Las Vegas Trip Report June 27 - July 4, 2023: Part 2 -- I've Run Away and Joined the Very Josie Circus!

Friday, June 30, 2023

This day was definitely going to get off to a great start at the Caesars Palace Bacchanal Regular Brunch with Josie. I had not been to this buffet for several years. My first plate, mixing some Italian, Mediterranean and Asian food.

And just for thundering36:

The buffet was just as great as I remembered. It is pricy, but still the value there is very good. So many different choices. I did not touch any of the traditional breakfast items as there were so many more interesting things to try. We probably exceeded our 90-minute time limit, but nobody came by to suggest that it was time to go, so had a great leisurely time.

We headed back to Josie's suite at Horseshoe to draw names for the first of her giveaways. She had a ton of sticky notes on a wall. They had identifying information on the back so that there was no way that I could see who I was picking. After picking two stickies and after Josie put out info to the lucky winners, Josie hit the highlight of her trip. No -- make that the highlight of her life as her ultimate fantasy was finally fulfilled: we slept together. 

Ummm ... well, to be totally truthful, we actually did sleep at the same time. We were both full from the brunch and fatigued, so we both actually fell asleep in separate comfy chairs in her suite. To all the smutty minded readers who immediately thought ... nevermind. 😃

It was then time for us to split up. Josie wanted to play some $5/10 at Aria, and I was planning on heading to South Point for their special quads promotion that day. I dropped Josie off at Aria and headed for the interstate.

I began with the SP $1/2 NL game. I was pretty much up and down and then lost a few pots. Great cards escaped me. Then I had the misfortune of thinking that I could use a scare card on the river to get my opponent to fold the two pair that were on the board. I did have either an Ace or a pair that was higher than one of the pairs on the board, so I thought I was good. He thought for several seconds, and then appeared to reluctantly call with ... a full house! I decided that the table was not for me and decided to get up and leave and lick my wounds on the slot machines. I headed to a machine that I knew had been hot in the past, and I was rewarded with a good run, winning back much of what I had lost in poker. Nothing like having to make up for poker losses with slot wins to make a poker player feel like crap! I decided to get back into a $2/3 game, and had some success. Meanwhile ...

Josie got to Aria on her mission to give away some money she might win, and in the first 30-minute segment for the first name pulled, she tweeted that a "Crazy Russian" woman pushed all in when VJ had K-K. She also had success in some other hands, and I believe the first winner got $2,900! She was also generous with some green chips to a few people who stopped by to see her. In a short time, she won a huge chunk of money. How the eff does she do it?

After playing a short session, I just was not feeling it anymore and cashed out a nice profit in the $2/3 game. Meanwhile, VJ was ready to cash out at Aria. She had never eaten at Peppermill before, so that was the plan. I drove to Aria to pick up up, but she went to a ride share pick up area that I could not find while battling the Las Vegas Blvd construction traffic and night lights. She instead got an Uber and met me at Peppermill. While we were eating, a woman came by to take our picture. She later reappeared with a post card for us to keep and the opportunity to purchase more pictures. We declined. However, Josie decided to post the card on Twitter and announced that we tied the knot!

I was thinking how great this would be if my Phoenix niece or nephew saw this and I would be hearing "Uncle John -- wtf?" Not to mention that many friends might be wondering what was going on. Only in Las Vegas!

It was late and we both needed to call it a night. I dropped Josie off at Horseshoe and headed back to Excalibur. She was thinking of playing the morning tournament at Resorts World, but I had no plans for waking up that early. However, things changed a bit the next morning.

Saturday, July 1, 2023

The morning did not start off great. I felt like crap. I had told Josie that the tournament was at 10:05am. She was going to Uber it to Resorts, and I just figured that I would spend the morning in bed and go from there. Then I heard from my buddy Norm, who asked me if I was going to play in the Resorts tournament that started at 12:05pm! Oops. Josie had already started toward Resorts to register late, so now she would be early. I started feeling better and decided to get myself in gear and play the tournament also. 

I got there and the three of us started the tournament. About 15 minutes later, Josie came by my table and told me that she already busted! She immediately bought back in. Little did I knw what a fortuitous decision that would be! She snuck up on Norm to meet him (he must have been wondering who came by to massage his back - certainly not me!) and shortly thereafter came by to tell me that her starting stack of 25,000 was up to 75,000, then 90,000. Meanwhile, I was totally card dead and struggling just to keep above 20,000. I made it to level eight, then finally was forced to push. I unbelievably beat K-K with 9-3sooted when I hit a flush, I finally went out when I jammed A-2os and was shocked to see that another shorty at the table had As-Js and didn't shove, but called my shove. I only had three outs, but no miracle this time. I checked and Norm was on life support. Meanwhile, Josie was running over her table. I decided to head out to the slot area and once again, feel the humiliation of trying to get slot money to cover my poker loss. Fortunately, I found a Cashman Bingo machine which had some really high amounts on it due to someone or someones investing a lot of money but not getting a bingo. This kind of machine wears you out, but I figured it was worth a try with all the large amounts already on the board. Fortunately, I did hit a great bingo and once again, assisted my sockroll with slot profits.

Feeling at least a little better, I headed back to the tournament area. Norm had messaged me that he tripled up and was seated at a table was Josie. I watched for a time as the original 200+ (almost 300) kept shrinking. 27 people were being paid, and it looked like Josie would easily cash and Norm would if he played smart poker. The bubble did burst and Norm did cash, then went out a short time later. He treated me to pizza, which soothed me a bit, as I really had nothing to eat the whole day since I wasn't feeling well in the morning. Thank you, Norm, for helping to heal my wounded soul once again. 😃

Norm eventually left and asked me to report how VJ finished. I had been on the list for cash games and was seated. I saw that 13 players still remained and figured things would go slowly. The exact opposite happened. The tournament was quickly down to 11, then before I knew it, it was down to the final four. I cashed out a small profit and decided to watch the end of the tournament. Josie and her nemesis at the table both had big stacks and were likely going to go at it heads up as soon as the smaller stacks were gone. However, the small stacks hung in like you wouldn't believe. Then came the big hand: I believe the other big stack jammed after the flop with a pair of 7s. Josie had a pair of Jacks and insta-called. Yowsa! The other player was really angry with himself at his bonehead move and threw his cards up in the air. Fortunately, he didn't get his two-outer on the turn or river and was out. The smaller stacks couldn't believe their good fortune. Josie owned almost all the tournament chips, and one of the players proposed a chop where Josie would get all the first place money and the other two would chop second and third place. So that was it. It was over and Josie won the tournament and won over $10,600! What a stunning performance that eclipsed her cash game success of the day before. 

It was great to see one friend cash and another win the tournament. As for me, I was treading water, hoping that my fortune would change the next day or two. As for Josie, I figured she had just had this amazing heater for a couple of days and would come back down to earth. When it comes to the future, I generally suck at predictions. How badly would this one suck? That will be the focus of part 3 of this trip report.

Thanks for reading!