The table was not very nice to us so we left to find some $5 BJ at Bill’s. We had to sit $10 and tried to keep our heads above water. I played for an hour and a half before turning in and lost $25, I’ll take it.
The guys played golf on Monday and we had great weather for it; it felt like mid-80’s out there. I didn’t play well and lost about $25 on stupid golf bets. We cleaned up and ate a comped buffet at the Orleans…good thing it was comped b/c it wasn’t worth paying for. We piled seven in a car and went downtown to show the newbies the Fremont street experience. Most of us were tipsy from the free drink coupons at the Flamingo and had a good time. Since the gambling addicts hadn’t gambled in hours, we fired up $5 BJ at the Fitz, but not before donating another hundo at the craps table at the Nugget. So, its down to the Fitz and after an hour, I left the table up $25 and checked out the poker room. It was dead so what do we do...we hit the craps table to piss away another hundo. We left downtown about 1am and called it a night.
All in all the time flew by, faster than previous trips. I look back and wished I had played more poker and less craps, but I’ll keep that in mind for next time. I finished down $175 for the trip (thanks craps table) and up a little on poker and $25 on preseason football.It’s always the drive home from the airport that sucks as I wonder where all the palm trees went. In less than a day the guys are talking about another trip next year and Im ready. The anticipation is everything; now what do I have to look forward to? Well there’s always AVP…
Thanks for the read guys…