Day 2

Time.....7:30 a.m

Place.....Las Vegas, Pee-Ho, Mork from Ork room

Question: Why the hell are we awake

As usual, the twitchiness of coming down off drinking and gambling highs make it impossible for us to sleep, so we get up and head down to the Pee-Ho buffet for breakfast. They gave us some 5 dollar off coupons when we checked in, so for 10 bucks, their buffet is a steal for breakfast. Roast beef, crepe station, fresh waffles, plus all the standard breakfast items.

We all enter the 10 a.m. Pee-Ho tourney and are seated at different tables. Blind levels were 20 minutes IRC, and it was 4000 starting chips with blinds starting at 25/50. This allowed for a decent amount of play at early levels (first hour and a half about) but then as usual in the smaller buyins, it becomes a battle against the blinds. There were 1 or 2 players at my table who could play, the rest clearly couldn’t. Over the first hour and a half or so, I am working it pretty good, including a hand where i raised preflop with AQ, got reraised by the villain, smooth called. Flopped queen and two rags, villain bet, I reraised, he called. Turned trips, then had the villain push his whole stack at me for a braindead easy doubleup. He probably mucked JJ if I had to guess.

At some point I walk around and take a look at the stacks on the other tables and at 15k I am clearly one of the chip leaders. Of course, I know that at this point the blinds are becoming an issue and I need to be more aggressive. The following happens at the 300/600 level with the blinds set to go up in about a minute, after I have been ground down to about 12500 in chips:

Guy who has seemed fairly tight, but also clearly has not played a lot of live poker raises 2nd UTG to 1500. He has another 6500 behind. It folds round to me and I look down and find my nemesis, JJ. Given what that the blinds are going up to 500/1000, I reraise to 5000, putting the original bettor in a position that he basically has to decide if he wants to put his tourney on the line.... all fold to him, and he pushes for his last 3000 over the top of my bet. I know what I am about to see, but make the crying call. He flips over his AA... I get no love from the flop turn or river, and I am crippled (I would welcome some input on how I played this hand).

I go out when I push post flop in the BB in a blind vs. blind limp in, and the guy calls me down with K high and nothing but air on the flop. And like that, I am out in the middle of the pack.

Meanwhile Blackjack Boy has rebought at the first break but busted again. Tighty-Whitey is sitting folding over and over with only 2-3 times the BB, and pushing only when he gets a premium. Strangely, no one at his tables seems to read what he is doing, and he manages to hold on until the final 12, with final 9 getting paid. Alas, his AK gets cracked by QJ and we are unceremoniously all out.

So its off to tour the northern end of the middle strip. I have never seen the TI poker room, so stopping by is one of the goals, but we also want to show TW the Venetian since it’s something to behold. We start off though with a stop at Casino Royale to buy a bunch of $1 beers, the original energy drink.

Lunch is at Cantor’s in TI, sandwich was big, but not my fave; I prefer Stage. We do wind up checking out the TI poker room, but a tourney is going on, so we skip sitting down. It did look like a real nice room though, I like the size and feel of it, will play on the next trip probably.

This was our night to slum it downtown, which we do one night every year we go, with of course a stop at the Ranch Steakhouse on top of Binions. For those who haven’t eaten there, it is OLD SCHOOL, which we love... banquettes, piano player, amazing view of Vegas. They have the same gold-medallion wearing vaguely effeminate Vinny-esque host there for the last 20 years (forget his name). We wind up having great steaks, and huge tumbler sized $5 drinks all through dinner. Hang out at the bar a bit after supper chatting with Vinsssssssent and some of the staff lamenting the death of old world Vegas. We find out the guy who owns 4 Queens has bought the joint and has huge plans for renovating it and updating it. Hopefully they don’t change the food or the atmosphere.

Well, we are buzzing, and we exit Binions and hear the calls of the Girls of GG. I will not provide many details of what happened there, but the night started off right when we found out that the first girl who sat down to chat with us had Tighty-Whitey’s name tattooed on her rump (and he doesn’t have a particularly common name). She was a hilarious Scot with a vocabulary like a sailor with Tourettes, and she hung with us all night even though we weren’t really spending any dough on her. We blew far too much money there, but had a whale of a time. We stagger back into the Pee-Ho around 4 a.m. and I actually contemplate playing some cards, before reminding myself that to do so in my present condition would not be wise, and we all hit the sack.... TBC...