American Digest Volume 06

When I checked out last Tuesday (23rd July) I was hungover after a pretty heavy night with Paul and Kayleigh the evening before, but I started to feel marginally better so I headed out over to Caesars Palace. Here I met the guys and we enjoyed there brand new Bacchanal Buffet, this is a huge improvement from there previous buffet. It costs $45 for dinner but we paid an extra $15 for the express pass, the queue was a minimum of two hours long so it was for sure worth the extra. It featured more than five hundred items prepared by a team of master chefs in nine globally-inspired kitchens. I would say now with it's improvements it's the #5 buffet in Las Vegas behind Cosmopolitan #1, Wynn #2, Aria #3 and Bellagio #4.

Then as I was leaving the buffet I headed to the cage to see what rate they would sell me some euro's in preparation for my trip to Benidorm next week. I was told they don't normally sell them but they had bought some earlier in the day and I could take those, it meant I had to take the full amount which was €1,000. This was awesome though as they sold them to me at the rate they bought them which was 0.787 and XE is trading at 0.756, so I'm easily pleased and that made my day. So yeah, $1,270 for €1,000 and I'm all set for Benidorm. From here I headed over Bellagio to play some 500nl (Caesars didn't have a game running), here I sat to the right of Huckleberry Seed who was a great guy and really nice win or lose. I got the impression he was coaching the young girl to his left, which I guess explains why he was playing such small stakes.

I cashed out after around four hours, playing a shorter session than usual as I was still a little hungover. Another profitable session as I recorded $2,600 profit, so I'm pretty pleased with how I'm running and playing right now. Safe to say I've been on a bit of heater this last week. The following day I joined the guys over the MGM Grand as we had lunch at Rainforest Cafe, this is a restaurant themed around a jungle and the animals interactive as well as an earthquake every half an hour. The food was nice and the service was okay too.

Then we headed back to the Vdara and kicked it by the pool for a few hours during the afternoon, I then left the love birds alone as they had romantic dinner reservations booked at Gordon Ramsay Steak restaurant in Paris Las Vegas Hotel and Casino for there final evening in Las Vegas. That evening I headed to Wynn to play some 500nl, I ended up having a rough session as I lost $1,300. Which I'm okay with and it's just the variance involved playing 500nl, but perhaps what I was most annoyed about was I didn't really play too well. I stacked off with QQ when it was just clear to everyman and his dog that the villain had KK or AA. So that kind of sucked, but whatever I'm not going to lose any sleep. The following morning I went to meet the guys for there final few hours in Las Vegas, we had brunch at McDonalds before heading to World of Coca-Cola down next to MGM Grand. Despite being right there on the strip it's the first time I've been inside, we got our photo taken with the polar bear mascot and had a coke slush puppy.

Then we took a quick look in the Hard Rock Cafe before they left for the airport and there honeymoon was over, by now it was around noon and I headed back to The Quad to catch a few hours by the swimming pool. Then that evening I walked over Bellagio to play some 500nl, however there was a really sweet and fast 1000nl game running so I took a seat here. I wouldn't normally bother taking shots but it was playing just stupidly fast and I knew it would be profitable. Here I played with Freddy Deeb, making him the fourth mini famous poker player I played with during this trip. As predicted this worked out well for me as I recorded $2,400 profit after getting out of a $2,000 hole losing my first buy-in with KK all in preflop vs. A7o.

Friday 26th morning I woke up and spent an hour by the swimming pool, then headed back to my room and freshened up and headed to Margaritaville Casino and Restaurant for brunch. Here I enjoyed a grilled fish sandwich with french fries. I then made a very unusual decision for me to go to the South Las Vegas Premium Outlets as I wanted to pick up some new holiday clothes for Benidorm, I was there probably less than an hour and managed to pick up three new polo shirts and three new dress shorts. I got a Nike, Adidas and Ralph Lauren design in both the polo shirts and dress shorts and all for under $500. So I was pretty pleased with my work and I'm all set for Benidorm next week, I then took a taxi back to The Quad and relaxed by the swimming pool for the remainder of the afternoon.

That evening I headed to Eli Roth's Goretorium which is Vegas' only year round haunted house, here I took an interactive tour of the old famous haunted Delmont Hotel & Casino. This was really good in my opinion and pretty scary too, the actors take you by surprise and some parts of the tour are almost pitch black.

This took me until around 8:00pm and I headed to Caesars Palace to play some 500nl, I ended up cashing with $280 profit. This could have been a lot more if I didn't get dealt JJ vs. KK and get it in on a 7JK flop for $1,300 pot. Here I bumped into Steve Heron who was playing some 300nl, we had a bit craic and arranged to have dinner and see Michael Jackson ONE show over at Mandalay Bay on Sunday night. It was good to see him and meet his beautiful girlfriend Sam. I headed back to my room around 2:00am and watched a bit television as I drifted off to sleep. Now Saturday 27th and I had reserved a VIP cabana with my boy Henry Lau over at Wet Republic Pool Party, MGM Grand. He knows the concierge over at MGM Grand very well so we get it for a fraction of the cost, so yeah although it was clouded over we still enjoyed the weather, DJ Fergie and all the sexy girls whilst getting fucked up on vodka redbull. That evening after freshening up we hit the brand new world class nightclub Hakkasan to see DJ Danny Avila, which again is located in MGM Grand so with Henry's contact we got a VIP table and bottle service for ridiculously cheap.

This was just a super sick night where I partied until around 7:00am the next morning. What I was most devastated about though was I got some immense photo's from the pool party and the nightclub, before losing my camera right at the end of the night. Everybody knows I'm all about photos and memories, so needless to say that upset me somewhat but that's just the way it goes. I slept until Monday afternoon and woke up pretty hungover, so headed down to the swimming pool in an effort to recover and recuperate. Then I decided to walk to Planet Hollywood and have lunch at Planet Dailies, which I had a 50% off coupon for so got spicy chicken pasta for $7.

That evening I met Steve "Bunzer" Heron and his girlfriend Sam Sadler over at Caesars Palace at 5:00pm. As mentioned earlier we had 7:00pm dinner reservations at Lupo by Wolfgang Puck and show tickets booked to see Michael Jackson ONE by Cirque du Soleil both located in Mandalay Bay. The restaurant was very good with Wolfgang Puck taking an Italian innovative approach to the authentic tastes of Italy. The performance, like all Cirque du Soleil's shows I guess was a really well thought out production and ode to Michael Jackson. It focuses on music and dancing with modern techniques and effects, it showed an evolution in vision and captured the spirit of Michael well. Again hats off to Cirque du Soleil, I have absolute loved every show I have seen that they perform. Then well the night got ridiculously messy, we ended in various bars around Mandalay Bay, Luxor, MGM Grand, New York New York and The Quad. Making a second trip to Hakkasan in as many days, luckily I didn't lose my camera this time so check out the photos below.

The next morning I woke up with yet another huge and horrible hangover, I just relaxed in bed until around noon before getting in touch with Steve. He suggested we take a drive to Red Rock Casino.Resort.Spa to have dinner at Yard House and have a game of bowling. This helped a little with the hangover and we all drank lots of water to try and recover from yesterdays heavy night.

He dropped me back off at The Quad around 6:00pm and I headed to my room to relax for a couple of hours. Then for my final evening I took a walk over Wynn to play some 500nl, this didn't work out too well as I got $2,100 in the middle with AA vs. AQc on a AT4cc board and the guy rivered a flush on me. So I just called time on my poker for this trip and headed back to the room. I watched Due Date and slowly dropped off to sleep, if you haven't see Due Date you guys should check it out. It's got Zach Galiianakis (Alan from Hangover) as the lead guy and it's just really funny.

That brings me to right now, it's like 10:30am here in Las Vegas on Tuesday 30th July. I'm all packed and just finishing up this digest before an hour by the swimming pool and then to Hash House a-Go-Go for some lunch. My taxi is booked for 1:00pm and my journey back to the UK after ten months away begins at 3:40pm. I have bitch of a route home Las Vegas > Dallas > London Heathrow > Newcastle, which gets me home tomorrow evening at 5:40pm. I won't be in the UK too long though as I'm going on holiday the next day (1st August) with my boys for a messy week in Benidorm, so as much as I'm disappointed to leave Vegas I'm mega stoked to see my boys and have a week of partying.

#leavinglasvegas #benidormuncovered