Just returned from my annual trip to Vegas. Played limit at Mirage, Venetian and Bellagio, Golden Nugget and Binions, NL at Wynn, and two tourneys. My limit experience was less than profitable but I more than made up for it in the tourneys. I have played in one tourney prior at Harrah's outside Topeka, KS. I placed 7th out of 120 in that one for $400 bucks.

I entered the 11am , $60 buy in NL freezeout tourney at Bally's on Monday morning. This is a very nicely run tourney. There are 15 min rounds with the blinds doubling after each. I ended up in the last two and we decided to split the $1800 available for first and second between us as we were very close in chip count. The only problem was , Bally's made one of us sign a W9-G for first and one for second. They report any winnings over $600 bucks. They said it was a new rule at Harrah's properties. We drew cards and the other guy had to sign for $1000 winnings which sucked. After tipping the dealers, we both walked away with $850.

I stayed downtown the last night and played in the 7pm NL tourney at the Golden Nugget. It has unlimited rebuys the first hour for $40 and one final rebuy at the first break. I was not a fan of that initially , but in the end, it helped me make alot more money.

I found myself at the final table with a fellow I had started out with earlier. We agreed that if we ended up at the end, we would split the money. I had some great hands, including pocket tens that hit a set on the flop beating pocket aces. We ended up the last two and split almost $1900 dollars between us. When it was down to 5 players, we all agreed to chip in $25 to pay the 5th place player $100 which was a classy move on the fellow who suggested it. Including the three nines I hit playing 3 card poker at the Wynn, I ended up over $2400 for the rip, my best ever...Bill