Memories of Vegas

I've never seen such an enthusiastic toast among strangers.

I finished my last trip to Vegas on Sunday morning.  Happily, it was the best trip to Vegas that I've had in a while.  Sadly, it will probably be the last trip for a while.

Getting to Vegas was a series of delays that finally got me to the Imperial Palace about 2 hours later than I had planned.  First there was a mechanical delay getting out of Austin.  Next there was a delay to let the cops arrive before we pulled into the gate at LAS. I don't have any details on the cause there.  I'm sure alcohol was involved.  It always is.  Then the baggage handlers never posted our flight on the baggage carousel, so no one knew which of the 5 carousels our bags were on.   Then there was the taxi line.

But I got there, dumped my bags and headed for the poker room.  Falstaff (my buddy and roommate for the trip) got up to go do some poker writing and left me to play his stack of chips, about $120 worth.  This was a $1-2 limit mixed game and they were on the O8 round.  My very first hand rivered quad 10s.  Too bad there wasn't much of a payoff.  During the next hour, I got my full house beat by a better full house, twice.  Falstaff really sucks at that game.  I did leave him a few chips.

What made the trip so good was the smaller than usual number of bloggers.  That sounds like a negative, but it was easier to spend time with those who were there.  I usually come away feeling that I didn't really visit with anyone.  It was great to visit and/or get to know EasyCure, Zeem, Doc Chako, Stb, Pauly, and Change100 among others.  The fact that I got down early and rallied late to drop less than $100 on poker for the trip does not figure into how good a trip it was.

The best time for me was going with the gang to the Hofbrauhaus.  The bier (beer), the food, and the 'scenery' were all spectacular.  It was one of those times when I sat for a while and though about how good the good times are. 

At one point, Falstaff felt compelled to make a loud toast to boobies.  Of course our whole table joined in on that toast, as did the table in front of us, and the table behind us, and the table behind them.  It may have sent a wave through the whole joint.  Good times for sure.

Other highlights for me:

• Falstaff winning the Sahara 11 am tourney
• Visiting the WSOP at the Rio
• Dinner with Falstaff, Pauly and Change100 at Ferraro's

There are no events or business trips planned that will take me to Vegas in the near future and the price of airline tickets has gone through the roof.  I'm going to make a special effort to attend Brian the Red's birthday in Sin City, but that is not until October.  Until then I will have to settle for home games and whatever else I can find.