Long time reader here and I've enjoyed many trip reports. I'm going to take a shot at making one and keeping it semi-live as I go. Hard to say what will happen!

Arrive from Toronto on Monday July 3rd and departing from Vegas on the red-eye Monday July 10th. This will be my 12th trip to Vegas and I've pretty much got it down to a science of fun stuff that I love to do. I will be travelling with 7 of my poker buddies-with a few more perhaps making a 3 or 4 day visit if possible with work schedules.

I'm a recreational gambler. I've got records to show a slight profit at the horse races-thoroughbred only- over the last 12.5 years. I'm a losing online poker player. I'm a small loser at live casino poker at 1-2 NL stakes and I don't get to play more than about 10x per year at the casino. I'm a perennial contender at my monthly home game NLHE tournaments which average 30 guys and I show a small profit at this game. I used to work in the gambling industry for a number of years and I saw way too many people blow their brains out so I vowed that my gambling would always be in control. Before my wife and I got married I explained to her that gambling was important to me and as long as she could tolerate annual swings of +/- a few thousand we could go ahead and get married Now I've got family obligations and adulting things to do so gambling is my outlet and I'm blessed with a great wife who lets me spend 1 week per year in Las Vegas.

We are staying at Harrahs for the week. The plan is as follows:
1. Lots of drinking
2. Lots of horse races during the daytime. We generally play at the Harrahs, Flamingo and Bally's racebooks. Listen for loud, drunk guys with small sums of money wagered (think $10-$20/race) cheering horses home as often as possible.
3. Lots of poker in the evenings. We generally play at Harrahs, Flamingo and Ballys. We are small ball and will be playing 1-2 NL but a couple of the guys want to take one shot at 2-5 NL. If I happen to go on a heater I will take a shot with $500 and try to play with the big boys.
4. Annual trip downtown. We always hit the Heart Attack Grill and play one session downtown at the Golden Nugget.
5. We have tickets for The Ultimate Fighter Finale and UFC 213 on July 7th and 8th respectively.

Thanks for reading!

gl, will be following along. long run profitability playing the horses is impressive.

Coming out for the same dates for the UFC and WSOP.

Haven't got any tickets for the fights yet - ticketmaster keeps returning an error for the UF Finale show...

Subbing. Good luck! Have fun. Sounds as if you should play a couple of tournaments.

Yeah we may end up playing a couple of the smaller donkaments. Got packed today after work. Got the plan figured out for Sunday night as well. We all arrive at a buddy's place for 7:30 pm. Drink and hang out. Hit the late show of The House. Back to buddy's place to continue drinking and a quick tourney or two. Grab a few hours of sleep then head to YYZ!

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So had some beers last night and checked out The House. I give it about a 2 out of 5 stars. A few funny bits and mildly entertaining. For our purposes it set the casino/Vegas mood so it was passable. Clunked in for 2nd in the late night donkament before catching a few hours of sleep. Then on the road at 530 am. Arrived at YYZ early and that was fortunate since there was miscommunication between Expedia and the airlines. We waited at the airline counter for nearly an hour. All good now and just ready to start boarding. LAX here we come!

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Well after arriving we did our annual Toby Keiths meal before heading to the Flamingo to play some cards. I was mostly card dead and gave free lessons on turning 300 dollars into 100 dollars over a 6 or 7 hour session. Drinks were flowing and I had lots of laughs so that's just the way it goes.
Only 2 real hands of note. First I reraise an UTG +2 raise with QQ. Initial raiser calls. Flop comes AK9 rainbow. I c bet half pot and get called. At this point I'm certain he has an A so it goes check check on the turn. River is a low card and he bets about 2 thirds of the pot. I fold.
I then called a raise from a guy who I perceived as pretty loose (said he had played a 3k WSOP event that day and I'd seen him stack off with a second nut flush draw I believe it was). I had JJ and in retrospect that should've been a reraise. Flop come 833 rainbow. He checks and I bet. He calls. Turn is a Q. He checks and I bet. He calls. River is an 8. He bets out for about 2 thirds of the pot. I call after some thought. He rolls over 86 off suit. Grrrrr.
I call an Uber and head to a medical dispensary to pick up some gummies. Wait in line for about 15 minutes. Get in and select and pay and I'm out the door in about 10 or 15 minutes. Uber back to the hotel and off to bed.

Today's plan is to hit the race book at Ballys and play some horses then back to the Flamingo for more poker tonight!

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So Tuesday turned into a drunken party at the racebook all day. All the guys from the group were there and we were getting our drink on for sure. At one point we had a 2 tiered structure built with empty beer cans. They loved us!
Had 3 short priced (2 or 3 to 1) from the 18 races I played. All of my price horses ran 3rd which sucks when you are betting win and place. So I was down for the day. After the races we stumbled to Margaritaville for some food then back to the room for a short nap. This nap turned into a full night of sleep which was probably the best given how much we'd been drinking.

Wednesday morning began with a trip downtown to Fremont Street. We did the usual walkaround and bet some horses at the Golden Nugget while some of the other guys played poker. Showed a small.profit thanks to a 6 to 1 shot that got home for me. Headed back to the hotel and grabbed a fee drinks before heading down to work some freeroll hours at Flamingo. Played for an hour. No hands of note. Made some raises with AK and AQ suited hands. Got many callers and whiffed the flop every time. Down 100 dollars. We then headed to Battistas across from Ballys for a delicious pasta meal. Taxes and tip in I think it cost me 33 bucks. Unlimited house wine is included with the meal. The pasta was tremendous and we all left completely stuffed. I give it 2 thumbs up and we will most likely include that in the rotation for future trips. Headed back to the Flamingo and played another 6 hours. Turned 200 into 105. Same thing as far as streaks of card dead followed by a few AK and AQ hands with no luck on the flop. I feel good about my play and stayed very disciplined and resisted the temptation to loosen up. Headed to bed tired but ready to do it all over again today!

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Will have to give Battista's a try if only for the unlimited wine Hope it's not from a box -- at least not a cheap one!

Thursday was a blur! Spent the day at the racebook and ended even for the day at the horses. Headed to the Flamingo for poker after some dinner at Margaritaville. Played for a few hours and booked a small win. Won 2 hands with AK and cbets but folded otherwise.Popped down to NY NY to have a drink with a former university room mate. Shut it down very late. When I got back through the Flamingo one of my buddies was still playing and then he wanted Mcdonalds so I grabbed some food with him before passing out.

Friday all of our gang except one played the 10am Freeroll. I busted 40th in a field of 79. I wasnt playing well based on still being drunk and running on about 2 or 3 hours of sleep. One of my buddies did crack the top 20 for his $250 payday. He was pleased since he had been getting killed at the poker table the entire time. At this point during discussions with my buddies we decided that based on our UFC plans later that day I wouldn't have time for a nap...off to the racebook for drinks to get primed and ready for the fights. To hell with sleeping! My drunkenly scrawled records indicate I was down about 100 bucks at the ponies that afternoon but we certainly got max value in terms of free drinks there!

6 of us made the trek down to T Mobile for the fights. We had good seats and because the card wasn't huge we were able to sit much closer than our tickets. Went 7 for 9 on my parlay ticket after Diakase and Johnson both lost. Headed back to play some poker and ended up a small winner again thanks to a flopped set of kings on my very first hand. Other than that hand I was card dead and had been drinking all day and decided it was a good time to just play my cards and not try anything fancy. Played for approximately 4 hrs before packing it in for the night.

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Saturday woke up feeling somewhat not hungover and headed immediately to the racebook after a shower and began to prime for UFC 213 by drinking and betting the horses! Booked a small profit for the day and again our group got max value from the drink tickets we earned. 5 of us headed down to T Mobile for the fights. The card had lost some of its lustre when (for the 2nd year in a row-thanks Jon Jones for ruining UFC 200) the main event was cancelled. In this case Amanda Nunes withdrew due to medical issues. It's still up in the air whether the withdrawal was justified as more information comes forth. In any case I had a number of bets still alive on the fights from a parlay with TUF Finale from Friday and a whack of new tickets as well. My tickets looked good until the new main event arrived and Yoel Romero lost a close fight by spending a good portion of the 5th round on his back which is normally not where an Olympic silver medallist in freestyle wrestling wants to be! In any case it was exciting and I had the potential for a few hundred bucks profit right until the last round. I certainly got my money's worth.

After the fights we met up with a former university room mate and her friends at MGM for a drink. My buddies headed out and I stuck around for another drink then headed back to meet up with my buddies at Margaritaville for some beer pong. On the way I dropped in to Sin City Brewery and grabbed a T shirt which comes with a free pint. I tried the IPA and quite liked it. Funny story about getting into the brewery itself though. I saw the bartender and customers at the bar but couldn't find an obvious entrance. I walked past to the drug store but there was no door from there. I walked back out past the brewery and talked to a bouncer at the next establishment and asked where the entrance was. He laughed and pointed at a drunk guy passed out on the sidewalk in front of the door. I'd assumed that would've been frowned on by the Sin City people so I had just walked past looking elsewhere for a door.
Made it back to meet up with my buddies and played beer pong and drank with some pilots from Brazil and a group of 20 something guys from Trois Rivieres Quebec who were in Vegas for July to play poker. Good times except when my one buddy sack-tapped me so hard I dropped and security came rushing over. When I explained what had happened and that I'd be fine he laughed and said "Nice friends!" as he walked away. Shut down the beer pong and hit McDonald's at about 5 am before crashing hard until noon the next day.

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Sunday we hit the racebook once again but only nursed a couple of drinks as I was pretty tired and moderately hungover. Broke even for the day and headed back to the room for a quick nap. I had decided that today was the day to start tapering-more sleep and less booze! After the nap a couple of us hit the Flamingo to play cards. Sat at a table with some fellow Canadians. One couple was from BC and as the evening ran its course there were many innuendos being thrown around the table with them. It all started when the flop was 3 handed and the dealer said " We've got 3 way action!". This led to talk of straddles also leading to 3 way action and many other hilarious remarks. I ended up doing a couple Jagerbombs with the wife and then a few more when my buddies arrived at the table. Lots of fun! Poker wise a couple hands that occurred. The first was when I picked up AKo from late position. Villain had been over playing A9, A 10 type hands for the last 2 hours and I was planning on taking advantage of this. She opened from UTG to 11 dollars and she had one caller before it got to me. I popped it to 35 and she was the only caller. Flop came A high with 2 clubs. She checked and I bet 60 and she called. Turn is a blank. She checks and I bet out for 100. She calls. River is a low club and she bets out for 100. I puke call and she shows 58 of clubs for the flush.

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Played with a couple of guys who were chilling after their day 1 of the Main Event. It was interesting to see how much of a different level they were on financially at the tables. They were routinely going in blind for a full 300 and sometimes giving and sometimes receiving suck outs. In a very short period of time there was about 6 or 7 k on the table. A few drunk guys came and sat down but soon left after being stacked. One young guy lost 2 full buy ins in about 3 hands and all he could mutter was "Bro, that's so sick" over and over. I'm not your bro buddy and you're annoying the hell out of me! I was happy to see him leave but sad that I didn't get any of his money.



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