My cousin came from Taiwan for a visit and I took him for his first trip to Vegas. Since he doesn't play poker (and was afraid to try), I didn't get as much poker in as I would have liked.

We stayed at Planet Hollywood. We got a great $84 a night room rate thru hotwire.com. I love the new look of the casino. Very sleek and classy. However, the rooms (or at least my room) was still in the old Aladdin style. I registered to play in the 7PM "Grinder" tournament and guess what, a whole seven people showed up! No Grinder as he was in Europe. Even with three people rebuying, we still only had a total of 10 buy-ins. It was basically a $125 one table SNG with 30 minute levels! Although I was initially disappointed, I realized it was actually to my advantage since SNGs are my strength. With three people left, the chip leader had 30K with the two of us having about 5K each. On a previous trip, I went 0 for 6 in tournaments and I was determined not to have that happen again. Although I suppose I should have played it out, I offered a deal. The bottom two of us split 2nd prize money and we all split the $300 in promotional chips. It ended up being $150 in cash and $100 in promotional money. Interestingly enough, the two people I played with both moved to Vegas to try playing poker semi-professionally. Very nice people. Although I don't envy them, I think all poker players have this fantasy of doing that. Good luck to them!

I then played the next night at the 8PM Venetian $180. As has been written many times here, it really is a superb tournament and fantastic poker room. With about 28 out of 65 players remaining (top 9 paid), I had about 7.5K in chips (a little lower than average). Just before the 2nd break the blinds were at 300/600 with a 50 ante. This means there was 1300 in the middle so my M = 6. Besides the LAGGY player to my right, the rest of the table was pretty tight with the three directly to my left being extremely tight. Preflop raises were generally taking down the pot. I decided to start playing aggressively to build up my chip stack, figuring most of these guys would fold unless they had a real hand. Three off the button, I look down and see 8,7s. I put in a raise to 1800 (3XBB) and the person to my left shoves all-in for 3600. Everyone folds. Given the fact that he's tight, I know he has me beat but I'm hoping he only has two overcards so I make the call. He turns over JJ and I lose 1/2 my chip stack. We go on break and I end up busting out shortly thereafter. Question: Is this an automatic call? Should I have even raised with 8,7s in the first place even though my table read was dead on?

The last day I played at PH's $60 2PM tournament. Better turn out this time (about 40 players) and yes, it is probably the best low buy-in tournament on the Strip. No cash.

One last note, as fristhater mentioned a few weeks ago, the PH poker room is basically DEAD. Besides the tournaments, I never saw more than 1 table of cash games going the whole three days I was there. The place is very nice with great tables and chairs, but I don't know how long this place can possibly survive. Oh and by the way, my cousin scored $1000.00 on a Wheel of Fortune machine. Talk about Beginner's luck!