Vegas -- "I got there"

LAS VEGAS -- Sometimes it's hard to figure people out. I show a bluff and people still fold to my pre-flop raises at the table.

Or I bluff and they don't believe me.

At Bally's NL$1/2, the flop was 272. When the turn came with an 8, I check-raised the big stack from my big blind, implying that I had a two. Non-plussed, he called.

The river came a 9. I did my best acting job and then I put a $100 stack into the pot.

He called.

"I got there," I said, showing my pocket nines, nines full of deuces, and emphasizing the 2-outer I just hit to win.

And just like that I was up for the session and headed for the session win (Biscuits 13-3). For three hours I had been down about $80 and was severely thinking my ace-of-the-rotation Biscuits shirt would be forced to record a loss. But no, it came through in the top of the 10th inning.

I'm closing out my two-day trip to Las Vegas and it has been wonderful. I won all three four-hour sessions I played during the last two days, including a 4-hour afternoon session at the Bellagio (Banana Rep. 9-1).

I have won nine straight 4-hour sessions of live poker in Las Vegas and Los Angeles since Sept. 2, 2008.

I love my game now. Live poker at casinos at the limits I play is SO soft. I can tell the good players from the bad and adjust accordingly. The CR offense runs through soft tables like butter.

It's the best feeling in the world to leave Vegas with money you've won and to walk through McCarran Airport with a kitty-kat swagger.