Las Vegas -- Fishface

I'll take the good with the bad, I guess/Level 3 teflon plate on my chest...
-50 Cent

LAS VEGAS -- So Ryan turns to me and makes a fishface.

The guy in Seat 1 at our $6/12 limit table, who has been calling the whole way, suddenly bets it out when a K comes on the river. Ryan (Absinthe) looks at him and calls. The toaster flips over K7o, for two pair. Ryan has an account of that evening here.

I got in after about an hour's delay because of bad weather in the area. The guy next to me in my first class seat had this huge bankroll. He was going to the Venetian for a couple blackjack tournaments and to play a few events in the WSOP before coming back for the Main Event. "I bought my seat online so I could pick which day I started," he said.

He claimed to know Josh Arieh and celebrated with him when Arieh won his second bracelet last year. And he was telling me about ferocious private games in Athens, one in which pots climb up to $25,000 at times.

It was an interesting, and probably credible, conversation about the higher end of poker. I thought it was interesting that he shies away from higher limit cash games in Las Vegas because as the out-of-towner, he wouldn't really know the players too well. Guess it makes sense if there's a lot of money on the line.

Las Vegas was the same old place I had left in March, gone was that gee-whiz feeling that I've felt in the past and instead I felt like I was just returning back to a familiar place, like a place where I lived or worked.

I'm glad Ryan had been telling me to come play at the MGM, because I easily could have just crashed out in my room at the Sahara. I was surprised how crowded it was, even for a Wednesday night.

Waiting for the limit table, I donked about $80 right off the bat at a $1/2 NL table with JJ in the sb and the bb short stack jacking it up with a bunch of limpers. Flop came a queen and I check-raised the bb toaster. He called. I put him all in for the rest of his money on the turn, $14 more and at that point I developed a 4-flush draw that was surprsingly live. But it didn't hold up and he turned over KQs.

I'm not sure why I hate short stacks so much and I'll go out of my way to bust them. Maybe they're taking the space of a regular-paying toaster. LOL. Soon after I was called to Ryan's limit table.

After Ryan's toaster left, the already shorthanded game broke up. I think both Ryan and I were pretty much committed to staying as long as this guy was there -- he pretty much played every hand and called and just check-called the nuts.

When the guy in seat 2 left I thought about being a jokester and sitting in between Ryan (seat 3) and the toaster, sort of like how Ted Forrest had the chance to sit in between Chip Reese and Andy Beal in the opening chapters of The Professor, the Banker and the Suicide King.

Afterward, chatted with Ryan and his wife -- she may be able to get Drew a UFC ticket to Saturday's match. They have a marvelous room at the MGM that looks out on Hooters, Mandalay Bay and the other properties on the southern part of the strip. With a $109 poker room rate (4 hours of play daily), it's an awesome value for the money, but I like my Expedia-procured $39/night ($89 weekends) rooms at Sahara without a workthru requirement.

Now 2 a.m. (5 a.m. at home) I headed back to the Sahara. I should have stopped by Bally's but didn't. Hopefully I'll maximize my playing time better this trip, but I usually don't and easily succumb to my cat-natured desire for sleep.