Got to Vegas for midweek, Wed and Thrs.

Tried to play cash game at Caesars on Wed around 11am. Only 1 table of $1/2 NL. Shortly after I got there, the game became 5 handed. So, we decided to split. Went across the street to Harrahs, OMG, only 1 table in the poker room. It sucks trying to play poker in the morning in Vegas.

Went to play the $180 V tourney at 8pm. Very nice room, roomy, luxurious, awesome structure. $130 = 2500 TC, $50 rebuy for 2000. Lots of people took the rebuy immediately to boost the chip count to 4500 TC. I decided against it to give me room for the all-in move. Many aggressive players. Almost every pot is raised 3X by different players. Competition is definitely much tougher than Caesar's. I usually played at C, but wanted to try to V.

15 mins into the game, still at 1st lvl. I had about 2000 TC left. Earlier position raised to 200, I called with AQ, big blind called. Flop Q 10 6 rainbow. Raiser raised to 300, I smooth called it, expecting him to slow down on the turn. Big blind folded, headsup. Turn rag, now raiser bumped it up to 500. At this point, I was down to 1500, so either fold or all-in for me. What would you do? You can see the discussion of the hand at http://www.allvegaspoker.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1983

Anyway, didn't catch any cards, remained med/short stack most of the tourney. Busted out at 5th lvl. 5 table to start, I lasted till 3 tables left, not good enough. Some people commented the liberal blind structure. 25/50, 50/100, 100/200, 100/200 +25,200/400 +25. True, it goes up quite slowly, and you get to play a lot of hands with the auto-shuffler. Unfortunately, if you don't accumulate chips, either by bluffing or catching cards. You are not going to last past half way. In fact by the time we got to 100/200, I had 4000 TC. A raised of 3x plus a follow up bet of pot size would cost roughly (600+1500 = ~2100TC) half you stack, that really doesn't leave you much room for poker play either.

Still the best money you can buy of any tourney play, right behind Caesars. Good luck everybody!