"Easy come, easy go...."

Well, after a few hours sleep and some time at work, i'm ready to start typing...

I'll start at the Mandalay Bay, which we found great accomodations at a ridiculously high price.

We get our stuff settle in the room, two queen beds so no rock/paper/scissors for the couch... After all of 5 minutes, we head down to the floor. I look around and see those damn CSM's and just start to fume. The only decent game there I could find was a $100 2 deck game in the high limit area. Jesse wanders off to play craps and put our names in at the poker room so I throw down $500 and get to work. Great dealer. She was playing around with us and just had an all around wonderful personality. After two shoes, i'm up $400 and feeling pretty good. Jesse comes back and informs me that they only have a $4-8 game going and the list is HUGE!

Just then, it was time for a dealer switch. The next lady came in and said nothing and just dealt. In retrospect, I should have just taken the 4 hundy and ran because being up like that in 8 minutes is great! Okay, I remember it like I was just there a few seconds ago... First hand, I get 11 and double against the 5. She flips over the 2 and follows with the king to make 17. What was my card you ask? Another stinkin' 5... First blow to the stack. Next hand, I get 19 with the 8 showing. Looks promising, but that wasn't the case. she flips over the 2 and proceeds to get a 6 and then a 4 for 20. Second blow, i'm only up $100 now. After I have seen a TON of little cards go by, I throw out $300 to make the comeback. My cards? Another 11 so, I double again against her 4. She flips up the 4, then another 4, then another 4, then the 3 to make 19. What was my card you ask? An 8 to push... A moral victory, and like Clark Griswald, I was a happy camper...

So, since I have seen only one ace a marginal faces, I keep the bet out there. I was dealt two aces. I put out the other 3 blacks again and hope for the best. The first card, another ace. Here you can resplit them so of course I did. Next card? Yep, another Ace. I do it again like a madman, this would be the swing I needed to go to poker like a champion and slay the beast that was the dealer. Okay, 1st ace gets a 9, 20 not too shabby. The next ace gets another ace, so I have to do it again. I now have $1200 on the table, and am seriously starting to get nervous. Second ace? another nine for a 20. Cool, i'm looking good. The dealer has a 9 showing so the 19 looks tiny! Third card? A jack for 21. I'm loving it, the other two guys are high fiving and doing their best "I wanna pump, YOU UP" from the old SNL days. The last card? another jack for 21. I have 20,20,21, and 21 against the 9 and lots of faces to come... Her hole card? a 2.... And then she did it, she threw down the queen to make 21... Gawd, I was in shock. She didn't even flinch, crak a frown, or do anything but scoop that table(except for my 2 pushes of course...) Instead of being up like $1300 in 20 minutes, I was down $500 and just scratched my head in shame. The gods weren't with me at that table, and I have heard the saying many times that "Rome wasn't built in a day...." But the way I see it, if that dealer is as consistent as she was with our table, I can see how "TheHotel" got built so quickly. Okay, so I lost $600 in 20 minutes. What does a man do now? Jesse comes back with a 2 buckets full of dollar coins. He had just hit a jackpot for $400 on his 3rd spin. What luck, maybe I should stick next to Jesse and see if my Karma was all used up on the Jackpot at the local joint back home.

We go to the poker room and wait for our names to be called. We still have 1 name ajead of us and the others don't look like they are going anywhere anytime soon. We make the decision to head over to the Luxor and see what the wait is there. I guess we made it at the right time because a $2-4 game just opened and we were seated right away. We were playing with a Husband and wife from Oregon, three guys from San Diego on a bachelor party, and two asian guys who said nothing the ENTIRE time they were there.

We play for awhile, and nothing really develops except Jesse got a straight flush to the 10 and received a whopping $50 for that when the pot was almost $100 after some key re-raising before the flop. His stacks are huge now and it occurs to me that it is his day to dominate the table. He goes in with the hubby and wife and catches the nine on the river to make nines full to beat their pocket aces and eights. It gets to a point where Jesse goes in and everyone except the Asian guys fold. It was his turn with them. He rivered another boat with his pocket Kings against pocket queens and aces. The guy just sat there and stared Jesse down. You know when you are waiting in the hour long buffet line and you see the people with passes just walk right up and start to dig in? That was the face this guy had... His partner tried to bluff Jesse out of a pot and Jesse stuck with him and busted him right back to win an ace high straight. After 5 hours, Jesse was up to almost $550 after buyibg in for $60. I was hanging tough at $120, and the others were just donating at this point. Jesse was in a zone. He read these fools like a book. Whenever they bluffed, he was on them and made them look silly. Whenever they had a decent hand, Jesse would river the nut flush. After about another hour, it was like 3 or four in the morning and we were beat... What did we do? Went up to the room, slept for 5 hours and hit the Paris Buffet. Nothing hits the spot like that after a great night of fun.

After that, we headed for the MC and played there for awhile. This time though, it was my turn. I didn't do as well as Jesse did the night before, but I would classify this as the lowest pots I have seen in awhile. I must have won 10 pots or so, but I was only up $80 bucks and I was getting out of the hands that I didn't win. Jesse went in twice with this guy who looked like Phil Mickelson. Another guy kept asking for his autograph, that was funny. "Phil" filled up his hands twice on the river and actually hit some good pots! I told him to go buy Nike clubs like Tiger and maybe he could win more!

Well, since I didn't do this on Word, i'm going to stop here and pick it up again tomorrow.

More Details To Come...

 

Jer - can't wait to read more. Congrats on the big jackpot at the table Friday and the decision to head to Mecca.

later.GVJ

 

My god man, you can't leave me hanging like that finish the trip!

 

Come on Jer, waiting for the part II!