As promised: My last Vegas trip!

Dear readers,
As I mentioned last week back in May I travelled to the world's poker capital : Vegas. That was not my first trip to Sin City but in my previous visits I still was a poker virgin and gambled quite a bit on the other main house games (Roulette , BJ, etc. ).
I chose to fly with one stop-over in Detroit, got a good deal with North West so quite a few pounds were saved on the flight. However , from now on I intend to fly over there only direct, it's such a pain to have to wait for and suffer a second cross country flight after crossing the Atlantic. Moreover, the internal flights do not have the entertainment on offer you normally get on the long haul ones so it's really gruelling in the end.
I arrived there on May the first, at about 5pm, really tired but very excited ! Got a taxi to the Sahara and before I knew I was unpacked and ready to go. My hotel choice was based purely on the price , got such a good offer at the Sahara and on the whole the hotel is ok. It's a bit out of the way but has a monorail station right at the back, which takes you anywhere on the Strip for 5$. If you like walking it's pleasant to walk back from the strip at night when it's not so hot so all in all location was not such an issue to me.
Money wise I wasn't really worried , even though I really had a mediocre bankroll for such a trip. I might have been in trouble if things turned sour at the poker tables but overall was pretty confident on my ability to beat low stakes there.
Prior to my trip I had been researching quite a bit of info about the Vegas poker scene so I knew what to expect. My plan was to play mainly 1-2$NL and combine a schedule mixing well known soft games with an extensive tour of all the main poker rooms. The first two days were absolutely awesome. In fact on Saturday the 2nd I went to the Venetian after an excellent breakfast at the Peppermill and had what would be my best session while in Vegas, raking a $1000 profit. That very same night I went to the MGM and even though I did not really like any of the tables I played at ended up profiting a further $100.
The next day, Sunday the 3rd, was also an excellent poker day. I met a really nice Italian guy playing at the IP ( Imperial Palace ) and made about $400 there. This Italian guy and I would spend most of week 1 together, he was also by himself and wanted to follow my poker schedule and have some nice meals and that sort of thing. I do not have a problem going to nice restaurants by myself but some people, and that was his case, really need someone with them to enjoy a proper holiday : nice meals , shows and the lot.
Over the course of the next few days I played at different card rooms, only had one losing day and the only place I played at consistently was the Venetian. The Venetian has a gorgeous poker room, the design is outstanding. On top of that the dealers are very professional , the cocktail service is excellent, they comp you $1 in food vouchers per hour played and the rake is very reasonable, $4 max. They always have loads of games going, so if you find a tough table it's easy to be transferred to an easier one. Most staff are really friendly and overall the room is run close to perfection.
It was such a treat after a few hours playing at the Venetian every morning to redeem your food voucher and have some lunch at the Grand Lux Cafe. This eatery is within the Venetian main Casino floor and in my opinion provides great value for money. Both food quality and service are well above average.
During my second weekend I had one monster rollercoaster poker session. It started awfully at the MGM. I was second best all night, when turning a straight was rivered by a flush, when rivering a full house was cleaned by quads, when pushing with trips second kicker was defeated by trips top kicker, and so on and on and on. I was playing well but could not get anything going. I lost my initial $200 buy-in, followed by another $200. Against my personal rules I re-bought a third time, the tables were good and my game was sharp so I was hoping to re-bounce at that point. None of it, after a few hours of trying got rivered once more and left very fed up with $91 in my pocket at 4 in the morning. At that point felt hungry and decided to try the late night Steak special at Bill's. Bill's is a small mid-Strip popular casino. The waiting list for the special was HUGE so thought of trying Harrah's instead. Harrah's located also quite centrally on the Strip and the late night Steak special was great for a cool $7 ! After the meal I did not feel like going to bed and somehow the thought of trying out a degenerate early morning poker session at the IP sounded so appealing that could not resist it and went there.
Now , that session at the IP, was THE SESSION. I found a friendly table with an open seat right there waiting for me.There was a large guy that looked like a half baked potato donating money left and right. Obviously his game was sub-standard and in addition to that he had a huge stack of about $800: great :-). I proceeded to double up my $91 twice through that guy and after that just played very solid till 6 pm !!! Yes , 6 pm, it was a marathon session. That guy ended up broke ( surprise , surprise ) and the rest of the table consisted of a mix of decent players and lousy gamblers. Needless to say that picking the right spots to grab some chips was plain easy. When I left gave all my chips to the nice lady behind the counter and cashed out for a cool $900. Not bad considering how things had been at the MGM the previous night and my short starting stack.
The Imperial Palace is not a fancy hotel by any means and its poker room is small but they often have juicy games and I strongly recommend it as part of any low stakes grinder schedule.
During my second week in Vegas I started to feel how tiring it was to try to concentrate at the poker table when you aim to turn a profit on a daily basis. Moreover it is so difficult to keep up a healthy life style during such a holiday. As a result everyday I was leaving the poker tables a bit earlier than the first week and enjoying some relaxing Pai-Gow poker at the Sahara. Pai-Gow poker is a house game that you can play without challenging your brain at all with a cool free bloody Mary in hand and it's easy to break even.
One negative factor while in Vegas was the heat. I had been to Vegas before in May, but this time around the average temperature was way higher. To be honest that's not a problem when you are playing cards since all properties feature Nordic climate indoors. However , it's nice to be out and about , walk during the day, make the most of the outdoors, and that helps your poker performance. When it's that hot you cannot really enjoy being in the streets and therefore run out of energy easily.
To sum up , the holiday was awesome, had loads of winning poker sessions and only a few losses, met some nice people, had great meals and cannot wait to go back again. My next Vegas adventure will start on October the 2nd and will be a Mega-holiday, ending on October 24th.
Thanks for reading and please send me any feed-back about the blog or question you may have about my poker live in London in general or my Vegas trip in particular.
XXX