Las Vegas Recap

It has been crazy since I got back from Las Vegas.  My wife left for Blackhawk, Colorado the day after I got back so I was in charge of the 3 kids for the week.  Work was crazy trying to get everything caught back up from taking time off.

My Las Vegas experience was fun as usual.  I had some issues this trip that I have never had to deal with before.  The most important being that I could not access my money for the first 3 days.  That put a halt on most any gambling.

I arrived at the airport with 25.00 in my pocket.  I had left the rest in my account expecting to access it as I needed it.  I didn't want to have that much cash sitting around.

I won a little bit on the slot machines pretty quick after getting set up in my room.  Then we went to eat at Circus Circus where I had enough comps to pay for my buffet.  I was doing good.  I had been to Las Vegas for several hours and hadn't even made a withdrawal yet.  Finally after 9:00 I went to make a withdrawal of 300.00.  After midnight I went to make a second withdrawal of 300.00.  It said I had exceeded my daily withdrawal amount.  I thought that was strange since it was now a new day.  I thought maybe it hadn't reset yet so I went to bed and got up the next morning to try it again.  Same thing.

I had some money left from the night before so I decided I would deal with it later since we were heading to The D for a poker tournament.  I finished a few places out of the money there after my KK failed to hold up to AA for a majority of my stack.  My next move was to find a spot to shove before the blinds ate up the rest of my stack.  I got A9o and ran into AK. 

We ate at Flavor's.  The guy ahead of us said that he could get 1 of us in for all you can eat and all you can drink if we gave him 10.00.  That was a substantial savings so I jumped on that since I was short on cash.

We hung around Harrah's for quite a while after that.  I tried my luck at some 4 spot Keno.  No Luck.  I eventually spent the last of my money on slots.

It was time to call the bank.  They said that since I had made a withdrawal after 9 there it was after midnight Eastern.  It also said that I had made a 2nd withdrawal when it said that I had exceeded my limit.  I convinced the guy to increase my withdrawal limit for the day so I could get some money out to go play poker that evening.  He said he would do it.  It was a little embarrassing when we got to Bally's and I could not make a withdrawal.  It did let me get out 100.00.  Enough to play some poker. 

It was tough to play short stacked.  I saw some opportunities that I would have liked to have tried a bet, but I didn't want to lose what little money I had.  I was about out of chips when I got an AK.  In my head I thought I have to play this to the end whether I hit or not.  The other guy put me all in on the flop.  I think he had QQ.  I hit an ace on the river to stay alive.  I got a double up with AA shortly after that.  After a couple hours of play I was ready to head back to the hotel.  I was getting really tired.  I cashed out with 10.00 less than I had started.

It was a fun walk back to the bus station.  There were all kinds of people wandering the strip.

The next day I called the bank again.  They said they had frozen my bank account to see what had happened with the withdrawal where I hadn't gotten any money.  Great! I thought, another day without poker.  I paid for lunch with my Credit card so I could get some cash to play around with.

We went all over that day checking out different sections of the strip and downtown, drinking along the way.  When we got downtown they started gating everything off.  We went to walk out of Freemont casino and were told we needed to have a wrist band.  I was o.k. with that.  Then we got outside and it was all kinds of crazy.  It took us 30 minutes to try to get to another casino through the gates where they were wanding everyone.  We didn't get through so we went back into the Freemont. 

We asked one of the Hundreds of Police officer's there what the deal was.  He said it's First Friday.  Must be a big party day downtown.  It wasn't my cup of tea.  We got out of there as quickly as we could.  Drinking + Law Enforcement = All kinds of me going to jail.  I was getting an attitude pretty quick.  They were walking around acting all pissed off and it was affecting my good time.  It was time to go.

When we got back to the hotel I was able to withdraw some money.  I had been without for too long.  I blew that over the course of the night.  The next day I was able to withdraw again.  We were sticking around the Riviera that day so no poker again.  Over the course of the day I went through that money as well and was able to withdraw again after 9:00.  I played late into the evening with that and was able to bring it home.

When we first arrived we were disappointed to see that the Riviera had taken out their poker room.  Part of our quest for the rest of the week was to see where we are going to start staying.  We really liked the location and layout of Harrah's. 

Next time I go out I will have cash in pocket, and will play a lot more poker.  I think I am going to try to make it out during the WSOP next year.