[lightfungus]

Just to wrap this thread up...

Vegas bent me over that 4th of July weekend. I ended up down around 1200, probably 1100 from poker. I only played 1/2 NL, even though I was incredibly tempted to play 2/5 NL, since it was closer to what I had been playing at the Arizona casinos. However, I decided I should take it easy and stick to the smaller stuff.

Friday night, I went to Bally's, as it was close to the Westin where I was staying and I had heard it had a pretty good game. The room is pretty small, like 8 tables, and is hardly seperated from the rest of the casino. The service isn't that great either, and the room is not managed that great. The max buyin was $300 at the 1/2 tables so that is what I bought in for. I kinda tinkered around for a while, exploring a horribly dry run of cards. I did notice that the competition seemed quite decent all around and unfortuantely there didnt seem to be anyone who wanted to give their money away. There were even a couple of vegas regulars who seemed to do this for a living. I had one hand right at the beginning though where I came out charging at this one guy, raising with crap in position preflop. I noticed that he wasn't incredibly happy about his call of my CB on the flop, and kept pushing bigtime all the way to the river, where he called me finally and flipped two pair with his AQ, with top pair on the flop and the A hitting on the river. So that was a decent chunk taken, and after this I got called down by anyone and everyone, and when I wasnt getting any help it was making my life difficult. Then I made a move preflop on a guy that limped, I raised with AKs trying to get the 2-3 limpers behind me out, then he raised like 80 bucks (my raise was 15) and I pushed for another 200 or so. He didnt hesitate and called with queens. I guess I figured I could get him off it or something, oh well. He rivered the queen after I hit on the flop, and that was it for that night.

Then I went to Aladdin's the next day. For the lower bankroll people, they let you buy-in for $50 at the 1/2 NL tables, which I thought was pretty cool. I ran into another brick wall when it comes to cards and slowly dwindled my stack away. Keep in mind I have been rebuying a lot and keeping my stack at max because I knew that I could make money and I wasn't playing poorly. Unfortunately I was missing every flop with the sparse paint I was getting. As far as pockets go, I could count them on my hands in 12 hours of poker that weekend. I left Aladdin bored and wanting to do something else.

Went to see the Blue Man Group at the Venetian and hung around after to play some poker. The room is great, quality management, and a wonderful atmosphere. By far my favorite room that I played at, and I would even say I would have liked it more than the Bellagio and the Wynn, as they both seem smaller. Anyway, that night ended with this hand, after I was wading through another craptastic session of the pokee, set to my overpair (notice it is singular because these jacks were the highlight of my weekend situation wise as I got called by one guy and the flop was all undercards), missed flops, folds preflop to my sole pocket kings, and then this stacked me and I called it quits. That was that for the playing of poker that weekend.

I did get to go to the WSOP at the Rio. I saw Annie Duke, John Juanda, Carlos Mortensen (at the final table of event number 6 I think), Eric Seidel, Greg Raymer, and the guy that finished second to the aussie last year. Oh and Jennifer Harman when I was walking in; that lady is short. It was cool to see all this in person, definately worth the trip to the isolated Rio.

When I got back to Casino Arizona, the cards were smacking me in the face, so I made a good chunk back. But frankly it doesn't feel that rewarding if you are only playing ok. A hand that I felt pretty awful about...

I call a guys 4BB raise preflop with 78s, I am pretty sure he has overcards as I had been watching him, and the worst that could happen is I fold. The flop came Q 7 4 or something like that. He bet 25, I attempted to steal reraising to 70. He called, and I was done with the hand, but the turn came another one of my suit, giving me 4 to the flush at this point, and he checked giving me a free card, which I gladly accepted but was completely aware he knew I had nothing at this point, river completes the flush and he doesnt see it, as no sane person would, and he arbitrarily pushes a hundred out assuming I was going to fold. I called, and felt bad about it. It is weird to be on the other side of these things.