Vegas trip summary

Initially, I was going to entitle this post "Vegas trip report", but after further reflection I don't feel comfortable writing much detail in this forum. This was my 5th trip to Vegas this year, and, like the others, the experience unfolded in unexpected ways. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Hence, I'm just going to post a few summary details.

- resultswise, this was my 2nd best weekend this year and my 3rd best weekend ever
- put in a decent amount of table hours at $15/$30 -> $30/$60 LHE at Bellagio, but unfortunately spent 0 hours in any type of mixed game anywhere. No MTTs (except for the WPBT thing), SNGs or Supers on this trip.
- finished 7th/107 in the bloggers tournament. Built up an above average stack during the middle 3rd of the tournament, but made a couple of decisions with roughly 30 people left that left me with a below average stack. From there I played a very unimaginative short stack game until I was busted by the Aussie. Ironically, I had to muck ~80% of my very best hands in the last hour and ~80% of my actual pushing hands were complete crap.
- by far, the most fruitful experiences of the trip (from the long term perspective) were the conversations I had. I spoke at length with some very successful midstakes pros, a couple of NY Times best selling poker book authors, and a couple of TV pros. These discussions mainly just reiterated things that I already know, but sometimes I just need a little reminder to set me on the right path.

Mistakes/Areas-for-improvement
- sleep management before and during road trips
- never, never forget to ask for a comp! I had more comps than I could use on this trip such that my out-of-pocket costs were simply transportation and tips. However, as I have so often done in the past, there were several occasions that I did not remember to ask for some kind of comp when I was likely to get one. Poker players are supposed to have a good memory, and the only excuse I can come up with is mental fatigue due to the previous point. (weak! weak!)
- maximize learning opportunities - I was much better in this area than I have been on past trips, but missing out on mixed games was a notable hole.
- drink more water in Vegas

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Thankfully someone hit the Party BBJ early this morning, so my plans for the week are going to be $3/$6->$10/$20 SH LHE online and $100->$200 MTTs online. It is quite coincidental that some bloggers have been recently writing about SH play, but suffice it to say that pursuing the SH game is something that was very much beat into my head this weekend.

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Luke Kim is getting to be one of my favorite poker bloggers. He had a funny post today about Parking Meter analysis.