Finally made it to Vegas towards the end of March. Couldn't wait to hit the poker rooms. Unfortunately, my memory isn't the greatest so I tried to write stuff down when I got back to the hotel. But I lost one of the pieces of paper. So, everything I'm about to say, well, the details might not be exactly right. First was the Aladdin. Their poker room is in the middle of the casino floor, but it is totally enclosed. No smoking, no casino noise. I liked the Aladdin because there were several seats and couches around the walls so the GF could have a place to sit and wait for me. I had to wait about 15 minutes for a seat to open up. One hand, someone raised preflop. I called and hit three 10s and cracked the original raiser's pocket aces. Another hand, and I call with AJ. I got AJ a lot that night. Anyway, someone raises and I call. Jack on the flop and I have top pair top kicker. I'm hoping he has AK or something, and not AA or KK (or QQ for that matter). He bets, everyone folds to me and I call. Blank on the turn and me still with TPTK. He bets, I call. Ace on the river and I have 2 pair. But I'm worried the ace helped him. He bets, I just call. He turns over KK. I flip over AJ and he was pretty upset. So, my first time playing in Vegas and I crack AA and KK during my first session. The Aladdin has high hand jackpots for Royal Flushes, straight flushes, and quads. No bad beat jackpot that I saw. The dealers were pretty good. They were all nice. I got a players card before sitting down at the Aladdin. I checked with the supervisor and it turns out you need to play at least 10 hours before they start giving you comps. I wasn't planning on playing that long there, so I didn't even bother handing in my card...I played about 4 hours. BTW, I'm 39 and for most of the time I was at that table, I was far and away the oldest person there. Take me out and the average age was probably low to mid 20's. Cocktail service seemed quick, although I didn't have anything to drink.

My second session of poker was at the Imperial Palace. The poker 'room' is on the third floor. It's not really a room, just a roped off area. There were about 10 tables with the usual games...2/4 and 3/6 limit, and 1/2 and 2/5 no limit. I got there and put my name on the 2/4 list. Unfortunately, I was around #14 or so. But luckily, after waiting for about 5 minutes, they opened up another 2/4 game. Maybe 10 minutes after that, I was called. Got my chips, sat down, and was dealt a jack and something else. I forget what, but it wasn't a good hand. So I mucked. Of course, 2 jacks fell on the flop. And the fourth fell on the river. Damn. Would have had quads. My third and last session of poker was also at the IP. Again, I was far down on the list. But again, maybe 10 minutes of waiting and they opened another 2/4 table and I was one of the people to get a seat. I really like the IP. Most of the dealers were nice and there were no major problems. One thing kinda weird happened. The dealer thought everyone was done betting and turned up the river card which was the 9 of hearts. But there was still someone to act. So he took the 9 back and shuffled the deck explaining the river will be dealt again. Finally, we're ready for the river and it was the 9 of hearts again! Make sure you get your player card before heading up to the poker room as the IP is supposed to be the bext when it comes to comps for poker players. But be warned that it takes at least 24 hours for your comp money to show up in your account. I was told 2 to 6 hours, so I came back the next day. Still nothing. And it was a good 15 hours or so after I left. The players club people directed me to a casino host who informed me it takes at least 24 hours for the comps to show up from the poker room. Jeez. He asked when I was leaving and I said the next morning. I tried hemming and hawing, hoping he would give me something like a free buffet, but he didn't budge. I guess I'm not a whale. He just told me that the comps are good for 18 months. I figure I had such a good time that I'd be back within 18 months. The poker room also had cookies for the players, and after 5pm, they brought out little finger sandwiches. The cookies were pretty good, but I didn't have any of the sandwiches. And the cocktail servers were pretty quick, coming around about every ten minutes or so.