THE VEGAS COMEBACK

No, it wasn't Elvis' return to the City of Sin, but we made our return for the opening weekend of National Finals Rodeo for a two night stand at the Golden Nugget. I made it in on Thursday, Dec 4th and everyone else was arriving early a.m. of the 5th. I took the opportunity to go try my hand at the Vegas poker scene. I played 1-2 No Limit and had a good table with a cast of characters. I played about 3 hours or so and was back and forth. The guy I was sitting next to was from Austin and an Eco major at UT. That should have been my first clue that things wouldn't end up well. Through the course of the 3 hours, the kid had pocket aces three different times and was just cleaning everyone out. I was dwindling down on chips, I had about $80 left. I drew A-10 offsuit. I raised before the flop and everyone folded but the kid. He called my raise and the flop came. It was A, 10, 6. He bet and I pushed all my chips in, raising to all in. My thinking was "I've already got two pair, the only thing that could beat me was if he had pocket Aces (which he'd already had three other times) or pocket 10's, which I didn't think he did. Well, he called my all in. We flipped and, sure enough, he had pocket aces for the FOURTH time in three hours. I was cleaned out, dejected and hungry...I headed up to my room.

The Nugget was an OK place. The hotel was actually very nice and the gaming was good, but the showroom was a little weird. It's on the third floor of the casino, was a terrible load in and the place only held about 600 people. Apparently the showroom has been in the same place for over 50 years and they don't want to move it, so they just keep renovating it. The green room was pretty cool. It had old retro shag carpet and old 8x10 shots of all the famous Vegas acts that had played there...Sinatra, Sammy Davis, etc. Ron, the head of entertainment for the last 90 years (or so), made sure to point out the crapper in the green room. "Boy, that's the same throne Frank sat on when he was here. If it was good enough for Frank..."

We had a fill in guitar tech that weekend. He ate the buffet (which was passable, but definitely not the MGM or Mandalay Bay) for dinner and about five songs in started feeling bad. He hurled himself towards the trash can and then began hurling his buffet into the trash can. He then made it back to the bathroom of the green room where he tossed his cookies into the same throne Frank sat on. If it was good enough for Frank...