This trip was about a month ago, so I'm kind of fuzzy on the details...or maybe it was all those 7 and 7's I drank! I'll hit a couple highlights.

First a few encounters with fellow AVPers. I played a few nights at TI, and though I asked about LVM, the manager said he wasn't there. I never did see him, and found out later via his posts here that he was entertaining relatives and didn't spend time at TI while I was there. However, I did see YappyDave (recognized only by his pic on the picture thread) and called him out on wearing a beer case on his head. Also met dealer/manager Talon that night. Another day I was playing at Excalibur and after a few hours a a player from the other end of my table came over and said "Mrs. Lederer, right?" It was Crussader and he had apparently recongized me from my pic on the picture thread. So be careful what you post, you never know when you'll get recognized!

One day I headed to the Planet Hollywood to play in their morning tournament. It fit in with my bankroll and the starting chip count was better than most other affordable touraments. Five minutes before it started my cell phone rings and I see it's from my son's school. I let voice mail get it since I don't need the school to hear slot machine sounds in the background and I probably wouldn't be able to hear well anyway. A teacher left message wanting to talk right away. I definitely don't need stress as I'm about to try to concentrate on a tourney! I call my husband who promises to take care of it, but the whole issue is on my mind as I'm playing. I actually played well and at one point I was chip leader or near to it. I did make a dumb call though when I raised UTG with pocket 9s, and it was folded around to the button who went all in for about 5,000 more. He was kind of bouncing and looking around, and I just knew he had something good. I don't know why, but I made the call and he turned up pocket queens, which held up. I couldn't catch up much after that and went out in about 15th place. By the way, my husband told me later that there wasn't an emergency at the school, they just wanted to talk about my son's behavior that day.

The next day I again played the PH tournament, but didn't last as long as the previous day. I sat next to a Russian girl who didn't know what a guy meant when he said he had a "boat." I said it's a full house and she laughed and said she'd never heard of that. LOL

For my few days there I was wondering if I should play in the $300+40 WSOP Circuit Ladies Event at Casears. Being new to these big events, I was imagining about 500 women playing, and didn't know if I should take the chance. So on Sunday, I decide to at least go over and check it out. I walked into CP's poker room, and they direct me to the tournament room which was empty except for the registration area. This is 90 minutes before the tourney was to start. I ask how many are registered and he said "over 90." I say "only 90?" and he told me they expect to have between 100-150. That number was much less intimidating to me, so I register. I putz around CP for a while and at 11:00 sit down to play along with 197 other women. I won a couple of early hands with A 10. I played extra tight against these players who were all very solid. I did take one woman out, though I forget the hand. I'm moved to another table when ours breaks up and am basically just holding on. On one hand I had 6 8 in the BB and miraculously it wasn't raised pre flop. I end up flopping 2 pair and win a nice pot there. I did bluff on another hand and won that, too. But wins were few and far between and my stack stared to dwindle. After about 5 hours of play, I had A3 with only enough chips for about one more blind. The player just before me goes all in and I call. She had QQ (the bane of my tournament existence this trip) and I was out in about 33rd place when no ace came. They paid 18 places, but I was happy with my play against such a strong field. The eventual winner was Anna Wrobleski, who sat across from me at my second table, and who I didn't know but the other players did. Turns out she won some big event at Bellagio a couple weeks before.

Guess I'll stop this report here and say that I'm looking forward to my next trip on July 10-16. I'm hoping to watch some of the Main Event action and play some smaller tourneys around town. I hope to see some AVPers in the ME. I know AlaskaGal is playing a satellite just before I arrive.