Flew in from the East Coast (DC) Wednesday night. Due to weather delays over the midwest and some technical issues, didn't arrive in Vegas until 1 AM on 10/26. Stayed at Tropicana in the Paradise Tower. Decent room, worth the cheap price. After working a 1/2 day before making my flight, I was exhausted and went right to bed. Lame, but necessary.

10/26: Woke up at 7 AM ready to go. Played in the Excalibur 9 AM tournament. I called it "Donkey-Fest '06". I played in this tournament 3 times during my trip. I consider myself an above average player who understands pot odds, knows the game, and can read people well. I played at 3 different tables and found no one who I would willingly invite to my home game. Poor players who couldn't get away from hands, over-valued any A, and paid me off with obvious draws on the board. I was short stacked and hit quads to triple up, then came back and got paid off on K's and A-Q to be one of the 2 big stacks. I ended up chopping first and second with a donkey calling station because I was starving, and I had tickets to the Price is Right show at noon. Up $450 after tipping the dealers. The Excalibur tournaments are interesting. You start with only $300 in chips with no rebuys, but blinds start at $5/$10 and double every 15 minutes. There were no interim blind levels like $300/$600 or $400/$800. The poker room has no screens to show when the blinds go up, so the director has to go around to announce the blind increase. Dealers did not misdeal, but they messed up several pots and did not control the tables well. It was frustrating for sure.

On 10/27/06, I played in the Excalibur tournament twice and was knocked out in the first 5 hands both times. First time, I had 2 pair, K's/Q's and ran into a set of 5's. Second time, first hand, I hit a set of 6's, called an all in bluff and got caught in a runner-runner backdoor flush to send me out. For the $70 investment, it wasn't bad, but the donkey play there was horrible. If you're a good player, I recommend not going there unless you're feeling lucky. You have to double up twice in the first hour just to have a shot at the final table, and the players are horrible. You can't bluff them, but you can make reads and get away from hands. It's a $35 investment, but more of a roll of the dice than anything.

I stopped by Hooters on 10/27/06 for a drink and to check on their tournament. They have a $27 buy-in, $5 add-on, $10 unlimited rebuy for the first hour tournament every morning at 10 AM. The room is small, but looks cool. No one was playing at 4 PM on a Thursday, but they were "hoping to get a game going". I would recommend against the tournament, as it looks poor, but I would imagine it is an easy cash game to run over on a weekend.

I ate at MGM, but there were no seats available for their cash games when I was there. Didn't want to wait an hour. The tables all have auto shufflers, and the dealers looked very competent and kept the game moving. I was told by a good friend that the $200 min/max cash game is a great money play, if you can find a seat.

I played a lot at Paris, as I moved over to the Aladdin on Friday, 10/27. I played at the $1/$2 NL table against very stiff competition. I hit a bad run of cards early, then won a few pots. In the end, I didn't have the stack to compete with the big boys (they had $500 each in front to my $150), and two of them were local semi-pros. It was stiff competition, but I enjoyed myself. The dealers were very friendly and did a good job. No misdeals. I felt good tipping well after big hands.

Paris Tournaments, 10/28: Bad beat stories. I played in 2 Paris tournaments, the 11 AM $40 and the $55 5:30 PM. Both have decent blind structures and tend to draw 40-60 players. There were a few good players, but there were no pros out there. There were a lot of aggressive donkeys, so I played a tight aggressive style that paid off well, until I ran into the worst beat of my brief career. Early in the 11 AM tournament, I picked up pocket K's, pocket J's, A-K, and A-J in succession. I built my $2000 stack into $4000, and I was about to become a monster. Playing my rush, I limped in early position with a 4-5 of spades and called a small raise with pot odds. There were 4 other players. Flop came out 4-4-8. I checked, and it checked around to the last player, who bet $300 (1/3 of the pot). I raised to $600, and everyone folded to the original raiser, who went all in for about 60% of my stack. This guy played a lot of hands, but I was pretty sure he didn't have a 4. I called, and he had K-10 of diamonds and was trying to bully. The guy to my left told me he folded A-K. The dude caught runner runner case K-s for a better full house. 4500-1 shot. I wasn't crippled, but it shook me pretty badly. I still played well and finished 18th out of 50 when my pocket Q's lost to quad J's.

In the 5:30 PM tournament, I again started strong, slow-playing trip A's, bluffing two other good players at the table out of a $1000 pot, and making a good read to bust a shorter stack with pocket 6's. We were down to 16 players, and I was medium stack. I had just stolen the $400/$800 blinds with decent hands (K-10, Q-J), when I picked up pocket Q's. It got limped around to me with 2 callers, so I raised to $2500 and got 1 caller. Flop came out J-2-2. I figured my Q's were good, so I pushed the smaller stack all in. He had 5's and caught his 5 on the turn to cripple me. I went all in blind then next hand with my last $1000 and lost to Aces.

All in all, I was ahead on my gambling by $150, and it was a good trip. Would definitely play in the Paris again. Want to try the MGM next time.