A Quick Vegas Junket

My wife is going on a weekend retreat with Bible study ladies. So I have the boys for the weekend. You can never refer to this as babysitting for the weekend, but these guys are in my charge. The little guy is the key to the whole thing. He'll be two on 20 May (I learned his birthday when I took him to the emergency room a few weeks ago). My wife has officially destroyed all of my good work with him. Before I started traveling so much, I had him totally taken care of at night. We kiss everyone, close the door, turn the light off, we go to the different animals in the room and I make their sound, he gets his quack-quacks (thimble-size ceramic ducks), Pooh kisses him and the Daddy Quack-Quack, I toss him in the bed, he turns on his stomach, sticks his butt in the air, and goes to sleep. Now? He says prayers with the boys (which is absolutely priceless, to listen to him jabbering something them go "Ahh-Men"), now he has to have songs sung to him, books read, rocked--I don't know exactly everything, but how am I supposed to not be knocked off of the Party tables I've found if it takes 45 minutes to get him to sleep? All-in is eight, the pretty boy of the crew. I've used him as a kid model for some national print ads (I'm not a stage mom--it's alot cheaper than paying some prima donna!). His major vices are playing with himself and playing Star Wars and Harry Potter on the computer. His brother calls him All-in when we play, which he hates, but he brings it on himself. He will come over-the-top at the drop of a hat or shove his chips. His real problem is he can't detect strength at all, so when his mom flops two pair, he's toast. My first born is ten, and he catches some of what I did as the first born (not nearly as much). He's the sensitive, easily injured guy. He doesn't play much, but he is actually very good. He tried this brilliant river check-raise on my brother with a scary board that he had check/called in a tourney we had a few months ago. My brother called him (more because he's a donkey--he-he). My favorite is when he bets aggressively into my wife, she says, "Are you sure you want to do that?", she has TPTK, and he shows his set as he stacks chips. BadBlood in GVegas had a hilarious post about his eight year old's online exploits. One thing that I do with the boys when we're playing is I'll change the blind structure a bit and we play with four colors of chips. So, we'll have 18/36 blinds or something like that, which helps them with their math when I raise to 110 or something.

I discovered a nice $229 one-way ticket from Raleigh to Vegas on Southwest Airlines (I have to be in Raleigh next Wednesday). I thought I was going to have to wait around several hours or connect, but I'll now be landing in Vegas at around 3:15 Wednesday then returning on a red-eye back to the ATL at 10:30 Friday night. The client had me at TI (Treasure Island), which is truly a dreadful place unless Keira Knightely were to come off of her pirate ship and plop in your lap. Well, after I had to come in Wednesday, wouldn't you know that there was no room? So I make my call to the Bellagio and presto, poker room rate for Wednesday through Saturday. I'll have the afternoon/evening of Wednesday, probably much of Thursday to play, then sneak in some Friday maybe. Not much time. I have Rich from our neighborhood who will be at MGM Mirage, so I'll head over for dinner with his posse on Wednesday night. It looks like I'm also set to meet Linda from the Bellagio. I may play in the Big Game so she can write about it--right! I've thought some about moving from $15/30 to $30/60, but I think I'm too fraidy-scared to do that. My big question for you: do I just stick with my Bellagio mistress, hit a few other spots, or should I try to play every room available during my short stay and then give you a quick post-mortem? I'm all ears.

Iggy has just a brilliant post from yesterday. BadBeat tells me I should open an account at PokerStars, which I've been thinking about. FullTilt seems to be a waste of time, with hardly any tables open most of the time. I've got a little $480 or so there, so I could shift it over to Stars and leave FullTilt. Any thoughts? Drizz curries (is that the right word) favor with our favorite, I can't even speak her name or anything about her for fear of retribution; anyways, he's been slumming on the Omaha tables, expanding his horizons. O H/L is a silly game, as I never know if I'm going to scoop, win one, or lose both any time during the hand. TripJax has info on his tourney (I'd like to jump into one maybe), as well as something about how he wishes he could bathe in a sink, or life is like a box of chocolates, or something. It's incredibly hard to follow what he's talking about exactly about sinks and water and bankroll--but you can try. Thanks to Shelly from Hella for this heads-up on a Wall Street Journal poll: Should Congress ban internet gambling? 5537 no votes so far (80% no), so that should be roughly 10% of poker bloggers who have voted so far. To the other 45,000 of you out there: vote, and vote often! I've arranged for an outsourcing group in Bangalore to vote continuously over the next couple of days as well. Fug has nice post-Oscar photos, including Pamela Anderson boob tape. I can't believe these stupid Mexicans couldn't beat Canada 2-0 and knock us out of this baseball tourney. They win 9-1, and now we move to the next round if we beat the South Africans.

Here are my supplies required for the Vegas trip:

• Las Sendas pullover (golf pullover, not a sweatshirt, not a sweater)
• iPod
  
• Bellagio wine-colored golf t-shirt deal
• Jade bead bracelet: I bought this in Singapore for $8. Alot of the Asian players at the Bicycle in LA had these. Not sure if it will make me look more Asian, but I'm always scared of Asian players, so I think it will do the trick. I don't know if it is real jade or not, but whatever
• Bankroll

That's really it. No card protector, no sunglasses (you can read me like a book anyways, so go ahead). I have two outfits (which may actually be one). The pullover is for my frumpled look, hopefully becoming invisible at the table. My business casual look is for my I've-seen-this-on-TV-and-always-wanted-to-play. You have to throw in quotes like, "Can I go all-in? I just want to say 'ALL-IN' just once" and "Is it my turn?" and "How much (only used in limit)?" and "I've seen that move on TV." I keep sixteen chips on my desk and constantly work them through the day, so I don't know if that persona ever works.

To the lady who will remain nameless with her rules on what can go in a poker blog: sorry for the kids pictures. I don't know how to add photos throughout the post or I would have put our dog, posted recent hands, etc.