Hello, 2017

It's been two weeks since we posted anything...no good reason, just a combination of busy and lazy.

But in 2017 we'll try to do a better job of recording our day to day activities.

For Christmas, Helen and I spent two days at Ballys, enjoying our comped room and playing some slots. We visited the Bellagio Conservatory and enjoyed a delicious Christmas Day dinner at the Grand Lux Café at the Venetian. That's been a Christmas Day tradition for us for a few years now. Helen enjoyed some beef medallions with mashed potatoes and steamed veggies, while I opted for Sunday Night Pasta, a thick beef/pork/lamb and mushroom ragu over pasta. Neither of us could finish the meal and we enjoyed the leftovers the next day.

New Year's Eve was spent quietly at home watching a movie and enjoying some snacks together. Our days of wild partying are past, it seems.

Gambling has been a bit down lately. I played poker for 6 hours yesterday at Ballys and dropped $50. It was a fun, but frustrating day at the table. I won a couple of pots early, but then went about two hours without a win. My stack melted away from the blinds. But then I was dealt K-K and figured I would finally get another win. I bet $12 and was called by two other guys. The flop came 9-7-2 of different suits. This was good for me, since and Ace didn't hit the board. I bet $20 and only one guy called. The turn card was a 4, another nice low card. I bet my last $35, not expecting the guy to call. But he did. The river card was a Jack. We both showed our cards and the guy shows 7-4 of different suits for two pair. He had called my first $12 bet with 7-4 offsuit and continued to call with that lame hand.

I had K-K two more times during the six hours and only won with them once, taking down a small pot. Frustrating to get good cards and not have them really pay off....or lose!

Starting Jan. 1, Ballys started a new poker tournament. They no long will have the weekly freeroll that required 12 hours of play to qualify. They are now doing one Monthly freeroll that takes 60 hours of play over the month to qualify. That's a lot of poker, but they have also upped the prize money. Now the top 50 players will receive $400 each, instead of the previous prize of $300. So I plan to try to get in the 60 hours. Instead of roughly 12 hours a week, I'll need to post roughly 15 hours a week.

By requiring all those hours, it means the tourney will be almost exclusively locals playing. Very few guests will be around long enough to log the hours and play in the tourney. I guess if you were here for a week and played 12 hours a day for 5 days and happened to be here when the tourney was held they could qualify. But it's very few who will do that. So we'll see how it goes when the first tourney goes in early Feb.

Helen and I have been watching some football too. Saw Michigan lose, the Lions lose, the Raiders lose. See a trend here? Today I plan to watch Western Michigan. Hope they can break the losing streak against Wisconsin. Helen's been busy keeping in touch with friends and family. She's having some nerve related pain and hasn't felt up to going anywhere, so we've spent time relaxing in the apartment.

Helen's brother Norman is supposed to be coming to LV this week for the big CES computer show. But he doesn't think he'll have much free time, so I don't know if we'll see him or not. CES brings tons of folks to town, but they are notoriously tight with money, especially tips.

There's an old local joke about the computer show is that 165,000 electronics geeks come to town with a white shirt and a $20 bill and they don't change either one!

And so our LV adventure continues...