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Wow, I'm tired. Really tired. I order breakfast from room service, and shower and pack while I'm waiting for the food to arrive. I eat, check-out and leave my bags with the handlers at the taxi stand. It's roughly 10am at this point. Three hours left to make good.

Stop #13: $3/$6 FL (Mirage)

It's the only limit game in the room at that time, so I take a seat with $200. Two of the guys from the day before are in this game too. Neither concern me much, although I give them a little more respect than the others.

KK in MP, I raise and get 3 or 4 callers, including the blinds. The flop comes A-high, a bet and raise before me and I toss it in the muck.

AQo UTG, I raise and once again get a bevy of callers. I continuation bet the small flop, get raised and fold after whiffing the turn.

Oddly, I find this turn of events quite heartening. The hands being shown down as winners are real garbage and the table is very passive preflop, so I decide to splash around a lot more and see what I can make of it.

I limp in EP with [As][7d] as do 5 others. The flop comes ragged with two spades, I check and decide to peel one when a bet comes from my left and all call. A third spade falls on the turn. I check, and call a bet from LP as does the elderly woman to my right. The river brings me the nuts. The woman checks, I bet, the turn bettor raises, the woman calls two cold and I make it 3 bets. The LP player finally realizes where he is and calls the third bet with his [Ks]. The woman follows suit with the [Qs].

Thank you second and third nuts.

Soon after, I raise UTG with [8d][9d]. I get one call from a young Asian guy who looked like he was waiting for a bigger game, and a second from the nice old lady in the BB. The flop doesn't give me much, but I bet anyway. The Asian fellow folds, and the BB calls. Turn doesn't help me, but she checks so I fire again. She calls. She checks the unhelpful river and I fire a third barrel. She mucks and I show her my cards.

"You didn't even have a pair."
"I know, but I figured you didn't either."
"I had a king."
"Sorry."

A little later, in one of the few hands I wasn't involved, the board comes Q33. She mutters, "I had 83. I would've won this hand." There's little action on the flop and turn, and the board pairs the Q on the river.

"I don't think you'd have won now."
"No, I think I would have."
"I'll bet $1 that you weren't good."
"OK."

The winner goes to muck his hand after his uncontested river bet, and we ask him to see his cards since we have side action on it. He flashes his three. I toss her my blue chip.

"Good call. Thought for sure someone had a Q."

She tosses $2 back.

"But I wouldn't have won. We would split."

I give it back to her again.

"But a win's a win."
"I can't accept that."
"OK, how about this. You would've chopped the pot, so we'll chop our bet?"
"That's fair."

Jesus, I hate action junkies that don't like action.

At 11:30, Danielle (IMO, the best brush in Vegas) calls the start of the $10/$20. I lock up a seat, rack up my chips, toss the dealer a couple odd blues and walk to the window to exchange the rest for red.

Trip Tally: approx. -$30

Stop #14: $10/$20 FL (Mirage)

The last stop.

I sit with my rack of red, almost reluctantly. I'd made a monster move in the last 36 hours to climb out of the hole, and a short ugly downswing could put a damper on the whole trip. Bob, Clare and Mike had all taken seats so my image was still set from Saturday. No need to waste time establishing it again. Anecdotes from the day before would get the other half of the table on that same page without me spending money to do it.

I pick up a couple small pots early with preflop raises and uncontested continuation bets. One of my favorites of the entire trip was a heads-up hand against Bob.

Two folds, and I raise UTG+2 with 89o. All fold to Bob who calls from the BB. The flop comes QT7 rainbow. Bob checks to me, I bet and he calls. I whiff the turn but bet again after Bob checks it to me. In one of the best lines I've heard when deferring to someone on a heater, he says as he mucks, "I fold to your outs, sir."

I won a couple more medium pots, one with a flopped set, another with a turned flush. My time was winding down, and I racked up a little before 1pm. I tossed the dealer my $4 in blue, and gave Mike, Clare and Bob each $10:

"For my three friends, a big blind on me. I'll be very disappointed if you don't try to steal it from each other. Now behave and play nice. Don't make me come back."

I make the walk to the window for the last time this trip, get my bags and hop in a taxi for McCarran.

Mission accomplished.

Trip Tally: +$190

I arrive at the airport, and have a little difficulty getting checked in. It seems the people in front of me at the baggage check were trying to carry live poultry or medical waste because they were at the counter for 20 minutes. I get through that mess, work my way through the checkpoint unscathed and take a seat at the gate. Fortunately, my 4pm flight is on time. I have to work Monday morning and since I don't get home before 3am under the best of circumstances, I'm thankful for that small victory.

We board the plane and I take my seat in the very last row of the aircraft: 34C. My seat doesn't recline very well, but the extremely large man in 33C has no problem with his. Couple that with the other extremely large man in 34B, and I'm pinned to the wall, hanging over the armrest into the aisle, trying to dodge the drink cart coming out of the galley.

Then they close the airport.

A brief storm rolled in as we were boarding, so they ceased all gate operations until it passed. With the ensuing backlog waiting for take-off, we don't get in the air until an hour after our scheduled departure time.

We land at Philadelphia at 1:10am, a full hour later than expected. Our pilot, who probably failed drivers' education, had difficulty parking at the gate.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we're short of the gate a few feet, so we're waiting for some equipment to tow us the rest of the way."

I can't resist but to chime in:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, the equipment used to tow us to the gate has a flat. We're waiting for other equipment to change the tire, so they can tow us to the gate."

This sets off a comedy pyramid in our cabin.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, the handle on the jack snapped in half. We're waiting for a new jack handle so they can change the tire and tow us to the gate."

"Ladies and Gentlemen, the Home Depot is closed. We're looking for a Lowe's where we can buy a new jack..."

Etc.

After a few more minutes, I ask the flight attendant to open the emergency door so I can exit via the slide. He's having none of it. I desist from annoying him.

I get my suitcase at the baggage claim, and wait outside for the shuttle to economy parking. It doesn't show up for nearly half an hour. In the interim, the Avis car rental shuttle drives past at least twice, clearly mocking us. I ponder renting a car to drive to the parking lot to get mine.

Thankfully, there are no further problems. I get to my car, grimace when I remember the crack in the windshield and make it home a little after 4am local time. I strip down, crawl into bed and fall asleep almost immediately.

Back to the grind.

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What did we learn?

nice report Sean, fun to read