Vegas Day 1: Half-baked Recap

Here are my notes from my first day in Vegas with the bloggers!

• Derek and I were on the same JetBlue flight with F Train.
• I was in the last row by the bathroom.
• Derek watched Porky's and I watched The OC, college hoops, and Trey Anastasio Band on Jay Leno.
• Iggy and Grubby picked us up at the airport after we arrived at 10:30pm local time.
• We headed to Imperial Palace and I tipped the front desk chick $100 for a room upgrade.
• We got a balcony with a Strip view. I can see the Mirage, Ceaser's and the Bellagio.
• Headed to Excalibur and first saw Otis.
• Played $2-6... here's the lineup:

Seat 1: Travis
Seat 2: Pauly
Seat 3: Gracie then Iggy
Seat 4: Derek
Seat 5: Ryan
Seat 6: GRob
Seat 7: Dr. Jeff
Seat 8: Gamecock
Seat 9: Obie

• I donked off about $80. Grubby played at a table with on_thg, Iggy, BG, Maudie, and Sox Lover.
• Met Joanne and SoxLover for the first time.
• Saw everyone else... both Aprils, Heather, Eva, AlCantHang, Chadarama, Lewey, CJ, BadBlood, Drizz, JoeSpeaker, DrChacko, Chilly, Pablo, Marty, BigMike, Brian, Bill, and others who I am drawing a blank. Sorry if I forgot to mention ya.
• Was in Vegas less than 3 hours before I heard a Lewy bad beat story. He cracked A-A with J-6 at MGM.
  
• Played until 5am and headed back to IP.
• Daddy called from Indiana on his way to the airport.
  
• Saw HDouble, Ephro, and BG playing blackjack.
• Just got up around 1pm. Waiting for Daddy and Jaxia to arrive.
  

Vegas Bound

I would like to take this time to thank everyone both readers and bloggers for all their encouraging words of support and condolences. Both Derek and I appreciate all of your calls, emails, IMs, and text messages over the past few days. It feels good to know that their are a lot of kind souls out there. I'm happy to know all of you. Thanks again.

Derek and I will be in Las Vegas no later than Friday... weather permitting. So I'll see you there. And yes, we will be playing in the tournament. And no, you cannot have our seats.

I will also be at the Bellagio next week with Flipchip covering the main event for the Five Diamond Classic. It's a WPT event and I expect to be live blogging the final table next Friday. Stop by and say hello.

*****

Thanks to the Poker Prof for selecting Tao of Poker as a Silver Prof winner. Tao of Poker has been selected for the second year in a row! Check out the rest of the winners. Thanks to the Prof and everyone who won.

*****

I have a new sponsor: Caribbean Sun Poker. I will speak more about them in a later post. They've been asking me to try out their site and I finally did. I never shill a site I don't play on. I've been playing on CSP (or Sun Poker) the past few weeks and lemme tell you... the players are awful! That's what I like about these newer sites... the players are bad and it's more fish for me to feed on because all the sharks are lurking on other sites. Anyway, for now, I'd like to thank Caribbean Sun Poker for coming aboard, especially to Mark. Stay tuned for more updates.

*****

Grubby recently posted about our trip to Excalibur before I went home to NYC for the funeral. Some old lady took all my money when she rivered quads on me. Unreal. Grubby wrote it up in a post called Schooled by Granny. She got to spin the wheel too. I turned a straight with my 4-7o. She limped with Jacks too. She also got quad Kings when we first sat down. Lucky fuck. We left after our favorite female floor person went home for the day. Thank God for Rodeo Week. She was dressed in tight jeans. Hubba hubba. I can't wait to go back.

*****

I've decided on what I'm going to do with the rest of this year. After the WPT Bellagio event next week, I'm going to play poker for a few days in Las Vegas before I return to NYC for Christmas. I'll spend the last week of the year doing absolutely nothing. No freelance work. Nothing aside from some personal writing and sleep. I need to boost my immune system and after the blogger weekend in Vegas, I know I'm going to be hurting. Plus, I did a lot of damage to my body this year and it's time to recharge. As the song goes...

I'm a goin' home. Whoa whoa baby, back where I belong,
Back home, sit down and patch my bones, and get back truckin' on.

Once January 1st rolls around I have less than three weeks to finish my Las Vegas book before my assignment at the Borgata in late January. That's going to be my main priority in 2006. Once that's done, I'll get back to writing on my many blogs, doing freelance work, and covering poker tournaments for various publications. I'm also postponing a big trip until after the 2006 WSOP ends. I'm going to do some light traveling early next year, but nothing major until next fall.

*****

That's it for now. See you in Vegas.

Rain Check?

My grandmother died on Saturday afternoon. I wrote something about it on the Tao of Pauly. I'm flying back home to NYC to attend a wake and funeral. I still don't know when everything will be held. As of now, I don't know when Derek and I will be coming to Vegas. I'm gonna try my best efforts to arrive in time for the tournament. As of now, it's not looking good and we might have to miss it. Thanks to everyone who sent (and will send) messages of condolences.

*****

On another note, the cowboys are crawling around Las Vegas because the Rodeo is officially in town. They were in the poker room donking off chips at the Excalibur where Grubby and I played for a little bit when we got back from California. One surly cowboy sat at our table. He ordered a fuzzy navel. Actually he ordered two in the two hours that he sat at our table. What a fuckin'pussy. I raised his blind every time after that.

*****

Sean at Lord Admiral included two sound bites from me in his podcast for Episode #54 that I recorded from HDouble's home game featuring Joe "Speaks" Speaker, Franklin, and the Poker Geek. My segment starts at 19:20.

I was also featured in Episode #52 when I interviewed Heather from Poker Wire at Foxwoods. My segemt starts at 10:01.

Check both episodes out of the best poker podcast around. Thanks again to Sean and Stacks for having me on.

L.A. Stories Part 2: Estimated Prophet

"My first wife cost me $1 million and a fuckin' house. Of course I'll call." - Drunk rich guy at my NL table moments before he cracked my aces

This post has two sections... the first one is the conclusion of HDouble's home game and the second is what happened on Saturday.

BG and Daddy called for another dial-a-shot. Lance had been drinking heavily all night and was quick to join in. A few hours later he would be blowing chunks in HDouble's bathroom. While the final table of the tournament went on, a cash game started up on the kitchen table.

Seat 1: Ephro
Seat 2: Mrs. Double
Seat 3: Lance
Seat 4: Grubby
Seat 5: Pauly
Seat 6: Franklin
Seat 7: Wampler
Seat 8: HDouble

Glyphic arrived just at the start of the cash game and hung out on the rail. It was dealer's choice and they liked playing 1-1 PL Hold'em or Columbine, which is a game HDouble invented. He was dreading it since everyone was calling it. Columbine is a version of Pineapple. For $3 you can get purchase a third card preflop. It didn't last too long because Grubby called a new game that he invented with Bad Blood called "Vegas Hold'em." It's just like regular Hold'em with one exception. As soon as it gets heads up one player can ask to see one of the other player's hole cards and vice versa. It was an awesome twist on the game and I'm gonna get everyone at the Blue Parrot to play it. The game caught on quickly and everyone started calling Vegas Hold'em instead of Columbine.

Vegas Hold'em. You gotta love Grubby. He's a friggin' genius. First the Hammer. Now Vegas Hold'em.

Anyway, Lance was super drunk and super loose. He and Mrs. Double battled it out a few times. She's fearless at the tables and likes to talk shit. She busted Lance with A-A. In a short time she built her stack up from 60 to over 250, mostly from Lance. She played a few junk hands and scooped another big pot from Lance.

"How could you call that bet?" he wondered.

"You are as bad as I am. That's poker, man!" she responded. "Is it cheating if I leave?" she asked HDouble.

We all laughed. He told he she could cash out if she wanted. Man, I hope she plays at the blogger event next weekend and tilts her table. She also shared with me some of her favorite cookies imported from Sweden. They were a version of gingerbread cookies and you are only supposed to eatthem during Christmas time.

I ended up winning a few bucks in the cash game. I was super tired and Grubette must have read my mind because she asked me if it would be OK to leave soon. When we left, the game was still going and Lance had just stumbled into a cab. We all wondered if he would hurl in the back seat.


Mrs. Double's Swedish cookies
*****

On Saturday morning I woke up early and wrote for a few hours and waited for Grubby to wake up. It was a beautiful day with a high blue sky and a few fluffy clouds. I was reminded why so many people live in Southern California. The weather all year long is like 2000% better than Las Vegas.

I met up with Shirley (aka Poker Babes) for lunch at the Yard House on the marina in Long Beach. Grubby, Grubbette, and Doug all tagged along. We sat outside on the deck and the USC-UCLA game was on, which was big for any local alumni who had flocked to the bar to watch the game. I had not seen Shirley since the WSOP so it was great to finally catch up with each other. We both ordered spicy chicken sandwiches. I drank a few pints of Carlsberg and we talked about a bunch of poker related stuff. One of the best things about the 2005 WSOP was getting to know Shirley better and watching her play. She's definitely one of the coolest pros I've met.

Later that night, Grubby and I met up with his sister at Hawaiian Gardens, which is a quick 10 minute drive from chez Grubette. I've only played at the Bike (almost five years ago) and never anywhere else in L.A., which is often referred to as the poker capital of the world. If you have never been to a Southern California card room, you will be impressed by the sheer size of everything. Tables. Tables. Tables. It's not hard to get intimidated right away. I thought Foxwoods was big, but Hawaiian Gardens easily tops it with over 175 gaming tables, possibly more.

As soon as I walked inside, the pungent aroma of sweaty feet and Korean BBQ greeted me. I could hear faint grovelings and bad beat stories told in Vietnamese, Filipino, Spanish, and two Chinese dialects as I carefully navigated through a row of tables. I scanned the room and decided that 2/3 of the clientele was of Asian decent. Grubby told me that's not uncommon for California cardrooms. After getting a grasp on the enormity of the room all I could think about was Phil Gordon's quote after he stepped inside the poker room at the Rio during the 2005 WSOP... "I've never seen so much dead money in my life."

Perspective. Life is about perspective. And in an instant I went from slightly uncomfortable to extremely anxious. The tables were filled with donkeys, fish, and other forms of terrible players. Some of them were new players that were willing to give their money away. Others were veteran players that still haven't figured out the game. I would have to get lucky and be assigned the right table. I told myself that if I couldn't win money in this room, then I should quit poker.

"Beware of the crazy Asians," Grubby warned me. "They are very aggressive."

Hawaiian Gardens is really a series of tents broken up into a few sections. It was originally just a five table room set up in a trailer and has since expanded into one of the more popular rooms in the LA area. There's an Asian games sections that features Chinese Poker and Pai Gow. It's about half the size of the poker room but pulls in twice as much revenue. We met Grubette at the bar. What used to be the restaurant was turned into part of the poker room. She gave us a quick tour after all she plays there at the twice a week. She pointed out that different casino workers wore different uniforms. They all had on different color shirts, for drink servers, wait staff, chip runners, and massage staff. Grubette showed me where to sign up for 8/16 and 6/12. Both games have a half kill. Since there was a wait, I also signed up for a 2-3 NL table (100 max buy-in). I got called for that table first.

There was a sign on top of the automatic shuffler that read, "English only when a hand is in play."

A chubby white guy with a $3,000 Rolex set in seat 8. He had almost $1500 at a $100 buy-in table. When my limit table was called, I passed. With a drunk rich guy ordering another Kettle One and tonic every time a waitress walked by, it would have been foolish for me to leave. As I folded all my hands during the first orbit I watched the rich drunk guy bully the table which consisted of a golf pro at a local country club, the middle-aged woman who did all her clothes shopping at K-Mart, a cool guy toughster who wore his had sideways and did constant chip tricks, two older Asian guys, and a young Asian kid who wore shades, an iPod, and a hooded UCSB sweatshirt.

Yeah the drunk guy ran over the table. He had over $1500 and the closest to him had $200. That's the biggest difference between limit and NL... the big stacks can control the flow of the game.

Grubby was seated at the table right behind me. He had a guy who was missing four fingers at his table.

"It must be a mob thing," Grubby suggested.

My table was a combination of loose and passive. Everyone was loose preflop, willing to flat call raises up to $20-25, but they clamed up and played very passive after the flop. I used that to my advantage and picked up a few small pots firing out at the flop. Sometimes position is key in NL, but I wanted to be in EP at this table. I wanted to be the first one in the pot post-flop since I knew I could thin the field with a large bet and get heads up with the drunk guy.

Thank God I read Russell Fox's book Mastering No Limit Hold'em before I came out to L.A.. Since he regularly plays against the super loose and sometimes aggressive SoCal players, his book was excellent prep for me. I highly recommend it.

In the first 75 minutes, I built up my stack to almost $350 most of that was from the drunk guy. I won a big pot with KJs and took down another pot from him when I rivered a runner runner flush with AKo. The hand of the night for me was Qc-9c. The flop was Q-J-3 with two diamonds. The turn was another Jack but that gave two flush draw possibility. I was heads up with drunk guy after the flop. I bet my two-pair on the turn, and he called. On the river, a third spade fell. I bet out and Drunk Guy moved all in. I thought about it for a while and called. He had nothing a mucked as soon as I put my chips across the line.

"Awesome call!" the golf pro said out loud. He was sick of getting bullied by the drunk guy and began to needle him. "The new guy can read you like a fuckin' book."

The drunk guy shrugged his shoulders and raised the next 13 hands in a row.

Things seemed like they were going good until a hot Romanian cick sat down and began dealing. The drunk guy was hitting on her so hard that it was comical to watch until I got my aces cracked. I raised in EP over 5x the BB. The drunk guy reraised me to 10x the BB. I moved all in for over $320 more. He still had over $1K in chips and called... with 9-9. Pocket Nines? Are you shitting me? He threw $350 into the pot with 9-9. Guess what flopped? Aces cracked and I got kicked in the junk in true California style. Second time within 24 hours.

I eyed his stack as I slid a $100 bill out of my pocket and shouted, "Rebuy!"

A few hands later I'd lose my second buy-in when I missed a big draw. After my second rebuy, I lost another pot. I went from up $250 to being down over $240. Talk about swings. I took a break and went outside to chat with Grubette as she smoked a cigarette. She was getting killed at the 6/12 tables. There was a ton of chips at her table and I thought about moving to limit. But shit, with so much money on my NL table, I had to stay. When I returned, I went on a run. I doubled up with 9-9 and flopped a set. I check-raised all-in and still got two callers. Later in that orbit, in consecutive hands I found both J-J and the Hilton Sisters. I was finally even. I turned around to Grubby and said, "I told myself I'd leave if I got unstuck."

"You got a big stack at your table," he said. "Only one guy has more chips. You sure you want to leave?"

He was right. We agreed to stay about an hour more. Good thing I let him talk me into staying. I moved my stack up to $560 (up 260 total). I picked up a nice flop with the old "Let's raise in LP with 4-7o and try to flop a straight."

I flopped two pair and turned a full house which gave two other players flushes. I busted both of them. One of the Asian guys bitched at me in Vietnamese as he walked away.

"Dude, I raised preflop. You didn't have to call," I sarcastically quipped.

I racked up my chips and headed to the cashier. I was up $262 for the session on a rollercoaster of a ride. If you can handle the swings both financially and psychologically, then you have to make a trip out to the California card rooms. You will get action.

The dealers were much better than in Las Vegas. Grubby told me that before we ever played. I dunno why this is, but there were fast and efficient. The players were all locals so no one asked me "Where are you from?" Everyone assumes that everyone is a local. They might ask "What do you do?" but the table chatter was light and people were mainly there to have a good time.

So far for the trip I'm almost up $200. Nothing to sneeze about, but it's better than being down. Grubby and I celebrated with eating Taco Bell after Midnight before we headed back to chez Grubette.

Obviously, thanks to Grubbette and Doug for letting me crash and showing me around Hawaiian Gardens. Big thanks to HDouble and Mrs. Double for inviting me into their home to play cards with some of the Full Tilt crew and the rest of the L.A. bloggers. I had a ton of fun this weekend with Grubby. It was an original experience. I wish I came out to L.A. sooner, but it was definitely worth the long drive from Vegas. I'm hoping I can make at least two trips to LA in 2006 and bring Derek with me for one of them.

Or maybe I'll just quit writing about poker and move to L.A. to be a screenwriter by day and grind out a living in the card rooms at night? Pauly in Hollyweird? That would be one great fuckin' book someday.

West L.A. Fadeaway

"He fucks donkeys? That is fuckin' horrible!" - Mrs. HDouble

Grubby and I got on the road 13 minutes later than I wanted. That's not too bad. We rolled out of Vegas just after 11am and headed towards Los Angeles. Between the outskirts of Vegas and the California stateline there is nothing of note aside from the vast void where mobsters bury stool pigeons and the Nevada sun bakes anything in its way. The stateline casinos appear out of nowhere and jump right out at you.

"We'll have to stop on our way back to Vegas," Grubby said matter-of-factly.

One of my favorite posts from HDouble was a trip he and Mrs. Double took almost two years ago. Inspired by HDouble's scribblings, I agreed with Grubby that we would have to stop at Bufffalo Bill's on Sunday night.

On our way to Baker, the winds kicked up and the rental car swerved a few times. The tumbleweed started coming fast. Inside of a two minute stretch, the road in front of me was bombarded with tumbleweeds blown onto the highway by the fierce winds. I ran over one the size of a small Yugo. Grubby did his best efforts to take pictures, but he wasn't quick enough with the camera. One of my favorite passages from one of Jerry Garcia's biographies was the story about Neal Cassady (the dude who inspired Jack Keroauc's infamous character Dean Moriarity in On the Road). Neal drove the infamous bus for the Merry Pranksters. He was usually hopped up on LSD and when Jerry Garcia asked him how he could drive while tripping he muttered, "You have to pick out the hallucinations from the real stuff and just drive through the hallucinations."

We stopped in Baker to top off the tank (never drive through the desert with a less than 1/2 full tank) and grab food. We passed on Max Greek's and ate Arby's instead. While we parked and ate, we did a few more prop bets. Since my arrival in Las Vegas on Wednesday, I had been getting killed in prop bets. Even the Poker Geek called to tell me that I lost another one... Wil Wheaton would not be attending HDouble's home game. That made me like 1-5.

"See those two girls?" Grubby pointed to a family going inside the Subway-Pizza Hut-Gas Station combination store. One was adorable and the other was... not so adorable.

"Which one comes out first?"

"The ugly one," I said.

"I got the good looking one."

"We should bet on something else in the meantime. What's going to be the sex of the first person out that door?"

Grubby though for a second and said, "Female."

I took male and as Grubby fed French fries to a bunch of crows, a woman exited. My prop bet score sunk to a new low of 1-6. The family never came out so we don't know if the ugly girl came out first or her better looking sister.

*****

Just outside of L.A., it started to drizzle. We made great time because we did not catch one bit of traffic. At one point I looked down and said, "Holy shit! We're going over 100mph."

That's when I set the cruise control for 80 (in a 70mph zone). For most of the way, I drove way above the speed limit. We passed by Hawaiian Gardens en route to chez Grubette's in Long Beach, which is populated by two cats. One of them is a dead ringer for Wil's cat. Brother and sister caught up in the tiki lounge area of the house, while I missed the start of Wil's tournament on Poker Stars by 8 minutes. I sweated Derek and Wil's table while I fired up a Turbo SNG. I let Grubette play a few hands for me and we made the money. I took third and got all my aggression out before we headed to HDouble's. Congrats to Boobie Lover for the victory in Wil's tourney!

I forgot that you can buy liquor in grocery stores in California. I picked up a bottle of SoCo. Grubby and his sister picked up beer. A lot of it. On our way to HDouble's we got caught up in Friday night traffic. We eventually found our way to West LA and Murderer's Row, which HDouble's game had been aptly named. I made last longer bets individually with Grubby and Grubette.

Before we walked in, I set up another prop bet with Grubby. We forgot HDouble's wife's name.

"How many vowels in her name?" I asked Grubby.

"Two."

I knew Swedes tend to have a minimum of three vowels per name, so I went with three.

"How do you spell your name?" I asked upon seeing Mrs. Double.

She had three vowels and I picked up my second win to improve to 2-6. Poker Geek arrived with Geekette. I scribbled in my notes:

7:38pm... I met Geekette for the first time. She is real after all.

JoeSpeaker arrived late after a brutal drive. He hooked me up with an autographed baseball card of Catfish Hunter. He played for both of our favorite teams... for JoeSpeaker's A's and my Yankees. Bill showed up and I thanked him for all his hard work for the WPBT event next week.

HDouble introduced me to his crew at Full Tilt as we waited for the rest of the players to arrive. I finally met Ephro! He's buddies with Daddy and also works with FT. I was warned that everyone was going to get plastered. It was a long and rough week for the guys over at Full Tilt and they were happy the week was over. We'd ended up having 19 people for a $50 freeze out NL tournament. $950 prize pool and the top 5 paid.

Here's who was at my table (the kiddie kitchen table):

Seat 1: Shawn
Seat 2: Pauly
Seat 3: Lance (then HDouble)
Seat 4: Change100
Seat 5: Poker Geek
Seat 6: Franklin
Seat 7: Mike
Seat 8: Grubby
Seat 9: Grubette

If you don't know Lance is the loose gun at Murderer's Row. He can and will play any two cards. Lucky for me he was on my left. I played tight to start out. Lance and the Poker Geek got into it. Lance raised, Geek went over the top all in. Lance sighed and said something like, "Geek's protecting his aces. I'll donate anyway."

Lance's 6-6 did not hold up against Geek's A-A and Lance was the first player out.

Grubby was crippled by his sister. In an 8 way pot with a slew of limpers, Grubby moved all-in with A-10o. His sister quickly called from UTG with 7-7. Everyone folded and her sevens held up. Grubby was out a few hands later. I won my second consecutive prop bet after I picked up the last longer. I improved to 3-6. I'd pickup one more when Grubby could not properly guess how many career TDs HDouble had. He said more than 7. The correct answer was 5.

"Four in one game," the former semi-pro reminded us.

By then everyone was fairly toasted. BG and Daddy called for a dial-a-shot and we did a few more.

I lost more than half of my stack on a move. I raised preflop with the suited Jackhammer (all spades). Change100 called. The flop was all diamonds: Q-J-6. I bet out around 500 or half my stack. Change moved all in. I showed HDouble my cards before I mucked and he said, "I liked that move." Yeah I raised preflop with junk and bet out with second pair only to get outflopped by Change100's Ad-7d and the nut flush draw. I'm glad I folded. She and the Geek had most of the chips at the table.

After one of the breaks, I stepped outside for a smoke with Change100. When I came back, HDouble kept joking that "Pauly is recharged!" That's when I began to run over the table. I had a combination of some monsters and marginal hands. I kept raising pots hoping someone would call one of my monsters. It never happened and I tried to get the Geek on tilt by showing him my junk hands whenever I raised his blinds and he folded. I picked up a lot of pots and everytime I scooped HDouble would yell, "Pauly's recharged!"

I dropped the Hammer on one hand and we looked up at the clock. It was 1:18 minutes into the tournament and no one had yet to drop the Hammer.

"That's weak," added HDouble commenting on the lack of Hammer throws. "It took over an hour for the first Hammer."

A few hands later, I found A-A. I moved all-in over the top of Change100. She eventually called with 5-5. I didn't know Grubbette was still in the hand and turned over my aces. She had the Hiltons and folded! By then a small crowd of railbirds crowded HDouble's kitchen. They all stood behind Mike who was dealing the hand. He turned up the three cards and by the expressions of Lance, Grubby, and Joe Speaker standing behind him, I knew I got outflopped before the cards hit the table. Change100's set of 5s cracked my aces. I was out in 11th place and bubbled out of the final table. I lost a last longer with Grubette.

Since Kori and Change100 had about the same number of chips heads-up, they decided to chop.

Here's a list of the money winners:

1-2 Change100 & Geekette ($304 each)
3 Joe Speaker ($152)
4 John ($114)
5 Grubette ($76)

Here's a picture dump:


Black crows in Baker


Catfish


The prize pool


Joe Speaker and Bill


Grubbette's hole cam


Change 100's huge chip stack!
I did another shot and got ready for the cash game! In the meantime, I was trying to explain to Mrs. HDouble that Daddy was a donkey fucker.

"He fucks donkeys? That is fuckin' horrible!" she said in her Swedish accent. "Did he really fuck a donkey?"

We told her about his world-famous post and how she'd get to meet Daddy next weekend.

"That is horrible," she kept saying before she paused. "Does he give the donkey a treat afterwards?"

The room erupted in laughter.

A few minutes later, she realized that a donkey was not the same as a monkey. She thought Daddy fucked a "monkey." Something got lost in the translation there.

"A monkey is small so I can see him picking it up and bouncing it around. A donkey is like a horse. Jesus Christ! That is so fuckin' sick!" she said.

Daddy is now going to become a part of Swedish folklore. Daddy the Monkey Fucker.

... to be continued.

Sahara Blues

"It's my big dick and I say when we roll!" - Dirk Diggler, Boogie Nights

Quick note... when I left the Sahara on Thursday, I snagged a huge stack of the December issue of Poker Pro magazine. If you see it in your local card room/casino... pick it up! Vince Van Patten is on the cover. I wrote one article about the 2005 Legends of Poker and it's in that issue. Poker Pro is a relatively new magazine. They used to be published every other month but from the next issue forth, they will be a monthly publication. My next two articles in future issues of Poker Pro will be about the World Poker Finals in Foxwoods and the Bellagio Five Diamond Classic. The editors also offered me a full-time column! That's quite an honor and it's my first regular feature column in the print media realm. Thanks again to Poker Pro for giving me the chance to write for them. And special thanks to Lou Krieger who recommended me to them!

Moving on...

I wandered around Target a few minutes after it opened. It was pretty crowded for a Thursday morning. The last time I was in Target, I was buying tupperware and called Otis to wish him good luck with NaNoWriMo. This time, I had to do some personal shopping and buy a blanket since it's friggin' freezing in Chez Grubby. As I wandered up and down the aisles, I noticed a lot of very good looking women with great bodies. Whenever I see a hot chick out during the day of the Las Vegas Strip, I immediately think she's a stripper.

Anyway, I was going to write more about strippers and strip clubs, but I'm a little bored about that topic. How about talking about Poker Stars?

Let's just fucking shill the hell out of Poker Stars today! In fact, let's add a nice banner ad too so it comes up in Bloglines:


I love Poker Stars. They pay me off in lapdances, hardcore drugs, and Thai hookers****. Every time I get some poor bastard to sign up for a real money account, I get to do the freaky freaky with a nimble fellatio guru who's drenched in cheap perfume.

Anyway, I played in another rebuy tournament for the WPT-PCA. Didn't do so hot. I also played in a few SNGs with Jaxia on Poker Stars yesterday. She asked me why I kept raising her blinds. I told her, "Because I'm evil. I shill online sites."

Poker Stars was nice enough to host Saturdays with Dr. Pauly and they also host Wil Wheaton's tournaments. I skipped his tournament on Thursday. Since I'm in Las Vegas, I wanted to play in a real tournament with real live players. He has another one on Friday. Stop by his blog for more details.

And the results of my live tourney? 35th out of 121.

After dinner at Panda Express, Grubby and I headed to the Sahara to play in their 7pm nightly NL tournaments. $42 buy-in gets you 2K in chips and for $20 you get one rebuy for 1500 more chips. One of Grubby's friends Carla met up with us. She was seated at my table. The bad thing about Sahara's tournaments is they squeeze 11 players onto the tables. I got stuck next to the poor schmuck who smelled like piss and vinegar. Aside from that, I thought it was a pretty solid tournament with a healthy mix of locals and tourists, with more stand-offish locals playing than gregarious tourists. 121 players entered with 99 rebuys. Top 11 places paid with $2,200 going to the winner. Grubby and I swapped 10% of each other and we made another prop bet... a last longer.

I had a few random people at my table including the young Asian guy from California who dressed like he was an extra out of a hip-hop video. There was the angry old guy who bitched about every hand and personally blamed the dealer for everything, even the cold weather. In the far corner next to Carla were a couple of young internet players. They talked smack about making final tables on Party Poker, but can't even eye the size of a pot or handle their chips. Plus they give off monster tells when they bluff.

I cracked J-J with 5-5. This guy I beat had won hands with junk like 5-2o. When he raised my blind, I moved all in with 5-5 hoping to get the guy out of the pot. He had J-J. I stood up and dug into my pocket to get my rebuy. That's when a 5 flopped. I doubled up and had almost 4K in chips. I was the table chipleader at the end of the first break. Oh, they serve free sandwiches at the break, which Grubby was sure to point out several times to me.

At the end of the second break, I was crippled when my 9-9 ran into Q-Q. I made a bad read and hoped he was stealing my blinds from the button. I moved all in and he quickly called. Carla was owning our table for a while until she lost a few big pots and was busted out just before the second break.

I was moved to a table with the hot chick. She really wasn't that hot (hotness is an objective term), but she wore a tight purple sweater and looked like Fiona Apple nipping out. She as an all-in specialist. She won a big pot when she moved all-in with A-7 and flopped two pair. I was the shortstack with 570 left and waited for a hand. The blinds were 200/400 and I moved all-in with K-Q. I got 4 callers and flopped two pair with Kournikova. My hand held up and I had over 4K in chips. A few hands later, I moved all-in with A-Q in late position. Well the LB had A-K and quickly called. I flopped a Queen and doubled up. I went from 570 in chips to 8K inside of one orbit.

I got blinded down until the next break. With the blinds 500/1000, I was busted when I moved all in with 10-10. One guy had J-J and that was it. I was busted in 35th place after issuing two bad beats. Grubby went out soon after me in 33rd place. We missed the money but Grubby won the last longer!

That's it. I have to go write for a bit before I crash and drive to LA tomorrow with Grubby riding shotgun. We're gonna raise hell at HDouble's homegame in Hollyweird and hang out with some LA boogers. Trip report to follow.

**** I really don't get paid in lapdances, hardcore drugs, and Thai hookers. I'm not that good. I mean that's the Otis deal!

First Arrival

I am officially the first blogger (non-Nevada resident) to arrive in Las Vegas. And I'm definitely going to be the last one to leave (Christmas Eve)!

Back in NYC, my cab driver to JFK airport turned around and said, "I know you."

Don't worry he's not a fan of my blog. He used to be a delivery driver from a pizza place I used to order from at least once a week. Because he thought that he knew me, meant to him that he could engage in idle chit-chat.

I fuckin' hate idle chit-chat, especially from cabbies. I was in a weird mood, a combination of exhausted and sad. I always go through a slight stage of melancholy whenever I leave a place I really like. I wanted to stare out and look at all the skyscrapers and the lights on the office buildings and zone out. My driver wouldn't let me. He played techno-sitar music from India and he kept bitching about the traffic. You know you have a bad cabbie when he's complaining about the traffic. That's like a fisherman bitchin' about the smell. (Or a poker writer loathing writing about poker... heh.)

The woman sitting next to me on my flight was smoking hot. Angela Basset hot. And she was a stripper too. She lied and said she did something else... MAW (model-actress-whatever). That whatever part was stripping. She asked me what I did for a living.

"I produce adult films."

She smiled and handed me her business card. It wasn't much of a card. It was a plain white card and has a pair of lips on it. The only text was her stripper name and an email address.

Oh... and her stripper name? Pinot.

I flew Jetblue to Las Vegas since it's the official airline of the Tao of Poker. You know you fly an airline too much when the hagged out flight attendants recognize you and know what you want to drink without asking. JetBlue has TVs which is necessary on a 5+ hour flight. I watched the WPT Tournament of Champions II, VH1's one hit wonders, and Naomi Watts get interviewed on Conan O'Brien. I'd sever my left nut to play "hide the salami" for 35 seconds with Naomi. Brandt and Daddy have to pay $100 if they wanna watch.

I never check luggage. It's a suckers bet like insurance in blackjack. Checking bags is extremely -ev. But this time, I had a lot of crap to take with me. Lucky for me, my bag was one of the first to come out. At the rental car counter, they didn't have my reservation number in the system. That's when I told them I was a "Fast Break" elite member. They quickly ushered me outside to a shuttle bus. The driver dropped me off five feet from my rental car and I tipped him $5. That was the fastest rental car pick up in my life.

I drove over to Grubby's to pick him up. We headed to Balboa for dinner. It's located in the mall just outside of Green Valley Ranch andit's five minutes away from chez Grubby. I lost my first prop bet of the trip. Last time I arrived in Vegas in October, we were hitting on a cute waitress. I bet Grubby $1 that she'd be there. She wasn't.

"It's never a good sign when you lose your first bet in Las Vegas," Grubby reminded me.

I did a double or nothing bet. The debate was the seats on Jetblue planes. Grubby said that the seats in the front of the plane had more legroom. I said it was the back. We just checked online and I was right. We're now even with prop bets and I've only been in Vegas less than two hours.

So it's a little past 1am. Time for some tourist poker and strip clubs!

Before I go... check out two relatively new blogs. I'm friends with Lady Falcon. We play cards together here in NYC. And TeamScottSmith is part of the G-Vegas crew. He likes to climb trees.

1. Poker & Liquor (TeamScottSmith)
2. Lady Poker (Lady Falcon)

Thanks to everyone for their emails, IMs, and comments about my previous post. I'm very lucky to have friends and supporters like you.