This is my first trip report so it may be boring..But here it goes..Its a little long...

We left Fresno California Monday morning around 9am for the drive over to Vegas. I usually fly in to Vegas from Fresno but this time we decided to drive. The fact that the flights were $300 per person was a factor, but I dont mind the drive through the Mojave desert. Its boring as hell but its straight away empty highway. We stopped for a brief lunch and gas break in the middle of nowhere and then arrived in Vegas around 2 30 pm. The drive was long but i was feeling good. After dropping the car at the valet we check in at the MGM and went up to our room.

The rooms were nice with a decent view of HOOTERS casino right across from us. The room rate was $59 per night, thanks to a tip from Arp(MapleLeafPoker) Thanks Arp for the tip. After a brief rest and change of clothes we head down to check the action, my wife goes to the pool and I head straight to the poker room. The MGM poker is not bad, not my favourite room in Vegas. There is about 20 games going on , 17 of them are no limit, 10 of them being of the 1-2 variety. Myself being a limit player didnt find this room very much to my liking. I sit in the highest limit game they have which happens to be $4-$8 lol. I buy in for two racks and find myself down $100 really quick after the same guy beats me with 3 outers on 3 consecutive hands. The game is extremely good and my talent eventually get me back to roughly even. Its like a loss as I should be beating these suckers for 3 big bets an hour.

Get back to the room and shower and we head out to a sushi bar..WAYYYY off the strip. Nice place for locals to hang out..Fresh sushi as much as you can eat for $25..From their we head over to the RIO to check out the WSOP action. As we are walking in Annie Duke walks by, she looks a little skinny and seemed cocky.

Walk into the tournament area and see that a tourney is going on. Run into NUTZBUSTER and his wife and I see they are railing our boy TROYOMAC(RAY). He was pretty deep into the $1500 HORSE and he was immediately on the right of Mr Phil Hellmuth himself. Watched Ray for a while and listened to Hellmuth and Matusow make jokes. Nutzbuster and his wife very cool people. We wish Ray good luck and we are off. I believe Ray went on to cash for something like $3500..Good job Ray.

As we are walking out of the tourney area towards our car we pass by the tourney registration area for the main event and there is a guy behind the counter that was extremely familiar. Me and my wife are like, this guy looks so familiar but who is he...Then it hits me its CHICKEN GEORGE from Big Brother. If you dont watch Big Brother you wouldnt know him. We walk over to him and say we are big fans of the show, he got a big kick out of it, we shook hands and then we were off.

Next morning I get up early and head over to the RIO to play some poker, hoping to see tons of action, I find it dead. Yes its only 9am but I was expecting more than the 4-5 games that were going on. Originally I had planned on playing the $1500 shootout event on Wednesday but realized there really isnt much time and since I am with my wife and we are here only 2 days i figure its not a good idea. Also the $1500 is a lot more than I have ever bought into a tourney, so I think better of it change my mind. So its 9am and I need some tourney action, I pick up one of those poker magazines and see that Caesars has a $65 buy in tourney at 10am. I rush over there and arrive their just in time to register. There is 3 tables and its a pretty decent structure with 30 minute rounds. The room is beatiful and the staff friendly. I end up sitting at a table with 4 canadians. Its Canada Day and I have to make sure one of us wins for our country. I precede to knock out my fellow Leaf fan(who is wearing a leafs jersey) as he pushed in with 55 , I call with AK and when the ace spikes on the river , I take down a huge pot and never look back. We make a deal at the end and I cash for $450.

Head back to the hotel and meet my wife after her spa massage and facial(gift from me for our anniversary). She is very happy and we head down to the pool to relax. Its like a 110 degrees so I take a quick dip in the pool and head to the poker room for a couple of hours before we go out for the night..Nothing eventful as I break even in a dead $4-$8 game . Limit holdem is dying at the MGM.

That night we have tickets to Mystere at Treasure Island. The night before my wife won two free buffets at the WYNN so we head over there before our show. By the way the buffet is very good, very high end and good quality food. After I get my first plate of food, I run into our friend GRUVEN who is staying there with Rob Pizzo, they will be doing their poker show which airs on Satellite radio. We chat for a while and he mentions they will be at Treasure Island poker room later. After our show we head over to the poker room and I come just in time to watch Rob go all in with A6 against AJ..Standard river as the six peels off and another nice win for the Canadians on Canada day. Chris hooks up me and my wife with passes to get into a private party that is being thrown by Ultimate bet at the Palms.

We get to the Palms and head up to a suite in the 32nd floor. This suite is sick. ONe of the best views of Vegas I have ever seen. Its two floors with like 6 rooms, a nice pool and a crazy tv room. Hellmuth is supposed to be there, but he is busy trying to win his 12th bracelet. Drinks are free, and food is plentiful. Since we already ate I head over to the bar and ask for a beer. Bartender goes Heineken or Milwaukee's best, I say hey its Hellmuth's party I need to drink out of those cans. He laughs and hooks us up with our drinks. We run into Ali Nejad(he of Poker after Dark and NBC heads up commentating fame). He seems very drunk as he is all over the place. I introduce myself and we chat for a while and he seems like a very cool guy and was very nice to me and my wife. We then run into Gavin Smith. I introduce myself as a fellow Canadian and he seems like a genuinely nice guy and we chat for several minutes and we take a picture with him. Then they had some prop bet and get some kid to drink 8 shots of Vodka for $100...The kid precedes to take it down with ease. There were a whole bunch of other name players there that I didnt really know. Apparently Annie was there earlier but just left. I was hoping to run into Shannon Elizabeth but unfortunately didnt happen...lol...Thanks to Gruven for the hook up.

Get to bed at 3 am and get up for the drive back to Fresno. We had a great time, not much poker playing but it was our anniversary and it was a different trip with my wife.

I'm a little disappointed in the lack of LHE in this report.

sigh, i'm sorry i missed you.

I'm sorry he found me.

*kidding*

Nice report, would you or Arp care to share the details on getting the MGM for $59/night?

it was just some sort of a summer special on their website..No secret really...The key is that it was a Monday and Tuesday night..Same room this weekend is $250 I believe..Usually expensive on weekends , especially this weekend with the 4th of July.

4th july> canada day

This is very funny to me, a month or so ago I saw a poker after dark repeat and Ali was playing with a few guys (I believe it was something of a commentators week) and they got on the topic of drinking and Ali wouldn't drink, and he made it a point to let people know he doesn't drink and that it was just his choice. He was serious about the whole thing, not much sarcasm or hiding jokes in what he said.

Good post though, fun read.
Gavin seems like a nice guy from t.v. and other things etc.

I get offers, but they are available to anyone to use. I'm not a high roller, I just go often and have learned some tricks.
I just passed one along to Serge at the time. He and another buddy from TO stayed there at same time.
Here's a recent example, but not that great yet.

MGM

Tecnically, it says you need an MGM players card, but I cant tell you the number of people I have sent there that never got one. They don't care, they are just trying to fill up rooms. And even if they ask, just walk over and get one. No previous play necessary.

When I was there this June, $49 a night, and $119 on weekends. Then we got 2 rooms, all nights comped thanks to a friend of ours who is a degenarate BJ player.
Things are pretty slow in Vegas right now, I have a friend who works in the business there, hotel/casinos are hurting.

this thread is also great for all kinds of deals, including MGM.
Vegas hotel rooms

great report Serge. 2 days is not a lot of time, but sounds like you got a lot done and had a great time. Did you bump into Hayk at MGM? lol. No matter how long you go to Vegas, its never enough. Ask Zach!
hope the wedding went well too.

congratulations! you know how to read a calender.

Congrats!



Serge, I hope you and the wife had a great time. Did the little man go with you?

We left him in Fresno with the grandparents..However its amazing how many kids there were in Vegas...A lot of stuff to do in Vegas, next time we will bring him I think.

And Arp, i talked to Hayk quite a bit at the wedding..But didnt see him at MGM..

Sounds like a very good time Serge. I was trying to convince my wife to head to Vegas before she goes back to work (she is on Mat leave). She eventually convince me that it would not be good since we would take the 3 kids.

Funny story. During my PLO8 event, I got moved to a table with Kathy Leibert, Eric Seidel, and Lee Markhold (not sure if I got the name right, he was on last month's cover of Cardplayer). They were talking quite a bit and someone mentioned Gavin had a new g/f or something, and Kathy said he had tried to pick her up a couple times before. Then Seidel's like "you could probably still have him if you wanted".

Hey Serge you were supposed to mention meeting me at the 4/8 at MGM one of those nights. I hope I wasn't one of those three-outing suckers you were talking about.

lol..no..actually you were a really nice guy and a lot of fun to play with. The three outing suckers were at the other table the day before..

classic haha