Poolboy, I hope you have fun! Do bring clothers for very cold weather, not only is it snowing there, there was, at last, call 3 inches of snow and it's sticking. At the MGM casino, if you play the $4-8 you can make some nice money in a short amount of time. You can make the same amount of money in an off-the strip casino, but it will take you all day. No joke. Play the tourists, you should do fine. Play the locals, you won't have agood time and you'll lose. But, if you insist on playing the locals casinos play at Palms, its a nicer game and the room is small and the people are nice. If you play the Orleans on a Friday night, expect the $4-8 pots to average $120-160/hand. Tough competition. The structure of the cheap buy-in tournaments is horrible...try the limit games, first. or the $1-2 or $2-5 NL games, the buy-in is smaller than the $5-10 and if you lose quickly in the lower NL games, you'll onlhy lose about $400. if you lose right away in limit, you're only going to lose approx $100. DON'T GET SHI*-FACED and expect to win; you can't. Good luck, have fun!