Decided to celebrate our 2oth anniversary by flying down to Vegas for the week. 3rd year in a row but first time hitting the poker tables.

Surprised at a few of the trip reports in their bashing of some locations. My advise is just because you didn't win why slag a poker room? Worse yet, if you like the Bellagio, why head to Tropicana and complain about it?

We stayed at Excalibur and I hit the 9 AM Monday tourney. Found the play to be loose but when we were down to final 2 tables it got to be very tight play. I agree that you only start with $300 in chips and that you need to win a few hands to have any chance to win cash, but I was short stacked with 2 full tables to go and ended up pulling in 3rd place. Tight play with some advantageous all in wins really helped (along with one player taking out 3 others in one hand). Top 6 paid, 3rd got me $144.

Day 2 played the Luxor 12 PM tourney. Same set up as Excalibur with $600 to start in chips but blinds are higher so if you don't win early foget it. Didn't play well at all so out early.

Hit the Tropicana poker room as the MGM was packed. Even though it is an out of the way place, I really found this room to be my favourite. Some tight play but many in the $1-2 cash games were easy marks. Very sociable tables and dealers were friendly. Drink service was excellent. Only thing I found was that the room supervisor seemed to assist a couple of locals looking for some easy fishing. Thankfully I stayed away from them and even took them for a couple of nice pots. 3 1/2 hours and up $175.

Day 3 didn't play until evening again at Tropicana. Sadly this table had a boorish local join us having had a few. You could see right through him as he tried to lay it on a little too thick that he was loaded and he constantly bullied until a good ole boy from Georgia caught him with his hand in the cookie jar with an all in call. One thing I love to watch is a sore loser and this guy was one. He suddenly "sobered up" and began crying about crap all in call. He left, came back 10 minutes later with a big stack on 100's (table limit is $200) and proceeded to get beat again. He finally left but we found out he supposedly was a dealer at the Wynn. What a jerk. After he left table lightened up and ended up taking in $275 after 3 hours.

Day 4 We headed off for the Hoover dam/Lake Mead cruise and that seemed to take the luck out my game. Dropped $200 at Tropicana that night ($100 with $100 rebuy). Both times had a set (J's first time and 10's next) but got beat both times by a guy that had the seat that couldn't be beat. He flushed me on the river both times..Oh well gotta take the bad with the good.

Day 5 hit the Monte Carlo. Very nice room and run very well. A little tight but not cramped. Found the play to be semi-tight but one guy took 3 of us out with garbage as he rivered us all. Oh well.

Over all I had a great time. Excalibur was a well run room, I had no problems just that annoying $1-3 game (no $1-2). Tropicana was very good and although the dealer made 1 mistake while I was playing paying off the wrong guy, they were good, kept the game running and if any issues called the room supervisor right away. Drink service was excellent and friendly. Monte Carlo is a beautiful room and very well run. Too bad I couldn't make their tourney games (next year for sure). The Luxor is nice. Quiet room with well run tournaments. A little tight but nice.

Thanks to all for their trip reports as it let me get an idea of where to go..