I've been going to Vegas every year to cover the WSOP for my magazine or PokerCast since 2007 and every year I take something different away from the experience.

My Las Vegas Road Trip story will be in Ante Up's September issue, but what I can share with you is that I basically found something unique about every room. For instance the Poker Palace may not be the Venetian, but it has an $18 tournament. Where else can you play in a tournament for less than an Andrew Jackson? And the Stations Casinos were so nice, and profitable.

I still love the Monte Carlo, the Mirage and TI, too. Made some serious coin there.

Some regrets:

* Not being in Vegas on a Sunday so I could play the IP's mixed game.
* Not starting the tour at the Suncoast so I could have learned of the Hoggie Game ($2-$10 spread limit stud/8 with a double qualifier) sooner.
* Not shoving on the guy who clearly made broadway when I made the nut flush and he would have called any bet at the Venetian. I also regret losing a net $88 when I was rolled up twice in the stud/8 rotation of the $4-$8 HORSE game there as well. Imagine being rolled up twice in four hands and winning the bring-in and antes and losing a huge pot on the river when a guy backs into broadway and you still have the three nines you started with.

The epiphany? There are so many tourists who are rich and/or drunk whenever I visit LV, so why did I feel the need to play anything but ABC poker these past few years? When I first visited back in 2007 I would just play straight up, play position and quality hands and come home with $700-$1K playing $1-$2 NLHE or $3-$6 mixed games. But as the visits added up I started to try to outplay the better players or outthink the drunk tourists, and would come home even or even down for the trip. So this trip I decided to go back to the basics and I couldn't believe how many people wanted to give me their money!

So I stuck with the game plan and came home with about $1K again. I'll leave the fancy play for the bigger tournaments and bigger cash games and stick with ABC when I'm playing small stakes cash in Vegas.