The devil wins! (For now...)

Okay so with poker on my mind and my mind on poker, I've scheduled my first Vegas bender in over a year - outside of the WSOP of course.

I will be descending on the city of sin on the third weekend in March, just in time for one of the biggest gambling events in the city every year - NCAA Basketball tournament madness!  The first weekend of this annual frenzy of degeneracy is always by far the biggest, and as of this writing I have locked up a free Southwest flight, a reasonably priced room at Harrah's and a likely unnecessary car rental.

All told I've spent just under $600 so far, for four days and fabulous nights of poker goodness.  Looking at my tentative tournament schedule - I am likely to drop another $600 or so in entry fees.  The goal of this trip will be to recover that $1200 and hopefully notch a win big enough to go far beyond that amount.   I think I stand a very good chance of the trip paying for itself and a decent chance for a profit above and beyond that.

My plan of attack is centered at the north end of the strip.  I am staying away from the larger rooms like Aria, Venetian and Wynn, and their better structured tournaments because these events are typically loaded with Vegas regulars who are just as seasoned as their SoCal counterparts.

I have my sights set squarely on smaller buy in events that are likely to be loaded with drunken sports bettors.  I am avoiding the south strip rooms that have absolutely horrific tournament structures - Luxor, Excalibur, Mandalay Bay among others, and instead seeking out the rooms with only slightly terrible structures - T.I., Mirage and Caesar's.

The reason I'm slumming it, is because this is where the fish hopefully will be congregated, and be extra frenzied thanks to the big basketball games exploding everywhere.

I am hoping that the Mirage lives up to the nickname I gave it a long while ago - the timewarp. At it's best, the Mirage really is like journeying back to 2005, when players had narrow opening ranges even in late position, often folded to c-bets and defended their big blind 20% of the time instead of 80%.

And as for T.I. - Treasure Island, the later it is at night, the better it gets.  The drunken revelry can sometimes cross the line from amusing to exasperating, but in either case, there is lots of chips to be had at the expense of the intoxicated throng.  A very well run and most of the time fun room.  The have recently added more starting chips, which is great for fish who like to speculate early and tighten up later - I will be doing the opposite of course.

And finally Caesar's.  They have changed venues, from a completely closed off and expansive old school poker palace to a more typical smaller and open ended smoke catcher.  Having never played there before, I will have to see if I can stand it first before I commit to more than one tournament. If the room is enough to my liking, I will be sure to enjoy the slightly better than garbage structures and the usually fishy clientele.

Currently I have one compadre committed to joining me, A8Fold from back in the day (search this blog for Flatline and you'll get who he is).  Another Pepper St. regular has also said he will come along, Andrew the mack daddy who is a growing and smart poker player as well as one of my favorite 'new' people in my garage.   Hopefully they will both be able to follow through with their declarations and hopefully others will come along as well.

It should be a grand old time; in the meanwhile I have incentive to get a bit more active here at home with Casino play.  I have a home game tomorrow night, a single table tournament in my garage, but hopefully I can also find time to throw down in the LAPC this month or if not, at least partake in some dailies at the Bike or HPC.