So my wife and I check into Caesars on Saturday and find that they can't give us the non-smoking room we requested. After much waiting and complaining and having hopes raised and then dashed, CP upgrades us (gratis) to a Palace Tower room. Kudos to CP. On to the poker. Next morning I hit the 11am Sahara tourney, busted out about 30 out of 99. Excellent tourney, more than 3 hours of playing time for $62.

For the next 2 days I played limit exclusively at CP, MGM and Venetian,3-6 and 4-8. The important lesson I learned here is that limit is not profitable unless there are at least 3 or more fish at the table. During one 3 hour session at CP, all of us at the 3-6 were playing textbook poker. The result? After 3 hours all of us were down a lot or a little thanks to the blinds and rakes. On future trips I wont stay at tables that are "rocky", and I won't play during the day, which is when a lot of the locals are putting in hours for freerolls.

On Tuesday I went into the 8pm Venetian tourney. Another great tourney, but like most other tourneys the all-in action starts sooner rather than later, which means you have to hope that your good hands arrive in the middle and later stages of the tourney. My good hands came early, AQ, AQ, AA in successive hands allowed me to take the early chip lead at my table, but after that nothing. I was still in reasonable shape with 40 out of 89 players left, but I took a bad beat on an all-in against a short stack (he caught his straight to beat my set) and ended up finishing about 28th. As a poker room, the Venetian is everything it's cracked up to be. The service, from the room managers to the servers, is excellent. I'd say there isn't another room in the same league.

On my last night I tried 1-2 NL at the MGM. Soft and fishy and profitable. Up $270 after 4 hours. The highlight was watching a young Internet-type player sit down and immediately start scoffing at how people were playing their hands. He was right, but he still had to rebuy twice after myself and a fellow Canadian took him to the cleaners a few times.

Another great trip to Vegas,and thanks to all AVPers for their posts, especially the ones who raved about the Mon Ami Gabi restaurant at the Paris. Excellent value.