My wife and I were offered 6 free nights at Harrah's on the Strip, so we said, "What the heck!" After cashing in some frequent flyer miles, getting and staying there was awfully inexpensive.

My wife and I have played poker for several years, but until just recently had not played any serious Texas Hold'em. Mostly Stud and some home tourneys. But we've been playing online at Pokerstars.net at the free tables and figured it was time to step up to the plate.

Upon arriving, I immediately sought out the Harrah's poker room and it was all that I had expected based on the write up on this website. Very cozy and off the main slot fest, great drink service (Carolyn was a sweetheart!), and decent staff. Especially Vincent and Rob. More about Rob later. Unfortunately they only had a 1/2 NL game and 3/6 L games going. But it was late (1230 am) so we hit the rack, intending to rise early to play in their 11:00 am $40 + $10 tourney. Sadly we arrived too late to enter, so we wandered the Strip for several hours before the heat of the day. If you have time, definitely stop by the new Wynn property. Unbelievably gorgeous women strutting around everywhere. Half naked, but tasteful at the same time, not like Rio. The poker room was beautiful, but empty at 11:30 am. Strolled over to Treasure Island and their room was quiet as well. Then over to the Venetian. An utterly monstrous room-inhabited by at least 40 tables, but only one was operating a 3/6 game when we walked through.

Finally sat down to play at Harrah's at 4pm. Playing 3/6 No Fold Em is a chore. Three times I felt secure with a Set until I got rivered by some knucklehead hoping for a river card. You just can't protect your cards. Almost no bluffing takes place. Ended the evening down about $80

On Friday we managed to get into the early Harrah's tourney along with 80 others. During the first hour, one rebuy was allowed. Side Note: At my wife's table, a guy made the rebuy, busted out and was allowed to reregister and get back in, then make a second rebuy. He went on to win the tournament eventually. This didn’t seem fair to us. It was announced that one rebuy was allowed. I've never seen this facet before?

Anyway, my wife never saw a flop and was out before the first break. Although I finished 12th (paid top 8) I still felt pretty good about my play. The dealers were proficient and the tourney was well organized. The winner took down over $1500 and got his picture on the wall. Our table was pretty exciting when the blinds reached $2K/$4K.

Later that night we went to Caesar's Palace (now owned by Harrah's). We played in their card room for several hours. I schooled some college students and wound up ahead $75 early, but lost it all when I started to drink heavily (go figure), but my wife went on a short run and got us back to even for the night, not including our tournament entrant fees. The really cool thing about Caesar's is that the HL players are in the same room-so we got to see a couple of WPT types at work including Shawn Sheikham, Daniel Negreanu, Minh Ly, and another heavily bearded guy I couldn't place but recognized. They were playing $300/$600. Piles and stacks of checks-I counted $25K in front of Sheikham at one point.

We played for a couple of hours each day-mostly at Harrah's due to proximity to bed, but never really went on a run until the final day. I'd sat down, bought in for $100 at the 3/6 game. After 2 hours I was down $50, but then "blond Rob" sat down. I made a joke that I wasn't getting good cards and he offered to help turn that around. Amazingly, I won the next four hands and then 10 out of 20. He dealt me KK, AA, QQ, JJ-each time a set coming on the flop/turn. Crazy good cards. Best hand was Aces Full of Kings, beating Kings full of Aces. That was a huge pot (>150) as I capped the raises each round of betting. Pretty soon I was up almost $300, but then my wife joined the table and again I had a few knocks. Still wound up about $100 up, but I've never seen a run of cards like that.

Overall, we only lost about $200 (most of that was on slots). Harrah's had poor comps, but had great high hand jackpots-saw a Heart Wheel earn $580 and 4-4s win $134. They also had a jackpot for AA getting cracked by a straight or better, but were paying out "too much" and moved it up to a Full House, which is BS. Hard for me to believe a casino pulling in $4 a hand is paying out too much.