Las Vegas, Day One

Thursday, March 6th:

8 AM - early rendezvous with roommate Mike Milner to share a cab to the airport. I eat a muffin for breakfast and have a coffee. I was only able to get maybe 4 hours of sleep, so I plan to make my first night in Vegas an early one to get charged up for a long weekend of fun.

11:30 AM - takeoff from YVR with two others from our large group of 14 travelers to Vegas. Arrive in Vegas where I discover slot machines at an airport, which is a first for me.

The four of us shuttle over to the rental car area where Eitan happily upgrades his rental car to a white Mustang convertible. Natually his girlfriend Kim rides shotgun, and the Mustang doesn't exactly have a large trunk, so Mike and I are left holding huge suitcases in our laps as I get my first glimpse of the Las Vegas Strip, complete with the "Girls in 20 mins" Mexican guys standing around handing out cards. Gridlock ensues and we inch along to the Paris where Mike and I are staying and we get ourselves checked in at 4:45PM. The desk person mistakenly assigns us to a room with a king-sized bed rather than the two queens we'd asked for (insert ghey joke of your choice here) and we finally get that straightened out and settled in by 5 o'clock.

By 5:30 Mike and I are sitting down at the Bellagio buffet for our first meal of the day. I manage nearly four helpings plus dessert.

At 7:45 after nearly two hours of constant eating, I decide to walk it off with a long, long walk to see some sights and gawk some more at the spectacles that a first-timer sees with fresh eyes in Vegas. Mike acts as a knowledgeable tour guide as we walk through several casinos and hotels.

At 11PM, we meet up with a slew of our group at the poker room at Planet Hollywood (where the majority all stayed) for some NL 1/2. The game was softer than I dared dream. Mike is able to make the first hammer play of the trip as he flops two pair and felts someone. I lose a chunk of my stack to a calling station when I flop the nut flush draw and second pair and play it hard in position (I was the preflop raiser on the button with A8s) vs. a calling station who can't fold top pair, no kicker (JT) on a scary board (J-8-5, Q, 7).

I chisel back with a nice OBFV (which wasn't called) with KK on the turn on a J-high flop with two diamonds. I finally flop a set of sixes on a 69T flop and lead out for $30 from the big blind in a multiway pot. A shorty raised all-in for $10 more and the drunk girl to my immediate right called $40 cold. I overcall and check when the board pairs the ten, giving me sixes full. Sadly I can't take down a juicy side pot when I OBFV on the river when a blank falls on the river.

The session ends at 1:30 AM; I cash out +$83.

I head back to the hotel and crash at about 2AM.