Sunday, November 20, 2005

Greetings from Las Vegas

Well, Vegas is mostly the same, but I'm here with my brother and sister-in-law and we're having a ton of fun.  The impetus behind the trip was to see UFC56, and it did not disappoint.  I saw some exciting fights replete with blood and some brutal knock outs.  Our seats were decent.  

Despite acres of slot machines, all I get out of playing them is slightly older and slightly less than break even.  It can be relaxing to zombie out in front of the slots, but I can't fathom why you would in a place like Las Vegas where there's more to do than you can accomplish.  My shift from playing blackjack, primarily, to playing poker has also been a positive thing.  Poker is more profitable and fun.  I've played at Bally's and at MGM Grand.  While MGM Grand's poker room is nicer, the play is tighter.  I enjoyed playing in the soft games at Bally's and taking money from the beginner players there in the low limit Texas Hold 'Em games. 

Our journey from our hotel took us to the Monte Carlo, where we simply got onto the train to Bellagio where we had pastries and crepes for breakfast.  The poker room there had higher limit games.  I was amazed to see players with triple my annual salary in chips in front of them.  Then we went to Bally's for poker (I won. . . a lot) and then lunch at Ortanique.  We walked around in the Paris casino and did not stay.  The poker area was the same as Bally's.  The next stop was the MGM Grand, where we played poker (I lost a few bucks) and watched the fights.  We took the monorail back to Harrah's and checked our comps.  Lisa had enough slot points to buy us all dinner.  We selected Bambaleo, a Mexican restaurant in the Rio.  We took the shuttle there and I had the best guacamole I've ever had.  It had bits of jalepeno in it.  Zing!  The poker room at the Rio looked entirely too serious.  We proceeded to the Palms and watched the hipsters standing in line for the clubs.  The people watching there on a Saturday night is phenomenal.  It's Sunday, and we slept in.  Time to start again.

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