My wife and I were in Vegas from Dec. 20-24. We stayed at Mandalay Bay and enjoyed it very much.

Let me get the tournament play out of the way. I played 4 tourneys (Mandalay, Excalibur and Luxor) and you start with very few chips (about $300). So, if you don't get cards early, it's tough to move on. Bad beats galore. Competition was not real good. Went all in with A-9 vs. A-7 and lost. Went all in with QQ vs. A-10 and lost. Enough said. Next time, I want to play other tourneys with bigger chips to start.

Cash games. I started with three losing sessions followed by five winning sessions. Mandalay Bay was a nice place to play. Competition was pretty good there. Their No Limit tables aren't appealing. There's usually a dominant chip leader that pushes the small stacks around. It's hard to buy in for $300 and go up against someone with $3000 - which someone had. This one guy was there for two straight days. Makes it a tough game. Didn't bother with anything here except $4/$8.

Excalibur had terrible players. They have a $1/$3 limit game which is great for beginners. My wife (newbie) played there for hours on end and didn't lose much at all. My second hand sitting down at a $2/$6 limit game, I flopped quad 9s. I got to spin the wheel and got a bonus of $30. Can't complain.

I played at the Luxor No Limit game. The buy in is $50 (no more, no less). When you fall below your original $50, you can rebuy for another $50. So, basically you can buy in for $99. This is nice for beginner NL players, because there is rarely someone with a huge chip stack bullying the table around. I REALLY enjoyed playing NL. Was my first time ever playing it in a casino. There are three blinds ($1/$1/$2) to encourage more play. Play here is loose for NL. I really began to learn about table image here. This is something that I cannot really establish playing online poker. In person, people notice that I folded my hands for the first 45 minutes. This session, I went all in once with QQ and got called by A-Q. No A came up, so I won about $50. My original $99 grew to about $235 and I was actually chip leader at the table for a time. Finished up over $100. Very satisfied.

My buddy and I went to the Bellagio all afternoon on Friday. The first session here, I played for about 2.5 hours and finished exactly even. The second session there, I started down about $60, but rallied. After 3+ days, I had seen 1000s of hands, but had yet to get AA. I got them twice in three hands at this session. Had people betting into me both times, and both times, they held up all the way! Ended up over $100 here during this session.

The last night, I played NL at Luxor. I was so tired, I actually thought I had a straight once and I didn't. ;o) I really liked the Luxor though. The dealers were very nice, happy and remembered my name (and nickname) from one night to the next. "Welcome back, Grey Eagle!" Very cool. The competition here is pretty bad, and I was able to successfully slow play a couple of hands into an all in call. Both sessions here, I had an off-duty Luxor dealer playing at my table. A little wierd, but I suppose there's nothing wrong with that.

Overall, I would stay at Mandalay again, but probably wouldn't choose to play there. I would play more tournaments with bigger starting stacks. I would like to play more NL - at the Luxor and other places. I learned a LOT during this trip. I was able to read people pretty well, and I was able to establish my table image pretty well. I rarely called a bet when I felt I was beat. Other than the bad beats from the tourneys, and the straight I thought I had (but didn't), I played really well. Can't wait to go back!