It's been 18 months since getting my feet wet playing some small tournaments in Vegas. After honing my game on-line and playing over 900 tournaments with buddies and on-line since then, it was time to head back to Vegas for some live action. We scouted out all the tournements right here so we had a plan of where we wanted to go.
Paris: Right off the plane, I headed to Paris for the 3:30 Multi. A 6th out of 30 was not bad but they only paid top 4. The Poker area (it is an area and not a room) was very noisy. The competition was average at best. I didn't spot any real "players". Tournaments were late getting started and there was no indication of time or blinds except a lap top on a desk.

MGM: The next morning, nine of us headed to the MGM for the 11AM. 1200 in chips to start with no top up made this a real crap shoot at the start. They had 120 paid entries and only paid the top 6. Only one us made it to the final table and even with 120 entries there weren't that many chips in play compared to the size of the blinds. You had to get lucky to win. Competition was average here too.

Golden Nugget: I played at the Nugget on my last trip to Vegas and wanted to see the new room. What an improvement. The new room was very quiet and nice and you could see that they were working on an entire re-do of the entire casino. I hit a sick run of cards and couldn't help but finish in the money. They paid top 5 but at the final table we agreed to pull some money out of the pool for the bubble guy and give them $100. When we got down to 4 I was the chip leader but agreed to chop the pot, giving each of us $567. Once again, competition was average. You got lots of chips and it was very well run. Would do it again in a minute but it cost a little more than most.

Treasure Island: This was one of our favorite tournaments. We played it 4 times. Room was great. Screens showed you all the stats on the tournement as players were knocked out. Players were friendly and lots of fish in the pool. It took some bad beats to keep us out of the money. TI will probably be my home base on my next trip. Hottest waitresses of all we saw.

Ceasars: We played the 11PM twice. For $70 it was a good deal. The room is very nice and the service is great. The competition was definitely a knotch higher and a little more serious.
On our last day we played the $130 Noon tournament. Structure was great as all the reviews suggested. The competition was serious here. I didn't see any easy marks (maybe that meant I was the mark). I had a semi-pro to my right who just loved to push the action. I lost some chips to him early when he caught his flush on the turn but then got him back later on with an Ac,4s bluff. I re-raised him pre-flop and he called. The flop was all low clubs and he moved AI, expecting me to bow-down to him. I called, to find out he had Kc,Js. My ace heald up and he was pissed. That was the highlite of my trip.
I made a mistake two hours in, raising with pocket 10's in early position and then calling an AI from a tight player with the same number of chips as me (she had pocket K's).
Ceasar's warns you ahead of time that any winnings over $600 will be subject to tax and they will make you fill out the forms.

Bally's: Played some 1/2 NL. The room is loud and Bally's is the hotel where old waitresses go to die. These women were ancient.
The first night I was lucky enough to start playing at a fresh table where we were all pretty even. I took a bad beat where a dude with big slick called my $65 AI raise post flop. I had pocket J's. He hit his Ace on the turn.
The next day we sat at the same table but when we got there, there were four guys with over $1000 in chips and two had almost $2000 in chips. The first pot I saw was $800 with one guy all-in and two callers.
I knew I should have walked after I raised $15 with AK and had 6 callers. One of the big stacks ended up winning the pot with 8,4 off suit. You might as well be playing 1/2 limit if you want lots of multi-way pots. My buddy played patient and waited for the right moment. He went AI post flop with pocket 9's and all low cards on the flop. Big stack calls with 6,4s and he had paired his 4. Doesn't he catch runner, runner spades for a flush and another $350 pot. That put us off 1/2NL for the rest of the trip.

Overall, I ended up down a few hundred but it was a lot of fun. We stayed at Bellagio (we had a connection) but didn't get in any of their tournaments. We did see Greenstien, Phil Lauche, T.J. Cloutier and Freddy Deeb hanging around the Poker room in prep for a WPT main event at the hotel. The poker room is huge and the sound of chips clanking is deafening.