This trip report will start with observations of the strip such as places to see or eat, and then the second half will cover poker during the middle two weeks of June 2012.

For the first time in 30+ poker trips to Vegas, I brought my wife and 2 sons with me for the first 3 days. The boys are now 15 & 12 and finally decided they were old enough to enjoy the sights and sounds of the strip. The only two drawbacks with this plan were:

1)Can I really stay away from any poker tables for 3 straight days in Vegas while they are there as part of the ‘agreement’ with the wife? Answer=Knowing I had 8 straight after they left to play non –stop made this easier…

2)How in the world do I explain ahead of time a bunch of people slapping baseball card looking things on their wrist every 3 feet as you walk down the strip to my kids? Oddly enough this behavior does not exist in St Louis. Answer= Impossible to do, so I decided to just let it ride and get their reaction and questions upon it happening. Imagine their surprise when they saw Busty Jeter’s photos instead of Derek Jeter’s on the ‘baseball cards’…

What I do not remember on the strip is the fact companies are now advertising call girls in big color photos on the sides of box trucks. They then spend all day doing loops on the strip advertising their young ladies. So this was also met with some questions. So finally the best way I could handle it all was by saying this: “Guys you know how if you are dying for pizza, you can just call Pizza Hut and they will deliver? Well it’s the same thing here in Vegas. If you are dying to play cards or something with a really pretty girl, you just call the number on the baseball cards or truck and guys deliver a girl to you like a pizza”. Any thoughts on this? It’s the best I could come up with and they were rolling on the ground. Maybe they are older than I thought.

We got a very good rate at TI on a tower suite with adjoining room. Now those of you who have been on AVP for years know I am a TI shill on many levels but I’m going to say it again. The place is by far the most underrated property on the strip. The rooms are great, the restaurants are phenomenal, the poker room personnel is first class, the property location is outstanding, and on and on. No, Mr Ruffin isn’t my Uncle and I’ve been beating this drum since 2003. Check it out!

It was great for me to actually get out and see some touristy stuff which I never do as the family was there. The following are some of the sights/places we hit:

Hoover Dam: I admit I am a moron for never wanting to go see it after years and years of visiting Vegas. We took a PinkJeep tour from the hotel to the Dam/Lake Mead and it was extremely well worth it. I thought it would be boring as hell but it was really interesting to see how it was made and hear about all the anti-terrorist stuff around it now. Very cool.

Nathan Burton Show: Very family friendly magic show at the Flamingo. He does some pretty impressive stuff on the big stage.

Jeff Civilico (sp?) at the IP: This guy is FANTASTIC! He is a master juggler and a comedian. One of the best at working the crowd I have ever seen. His show is new in Vegas and I highly recommend this guy---would pay to see him again.

The TI pirate show: My 15 year old can’t quit talking about it a month later. He makes me proud. My 12 year old though still can’t believe the girls missed getting hit by the big tough guy pirates cannon shots from afar or getting sliced up by a sword up close just by dancing and twirling on a pole. I told him I would call Uncle Ruffin to let him be on the ship in a few years during a show and he would be able to figure it out better. As long as I can go too.

All the strip hotels: Regarding the Bellagio, my 15 year old has been watching High Stakes/PAD/wsop stuff with me for awhile. He was absolutely star struck when he saw Doyle walking back to Bobbys Room on the day we walked through the hotel. The fountain show was also surprisingly one of the highlights of the trip to both my kids. I love it too but thought it would be boring to them. They wanted to go back a bunch! The problem is the Bellagio is my least favorite hotel in Vegas. Too gaudy for me as a hotel, and the poker room personnel are the most non-player friendly I have ever seen anywhere in the country. A fellow St Louis player plays exclusively there when in Vegas as he can get mentally get past the rudeness and stupidly too close together tables in the room. I can’t. We don’t live long enough to be around people like their floor personnel. The kids loved the Mirage (me too---the place just never gets old to me), The V, and Caesars.

Now as far as food, I’m a 44 year old that loves to eat. It is the ONLY thing I do aside from poker while in Vegas. So I thought I had a good handle on the best places over the years. Again, I was wrong. One day we went to the Stratosphere (which I hadn’t been to for at least 5 years) for the rides. Unfortunately only one was working so we skipped it. Being hungry, and not really having any desire to eat in that place, I wanted to taxi back to the strip. The wife convinced me to walk around. So it is due to her that we found a place called FELLINI’S. GO THERE! The Strat is not at all my kind of place, kinda dingy, fast food everywhere, and in the middle of nowhere. But Fellini’s is worth going out of your way! Some of the best pasta, steak, and lobster, I have ever had. Who knew? For any locals reading this, did you know about it or do you agree????

Poker Time:
As the family had a great time and went home, the opening night of my 8 day poker marathon was spent at the AVP meet at the Mirage. I am a 1/3 or 2/5 cash player who rarely plays tourneys anymore but I had to do this as I wanted to put some faces to names I have seen over the years on this site. I am glad I did. First, for those of you who have never met Chris Coffin, please make it a point to do so. He ran the TI room and then took over the Mirage room a few years back. He is one of the classiest poker bosses in the business. Once again he showed this by putting on this tourney for AVP and completely going out of his way to make it outstanding in every way. It was great to meet AVP boss Jon, old time friend LVM from here, sweetheart Alaska Gal, and I finally got to meet Clem who has entertained a lot of us over the years with his insanity on this site with Yappy Dave. Now one of the reasons I despise tournament poker is that I have a history of bubbling. Doesn’t matter if it’s a $50 random poker room minefield, $550 best structure in the world V deepstack, etc, if there is a bubble, my name will be around it. Yes I have won lots of smaller ones through the years (including a bounty trny last night here in St Loo. Woo hoo!), but the variance of tourney poker vs. cash is just gross to me. I respect those of you that do it a lot (you are sick MiamiCane) but it’s just not for me. Sure enough, in the AVP event there was +/- 180 entries (great turnout!!!) and I finished 20th. One outside the bubble. Perfect!

Great structure, no rake, good people from this site playing, and lots of fun. I will do it again if possible and highly recommend it to you guys reading this who have not played one.

As the family left, I went from TI to the Rio on my own. The last time I had stayed there was around 2003 I think. The bad news is the rooms are exactly as before which makes them old looking and run down. The good news is they are still huge mini suites type rooms. The property itself is still one of my favorites as far as layout. It is a very fun upbeat atmosphere there. TI is a bit classy/understated to me whereas Rio is a nonstop fun vibe. The wsop /convention area is still overwhelming even after seeing it in the past. The sheer # of tables is just simply outstanding to see in one place. The division of the rooms into cash and tourney tables by color/number is very well done and easy to locate even on such a massive scale.

As 2/5 NL is my game, imagine my surprise when I saw …get this…NINE games going in one little area when I walked in. Now those of you that play Commerce or Borgata may think --big deal-- but can you name me ANYWHERE IN THE FRIGGIN WORLD aside from those two places that a poker degen like me can find that many 2/5 games going at once during the day?????? Heaven. Crazy 5/10 and 10/20 NL games were around as well.

The one understandable drawback to playing in the wsop area though was they are unable to swipe you in with your players card as the 8 billion tables they brought in weren’t equipped with the system. To some of you that is not a big deal. But if you play a lot, tracking your comps is as important as tracking your wins/losses in my opinion. I stayed at the Rio for free for over a week due to comps/playing at Harrahs in St Louis. The food comps and hotel room freebies or discounts add up!!! I was able to get some food comp paper slips from the floor personnel in the wsop area but that did not seem to be openly advertised. The paper comps were good anywhere on the property which was a nice bonus.

To get around this I learned the second day the actual Rio poker room (which I had never even seen before much less played in ) was spreading 2/5 and WERE swiping people in on Total Rewards. So from day 2 on, I moved to the room itself for that reason. One more note for the wsop area---the food ‘kitchen’ area they opened was incredible. I do not remember anything like that in the other years I made a trek there (I wasn’t there the past 2 years during the wsop so I don’t know how new it is). They now have about 10 different kiosks with all different kinds of foods to order which are mostly healthy and mostly made in front of you. That is a huge pleasant difference from the chili dog or hamburger only options that I remember a few years back.

As far as poker, the Rio room was really fun and profitable. The floor was average to me overall but they were very busy. I rate this room high due to the dealers who were ultra -friendly and technically sound. They were not brought in from the outside like many of the wsop area horrifyingly bad dealers—but instead were full timers in the room year round from what I saw/heard.
Over 8 days/nights with some brutally long 20+ hour sessions there, I had everything good or bad happen to me as can be expected. The one oddity is I never had a set over set (either way) the entire trip at the Rio over a seemingly thousands of hands played. I had aces cracked by queens all in pre flop x3 in 1/3 games. Cracked other peoples aces in 1/3 at least 8 times by isolating them pre flop on their standard aces type hand pre flop raises and then hitting whatever random two cards I was playing knowing they could never lay down aces after the flop (yes there was a lot of inexperience/non reading ability in the room --especially at 1/3). Split four $1000++ hands at 2/5 and won one at 1/3 level due to some crazy action.

Unfortunately one hand still haunts me so I thought I ‘d lay it out here. Im on hour #18 or so at a 2/5 game sitting on +/- $2,600 after a $900 buyin. I am physically doing well and walking a few minutes every hour or so to stay alert. The table is very non threatening to me as many are playing scared money and others are stuck pretty good which makes them tilty and me trappy at this point. My normal /favorite style is loose aggressive but I will change gears with the table dynamics often just like most others. Then things changed.

A mid 20’s guy comes in the game and as he walks up to the table he is getting congrats from every under 30 year old from 5 tables around. This guy has cashed 4 times so far this wsop and is running/playing very good from the snippets I overhear. I go into hibernation watching him the next 2 hours or so and I am playing ultra tight aggressive—taking 90% of the pots on the turn with no resistance at all and never showing a thing. As I am playing every 20th hand, he is playing every hand and has built his $1K buy-in up to $3,300 within 3 hours. Not once were we in a non limp pot the entire time. He is two to my left which is not good but I can control a lot of what he is doing I think if need be down the road. In the few hands I was in post flop, he would go away. He has busted two people out and running over people with mostly air. I quietly tip my cap as he is playing my normal game.

Finally I am on the button and look down at two black sevens. Villain is in the big blind. Under the gun tight guy opens for $50, another comes along, I smooth call and villain smooth calls which was rare as he would pop it there with anything a lot to thin the field with that action in front of him. 4 ways in we see a flop of
7…K…2 rainbow

Villain checks, opening raiser tighty makes it $150, other goes away, and I pop it to $400. Villain stares at me and smooth calls. Other guy smooth calls too. The turn is
K with a second diamond.

Now, this hand just got interesting on many levels. I have the villain in a hand with me post flop finally for a pot that keeps growing and a second guy who is ultra ABC so far and is down to about $900 at this point in the hand. I’m curious how some of you would handle it from here. What I do from this point is open for debate…But I will say I have done things so far that may be standard to some, but it is NOT my style at all. I am a Ted Forrest /Professor Backwards disciple who will trap and trap and trap some more, and then start leading out heavy with flopped top set type hands the rest of the session. His presence is altering everything for me here.

First guy checks again which now firmly places him on JJ or QQ as he has not shown ANY creativity whatsoever during his time at the table. I make it $500. Villian is in a tough spot here and I have NO IDEA where he is after he SMOOTH CALLS. Original tighty lays down and I later learn he had QQ.

The board now reads 7….K….2….K with 2 diamonds.
Villian, who I overhear is doing everything he can to tell the dealer he needs a certain type card (a diamond? Really? It is within his realm…), is yapping non stop and doing his best to get me to talk or take my earphones off. Ain’t happenin.

****A quick break in the hand for an observation. I saw 2,443,432,009 under 30 year olds with hoodies, ipads, ipods, sunglasses, and talent. Serious talent. Everyday pay your bills talent which is rare on my past trips to Vegas. I LOVE all of that. I love all the gear and the new poker hoodies with 100 pockets inside (very cool if you are not familiar!) But a quick note from an older guy who has been doing this awhile. Respect the players, respect the dealers, & respect the game. Please. This guy was never out of line with me and I could not play poker without my headphones. I just saw too much attitude/lack of maturity by some talented players over the days/nights there that was sad to see. Soapbox done. Cooler time.****

The river was a blank 4. Now we have:

7….K….2….K….4.

He checks----I make a $400 very light call me please bet --he shoots all in--- I insta call.

He rolls K/4 offsuit. Nice hand sir. Nice job getting in hand with ultra tight ABC guy and me who was playing ultra tight big stack. He couldn’t wait for that scenario which is EXACTLY what I do with that dynamic on any other day. I just don’t remember needing or hitting a miracle that he did on the river against others. Nice job checking river. Nice job taking it down. Jackass.

Now for fairness sake, I won a $2000 pot in a different session by hitting a big river also. But the dynamics were reversed as I was playing ultra loose aggressive and the villain was the type who would call down the turn and could be blown off the river by ANY type player at the table. He was one of the most passive 2/5 guys I had ever seen and was a regular at the Rio per the dealers. I was open ended with Q/9 on the flop and truly thought I had two overs to his middle pair the whole way which turned out to be true.
On a 2…10….J flop, I put out a pot sized bet and he flatted me. The turn was another 2, I bet big and again he flatted. My 8 came on the river and I’m all in. He paid my all in on the river with two sixes as he said he was tired of me running people over. Thanks.
I won’t bore those of you who are still awake too much longer but I want to hit a few more things about other rooms.

Planet Hollywood: I had never set foot in the place until my last night. I saw 5 regular everyday types in the room as soon as I walked in that I have played with in the past in different rooms. Holy smokes I now know why. How is this place not talked about more on the site? It is all 1/3 but geez the players are soft. Another couple of huge positives---there is a place called the Earl of Sandwich which is really good around the corner from the poker area. There are also incredibly great looking mostly naked women dancing on tables around the poker area. Sounds like a no brainer to play there right? Not so fast! The room is not a room. It’s an open area in the middle of a billion slots and very very very loud music. So on a room review the floor was over the top friendly, lots of good dealers, competition crazy weak even with some identifiable within 3 seconds sharks swimming around. Location=0/5.

Mirage: I played about 4 hours overnight one night as I am a big fan of Mr. Coffin and the room itself. The good news is I had a blast with some of the players and a drop dead gorgeous with great personality Mexican dealer. Now oddly, even after staring at the vicinity of her nametag for an eternity, I never got her name. Chris, she will remember, tell her I miss her already and bring up the nametag! And what is her name????? Remind her I’m in St Louis, 6’2, 225lbs, lots of $$$ (not) and… D’oh! I already said I’m married in this post. Disregard. The bad news is I lost more in that game than I ever have in my life at a 1/3 game. Not one, not two, but 3 set over sets can do that to you. Remember I stated I had ZERO set over set situations in a million Rio hands and then I get multi felted three times with them in four hours at the Mirage.

TI: Good luck to you Kurt in the new position and it was great to see old friends Isaac, Michelle, Pedro, and others. Alaska Gal and Dom are GREAT new additions to the room and longtime AVP’ers. Great to meet you both!

Venetian: The best big room I have been to anywhere. Great customer service, great action, every level spread, fantastic food all around you, Fiji water free and anytime you wish. They have doing it right for a long time and continue to do so in my opinion.

I’m done. Would love some feedback and a big thank you to all of you who make this site work! Keep the blogs and reviews and reports coming!! Paul/AceTenGuy/St Louis