Hello from Las Vegas

I am a dork... I mean how else do you explain the fact that I'm in Las Vegas right now... and on my laptop?

Well, last night, I flew in to Vegas and we touched down at approximately 9pm. I was fairly tired since that translates to midnight eastern time so I was gonna take it easy. After all, I've been here a few times so the whole "Vegas mystique" is not quite there anymore. I get off the plane and stroll through the airport like I'm at any other airport. The sights of slot machines in the terminal do absolutely nothing for me and even at the baggage claim area, all the signs for shows really don't get me excited anymore. So I figured, it's no big deal. I can play as much poker as I want to tomorrow so I'll just check in, go to my room and go to sleep.

Fast forward 2 hrs later, I'm sitting at a poker table at the Mirage, doing shots of Jager bombs with a bunch of canadians. There were 7 of them and me... It was a bachelor party and somehow I got sucked into doing shots with them... btw, doing shots at the poker table is key... $1 shots? How can you beat that!? Better question is, of all the times we've been here for bachelor parties, how did we not ever do that!? Now, that's a bad beat...

Well, that party was fairly short lived since they all wanted to go out. Well, I came to play poker so that's what I did. And I guess there's a reason why I usually don't drink and play. After that table broke (it was a 1-2NL table and really, we probably only played like 20-30 hands), I was seated at a 2-5NL table. I sit down, right in time for the BB and what do I get dealt? Pocket aces! I thought to myself, "holy cow... this is gonna be a good trip!!!" So, there were a few limpers and I bump it up to $30. I get one caller and we see a ragged flop of 9-5-2 with two spades. I bet out $45 and the guy minraises me to $90. Now, generally, minraises from someone I don't know are red flags for me. I mean why else would you raise the minimum unless you had a monster? Well, so I sense trouble (even with the alcohol flowing through me) so I just call. The turn is a harmless card that brings another spade, putting 3 spades on the board for a potential flush. Now one of my aces was a spade so now, if I'm behind, I should have 11 outs (2 aces and 9 flush cards). Or, there's a chance I'm ahead here... or so I thought. So, I checked the turn to try to keep the pot small, the guy bets another $90... smart thing for me to do here would be to just call... however, I guess the alcohol loosened me up a little. I decide to jam, the guy agonizes but eventually calls with his pocket 5s (for a set). I don't get any help on the river, and poof, my initial buy-in of $400 was gone after one hand.

Eventually, I stopped playing but I've witnessed some very poor poker... and everyone plays a basic abc poker/calling station... in other words, they wait for decent cards but when they have top pair, they won't go anywhere... I learned that the hard way when I pulled what I thought was a decent bluff, only to be called by top pair middle kicker... I think the phrase I heard was "I don't think I can fold this..."

Yikes.

I'm not gonna go into more hand histories because really, is anyone interested in a live HH? Only other thing is that I'm starting to really become an internet poker donk... As I was sitting at the table, I noticed myself getting bored because I don't have 3 other hole cards to tend to. I can't remember the last time I one-tabled (except tournaments)... sure, I can pay attention but when everyone is becoming insanely predictable, it gets boring... and I've been fairly card dead (and since we don't get dealt cards at the rate that we do online), fairly card dead translates into really not doing anything for a few hrs... Nonetheless, I did play 3 hrs Monday night after I flew in and I already logged in 7 hrs today... and it's only 8pm Vegas time... I'm about to head out to the Bellagio or the Wynn to see if I can change my luck... or I might go back to the Mirage.

One quick note on Imperial Palace. This hotel is a dump. But the rooms are decent. Actually, it's better than decent. I really can't complain with what I'm getting, for what I paid. So, all you IP haters out there, it's really not bad. After all, how much time are you really gonna spend in your room anyways???

I look forward to seeing everyone here. Hopefully by then, I would have turned a profit...