I went to Vegas to have fun and play some poker. I haven't played a lot of casino poker so I was hoping to learn a few things while I was there as well. See what I could do about reading people without PT numbers and keeping track of pot sizes without having it flashed on a screen in front of me.

Arrived at the Aladdin about 1 pm Sunday and after a quick check in I hit up the poker room. Played till 10pm that night and by then I had forgotten what room I was in.

The biggest limit game going was the 3/6, which I played pretty much exclusively for the 5 days I was there. That first session I adapted badly to live full tables from 6 max internet and dropped about $175. This was despite the fact I hit a quad King jackpot for a $118 bonus. I'm ashamed to say I only tipped $5 on that pot but my tipping escalated considerably as the week wore on. They take a 10% rake to $4 max plus $1 out of every pot to a running jackpot thing. Any quad or straight flush with 2 from your hand playing is a winner. When one of them gets hit it drops back to $50 and if it doesn't get hit for a while it climbs up to a max of $599. Someone hit a 7 high straight flush at the same table for about $500 and another guy did quad Jacks for $108. There was a lot of that during the days to come.

Some of the players in every game were deadly serious. Some of those were old locals supplementing their pension or lack thereof. Usually though there were a few crazy tourists just out to have a good time. I tried to be a part of that set and I think I succeeded admirably. One of the old guys tricked me up bad in this hand:

I get TT in the SB. Some random guy raises. A bad tourist girl cold calls. A serious old guy who was there for my entire stay and kept leaving the table to take notes re-raises on the button. I 4 bet. Guy and girl cold call. Old guy caps. (1 bet and 4 raises here) We all call.
3 rags hit the board.
I check to get in the checkraise and knock out the 2 in the middle. Old guy trips me up by checking it through. I bet the rag turn and only the girl calls. I check the Q river and take it down vs her nothing. Old guy says he had AK.

Same girl got involved in what would become a common occurrence during the stay. She's in till the end with 2 other girls, one of whom is totally trashed. Trashed girl bets on the river and then turns over her straight flush before the other 2 have a chance to call. Me and the dealer go "Whoa! Whoa!" and she flips them back over. Everyone at the table saw the cards EXCEPT the other 2 girls who both decide to call!!! Good times.

This one Greek guy at the table had some shades on his head. He was funny as hell and part of the good times. I asked him what the shades were for and he said his son told him if he had Aces he showed it in his eyes. About half an hour after this comment he looks at his hole cards and literally leapt right out of his seat and from a standing position yells "Raise!" I tell him 'Buddy, I think you need more than glasses; that's a serious tell' So anyhow he gets to the river but the only opponent left refused to call on the end even though I suggest the rest of us kick in so we can see Greek guy's hand. I do finally talk about 4 others into donating $1 each though and he shows us pocket Jacks. More good times.

Monday night I ran across Polish guy for the first time. Calling with any 2 and taking them to the river where he would fold or else raise if he had hit his runner runner flush or straight. It was working out well for him that night and he left about $140 to the good. The rest of the stay it didn't go so well for him. The serious people were shaking their heads when he did hit. 'Did you see that? He called a raise preflop with 84. He's the luckiest man alive.' The rest of us were like 'Excellent hand man! Excellent! Take these jokers down!'

A black guy trying to go bust so he could leave and catch his plane hit runner runner twice in a row and was like totally glum about the whole thing. He really wanted to leave but I guess he thought you had to bust out first. I won $65 that shift.

Sometime early Tuesday morning it got down to me, a guy from Indiana who was just trying to stay up till 11:00 am to catch his plane and a young Chinese couple from Santa Barbara. We were having a lot of laughs when Indiana busted out. The girl had basically just learned to play at the table. She was a very quick study though. She was also tall and super attractive. Her fiancé wanted to stay but as I stole pot after pot from them she got a little peeved and wanted to leave. We took a 2 minute break and I explained a bit about shorthanded play to them. We were all 3 most likely going to get dealt [censored]. The flop would most likely miss all 3 of us. Any pair was a likely winner and Q high was going to be taking down a lot of pots. Back to the game and 10 minutes later they've taken me for $100. Good students.

Btw whenever it got down to 4 players they dropped the rake down to $2 and I saw it as low as $0 once when it was me, another tourist and an off duty dealer playing 3 handed.

All of a sudden Indiana reappears with another cpl hundred and we played till about 8:30 am. At that point Indiana's mother-in-law came in looking for him. An old red headed babe had joined the table though so we could keep it going. Red started out with a massive rush and the Santa Barbara cpl packed it in when one more guy showed up. I stayed till they had 2 or 3 more and then hit the sack myself after a 13 hour shift down another $100.

That few hours where it was the 4 of us was the most nonstop laughter I had during the trip. I sat at a lot of excellent tables entertainment wise but that was the tops. Once when Chinese girl was down to her last $7 I raised and said 'I'll let you get it all in even though I THINK you got me beat'. She replies 'I KNOW I got you beat' and rolls over trips. Her fiancé hit a quad 3 jackpot during this time as well and the 4 of us went nuts yelling and jumping up and down and high fiving. Meanwhile there was one other table still in action. The 1/2 nolimit game where they were all serious and quiet. Every 2 minutes they were looking over to see what the hell was going on with the 4 crazies at the 3/6. One pot I took down uncontested on the end the girl asked me to show. I told her I'd show for a $1. She replied "I show for free". Me and Indiana rode her
mercilessly for that line. She turns to her fiancé and says 'aren't you going to defend me?' He just shrugged.

I took him for a nice pot when he called my big blind from the sb with 86s and I had 74o
J54 he checks, I bet, he calls
4 on the turn he bets, I raise, he calls
7 on the river fills his gutshot but makes my boat. It goes check bet raise reraise reraise reraise call

Tuesday afternoon I'm in the 3 seat and guy in seat 2 who is up a bit tries to rack up and leave. Lisa is dealing and sends him some cards anyhow. He takes a peek, plays them
and wins. So now he has more chips to rack and she deals him in again. Wins again. Racking those chips she deals him in for the 3rd time and sure enough another winner at
which time he has to find another rack on the floor. He finally got them all racked up with some losing cards and left.

Next player to take the seat is a local older woman who was one of the funner ones I ran across. Her husband is sitting in seat 4. He's about even and she's up a bit when they decide to head for lunch. She starts to rack and gets dealt in. Wins. Gets dealt in again. Wins again. When she finally gets racked and leaves I seriously consider changing seats despite everything Mason or anyone else ever wrote. I resist though and the next guy to sit there wins as well.

A very bad semi-drunk tourist sits in seat 4. I have to coach him on tipping and stuff and try to keep his head in the game. There weren't a lot of fun people at the other end of the table and I didn't want the game going too slow and everyone getting annoyed. The dealers can only say so much to the players without it sounding like they are giving them a hard time. The dealers also can't say, "Hey you forgot to tip me." I forgot to tip more than once and would remember a hand or two later at which point I would flip over a chip or two and tell the dealer to next time remind me by saying something like, "Hey idiot. Forgetting anything." None of them complied.

Semi-drunk's wife was sitting in as well but busted out and he convinced her to go shopping alone. I chatted her up a bit while she did hang around and coached her a bit as well. Not teaching her how to play or anything just when the dealer has told someone 3 times already to post their blind and it's still not in I'm pretty good at getting
people's attention in a nice way. She seemed like a fun girl (and looked kind of fun as well) When she did leave he told me about his roulette experience. Put down $100 on
black and built it up to $1000. 10 minutes later he was broke. "Whatever you do" he says "don't mention roulette to her. She was pissed" So we laugh and carry on for a while and she eventually comes back and he gets up to leave with her. They were staying elsewhere and I wasn't going to see them again. As they are heading out the door I yell "Hey buddy. Don't forget to stay away from that roulette wheel!" She stops in her tracks and says to me "Did he tell you about the roulette? Do you know what happened there?" She's going all flippy and he has his head hung down and I say "Oh [censored]. I wasn't supposed to say anything. Sorry about that" Even the serious people at the table had a laugh.

While she was in the game she was in seat 1. Tony from Jersey was now in 2. I'm in 3. Her husband is in 4 as I've said and Tony's wife who was super fun was in 5. Seat 1 girl is betting on the flop with 2 small pair and gets 3 callers. Tony hits the nut straight on the turn and raises. 2 serious guys who both have higher 2 pair than her cold call. She calls. On the river she bets out again, Tony raises, everyone calls. The serious guys see her cards and start bitching back and forth to each other and then in a very accusatory manner ask if Tony and her know each other. That was one of the tensest moments during my stay. We calmed them down and then I had to reassure her that she did nothing wrong. "Don't [censored] worry about it. They're just serious assholes who can't take losing." She was really broken up by it. I felt pretty bad for her because she was just in Vegas to have fun. It was right after that she went shopping.

The other serious moment happened in the Wed 10am $40 tournament. The only reason I got in the tournament was because I hit quad 3s for a $60 jackpot earlier that morning. I tipped the dealer off $10 (see? I did learn something) and decided to free roll most of the rest. I was at another fun table that morning with a guy from North Carolina who coaches college basketball in Florida. Coach's brother was also at the table. We started calling the brother Smokey when coach told us a story about the brother having a part time job at one point dressing up as Smokey the Bear for community events. I admitted to being in the Smokey the Bear fan club when I was about 6-8 years old. London was at that table too. That was another excellent fun time table. I don't think we had one serious guy there. By this time too I had finally settled into the full live table thing and was now winning pretty much every session.

I'm knocking back the gin and SoBe and I sit down in the tournament with $1500 in chips and blinds of 25/50 that escalated every 15 minutes. Not a lot of play time in this one kids. By the break I'm at $1100 and blinds are either 200/400 or 300/600. It was time to make a move either way. It's all a bit of a blur but I think Junior was dealing. I go all-in with Q9 or something and take down the blinds. Then I get some kind of a real hand like AQ or a pair, go all-in again, get a caller and win. After that I found hand after hand worth playing and was doing an all-in about every 3 out of 10 hands. Sometimes I was ahead preflop and sometimes I was behind. I was ALWAYS behind on the flop though. Usually I had 5 outs max but more often 2 or 3 only, or even needing runner runner. I hit them all. People were walking away from the table stunned and shaking their heads.

One off duty dealer who had a decent size stack, but now smaller than mine, called my 66 all-in with 88 and of course I hit on the turn. He turned kind of white and I actually felt bad at that point but what can you do? I was just riding the wave. I remember calling some of the cards on the river. Once I needed an 8 on the river to complete a backdoor straight, called out 8! And there it was.

Anyhow it got down to 3 and some serious mid Eastern guy in 3rd asks for a deal. He wanted an extra $50 or something to go away. I was in no shape to calculate splits and having far too much fun in any event, so I flat turned him down. He got visibly and verbally upset. Started cursing me steady and telling me it was a huge mistake and he was going to bust me etc. I doubled him through once and he was happy but still giving me a hard time. Then the other guy who was now in 3rd went all-in and instead of flat calling I raised all-in myself. Angry man had a hand but didn't want to go all-in in case he finished 3rd. He was yelling "you should have just called. You should have just called." I'm like, "buddy did you see how many gin and SoBe I just went through? I'm having fun. I don't even know what the prizes are and I could care less. Take it easy."

So anyhow I doubled through the other guy and now he retakes 2nd spot. I've still got a ton of chips though and keep hitting on angry man's blinds. Finally the other guy busts him out and his parting words are he hopes I finish 2nd. I say, "yeah, me too. I like this other guy." Sure enough he takes me off in about 10 minutes. 2nd was worth about $490. I give the dealers the $90 and keep 4 blacks for myself.

I played the 10am tournament the next day as well but busted out shortly after the first break. Jersey girl (Tony's wife) was at the same table as me. Also seated there were no less than 3 young guys wearing ball caps and sunglasses. In a 100 player $40 tournament. Highlight of this one was when Jersey girl knocked out 2 of the sunglass guys on the same hand. They both got up from the table looking kind of glum and I said to them, "Don't sweat it guys. She's pretty tough. She's from Jersey." Then I gave her a high five.

With the amount of drinking I did in combination with the lack of sleep you know I wasn't playing my best poker. One night I was running a bit bad and picked up AQ. I raise it up to $6. Big blind and UTG limper both call. Flop comes AJ6. They both check and I bet again. Turn is an 8 and there is no flush happening. The blind is a guy in a suit who I thought had been playing decent so far. He was showing down winners if he went to the river. He hesitates like he wants to make a move but then checks as does UTG. I bet and it looks like the suit is going to checkraise but he just calls as does UTG. River is a 4. Suit bets right out with no hestitation. UTG calls just as quickly. I doubt UTG has anything but I'm positve the suit has 2 pair so I muck face up. Suit shows A2. It wasn't a fancy move, he just thought he had a winner. UTG mucked - probably a Jack but maybe even a 6.

I tilted for the only time all weekend. This Russian girl, Alma was dealing and she said, "You should have called." I'm like, "Ace deuce? He bet into me with Ace deuce? What did he think I was betting with?" We were at opposite ends of the table but I'm sure he could hear me. He just looked down at the table and said nothing.

I then proceeded to get several good starting hands in a row, none of which held up and I was all of a sudden down $200 at that table. I apologized for getting upset and switched tables. Made $100 back pretty quickly and the new table was chattier as well.

On my last night I'm sitting with a cpl young guys from Colorado who are kind of drunk and having a good time bluffing with 23o and stuff. There's a good time girl from Texas in Seat 1. Another great cpl sitting next to each other in the 5, 6 seats. Some more serious like people up at the other end. I'm in the 3 seat. We're laughing and carrying on and they're calling me Canada, which was pretty common although some people did learn my real name. I've built my rack up to 180 white chips and I say "do you know what this is worth in Canada? It's like a million dollars. I'm going to go back and be the King of Canada!" And it felt like I already was.

I did make it over to the Bellagio which was right across the street. Took a walk around the room and never heard one person laughing. Maybe it was just bad timing but I didn't hang around. After that I never left the hotel. Did an hour and a half at the pool. Quick dip and a cpl beers. 20 minute walk around the mall on the last night. Tried the buffet, the sushi bar and the café. Other than that I was in bed, showering or playing poker. Mostly the latter.

That was the most fun I've had in a long time. I met so many good people in great moods that were losing money it was unbelievable. The poker room at the Aladdin is as laid back and relaxed as it gets and that certainly contributed to everyone's good time. You don't even have to post when you sit down at a table there. Just grab a seat and play.

The staff was excellent. Jodie and Alex and Ryan and the rest of the managers. Junior, Carl, Ryan, Jonathan, Lisa, Michael, T, Alma, all the dealers. I can't remember everyone's name and it's a wonder I can remember any. The waitresses. Everyone made that trip for me. I would go back in a heartbeat. I guess there are better places to play poker if you want to make money, but that wasn't what I was there for. I figure I won about $6-700 total. My notes got kind of sketchy towards the end.

It's good to be home but it was great to be away.