Arrived in Vegas Thursday with my friend Carlo and stayed at the Orleans. The Orleans is a great place to stay. I played 2-4. The Orleans is made up of a number of locals during the day and a mixture of visitors and locals at night. One night I played with a maniac who raised every blind that came to him. Needless to say it made for some nice pots and he lost a bundle. My worst bad beat came when I had pocket 10's. The flop came 7,7,10. I raised every round and some guy slow played pocket 7's.

Friday morning we went over to the Aladdin at 9 but there was only 1 no limit table going so after waiting a half-hour we walked over to Bally's and played for over 4 hours and caught 3 full houses. The Bally's dealers are all great but the management was never around to get new games started or answer questions for the players.

Saturday morning we stopped at the Tropocana but the poker room does not open until 10:00 am. So we went across the street and played at the MGM. This is a very nice room and played with 3 guys who were up all night and were very aggressive.

That afternoon we went over to the Rio to check out the world series. The tournament is set in their conference center arena. I couln't believe all the tables set up. I watched Freedie Deeb and Scotty Nguyen play in the $1500 no limit tournament. As I watched I noticed that most of the players just wanted to advance and not risk their chips so most of the hands were heads up (not to exciting). During the tournament the Rio moved their regular poker room games into the arena area.

At night we went over to the Wynn to check it out. The casino is beautiful but the poker room is very crowded and it is difficult to move around. I wss told that they changed all their games from 10 to 9 players to free up some space. As I waited for my 4x8 seat I was able to watch a 7 card stud heads up game between Daniel Negreanu and Barry Goldstein. They were playing $1,000 ante and $4,000 and $8,000 bets. It was back and forth for a while but Barry got hot and he had nearly a million dollars in front of him. I finally got called after 30 minutes or so. The game was fairly aggressive and I was able to win some early pots and made $150.

On Sunday I played at the Imperial Palace. I have played at this room before and they do give you $3.00 an hour in comps. In addition, they have coffee, cookies and water set up for the players.

On Monday I played 4 hours at the Excaliber in the 1x3 game. The game has only one $1.00 blind. At 5:00 pm they brought out hot dogs, hamburges and chili. I was told they sometheing different for the players every night.

Later that night it ws back to the Orleans. I was the big blind with Q-9 spades and five players capped the betting. The flop came 9 and 2 spades so I stayed and 1 player kept raising each round. On the river another Q came up and the aggressive player kept raising. I called and he had pocket rockets and his face droped when I showed 2 pairs.

After breakfast on Tuesday I had about 2 hours till we had to leave for the airport so I decided to give it one more shot. I won 2 small pots early then caught 2 full houses back to back. Several hands later I caught a straight on the turn and the last hand I played I had A-10. The flop came A-10 and I won the hand and made $150 in 90 minutes. As I checked out I asked the poker manager to review my play and he gave me a casino rate for my entire stay.
We had a great trip going from room to room and I can't wait to go back in the fall to play is some of the new poker rooms that seem to be opening every day.