Landed on sunday and went straight to the Monte Carlo and played their morning tournament. Before it started I played some 2/4 limt with a girl and her deaf boyfriend, a 70 year old local guy and a kid with a 3 foot long margarita glass. Down $20 when the tournament started and had to quit. Out after the second break in the tournament (about half way). For most of the tournament this idiot sat next to me with his leg behind my chair talking constantly and trying to impress his girlfriend who was sitting behind me. The dealer did nothing about it. The guy was so lound I couldn't hear the dealer. Very bad form to allow that to go on during a tournament. Down $60. I like thier poker room though. They're friendly (and apparently incompetent) and it's way in the back so it's nice and quiet.

Monday. Went to the Venetian to play the CEO tour event. Spectacular poker room! They are not friendly, however. I really didn't know what to expect. I paid my $550.00 entry fee and waited for the start at 5:00 p.m. You start with $10,000 in chips. After two hours I'm up a little. There are players sitting around me who say things to each other like "I remember you from Beloxi" and similar comments which makes me think these guys are doing this stuff for a living! They even know each other! I'm kind of intimidated but I'm hanging in. Then a guy on the other end pushes all in and I look down at pocket rockets. I call. He turns over pocket jacks and flops a straight. Typical. Ok I now have 1,300 chips. After six hours of play I managed to crawl back up to around 17,000 chips but it's 11:00 p.m. I'm getting pretty sleepy. It's been six hours and there are somewhere around 130 players left (Out of 280 starters). So I ask one of the floor men when they expect the tournament to get over and he says "We'll shut it down at 3:00 a.m. and finish up tomorrow afternoon." Damn! if I'd known that I would have went to bed last night. Anyway, pretty soon another guy at our table goes bust and a new guy comes in. First hand he pushes all in and I look down at AJ suited. I call. Maybe a dumb call but he turns over A 10. I breath a sigh of relief, he pulls a 10 on the river and I go home. Finished 125 out of 280. Oh well, it was fun. At least I can say I played the CEO tour.

Enough tournaments. We drove down to Laughlin and I played some $2/$4 limit at the Colorado bell and made $80. They actually have kind of a nice poker room but it's not very busy and the players seemed like they were all local. Fun but not worth the drive. We also stopped into Harrah's but couldn't find a slot that didn't have a walker or a wheel chair in front of it. That was my first and probably last trip to Laughlin. And it was 116 degrees. I bought a huge bottle of water for the drive back - just in case.

Back to Las Vegas and played some $3/$6 limit at Paris with some fairly inebriated people who were having a good time. Made another $62 there. Small poker room and the dealer tried to give a huge pot to a guy who caught an Ace high flush on the river when the lady on the other end had a full house. The dealer even shoved his last bet back into his stack and it was difficult to sort out how much he needed to put back after the rest of the table protested the bad call. Terrible! The lady finaly got most of the pot anyway. That taught me that you can't rely on the dealer to make the correct call every time. You need to protect yourself.

Wednesday I played at the Palms. They have two poker rooms side by side. One for limit and one for no limit. I played the $2/$4 limit table and I'm thinking they were all locals. I was surprised. No tourists except for me. One older (I'll say close to 80) lady caught two duces with her pocket twos and won their jackpot of $141. I guess if you get higher quads they pay even more and their straight flush jackpot is over $500. I cashed another $64 there and left for the Bellagio.

The Bellagio is spectacular. That was the most fun. Played the $4/$8 limit table. I only made $23 but the class of people I was playing with was something else. I will go back there to play next time I'm in Las Vegas. I actually played there the first time we went. At the 1/2 NL table I held the Ad 3d and the 6, 7, 9 and 10 of diamonds came up. I pushed all in and got called by the guy with the 8d. That little lesson cost me $200. But that was last time.

Thursday we went to the Luxor and couldn't get enough players for a game so I dragged my wife off the slot machine she was playing and made her play. She lost $60 in about 20 minutes and went back to the slots. I was not in her good graces at that point. I did, however, manage to clear $17.

That night (the night the shooter shot those people in the New York incidently) I went over to the MGM and played their $3/$6 limit table. I took a really bad beat when my spade flush (which I had been raising heavily) got busted by a loudmouth who hit a 9 on the river for Aces full. I never recovered and finished down $110.

Not one to abandon a sinking ship I went over to the Tropicana and found a table with 8 20 something drunks from North Carolina playing 1/2 NL. I bought in for $100 and watched. It went something like this. Call, call, raise $15, all in. Call, call, raise $15, all in. Every hand was all in! So after about a half hour of this I finally get some cards. Pocket Q's. Call, Call, I raise $15 and a 20 something goes all in. I call, he flops the nuts (9, 8, 7 to his J 10 suited). Down another $100. Just disgusting. Crappy poker room too. But they are friendly, I'll give em that.

Bottom line, for Table games I was up a net $11.00 but the two tournaments took the rest.

So here's my grading system:

Bellagio poker room great staff friendly
Venetian poker room great staff unfriendly
Paris poker room small staff friendly
Palms poker room marginal staff marginal
Tropicana poker room poor staff friendly
MGM poker room dark staff unfriendly
Luxor poker room small staff friendly
Mone Carlo poker room quiet staff friendly