Wrapping up the trip.

Well, the last week has been a lot more fun than the prior week. I basically abandoned playing anymore serious live poker for the trip and have lived like a tourist. Today is my last full day in Vegas and I am not sure exactly what is on tap. I am looking forward to getting back to Winnipeg to see everyone. People often ask me why I live in Winnipeg when I can play on-line poker basically anywhere in the world. It all boils down to friends, I miss hanging out with buddies on a weekly basis and especially just being able to enjoy our short summer with everyone.

I'll give a little synopsis of the last week as best I remember.

Saturday, a big group of us Winnipegger's decide to descend on old Vegas to do some gambling and drinking. We plunk down at a craps table at Binion's and I am the first in the group to get to roll. I probably have my best roll of the trip and turn my $300 into $800ish very quickly. Everyone is having a blast, the drinks are flowing, and money is being made. The next roller is also a guy from Winnipeg who most of us didn't know. Long story short we call the guy "Brad" and that isn't his name but Brad rolls really well. Well, enough that we pass the dice around to him two more times so he can have 3 straight shoots. Something that you never see at a full table of people. Anyways, the table is chanting Brad and "BMC", his new made up initials, and just having a great time. Things cool off shortly thereafter and we decide to leave the table. A few guys were playing some poker so we checked in on them. Played some blackjack, walked over and lost a few $$ playing roulette at the Golden Nugget. A group of us headed to the Glitter Gulch for a little nostalgia while downtown. We left there pretty quickly and a group of us headed to one of the bigger strip clubs in Vegas called the Spearmint Rhino. I have since learned that the Rhino is a chain, I always thought it was just a stand alone Vegas thing. Anyways, a bunch of us go there and the place is absolutely packed. There are probably 200+ women walking around. Some of the buddies I was with decided they wanted to make it rain. This was a new term that I learned earlier in the trip. Basically, making it rain means pouring down money over a crowd or throwing bills in the air. Yeah, so these degenerate, gambler, drunken maniacs that I am partying with get about $300 in singles and fistfulls of cash rain down periodically through the night. The night wraps up around 8am and we all had a blast. Needless to say any winnings from downtown were not taken home that night.

Sunday, I wanted to play a bunch of on-line tournaments. I set my phone for what would have given me about a 3 hour sleep to get up but when it rang I was in no shape to get up and play poker so I missed some of the early tournaments I wanted to play. I still played a bunch on-line that day. I had very frustrating runs in tournaments including a true bubble in a $50 PLO rebuy in which I was stuck in the tournament for $450. I ran well in cash for the day and basically paid for my $1200 in tournament entries and had a break even day. That evening a group of guys were going down to the Golden Nugget to play the 10pm tournament. I decided to grab a meal at an italian restaurant in the Stratosphere and head down there to meet everyone. My meal was awesome, I had something called Veal Chop Valdostana. Basically, a breaded Veal Chop stuffed with Prosciutto and Fontina cheese. On to the Nugget. I meet up with my buddy John and his good friends Jono and Brad who I also know very well. They are there with 3 other good buddies who are down from Thompson so the 7 of us descend on this little tournament. We each toss in $20 for a last longer pool and start play. My table is full of passive fish until this lady sits to my left. Now, I will say this....as a poker player you become very stereotypical in sizing up an opponent at first glance. We are playing a small buy-in tournament at the Golden Nugget on a Sunday night and a somewhat elderly woman sits to your left I immediately assume she will be a passive player that I can probably run over like the rest of the table. Well, within a few rotations it became evident that this woman knew how to play. She played strong in position, made strong pot sized bets, and basically just completely dominated the table. At break I learned that this woman was Barbara Enright. The only woman to date to make the final table of the WSOP Main Event and a winner of 3 WSOP bracelets. http://www.pokerpages.com/players/profiles/36925/barbara-enright.htm

Anyways, we move tables but Barbara is still on my left. We chat quite a bit and she turns out to be a really nice lady. She completely cripples me in a hand where I decide to push a flush draw into her KK (no lies the 8th time she had KK in the tournament, it was unbelievable). I am knocked down to 200 chips with blinds 200/400 and 50 ante. I am forced all-in for the small blind and over the next rotation I go on a tear and build my 200 chips all the way to 8k at the break. I keep rolling at my table to get to over 25k. I then proceed to get two out rivered for what would have been the tournament chip lead at the time in about a 37k pot. I keep on battling though and when we get to the final table I am probably in 3rd place overall. There is a complete moron to my immediate right who had taken out my buddies John and Brad. This guy played so incredibly strange that it was very tough to ever tell what the hell he was doing. Long story short he accidentally plays his A6 perfectly against my QQ in a blind vs blind situation to absolute perfection and ends up taking me out on the true bubble. Wow, five hours for a small tournament to bubble to an absolute fish. Oh well, as a group we had a lot of fun. Lots of drinks and I did get to win the last longer bet so that is almost better than a cash. ;-)

Monday, the girls arrive. John's wife and her sister Carly arrived Monday night. During the day John and I decided to bet on the ponies all afternoon at Monte Carlo. The drink service was awesome and it was a nice relaxing way to kill an afternoon. I thought we had made some money when I nailed a $4 exta bet and an $11 daily double bet on the last race of the day for us but the horses were big favourites so we netted down on not only the race but overall on the day. Once the girls arrived we decided to take in the Comedy Stop at the Tropicana for the 10:30pm show. It is usually something we do every year as it is cheap and entertaining. Unfortunately, this was probably the worst show I have seen there. The intro guy was decent, the first comic was pretty solid, but the female comic was brutal. I guess she had a number of women in the crowd laughing but the general consensus from our group was that she sucked. Oh well, tough to complain for $22 and free drink. We wandered down the strip and eventually settled in on this little spot just off the sidewalk. It was a little open air karaoke bar so we stayed and drank and relaxed. Later when most people had headed back to their hotels Devon and Derek, two of the guys from Thompson, and myself decide we need to find some $5 craps. Eventually, this search takes us to the Stratosphere where we find what is called a "Crapless" craps table. Basically, it is a hybrid of regular craps where now the numbers 2-3-11-12 also become numbers on the board to be played in the same fashion as the 4-5-6-8-9-10. Now, anytime Vegas creates a hybrid game they are not doing it out of the goodness of their heart and the house edge will always be greater. I still haven't read up on the true odds differences but it didn't matter to us as we were just out to have a good time. Well, that we certainly did. We played for hour and got off to an incredible start. Chants of "Mimco, Mimco, Mimco"(Derek's last name of which I am sure I butchered the spelling) could be heard throughout the casino and numerous high fives were shared. Eventually, the table cooled off as they always do and I pocketed a small win and called it a fun night. And no, Deveon, offering to bet a $5 big red for the dealers is not a good idea ;-). That might have been one of the most hilarious calls I have ever heard, even though it might get you beaten around certain players. Super fun night.

Tuesday, wake up around 5pm and play a nice quick 1 hour session on-line before heading to the Wynn for a buffet. Perfect way to start a day. The last thing I had eaten was a horrid cold hotdog from the night before so I was up for the buffet and definitely got my money's worth. After the buffet we cabbed down to Planet Hollywood and went to a place called Trader Vic's which was an outdoor patio with live music. It was a great choice, there were 10 of us who partied there all night. The location was great with Paris' Eiffel tower in the backdrop and the Bellagio fountains across the street. We partied hard and celebrated Canada Day in style on US soil. We ended up meeting this couple from Australia who spent the end of the evening with us. I have to say that the general thinking amongst the group was that this woman was possibly the sexiest girl we had all ever seen. She was beyond incredible and actually had a kickass personality to match. Heather, or as she pronounced in her Aussi accent Heatha you definitely represented your country well. Late that night John and I wrap up the evening playing Pai Gow. Now, this is the first trip I have ever played Pai Gow. I have learned that is a good way to sit and play for hours if you have the discipline to just sit and bet small and not lose a ton of money. However, it is very easy to ramp up the bets and go on a bad run and lose too, like anything else in this town. John and I made a few $$, took it to roulette and made a few more $$ and pretty much paid for our night on the town.

Wednesday, another late afternoon wakeup after 4 of the last 5 nights had bedtimes between 8am and 9am. I headed down to Monte Carlo again for some more betting on the ponies with John. We were once again successful only in obtaining drinks and unfortunately not enough winners. We headed out for dinner and decided to try PF Changs. A well respected chinese restaurant at Planet Hollywood. The server was a bit of a tool and somehow they changed our mind from our original wine selection to something more expensive that for some reason they really really seemed to want to push on us that night. The wine was a disappointment, maybe something we just didn't appreciate but the way it was talked up and pushed on us was quite weird. Anyways, the meal itself was really good aside from the "Dan Dan Noodles" which were nasty. Afterwards we wandered over to the Bellagio to see the fountains, made a couple $$ on Deal or no Deal.....our favourite slot machine and headed over to New York, New York. I was kinda sleepy and full but we ended up in an Irish Pub called Nine Fine Irishmen. The live band was lots of fun and John and I finally found a wheat beer on top. I don't remember the name but it was great. John, Michelle, Carly and myself closed the place down and we all had a great evening together. After that we headed back to the Monte Carlo. John and I played more Pai Gow forever and as gamblers do our bets increased throughout the night until we eventually ran bad and lost what we had bought in for. Nothing major, and a fun night had by all.

Thursday, earlier in the week I had told my buddy Travis that if him and his wife Sarah wanted a night out on the town that I wouldn't mind going and hanging out at their suite as their son Owen is down with them. So, last night they took me up on the offer. Owen was already sleeping when I went over at 9pm and I put in a nice 5 hour on-line session. Something, that I was quite happy to do after the non-stop late nights over the past week. I played reasonably well and ran even better and made about $1600 on the session so it worked out well for everyone. Travis and Sarah had a nice night out, got to go have some drinks, do some gambling, and have a bite to eat.

As I write this we are approaching noon on Friday and what will be my last full day in Vegas. Plans for the day have yet to be made but I am sure it will involve hanging out with John, Michelle, Carly, et al, some drinks, some eats, and some gaming. Overall, I have to say the trip has been a success. I crunched some numbers and after all expenses it is going to be basically a break even endeavor. I don't know how I feel about this. On one hand, spending 35 days living in a hotel and having it not cost anything is great. On the other hand, I had probably the greatest month of my on-line poker career netting up close to $22k and I still am unable to turn a profit. I guess I have to just take it for what it is worth. June was really my first real full month of hammering PLO8 cash games hard on-line and it is very encouraging for me to see that I can make some serious money in these games. Now, I ran very well, and I am going to run into some downtimes but I am looking forward to getting home and playing some serious plo8 cash sessions online and seeing if I can continue to crush the games.

So, aside from the 72 hours or so of wishing I wasn't here anymore the trip has been a ton of fun and I really don't have much to complain about. For the future I don't see myself taking such a long Vegas vacation. In future years I think my focus will be to come down and play any PLo8 events that I can and have a quick touristy vacation around that time.

I'd like to thank everyone who has taken the time to read this blog. It really has amazed me how many people were following it regularly. I'm sorry things got off track from the daily updates but my heart just wasn't in it for awhile. I truly appreciated all the feedback and positive wishes from everyone throughout my trip. Looking forward to getting back to Winnipeg and seeing everyone soon.