Well, I normally wouldn't recommend a job in the banking industry to anyone, but when they have software conventions in Vegas I guess there's an upside. I'll be at the MGM from Tues through Sat, but fly out pretty early on Saturday morning.

I'm planning on playing mostly at MGM, with a walk over to the Trop perhaps since I heard the NL game there is kinda soft. I prefer to play O8, but from what I can tell the only place spreading that is Orleans and I don't want to walk that far. I will probably hit the MGM $65 11am tourney at least once, but I can't play too much during the day since I have to show up at some of the conference classes to make it look good.

If anyone is going to be in the area and wants to grab a tasty microbrew at the Monte Carlo let me know.

There is a small chance I may be there, I'll let you know.

Just got back from Vegas. Some random thoughts

The MGM 11am tournament is quite well structured. It was about 30% soft, 50-60% mediocre, 10-20% reasonable players

The MGM 1/2 NL was pretty respectable. An order of magnitude stronger than any of the other 1/2 games (softest was Bally's by a long way). I didn't enjoy it much.

The short stack Excalibur 1/3 NL (100 buy-in) is very enjoyable - plays a bit like the fun part of a tournament: soom room to maneouver but not difficult to get your stack in either.

Avoid *all* tournaments and NL at the Luxor. The 2/4 limit there is a great zoo.

I only played the Mandalay bay tournament once (evening - the morning one fills up pretty quickly), but it was pretty good - reasonably structured 3 table SNG essentially.

I had a dreadful time at the Mandalay Bay 2/4 200 NL, so I don't have an objective opinion. A lot of very bad (action) players got very deep though.

Binions has started spreading O8 as well - of course that's even further away than Orleans (never made it there)...

Binions also had good tournaments (the final table is really cool, it's a different colour, raised, and is lit up), and the 1/2 NL was pretty fun. Worth one detour IMO. They have cool poker T-shirts too

Enjoy the trip!

Al, thanks a bunch for the tips. I didn't get to Binions last time I was in Vegas so I will do my best to this time.

I really gotta start playing some holdem, it's been taking me longer than expected to push my roll up playing PLO8, but ring rust will kill me if I don't start. That being said, if there's o8 at Binion's and I get there, that's what I'll play. Of course, it's just a hop across the street to the Excalibur, and they do have a higher percentage of slutty chicks there, so maybe that's my best bet.

Poker, slutty chicks, and free drinks. Damn, I love this country!!!