Hey guys:
Sorry about the delay, I've been having a lot of fun, even though I'm not running well at the poker tables. Jstarda9, red rock isn't on the menu ...
Day 1
I caught a 6:45 am flight out of San Jose, with a stop in LAX. I arrived on time at McCarren at 9:30 am. I went straight to the hotel to check my bags, then headed over to The Flamingo to play 1/2. The game was good, but i went down 200 trying to push 2 different players off hands. I managed to recover about 150 of it before my friend met stop by, and we decided to get lunch. We went to Todds over in City Center Mall. I had the grilled cheese (Brie, bacon, and tomatoes) with a Franziskaner, damn it was good.
After Lunch, my friend and I played the 1 pm $70 tournament at Plannet Hollywood. My friend bust early, but I lasted about an hour and a half. I busted 20 BB deep with KK, vs JJ who coverd vs a super short AA vs a short stacked 55. I would have doubled vs the other two players until the river brought a jack ... standard. After that, we walked back to The Westin to check-in. The Westin isn't as nice as I expected. The rooms have the standard modern stuff, but they could use new paint and a new carpet.
Around 4:30, we decided to go downtown to check out Fremont street and have dinner at Vic & Anthony's. Fremont street is cool. It's certainly nicer than when I lasted visited in 1992 during a college roadtrip. Here's a funny story about the trip. Before I got into gambling, I was touring the Southwest with a good friend. We ended up in Vegas after our camping trip in The Grand Canyon was rained out. Anyways, we drove through North Las Vegas, which was a complete dump at the time. We checked-in to Fitzgeralds, which we thought was on the strip ... LMFAO. We quickly concluded that Vegas was a dump and left early the next morning.
We took in all the standard sights downtown: Binnions, The Golden Gate, played blackjack at The Las Vegas Club (dump), and of course The Golden Nugget. I was surprised at how nice The Nugget is. It's the kind of place I'd take my wife and son. They also had this cool 4 person mini-craps table out by the pool, with one person operating it.
Vic and Anthony's was fantastic! We sat at the bar. I had a Manhatten before dinner, with some steak tartar, which was quite good. I had the 16 oz ribeye for dinner with a baked potatoe and a glass of Malbec. I definately recommend eating here.
After dinner, we hit up The Venetian for cash games. I ran bad, and busted AA vs KT. Got it in on the flop (K 2 3), river a ten. Went back to the Hotel at 2:00 am to get some sleep.
Day 1 damage: -$500
Day 2
Woke up at 10 am and had breakfast over at Bally's. We headed over to the Venetian, my buddy wanted to play the nooner. I played 1/2 (bought in for 300) and started out down 100 when i flopped a set of 3s and lost to a rivered gutshot. I recovered and went up 200, then finished down 100.
Next we headed over to The Wynn to have drinks and watch some games at the sports book for a few hours. We were going to go to Lotus of Siam for dinner, but couldn't reach them to make a reservation. We decided against going there, as we didn't want to show up, and spend an hour waiting in the parking lot. Plan B was Haufbrau House, which turned out to be a complete tourist trap. The food was ok, and the waitress was continually trying to sell us merchandise or a commenorative photo: no thanks. I think this place is a pass in the future.
After dinner, we headed over to the Hard Rock. Not much going on, so we opted to play poker at Bally's. The games were really good, but I continued to run bad and ended up down 400. I called it a night a 2 am.
Day 2 damage: -$400.
Hopefully, I'll have some run good on Saturday.