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Chapter 6.... Day 3, Part I: Sports Book Sunday
I remembered that Iggy wanted me to put $100 on the Bengals for him at the sports book. Since we were cutting it close on time with kickoff a few minutes away, I made the bet at Excalibur then took the tram to Mandalay Bay. When we arrived at MB's sports book, the spread was an extra point in Iggy's favor. Ouch. For bettors that's a huge difference. I ran up and put another bet on the Bengals for myself and got it in just a few second before kickoff I had them at 10.5 and 11.5 and was praying that they would not get blown out. Let's be honest. It's not that I had faith in the Bengals. On the contrary, I had been picking New England consistently all season and that was the first and only time I bet against them in 2004. And why? Because Iggy did it. Yep, I'll adapt that old expression my Mom used to scream at me as a small child... because if Iggy jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, I would too. The lowly Bengals were my Brooklyn Bridge. And I took the leap of faith with Iggy.
The weekend football games were pretty big for me. My fantasy football team, Uncle Jodd's Band, were in the playoffs. We were without Priest Holmes, so I was hoping for a miracle game from Drew Brees and Kevin Jones. The entire purpose of the trip was for Derek and I to gamble on the NFL games at Mandalay Bay. We do this every December. That was the specific reason for our jaunt to Sin City. I pretty much organized the poker event around our original intent of a Sunday at the sports book. Yeah, I am fond of the Mandalay Bay. I used to love the Mirage, but in the last few years I have gravitated to Mandalay Bay sports book to place bets on March Madness and NFL games. It's one of the few casino's in Las Vegas where I can boast about having career earnings reaching five digits... all on sports betting.
When Derek and I arrived at the Mandalay Bay sports book, both BG, Daddy, and Bob had already snagged a table! They have these really cool marble tables with comfy chairs twenty feet from the bar. We sat down and I scanned the Daily Racing Form. BG and Bob had been placing bets all morning. BG suggested a horse with the name Briana in it... a long shot at 30-1. I wandered up to the window to place my bet, and sure enough, the horse was scratched. Not a good sign. I called up Briana to tell her that she was already jinxing my day.
Within a few minutes, we had a full crew soon after AlCantHang arrived and we were cracking jokes with our scantly clad waitress. She was cute as a Georgia peach and had the slow drawl to match. My notes have me knocking back shots of SoCo with ACH at the bar around 10:08am PCT. Gotta love being on the west coast for football season. Games start at 10am! I was giddy by 11am, drunk by noon, and shitfaced by 1pm. I can thank ACH for that. Derek was wicked wasted. He was visibly slurring his speech and speaking with a three second delay. I picked up some chicken fingers from the cafe to help sober him up.
Otis and Bad Blood arrived and hit up the poker room (steps away). Soon after Iggy wandered over with EvaCanHang. She had been up all night playing slots with Grubby. Iggy found a small piece of paper in his pocket that I had given him the night before at the poker room. It said: Mandalay Bay sports book - Sun. @ 10am. As soon as he discovered the note, he rushed over. I gave him his ticket for the Bengals and we just sat back and waited.
The game wasn't close in the first quarter. NE got off to a quick start and the Bengals fought to hang in there. At some point they lost their starting QB to an injury and I quickly accepted defeat. Out of nowhere, they faked a punt and scored a TD. That made the game closer than anyone imagined. The Pats ended up winning, but they didn't cover. A slew of us had bet on the Bengals, and we were all winners.
AlCantHang's buddy Phil is from San Diego and he's a huge Chargers fan. He was hanging out with us rooting for his favorite team. I also had some money on San Diego so I got as excited as Phil did when they scored or made a big play. ACH and Phil began singing the San Diego fight song. You've seen it on a few blogs already so I won't post the actual lyrics. They are quite catchy and easy to memorize, even for a bunch of drunk hooligans like ourselves. By the fourth quarter, we had the cheer down perfectly, and everyone's attention in the sports book was focused on our group when we would burst into a rowdy rendition of the Chargers' fight song. An old guy in front of us would stand up and direct the chorus of poker bloggers as if we were members of a local church choir.
I watched Bad Blood drop the hammer on his poker table. He flopped a pair and river'd two pair. He proudly displayed his Hammer for the table and scooped up a big pot. I also saw him take a vicious bad beat at a NL table with Mrs. Slick against ATo. BB flopped an ace, and some nimrod river'd him when he hit a 10 on the river. Ouch. He also had his cowboys cracked by the Hiltons. Here's what BB had to say about The Hammer:
I had a great conversation with CJ about his breakfast meeting with Edna, the poker room manager at Aladdin. She wants to host a future blogger event. Pretty cool, huh? I also had a great conversation with Iggy over several ideas regarding the future of our blogs and about the community in general. We also came up with an idea for a blogger tournament around March. Stay tuned for those details. I hope Iggy still has the notes from our "meeting" which I scribbled on the back of a cocktail napkin.
EvaCanHang decided it was time for her to crash. She got up said her good-byes. Before she left she mentioned, "Don't buy any more shots Al. They're too expensive."
As soon as she walked away, AlCantHang stood up and announced to the entire sports book, "Who wants a shot?"
I went with him to the bar to help carry the multiple SoCo shots back over to the table, including a Lemon Drop for Julie. The bartender mentioned that his tab was somewhere near $177.
"Only $177? Holy shit!" screamed AlCantHang, "I thought it was $300!"
When we all had our drinks I offered up a toast for AlCantHang. He quickly interrupted and said that we should all toast for me.
"To Pauly!" he said as our entire group hoisted their drinks and shots. At the same time, there was a huge play on the big screen, an interception, and the entire sports book cheered in jubilation just as the bloggers were toasting me. That was an awesome feeling, to hear "To Pauly!" followed by a thunderous applause from the entire sports book.
I realized that the majority of my drinking with AlCantHang all happened within the hours of 9am and 5pm. I wonder if that qualifies as a full time job? At the least, it gets a mentioning on my resume.
... to be continued.
"Then I start to empty my pockets. When I find two $5 Luxor chips, I start to think maybe I have been to the Luxor. The ATM receipt confirms it. Apparently around 1am I was in the Luxor playing.... something. To do this day, I have no idea. I kind of remember thinking midnight was noon and I was late for football. But that could all just be a drunken dream." - AlCantHangThe phone was ringing. I sheepishly answered another wake up call minutes after I finally fell asleep. I could have sworn that the maids were popping into the room for a "bed check" and were stealing $100 out of my pants pocket while I was passed out. Or maybe that was just a dream? I was greeted by a minor migraine headache, the kind that you get the morning of day three of a week long a bender, the type that never goes away no matter how many painkillers you pop or no matter how many drinks you consume to drown it out. You just have to gut it out and pray that it doesn't get any worse. Derek was much slower to get up and moving. Me too for that matter. I had an extra few minutes to write before my shower. Short on time, we skipped a sitdown breakfast and grabbed something quick from the food court.
I remembered that Iggy wanted me to put $100 on the Bengals for him at the sports book. Since we were cutting it close on time with kickoff a few minutes away, I made the bet at Excalibur then took the tram to Mandalay Bay. When we arrived at MB's sports book, the spread was an extra point in Iggy's favor. Ouch. For bettors that's a huge difference. I ran up and put another bet on the Bengals for myself and got it in just a few second before kickoff I had them at 10.5 and 11.5 and was praying that they would not get blown out. Let's be honest. It's not that I had faith in the Bengals. On the contrary, I had been picking New England consistently all season and that was the first and only time I bet against them in 2004. And why? Because Iggy did it. Yep, I'll adapt that old expression my Mom used to scream at me as a small child... because if Iggy jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, I would too. The lowly Bengals were my Brooklyn Bridge. And I took the leap of faith with Iggy.
The weekend football games were pretty big for me. My fantasy football team, Uncle Jodd's Band, were in the playoffs. We were without Priest Holmes, so I was hoping for a miracle game from Drew Brees and Kevin Jones. The entire purpose of the trip was for Derek and I to gamble on the NFL games at Mandalay Bay. We do this every December. That was the specific reason for our jaunt to Sin City. I pretty much organized the poker event around our original intent of a Sunday at the sports book. Yeah, I am fond of the Mandalay Bay. I used to love the Mirage, but in the last few years I have gravitated to Mandalay Bay sports book to place bets on March Madness and NFL games. It's one of the few casino's in Las Vegas where I can boast about having career earnings reaching five digits... all on sports betting.
When Derek and I arrived at the Mandalay Bay sports book, both BG, Daddy, and Bob had already snagged a table! They have these really cool marble tables with comfy chairs twenty feet from the bar. We sat down and I scanned the Daily Racing Form. BG and Bob had been placing bets all morning. BG suggested a horse with the name Briana in it... a long shot at 30-1. I wandered up to the window to place my bet, and sure enough, the horse was scratched. Not a good sign. I called up Briana to tell her that she was already jinxing my day.
Within a few minutes, we had a full crew soon after AlCantHang arrived and we were cracking jokes with our scantly clad waitress. She was cute as a Georgia peach and had the slow drawl to match. My notes have me knocking back shots of SoCo with ACH at the bar around 10:08am PCT. Gotta love being on the west coast for football season. Games start at 10am! I was giddy by 11am, drunk by noon, and shitfaced by 1pm. I can thank ACH for that. Derek was wicked wasted. He was visibly slurring his speech and speaking with a three second delay. I picked up some chicken fingers from the cafe to help sober him up.
Otis and Bad Blood arrived and hit up the poker room (steps away). Soon after Iggy wandered over with EvaCanHang. She had been up all night playing slots with Grubby. Iggy found a small piece of paper in his pocket that I had given him the night before at the poker room. It said: Mandalay Bay sports book - Sun. @ 10am. As soon as he discovered the note, he rushed over. I gave him his ticket for the Bengals and we just sat back and waited.
The game wasn't close in the first quarter. NE got off to a quick start and the Bengals fought to hang in there. At some point they lost their starting QB to an injury and I quickly accepted defeat. Out of nowhere, they faked a punt and scored a TD. That made the game closer than anyone imagined. The Pats ended up winning, but they didn't cover. A slew of us had bet on the Bengals, and we were all winners.
AlCantHang's buddy Phil is from San Diego and he's a huge Chargers fan. He was hanging out with us rooting for his favorite team. I also had some money on San Diego so I got as excited as Phil did when they scored or made a big play. ACH and Phil began singing the San Diego fight song. You've seen it on a few blogs already so I won't post the actual lyrics. They are quite catchy and easy to memorize, even for a bunch of drunk hooligans like ourselves. By the fourth quarter, we had the cheer down perfectly, and everyone's attention in the sports book was focused on our group when we would burst into a rowdy rendition of the Chargers' fight song. An old guy in front of us would stand up and direct the chorus of poker bloggers as if we were members of a local church choir.
I watched Bad Blood drop the hammer on his poker table. He flopped a pair and river'd two pair. He proudly displayed his Hammer for the table and scooped up a big pot. I also saw him take a vicious bad beat at a NL table with Mrs. Slick against ATo. BB flopped an ace, and some nimrod river'd him when he hit a 10 on the river. Ouch. He also had his cowboys cracked by the Hiltons. Here's what BB had to say about The Hammer:
The second kill-pot, I notice the good Dr. standing behind me. I peel back my two cards and find....The Jets lost to the Steelers and Chad Pennington played like shit. I won 3 out of four games on one of my parlay cards... the Jets the only team not covering. At some point, Julie, CJ, and G-Rob were hanging out and I was too sloshed to recall when they arrived. Ferrari was in the poker room with Otis and BB. EvaCanHang was at the tail end of a 36 hour bender and she quietly passed out in one of the chairs. I made up a "Do Not Disturb" sign and gently placed it on her. She slept through all the loud drunken chatter, even through the San Diego fight song.
Yes, the hammer.
Since Pauly was there, I had to play it. I caught a 2 on the flop and bet out. The turn brought a 4-card straight draw to the board, but nobody bet. I knew the hand was mine when the river brought the 7. An eruption of "Hammer! Hammer!" echoed through the casino as I looked behind me at the blogger contingent rooting me on.
I had a great conversation with CJ about his breakfast meeting with Edna, the poker room manager at Aladdin. She wants to host a future blogger event. Pretty cool, huh? I also had a great conversation with Iggy over several ideas regarding the future of our blogs and about the community in general. We also came up with an idea for a blogger tournament around March. Stay tuned for those details. I hope Iggy still has the notes from our "meeting" which I scribbled on the back of a cocktail napkin.
EvaCanHang decided it was time for her to crash. She got up said her good-byes. Before she left she mentioned, "Don't buy any more shots Al. They're too expensive."
As soon as she walked away, AlCantHang stood up and announced to the entire sports book, "Who wants a shot?"
I went with him to the bar to help carry the multiple SoCo shots back over to the table, including a Lemon Drop for Julie. The bartender mentioned that his tab was somewhere near $177.
"Only $177? Holy shit!" screamed AlCantHang, "I thought it was $300!"
When we all had our drinks I offered up a toast for AlCantHang. He quickly interrupted and said that we should all toast for me.
"To Pauly!" he said as our entire group hoisted their drinks and shots. At the same time, there was a huge play on the big screen, an interception, and the entire sports book cheered in jubilation just as the bloggers were toasting me. That was an awesome feeling, to hear "To Pauly!" followed by a thunderous applause from the entire sports book.
I realized that the majority of my drinking with AlCantHang all happened within the hours of 9am and 5pm. I wonder if that qualifies as a full time job? At the least, it gets a mentioning on my resume.
... to be continued.
Here's the timetable of the rest of my trip reports:As you can tell the timetable for my trip reports have been constantly changing. I have too much to write!! Stay tuned for more wild and wacky Vegas stories. There are plenty fo Hammer stories too. In the meantime, please visit everyone's blog for their kickass trip reports; HDouble, Iggy, Derek, Poker Prof, Flip Chip, and Foiled Coup from Lasvegasvegas, Dick from Buy It In Vegas, Riding the F Train, Boy Genius, Bad Blood, Bill Rini, Felicia, Glenn, Otis & CJ & G-Rob, Al Cant Hang & EvaCanHang, Maudie, Signor Ferrari, - EV, Bob, Grubby, Mas from Genius of Poker, Martin from JMC Automatic and Brian, Linda from Poker Works, and Daddy from Snail Trax. Did I miss anybody? Some are up, some are in the process of writing them, and some people like my brother are swamped with work, so I'm sure you'll be reading about this trip over the next few weeks. Thanks for stopping by.
12.22 - Day 3, Part II: Late night hijinks including Bellagio hookers
12.24 - Day 4, Part I: Aladdin tourney report & hanging w/ Grubby & Derek
12.26 - Day 4, Part II: The Brawl revisited and Late Night with Otis
12.27 - Day 5: Afterthoughts plus my fav. pictures & quotes
And here are the ones I have already posted:
Chapter 1: Day 1, Part I
Chapter 2: Day 1, Part II
Chapter 3: Day 2, Part I
Chapter 4: Day 2, Part II... WPBT Holiday Classic
Chapter 5: Day 2, Part III
Derek finally posted his Day 1 trip report. Check that out.
Chapter 5... Day 2, Part III: Saturday Night Live
Iggy recharged his batteries and eventually woke up before Midnight. He quickly joined my table and we were chatting it up. He was chugging Budweisers and extolling the virtues of Yahoo poker in an attempt to snag an Oscar nod for Best Fish-like Performance.
Grubby, F Train, EvaCanHang, and HDouble were all rocking a NL table near the Christmas tree. I heard F Train tried to crack Eva's Kings with the Hammer! And Grubby tried to crack HDouble's pocket aces with the Hiltons... to pick up a Pauly painting and to get HDouble a wheel spin. Aces held up. Maudie was cleaning out a bunch of frat boys and cowboys at her $1-3 table. Everytime I walked by she was grinding it out. Same for Bill Rini. Every time I checked, he had another rack of chips!
At some point, just when I thought I had seen it all... the monkey on the dog was shown on the big screen. Yeah, ESPN2 had full rodeo coverage all weekend long and that was the main attraction on the big screen in the poker room. When they unleashed the monkey, the entire crowd began hootin' and hollerin'. It reminded me of the insanity on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. It was one of those bizarre scenes that you completely miss the context of while reading my report in your cubicle at work. But trust me, if you were shitfaced at 4am, floating around in a sea of loose cowboys at a poker room in Las Vegas and you saw two hundred and fifty people cheering for a monkey dressed up like a cowboy on a Collie... then maybe you too would start to think that time travel is probable, peace in the Middle East is possible and that I'm 100% pretty sure I'll catch my next gutshot draw, even if it is a one outer.
Certain moments in your life define your existence. That was one of them... a monkey in a cowboy outfit riding a dog.
That was also the only other sentence I had scribbled in my notes. So the next time someone corners me at one of those dreadful New York cocktail parties and asks me if I believe in God, I can honestly say, "I do believe that monkeys can ride dogs. I've seen it in Vegas."
I tried my hardest not to laugh watching Iggy play low limit. HDouble joined our table and he accidentally turned over his cards when he thought the hand was over. He showed J7o. Yes. I have proof that not only did HDouble play J7o in Vegas... he won the pot with two pair! Later on in the night, Iggy cracked Derek's KK with 89s and even predicted that he'd river him preflop! Grubby would sit and play in either my seat of Iggy's seat when we'd take a breaks. I'd be making the rounds visitng CJ and other tables while Grubby would play out of his rack. A few times he used Iggy's rack and I was surprised no one said anything, not even the dealer! Sitting at the same table with Iggy, Derek, Grubby, and HDouble was one of those moments in Vegas where I was like, "Damn... there's no place I'd rather be!"
We were playing a $2-6 spread table and I dropped the Hammer in a pot with six limpers after raising the max preflop. Two callers and I came out firing on the flop. Everyone folded and I flipped over The Hammer! Some goofball kid from LA in Seat 10 was miffed. The rest of the night he kept talking about the hand. After a dropping the hammer, you know that everyone will call you down afterwards... so you'd better be prepared to have you high pocket pairs cracked by people playing marginal stuff. I tightened up and played good hands the rest of the night and built up a nice stack, doubling my buy in easily. Those fucktards at the far end of the table were analyzing and dissecting that move for more time than it actually deserved. I never got more attention at a poker table before. Hours later he'd say something everytime I'd raise or win a pot. Eventually I snapped at him.
"Geez. Let it go man. I was obviously fucking around. How many pots have I taken off you since then?"
He shut up after that and the hammer put him on tilt. He foolishly called everytime I raised thinking that I had nothing. Oh well. Before the night ended, I sat at Maudie's table. She was exhausted and was only staying up because it was her last night in Vegas, but she continued her run and doubled up her buyin.
On my way back to our room for a late night party, I saw Otis sitting by himself at a Pai Gow table. I wish I had a camera. I also saw Grubby and EvaCanHang happily playing the slots. Little did I know that they'd be playing until the early morning hours. Yeah, hanging out with poker bloggers, sucking up too much pure casino oxygen, and drinking watered down strawberry coladas makes you do weird things at 7am. But weird is the norm in Las Vegas, and in the end we were just just like the other animals at the circus; tired, dehydrated, and desperately needing a bath.
... to be continued.
"Certain moments in your life define your existence. That was one of them... a monkey in a cowboy outfit riding a dog." - Tao of PaulyI can tell what sort I night had during my travels by the condition of my notes. There are only a two scribbled sentences in my notebook for entries dated after 6pm Saturday and before 10am on Sunday... just a few words to remind me of the events of a stretch of sixteen harmless hours in Las Vegas. I have only few clues and my ambivalent memory to help with this part of the trip report. Here are my notes:
11:43pm... dropped the hammer... fucktards in seats 8,9,10 analyzing hand 3 hours later... playing with Derek, HDouble, & IggyThat's a start. OK, so after the tournament I found myself leaving Sam's Town in a cab with the NYC crew... Derek, Ferrari, F Train, and Julie. We all grabbed dinner together and Ferrari made the most questionable food choice of the weekend... the fish n' chips with milk. After that I pretty sure we headed to the poker room. I was seated in the back right next to Bad Blood's no limit table. If I turned around, he was right there. We chatted a lot in between hands, just like any night on Party Poker. By the way, every time I saw Bad Blood in Las Vegas, he was playing poker. He even offered up a hammer bounty for his table. A few folks from Otis' crew were peppered throughout the Excalibur Poker room. And I'd wave and check in for regular Hammer updates.
Iggy recharged his batteries and eventually woke up before Midnight. He quickly joined my table and we were chatting it up. He was chugging Budweisers and extolling the virtues of Yahoo poker in an attempt to snag an Oscar nod for Best Fish-like Performance.
Grubby, F Train, EvaCanHang, and HDouble were all rocking a NL table near the Christmas tree. I heard F Train tried to crack Eva's Kings with the Hammer! And Grubby tried to crack HDouble's pocket aces with the Hiltons... to pick up a Pauly painting and to get HDouble a wheel spin. Aces held up. Maudie was cleaning out a bunch of frat boys and cowboys at her $1-3 table. Everytime I walked by she was grinding it out. Same for Bill Rini. Every time I checked, he had another rack of chips!
At some point, just when I thought I had seen it all... the monkey on the dog was shown on the big screen. Yeah, ESPN2 had full rodeo coverage all weekend long and that was the main attraction on the big screen in the poker room. When they unleashed the monkey, the entire crowd began hootin' and hollerin'. It reminded me of the insanity on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. It was one of those bizarre scenes that you completely miss the context of while reading my report in your cubicle at work. But trust me, if you were shitfaced at 4am, floating around in a sea of loose cowboys at a poker room in Las Vegas and you saw two hundred and fifty people cheering for a monkey dressed up like a cowboy on a Collie... then maybe you too would start to think that time travel is probable, peace in the Middle East is possible and that I'm 100% pretty sure I'll catch my next gutshot draw, even if it is a one outer.
Certain moments in your life define your existence. That was one of them... a monkey in a cowboy outfit riding a dog.
That was also the only other sentence I had scribbled in my notes. So the next time someone corners me at one of those dreadful New York cocktail parties and asks me if I believe in God, I can honestly say, "I do believe that monkeys can ride dogs. I've seen it in Vegas."
I tried my hardest not to laugh watching Iggy play low limit. HDouble joined our table and he accidentally turned over his cards when he thought the hand was over. He showed J7o. Yes. I have proof that not only did HDouble play J7o in Vegas... he won the pot with two pair! Later on in the night, Iggy cracked Derek's KK with 89s and even predicted that he'd river him preflop! Grubby would sit and play in either my seat of Iggy's seat when we'd take a breaks. I'd be making the rounds visitng CJ and other tables while Grubby would play out of his rack. A few times he used Iggy's rack and I was surprised no one said anything, not even the dealer! Sitting at the same table with Iggy, Derek, Grubby, and HDouble was one of those moments in Vegas where I was like, "Damn... there's no place I'd rather be!"
We were playing a $2-6 spread table and I dropped the Hammer in a pot with six limpers after raising the max preflop. Two callers and I came out firing on the flop. Everyone folded and I flipped over The Hammer! Some goofball kid from LA in Seat 10 was miffed. The rest of the night he kept talking about the hand. After a dropping the hammer, you know that everyone will call you down afterwards... so you'd better be prepared to have you high pocket pairs cracked by people playing marginal stuff. I tightened up and played good hands the rest of the night and built up a nice stack, doubling my buy in easily. Those fucktards at the far end of the table were analyzing and dissecting that move for more time than it actually deserved. I never got more attention at a poker table before. Hours later he'd say something everytime I'd raise or win a pot. Eventually I snapped at him.
"Geez. Let it go man. I was obviously fucking around. How many pots have I taken off you since then?"
He shut up after that and the hammer put him on tilt. He foolishly called everytime I raised thinking that I had nothing. Oh well. Before the night ended, I sat at Maudie's table. She was exhausted and was only staying up because it was her last night in Vegas, but she continued her run and doubled up her buyin.
On my way back to our room for a late night party, I saw Otis sitting by himself at a Pai Gow table. I wish I had a camera. I also saw Grubby and EvaCanHang happily playing the slots. Little did I know that they'd be playing until the early morning hours. Yeah, hanging out with poker bloggers, sucking up too much pure casino oxygen, and drinking watered down strawberry coladas makes you do weird things at 7am. But weird is the norm in Las Vegas, and in the end we were just just like the other animals at the circus; tired, dehydrated, and desperately needing a bath.
... to be continued.
Here's the timetable of the rest of my trip reports:As you can tell the timetable for my trip reports have been constantly changing. I have too much to write!! Stay tuned for more wild and wacky Vegas stories. There are plenty fo Hammer stories too. In the meantime, please visit everyone's blog for their kickass trip reports; HDouble, Iggy, Derek, Poker Prof, Flip Chip, and Foiled Coup from Lasvegasvegas, Dick from Buy It In Vegas, Riding the F Train, Boy Genius, Bad Blood, Bill Rini, Felicia, Glenn, Otis & CJ & G-Rob, Al Cant Hang & EvaCanHang, Maudie, Signor Ferrari, - EV, Bob, Grubby, Mas from Genius of Poker, Martin from JMC Automatic and Brian, Linda from Poker Works, and Daddy from Snail Trax. Did I miss anybody? Some are up, some are in the process of writing them, and some people like my brother are swamped with work, so I'm sure you'll be reading about this trip over the next few weeks. Thanks for stopping by.
12.21 - Day 3, Part I: Sun. am shots and NFL betting at Mandalay Bay
12.22 - Day 3, Part II: Late night hijinks including Bellagio hookers
12.24 - Day 4, Part I: Aladdin tourney report & hanging w/ Grubby & Derek
12.26 - Day 4, Part II: The Brawl revisited and Late Night with Otis
12.27 - Day 5: Afterthoughts plus my fav. pictures & quotes
And here are the ones I have already posted:
Chapter 1: Day 1, Part I
Chapter 2: Day 1, Part II
Chapter 3: Day 2, Part I
Chapter 4: Day 2, Part II... WPBT Holiday Classic
Derek finally posted his Day 1 trip report. Check that out.
Chapter 4... Day 2, Part II: The WPBT Holiday Classic
Last place prize!
I picked up a cool bounty to give out to the blogger knocked out first. I have a great sense of humor don't I? The Gigli bounty was a hot potato. No one wanted to be given that honor. I especially didn't want to get booted first. My palms began sweating profusely. Only one thing to do to settle those chilling fears and to quell those inner demons. I ordered a beer, took a big swig, and the tournament was on it's way. I said an "Our Father" in Latin and in the back of my mind, I told myself... "You are never going to get better playing against fish. If you wanna be the Man... you have to beat the Man."
AlCantHang searches for a waitress
Level 1: Blinds 25/50 and you start with T2000 in chips. Top 5 places paid cash. On the first hand of the tournament, G-Rob dropped The Hammer! God bless him. It seemed to me that Charlie was messing around in the first level. He got me to fold QJs to his 46s when he raised my blind. I told myself not to play anything aside from Group 1 hands in the first two levels. Within seconds of each other, we lost our first two players. On my table, Flip Chip's AA were cracked by Max's AJs when Max hit a flush. Second earlier Al Cant Hang's AQ knocked out Bill Rini's QJ and Bill got the dreaded Gigli prize. By the time the level ended, I had T1800.
Charlie and Daddy
Level 2: Blinds 50/100... and I made a move on Daddy. I had AJs and I got him to fold AQ on a ragged flop. He showed me his hand and asked me to wait until he got back to Indiana to read my tourney report to find out what I had. CJ knew right away that I had AJ. A few hands later Daddy went up against Charlie. His KJ lost to Charlie's KQ when they both flop top pair. Outkicked, ouch. T2125 and 17 players remaining.
Where's Otis?
Level 3: F Train lost a tough hand to Ferrari after he flopped trips and let Ferrari see a free card. On the next hand he was booted by EvaCanHang and won his bounty... and F Train tshirt. I think AlCantHang almost knocked out two players on one hand. Linda's 66 and Bad Blood's KK were no match for another AQ from ACH. He flopped a pair and crippled Bad Blood while knocking out Linda. Back on my table Felicia's AK lost to Brian's AT when she pushed him all in on the flop and he caught a 10 on the river, With Felicia shortstacked she pushed all in on the very next hand with AQ. I found the Hilton Sisters and called. I think she had less than T500 remaining. When I saw her hand, I asked the dealer to hold onto those aces! I think an ace hit the turn and I doubled up Felicia. She had plenty of ups and downs early. She tripled up against Grubby and Charlie. And that was the beginning of her run. I had T1300 left and looking to hold onto my chips.
Half of -EV, Foiled Coup, and Derek
Felicia did a great job writing up the next hand that I was involved in with Max. Here you go:
OK, so I fucked up and folded pocket 10s to Max's suited slick. But soon after I was stuck by a calming moment. I recalled some words of wisdom from Lao Tzu:My nerves were settled and that's when I went on my run, so it didn't matter anymore that I blew a chance to double up against Max. A slew of players were booted. Grubby's AK lost to Charlie's 99. Bad Blood and CJ were next to be shown the exit. Just before the level ended, I put Charlie on a steal. I pushed all in with my BB... I had nothing, Q5o and Charlie showed me A7o when he folded. 22 players left and I had T1500.
Maudie's got AK, but check out Bad Blood's t-shirt!
Level 4: Julie's shortstack doubled up against HDouble when her AA held up. We now had G-Rob and The Poker Prof seated with us. Felicia's 55 beat out Charlie's AQ and that left him with only a few chips. He was KO'd on the same hand with the Poker Prof when Max's small pair held up against their overcards. 21 players left.
Charlie Shoten and the Poker Prof
Level 5: I found the Hilton Sisters once again. Mas threw out a bet UTG almost half his stack. I pushed right away. He must have had a seriously marginal hand otherwise he would have called instantly. I figured Mas had a small pair and eventually decided to take the coinflip. I was surprised to see JTo and that was the reason he took a long time to make his decision. My Hiltons held up and I doubled up against him. G-Rob was knocked out by Felicia. 18 players left, T4100 and looking great.
Level 6: Down to two tables. Otis, BG, Bob and AlCantHang were moved to our table. Derek's shortstack got knocked out by Foiled Coup's 27o. -EV and EvaCanHang were also out. Back at my table, Bob's AJ lost to Max's AA. Everyone was dropping out like flies. I was gaining more confidence and then I ran into a monster. I usually wait until everyone to look at their hand first before I look at my hole cards. For some reason, I peeked at the first card as soon as it hit my stack. Ace of diamonds. Not too shabby. Al Cant Hang bet 1/3 of his stack under the gun. I told myself that if I saw any paint I was going to call. When I got my second card... the ace of clubs... I knew that AlCantHang was going to be toast. I pushed all in and I saw AlCantHang drop his head, with his chin buried into his chest.
"Pauly, Pauly, Pauly! Why did you do that?" he muttered. He thought about it for thirty seconds. He called even admitting before he turned over his cards that he was far behind. He was... with ATo (not KJ like he claimed on his blog). I doubled up against AlCantFold's stack and had over 10,000 in chips. Ferrari was kncoked out by 10-10 and we were down to 12. I found pocket Jacks under the gun. It's my least favorite pocket pair so I moved all in. Otis called in LP with Slick suited. My Jacks hold up and I knocked out Otis. That was sweet revenge for that bad beat I suffered months earlier in the True Poker event! Boy Genius knocked out Mas for the Battle of the Geniuses. I was the chipleader and had T12000+ and had more chips than Max. It was breaktime and I made the decision to play conservative. I didn't want to give up my big lead on foolish calls.
I just got moved to the final table as the chip leader.
Those are all of my chips in that rack next to Julie.
I had the most chips at the Final Table, with Max not far behind, and Felicia looking solid. HDouble and Foiled Coup had the shortest stacks. And without a doubt, AlCantHang must have been the biggest surprise of the tournament. Nobody picked him to make the final table. None of the bloggers, none of the oddsmakers in Vegas, none of the offshore books, not even his wife picked him! Is he a better player than he gives himself credit to be? Or did he level the playing field by getting everyone crocked all morning long? For years poker scholars will be debating the AlCantHang factor in the first WBPT Holiday Classic.
On one the first hands, AlCantHang pushed his chips all in against Max. And for the second time he ran into pocket aces. Ouch, anothe rmonster. Nothing you can do about that. He quickly headed for the bar out in 10th place. I had been bullying Boy Genius when he was moved to my table before the final table seating. He played a hand and his AT was outmatched by Foiled Coup's AJ. BG was left with a shortstack and Foiled Coup was able to double through. I looked at my stack... about T15,200 and behind Max after he took all of AlCantHang's chips. Felicia knocked out BG a few hands later when her 88 won the race against his overcards. BG left in 9th place amid a warm shower of applause. HDouble had been aggressively stealing blinds just to survive. If I had anything I would have called him a couple of times. I found a Q9s once and considered it... but my mentality at that point was to let the smaller stacks knock themselves out. Glenn almost knocked out HDouble... A7 to A6. He had the shortest stack and was hanging on. Martin was the next to go when he ran into Julie's A7. What was up with A7? It was winning a lot of pots for the entire trip. Seven players left. HDouble's tiny stack tripled up against Felicia and Max. He was fighting for every chip! That was, until he ran into Max's Big Slick when he had AJs. HDouble's 4th quarter rally fell short. He finished in 7th place.
Bubble Boy
We're all on the bubble. The top five places paid... and I could see the piece of paper that Dick posted on the wall behind the table with the prize payouts. Top 5. Julie was in the big blind, Glenn in the small blind. I am on the button. Felicia and Max fold to me and I moved all in with 66. I was on a steal. I didn''t want any callers, just the blinds. I had not played any hands (aside from stealing blinds twice) at the final table. I had not seen one flop. Julie had KQs and called. The flop looked great for me... all rainbow rags. Same on the turn. The Queen spiked on the river and I was devastated. "You got to be kidding me!" I yelled in my best John McEnroe imitation. So much for winning my first blogger tournament. I had next to nothing in chips. Next hand I had A3s. I moved all in and Julie called with A7. I lost and walked way pretty ticked off. Al Cant Hang was standing around and he's the first person I saw. "Dr. Pauly needs a shot," he said. The next thing I know I'm knocking back SoCo and wondering why I didn't limp in with 66. I bubbled out in another tournament. That is the most frustrating feeling in poker. And that's been my sad story about my poker play this entire year.... I'm the bubble boy. It's a bad habit that I must break out of in 2005.
I went back to the table and picked up my notebook from Derek. He was taking notes for a little while during my decompression session with AlCantHang.
Three Way Action
Level 8: Foiled Coup moved all in with AQ and luckily caught a Queen on the river to beat Felicia's AK. Glenn was shortstack and he pushed all in preflop with A9s against Max's AK. Another big hand for Max. Felicia took a big pot from Julie when he Big Slick held up against Julie's J-10. Foiled Coup's run at the final table was over when he had to push all in from the big blind against Max's 22. A valiant effort from a member of the Lasvegaslasvegas crew. It was three way... Julie, Max, and Felicia Lee.
Julie bluffing Max at the final table.
Without a doubt, Julie was overmatched. That was her first ever NL tournament and her run was impressive. She lost a tough pot to Felicia's high straight and then doubled up against Max with A7. Max eventually knocked Julie out and she took down a third place prize outlasting the pack. Felicia ended up beating Max when her K7s bested his AJ.
Joaquin was generous enough tp purchase and ship a cowboy hat for the winner... which went to Felicia. I was happy to see Felicia win the Holiday Classic since she had been very sick the last week or so leading up to the event. I picked Glenn to win only because he had been playing more NL than Felicia, but I was still happy to see her take us all down.
Felicia Lee wins!
We got some positive feedback from the staff at Sam's Town. Here are some of ths comments, Dick posted on his blog:
Thanks to Dick Gatewood!
Special thanks goes out to Dick Gatewood. He completely hooked all of us up with the tournament, banquet hall, and discounted rooms. The next time you are in Las Vegas, go to Sam's Town to play poker... and make sure you tell him that Pauly and the bloggers sent you. You can pick up some last minute cool poker related gifts at his main site Buy It In Vegas.
"You have to be willing to die, if you want to live." - Felicia LeeSaturday, 12:55pm PCT... We finally made our way down to the poker room. It was very well lit, something that I liked right away. Dick's staff were professionals and they seemed excited to have us. We drew for seats. I picked up my card and nearly fell over when I walked over to my table and saw everyone seated. If the WPBT Holiday Classic were a televised event, chances are my table would have been the "feature table".
Table 1Yeah, I would have liked to sit down at any other table. With three pros (I consider Felicia a professional) and Grubby moving to Vegas to play full time... all sitting to my left... I wasn't too thrilled. I knew I would have to play solid, limit my mistakes, and catch good cards. Then maybe I had an outside shot of making the final table. Having that third double shot of SoCo a half hour before the tournament was probably not a good idea. I was buzzed and terrified.
Seat 1: Flip Chip
Seat 2: Charlie Shoten
Seat 3: Daddy
Seat 4: Brian
Seat 5: Mas
Seat 6: Pauly
Seat 7: Max Pescatori
Seat 8: CJ
Seat 9: Felicia Lee
Seat 10: Grubby
Table 2
Seat 1: Glenn
Seat 2: Bad Blood
Seat 3: Bill Rini
Seat 4: G-Rob
Seat 5: BG
Seat 6: Linda
Seat 7: Otis
Seat 8: AlCantHang
Seat 9: Martin
Seat 10: Bob
Table 3
Seat 1: The Poker Prof
Seat 2: -EV
Seat 3: Foiled Coup
Seat 4: Derek
Seat 5: Julie from the Blue Parrot
Seat 6: Ferrari
Seat 7: F Train
Seat 8: HDouble
Seat 9: EvaCanHang
Seat 10: Maudie
Last place prize!
I picked up a cool bounty to give out to the blogger knocked out first. I have a great sense of humor don't I? The Gigli bounty was a hot potato. No one wanted to be given that honor. I especially didn't want to get booted first. My palms began sweating profusely. Only one thing to do to settle those chilling fears and to quell those inner demons. I ordered a beer, took a big swig, and the tournament was on it's way. I said an "Our Father" in Latin and in the back of my mind, I told myself... "You are never going to get better playing against fish. If you wanna be the Man... you have to beat the Man."
AlCantHang searches for a waitress
Level 1: Blinds 25/50 and you start with T2000 in chips. Top 5 places paid cash. On the first hand of the tournament, G-Rob dropped The Hammer! God bless him. It seemed to me that Charlie was messing around in the first level. He got me to fold QJs to his 46s when he raised my blind. I told myself not to play anything aside from Group 1 hands in the first two levels. Within seconds of each other, we lost our first two players. On my table, Flip Chip's AA were cracked by Max's AJs when Max hit a flush. Second earlier Al Cant Hang's AQ knocked out Bill Rini's QJ and Bill got the dreaded Gigli prize. By the time the level ended, I had T1800.
Charlie and Daddy
Level 2: Blinds 50/100... and I made a move on Daddy. I had AJs and I got him to fold AQ on a ragged flop. He showed me his hand and asked me to wait until he got back to Indiana to read my tourney report to find out what I had. CJ knew right away that I had AJ. A few hands later Daddy went up against Charlie. His KJ lost to Charlie's KQ when they both flop top pair. Outkicked, ouch. T2125 and 17 players remaining.
Where's Otis?
Level 3: F Train lost a tough hand to Ferrari after he flopped trips and let Ferrari see a free card. On the next hand he was booted by EvaCanHang and won his bounty... and F Train tshirt. I think AlCantHang almost knocked out two players on one hand. Linda's 66 and Bad Blood's KK were no match for another AQ from ACH. He flopped a pair and crippled Bad Blood while knocking out Linda. Back on my table Felicia's AK lost to Brian's AT when she pushed him all in on the flop and he caught a 10 on the river, With Felicia shortstacked she pushed all in on the very next hand with AQ. I found the Hilton Sisters and called. I think she had less than T500 remaining. When I saw her hand, I asked the dealer to hold onto those aces! I think an ace hit the turn and I doubled up Felicia. She had plenty of ups and downs early. She tripled up against Grubby and Charlie. And that was the beginning of her run. I had T1300 left and looking to hold onto my chips.
Half of -EV, Foiled Coup, and Derek
Felicia did a great job writing up the next hand that I was involved in with Max. Here you go:
A funny thing about that, was a hand that was so painful to watch which occurred right before Pauly's run. This is the hand that really got me talking more at the table, since Max was offering his advice, too, in between kidding and joking around.In my defense, I put Max on JJ or Hiltons. If I suspected he had AK, I would have pushed. I had a gut feeling it was a higher pair. I showed him hoping that he'd show me which he did. That opened up a series of small talks that Max would give me the rest of the afternoon. Betwen Max and Felicia, I got plenty of solid advice on my game. Watching the pros play at my table made me aware of the little things that I need to do to improve me game.
I was in the BB. Max was on the button. Mas limped in MP. Pauly limped in the cut-off. Max went all-in. Watching Max during the tourney, and his behavior up until that time, I knew he didn't want a caller. He usually wants to screw around and get a caller or two when the stakes aren't high and he has a premium hand. So the hand smacked of AK to me, or maybe AQ, but probably not. I also thought about the possibility of jacks or tens. Who really wants multiple callers with those hands? No one. So he put his chips in, not wanting to screw around with the hand, just wanting the blinds and two limpers. That would put 700 into is already big lead.
I looked down to find 55 in my BB. Had I been last to act, I would have called Max's all-in. Not because I necessarily thought I was in the lead, but because I figured it was a coin flip, and these small tourneys are no time to be messing around. Yes, I am a rock, and I don't usually even play small pairs in big tourneys, but no one had any chips, and I could have doubled through Max, giving me a huge chip lead at the table, since I was already co-lead with him at that time. Like I said in my last post, I sometimes have to "die" in order to live.
Pauly and Max the Italian Pirate
So I folded, knowing it could be a multi-way all-in pot, one in which I was surely behind. Mas quickly folded, no thought. Pauly agonized and looked like he was giving birth. Finally, though, he folded, face up. Pocket tens. Everyone gasped. He was HU against Max, with a premium hand. No, no, no. He had only about 1200 left after limping in. The blinds were 100/200. No, no, no. I told him why he couldn't fold that hand, in that position, under those circumstances. At first, Max kidded him by saying it was a good fold, but later told him the truth of the situation. Don't make big laydowns in little tournaments, and if you ever make a big lay down, period, never show it, or the table will run you over. Max showed AK.
Okay, so the funny story was that after this hand, Pauly went on his premium run. During this run, Max looked at me like he was really suffering and said, "Couldn't you have waited to tell him he was supposed to call with those tens? Waited until after the tournament?" Naturally we both saw the hands Pauly was getting, because he always got action, due to the structure of the tourney. At the time, it was a really funny comment, though, and I wish it translated better to paper.
OK, so I fucked up and folded pocket 10s to Max's suited slick. But soon after I was stuck by a calming moment. I recalled some words of wisdom from Lao Tzu:
"Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity,
Reduce selfishness, have few desires."
Maudie's got AK, but check out Bad Blood's t-shirt!
Level 4: Julie's shortstack doubled up against HDouble when her AA held up. We now had G-Rob and The Poker Prof seated with us. Felicia's 55 beat out Charlie's AQ and that left him with only a few chips. He was KO'd on the same hand with the Poker Prof when Max's small pair held up against their overcards. 21 players left.
Charlie Shoten and the Poker Prof
Level 5: I found the Hilton Sisters once again. Mas threw out a bet UTG almost half his stack. I pushed right away. He must have had a seriously marginal hand otherwise he would have called instantly. I figured Mas had a small pair and eventually decided to take the coinflip. I was surprised to see JTo and that was the reason he took a long time to make his decision. My Hiltons held up and I doubled up against him. G-Rob was knocked out by Felicia. 18 players left, T4100 and looking great.
Level 6: Down to two tables. Otis, BG, Bob and AlCantHang were moved to our table. Derek's shortstack got knocked out by Foiled Coup's 27o. -EV and EvaCanHang were also out. Back at my table, Bob's AJ lost to Max's AA. Everyone was dropping out like flies. I was gaining more confidence and then I ran into a monster. I usually wait until everyone to look at their hand first before I look at my hole cards. For some reason, I peeked at the first card as soon as it hit my stack. Ace of diamonds. Not too shabby. Al Cant Hang bet 1/3 of his stack under the gun. I told myself that if I saw any paint I was going to call. When I got my second card... the ace of clubs... I knew that AlCantHang was going to be toast. I pushed all in and I saw AlCantHang drop his head, with his chin buried into his chest.
"Pauly, Pauly, Pauly! Why did you do that?" he muttered. He thought about it for thirty seconds. He called even admitting before he turned over his cards that he was far behind. He was... with ATo (not KJ like he claimed on his blog). I doubled up against AlCantFold's stack and had over 10,000 in chips. Ferrari was kncoked out by 10-10 and we were down to 12. I found pocket Jacks under the gun. It's my least favorite pocket pair so I moved all in. Otis called in LP with Slick suited. My Jacks hold up and I knocked out Otis. That was sweet revenge for that bad beat I suffered months earlier in the True Poker event! Boy Genius knocked out Mas for the Battle of the Geniuses. I was the chipleader and had T12000+ and had more chips than Max. It was breaktime and I made the decision to play conservative. I didn't want to give up my big lead on foolish calls.
The Final Table:Level 7: Ah, the chipleader. The last time I held a chip lead at the final table in a blogger sanctioned event... I blew it all during the infamous Pauly Implosion.
Seat 1: Felicia
Seat 2: Max
Seat 3: Foiled Coup
Seat 4: Pauly
Seat 5: AlCantFold
Seat 6: BG
Seat 7: Glenn
Seat 8: HDouble
Seat 9: Julie
Seat 10: Martin
I just got moved to the final table as the chip leader.
Those are all of my chips in that rack next to Julie.
I had the most chips at the Final Table, with Max not far behind, and Felicia looking solid. HDouble and Foiled Coup had the shortest stacks. And without a doubt, AlCantHang must have been the biggest surprise of the tournament. Nobody picked him to make the final table. None of the bloggers, none of the oddsmakers in Vegas, none of the offshore books, not even his wife picked him! Is he a better player than he gives himself credit to be? Or did he level the playing field by getting everyone crocked all morning long? For years poker scholars will be debating the AlCantHang factor in the first WBPT Holiday Classic.
On one the first hands, AlCantHang pushed his chips all in against Max. And for the second time he ran into pocket aces. Ouch, anothe rmonster. Nothing you can do about that. He quickly headed for the bar out in 10th place. I had been bullying Boy Genius when he was moved to my table before the final table seating. He played a hand and his AT was outmatched by Foiled Coup's AJ. BG was left with a shortstack and Foiled Coup was able to double through. I looked at my stack... about T15,200 and behind Max after he took all of AlCantHang's chips. Felicia knocked out BG a few hands later when her 88 won the race against his overcards. BG left in 9th place amid a warm shower of applause. HDouble had been aggressively stealing blinds just to survive. If I had anything I would have called him a couple of times. I found a Q9s once and considered it... but my mentality at that point was to let the smaller stacks knock themselves out. Glenn almost knocked out HDouble... A7 to A6. He had the shortest stack and was hanging on. Martin was the next to go when he ran into Julie's A7. What was up with A7? It was winning a lot of pots for the entire trip. Seven players left. HDouble's tiny stack tripled up against Felicia and Max. He was fighting for every chip! That was, until he ran into Max's Big Slick when he had AJs. HDouble's 4th quarter rally fell short. He finished in 7th place.
Bubble Boy
We're all on the bubble. The top five places paid... and I could see the piece of paper that Dick posted on the wall behind the table with the prize payouts. Top 5. Julie was in the big blind, Glenn in the small blind. I am on the button. Felicia and Max fold to me and I moved all in with 66. I was on a steal. I didn''t want any callers, just the blinds. I had not played any hands (aside from stealing blinds twice) at the final table. I had not seen one flop. Julie had KQs and called. The flop looked great for me... all rainbow rags. Same on the turn. The Queen spiked on the river and I was devastated. "You got to be kidding me!" I yelled in my best John McEnroe imitation. So much for winning my first blogger tournament. I had next to nothing in chips. Next hand I had A3s. I moved all in and Julie called with A7. I lost and walked way pretty ticked off. Al Cant Hang was standing around and he's the first person I saw. "Dr. Pauly needs a shot," he said. The next thing I know I'm knocking back SoCo and wondering why I didn't limp in with 66. I bubbled out in another tournament. That is the most frustrating feeling in poker. And that's been my sad story about my poker play this entire year.... I'm the bubble boy. It's a bad habit that I must break out of in 2005.
I went back to the table and picked up my notebook from Derek. He was taking notes for a little while during my decompression session with AlCantHang.
Three Way Action
Level 8: Foiled Coup moved all in with AQ and luckily caught a Queen on the river to beat Felicia's AK. Glenn was shortstack and he pushed all in preflop with A9s against Max's AK. Another big hand for Max. Felicia took a big pot from Julie when he Big Slick held up against Julie's J-10. Foiled Coup's run at the final table was over when he had to push all in from the big blind against Max's 22. A valiant effort from a member of the Lasvegaslasvegas crew. It was three way... Julie, Max, and Felicia Lee.
Julie bluffing Max at the final table.
Without a doubt, Julie was overmatched. That was her first ever NL tournament and her run was impressive. She lost a tough pot to Felicia's high straight and then doubled up against Max with A7. Max eventually knocked Julie out and she took down a third place prize outlasting the pack. Felicia ended up beating Max when her K7s bested his AJ.
Joaquin was generous enough tp purchase and ship a cowboy hat for the winner... which went to Felicia. I was happy to see Felicia win the Holiday Classic since she had been very sick the last week or so leading up to the event. I picked Glenn to win only because he had been playing more NL than Felicia, but I was still happy to see her take us all down.
Felicia Lee wins!
The Final Results:If you would like to view the photo gallery for the WPBT Holiday Classic... here's the link. Thanks again to Joe and Joe, Sr. for all of their help. All of these pictures are courtesy of Lasvegasvegas.com. Thanks also to Jeff from Check N Raise who helped sponsor the event and gave out cool jackets to everyone. Anyone have a pic of those? Thanks also to the folks over at All N Poker. They gave out t-shirts for the final eight and shotglasses to 9th and 10th place.
1. $600... Felicia Lee from Golden Valley, AZ
2. $310... Max Pescatori from Las Vegas, NV
3. $230... Julie from New York, NY
4. $130... Foiled Coup from Las Vegas, NV
5. $80... Glenn from Golden Valley, AZ
6. Pauly (A3s lost to Julie's A7)
7. HDouble
8. Martin
9. BG
10. Al Cant Hang
11. Mas (JTo lost to my QQ)
12. Otis (AKs lost to my JJ)
13. Ferrari
14. Maudie
15. Bob
16. -EV
17. Derek
18. EvaCanHang
19. G-Rob
20. Charlie Shoten
21. Poker Prof
22. Brian
23. CJ
24. Bad Blood
25. Grubby (AKs lost to Charlie's 99)
26. Linda from Poker Works (66 lost to AQ)
27. F Train (KQ lost to EvaCanHang's 77)
28. Daddy (KJ lost to Charlie's KQ)
29. Flip Chip (AA lost to Max's AJs)
30. Bill Rini (QJ lost to AlCantHang's AQ)
We got some positive feedback from the staff at Sam's Town. Here are some of ths comments, Dick posted on his blog:
"Where did these people come from? They are great!"Whew. I was a little worried that a few of us were intoxicated and acting unprofessional. I'm glad that everything worked out.
"It was a pleasure to work today"
"I hope some of them stay for the tonight's tournament. They could teach some of our regulars some manners."
"These people are fun."
Thanks to Dick Gatewood!
Special thanks goes out to Dick Gatewood. He completely hooked all of us up with the tournament, banquet hall, and discounted rooms. The next time you are in Las Vegas, go to Sam's Town to play poker... and make sure you tell him that Pauly and the bloggers sent you. You can pick up some last minute cool poker related gifts at his main site Buy It In Vegas.
Here's the timetable of the rest of my trip reports:As you can tell the timetable for my trip reports have been constantly changing. I have too much to write!! Stay tuned for more wild and wacky Vegas stories. There are plenty fo Hammer stories too. In the meantime, please visit everyone's blog for their kickass trip reports; HDouble, Iggy, Derek, Poker Prof, Flip Chip, and Foiled Coup from Lasvegasvegas, Dick from Buy It In Vegas, Riding the F Train, Boy Genius, Bad Blood, Bill Rini, Felicia, Glenn, Otis & CJ & G-Rob, Al Cant Hang & EvaCanHang, Maudie, Signor Ferrari, - EV, Bob, Grubby, Mas from Genius of Poker, Martin from JMC Automatic and Brian, Linda from Poker Works, and Daddy from Snail Trax. Did I miss anybody? Some are up, some are in the process of writing them, and some people like my brother are swamped with work, so I'm sure you'll be reading about this trip over the next few weeks. Thanks for stopping by.
12.20 - Day 2, Part III: More blogger tables, Hammers, & late night hijinks
12.21 - Day 3, Part I: Sun. am shots and NFL betting at Mandalay Bay
12.22 - Day 3, Part II: Late night hijinks including Bellagio hookers
12.24 - Day 4, Part I: Aladdin tourney report & hanging w/ Grubby & Derek
12.26 - Day 4, Part II: The Brawl revisited and Late Night with Otis
12.27 - Day 5: Afterthoughts plus my fav. pictures & quotes
And here are the ones I have already posted:
Chapter 1: Day 1, Part I
Chapter 2: Day 1, Part II
Chapter 3: Day 2, Part I
Derek finally posted his Day 1 trip report. Check that out.
Chapter 3... Day 2, Part I: Sherwood Forest and the Sam's Town Meet & Greet
Derek shuffled off to the shower and I fired up my laptop for a quick update of two of my blogs. The poker bloggers in my life wanted to hear juicy details of the trip... and the remainder of my friends back home wanted to make sure I was still alive. Everyone knows I'm a big boy and hanging out with Al Cant Hang is an adventure in itself... but partying with ACH on a three day bender in Vegas is like foolishly walking into downtown Fallujah with a squirt gun and a swizzle stick. I had about ten minutes to write. How does one condense a full day of madness in Sin City into a 200 word blog entry? I was working on a dial up modem and tried my best. I ignored the slew of errors, posted, and hopped into the shower. I got out, dripping wet when Maudie called. We went up to her room, checked out her view (much better than ours), and inspected the infamous, kick ass WBPT t-shirts featuring the logo she designed. Derek and I helped carry the shirts, Maudie grabbed her "bounty" and we headed downstairs. The time was 9:20am and our intentions were to get to Sam's Town way before 10am. We were on schedule... were... until Little Red Riding Hood was ambushed by the Big Bad Wolf.
It was still early in the morning for Vegas standards and we navigated through a slew of Rodeo families with small children in cowboy hats as they rambunctiously made their way to and from breakfast. I like kids, especially red neck kids. They're the cutest. However, my tolerance for little ones runs thin when I'm hungover especially in Vegas when you have a throbbing headache similar to the feeling you'd get when you slam a car door onto your fingers. I side step the wee ones like dog shit on a crowded Manhattan sidewalk. We finally make our way through the first obstacle and quickly head towards the front door.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see someone stumbling through a row of nickel slot machines. Poor guy probably stayed up all night drinking and gambling and it appeared he couldn't find his room. Just another victim of the depravity of the dark side of Vegas. I stopped for a second to get a better look at the unlucky fella. Holy shit. It was Iggy. I completely forgot he was in Vegas. Our epic meeting just nine hour earlier wasn't a dream after all. In Vegas, my short term memory was as spotty as my cellphone reception.
OK, so I found an inebriated Iggy who opted for more liquor than sleep. But Grubby was still AWOL. Just as I grabbed Iggy, I realized that the Sherwood Forest bar is packed with bloggers and King Al Cant Hang is holding court with his beautiful blonde bride... Queen EvaCanHang at his side. His merry jester BigMike kept everyone happily entertained with multiple rounds of hearty meeds and ales and a smattering of his loyal soused subjects sang his praises. Iggy's liver had been hijacked by BigMike just around the time I passed out at my laptop. He didn't look like he was going to make it as he slumped back on a stool at the bar. Within seconds, I had a shot of SoCo in my hand. Before I could consider the circumstances, like Pavlov's frothing dog and in a worldly Zen moment, the edge of glass automatically hit my lips as the nectar of the Gods struggled to make it's way into my queasy stomach, into my reluctant liver, and into my starving soul.
It was 9:20am on a Saturday morning in Las Vegas. I just inhaled a shot of SoCo with AlCantHang and BigMike before I even had a bite to eat or a sip of water. What a start to the day. What could I do to top that? A second shot of course. That one went down much smoother. Bad Blood was a little tipsy and gleefully showed Maudie and Derek pictures of Mrs. Blood and the mini-bloods. His 42 inch guns were proudly on display underneath a t-shirt that HDouble aptly described as "the best and worst shirt he's ever seen." Daddy never made his way back to Sam's Town and had been knocking back cocktails with Iggy and BigMike since 4am. Here is Daddy's take:
"Otis, my man, do you need a doctor or something?" I said in my most serious tone of the entire trip.
"I thought you were one, Dr. Pauly?"
I paused and let my short term memory collect itself.
"You betcha. This doctor says you need a second opinion from Dr. Hang."
I have never lost a patient before and I would be damned if we lost Otis on the operating table. We were lingering at the bar when BigMike assured us that he was renting a stretch limo, a SUV Excursion, to whisk away to Sam's Town. Ah, we were with royalty. We were hanging with rockstars. Who takes a taxi in Vegas? Peasants! That's who. We were still on schedule but I made the first coinflip decision of the day to stay with the group. If I left and took a cab... then I was sure they would be super late or never show up. With my presence, it gave the group a feeling of urgency that we needed to get to Sam's Town as soon as possible. In a rampant stupor, we all bolted for the front door. The time was 9:35am and the limo was late. Who would have expected... a gaggle of drunks were early. That's Vegas for ya. Oh well. Thanks to BigMike for the hookup. He's one of the most generous guys you will ever meet along with AlCantHang. The reason their bar tabs are so astronomically high that it takes a core of engineers outsourced to New Delhi to compute the nightly totals... is not because they like to drink... it's because they like to buy everyone within a twenty foot radius of them a drink. To that generosity, I am thankful.
The limo ride was rowdy. Bad Blood had given AlCantHang a mix CD of various metal bands. The limo driver was blasting it for a while before I begged him to turn on the he radio. Of course he puts on a metal radio station despite the pleas of Maudie for some Frank Sinatra. At that point, Otis looked his worst. I mentioned something to G-Rob and he admitted that "There was an 80% chance of Otis puking."
"I'll take that action!" I shouted.
I lost another side bet. Not the first and not the last. My head should be struck off with a blunt object for making foolish bets like that one.
Late Bloggers
I finally caught a glimpse of Sam's Town. It looked pretty cool. As we all de-limoed, a group of young kids (a church group? a school group?) were getting onto a bus. They all stood in awe as AlCantHang exited.
"Hey what band are you in?" one of the youngsters shouted at AlCantHang.
"The AlCantHang Experience," he said as he scribbled down a few autographs.
Julie had told me later on that she though AlCantHang looked like a roadie. Rockstar wasn't too much of a stretch when you got long hair and have an entourage the size of a baseball team. The kids thought they were meeting a rock icon.
I eventually found my way to the ballroom and the first person I saw was the Poker Prof. I quickly apologized for our tardiness and I realized I was more buzzed that I wanted to be. The lack of food in my stomach killed my tolerance. I made a beeline for some fruit and water and talked to Dick Gatewood as I tried to collect myself.
Meet and Greet
I found Grubby finally! And it looked like everyone was trickling in. Linda from Poker Works gave me a big hug! Glad to see that she made it. I thanked and chatted with Charlie for a few moments with G-Rob and F Train about various topics. Charlie and I grew up in the same borough of New York, so we had that connection.
F Train, Pauly, and G-Rob with Charlie Shoten
I wandered over to Marcel Luske. He gave me his business card and spoke for a long time with Maudie about trying to get America to have universal poker rules... since each state (and Indian reservation) has their own set of rules. He was a very serious conversationalist and didn't act like that goofy guy you saw on TV. At heart he has a lot of respect for the game and based on his impassioned talks, I could tell he truly loved poker.
Derek and Maudie chat with Marcel
I got to talk a little bit with Ron Rose. He autographed his book, Poker Aces, for me and thanked him for coming. I told him I give him a good review on my blog. I was going to talk to Tom McEvoy and Kirill Gerasimov but because we were all late and short on time, Charlie's lecture began.
Charlie Shoten took time out of his busy schedule to help us all out and shared his experiences in life and with poker. He could have been playing at one of the Bellagio events, but instead he was hanging out with bloggers.
Introducing Charlie
He touched on some topics in his upcoming book No Limit Life specifically his Ten Commitments and stressed that how you approach life and how you approach poker is attributed to how you think about things. He hit some rough spots in his lecture but I got the overall jist of what he was trying to convey. Focus is key especially in any lengthy major tournament. And if you employ the Ten Commitments to your life, you will be able to overcome the Thought Terrorists and smoke them out of their caves. Halfway through the lecture, Max Pescatori and Evelyn Ng appeared. I read all about Max in some of Felicia's previous write ups and I was interested in meeting him.
Marcel Luske and Evelyn Ng
I felt bad that no one had any questions for Charlie. I think people had general questions, but thought he was fielding specific questions on his Ten Commitments. Next up to speak was Jeff from Check n Raise Poker an online poker site. He flew in from Canada to help sponsor the event. Check n Raise Poker also hooked everyone up with really kick ass jackets. Due to problems with customs, he was only able to bring a few with him into the country. I felt bad for Jeff. The boys at Homeland Security were giving him a hard time. He was giving out some cool card cappers and keychains. He answered some questions about his site and even suggested that he would be interested in hosting a bloggers tournament. I was glad that everything worked out well.
No Limit Life
Tom McEvoy spoke for a few minutes in a Q&A session. I quickly seized control and asked the first question. It was one of several questions I had carefully thought out to ask the professionals before I arrived.
"I seem to have trouble with AK. It's a hand that gets me knocked out of more tournaments that any other hand. Am I playing it too strongly or should I be laying it down more?" I asked.
Tom McEvoy during the Q&A
That got a light chuckle from the audience but Tom jumped right in to answer. He said the old adage, "In no limit, you have to win with AK and beat AK to be successful." He agreed that it's the most overrated and most misplayed hand in hold'em because the value of AK preflop is not very high since it's a drawing hand... and that's why it's tough to win consistently with AK. I was pretty happy that I got to ask a world champion advice on a hand I always seemed to have problems with.
Glenn asked a great question about the new generation of online players and how the professionals were handling them. McEvoy said he didn't have a problem because he plays online more than live games on PokerStars and has a better familiarity of the style of online poker players than seasoned cash game and tournament players. He even joked calling the site he plays on... RiverStars.
When Tom finished his session, we all mingled for a little while longer. Most of the pros had to return to the Bellagio to play in the NL event. It was cool that they stopped by. I ate some more fruit and bagels and courageously tried some orange juice. I got to sit down and chat with Linda from Poker Works. I read all about her tattoos and wanted to see them for real. She was completely cool and showed them all to me. Her journal was one of the first poker blogs I ever read, along with Iggy's, Mr. Decker's, and Felicia's old yahoo groups. Great to finally put a face with her tales about dealing poker at the Bellagio. I was helping Dick get everyone to pay him the entry fee and we discovered that Max Pescatori wanted to play with us, who would be taking Dick's spot who couldn't play due to Nevada gaming laws. We now had two professionals joining the mix. I wandered out to the bar, which looked like the size of an NYC apartment. AlCantHang bought me another shot and I collected a few more entry fees.
Santos' artwork
The Poker Prof handed me a special present from Santos. Above is the strip that the Poker Prof presented to me. Pretty cool, huh? If you have never seen J. Santos' artwork... you're missing out. I love his warped sense of humor.
Anyway, we finally made our way down to the poker room to play in the first ever live World Poker Bloggers Event... the Holiday Classic.
... to be continued.
Thanks Poker Prof!
Thanks to Dick Gatewood, Joe and Joe, Sr. for all of their help with the Holiday Classic. All of these pictures are courtesy of Lasvegasvegas.com.
"This little insidious thought terrorist has got to go or my radiant contagious smile will not be appearing as often in my future." - Charlie ShotenSaturday 8:31am PCT... As I closed my eyes, I swear... the phone was ringing. It was my wake up call. Wake up? I just went to bed! I was still wearing all my clothes from the night before. I was suffering from mental dehydration and had a wicked case of cotton mouth. As I stared up at the ceiling, all I could think about was... where the fuck was Grubby?
Derek shuffled off to the shower and I fired up my laptop for a quick update of two of my blogs. The poker bloggers in my life wanted to hear juicy details of the trip... and the remainder of my friends back home wanted to make sure I was still alive. Everyone knows I'm a big boy and hanging out with Al Cant Hang is an adventure in itself... but partying with ACH on a three day bender in Vegas is like foolishly walking into downtown Fallujah with a squirt gun and a swizzle stick. I had about ten minutes to write. How does one condense a full day of madness in Sin City into a 200 word blog entry? I was working on a dial up modem and tried my best. I ignored the slew of errors, posted, and hopped into the shower. I got out, dripping wet when Maudie called. We went up to her room, checked out her view (much better than ours), and inspected the infamous, kick ass WBPT t-shirts featuring the logo she designed. Derek and I helped carry the shirts, Maudie grabbed her "bounty" and we headed downstairs. The time was 9:20am and our intentions were to get to Sam's Town way before 10am. We were on schedule... were... until Little Red Riding Hood was ambushed by the Big Bad Wolf.
It was still early in the morning for Vegas standards and we navigated through a slew of Rodeo families with small children in cowboy hats as they rambunctiously made their way to and from breakfast. I like kids, especially red neck kids. They're the cutest. However, my tolerance for little ones runs thin when I'm hungover especially in Vegas when you have a throbbing headache similar to the feeling you'd get when you slam a car door onto your fingers. I side step the wee ones like dog shit on a crowded Manhattan sidewalk. We finally make our way through the first obstacle and quickly head towards the front door.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see someone stumbling through a row of nickel slot machines. Poor guy probably stayed up all night drinking and gambling and it appeared he couldn't find his room. Just another victim of the depravity of the dark side of Vegas. I stopped for a second to get a better look at the unlucky fella. Holy shit. It was Iggy. I completely forgot he was in Vegas. Our epic meeting just nine hour earlier wasn't a dream after all. In Vegas, my short term memory was as spotty as my cellphone reception.
OK, so I found an inebriated Iggy who opted for more liquor than sleep. But Grubby was still AWOL. Just as I grabbed Iggy, I realized that the Sherwood Forest bar is packed with bloggers and King Al Cant Hang is holding court with his beautiful blonde bride... Queen EvaCanHang at his side. His merry jester BigMike kept everyone happily entertained with multiple rounds of hearty meeds and ales and a smattering of his loyal soused subjects sang his praises. Iggy's liver had been hijacked by BigMike just around the time I passed out at my laptop. He didn't look like he was going to make it as he slumped back on a stool at the bar. Within seconds, I had a shot of SoCo in my hand. Before I could consider the circumstances, like Pavlov's frothing dog and in a worldly Zen moment, the edge of glass automatically hit my lips as the nectar of the Gods struggled to make it's way into my queasy stomach, into my reluctant liver, and into my starving soul.
It was 9:20am on a Saturday morning in Las Vegas. I just inhaled a shot of SoCo with AlCantHang and BigMike before I even had a bite to eat or a sip of water. What a start to the day. What could I do to top that? A second shot of course. That one went down much smoother. Bad Blood was a little tipsy and gleefully showed Maudie and Derek pictures of Mrs. Blood and the mini-bloods. His 42 inch guns were proudly on display underneath a t-shirt that HDouble aptly described as "the best and worst shirt he's ever seen." Daddy never made his way back to Sam's Town and had been knocking back cocktails with Iggy and BigMike since 4am. Here is Daddy's take:
I've done some partying in my day. There isn't a man on this planet who can hang with Big Mike Cant Hang. He drank enough Southern Comfort to kill a decent sized village, and that was just in one 4am-8am session. Truly fucking amazing.G-Rob was super tipsy and EvaCanHang was impressing the peanut gallery with her ability to knock back tequila at 9am with the same grace as Willie Mays shagging down a rope into the gap at the Polo Grounds. When Otis appeared, I thought we were going to have to call a doctor. His face was the same shade as the olive green jacket he wore.
"Otis, my man, do you need a doctor or something?" I said in my most serious tone of the entire trip.
"I thought you were one, Dr. Pauly?"
I paused and let my short term memory collect itself.
"You betcha. This doctor says you need a second opinion from Dr. Hang."
I have never lost a patient before and I would be damned if we lost Otis on the operating table. We were lingering at the bar when BigMike assured us that he was renting a stretch limo, a SUV Excursion, to whisk away to Sam's Town. Ah, we were with royalty. We were hanging with rockstars. Who takes a taxi in Vegas? Peasants! That's who. We were still on schedule but I made the first coinflip decision of the day to stay with the group. If I left and took a cab... then I was sure they would be super late or never show up. With my presence, it gave the group a feeling of urgency that we needed to get to Sam's Town as soon as possible. In a rampant stupor, we all bolted for the front door. The time was 9:35am and the limo was late. Who would have expected... a gaggle of drunks were early. That's Vegas for ya. Oh well. Thanks to BigMike for the hookup. He's one of the most generous guys you will ever meet along with AlCantHang. The reason their bar tabs are so astronomically high that it takes a core of engineers outsourced to New Delhi to compute the nightly totals... is not because they like to drink... it's because they like to buy everyone within a twenty foot radius of them a drink. To that generosity, I am thankful.
The limo ride was rowdy. Bad Blood had given AlCantHang a mix CD of various metal bands. The limo driver was blasting it for a while before I begged him to turn on the he radio. Of course he puts on a metal radio station despite the pleas of Maudie for some Frank Sinatra. At that point, Otis looked his worst. I mentioned something to G-Rob and he admitted that "There was an 80% chance of Otis puking."
"I'll take that action!" I shouted.
I lost another side bet. Not the first and not the last. My head should be struck off with a blunt object for making foolish bets like that one.
Late Bloggers
I finally caught a glimpse of Sam's Town. It looked pretty cool. As we all de-limoed, a group of young kids (a church group? a school group?) were getting onto a bus. They all stood in awe as AlCantHang exited.
"Hey what band are you in?" one of the youngsters shouted at AlCantHang.
"The AlCantHang Experience," he said as he scribbled down a few autographs.
Julie had told me later on that she though AlCantHang looked like a roadie. Rockstar wasn't too much of a stretch when you got long hair and have an entourage the size of a baseball team. The kids thought they were meeting a rock icon.
I eventually found my way to the ballroom and the first person I saw was the Poker Prof. I quickly apologized for our tardiness and I realized I was more buzzed that I wanted to be. The lack of food in my stomach killed my tolerance. I made a beeline for some fruit and water and talked to Dick Gatewood as I tried to collect myself.
Meet and Greet
I found Grubby finally! And it looked like everyone was trickling in. Linda from Poker Works gave me a big hug! Glad to see that she made it. I thanked and chatted with Charlie for a few moments with G-Rob and F Train about various topics. Charlie and I grew up in the same borough of New York, so we had that connection.
F Train, Pauly, and G-Rob with Charlie Shoten
I wandered over to Marcel Luske. He gave me his business card and spoke for a long time with Maudie about trying to get America to have universal poker rules... since each state (and Indian reservation) has their own set of rules. He was a very serious conversationalist and didn't act like that goofy guy you saw on TV. At heart he has a lot of respect for the game and based on his impassioned talks, I could tell he truly loved poker.
Derek and Maudie chat with Marcel
I got to talk a little bit with Ron Rose. He autographed his book, Poker Aces, for me and thanked him for coming. I told him I give him a good review on my blog. I was going to talk to Tom McEvoy and Kirill Gerasimov but because we were all late and short on time, Charlie's lecture began.
Charlie Shoten took time out of his busy schedule to help us all out and shared his experiences in life and with poker. He could have been playing at one of the Bellagio events, but instead he was hanging out with bloggers.
Introducing Charlie
He touched on some topics in his upcoming book No Limit Life specifically his Ten Commitments and stressed that how you approach life and how you approach poker is attributed to how you think about things. He hit some rough spots in his lecture but I got the overall jist of what he was trying to convey. Focus is key especially in any lengthy major tournament. And if you employ the Ten Commitments to your life, you will be able to overcome the Thought Terrorists and smoke them out of their caves. Halfway through the lecture, Max Pescatori and Evelyn Ng appeared. I read all about Max in some of Felicia's previous write ups and I was interested in meeting him.
Marcel Luske and Evelyn Ng
I felt bad that no one had any questions for Charlie. I think people had general questions, but thought he was fielding specific questions on his Ten Commitments. Next up to speak was Jeff from Check n Raise Poker an online poker site. He flew in from Canada to help sponsor the event. Check n Raise Poker also hooked everyone up with really kick ass jackets. Due to problems with customs, he was only able to bring a few with him into the country. I felt bad for Jeff. The boys at Homeland Security were giving him a hard time. He was giving out some cool card cappers and keychains. He answered some questions about his site and even suggested that he would be interested in hosting a bloggers tournament. I was glad that everything worked out well.
No Limit Life
Tom McEvoy spoke for a few minutes in a Q&A session. I quickly seized control and asked the first question. It was one of several questions I had carefully thought out to ask the professionals before I arrived.
"I seem to have trouble with AK. It's a hand that gets me knocked out of more tournaments that any other hand. Am I playing it too strongly or should I be laying it down more?" I asked.
Tom McEvoy during the Q&A
That got a light chuckle from the audience but Tom jumped right in to answer. He said the old adage, "In no limit, you have to win with AK and beat AK to be successful." He agreed that it's the most overrated and most misplayed hand in hold'em because the value of AK preflop is not very high since it's a drawing hand... and that's why it's tough to win consistently with AK. I was pretty happy that I got to ask a world champion advice on a hand I always seemed to have problems with.
Glenn asked a great question about the new generation of online players and how the professionals were handling them. McEvoy said he didn't have a problem because he plays online more than live games on PokerStars and has a better familiarity of the style of online poker players than seasoned cash game and tournament players. He even joked calling the site he plays on... RiverStars.
When Tom finished his session, we all mingled for a little while longer. Most of the pros had to return to the Bellagio to play in the NL event. It was cool that they stopped by. I ate some more fruit and bagels and courageously tried some orange juice. I got to sit down and chat with Linda from Poker Works. I read all about her tattoos and wanted to see them for real. She was completely cool and showed them all to me. Her journal was one of the first poker blogs I ever read, along with Iggy's, Mr. Decker's, and Felicia's old yahoo groups. Great to finally put a face with her tales about dealing poker at the Bellagio. I was helping Dick get everyone to pay him the entry fee and we discovered that Max Pescatori wanted to play with us, who would be taking Dick's spot who couldn't play due to Nevada gaming laws. We now had two professionals joining the mix. I wandered out to the bar, which looked like the size of an NYC apartment. AlCantHang bought me another shot and I collected a few more entry fees.
Santos' artwork
The Poker Prof handed me a special present from Santos. Above is the strip that the Poker Prof presented to me. Pretty cool, huh? If you have never seen J. Santos' artwork... you're missing out. I love his warped sense of humor.
Anyway, we finally made our way down to the poker room to play in the first ever live World Poker Bloggers Event... the Holiday Classic.
... to be continued.
Thanks Poker Prof!
Thanks to Dick Gatewood, Joe and Joe, Sr. for all of their help with the Holiday Classic. All of these pictures are courtesy of Lasvegasvegas.com.
Here's the timetable of the rest of my trip reports:As you can tell the timetable for my trip reports have been constantly changing. I have too much to write!! Stay tuned for more wild and wacky Vegas stories. There are plenty fo Hammer stories too. In the meantime, please visit everyone's blog for their kickass trip reports; HDouble, Iggy, Derek, Poker Prof, Flip Chip, and Foiled Coup from Lasvegasvegas, Dick from Buy It In Vegas, Riding the F Train, Boy Genius, Bad Blood, Bill Rini, Felicia, Glenn, Otis & CJ & G-Rob, Al Cant Hang & EvaCanHang, Maudie, Signor Ferrari, - EV, Bob, Grubby, Mas from Genius of Poker, Martin from JMC Automatic and Brian, Linda from Poker Works, and Daddy from Snail Trax. Did I miss anybody? Some are up, some are in the process of writing them, and some people like my brother are swamped with work, so I'm sure you'll be reading about this trip over the next few weeks. Thanks for stopping by.
12.17 - Day 2, Part II: WPBT Holiday Classic Tourney Report
12.18 - Day 2, Part III: More blogger tables, Hammers, & late night hijinks
12.21 - Day 3, Part I: Sun. am shots and NFL betting at Mandalay Bay
12.22 - Day 3, Part II: Late night hijinks including Bellagio hookers
12.23 - Day 4, Part I: Aladdin tourney report & hanging w/ Grubby & Derek
12.24 - Day 4, Part II: The Brawl revisited and Late Night with Otis
12.27 - Day 5: Afterthoughts plus my fav. pictures & quotes
And here are the ones I have already posted:
Chapter 1: Day 1, Part I
Chapter 2: Day 1, Part II
Chapter 2: Day 1, Part II... Cowboys, Iggy, and the Hammer!
During our lengthy dinner, we chatted about some personal stuff. I felt that meals, the few which I had in Vegas, were the rare opportunities to truly get to know my fellow bloggers. Man, I never knew that Daddy was an engineer! Bad Blood was an ivy leaguer? Never knew... because I never asked. Maudie played the role of Ariel? (Sorry for the Shakespeare reference). Even my brother let his guard down and admitted he worked for a major insurance company on Wall Street. For some folks poker is an escape from their 9-to-5 lives and the last thing they want to do is chat at the tables about their personal lives... family, work, inner demons, etc.. That's why although I felt I knew some intimate details of my fellow bloggers' lives... I definitely didn't know some of the basics. I honestly had no idea what the majority of them did for a living (aside from fleecing the fish on Party Poker). I guess that's because I never judge anyone on what they do make money. I don't allow someone's job description to define who they are as a person. In America, especially in New York City, that's exactly how you are judged, pegged, and pigeonholed.
Hearing Maudie's subtle Oklahoma drawl was something that just doesn't translate over an IM or in the chat on Party Poker. It's those little things that made the weekend fascinating. Putting together the little pieces of the physical person and having that mesh with the internalized projection of that specific blogger. Next time I'm on Party Poker, the blogger sitting in seat 3 is not just a blank face... I can now imagine Bad Blood flexing his muscles as he calls an all in pre flop bet and takes down a monster. I can picture Maudie shooing away her cats from the keyboard. And I can visualize Iggy swigging a bottle of his favorite beer while penning one of his uber-posts.
After some stellar conversation, we headed back to the tables. I was still waiting on the parts of NYC crew to arrive, along with CJ, and Grubby who was AWOL. I eventually got to sit with Maudie again!
Now let me tell you about the two young cowboys that sandwiched me. Their names were Shane and Cody. I'm not making this up or changing it for "privacy purposes". You can ask BG if you don't believe me. He sat with them later on in the trip. Anyway, these guys were in their late 20s and flew in from Utah. They were decked out in cowboy boots, the most popular form of footwear for folks heading to the rodeo finals. They both wore blue jeans, held up by belt buckles the size of CDs and plaid shirts. They had goatees and drank Budwesier. One of them was decked out in a black cowboy hat and the other a white one. That's how I was able to distinguish the two from one another.
"So which one of you is the bad guy?" I said as I sat down and stacked up my chips into neat columns. "You got the black hat on," as I pointed to Shane, "I'm willing to bet $1 it's you."
"Yer, Gawd dam'd riiight!" he said as he took a huge sip. "Where are you from?"
"I'll tell you, but I don't think you've ever heard of it... it's very small town."
"Tell me."
"New York City."
It took several seconds before he got the joke and started laughing. Nice to know that cowboys from Utah operated on a seven second comedic delay. Seriously, they were hilarious. Cody was a nice fella. They both were for that matter, just two guys in town having a blast drinking and yapping at the poker table while their wives were off blowing vacation money at the slots. These guys were loose and Shane was seeing every flop. Maudie was running over the both of them before I sat down. That's when I let them know that she's my aunt.
"She's yer aunt?" Shane blurted out after he swigged the last backwash of his beer. "Shit. I'm scared of yer aunt."
"You should be, pal. She's going to pay for her trip on fishy plays from cowboys like yerself."
OK, I didn't say that. I really wanted to... that's what the wise ass New Yorker in me would say... but just smiled and kept my mouth shut. I wasn't going to blow Aunt Maudie's cover. Don't tap the glass, right?
"So, New York, what kind of hands to you play?" Cody seriously asked me after I bought a round of drinks for them and a Corona for myself... and by saying bought I mean that I tipped the waitress $3 for all three of us. It was a small investment but the drunker they got the better the chances we'd get even more river calls with bottom pair.
"I only play good cards."
That got a chuckle from the cowboys. Both the dealer and Maudie giggled.
"I like playing any Jack, like J-2, J-3. Are them good cards?" inquired Shane.
"Yes. Yes they are," I agreed trying to hold a straight face. That was my biggest bluff of the trip.
Shane and Cody also bestowed upon me the most original nickname I ever got... New York... which they'd shout out at me when I'd see them from time to time in the poker room over the weekend.
So, there was an old cowboy sitting next to Maudie who looked like Black Bart. His face was weathered like an old catcher's mit. You know that guy's had at least a dozen of empty Jack Daniel's bottles smashed over his head in various backroom brawls in his younger and wilder days. Some of the scars on his hands and face were older than me. The dealer was getting pissed at him after he won three big pots in one orbit and never tipped her once. Black Bart took a monster pot from me. In fact everyone at the table was taking pots from me as I suffered some brutal river suckouts. My Hilton's lost to Cody's J-10. Slick suited lost to the Shane's Varkoyni. My Hellmuths lost to Big Bart's Q9. That really hurt. Maudie told me that he was calling me a "terrorist" for raising pots preflop. Oh well. He had a monster stack and I was going to bust his loose eventually. It was a scene out of a classic John Ford western movie when I, the obvious outsider, was destined to take out the aging, morally corrupt gunslinger and teach the Wild West that there's going to be a new Sheriff in town ending his tyrannic rule of the poker table. Here's what Maudie had to say:
Bill Rini had finally arrived to the jam packed poker room and I met him up front for a quick chat. He sat down at a table and grinded his way to a good night. He's one blogger that I wish I had more time to hang out with and specifically play at his table. CJ, one of the tallest poker bloggers (he's up there... er, literally with HDouble and Mr. Decker) magically appeared. It seemed like within an hour he already had a Hammer story! Here's one of my favorite hand of the weekend as recanted by CJ:
"I just dropped the hammer... Derek's Hilton's were cracked by 76o... Maudie's running over the cowboys... Where the fuck's Grubby?"
I can't tell you how cool it was to be checking out different tables and seeing someone you knew there. It was almost like a Friday night on Party Poker except we were in Las Fuckin' Vegas and I had my pants on.
HDouble, sporting a LA Dodgers hat, eventually wandered in and we recognized each other right away. By that point Al Cant Hang was just that... not hanging. He was out cold. That was the first shocker of the weekend. Al Cant Hang was the first to crash... before Midnight of all things. Little did we know, he was just taking a cat nap, and was ready to unleash a wicked bender.
Maudie was getting cold cards and after Black Bart left, I switched seats next to her. Derek joined the table and we had bloggers on one end, and drunk Cowboys on the other. After a few orbits a guy came over to us. I had seen him playing on HDouble's NL table the few times I wandered over to talk.
"Hey, I just wanted to say that I'm a friend of Hank's from LA. I read both of your blogs and I really like them."
Maudie was flabbergasted. I've met fans before so that was not a new experience for me. I still don't know how to handle it, but I'm getting better with handling compliments from readers and people I never met before. I thanked him and something about him struck a wave of familiarity with him. Yeah I got that sense that we met before. I pointed to Derek.
"This is my brother."
"Oh, Derek from Poker in the Weeds," he quickly said.
Even Derek got suspicious. No one aside from bloggers reads his blog... and only a handful do; Halverson, Daddy, Bob Genius and Boy Genius, AlCantHang, and.... Iggy.
"Iggy?" I half whispered.
He smiled. I gave him a big hug. At that moment I knew that no matter what else happened in Vegas, the entire trip was worth it, even if I was beaten to a bloody pulp by a guy named Vito or got drugged by a sexy starlet at one of the casino bars and lost both of my kidneys by a sophisticated ring of Chinese organ thieves... none of that mattered because I met the Blogfather! And he was drinking... Budwesier. Huh?
At least the two biggest rumors on the net were squashed. Only rumors about Lindsay Lohan's fake boobs were burning up the Internet as much as the actual identity of Iggy. Yes, it's true. Iggy was a normal sized human and he was not a sober housewife from Ohio as I originally hypothesized. Otis... on the other hand... is a 93 year old Grandma in a walker, the ones with tennis balls on the bottom instead of wheels. And that old broad can drink!
With the internet rumors squashed I let out a sigh of relief. When I set up this event there was one person I had set in my mind that I really wanted to meet more so than everyone else... Iggy, naturally. When he told me he couldn't come I didn't want to push. I let Al do that and it worked. He had me fooled for sure. The night before I left for Vegas we played on a table at Party Poker together. I felt bad that the bloggers (Sean, SirF, Glyphic) I was playing with would not be able to come with. Little did I know Iggy knew he's be seeing me the next day. The fucker!
I also realized how hard it is for a guy like Iggy to find time for everyone in Vegas and I was honored for the time we did get to hang out. Every fuckin' second. He found a seat at my table and all I kept thinking was how much the trip was getting better and better. Maudie, Me, Iggy, and Derek... all in a row. Man oh man. 2:13am PCT on Saturday in Vegas was a moment I'll never forget. There was no other place on Earth I'd rather be.
We played for a few more hours and the cards were a blur. I chatted with Iggy about so many things. Our blogs, his horses, living in Vegas, the trip so far. He was trying to keep his identity a secret and eventually told Boy Genius, Otis, and CJ. I cashed out... up a few bucks and we were off to wake up Daddy who passed out in my bed hours before. On the way to our room, we spotted a bar. I really wanted Krispy Kreme, but how could I pass up having a drink (or three) with Iggy in Las Vegas at 4am. We stopped at the Sherwood Forest Bar and became engrossed in a conversation that I wish I could have kept going until sunrise. Maudie, Iggy, and Derek were all yapping about poker and life and blogs. Maudie has some life experience and has plenty of stories to tell. Afterwards, Maudie retreated for some sleep and we ran up stairs to wake up Daddy. He had no clue Iggy was coming and was pumped when Iggy woke his fat ass up! We hung out for a while before they went downstairs.
Now the late night mini-parties in our room (Derek and I shared a room) are a serious blur. I'd wake up and find the room trashed and empty bottles all over the place and I'd forget exactly who was up there hours earlier. I can't recall the full roaster of people there on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday and it's probably best we don't talk about what happened between the hours of 4:20am and 6am in Vegas. It's just a personal rule of mine. Events transpired in Las Vegas County between those said times are not in anyway blogworthy... that's the stuff you'd have to read about in my novels or in sealed court documents.
With that being said, I was exhausted. I only had 3 hours of slumber in my previous two days! I had to get some semblance of rest before the big event... the Holiday Classic at Sam's Town. I also had a couple of hours of personal writing that I had to do before I slept. I fell asleep at my laptop, when I woke up an hour later I shut the fucker, rolled over and as soon as I closed my eyes, I swear... the phone was ringing. It was my wake up call. Wake up? I just went to bed! I was still wearing all my clothes from the night before. I was suffering from mental dehydration and had a wicked case of cotton mouth. As I stared up at the ceiling, all I could think about was... where the fuck was Grubby?
... to be continued.
"Our WPBT event coincided with the National Rodeo Finals. That meant Vegas played host to the largest collection of cowboy hats and plastic breasts since the release of Western Barbie." - CJ8:34PM PCT... I was up $7 for a seven hour session at the Excalibur. With dealer tips ($1 per pot, $2 for big ones) and giving away a $1 everytime I ordered a drink, I was probably up $40 or $50. I was starving and headed for a quick dinner at the diner next door to the poker room with Bad Blood, Daddy, Derek, and Maudie. That was the first time we all got to chat without poker chips and cards in front of us and the ambient casino background sounds of slots machines, cocktail waitresses whoring watered down drinks, and some rip roaring drunk Cowboy from Amarillo hootin' and hollerin' at a nearby blackjack table.
During our lengthy dinner, we chatted about some personal stuff. I felt that meals, the few which I had in Vegas, were the rare opportunities to truly get to know my fellow bloggers. Man, I never knew that Daddy was an engineer! Bad Blood was an ivy leaguer? Never knew... because I never asked. Maudie played the role of Ariel? (Sorry for the Shakespeare reference). Even my brother let his guard down and admitted he worked for a major insurance company on Wall Street. For some folks poker is an escape from their 9-to-5 lives and the last thing they want to do is chat at the tables about their personal lives... family, work, inner demons, etc.. That's why although I felt I knew some intimate details of my fellow bloggers' lives... I definitely didn't know some of the basics. I honestly had no idea what the majority of them did for a living (aside from fleecing the fish on Party Poker). I guess that's because I never judge anyone on what they do make money. I don't allow someone's job description to define who they are as a person. In America, especially in New York City, that's exactly how you are judged, pegged, and pigeonholed.
Hearing Maudie's subtle Oklahoma drawl was something that just doesn't translate over an IM or in the chat on Party Poker. It's those little things that made the weekend fascinating. Putting together the little pieces of the physical person and having that mesh with the internalized projection of that specific blogger. Next time I'm on Party Poker, the blogger sitting in seat 3 is not just a blank face... I can now imagine Bad Blood flexing his muscles as he calls an all in pre flop bet and takes down a monster. I can picture Maudie shooing away her cats from the keyboard. And I can visualize Iggy swigging a bottle of his favorite beer while penning one of his uber-posts.
After some stellar conversation, we headed back to the tables. I was still waiting on the parts of NYC crew to arrive, along with CJ, and Grubby who was AWOL. I eventually got to sit with Maudie again!
Late Night Cowboy Table:Now if you don't know by now, the rodeo was in town. The rodeo finals draws cowboys from all over the country and late night the poker room is flooded with them. It reminded me about the last few times I was in Vegas to see Phish concerts and the casinos were filled with random neo-hippies. Just like the cowboys you can spot them from a mile away. The tables are filled with fishy cowboys too. Seriously, the bigger the cowboy hat, the bigger the fish. These are the types of guys who will see anything to the river. They like to "keep you honest" and call you on the river even if they know top pair is a loser against a flush. Yep. You can't bluff the hybrid Cowboyfish. But they are fun to play with although plenty of dealers were complaining because they did not tip after winning a pot. I felt bad for them and over compensated. I would give $2 or $3 per pot (instead of $1) to make up for the miserly cowboys.
Seat 1: Aunt Maudie
Seat 2: Old Cowboy aka Black Bart then later me
Seat 3: Tourist then later Iggy
Seat 4: Young guy w/ his girlfriend sweating him then later Derek
Seat 5: Another Cowboy
Seat 6: Young Cowboy named Cody
Seat 7: Dr. Pauly
Seat 8: Young Cowboy named Shane
Seat 9: Tourist
Seat 10: Cowboy
Now let me tell you about the two young cowboys that sandwiched me. Their names were Shane and Cody. I'm not making this up or changing it for "privacy purposes". You can ask BG if you don't believe me. He sat with them later on in the trip. Anyway, these guys were in their late 20s and flew in from Utah. They were decked out in cowboy boots, the most popular form of footwear for folks heading to the rodeo finals. They both wore blue jeans, held up by belt buckles the size of CDs and plaid shirts. They had goatees and drank Budwesier. One of them was decked out in a black cowboy hat and the other a white one. That's how I was able to distinguish the two from one another.
"So which one of you is the bad guy?" I said as I sat down and stacked up my chips into neat columns. "You got the black hat on," as I pointed to Shane, "I'm willing to bet $1 it's you."
"Yer, Gawd dam'd riiight!" he said as he took a huge sip. "Where are you from?"
"I'll tell you, but I don't think you've ever heard of it... it's very small town."
"Tell me."
"New York City."
It took several seconds before he got the joke and started laughing. Nice to know that cowboys from Utah operated on a seven second comedic delay. Seriously, they were hilarious. Cody was a nice fella. They both were for that matter, just two guys in town having a blast drinking and yapping at the poker table while their wives were off blowing vacation money at the slots. These guys were loose and Shane was seeing every flop. Maudie was running over the both of them before I sat down. That's when I let them know that she's my aunt.
"She's yer aunt?" Shane blurted out after he swigged the last backwash of his beer. "Shit. I'm scared of yer aunt."
"You should be, pal. She's going to pay for her trip on fishy plays from cowboys like yerself."
OK, I didn't say that. I really wanted to... that's what the wise ass New Yorker in me would say... but just smiled and kept my mouth shut. I wasn't going to blow Aunt Maudie's cover. Don't tap the glass, right?
"So, New York, what kind of hands to you play?" Cody seriously asked me after I bought a round of drinks for them and a Corona for myself... and by saying bought I mean that I tipped the waitress $3 for all three of us. It was a small investment but the drunker they got the better the chances we'd get even more river calls with bottom pair.
"I only play good cards."
That got a chuckle from the cowboys. Both the dealer and Maudie giggled.
"I like playing any Jack, like J-2, J-3. Are them good cards?" inquired Shane.
"Yes. Yes they are," I agreed trying to hold a straight face. That was my biggest bluff of the trip.
Shane and Cody also bestowed upon me the most original nickname I ever got... New York... which they'd shout out at me when I'd see them from time to time in the poker room over the weekend.
So, there was an old cowboy sitting next to Maudie who looked like Black Bart. His face was weathered like an old catcher's mit. You know that guy's had at least a dozen of empty Jack Daniel's bottles smashed over his head in various backroom brawls in his younger and wilder days. Some of the scars on his hands and face were older than me. The dealer was getting pissed at him after he won three big pots in one orbit and never tipped her once. Black Bart took a monster pot from me. In fact everyone at the table was taking pots from me as I suffered some brutal river suckouts. My Hilton's lost to Cody's J-10. Slick suited lost to the Shane's Varkoyni. My Hellmuths lost to Big Bart's Q9. That really hurt. Maudie told me that he was calling me a "terrorist" for raising pots preflop. Oh well. He had a monster stack and I was going to bust his loose eventually. It was a scene out of a classic John Ford western movie when I, the obvious outsider, was destined to take out the aging, morally corrupt gunslinger and teach the Wild West that there's going to be a new Sheriff in town ending his tyrannic rule of the poker table. Here's what Maudie had to say:
Played for several hours until I could barely think. I mostly folded. I was astounded at the stretch of cold cards - 9-2, J-3, T-4 and on and on. Cowboy Tom to my left was warning folks at my end of the table that the guy at the other end (Pauly - who'd been table hopping and had returned to this one) that "that feller over thar will play Ace King 'n, well Ace-King..." Pauly was wiping up. I continued to play tight and do my best to maximize my good hands. I was liking live play a lot!Lucky for me I caught Big Slick at least ten times over the next few hours. In a few hands I wiped out my early losses and I was on my way to doubling up thanks to all the loose cowboys at the table. I made sure I got two Bud's for Shane and Cody everytime the waitress came by.
Bill Rini had finally arrived to the jam packed poker room and I met him up front for a quick chat. He sat down at a table and grinded his way to a good night. He's one blogger that I wish I had more time to hang out with and specifically play at his table. CJ, one of the tallest poker bloggers (he's up there... er, literally with HDouble and Mr. Decker) magically appeared. It seemed like within an hour he already had a Hammer story! Here's one of my favorite hand of the weekend as recanted by CJ:
I'm dealt two black 6's and Otis raises in front of me. I call, hoping to catch a 6 on the flop. It didn't come, but it wasn't the worst flop ever: 2-3-5, all clubs. Otis checks, I bet out $6 and I believe Otis raised me. I was worried about a flush, but had to call. The turn was the 4 of clubs. Jackpot. I've never had a straight flush at a B&M table before, but I think I hid it well. I was really hoping Otis didn't have the ace of clubs. That would be a hellish beat. He checked and I bet out.I admit I was not playing every hand and took a lot of breaks. I was getting up to walk around the poker room every twenty minutes or so. I always checked up on my brother. I'd head over to Bad Blood's NL table or find the Otis' crew's table. Everytime I checked up on Bill, he had more and more chips. CJ and I would stand in the middle of the poker room and just give a quick update on the blogger tables.
"I can't call you," Otis told me. I said he could and that I wouldn't bet anymore. He paused, and then sheepishly turned over the Poker Bloggers favorite hand, the HAMMER. That's right, I cracked his HAMMER with a straight flush.
When I turned over my 6, the table erupted. It also meant I got to spin the Excalibur's money wheel that brought me an extra 20 dollars (and a really awful baseball cap).
"I just dropped the hammer... Derek's Hilton's were cracked by 76o... Maudie's running over the cowboys... Where the fuck's Grubby?"
I can't tell you how cool it was to be checking out different tables and seeing someone you knew there. It was almost like a Friday night on Party Poker except we were in Las Fuckin' Vegas and I had my pants on.
HDouble, sporting a LA Dodgers hat, eventually wandered in and we recognized each other right away. By that point Al Cant Hang was just that... not hanging. He was out cold. That was the first shocker of the weekend. Al Cant Hang was the first to crash... before Midnight of all things. Little did we know, he was just taking a cat nap, and was ready to unleash a wicked bender.
Maudie was getting cold cards and after Black Bart left, I switched seats next to her. Derek joined the table and we had bloggers on one end, and drunk Cowboys on the other. After a few orbits a guy came over to us. I had seen him playing on HDouble's NL table the few times I wandered over to talk.
"Hey, I just wanted to say that I'm a friend of Hank's from LA. I read both of your blogs and I really like them."
Maudie was flabbergasted. I've met fans before so that was not a new experience for me. I still don't know how to handle it, but I'm getting better with handling compliments from readers and people I never met before. I thanked him and something about him struck a wave of familiarity with him. Yeah I got that sense that we met before. I pointed to Derek.
"This is my brother."
"Oh, Derek from Poker in the Weeds," he quickly said.
Even Derek got suspicious. No one aside from bloggers reads his blog... and only a handful do; Halverson, Daddy, Bob Genius and Boy Genius, AlCantHang, and.... Iggy.
"Iggy?" I half whispered.
He smiled. I gave him a big hug. At that moment I knew that no matter what else happened in Vegas, the entire trip was worth it, even if I was beaten to a bloody pulp by a guy named Vito or got drugged by a sexy starlet at one of the casino bars and lost both of my kidneys by a sophisticated ring of Chinese organ thieves... none of that mattered because I met the Blogfather! And he was drinking... Budwesier. Huh?
At least the two biggest rumors on the net were squashed. Only rumors about Lindsay Lohan's fake boobs were burning up the Internet as much as the actual identity of Iggy. Yes, it's true. Iggy was a normal sized human and he was not a sober housewife from Ohio as I originally hypothesized. Otis... on the other hand... is a 93 year old Grandma in a walker, the ones with tennis balls on the bottom instead of wheels. And that old broad can drink!
With the internet rumors squashed I let out a sigh of relief. When I set up this event there was one person I had set in my mind that I really wanted to meet more so than everyone else... Iggy, naturally. When he told me he couldn't come I didn't want to push. I let Al do that and it worked. He had me fooled for sure. The night before I left for Vegas we played on a table at Party Poker together. I felt bad that the bloggers (Sean, SirF, Glyphic) I was playing with would not be able to come with. Little did I know Iggy knew he's be seeing me the next day. The fucker!
I also realized how hard it is for a guy like Iggy to find time for everyone in Vegas and I was honored for the time we did get to hang out. Every fuckin' second. He found a seat at my table and all I kept thinking was how much the trip was getting better and better. Maudie, Me, Iggy, and Derek... all in a row. Man oh man. 2:13am PCT on Saturday in Vegas was a moment I'll never forget. There was no other place on Earth I'd rather be.
We played for a few more hours and the cards were a blur. I chatted with Iggy about so many things. Our blogs, his horses, living in Vegas, the trip so far. He was trying to keep his identity a secret and eventually told Boy Genius, Otis, and CJ. I cashed out... up a few bucks and we were off to wake up Daddy who passed out in my bed hours before. On the way to our room, we spotted a bar. I really wanted Krispy Kreme, but how could I pass up having a drink (or three) with Iggy in Las Vegas at 4am. We stopped at the Sherwood Forest Bar and became engrossed in a conversation that I wish I could have kept going until sunrise. Maudie, Iggy, and Derek were all yapping about poker and life and blogs. Maudie has some life experience and has plenty of stories to tell. Afterwards, Maudie retreated for some sleep and we ran up stairs to wake up Daddy. He had no clue Iggy was coming and was pumped when Iggy woke his fat ass up! We hung out for a while before they went downstairs.
Now the late night mini-parties in our room (Derek and I shared a room) are a serious blur. I'd wake up and find the room trashed and empty bottles all over the place and I'd forget exactly who was up there hours earlier. I can't recall the full roaster of people there on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday and it's probably best we don't talk about what happened between the hours of 4:20am and 6am in Vegas. It's just a personal rule of mine. Events transpired in Las Vegas County between those said times are not in anyway blogworthy... that's the stuff you'd have to read about in my novels or in sealed court documents.
With that being said, I was exhausted. I only had 3 hours of slumber in my previous two days! I had to get some semblance of rest before the big event... the Holiday Classic at Sam's Town. I also had a couple of hours of personal writing that I had to do before I slept. I fell asleep at my laptop, when I woke up an hour later I shut the fucker, rolled over and as soon as I closed my eyes, I swear... the phone was ringing. It was my wake up call. Wake up? I just went to bed! I was still wearing all my clothes from the night before. I was suffering from mental dehydration and had a wicked case of cotton mouth. As I stared up at the ceiling, all I could think about was... where the fuck was Grubby?
... to be continued.
Here's the timetable of the rest of my trip reports:Stay tuned for more wild and wacky Vegas stories. There are plenty fo Hammer stories too. In the meantime, please visit everyone's blog for their kickass trip reports; HDouble, Iggy, Derek, Poker Prof, Flip Chip, and Foiled Coup from Lasvegasvegas, Dick from Buy It In Vegas, Riding the F Train, Boy Genius, Bad Blood, Bill Rini, Felicia, Glenn, Otis & CJ & G-Rob, Al Cant Hang & EvaCanHang, Maudie, Signor Ferrari, - EV, Bob, Grubby, Mas from Genius of Poker, Martin from JMC Automatic and Brian, Linda from Poker Works, and Daddy from Snail Trax. Did I miss anybody? Some are up, some are in the process of writing them, and some people like my brother are swamped with work, so I'm sure you'll be reading about this trip over the next few weeks. Thanks for stopping by.
12.17 - Day 2, Part I: Sam's Town Meet & Greet and tourney report
12.18 - Day 2, Part II: More blogger tables, Hammers, & late night hijinks
12.20 - Day 3, Part I: Sun. am shots and NFL betting at Mandalay Bay
12.21 - Day 3, Part II: Late night hijinks including Bellagio hookers
12.22 - Day 4, Part I: Aladdin tourney report & hanging w/ Grubby & Derek
12.23 - Day 4, Part II: The Brawl revisited and Late Night with Otis
12.24 - Day 5: Afterthoughts plus my fav. pictures & quotes
And here are the ones I have already posted:
Chapter 1: Day 1, Part I
The Real Vegas Reports... Chapter 1: Day 1, Part I
Special thanks to all of the professionals who showed up. Ron Rose hooked all of us up with free copies of his book. Charlie Shoten handed out excerpts of his upcoming book and shared a lot of his wisdom in a great lecture. Thanks to Tom McEvoy for enduring a Q&A session with the bloggers. And thanks to Max Pescatori who skipped a Bellagio event to play with us and take all of our money, except Felicia's.
Prologue
There's never a perfect place to start a Vegas trip report. You just have to close your eyes and pluck moments out of the air. Ah, and notes are a godsend. I flipped through the first pages of my notebook. I filled an entire small one up with hand histories, overall thoughts, ideas, cell numbers of strippers (just kidding Briana), and even a poem or two. Based on my handwriting, I could tell that I was nervous. I might seem like a guy that acts cool in tough situations but on the inside I was freaking out for the entire week before Vegas. If I wasn't busy writing a new novel in November, I would have been freaking out some more. Some days I feel like I'm hanging onto life by a tiny piece of dental floss as I'm getting tossed around, when other days it's the opposite and I feel like I tearing down the open road of life at 100mph in full control of my destiny. I prayed to the poker gods that Vegas would be a trail blazing adventure. After reading people's trip reports, I'm starting to think it was.
One of the good aspects of my personality is that I feel I can talk to anyone about anything. Individually I was not worried about meeting anyone, even the pros. I love those types of things. My concern was meeting twenty bloggers for the first time (and the more I thought about it, someone like -EV, Bill or Maudie never met any of us before so for them it was meeting 30 people) and not finding enough one-on-one time with everyone. My biggest regret is that I did not get to spend a substantial amount of quality time with... well, pick a name! I wish I could have spent an entire day with everyone one-on-one... walking around Vegas, having a good meal and conversation, and playing at a table with you against tourists, specifically Cowboys. That was tough and as much fun as I had with some people, I felt that I let down a lot the others due to limitations in time, my short attention span, and my precocious gambling and scathing substance abuse problems. Bottom line, I wish I had more time to hang out with all of you but the time we did spend together was special to me. I might do something like HDouble posted jotting down some special memories that I shared with everyone. Yes, I am honored and humbled that everyone took time to come out.
I am also touched to hear how so many folks that could not come out wished us good vibes and were hitting up our blogs all weekend, looking for live updates. Everyone who didn't come was certainly missed. And that might be my second biggest regret of the weekend... that not everyone got to come. I know that this weekend started the ball rolling for future live events, and I hope that we'll have a bunch in 2005 so you can pick one to attend. Seriously, everyone was much cooler than I imagined.
Oh, and my third biggest regret was everyone blowing off Felicia's stud tutorial after the tourney. To Felicia and Glenn, I fully accept the blame on that one for failing to rally the troops to get kick ass advice from a world class stud player. I definitely lost out on improving my stud game. I hope you can forgive me for that.
I knew that everyone spent time and money and cashed in favors (spousal or work-related) to make the trip and with knowing all of that, I was hoping that everyone would have a great time and more specifically, have one great Vegas story. The more I reflected on my flight home, the more I realized that the blogger weekend was one of those events that could be the core of a future novel. Don't get your hopes up too high. I have at least three other novels to write before I could consider writing up this weekend. Which is why these mini-reviews and live updates have helped, along with my scribbled notes, and these trip reports. Seriously, I spent hours this morning ready everyone's versions of the weekend and seeing some random pictures of all of us out there.
Getting There
Every journey begins with a first step. I knew I was going to Vegas in December over a year ago. Derek and I love heading out to Vegas during March Madness and the week or two after Thanksgiving. As soon as I mentioned it to Boy Genius while I was dropping him off at the airport in Philadelphia after the insane AlCantHang's Bash at the Boathouse, both he and his brother Bob booked their flights and rooms as soon as he got back to Michigan. Once AlCantHang and EvaCanHang heard the epic news, their posse booked flights. With six of us confirmed, and knowing Felicia and Glenn were nearby I decided to get in touch with the Poker Prof to find out if he knew a place that would host a private table. I spoke to Dick from Sam's Town and he offered up a private tournament. And that's how it all began. One by one some of the bloggers and folks from NYC I was friends with joined in. That was expected. Several bloggers that I only knew through reading their blogs (and never spoke to before via IMs or calls) were reserving spots. Now that was cool! I was worried about filling up one table. We now had two tables and it looked like we were going to fill up three. And in the last week, I got word that HDouble and Daddy from Snail Trax were coming and I knew that I had to stop worrying. Everyone was going to have a blast.
Daddy was the first blogger to arrive late Thursday night. He called me from the airport to announce the beginning of his whiskey bender. Just as I was falling asleep, The Poker Prof called with great news; Marcel Luske was going to attend the function. Of course, I couldn't sleep all night anticipating my trip to Vegas. I should have left Thursday night. I woke up restless to a wet, cold, rainy day in the big city. When Derek and I get into the cab at 7am on Friday to go to the airport, I forgot which one were were flying out of. NYC has three major airports. I knew it wasn't Newark. So I found myself with my first coin-flip situations. LGA or JFK? I figured it was JFK and called to make sure. I was so flustered that I forgot to print up my flight info.
I always fly JetBlue to Vegas from JFK. They have direct TV for everyone. That helps kill half of a 5 hour flight. But after the second hour I was sick of four ESPN stations. I secretly wished that they carried TBS so I could watch Dawson's Creek. Instead I ended up watching cartoons and avoided the real world and stayed away from the alphabet news stations. I began counting the minutes to touchdown. Luckily were were 30 minutes early. On line at the cab stand, Derek spotted Senator John McCain, while I was trying to read my seven text messages and over a dozen voicemails.
As we got out of the cab at The Excalibur, I heard someone shout, "Pauly!" I looked over and AlCantHang and EvaCanHang were rolling up in their rental car. We checked in, grabbed a quick bite and found Daddy, BG and Bob chilling out at the sports book. Within minutes I was hearing the first of many Vegas stories. Daddy's story was hilarious. He was telling me about eating a patty melt at a diner in Sam's Town at 5am with some guy named Vinny. It took just a few seconds to drag them over to the poker room. We all put our names on a list. Felicia and Glenn sat down at a NL table and I almost joined in, but I didn't want to lose some of my bankroll in the first hour against some of the best NL players I have met! I decided to play the lowest limit $1-3 because I wanted to take plenty of table breaks to chat with everyone and be able to field phone calls and meet everyone as they arrived. Most of the weekend was like that. I didn't get to play as much as I would have liked because I was acting as the host, especially on the first day. Luckily were seated at a new table around 1:50pm PCT and the mayhem began
1:55pm PCT... I called a preflop raise with 55. Daddy raised me after I hit a set on the flop. I just called and even asked, "Do you have a set?" I ended up cracking his pocket Jacks. As I stacked up my chips I had the first surreal Vegas moment... How the hell did I get here? BG to my left, The Hangs to my right, Derek and Daddy at the same table with me. Amazing.
1:59PM PCT... AlCantHang got the Hammer for the second time in three hands. He loses to EvaCanHang's Hilton Sisters.
2:45pm PCT... I hear over the loudspeaker, "Dr. Pauly, you have guests at the front desk. Dr. Pauly?" I always wanted to be paged in Las Vegas and I was by Otis and Bad Blood. I had seen pictures of both guys but lemme say, Bad Blood had a pair of guns for arms. If I was cut like that, I'd wear muscle shirts all the time.
3:30pm PCT... Felicia got an Omaha 8 game going for a second blogger table. I passed. I'm a bleeder in Omaha 8 and bankroll management was important for me the first few days. Sounded like everyone was having a good time in the far corner. Whenever I came over to the table everyone asked, "Where's Maudie?" There was a woman roughly the same age as Maudie playing Omaha with the bloggers. She had the same hairstyle and wore glasses. For a second a few of us thought that was her. I called her cell just to make sure it wasn't. Sure enough she arrived and was on her way! I feel that I have special connections with a lot of poker bloggers. The most unique is with Maudie. Sure we are divided by a whole generation gap (Baby Boomer vs. Gen X) as well as a regional difference (big city boy vs. an Okie gal) but we have plenty of connections. She's a theater gal. We have similar tastes in music and donuts, and then there's poker. We've had a whole running joke that Maudie had given me up for adoption 32 years ago and we found each other through poker. We were even going to try to pull off that story at a table. We almost did it once. But I'll tell you that later. My point is this... poker is a unique entity that brings people from all works of life together. It was great to see that connection in real life.
Anyway, here's what Maudie said about our first meeting:
The Hangs and Felicia and Glenn headed out for sushi off the Strip. I desperately wanted to go but I felt I had to stick around the Excalibur to wait for more arrivals. Grubby was no where to be found and that was a concern. That was the first coin flip decision I had to make in Vegas and I was bummed out that I missed everything especially reading Felicia's take on the dinner.
We played for a little while longer as I directed people to the poker room and giving out other minor directions. I needed some food and we ate at the diner right next to the poker room.
... to be continued.
I will end this section for now. I have too much to write and will spread it out over the next week.
Stay tuned for more wild and wacky Vegas stories. There are plenty fo Hammer stories too. In the meantime, please visit everyone's blog for their kickass trip reports; Iggy, Derek, Poker Prof, Flip Chip, and Foiled Coup from Lasvegasvegas, Dick from Buy It In Vegas, Riding the F Train, Boy Genius, Bad Blood, Bill Rini, Felicia, Glenn, Otis & CJ & G-Rob, Al Cant Hang & EvaCanHang, Maudie, Signor Ferrari, - EV, Bob, Grubby, Mas from Genius of Poker, Martin from JMC Automatic and Brian, Linda from Poker Works, and Daddy from Snail Trax.
Some are up, some are in the process of writing them, and some people like my brother are swamped with work, so I'm sure you'll be reading about this trip over the next few weeks. Thanks for stopping by.
"Let it be said that Pauly knows how to throw one helluva party." - IggyFirst of all, thanks to The Poker Prof from Lasvegasvegas.com in addition to the rest of his crew, his dad, Santos, and Foiled Coup. They helped get the pros together for the Meet & Greet. And definitely thanks to Dick Gatewood from Sam's Town. He worked hard to set up the ballroom for breakfast and his tournament went as smoothly as any live one I've attended. His dealers and staff were great. We were treated like high rollers! Seriously, everyone's thanking me for the weekend, when it's Dick and the Poker Prof you should be thanking. My hat goes off to you for all of your help. Now go read their blogs and sites... there's plenty of Christmas shopping you can do on their other sites.
Special thanks to all of the professionals who showed up. Ron Rose hooked all of us up with free copies of his book. Charlie Shoten handed out excerpts of his upcoming book and shared a lot of his wisdom in a great lecture. Thanks to Tom McEvoy for enduring a Q&A session with the bloggers. And thanks to Max Pescatori who skipped a Bellagio event to play with us and take all of our money, except Felicia's.
Prologue
There's never a perfect place to start a Vegas trip report. You just have to close your eyes and pluck moments out of the air. Ah, and notes are a godsend. I flipped through the first pages of my notebook. I filled an entire small one up with hand histories, overall thoughts, ideas, cell numbers of strippers (just kidding Briana), and even a poem or two. Based on my handwriting, I could tell that I was nervous. I might seem like a guy that acts cool in tough situations but on the inside I was freaking out for the entire week before Vegas. If I wasn't busy writing a new novel in November, I would have been freaking out some more. Some days I feel like I'm hanging onto life by a tiny piece of dental floss as I'm getting tossed around, when other days it's the opposite and I feel like I tearing down the open road of life at 100mph in full control of my destiny. I prayed to the poker gods that Vegas would be a trail blazing adventure. After reading people's trip reports, I'm starting to think it was.
One of the good aspects of my personality is that I feel I can talk to anyone about anything. Individually I was not worried about meeting anyone, even the pros. I love those types of things. My concern was meeting twenty bloggers for the first time (and the more I thought about it, someone like -EV, Bill or Maudie never met any of us before so for them it was meeting 30 people) and not finding enough one-on-one time with everyone. My biggest regret is that I did not get to spend a substantial amount of quality time with... well, pick a name! I wish I could have spent an entire day with everyone one-on-one... walking around Vegas, having a good meal and conversation, and playing at a table with you against tourists, specifically Cowboys. That was tough and as much fun as I had with some people, I felt that I let down a lot the others due to limitations in time, my short attention span, and my precocious gambling and scathing substance abuse problems. Bottom line, I wish I had more time to hang out with all of you but the time we did spend together was special to me. I might do something like HDouble posted jotting down some special memories that I shared with everyone. Yes, I am honored and humbled that everyone took time to come out.
I am also touched to hear how so many folks that could not come out wished us good vibes and were hitting up our blogs all weekend, looking for live updates. Everyone who didn't come was certainly missed. And that might be my second biggest regret of the weekend... that not everyone got to come. I know that this weekend started the ball rolling for future live events, and I hope that we'll have a bunch in 2005 so you can pick one to attend. Seriously, everyone was much cooler than I imagined.
Oh, and my third biggest regret was everyone blowing off Felicia's stud tutorial after the tourney. To Felicia and Glenn, I fully accept the blame on that one for failing to rally the troops to get kick ass advice from a world class stud player. I definitely lost out on improving my stud game. I hope you can forgive me for that.
I knew that everyone spent time and money and cashed in favors (spousal or work-related) to make the trip and with knowing all of that, I was hoping that everyone would have a great time and more specifically, have one great Vegas story. The more I reflected on my flight home, the more I realized that the blogger weekend was one of those events that could be the core of a future novel. Don't get your hopes up too high. I have at least three other novels to write before I could consider writing up this weekend. Which is why these mini-reviews and live updates have helped, along with my scribbled notes, and these trip reports. Seriously, I spent hours this morning ready everyone's versions of the weekend and seeing some random pictures of all of us out there.
Getting There
Every journey begins with a first step. I knew I was going to Vegas in December over a year ago. Derek and I love heading out to Vegas during March Madness and the week or two after Thanksgiving. As soon as I mentioned it to Boy Genius while I was dropping him off at the airport in Philadelphia after the insane AlCantHang's Bash at the Boathouse, both he and his brother Bob booked their flights and rooms as soon as he got back to Michigan. Once AlCantHang and EvaCanHang heard the epic news, their posse booked flights. With six of us confirmed, and knowing Felicia and Glenn were nearby I decided to get in touch with the Poker Prof to find out if he knew a place that would host a private table. I spoke to Dick from Sam's Town and he offered up a private tournament. And that's how it all began. One by one some of the bloggers and folks from NYC I was friends with joined in. That was expected. Several bloggers that I only knew through reading their blogs (and never spoke to before via IMs or calls) were reserving spots. Now that was cool! I was worried about filling up one table. We now had two tables and it looked like we were going to fill up three. And in the last week, I got word that HDouble and Daddy from Snail Trax were coming and I knew that I had to stop worrying. Everyone was going to have a blast.
Daddy was the first blogger to arrive late Thursday night. He called me from the airport to announce the beginning of his whiskey bender. Just as I was falling asleep, The Poker Prof called with great news; Marcel Luske was going to attend the function. Of course, I couldn't sleep all night anticipating my trip to Vegas. I should have left Thursday night. I woke up restless to a wet, cold, rainy day in the big city. When Derek and I get into the cab at 7am on Friday to go to the airport, I forgot which one were were flying out of. NYC has three major airports. I knew it wasn't Newark. So I found myself with my first coin-flip situations. LGA or JFK? I figured it was JFK and called to make sure. I was so flustered that I forgot to print up my flight info.
I always fly JetBlue to Vegas from JFK. They have direct TV for everyone. That helps kill half of a 5 hour flight. But after the second hour I was sick of four ESPN stations. I secretly wished that they carried TBS so I could watch Dawson's Creek. Instead I ended up watching cartoons and avoided the real world and stayed away from the alphabet news stations. I began counting the minutes to touchdown. Luckily were were 30 minutes early. On line at the cab stand, Derek spotted Senator John McCain, while I was trying to read my seven text messages and over a dozen voicemails.
As we got out of the cab at The Excalibur, I heard someone shout, "Pauly!" I looked over and AlCantHang and EvaCanHang were rolling up in their rental car. We checked in, grabbed a quick bite and found Daddy, BG and Bob chilling out at the sports book. Within minutes I was hearing the first of many Vegas stories. Daddy's story was hilarious. He was telling me about eating a patty melt at a diner in Sam's Town at 5am with some guy named Vinny. It took just a few seconds to drag them over to the poker room. We all put our names on a list. Felicia and Glenn sat down at a NL table and I almost joined in, but I didn't want to lose some of my bankroll in the first hour against some of the best NL players I have met! I decided to play the lowest limit $1-3 because I wanted to take plenty of table breaks to chat with everyone and be able to field phone calls and meet everyone as they arrived. Most of the weekend was like that. I didn't get to play as much as I would have liked because I was acting as the host, especially on the first day. Luckily were seated at a new table around 1:50pm PCT and the mayhem began
The first ever blogger table in Vegas...The action started out fast. EvaCanHang adheres to the no-limping rule. Bob liked to see a lot of flops and pounded Corona's while AlCantLimp tracked down waitresses for shots of SoCo.
Seat 1: Derek
Seat 2: Tourist
Seat 3: EvaCanHang
Seat 4: Bob
Seat 5: AlCantHang then later Maudie
Seat 6: Me
Seat 7: BG
Seat 8: Daddy
Seat 9: Tourist and later Mas
Seat 10: Tourist and later Otis
1:55pm PCT... I called a preflop raise with 55. Daddy raised me after I hit a set on the flop. I just called and even asked, "Do you have a set?" I ended up cracking his pocket Jacks. As I stacked up my chips I had the first surreal Vegas moment... How the hell did I get here? BG to my left, The Hangs to my right, Derek and Daddy at the same table with me. Amazing.
1:59PM PCT... AlCantHang got the Hammer for the second time in three hands. He loses to EvaCanHang's Hilton Sisters.
2:45pm PCT... I hear over the loudspeaker, "Dr. Pauly, you have guests at the front desk. Dr. Pauly?" I always wanted to be paged in Las Vegas and I was by Otis and Bad Blood. I had seen pictures of both guys but lemme say, Bad Blood had a pair of guns for arms. If I was cut like that, I'd wear muscle shirts all the time.
3:30pm PCT... Felicia got an Omaha 8 game going for a second blogger table. I passed. I'm a bleeder in Omaha 8 and bankroll management was important for me the first few days. Sounded like everyone was having a good time in the far corner. Whenever I came over to the table everyone asked, "Where's Maudie?" There was a woman roughly the same age as Maudie playing Omaha with the bloggers. She had the same hairstyle and wore glasses. For a second a few of us thought that was her. I called her cell just to make sure it wasn't. Sure enough she arrived and was on her way! I feel that I have special connections with a lot of poker bloggers. The most unique is with Maudie. Sure we are divided by a whole generation gap (Baby Boomer vs. Gen X) as well as a regional difference (big city boy vs. an Okie gal) but we have plenty of connections. She's a theater gal. We have similar tastes in music and donuts, and then there's poker. We've had a whole running joke that Maudie had given me up for adoption 32 years ago and we found each other through poker. We were even going to try to pull off that story at a table. We almost did it once. But I'll tell you that later. My point is this... poker is a unique entity that brings people from all works of life together. It was great to see that connection in real life.
Anyway, here's what Maudie said about our first meeting:
I found the poker room at last and immediately spied Pauly (I'd seen his picture), sitting at a table playing. I went to the counter, however, and asked them to page Dr. Pauly. The guy said, "Dr. Pauly? I know where Dr. Pauly is..." and he took me to Pauly. And it begins. I got a big hug from Pauly, then I spied something out of the corner of my eye - someone stood up and yelled "Ant Maudie!" - and there was Al, arms outstretched and a shit-eating grin on his face.I felt like a celebrity during those moments. Shit, I felt like the most famous person in Vegas for the entire weekend. It was pretty cool. Maudie sat down and we all started chit chatting. It was almost like Party Poker but with a bigger chat box. One of the dealers asked us how we knew each other. The table grew silent for a few seconds when I muttered, "Prison." That got a chuckle for everyone. Again, I usually don't tell people at a poker table that I'm a poker blogger. And I didn't want to blow our cover.
The Hangs and Felicia and Glenn headed out for sushi off the Strip. I desperately wanted to go but I felt I had to stick around the Excalibur to wait for more arrivals. Grubby was no where to be found and that was a concern. That was the first coin flip decision I had to make in Vegas and I was bummed out that I missed everything especially reading Felicia's take on the dinner.
We played for a little while longer as I directed people to the poker room and giving out other minor directions. I needed some food and we ate at the diner right next to the poker room.
... to be continued.
I will end this section for now. I have too much to write and will spread it out over the next week.
Here's the timetable of the rest of my trip reports:Lucky Julie, 3rd place winner at the WPBT Holiday Classic, will be posting some of her tourney write up here as well.
12.16 - Day 1, Part II: Playing w/ Maudie & cowboys and meeting Iggy
12.17 - Day 2, Part I: Sam's Town Meet & Greet and tourney report
12.18 - Day 2, Part II: More blogger tables, Hammers, & late night hijinks
12.19 - Day 3, Part I: Sun. am shots and NFL betting at Mandalay Bay
12.20 - Day 3, Part II: Late night hijinks including Bellagio hookers
12.21 - Day 4, Part I: Aladdin tourney report & hanging w/ Grubby & Derek
12.22 - Day 4, Part II: The Brawl revisited and Late Night with Otis
12.23 - Day 5: Afterthoughts plus my fav. pictures & quotes
Stay tuned for more wild and wacky Vegas stories. There are plenty fo Hammer stories too. In the meantime, please visit everyone's blog for their kickass trip reports; Iggy, Derek, Poker Prof, Flip Chip, and Foiled Coup from Lasvegasvegas, Dick from Buy It In Vegas, Riding the F Train, Boy Genius, Bad Blood, Bill Rini, Felicia, Glenn, Otis & CJ & G-Rob, Al Cant Hang & EvaCanHang, Maudie, Signor Ferrari, - EV, Bob, Grubby, Mas from Genius of Poker, Martin from JMC Automatic and Brian, Linda from Poker Works, and Daddy from Snail Trax.
Some are up, some are in the process of writing them, and some people like my brother are swamped with work, so I'm sure you'll be reading about this trip over the next few weeks. Thanks for stopping by.
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