Atlantis Casino Resort Spa Poker Room

I was a little worried that the PCA trip this year wouldn't measure up to last year but it did and I once again had a blast while I was down there.
<b> PCA Tournament Recap </b>
*disclaimer*: Probably boring. Skip down for a summary of the 'non-poker' part of the trip.
I had a pretty decent table draw for Day 1 and had good position on the more aggressive players at the table. We were supposed to have Norm McDonald, the comedian, at the table but he ended up being a no show. I had a good first level (75min levels) at my table and worked my starting stack up from 20k to 25k by the end of it. My only big hand in that level was with AJo. The lady to my right limped, which she had been doing a lot, I made it 400 to go at 50/100 blinds, David Coclough(sp?), a european pot-limit omaha pro, called on the button and both blinds folded. The flop came JTx with two diamonds, the lady checked, I bet out 800, David made it 2200 to go and the lady folded. I considered folding since he had been playing tight but I figured I could call one bet and fold to a turn bet. A brick hit on the turn and we checked through and at this point I really felt like he had a weaker jack or KQ since I figured he would fire again with a flush draw. The ten of diamonds hit on the river completing the flush and I considered making a small value bet but decided against it and we both checked through and after I showed my AJ he mucked.
I then went card dead for quite a while and the few pots I did raise I either took down with a continuation bet or had to fold to action post flop. My stack hovered around 20k for the next few levels and then I finally picked up queens during level 4, 200/400/25. A loose/aggressive player limped from UTG with only about 5-6k in chips and then a guy in MP made it 1.7k to go. He only had 10k total and had just 3bet and folded a flop during the last rotation and didn't seem to be too good. It folded to me in late-middle position and I made it 3.5k as there was no need to raise more since the other two players were short and if I got raised by one of the players left to act I could easily get away from queens. Everyone folded back to the 10k stack and he shoved in for the rest of his chips and I made a quick call only to have him table aces. The board bricked out and I was down to about 7-8k. A few hands later I picked up some chips in a big limped pot where I had 55 in late position and flopped a set to get me back up to about 13k.
My next big hand came in level 5 when I raised to 1.5k at 300/600/75 with AT of diamonds. A solid-aggressive player called on the button and the loose-aggressive player who had limped in my QQ hand called out of the big blind. The flop came AJ5 with two hearts and the big blind moved all-in for about 5k. I reshoved for about 11k and total and the button commented about how bad he had played his KK and folded. The big blind flipped up 67 of hearts for a flush draw and a back door straight draw. The turn brought and off suit nine giving him a few more outs but the river was a 6 and I survived the scare to get back up to about 24k.
From there my stack went in the wrong direction again as I didn't pick up any cards and my blind steals all got reraised and forced me out. My table broke early during level 6 and I moved to a new table and had about 15-18k at the time. My new table draw was not a good one as the play was really really slow and it was a very aggressive table with a few big stacks with the two biggest having position on me. The table had Kathy Liebert a live pro who I don't think is extremely good but she's obviously had some good results and knows what she's doing at the tables. It also had Devinr12 who took second in the Stars TLB in 2007. I didn't really have any big or interesting hands at the table. I picked up a lot of small to medium pairs most of which I had to fold to action in front of me. I did raise 44 from middle position and had to fold to one of the aggressive players shove from the small blind. A few hands later though I picked up 33 in the big blind and shoved over Liebert's open from late-middle position. I probably would have reshoved a lot of hands there as the stack sizes were really good for it since if she called and lost it would have left her with about 8 big blinds. She thought for quite awhile and tried talking to me to get a tell. She then uncapped her cards like she was about to fold, recapped her cards and counted out the chips to call, put the chips back and uncapped her cards to fold again, then recapped her cards, but finally folded after about 2-3 minutes.
I ended up getting down to about 7.5k toward the end of the day at 500/1000/100 and decided I was goning to be shoving most chances I got since I would rather bust on Day 1 then have to come back super short into Day 2. I ended up shoving T6s from utg+1 and got the blinds then the next hand I look down to see AA and shove again hoping someone will look me up light as I'm short and shoving two hands in a row but I get no action and ended up limping into Day two with 10k.
I got a pretty good table draw for Day 2 as there weren't any big stacks and even with only 10k I would have a lot of fold equity when I shoved. The table only stayed together for 4 hands though, one of which I shoved ATs and picked up the blinds, before it broke. At my new table I only lasted about 7 hands when I reshoved over TheDonator's, as he plays online, cut off raise with A5o from the big blind. It was the 3rd hand he'd raised since I'd been at the table and the 4th he'd been involved in. I knew he was aggressive from his online play and figured even though I didn't have much folded equity with only about 12k he was still probably raising light. He called with AJo though and hit broadway on the river to end my PCA run.
I felt like I played well but never picked up the cards to do much with and the second biggest pair I picked up ran into aces.
<b> Vacation Recap </b>
*disclaimer*: really long
<b> Friday </b>
I flew in around 4:30 and was to the Atlantis resort around 5:30. I hung out with Eric and Shannon Shorr, who I met in Aruba and was staying in Eric's room, until it was time for the Poker Stars' Welcome Party at 7:30. The parties are always fun, it's all you can drink and eat for two hours, and gives you a great chance to meet up with people and get introduced to some players you don't know. After the welcome party I hit up Aura, a new club that just opened at Atlantis by the owners of the Pure night club in Vegas, with a few 2+2ers I met up with at the Party. It's a really nice club though rather small. I didn't stay out very late as I had to play on Saturday and I didn't get much sleep the night before as I had a 6:30am flight out of Madison that morning.
<b> Saturday </b>
Saturday was Day 1 of the tourney for me and I was up at about 10am as play started at noon. I showered up and left my room just before 11am to go get something to eat but when I got to a the deli at the resort I'm told they only serve breakfast until 11. No big deal I'm fine with eating lunch and wasn't really expecting breakfast anyways. However I then go on to find out that it's impossible to get food between 11 and 11:30 since the restaurants either aren't open yet or are switching over from breakfast to lunch. The hostess points me to a ala carte area where you can order food to go that's inside the deli and is apparently open. I walk over to the counter and order a sandwich that's behind the glass display case and am told that's a 'lunch sandwich' at which point I just laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. I think the lady sensed my frustration and said she'd make it for me if I didn't tell anyone who gave it to me. So she toasted it real quick and I thanked her as I was just happy to get something to eat before having to play for 9 hours.
Saturday night after the tourney I ended up getting a taxi with a few other guys and heading to Senior Frogs since we heard there were some cruise ships in that night and we had learned last year that unless there are cruise ships in Senior Frogs has about 10 people at it. It must have been a 40s singles cruise or something though as it was packed with mostly an older crowd. Justin and I both got their signature yard drink but then took off back to Aura in Atlantis after finishing it 20 minutes later. The club was a lot of fun again and we ended up staying out until it closed at 4am.
<b> Sunday</b>
Sunday was Day 1b for the tournament so I had the day off and was hoping to hit the beach but it was overcast out, which was worrisome since it had been forecasted to rain all week. I really didn't do much and ended up spending most of the day watching the playoff games and having some fruity drinks at the resort.
I made plans with a few other players to get dinner but some of them were still in the tourney so we waited for it to finish at 9pm and then tried to go get something to eat around 10 only to find out that most of the places stop serving at 10. We ended up settling for eating at the Atlas Bar and Grill, which ended up becoming a running joke since it seemed everybody ate there a quite a few times as it was the only place open late. Aura wasn't open on Sunday through Tuesday night so there wasn't too much going on. Probably a good thing since I had to play on Monday anyways and it forced me to call it an early night again.
<b> Monday </b>
I was a little smarter Monday and waited until 11:30am to go get a quick sandwich from the deli before going to play in the tournament. About 30 minutes after busting out of the tourney I was already out on the beach getting some sun and luckily starting on Monday it got nicer out every day. Play finished earlier so we were able to hit up the Seafire Steakhouse and avoid the Atlas Bar. This was probably the best meal I had at Atlantis despite my steak being a little more well done then I usually like. We ended up splitting up the bill evenly and it was about $120 each but after 3 of us decided to room card roulette it for our portion of the bill everybody but two of the guys in the group jumped in. For those who don't know room card roulette it's pretty simple. Everyone puts their room card in a pile and you continue to eliminate one card at a time until whoever has the last card gets stuck with the entire bill. Dani, pronounced 'Donnie' (Ansky on 2+2), ended up losing out and getting stuck with the $960 bill for the 8 of us who stayed in.
We then hung out at the Two Dragons Bar in the casino that night which had a DJ with music and some dancing since Aura was closed. We snuck our own bottle of vodka in and saved ourselves some money by just ordering redbulls from the waitress for most of the night.
<b> Tuesday </b>
I called Justin after I got up and we met in the lobby and planned to hit the beach for most of the day. I had already eaten and after being on out the beach for an hour Justin went to go find some lunch. He came back with a pre-made turkey sandwich and about 5 minutes into eating it a bunch of seagulls came over and stole the second half of it while it was sitting right next to him. This caused more seagulls to join in now that there was a sandwich up for grabs on the beach. Justin freaked out at having about 20 to 30 seagulls flying around him and I just laughed from my beach chair at the scene unfolding next to me. He ended up bailing out to his room after that but I stayed and spent a few more hours out in the sun before heading in.
I headed over to the tourney area to watch the money bubble break. Shortly after hitting the money Mikey (mman_status) busted out and I hooked up with him, his brother, and his Dad to get a bite to eat. We wanted to go to Carmine's, a nice Italian place, on the resort but it was closed on Tuesday night so instead of going to Atlas we grabbed a Taxi and hit Mikey's favorite restaurant, Outback Steakhouse, which they had also ate at the night before.
After dinner we went to Two Dragons again for a few drinks but there wasn't a DJ there and it was a lot more dead than Monday night. We hung out for about an hour but then Mikey and I decided to hit the blackjack table. We ended up playing until they shut down the table games at 4am, which was definitely a good thing rather than letting us sit there until who knows when. The last shoe they dealt us ended up being a ridiculous shoe for the table and everyone at our table finished up a good amount on the night.
<b> Wednesday </b>
I met up with Mikey again on Wednesday and we started out at the pool for a few hours and then hit the beach and rented out wave runners. We rented them out for 30 minutes and both of the ones I ended up on broke down after about 15 minutes. We spent the rest of the day after that hitting the all the water slides on the resort and then floating around the lazy river there.
I hooked up with Justin, Rob, Michelle (Rob's wife), Steve (MrTimCaum), and Kyle (grafyx) for dinner at Carmines later that night. The food was great once again. The portions at Carmines are ridiculously big and we ended up getting two appetizers and three entrees for all of us to split and we probably left about a third of what we ordered. It came out to about $50 per person and we once again room card rouletted it and this time Kyle was the unlucky one stuck with the bill.
Wednesday night I was planning on taking it a little easy since Mikey and I had booked an all day power boat trip out to an island that left at 8:30am on Thursday. Aura was open again though after being closed the past few nights so we were all planning on meeting up there. Jon (TwistedEcho) had a table in the VIP area of the club so I spent some time hanging out with him and his buddies. They had been on a three hour booze cruise earlier in the day though and were all pretty drunk to start the night. Everybody I had been hanging out with through out the week ended up at the club by the end of the night and Mikey and I ended up staying out until it closed down at 4am.
<b> Thursday </b>
About 7:30am I get a wake up call I didn't know about. When signing up for the powerboat trip I had given my room number and apparently they give you a wake up call. Mikey then called at 8am to make sure I was up. I had Joe (hoodini10) staying in my room with me and he was passed out in his clothes from the night before on top of his bed and never even picked his head up or showed any sign of life despite the phone ring being extremely loud. I made it to the lobby and met up with Mikey, his brother, and Kyle to catch the bus to the boats.
The hour boat ride bouncing off the waves the whole time out to the island wasn't the best thing after being out all night but once we got to the island and ate breakfast and had a nice little rum and punch drink everything was good. After breakfast we got to spend some time at a beach on a little cove on the inside of the island. Then we took the powerboats out to a little reef to do some snorkeling and stopped at a sand bar on the way back to the island for lunch. After a lunch of barbecue chicken and baked fish we fed our scrapes to some sharks that swim by where we dock the boats. We then got a short tour of the island and learned some of the history before relaxing on the beach again. We stopped at one other island on the way back to feed some grapes to the iguanas that live there. The iguanas must be used to it since about a hundred of them came running to the beach when they heard the power boats pull up. The ride back in was a lot more fun than the hungover ride in.
I grabbed quick hour nap when we got back before hitting the Stars Goodbye Party. After the party I had plans with Justin, Rob, and Michelle to go to Nobu, a sushi restaurant. Justin and Rob didn't want to room card roulette it so we went the old fashion route of paying for our own bills. After Nobu we played a little blackjack before hitting up Aura again. This time nobody did well and we were done with blackjack after about 30 minutes.
We ended up partying until 4am again and then Jon, Mikey, and Carter (Devinr12 from my Day 2 table) grabbed a few beers and drank outside until about 5:30am, which made me really happy I had requested a late checkout since I had a late afternoon flight the next day with no need to be up early.
I'll post a few quick pictures from the trip at the end as there was a request to see me all sunburned up. I didn't use any sunscreen during the powerboat trip and got rather red but I made sure to use lotion a few times after getting back and aviod peeling and ended up with a really nice tan. If anyone is thinking about trying to qualify for a big tournament this is probably one of the most enjoyable despite the actual tourney play being tougher than most.
Sorry that this got a little long but I didn't feel like breaking it up into two posts. Also, I had a few nights with the wrong days that I fixed so it might not flow as nice as I originally wrote it.
Me and Jon (TwistedEcho)

Me and Mikey (mman_status)

Me, Mikey, Justin (Jurollo/WPThero), Joe (hoodini10)

Rob (KramerTM), Michelle (Rob's wife), Justin, Me

John (Mikey's brother), Me, Kyle (grafyx)

Me, Justin's middle finger

Me feeding the iguana (by popular demand)

I'll make this a quick one, full trip report to come.
I busted out of the tourney about 3 hours into day one. In the first hour I ran a set into a bigger set for about half my chips, then missed a a nut flush draw to knock me down to 3.5k. I busted in the last few hands at 100/200 when my AT got killed by KJ all in preflop to raptor.
Oh well, Leah and I are having a great time and i'll give a full trip report and soem good stories later.