I'm getting married in May, so I arranged a poker trip for me and a few buddies from Knoxville as kind of an unoffical bachelor's party. We have strong home game and have incorporated Omaha HiLo in our game, so I was looking forward to playing that on the trip, in addition to a bunch of 2-5 NL.

We flew out Tuesday, although it was not without drama. Our flight out of Knoxville was delayed to the point that we realized that we were going to miss our connecting flight. So United rerouted us through Denver. Great idea. It was damn near blizzed conditions in Denver and was one degree outside. After twenty minutes of de-icing, we finally got airborne from Denver and made to Vegas only about two hours after we were originally supposed to get there.

Checked into the B and went straight to the V poker room. This is my favorite room. It is as well run and nice a room as I've seen anywhere and there was some pretty good action as the Frebruary Deep Stack was going on. I bought into the 2-5 NL game for $500. I lost a couple hundred on the second hand when I flopped an open-ended straight flush draw against three players and never got there. I chipped back up to around $400 when I flopped a set of 6's on a A-6-J rainbow board and stacked a guy with AQ.

Around 9:00 I went back to the B to go to bed but decided to play some 2-5 NL there as well because I felt refreshed after the walk and there seemed like a lot of action. Bought in for $500. One of two really great hands for the entire trip happened in this session. I was in the SB and had 2s3s. I called and the BB raised to $25 preflop. I hadn't been playing long, but the BB only had about 300ish in front. His bet could have been a steal, but I put him on a strong hand. Prior to the raise there were six callers, including me, and we only lost two to the raise. It was a no brainer for me to call the $25 and take the flop with over $125 already in the pot.

Flop 3d-3h-4d (!)

I check and the big bling fires off a $100 c-bet, which I figured pretty much committed him to the pot. Three folds and then a smooth call from the button. (?!?)

At this point, there was plenty enough money in the pot and even though my kicker stunk, I figured that I was in the lead. So I shipped it. BB insta-called and the button called as well. BB had AA and Button had 2-5 for open-ended straight draw. My hand held up and I won a big pot. It would have been a triple up but I had both guys covered. Cash out up $700ish for the session and went to bed. Great start to Day 1.

Next day played in the Deep Stack event and lasted about one round past the first break when my Q10 ran into QQ on a board of Q-10-8 rainbow. Oops. That sucked, but I moved over and played some 15-30 Omaha HiLo, which they started spreading that day. Great game and Venetian was giving $2.50/hr comps and only raking $2 max. What was even better is that the people at the table (obvious locals) played like crap. I couldn't believe how often people would be chasing the low side against two players and not even have the nut low. Rarely did anyone except me showdown nut-nut. If you play tight in that game, you can make a mint. The people were just playing really poorly. One guy was betting his A2 hard on all streets after a J-J-9 flop. !?!? Won a huge pot with Ad2dQdQs on a flop of Q-Q-A. The other guy flopped Aces full and we bet, raised, capped it all the way to the river. The low never got home and that was a great pot. It seems like only in HiLo can you flop quads and have people betting into you. Such a fun game.

Thursday was the big $1000 event and I got into a $250 satelite to try and win a seat. It got down to four of us and I was short stacked in the BB when the Button (with huge chip stack) went all-in and the SB called. I looked down and found KK and snap called. Both players had AJ and actually hit a J on the flop, but my hand held up. This got us to three-handed and we played several rounds and had similar chip stacks. One of the players finally suggested a chop and I jumped on it. The blinds were getting to the point where luck was becoming a big factor. So that was worth approx. $730. Decided not to play the tournament and played 2-5 instead.

I sat down at a table where was an obvious mixture of good and bad players. I was in seat 7. In seats 1 and 4 were two guys from Montreal and they were obviously friends and were speaking French. Twice I saw them run a squeeze play on the unwitting person in Seat 3 pre-flop and then check it down after Seat 3 folded. I didn't like these assholes right away.

On top of that, on one occasion I was almost positive that I saw the guy in Seat 4 (Villain) straddle after seeing a card. I didn't say anything, but this played a huge role in Big Hand #2. After an hour, I was pretty sure that Villain and his buddy were definitely cheating and I wanted badly to take down this Canadian douchebag. He late straddled again, for sure this time, and I looked down at AQ. I limp and Villain raised to $35 on his straddle. I re-raised to $110 and he started giving me the whole speech about how he doesn't blieve in the limp-reraise move. He re-popped it to all-in. I had him covered and knew I must be behind but I called. He announced to the table that "Tennessee," as he called me, should not have "f*cked" with him. He then tabled AA. Yikes. I didn't show, but was steaming.

Flop comes K-J-10 rainbow. Justice. Turn, 10 River, 7.

Then, just for gigs, I told him he was right I shouldn't have "F*cked with him". So I waited about 10 seconds and gave him the most spiritual slow-roll I've ever seen, which sent our table into a minor frenzy. Apparently, I was not the only one who didn't like these guys. It was epic. I'm not used to getting my money that badly, but that beat made the trip. It goes against my nature to slow-roll, but in this case it was a little bit of southern justice.