Yesterday we moved from the Plaza into the Golden Nugget, the rooms are way nicer here. In the arvo I had a bit of a snooze then we watched a couple of instructional poker videos from a guy from the 2+2 forums called VinnyVT. After that we got room service for dinner which was ordinary. The spagetti was greasy and crap and Ive got a bit of a cold so I didnt feel like eating that much.

After dinner we went downstairs to the casino and got sat at seperate tables for the 1/2NL game. We played for about 3 hours, I didnt play any big hands at all and finished with a small win, but andy made quad 5’s on one hand which not only let him win a big hand, but it qualified for a jackpot! yay for Andy.

Yesterday morning I took the photos below from the balcony and then went to bed, got up about 10am. Me and Andy finally decided to be proactive and go to the gym. It was alright, pretty small room that was cold because of the air conditioner. I was kinda tired from not sleeping that much.

We were planning to meet up with our friend Doug who lives here. Doug is 19 and plays poker full time, we got to talking with him through the online poker forums. We were going to meet on monday to drive 2.5hrs to an American-Indian casino (legal age in USA is 21 but the indian ones are 18 for some reason) but unfortunately he rang Andy last night to tell him that he had just been in a car accident in the car that was going to drive us to the casino. His friend was driving and the car was pretty buggered, but everyone was So no trip tommorow. I think we will just meet up with him locally in the next week or so.

Me and Andy had another go at playing 2/4NL last night and ran crap again, we didnt pick up any hands and then lost an $800 pot with KK vs AA. I dont think we are playing badly, we just havnt had much luck in the split sessions in the last few goes. I fell asleep after that about 12 midnight watching curb your enthusiasm.

This morning I got up around 7 and had a monster session online, playing 2500 hands and recording my biggest win in a single session, just over $1500. Crickets a funny game, I basically played exactly the same style as the night before with a totally different result. I played probably 15 really big “all in” hands in the session and in almost all of them my hand was a favourite and it held up.

About 11am we checked out of the plaza and moved just down the road to the golden nugget. The room looks alright, no fridge or anything which is kinda annoying, but the hotels here just dont seem to have the same level of facilities that they do in Australia. We are here for the next 7 nights. We will probably go play a live game tonight and then go bowling or something tommorow.

Heres the latest photos.

This is me standing in front of the Golden Nugget, where we are staying for a week, and Binions Horseshoe. They are both a couple of the oldest casinos in downtown Vegas.

This is a photo around 5:30 am from our balcony at the Plaza.

Andy standing at one end of Fremont St, the main street in downtown Vegas.

Important stuff out of the way first, I just got home (3am) and checked NRL.com to find that the Raiders beat the bulldogs 58-18 in Sydney! 2 weeks ago Raiders had lost 3 in a row and were written off from making the finals. Since then we have hit form with an excellent win against the Broncos at home and then a rare away win against the Bulldogs in Sydney and are now just 2 points out of the top 8.

Yesterday was the quietest day of the trip so far, consisting of sitting around the hotel room (Vegas Club), sleeping, watching episodes of Curb your enthusiasm, and playing poker. Only left the room at dinner time to get something to eat. Ive got a minor cold (as does Hui) so it was good to have a quiet one. Last night Me and Andy had a go at playing some higher stakes together online, we played well but got some sick beats and ended up a little in the red.

This morning I got up and played online again, and had one of those sessions you dream about. I played for around 2 hours and made just over $1000. After that we checked out of the Las Vegas Club and into another place just across the road called the Plaza. The first rooms (we booked 2) they put us in absolutely reeked of smoke, but a few hours later we ended up moving rooms which was good. Me and Andy had another go at the 1/2NL game at the Golden Nugget and Hui joined us about an hour in. I worked my $200 stack up to around $450, then made a couple of weak plays which saw me finish $23 down overall for the night. Disappointing to be up that much and then to lose it, but I know where I went wrong so ill try and correct that for next time.

The Sun is coming up now so it must be time for bed. Not sure what we are up to today, but hopefully in the next few days we will book some tickets to see Jerry Seinfeld performing.

We left Tuscany in the morning and arrived downtown about 12. I was bloody tired since staying up all night seemed like a good idea at the time. Luckily they let us check in early, so we dropped our stuff off and got a taxi to walmart. We shopped for about an hour, on the way out we were waiting for the taxi and saw 2 cars nearly collide trying to steal each others parking spot (it was a good spot). The guy jumped out and started abusing the women in the other car and then sulked off. It was pretty funny.

On the way back we had this crazy taxi driver who asked us if they have walmarts in london. He was having a bad day for some reason and we all had to squish into the back seat of the taxi to make room for his Mcdonalds which took the front seat. It was a fun and entertaining trip back.

When we got back I had a snooze and then me and Andy had another live session, this time at the Golden Nugget, one of the old school casinos. It was an uncapped game, which means you can buy in for any amount. Andy bought in for $300 and I bought in for $200. There were several players with over $1000 in front of them at the table. The game didnt seem that good at first, except there was this one huge fish who was playing every hand and raising around 80% of them pre flop. I can only remember 2 biggish hands I played, the first was AQ in a multiway pot where i flopped Q33 and won around $120, and another hand where I had AK and flopped 2 pair and won about $170.

Andy had one really big hand where he played played brilliantly in a pot against the fish at the table, he made a full house vs the fishes straight and won a pot of about $700. We made friends with 2 guys at the table that were very good players who play online. They had lived in Hawaii but have moved to LA and were in Vegas for a few nights on their days off work. We will probably see them there again tonight.

We both finished up with wins just shy of $250, giving us combined winnings over around $1000 for the trip, which is an excellent return for just 3 live sessions.

After we quit the game around 3am we went to the local maccas and got a feed. The “Large” size here really is…large. We got some photos of the flashy casino lights and then came home, watched a few episodes of Curb your enthusiasm and then went to bed. When we were at the wall mart we bought a sleeping bag/air mattress for Andy since we only have the 2 beds in the room. He was originally going to sleep on this fold out bed which the staff brought up, but after we discovered it was hilariously uncomfortable (well i thought it was hilarious) we thought we better buy a mattress. I woke around 7am this morning to see a very frustrated and tired Andy sleeping on the floor on top of a deflated air mattress explaining that we needed some special pump to actually blow the thing up. Oops.

After coming home last night, i stuffed around on the net for a while and realised i was very tired. I slept from around 11am-6pm and got up and chatted to sara on skype for a while. After that I had another online poker session and then we all headed out to Bally’s Casino for our second live session of the trip.

Ive been getting complaints that no one can understand the poker jargon so ill cut it out as much as I can. Me and Andy were sat at different tables. Once again the games were not as bad as I hoped, but they were soft enough. I bought in for $200 and Andy bought in for $300. I only had 1 big hand during the session, where I was dealt KK and ended up winning around a $200 pot. At one point I had around $340 in front of me, but a lack of patience and a few heinikens lead to a couple of speculative hands and a dumb bluff costing me $70, which saw me leave at 1AM with $220. So not a big win, but im happy to be 2 wins out of 2 live poker sessions this trip. Andy didnt catch many hands and finished with a small loss.

I walked the kilometre or so back to the motel around 2am and had a yarn, Hui went out again to watch the end of a tournament at Binions casino. I played some more online for a few hours and despite taking an absolutely sickening beat in a $400 pot (just ask Andy) I managed to book my 5th straight winning online session.

Hui came home about 6am and we started searching for some accommodation on the net, as we are getting kicked out today. After a bit of searching for a cheapish place that offers wireless, Andy booked us into the Las Vegas Club Hotel and Casino on the other side of town for 2 nights.
Its 7am now and we will be leaving in a few hours. Looking forward to going to our new place to have a snooze.

In the morning me and andy had around a 3 hour online poker session. He played around 16 tables on pokerstars and I averaged somewhere around 10-12 on chanpoker. He finished up with 4000 hands and I played 2500.

In the afternoon we went to the Rio, where the world series is being played. It was hot again and we ended up getting a taxi. We saw a number of famous players in the poker bit of the casino inluding Tony G, Barry G, Juanda, Negreanu, Benyamine, Ferguson, Lederer.

Me, Hui and Andy played a $175 sattelite to the $1500 WSOP event. We all played well, we got down to the last 5 before Andy busted out. I had a lot of chips but then lost 2 quick hands where i was around a 75% favourite and ended up busting in 4th. Hui was next to go in 3rd. So a dissapointing result but the fact that almost all the other players were absolutely terrible was encouraging.

In the Afternoon We played a little more online and then had a short lived gym session. We arrived at the gym about 9:50 and at 10pm a security guy came and told us it was closing. We all went to bed soon after that, me and andy set the alarm for 3am so we could get up and play our first session live. We plan to play in the early hours to hopefully run into lots of tired, drunk players at our table that have been at the casino for hours.

For some reason the alarm didnt go off but I woke up around 3:30am anyway and by 4:30am we were buying in for $300 each at a 1/2NL table at the venetian. The table we were at was not quite as soft as I had expected, but still far far easier than the online equivalent. There were probably 3 people at the table playing every hand and the other players were generally weak. There was probably only 1 or 2 other guys at the table that were actually aggressive. Me and Andy decided to split our winnings losses to reduce a bit of variance.

My first and only big hand came about an hour into the game. I had pocket 4’s in middle position, and I called a $7 raise from a guy who acted before me. Another guy behind me called too. The flop was a lovely J42 with 2 diamonds. The original raiser bet $10, a weak bet which made me think he was on a flush draw or had a J. I raised to $45 and the guy behind me called as well as the guy who bet $10. I was sure one or both of them had a flush draw, so when the 8 of diamonds came on the turn I was a little worried. It was checked through and then the river was another 2 and I made my boat. The early position guy bet $60 and I raised to $200. The guy behind me folded and it was back to the early position guy. I was 99% sure he had a flush so and thought he would pay me off. After thinking about it for ages he called with the nut flush and I raked in a $600 pot, by far my biggest ever pot playing live.

There were no other big hands, just smallish ones that were won on the flop or turn. I got all in preflop with QQ against a shortstacked guy who had KJ (so i was around a 75% favourite) but he got lucky and hit a K on the flop and I lost a $140 pot. I ended up cashing out $540 and Andy did the same, after winning a pretty big pot with KK. It was a nice session so hopefully we can have another good one later today.

Hello welcome to my first blog. Ill try to update this regularly for the duration of the trip.

I met up with Andy and Hui at sydney airport on june 15th (sunday morning aus time). Sara and Mum were with me so I said goodbye to them and we hopped on the plane about 1pmm. The flight was ordinary, we played a bit of poker and blackjack on the plane to pass the time, and I also played chess and stuffed around on my laptop. I think I slept about 2 hrs. I think they maybe gave us 2 or 3 kinda crap meals. All in all it was a long 12 hr flight.

We arrived at LA at 11am local time, got absolutely grilled by the immigration/customs guys about where we were from, what the purpose of our trip was, where we were staying etc. I managed to restrain myself from telling any terrorist jokes.

LA to LV - another crap flight, really bumpy and me and Hui especially felt ordinary by the end of it. Possibly something to do with the food on the previous flight. But we made it….to find they had left half our luggage in LA. Andys showed up on the next flight, but mine and Huis didnt arrive to our hotel until about 8pm.

We checked in to Tuscany hotel and casino around 2pm (i think) and spent the next few hours getting a feed, and walking around the strip. there was a temperature thing on one of the buildings that told us it was 47 degrees..yuck…when we were walking back to our hotel at 7pm we saw it again and it was STILL 47 degrees. Anyway the strip basically consists of casino after casino, the ones we went into included the venetian (sp?), harrahs, cesars palace..and that all i can think of. I have no idea what one was what…all i remember is lots of poker machine noises and flashy things. we didnt play any games or anything, just walked through them all.

I think today we will probably have a online poker session then tonight maybe go and try our luck live. Andy went really well in the live poker games last year so hopefully that is a sign of things to come for both of us. Hui is planning to play blackjack aswell so good luck to him on that. We have another 2 nights here in Tuscany then we have to sort out some other accomodation. Its about 5am now (day 2, 16th july) so I will probably write another blog tonight or tommorow morning and give an update.

p.s when we got here we logged on to the net and saw that the raiders had a win over the broncos. woo hoo!