This trip was the result of parlaying an initial $20 tournament at my local Army base into a free trip to Vegas with some friends. I won the local tourny for a $500 gift card and entry into the Army World Championship of Poker..or something like that. It consisted of all the winners of all the other Army bases' tournaments. I finished 3rd in this shootout styled tournament and won a $650 gift card.

I used the $1150 in gift cards to pay for air, hotel, food, and some spending money in Vegas! A couple of Vegas virgin friends went with me.

Arrive July 4th about noon, and limo-it over to the Orleans. After a tour of the strip, me and one of the guys enter the 7pm $60 tourny at Planet Hollywood.

I liked the structure pretty well since I had time to make a few plays besides all-in or fold. I found a wide mix of players, some beginners, some solid. There were 83 entrants that night(July 4th), paying the top 9, with 1st getting a little over $1200. In summary, I ended up making the final 3 and we agreed to chop 1st-3rd place, getting $785 each for 3.5 hours worth of work.

Some interesting hands from the tourny:
At the final table of 9, I'm about 7th in chips and in late position. Chip leader is in early-mid position, blinds at 2000-4000. Chip leader raises to 12,000, and gets one caller in mid-position. I have JT, and decide to try for a squeeze play and raise to 30,000. Blinds fold to the chip leader, who thinks for a few seconds before folding, and the caller mucks quickly. The chip leader is visibly unhappy about the caller mucking, and probably suspects I made a play.

The VERY next hand....wow...it couldn't have been set up any better. Chip leader is now UTG, I'm in the raising position(2 off button). Chip leader raises to 12,000, everyone folds to me. I look down at AA. I decide to raise the min. Blinds fold to him. He thinks for a second, and eventually calls. Flop comes AQ5 with 2/spades...JACKPOT. He thinks for second, and pushes. I do the 'Phil Hellmuth insta-call' and beat him into the pot. He turns over Qs3s. I avoid the spade flush and double up, cripple his stack, and become the chip leader. That was the turning point of the tourny for me.

The next morning my friend wanted to hit up the Luxor tables. We find a couple of seats open at $2-$4 Limit and buy in for $80 a piece. Now...we all know how bad the play is at 2/4 limit, so no reason to go over that. But here's a beat I have to go over to explain my 'I Hate Queens' tag line.

The players in this hand are me in mid position, French Pregnant Lady (FPL) in the small blind, and generic calling station (CS) on the button. First few fold to me, I find AQ and raise to 4; others fold to CS who calls, and FPL who calls. Flop comes AQ7 rainbow. FPL bets 2, I raise to 4, CS calls the 4, FPL calls the initial 2. Turn comes Q, giving me AAQQQ. FPL bets 4, I raise to 8, CS calls the 8, FPL calls the additional 4. River comes a 10. And here we go again...FPL bets 4, I raise to 8, CS calls 8, FPL calls additional 4. I turn over my boat expecting a weak A for FPL, and some kind of weird draw for CS. FPL turns over AA for the bigger boat; CS turns over 1010 for a rivered small full house. Now, I hate getting beat, but wow, FPL saved me several bets by playing so weird. Anyway, the point is...screwed by a Queen.

We headed to the Gaming Expo at the WSOP and got pictures with Antonio Esfandari, Phil Laak, Clonie Gowen, Eric Lindgren, Phil Hellmuth, and Mike the Mouth. Walked the short distance across the hall to the Amazon room to watch some poker. Ran into Amarillo Slim, I HAD to meet him. Watched some of the 2-7 lowball championship. Saw Allen Cunningham get knocked out by Shawn Sheikan.

There was also a celebrity/pro charity tourny going on that day. We saw a ton of pros, including Doyle Brunson. We also so a ton of 'stars': Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Jason Alexander, Shannon Elizabeth, Charles Barkley, Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Kevin Smith, Martin Sheen, Brad Garrett, Ray Ramano, Don Cheadle, and several others.

Later that night we ended up at the Flamingo poker room. My friend went to 2/4, I bought in for the max $300 at $1-$2 NL. This table was VERY loose, with average $20-$35 preflop raises, particularly from a few young, drunk, Norwegians. I played extremely tight, to the point where I could easily steal pre-flop after a raise in late position with just about any hand. I played for about an hour and a half and cashed up $327. Not really any interesting hands during this session, but a good profit for a short time. The only reason I left was because I was getting tired/dehyrated from the record heat....117 degrees is freaking HOT!!!

Got up the next morning, did some stuff, then got back to poker. I found an open seat at Harrahs $1-$2, and bought in for the max $300. After a couple of rounds, it was obvious this was a pretty tight-passive table full of tourists that were buying in short, and playing scared. I quickly started taking little shots at pots on the flop and built up a nice $120+ profit in about an hour. There was a couple of descent players at the table, but they were guarding their stacks like royal guards.

Then....the queen struck again.

The players in this hand are me in the BB, and the player from this point known as 'The guy with all my chips' (GWC). Preflop its folded to him and he raises to $6....pretty big difference from the night before. He gets a caller on the button, SB folds to me in the BB and I look down at 5-7; one of my favorit hands in position, but not so much in the blinds. But, I've got my 'groove' on this point and I've been running over the table so I thought I'd call and see what came up. I call, flop comes 5-5-7. The first thought in my head is me doing a happy dance; then it's trying to figure out how to get his $350 plus into my stack. I check, GWC thinks for 10 seconds or so, and makes a HUGE overbet of $40 into a $18 pot. At this point I'm sure he has a high pair like AA or KK, and wants to run out any straight/flush draws, as there are two spades on the board. Button caller folds, and do my best to make calling a $40 bet not look suspicious. Turn comes a Q, no spade. I do a fake wince like I was looking for the flush, and check. GWC bets $60.

I try to decide if to raise now or on the river. I decide that if I wait and try for a check raise on the river, he might check behind me; and if a spade comes out and I check, he'd have even more reason to check behind. So I go for the raise now, and raise to $120. He thinks for 10 seconds or so, and pushes the rest of his chips into the pot. I call quickly, and come face to face with QQ, a two outer for the biggest pot I've played in a LONG time. I'm drawing dead to the last 5, but of course the river is the 4th Q. sigh....I lost about $380 in that pot, and had to watch him get the additional $85 high-hand jackpot for his quads. {I would like any comments/suggestions on how I could have played this better, if any. Obviously if I had folded preflop, then I could avoided it; but post-flop, is there anyway all my chips don't go in at some point?}

After sitting out a hand to regroup, I decide that I can still outplay 75% of the table, and should stick here to push that edge. I reload $200 more chips to go with the $45 or so I have left from that hand. I go on a string of bad hands, while GWC turns over quads one more time, and a AA twice in an orbit. As time goes on, I try a couple of moves that don't work, and my chips are going down slowly. I get in one hand with GWC who flops a full house against my pocket 10s (J99 flop). After that I'm down to about $120 in chips and the table is slowly getting filled up with solid players with full stacks, and the money is just being passed around.

My last hand.....
I've tightened up for about 30 mins or so, hoping to catch something besides 83o. I'm UTG and look down at.... QQ. I raise to $15. It's folded to GWC, who looks down at his cards, leans back in his chair, and gives me a look of what I now know is one of pity. He raises to $40. It's folded back to me, and I decide that if he has AA or KK at this point, then he deserves to get the rest of my chips. I push all in, he looks at me shaking his head, and says "i'm not out to get you, buddy", and turns over AA. They hold up of course, and I'm put out of my misery.

I have to be honest....that session was rough. I was soaring high after the first couple of days, but this session really hit my poker karma. 'That's poker they say...or something like that. I prefer 'Damn Queen(s)'.

I did a lot of sight seeing after for the rest of the day, and tried to get back into playing that night. I sat in a $1-$2 NL game at Planet Hollywood for about 5 minutes. I got up after paying the blinds because all the jack-asses at my table thought they were on the WPT and were taking 1-2 mins to make EVERY decision like calling an $8 preflop raise. I was too tired/frustrated to sit there, so I took off.

So I had some good success, but some bad beats thanks to the Queen. I'll be curious to see if the Queens still have it out for me the next time I get to play. Overall I had a great time, and I finished up $550 for the trip. Not bad for an initial $20 investment in an after work poker tournament.

As for the poker rooms themselves:

Planet Hollywood: Much better then the old "room". The noise from the bar next door can get loud, but I never found it too distracting. The tourny was well run and the staff was friendly and professional. I will be back to play in the tourny for sure.

Luxor: Staff was very nice/professional. Dealers were friendly and never made a mistake. I only played 2/4 limit here, so the players I encountered were VERY fishy. I did see several get up from the 2/4 game to play in one of their daily tournys, so I assume they are pretty soft too.

Flamingo: I didn't really care for it. The dealers were pretty good, and I had a profitable time here, but I didn't really care for the chairs/tables.

Harrahs: I liked the fact that the room was 'glassed' off from the rest of the casino to keep out the smoke and noise. The dealers/staff were decent, no mistakes I saw. The competion started out very touristy/fishy around 1-2pm, but by 3-4pm it was filling up with more solid players. Not sure if this was a freak occurance, or if it had to do with more players being out because of the WSOP.

I hate Queens by the way.