Several of you have asked for a final report from my annual Vegas trip, which I take every year with some poker buddies. We play in a WSOP event, and this year we chose No. 23, the $2,000 no-limit tournament. I’m working on a full trip report for selected friends and interested parties, but I can’t post it here because, well, there’s just some things that a stranger/my wife/my employer doesn’t need to know.
The highlights, though, yeah, I can hit most of those after the jump:
It took nearly two full days of play, but I lasted to 26th place out of 1,344 players. I think I would have made the final table (last nine people) had my pocket 10s held up. We got it all in pre-flop, and I flopped a 10 for a set (three of a kind), and was way ahead of my opponent’s A-J, but he hit his inside straight draw on the turn, and I needed the board to pair on the river to win. That didn’t happen. I cashed for a little more than $13K. I took $12K of that in a check, and pocketed the rest. The cash was gone by the time I got back to my room. The check will go directly to the fine folks at Chase Visa.
Toward the end of the tournament, Tim and some of my other buddies were “sweating” me (hanging out nearby, checking in on my play and my chips stack). They were also getting quite tipsy, to the point that they were incurring the wrath of the woman who was the tournament director. At one point, when I got all my chips in, one member of my group tried to get a better view by standing on a chair. The chair had wheels. He came crashing down to the ground and took out several people/other tables with him. So as I’m risking my tournament life, I see my friends cause absolute pandemonium, which causes the tournament director to storm over there and ask, “What the HELL is going on here?” I turned to the table after I won the hand and muttered, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I got to play for a few hours next to Phil Hellmuth, the well-known “poker brat.” He was hysterical, great fun to play with. I also got to see him get into a raging screaming match at the end of Day 1 when another guy’s drunk buddies (Canadian, eh) started mocking him. It happened just after the picture you see on this post was taken. Fun for having.
Tim had a unique strategy: wear prescription sunglasses inside during the entire trip. He also had a unique blackjack strategy. Play one hand a day, $500 a hand. He won his first two. He lost several after that.
I have two words for that. Mur. Mur.
One of our group, The Freeze, came down with strep throat during the trip. He is not only a lawyer and a Mavs fan, he is a warrior. He didn’t let that stop him from going out every night. Since he gave it to a few of us, me included, I know just how amazing that was, as I pretty much have been in bed the past three days.
A fun place to go if you’re a ouchey-day white dork like me is the piano bar at New York New York. You can get your scrunchy-eyed head-bob on to full effect. And if you throw down a hundy at the piano guy and demand they play “Don’t Stop Believin'” right effin NOW, they will do it. Trust me.
Bad negotiating: When the limo driver tells you it’ll be $45 to drive you to the casino where you’re headed, and you counter-offer him $100.
Then, when you get to the club and they tell you it’ll be $15 a person (five people), and you offer him $200. My friends are idiots.
Always weird when you walk into a place during the night and you leave during daylight hours. Or so I hear.
Not sure my buddy responded smoothly to the come-on line he received from one woman at The Heart Bar: “It’s $400 an hour for a whole lotta me.” His response was a frightened gurgle, at which point he moved to the other side of the bar.
Eddie Griffin looks good in white shades at midnight. IJS.
If you need more details, lemme hear from ya. Unless you’re my wife. Then you know all you need to know.
