Vegas Trip Report and Other Nonsense

In a spur of the moment decision, Glenn and I made a quick trip up to Vegas on Tuesday. We headed up about 10am and were already at Caesars poker room by 12:30.

I was shocked that Caesars only had four cash games going on, during their big festival. They are so frigging FUBAR, they can't get anything right.

Dozens of my tourney pals, however, were playing the 1k NLHE event. I haven't seen some of these guys since the 2005 WSOP, so I was happy to greet them again. That has long been a paradox of mine. I can't seem to win big events myself, but I like the top tourney players more than most cash game players. Oy, vey.

Asher Derei was back from his poker hiatus. Last year, he told me that he and his wife were going to fly down under, then do a walkabout for several months. They walked Australia and New Zealand. He said he hasn't lost any weight, but he looks much thinner! Must be all of that muscle he built up doing months of walking. I am ecstatic to see him in better shape, because we both have diabetes, and carrying around extra weight is harmful.

He said he didn't miss poker a bit, and would love to do it again. I don't blame him.

Jean Gaspard, my little French-Haitian-American prince, was his rascally self. He had taken 2nd place in two events already, with the festival just having begun! He is always amusing, and has treated me so well over the years. I tend to either like people, or hate them, and I like Jean, so that is that.

The FUBAR stuff happened not long after I arrived. Not only was Ceasars sucking when it came to cash games, but then I ambled over to the satellite area. Um, I don't know of any other way to say this, except that everything Harrah's touches turns to SHITE when it comes to poker. Not that I didn't already know that, but here is a prime example for you. When we started asking about HOSE satellites for Wednesday's 5k HOSE event (myself and several WCP's who were still in the NLHE event), we were told that "upper management" was forbidding them to spread HOSE sats! Uh, okay. They are running a 5k event, and refuse to spread satellites for it!?!? I'm sure even the newest of the new players understand that this is simply retarded. But then why am I surprised? Harrahs has insisted that anything to do with poker is handled in a "simply retarded" fashion for decades. So I gave my typical reply of "Blow me!" to the so-called "upper management."

Naturally the satellite director got that look in his eye. That look that says, 'this guy knows you.' Oy, I hate when that happens. I simply go off on someone, then they decide that they know me. So in the midst of all of these well-known, big name players, he suddenly goes, "Oh, what is your name?" Oh, brother, here it comes. "I know you, I think. You're Felicia Lee, right?"

NO! I'M MIKE-EFFING-JORDAN! NOW SPREAD THE MOTHER EFFING HOSE SATELLITE!

Okay, so I wasn't quite so rude. But he "reads" my journal all the time, in his own words, so hopefully he will see this and print it out for those who might actually get it.

Soooo, Ceasars was a wash, except that I saw a ton of my friends there and that was great.

Next, we headed over to my old mainstay of poker goodness, Wynn. How can a casino who claims to know nothing about poker get it so right, while another chain who claim they are representing poker players world-wide, screw up so badly? Don't answer that, I have known it for years ;)

Wynn was it's typical, wonderful self, if a little bit deflated, for reasons that I haven't quite figured out (ALL of the rooms on the strip were deflated. People have just run out of steam, run out of money, or simply become diluted with the dozens of poker rooms that have opened recently).

Omaha 8 was super tight and passive when I first sat. I thought it was going to be a bad game. Then three friends from Canada sat down. One girl claimed she had never played O8 before. She was straddling and playing entire hands blind, etc. She gave away $500 in the first 30 minutes or so.

I ran up about $450 before I stopped catching. Glenn wanted to go to Bellagio, so I ended up making $200 when we left. Had I sat there until she gave up and busted out for the final time, I'm sure I would have gotten more of my winnings back. Time is a huge factor in low-limit, loose Omaha 8.

Bellagio was a bit empty, too, but not suffering as much as the afore mentioned cardrooms.

Although I was about 15th on the O8 list and only fourth on the Stud list, I still got into O8 faster. The game was horrible. Sometimes the blinds were chopping, oy vey! There were three loose Asians, but all that happened is that the typical, tight, corncob up the butt white people like me were even tighter, lol :)

I was blinded down about $150 and hadn't caught a thing. Time charge was $5 per down. It was a stupid, pointless, mindless, boring game. No action at all.

Finally I got my Stud seat, but the game wasn't that great, either. The loose players had busted out and left. I managed to recoop most of my $150 from O8, but that was about it.

Fortunately, during this time I was able to say hello to some of my poker friends. Linda came in to deal (ended up playing instead) and I tried to tease her about making a new boyfriend. It's pretty impossible to tease Linda, but I tried, anyway ;)

I told her the one thing I'd learned recently from her is that I will never, ever buy an RV.

She was in good spirits. She uses her journal as an outlet for all of that crazy, RV and dealing stress, like me, so we had a fun chat.

James Van Alstyne was there, playing in the 80/160 HE game. He seemed embarrassed and ashamed that he busted out of the 25k in 5th place. I told him he was great, that it happens to everyone, that he is an awesome person and an awesome player. Just blow it off. He said he was nervous by the attention, the interviews, being on TV, etc. I told him that Ted had just told me the same thing a couple of years ago, and look at what has happened to Ted in the past two years!!! James isn't that far behind. James is a wonderful guy, who can do anything. He is socially awkward, but dang, aren't we all??? We're poker players, for cripes sake. We just crawled out of the sewer. We're all disgusting, bottom-of-the-barrel people according to society at large (obviously this was particularly true before the boom). So regardless of the fact that James seemed to be having an off-day at the final table, he is still a winner, IMO, and according to every, single person (save none), that I talked to about the situation. GO JAMES!

Some of the 40/80 mixed players tried to get me to join their game. I guess I was "the live one" at the mixed game at Wynn. Scary, that they consider a live one to be someone who only tossed ~9 big bets!

The games weren't that great at Bellagio (including the mixed game), so we we decided to check out Red Rock, even though it was a hike, because we'd heard it was something to see...

(part two of FUBAR galore coming soon...)

Felicia :)