Halloween in Vegas

Arrived last night late and was not prepared to play - great people watching though as Halloween was in full bloom. Lots of underdressed Christine Aguilera look alikes -also French maids, playboy bunnies, Little Bo Peeps, Heidi's, nurses, etc. - all of which kept an old guy like me entertained for a while, but the poor girls must have been freezing !

Has taken a while to get used to not smoking in a casino environment - at first I was craving - then I was grossed out; and it varies from hour to hour.

The poker room is a good place for a reforming smoker and the BJ table is not !

Decided my game was not sharp enough to warrant entry into today's Deep Stack ($550 entry) at Venetian - ended up entering a tourney at the Wynn - their entry fee was $225. Only 33 players but a 20000 chip starting stack though the blinds accelerated real fast.

Five places paid - first $2100 or so ; 4th over $800 and 5th over $400.

The final table as a group were nervous and wanted to chop as soon as we got there - except the chip leader (and I said nothing as he was already against it)

We got down to 6 players slowly and the levels were 4000-8000 and a 500 ante. I was third stack. They all wanted to chop and it was up to me to agree or not.

The new chip leader had about double my stack (he had just won a major suck out with A10 vs AK - on the river) - but at the same time I was 1 hand or so away from taking his place and also rather enjoying myself - but we all knew how unpredictable the outcome could be.

Plus half of them wanted to quit; have dinner; and then enter satellites for tomorrow's $1070 entry at the Venetian.

So who was I to argue? We each took $1080 away and broke up the game just under 6 hours after we started.

I played pretty well - I realized after that I was never all-in for all my chips the whole time.

There were lots of suck outs today - AQ was killed twice by A4o and twice by KQo and KQs.

Aces were not safe either - One hand the button three bet pre flop with his Aces and the BB called with sevens. The flop was 776 and the button shoved !!

I got river-lucky a couple of times on key hands - For example I had AC QS vs a shorter stack JJ all-in. The first four cards were bricks but the flop included two clubs; the turn was a club; and the river a club also causing the Jacks to fall on their swords and exit stage left.

I played some blackjack at the Mirage this morning. Got down $400; bought another $500 and ended up $500 after a 1 shoe rush.

Went for a long walk up the strip tonight and lost $280 playing shoe BJ at Caesars cause I needed a diversion.

Now I head downstairs to my "office" at the Venetian - for my first play here of the trip.

It's all good !