Vegas Trip report

So, I'm incredibly depressed ! I've seen the west coasts beautiful scenery, driven across the desert to vegas and had my first experience of heaven on earth, and now I'm sitting here back at my desk in corporate hell ! Oh well that's life, but I'll be back in vegas as soon as I have the cash to buy a flight back over the golden pond.

So, vegas, wow ! What an overwhelming, bustling, amazing place. There were tourists on every table just waiting to throw money in the pot for you. Of course there were sharks too, but I managed to avoid most trouble.

Luxor - this is where we stayed and the hotel rooms were decent and the pool was pretty nice. Its also a good place for a casino beginner like me to start off playing, I sat down on the first night in the $50 min/max, $1/$1/$2 blinds. My first thoughts were damn this is going fast ! but once I got used to where the blinds were and who was playing nearly every hand, it became a lot easier, I took down a $26 pot with trip 6's and chucked a $1 to the dealer (it's the custom) and felt a lot calmer after that. About 6 hands later I get Q10 off on the button, one guy calls, I raise to $10 sb/bb fold and the caller calls my raise, the flop is Q72 rainbow, caller bets $10 and I've seen him play a lot of hands badly, so I think and then go allin for my $60ish. To my amazement the guy calls and we flip our cards, he shows A4 off and I can't believe he called, the turn comes 4 clubs, the river 4 diamonds. Whoever said internet poker was rigged, forget it, that was SICK ! but it was kinda funny and I went out to Ra and told anyone who'd listen my first bad beat story

The next day we played at Luxor again and it was pretty uneventful, I ended the day up about $60 after going allin on the flop on an open ended str8 - flush draw which I hit on the river.

Saturday night after watching Winky's crushing of Tito and we decided that the Luxor's blind structure didnt suit us so we'd look elsewhere, we headed over to the Monte Carlo, which I'll be honest looked more serious and upmarket than the luxor and this had me nervous before we even sat down. Fortunately I was about to get some hands dealt to me. The table was something like this, in the 1s is one of my mates who's come on the trip with me, 2s is a guy in nightclub attire who is more interested in the drinks than playing, 3s is a Nascar fan, appearing to watch the telly more the cards, 3s loud guy from down south with handlebar moustache, 4 & 5s are tourists who don't know the game so well, 6s is a guy from the restaurant there who's just finished work, 7s a guy who plays on the internet and has just been to see the fight too, 8s a lady from texas who plays a lot on a 6 hour poker cruise down there every weekend and 9s is me.

Everyone is chatty as we've just started a new table, Texas to my right is aggressive and wins the first few hands from making the loose players fold, the guy with the tash comments that I should be the one stopping her, I steal his BB on the next hand and he complains that I'm raising the wrong player ! A couple of hands later I get JJ UTG and raise to $10 (blinds are $1 & $2) everyone folds to Texas in the BB who calls, flop comes 10 high rainbow and I bet $20, she calls, turn is a 7 and I bet $40 she calls, river is the Q of diamonds and I bet $60 she calls again showing K10, I show my JJ to take the pot and she talks about how the 10 high flop sucked her in and says "your welcome" so I thank her.

Fold the next few hands including my BB after big raises, everyone seems to get fast and loose after a reasonable pot goes down. Next two hands I get 1010 on the button, raise and get the blinds, 89s raise and get the blinds from tash guy, and then Q10, raise $10 get called and take the pot on a Q high flop. Tash gives me a funny look and says something about how I can't possibly be the only one getting good cards. A few hands later I get AJ off suit (I hate this hand but our other mates have turned up and want to go party) I raise $20 and the tash decides he's had enough my raises and goes allin for $80 I say ok I'll call but only cause I'm leaving, he shows 89s and I hit the A on the turn and the J on the river and go to cash in.... my first decent profit at a live poker table.

We went to celebrate at the centrifuge bar in MGM and get free buds on the way in have a few there and put our names down for the MGM $1-$2 table, after watching from the rail I can see one crazy table with loud people at it, which I definitely don't want to be at, anywhere else will suit me. We get called after an hour, at about 2.30am and I get sat at the crazy table. The buyin is $200 and I'm sat to the right of a guy with at least $700 in front of him bragging about how this pays for his new golf club, to my left is an old guy and his new girl who are trying to play the same cards together (this causes a problem later) two tight players are to his left and then there are 3 guys who are fairly drunk, think poker is hilarious cause they're winning with crap and are commenting on every hand.

I folded for 40 minutes through bad cards and just trying to figure out what's going on here, in this time the drunks won with 22, allin before the flop, 78 with a 7 high flop and AQs - in total the 3 of them must be up about $1500 and they're loving it. Then I get dealt AA and make my first raise at the table, only $10 which is small by these standards but everyone respects it and folds, well better that than getting sucked out. About 10 mins later the drunk guys mates turn up and they leave, the guy to my right comments "oh well there goes the game". I'm pretty happy they're gone, I couldn't have handled a suckout to them. 15 mins after that I get JJ on the button, 2 callers before me and I just call, SB completes, BB raises $15 to $17. The two before me fold, I call and the SB calls. Yup, the warning bells are going off and I'm folding to any overcards on the flop. The flop is 8c 5c Jh. Wow, I'm in heaven hoping I get paid off, the small blind bets $15, BB calls and I raise it up to $30, SB goes allin, and the BB goes allin too. I need 15 seconds to actually make sure I'm not being a complete idiot and then push my chips in too, the side pot with me in it is $480.

SB flips over KK, BB flips AA, everyone at table says wow, I flip JJ for trips and the table goes nuts everyone out of the hand saying how mad is that and the guy with AA shouting Ace baby Ace. Neither and Ace or King comes and I scoop a massive (for me anyway) pot. I play till nearly 4.30am but get no more cards and we have plans tomorrow so I stand up and quietly leave to find the way back home (on the way I help a drunk guy find his way back to the luxor, he couldn't even see the light!).

So that was my poker vegas, less time than I would have liked... we only played about 7 hours total but I finished up $650 which is much better than I planned and loved every minute. I'll be going back as soon as I can !