First, let me offer a sincere thanks to the site operator for creating such a great resource for Vegas poker players. You do a great job and it makes finding the right game pretty easy. The new tournament information is huge. I have played poker in about 15 Las Vegas poker rooms and I have yet to find any of the recommendations/information posted on this site to be off base.

I spent the 26th of December – January 1 at the Mirage with my girlfriend. I’m lucky that I have a girlfriend who will not only let me play 17 hours of poker a day, but will play with me. However, the tradeoff is that she usually requests I play a few days of low limit with her. Not a bad trade off I guess, but low limit can really drive you nuts. I like to play mostly tournaments with buy-ins of up to $250, but I’ll also play anything from 10-20 limit to 2-5 no limit.

Monday – My girlfriend and I got into town around 6 p.m., grabbed some dinner and headed over to the Flamingo for what was supposed to be a few hours of 2-4 hold’em. We ended staying until 4 a.m. I got up $180 at one point and my girlfriend got up close to $100. To me, all low limit is pretty much a drinking game and I think the Flamingo is perfect for such a game. The night was fantastic for a few reasons 1) There were several players at my table who clearly had chemical imbalances in their head. One dude from Indonesia who played every single hand repeated the phrase “Checkee the blind” at least 15 times per hand. I assume he was trying to say “check in the dark,” but he would say “Checkee the blind” no matter what position he was in. He also informed the table at least 20 times that he was from the "place where all the terrorists come from." He eventually passed out drunk at the table. When I finally went to bed around 5 a.m. I woke up with the words “Checkee the blind” racing through my head. 2) I was sitting in the one seat and had been flirting with one of the dealers for several hours. She was playing along and at one point I asked her to say “thanks” for all the nice compliments I was giving her. She turned to me and let out this humongous burp about two inches from my face. It came totally out of nowhere and the whole table erupted in laughter for about 5 minutes. 3) Some military dude propositioned my girlfriend and I for a three-way relationship He kept easing into his proposition by telling us how “contemporary” and “cool” we were. Ummmm, no thanks dude. I ended up about $85 and my girl left up over $50. It was a good first night considering I had about 15 beers and a ton of fun.

Tuesday – I felt like complete crap from the night before. I played about 2 hours of 1-2 No limit at the Mirage. The Mirage is a really tough room and somehow I was lucky enough to get seated at a pretty soft table. Your adrenaline jumps when you sit down to play NL there, and you really need your “A” game to do well. I only won $50 or so, and I should have stayed longer given the nature of my table. However, I wanted to play the 7:00 tournament at the Aladdin, which is a great low buy-in tournament. Generally 20% of the field doesn’t really know what they are doing and you get enough starting chips to do a little maneuvering. I have played 6 tournaments at the Aladdin and have cashed in 3 of them, which is pretty good (though I’ve never placed higher than 6th). I came in 10th out of 83 people, earning my buy-in back (Normally 83 people would have only paid 8 places, but the final table made a deal that 10th would get his money back. It was a great deal for me because I was short stacked. My 66 lost to AJ on a board of 88TT4). While I was playing at Aladdin, my gf played 2-4 up at Bally’s and she left up $40.

Wednesday – Played about 2 hours of $50 min/max NL at the Luxor. I hate the Luxor. The players at my table were absolutely terrible (i.e. calling with a third best flush draw on the turn with 1:1 pot odds) but they thought they were pretty sweet, which is highly annoying. The place is dark, lacks character and the drink service is pretty bad even when the room is slow. $50 NL could be the worst game in the world as you don’t get nearly enough chips to maneuver. The only thing good about that level game is that it’s a good introduction for beginners. I won $10 about 2 hours at the NL table and then played 2-4 with my g/f and lost $100 in about 2 hours. The Luxor is easily my least favorite room in Vegas due to the depressing nature of the place and it’s lack of NL options. They do give good comps if you plan to play there a lot.

(NOTE: I also stopped by Mandalay Bay to hang out at the sportsbook and I thought I noticed a 2-4 limit game. I am almost certain that they did not offer this game when I was in Vegas a few months ago.)

For my evening session I went back to the Flamingo where I played 8 hours of No Limit ($200 buy in). I was up about $100 in my first four hours without catching a hand (all bluffs . . .extremely tight post-flop table). I finally caught some cards and left up $377. A lot of people were drunk and only 1 or 2 people at my table were pretty good. I think the Flamingo has the most underrated room in Vegas. Drink service is good and the dealers are friendly and competent. The atmosphere is pretty laid back and not too serious.

Thursday – Played for about 3 hours up at the Mirage and lost my $200 buy-in at the NL game after getting up $60 pretty early. The players at my table were very strong- at least two of them were poker dealers at other places in town. (In fact, one of the players at my table was dealing at the Flamingo the night before). The guy to my left was super-aggressive, and I should have left the table because he was crushing me. He came over the top every time I put in a raise. Unbelievably, I got JJ TT AK AK four consecutive hands and lost every one of them, so I decided to call it a day. Those hands can really get you in trouble in an aggressive game. I keep telling myself that I need to leave tough tables, but I am always too lazy to do it. There are too many soft tables in town to sit through a tougher game and try to sweat out a profit.

Friday – I decided to try out the Imperial Palace with my girlfriend. I wanted a softer game after a bad day at the Mirage on Thursday. I won $180 at the NL table (after I lost $75 on my very first hand when my kings got cracked on a pre-flop all-in against JJ) and moved to 2-4 after about 6 hours where I lost $50 over the next 6 hours. The comps. at the Imperial Palace are great - $3 an hour on anything in the place. My girlfriend and I left up a combined $200 plus $75 in comp dollars and probably 20 combined beers. The room is a complete dump, but it’s a good place if you want to play some low stress cards. The tables there do not have a rail, so the dealers probably average 1 or 2 misdeals an hour – not really their fault.

Saturday – Played about 3 more hours at IP - up a little, and 6 more hours at the Flamingo - down $50.

Overall, not a bad trip – up around $300 in poker and my g/f left up as well. I was shooting for a haul of $1000, but I drank more than I planned and I don’t think I played bad, so in the end no complaints. My one regret is spending too much time playing low limit with my g/f, only playing one tournament and not finding the time to play at the MGM which is one of the best rooms in town. I’m going back in March for five nights of March/Poker Madness with my buddies, so I’m hoping for a better result. . .

Smash it up-

Daddy