Now safely home in Malta, after what was a fairly quick trip home it felt like. Managed to sleep a fair bit on both flights (LAS - LGW and LGW - MLA), and no stress with connections/luggage etc. like on inbound travel.

I did not play any more poker yesterday, but managed to squeeze in a quick session of 'Casino War' at Harrahs before leaving. As most have realized by now I don't really have any degen tendencies at all, but after reading about this game in the great book(s) by famous 2+2'er Chuck Bass *, it sounded so awesomely silly that I just had to try it.

Basically you get one card, the dealer gets one card, and whoever have the highest card wins. The ultimate skill game I promptly lost my $60 buy-in in a few hands, only winning once.


* 'Once A Gambler' part 1 and 2 by Miikka Anttonen, a must read for anyone on 2+2 imo. *


I just want to say thanks for all the nice comments along the way. Having people invested certainly makes it easier to update and take pictures etc. I am definitely going to Vegas again in 2018, if not before. Only time will tell, but already looking forward to whenever it may be.

/O

Nice active trip report from you guys. If you figure out time travel let me know how far back you're going. I'd like to re-do some stuff.

Hahaha nice one, I think he was referring to that we might either do a trip late this year or early next year.

Summary for me some time tomorrow.


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Have any of you guys ever been there during the WSOP? If not, you can't make another trip without experiencing the spectacle of the WSOP.

Great TR. Thanks for sharing.

So I woke up at 4 am local time and automatically wondered if I should get a tall latte at Starbucks and then find a game at either Venetian or Flamingo, and then realized - back to reality!

And now for a summary of the TR, as a first timer in Vegas.

Tourneys: -$2200 / no cashes

The very first tourney I entered at the Venetian probably defined the entire trip. To recap I managed to finish 17th out of 129 players with 15 places paid when I ran AK into QJ on AKTxx board against an older lady. Brutal start that basically continued the entire trip, every set ran into a bigger set and every big pair ran into AA. Nothing to do here really, just a big disappointment.

Cash games: Really feel good about this one, few ups and downs but generally ended up a couple of buyins. Really enjoyed playing and unless the game was full of regs it was fairly easy. Played at Aria, Venetian, Flamingo, Harrahs, PH, Bellagio and a couple of other places that I cannot remember and I think I booked a profit at all of them except Venetian where I more or less broke even.

Pits: It was really fun but also really cruel at times. Had the two hand pays, and other than that I had a few really huge swings at blackjack. Someone asked me a few pages back how I manage to book win after win, well here it is. At the end of the TR I am actually down a substantial amount at BJ, mainly thanks the incredible pressing at freebet blackjack. Did I enjoy it? Hell yeah! Do I regret it? Not the slightest. Add to that the loads of food and clothes I bought from the VP hit and I think we are good

Sure, would have been nice to book a profit and cash/win a few tourneys, but at the end of the day I set aside a bankroll that I would spend and was okay with it. My life does not depend on it and I can surely afford it, so it is whatever.

Vegas in general: Wow, what a crazy place! Specially as a first timer. It took a lot of time to get used to it, and I have to say you cannot really appreciate it the first time around. Now that we have all the touristy stuff and all the walking out of the way I will mainly focus on staying at one property per day the next trip. While it was fun moving around we did a ton of 16+ hours, waking up at 6-7-8 in the morning, grabbing breakfast and finding a cash game, then tourney, then another cash game until late at night. While it sure is possible it is extremely exhausting and resulted in me basically passing out second to last day and sleeping for 14 hours straight.

Anywho, next year we will definitely focus on going for at least 10 days. Most of that will be at a certain property with very minimal moving around. More chill.

We also plan to go an extra 3 days with S., hire a car and go out to Red Rock. It was an amazing experience with so much to see in so little time and would be really awesome to just camp out there for a few days. That also means we will go during March Madness, as it was a little bit too hot this time.

Overall it was a great experience, although it went really fast. Thanks again for reading and hopefully we will be back March next year! Main focus will be on cash games only then.

And obviously there are things that I forgot to write about. We have still tons and tons of stuff to do in Vegas that we simply did not have time for. So for next trip:

- Kabuto
- Downtown/Fremont street
- Carnevino (Family was in town, they chose a place called Joe´s seafood steak and stone crab, although it was decent it wasn´t THAT good)
- And a ton of other properties that I did not enter or play at that I still need to go to.

Hehe, meant to write 2019. I wrote that post just before going to bed and sleeping for 15 hours straight, so brain was certainly not functioning properly.

Great TR lads read the lot instead of doing some decorating, have to book a holiday yet for this year, this TR might just sway it

GG

Anyone here collecting chips and recognize this one? Picked up as it stood out at Harrahs, a 2004 chip. Probably not rare or anything, just a nice one








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thank you and congratulations on an awesome trip report Scandis! As somebody who has tried and dismally failed with a live TR in the past, I appreciate how much effort it takes and I thought you did it really well.

I also thought the joint/collaborative TR idea was really good and worked well...it probably also took a little pressure off you individually to have somebody else contributing.

Given it was your first time in Vegas, please give us all a few 'bests'

Best poker room
Best casino environment
Best meal
Best non gambling attraction/activity
Best bar/night spot you went to

also, what did you think of Harrahs? Were you in an old room or the new tower?

Jetlagged as hell so why not

Best poker room - Bellagio by far, super clean and everything
Best casino environment - They are all the same, but probably PH - girls!
Best meal - Hard one! Lobster roll at Lobster Me probably?
Best non gambling attraction/activity - Red Rock canyon hike by many miles!
Best bar/night spot you went to - Haha that is a pretty hard one. Would you be disappointed if I said we didn´t really go to any bar in particular?

We stayed at the newly renovated tower in Harrahs. Room was really great, except for the bathroom. Next year we will either go back to Harrahs and request a room with a different bathroom, or if that is not possible then stay at another property. Although not a major issue, it can be really inconvenient at times.

thanks.

I've never thought about doing the Red Rock hike, but maybe I should.

what was wrong with the bathroom?

Red Rock was so impressive that we are contemplating going 2-3 days next year. Hire a car in Vegas, load it with stuff and camp somewhere. 4 hours wasn’t enough at all.

Re the bathroom: Extremely low pressure + fixed shower head. Was super annoying.


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One of the best trip reports I’ve read on here, kudos to all of you.

Happy to hear! Good news, two trips are planned. One either October or November this year and one March 2019.


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Cheers. As K wrote above, we're planning another (And more extensive) trip in March next year. Obv. a TR, which will ideally have even better standards than this one, will follow to that one as well

/ J

Quick summary of above list to see how I did on my goals:

* Workout: FAIL, however I got sick from day 3 and onward which naturally halted any progression here.

* Trooper Thursday: WIN, although playing Thursday evening severely jet-lagged was probably not the best idea. Enjoyed the atmosphere in the game though, and Trooper himself was really nice and clearly went out of his way to make conversations flowing etc.

* 8-game tourney: WIN, but not entirely happy with my play. Made the mistake of having a losing session at cash immediately before heading to The Orleans, and was a bit frustrated. Didn't make any huge mistakes, but were a few spots I could have played better had I been in a better frame of mind. Great tournament though, and glad to see it get such a nice turnout!

* Downtown: WIN, but really need to go down again next time in Vegas with more time to look around. Would have liked to make it over to Container Park, try the self-driving car, etc.. Also would have enjoyed to play more at Golden Nugget, watch a band at Fremont Street Experience (although I catched the tail end of one band after my session) and so on.

Poker rooms: WIN, I believe the only ones I still haven't tried now are Treasure Island and Binion's. The latter will probably disappear until I'm back in Vegas, but I assume MGM Park (former Monte Carlo) will open a poker room when they are fully operational? Either way, with most rooms out of the way I can focus a bit more on longer sessions in each room next time around.

/O

did you visit any of the Utah National Parks, like Bryce, Zion, or Canyonlands?

First time in both Vegas and US for me, so nope but I have heard a lot about Bryce and might be worth to visit.

On completely unrelated news I just booked a trip October 1-8. So far it looks like it will be a solo one, there might be a slim chance that O. joins but we will see.


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It's not exactly Sweden, but it still gets a little cold at night out in the desert in October. Bring your woolies if you're going to camp.

Just want to reflect on one quick thing, the food budget. Before the TR people mentioned that $100 a day might not be enough, and I can only say it really depends on who you are and what you would like to do. I did not keep too good track (and obv had sick wins which resulted in sick dinners etc) but I would guess I had at least 2-3 days where I spent on average $50 on food. This is with breakfast covered by the hotel and us walking 90% of the time.

$100 a day is perfectly doable if you are OK with not eating at really fancy places every day. Specially in case you are a degen european who loves warm weather and loves to walk, it resulted in several 10km++ days

Excellent TR!

If you do others, make sure to link them in this thread so we can follow the sequels.

Quick bump to this. We just booked 11 nights (14 days total including travel) March 25th to April 5th. Crew is the same, but we have booked Mirage instead for some variety and also thanks to a sick offer. Only 7 months to go, sigh...

Sounds good-Mirage is top stuff and good value for money. Me and my buddy stayed there 2 weeks during the WSOP couple years ago, very good experience.