Just got back from a 4 night bender in Vegas for my Bachelor Party. I went out with a group of 5 guys, all who play in weekly NL house game back in Madison, WI. None of us had every played in a live casino game before this trip. But after reading the AVP website from top to bottom and printing out the list of all of the tournaments, I was convinced that we could hold our own.

So after an all night binge of shots, strippers, and clubs, we all signed up for the 9 am Saturday tournament at the Excalibur. There was about 60 people in the tournament. After the first hour, 3 of us were still live, including myself. By this time I had started to sober up and realized that I was down to only a few blinds. Then I flopped the nuts, I had 6-8 off suit and was the big blind, no one raise so I checked and the flop came up 5-7-9, with no flush draw. I went all in and was called by a 2 guy, one holding pocket Jacks. Lets just say he was not a in a happy place after that. This triple up definitely woke me up.

Anyway, long story short, after 2 1/2 hours, I somehow managed to win the first poker tournament that I ever played in Vegas. I ended up taking just under $700 on a $35 buy-in, thanks to a few suck outs and a lot of bad player in the tournament. What a great feeling, now I know why poker tournaments have became so popular. It was an unbelievable rush and put a bigger smile on my face then the strippers had the night before.

After that tournament, the whole group was convinced that poker tournaments were the way to go. The next day, we entered several of the daily low-limit tournaments, we started back at Excalibur, I had to try to defend my title from the previous day, I ended up finishing 10th, then we moved on to the Luxor for their noon $33 buy-in tourney, the dealer here were head and shoulders about those at Excalibur but so was the competition. I really like the set up here, but none of us faired to well in the tourney.

We entered the next tourney at the Luxor at 4 pm, this one a $53 buy in, we did much better this time one of my buddies got to the final table but didn't place in the money.

Finally, we went over to the Aladdin, after another night of boozing, for their 2 am tourney. This was interesting because unlike the other tourneys they allowed one rebuy and had a waiting list for people to enter during the first hour. Also, the blinds only increased every 20 minutes so it was a much slower moving tourney. There ended up being about 28 people in the event and one of my buddies finished 3rd. He should have done better but the two dudes from england that he was up against in the end were together and playing that way pretty openly. They ganged up on him and he had no chance. We were disappointed in the pay out of $187 for third place on a $60 buy-in 3 hour tourney. Even though, I didn't win another tournament, I had a blast and it was a great way to spend the day gambling. We had to have play 8 hours of poker and it only cost about $150.

Overall, if you are looking for a friendly low stakes tournament, I would say start at the Excalibur. If I can win that tournament, after the night we had, anybody can!

Good Luck and Thanks All Vegas Poker.com