Vegas Plans

June 7th I am flying into Vegas on a one way ticket and have a room booked at Harrahs through the 12th.  I am so excited it's sick.  I'm not sure what's drawing me more at the moment- the poker or the swimming pools- but I intend on doing a lot of both while I'm there.  In particular the 30 million dollar swimming pool at the Golden Nugget is high on my list.  There is actually a third story water slide that takes you right through the center of a shark tank in the center of the pool!  Could anything be more amazing?  Having recently escaped another Portland Oregon winter the answer is a resounding NO!

I'm currently planning on playing just two or three Venetian events (if anyone wants to stake me in one or a few more definitely let me know!)- the Monday $330 NLHE and the Tuesday $225 shoot out and the Thursday $330.  The rest of the time I will be playing 2/5 NL at the Rio or possibly the Bellagio as I had a great experience playing there the last time I was in town.

Why a one way ticket?  In case I win some serious money of course!  In which case I'll be staying in Vegas as long as seems wise which could conceivably run through the end of the WSOP in July but I have a feeling I'll get sick of the place long before that unless I'm wiping my ass with $100 bills a few weeks in.

Following my recent down swing I decided to spend today playing the Poker Stars "steps" satellites.  You can buy directly into any of them and there are 6 in total with the first step starting at $7.5 buy-in, or just 500 player points.  I had $130 in my account on Poker Stars (I don't play there often) and decided to dedicate the whole shebang to these things today knowing full well that I'd likely lose it.  After winning one "step" you simply win a "ticket" (IE entry) to the next step, kind of forcing an all or nothing approach.  After playing about a dozen of these things my account is down to less than 8 bucks and I am now "graduated" to playing a step 4 and a step 3.  Theoretically I've booked a win so far as the combined buy ins for both games comes to $298-more than double my investment of $130- but it's all on the line at the moment so we'll see!  If I finally make it to step 6 I'll need 1st or second place to win a 12k WSOP main event package which would be a great turn around to recent events.  I'm more than half way there but still a long ways away so I'll be keeping my fingers crossed.  I was just now lucky to more than double up in the step 4 by sticking it in with AQo over an UG min raise from an aggro player, so it's looking good so far!

Update- Just busted out 4th in the step 4 and 8th in the step 3.  I shoved 11 bbs UG w/ 99 and the button decided to overshove with KJs risking more than 2/3rds of his chips.  A horrible play to say the least but he was rewarded.  I am now left with a single step 3 buy in so not all is lost.