Las Vegas Trip Continues

I actually got to sleep at a decent hour Sunday night/early Monday morning and used the Monday morning hours to write my previous blog post. I was thinking about getting a salad lunch but then persuaded Alysia Chang to restart her private Uber service and take me to her favorite all you can eat sushi place.

I am not usually a huge sushi fan, but this place was great! I particularly like the way these buffets operate in bringing out small plates of food.

Can you believe a guy playing poker made fun (jokingly) of this shirt?

After lunch, it was time to play some poker. I had a good session at Bally's and unfortunately just missed out on having a great afternoon. One guy at the table was trying to be table captain, but I had his number and got some great cards against him. He lost perspective and was hoping for that one opportunity to get me back. I almost stacked him twice, but he had the control to fold when he needed to, dang it.

The evening proved to be quite interesting. Alysia bought some steaks from a big  HORSE tourney score at Orleans and was counting on my manly skills (ha!) to grill 'em up. Michelle was also dining with us that night. On the way to pick up Michelle, we stopped at a grocery store to buy a few items. Alysia was amused at my chagrin in deciding which salad dressing to choose. Couldn't decide. Then when we were ready to check out, we went to the Express Aisle. Ha! The people at the front of the line took forever to check out, and the express line backed up quite a bit. People were getting frustrated at the absurdity of at all. I knew it was time for Superlightning to do something to save the day.  I recalled the grocery store scene in the movie You've Got Mail and was inspired by Tom Hanks to take action. The cashier's name tag said Wendy, so ... I launched into (in the proper key for me) a rousing version of the Beach Boys' song Wendy.

Wendy! Wendy, what went wrongggggggggg?
We went together for so longggggggg.

So yeah -- people who hang with me either get the crap embarrassed out of them or get decent entertainment. Needless to say the people in line have a fun story to tell their friends!

We got to Casa Chang, which kind of looks like something out of a travel brochure.

I got the steaks on the grill while Alysia and Michelle went inside to Alysia's place to get a few things. The problem was, the steaks started burning and I was left with nothing to turn or move them. So I moved the steaks with the only thing at my disposal: an ear of corn. I looked like I was fencing with a grill!

After dinner, fueled with alcohol and with passions rising, the following scene began to unfold:

Actually, there was no alcohol involved and everything was quite innocent. The picture was going to be a Rob special  (I asked Michelle to show some cleavage and she boosted those boobies waaay up), but then instead this joke shot was taken and I tweeted that Michelle was providing melons for dessert. Good times!

After dinner, I had another nondescript poker session with a partial loss. It was time to call it a night.

On Tuesday, I stopped to get in a bit of an early afternoon session at Caesars. I was doing fine until I ran into an overpair. Meh. After that it was off to Johnny Rocket's for a lunch meeting with poker blogger FlushhDraw. We had quite a rousing lunch as we gossiped about a bunch of bloggers and Las Vegas people. I ragged on him quite a bit about his health. His response: "It's like having Michelle here in drag!" (Yo)u see, Michelle is a nurse and tries to help the guy, but ...

I told him there was betting going on about when he would croak. I told him I was speculating 2016. I then pretended to get on my cell phone and said: "Triple P? This is lightning. Put $400 down for me on 2016." After ragging on FlushhDraw a little more and getting more resistance, I made another pretend call: "Triple P -- lightning again. Make that $800 on 2016."

We actually has a good time talking poker. Glad to meet you, buddy!

After lunch, I decided to head to MGM with the thought of going to Excalibur. Happily, I stayed at MGM until the wee hours of the morning. I was going up and down like a cheap whore and then hit a losing steak and looked to cash out with only a modest profit. But then a great play of the night came. People were limping and I looked down to see one of my favorite hands: 7-6 diamonds. I limped in and one guy who seemed solid raised to $12. People were folding but I, of course, called. The flop: 7-6-rag. Shazam. Now I knew this guy was a solid player but was sucked out on earlier and seemed to be a little on tilt. I checked and he bet $30 (we each had stacks around $300), making the pot around $60. My decision: I pushed all in! And guess what -- it worked! He had pocket Aces wasn't going to let them go. The turn and river bricked and I stacked him and doubled up. He snarled "nice catch" as he walked away. Yes, it was. But knowing what to do with the catch was all on me!

I had some other fun hands -- like when I limped in with K-7 diamonds (I needed a diamond or heart flush for an MGM promotion) and saw a flop of 7-7-7! Believe it or not, I even w0n a $60-70 pot on that flop.

I sparred many times that night with a good player named Randall, who used to be a regular at MGM. I took a bunch of money off him (and unfortunately gave some back to other players), and told him at the end of the night that I knew a lot about him because I invented a phone app that tracks local Las Vegas players. I then acted like I snapped a picture or added data. I thought it was funny. I don't think he shared quite the same view.

Some chip porn from near the high water mark of the session:

Therefore, I am back in the black in poker for the trip. I needed a session like that as I have been running bad most of my recent poker sessions.

Today (Wednesday), I am checking out of Harrah's and staying at Gold Coast for two nights. More poker adventures await. Thanks for reading!