World Series of Poker and other things
Since the tournament I won online, it kind of sparked an interest to keep playing a lot more again so that's pretty much what I've been doing. We had the last day of our rental car before we were deciding whether we were renewing it at the very modest and fair rate (ha!) of $523 a week since apparently rental car companies gets their kicks out of punishing anybody that isn't 25 years old with a shit load of taxes. All the taxes they added on top of the actual rental made me feel like I was back in Sweden, fascists.
We ended up driving to this newly built place up in Summerlin called Red Rock Casino. Mike Laing told us that we absolutely have to check it out and once we do, we'll never go anywhere else to play. Sounds worth checking out to me, so we made the drive up there and decided to play a bit. The place itself was really nice, I liked it, the tables in the poker room were very nice and I liked the whole layout of the place. The games were as juicy as can be too. I was sitting next to an older gentleman that was just making me laugh so hard I couldn't help myself, he was just saying these random quote gems about poker that was unintentionally funny and I had to take a walk every now and then because I didn't want to be rude. He informed the whole table he was down about a thousand dollars and he had no idea how it happened, because after all, he was playing perfect everybody else were playing all these bullshit cards.
At one time, a younger guy made a raise to $40 with ace-queen... he called with ace-king. The flop came out all low cards, the young guy made a follow-up bet of $80 and the older gentleman folded. Basically, he played his hand like a pussy and let the other guy take down the pot, nothing wrong with that a lot of hands go down the same way. The younger guy however, showed his ace-queen and that set the old gentleman off and he started talking to himself, it was hilarious.
"Watch these young guys come in and think they know how to play, did you just see him? huh? He made a raise with an ace-queen and I had a CLEARLY SUPERIOR HAND and I lost the pot. I don't understand how I'm stuck a thousand dollars, I really don't understand it. I had a much better hand and I just keep getting ran over, I don't understand what is wrong with this game. You can probably not play any better than I'm playing right now it's just all these young guys that haven't been around poker as long as me that keep thinking they can play when they keep raising with such garbage hands."
This was quite funny to me as the young guy who apparently in the mind of this old guy was a total idiot, ended up dragging the pot after all. This just kept going on and on and on until I eventually switched tables because he had talked the entire table into playing nothing but aces and I hate tables like that. They're excruciatingly boring. Jamie was playing next to me and he was being slapped around like a red-headed step child. Every time Jamie put a chip in a pot they'd come out of the woodwork and there'd be fifteen people waiting in line to raise his ass. He got sick of the abuse and picked up the remaining chips and left the table and I sat down and took his seat. I of course went on a heater as soon as I sat down in his seat (good job Jamie, thanks buddy) and doubled through and ended up winning about $1100. We also had dinner in their bar/restaurant thing which was very nice except my Philly Cheesesteak absolutely sucked. They did have something very neat though which was these glass bottles of water that were like a zillion bucks a piece for water distilled in Norway and in these high-tech bottles that you paid like $4 for but could recycle for $.05. That seemed fair enough to me, so the bottle itself is worth a nickel but three gulps of water goes for $3,95.
We then left the Red Rock, looked at some apartments that were for rent up in Summerlin real quickly before heading down to the Bellagio. We just hung around there for a little while, didn't really play, and drove to the rental car place at five in the morning to return our rental. I miss our car already. It wasn't quite as nice as the one we drove from Tennessee to Oklahoma to Vegas in but it was decent. The following day we got up with the rooster again, just shy of 6 pm. The Vegas rooster likes to go out and kick it at night and he's always hung over until late afternoon therefore he doesn't wake up until then either, so there. We went down to the Rio in a cab since we don't have a rental car anymore, to check out the World Series of Poker. Cab fare from here to there is $43. That's ridiculous. Anyway, we walk in to the WSOP and Jamie kept telling me "Are you ready to see this? I mean really, are you?" .. I said 'Yep!" and we walk into a HUGE room with a sea of tables. Two hundred tables to be exact. The room hosts 2200 people when they play tournaments, plus all the staff. Now that's a huge fucking poker room. It puts the Tunica poker room with fourteen tables or whatever it is to shame. Wow. I do think they need to apply for a legal license somewhere to put as many donkeys in the same room as they will be doing under the WSOP, it is after all the poker donk-fest of the century. I can't wait to play some tournaments.
Just walking in there made me wanna play, so I got into some single table satellites immediately. We met up with Eskimo over there that is a good friend of Jamies, and I swear it never ceases to surprise me how many fucking people Jamie knows. I mean we walk literally twenty feet and somebody stops us and asks Jamie how he's doing and that it has been a while. It it wild. Anyway, I've never been to a Series before so it was pretty neat to see all the pros just walking around. Howard Lederer, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson and a bunch of others. In the one single table satellite I did good in and chopped for $1120 I was playing with the 2002 WSOP main event champion Robert Varkonyi. He was actually a really nice guy too. When he sat down at the table, somebody yelled out "No bracelet-holders allowed at this table!" and this middle-eastern guy perked up and said "Who? Who has a bracelet?" somebody joked and said "The kid in the one seat" (that was me) and I never said anything back. Varkonyi just grinned. A little bit later, the middle eastern guy raises a pot and I called with QJ of hearts. The flop came A-K-9 and he checks, I check... turn comes a 10 giving me the nuts. He goes all-in with a huge overbet, I call, he shows three aces and I all but bust him out leaving him with one chip left. He started saying "It's ridiculous how bad these bracelet holders play, look, see! He goes and busts my TWO ACES. I knew those bracelet guys can't play at all!"
I found that so funny for some reason, somebody eventually informed him that I wasn't the bracelet holder. Or actually he said, "I meant the other guy, I don't know if the kid has a bracelet, do you?" (asking me) and I said "No, not yet!" and Varkonyi chimed in and said "Oh you can buy mine!" he only wanted a very modest seven-figures for it too, what a steal.
We stayed there for several hours and Jamie introduced me to a lot of people. This floor-manager Tony that had been around Vegas for forty years. He was just full of stories about all the old-timers and things they had done. He told us many of them, but one I remember was Jack "Treetop" Strauss playing a huge movie star I had never heard of but that was really big back in the day whom I can't even remember the name of now. If I get any details of it wrong, I apologize but re-telling it from memory. They were playing for $20,000 each and this was in like 1974 or something. Anyway, the movie star had bet before the flop, Strauss had called and before they dealt the flop... Strauss asked if he wanted to trade cards. The guy said, sure, and they traded cards. The flop was dealt and the moviestar bet, Strauss raised and the movie star called. The turn Strauss bet again, the moviestar called. On the river, Strauss goes all-in and the moviestar called. Strauss asked him, "Why would you do that? You know what I had?" and the guy replied "Yeah, but I forgot what cards I gave you!"
He also introduced me to Joe Bartholis father who was very cool and also had a lot of stories of his own. Then when I was playing a satellite, Jamie comes and taps me on the shoulder and said, "hey there's another guy I want you to meet" and I look behind me and Joe Bartholi the WPT $25k winner for $3,7 million was standing behind me. Him and Jamie apparently knew each other for years too. As I said, it's amazing to me how many people he knows. Joe seemed like a very cool and laid-back guy that wasn't starstruck at all.
After this, it was off to the Bellagio. Here we met even more people. He introduced me to Jean-Robert Bellande and we were sitting there sweating him and talking to him for like four hours. He was playing $150/300 half and half Badugi and Triple Draw 2-7 and then a little later they kicked it up to $200/400 straight Badugi. He was also a very cool guy, funny as hell. He talks more shit than Mississippis own Tim Burt, and I never thought I'd find anyone who did that. Actually, that's not entirely true, Tim when he's being drawn out on might talk even more than Jean-Robert. Anyway, Bellande was playing three-handed when one of his opponents made some weird play and Bellande told the other guy that was playing, "Lee, Lee listen to me, we gotta kick it up to 200/400. If he's going to keep doing shit like that and play like that we need to kick it up and play higher. You listening to me Lee, we're making it 200/400, he can't keep playing like this."
It was hilarious. Anyway, I played only like an hour of $5/10 no limit and picked up exactly $500 and we ordered some table-side food service while we were sweating Jean-Robert. I had some breakfast wrap that was awesome, with bacon, egg, cheese and sausage and cereal. Jamie had a NY strip steak I believe. It was $70 total with tip. That is pretty sick to me. I also got introduced to "Devilfish" another pro-poker player that Jamie knows, he was slumming around in the 15/30 game picking up hot chicks while playing. After watching Bellande play for several hours we decided to leave at about eight in the morning and go back to the hotel. It definitely was neat. I have to admit it is very cool to meet all these pros, I'm not used to being around the whole Vegas scene so it's still all new to me and it is great. As Jamie said, to him it's not anything special since he knew the guys before they became big-time. Anyway, that's about it. I woke up now at 4pm, hopefully I can go to sleep somewhat early tonight. I bought into the first official event of the World Series of Poker, the $1500 No Limit Hold'em event on Tuesday. It will probably draw 2500 people and have a several hundred thousand prize for first. It will definitely be a long-shot but hey, it's all about a little bit of timing in the right places and I know I can win a bracelet too. It's just a matter of a lot of luck when the fields are so big, but I'm playing well right now so looking forward to it. I still haven't decided on how many events I'm playing during the WSOP it all depends on how it goes.
We ended up driving to this newly built place up in Summerlin called Red Rock Casino. Mike Laing told us that we absolutely have to check it out and once we do, we'll never go anywhere else to play. Sounds worth checking out to me, so we made the drive up there and decided to play a bit. The place itself was really nice, I liked it, the tables in the poker room were very nice and I liked the whole layout of the place. The games were as juicy as can be too. I was sitting next to an older gentleman that was just making me laugh so hard I couldn't help myself, he was just saying these random quote gems about poker that was unintentionally funny and I had to take a walk every now and then because I didn't want to be rude. He informed the whole table he was down about a thousand dollars and he had no idea how it happened, because after all, he was playing perfect everybody else were playing all these bullshit cards.
At one time, a younger guy made a raise to $40 with ace-queen... he called with ace-king. The flop came out all low cards, the young guy made a follow-up bet of $80 and the older gentleman folded. Basically, he played his hand like a pussy and let the other guy take down the pot, nothing wrong with that a lot of hands go down the same way. The younger guy however, showed his ace-queen and that set the old gentleman off and he started talking to himself, it was hilarious.
"Watch these young guys come in and think they know how to play, did you just see him? huh? He made a raise with an ace-queen and I had a CLEARLY SUPERIOR HAND and I lost the pot. I don't understand how I'm stuck a thousand dollars, I really don't understand it. I had a much better hand and I just keep getting ran over, I don't understand what is wrong with this game. You can probably not play any better than I'm playing right now it's just all these young guys that haven't been around poker as long as me that keep thinking they can play when they keep raising with such garbage hands."
This was quite funny to me as the young guy who apparently in the mind of this old guy was a total idiot, ended up dragging the pot after all. This just kept going on and on and on until I eventually switched tables because he had talked the entire table into playing nothing but aces and I hate tables like that. They're excruciatingly boring. Jamie was playing next to me and he was being slapped around like a red-headed step child. Every time Jamie put a chip in a pot they'd come out of the woodwork and there'd be fifteen people waiting in line to raise his ass. He got sick of the abuse and picked up the remaining chips and left the table and I sat down and took his seat. I of course went on a heater as soon as I sat down in his seat (good job Jamie, thanks buddy) and doubled through and ended up winning about $1100. We also had dinner in their bar/restaurant thing which was very nice except my Philly Cheesesteak absolutely sucked. They did have something very neat though which was these glass bottles of water that were like a zillion bucks a piece for water distilled in Norway and in these high-tech bottles that you paid like $4 for but could recycle for $.05. That seemed fair enough to me, so the bottle itself is worth a nickel but three gulps of water goes for $3,95.
We then left the Red Rock, looked at some apartments that were for rent up in Summerlin real quickly before heading down to the Bellagio. We just hung around there for a little while, didn't really play, and drove to the rental car place at five in the morning to return our rental. I miss our car already. It wasn't quite as nice as the one we drove from Tennessee to Oklahoma to Vegas in but it was decent. The following day we got up with the rooster again, just shy of 6 pm. The Vegas rooster likes to go out and kick it at night and he's always hung over until late afternoon therefore he doesn't wake up until then either, so there. We went down to the Rio in a cab since we don't have a rental car anymore, to check out the World Series of Poker. Cab fare from here to there is $43. That's ridiculous. Anyway, we walk in to the WSOP and Jamie kept telling me "Are you ready to see this? I mean really, are you?" .. I said 'Yep!" and we walk into a HUGE room with a sea of tables. Two hundred tables to be exact. The room hosts 2200 people when they play tournaments, plus all the staff. Now that's a huge fucking poker room. It puts the Tunica poker room with fourteen tables or whatever it is to shame. Wow. I do think they need to apply for a legal license somewhere to put as many donkeys in the same room as they will be doing under the WSOP, it is after all the poker donk-fest of the century. I can't wait to play some tournaments.
Just walking in there made me wanna play, so I got into some single table satellites immediately. We met up with Eskimo over there that is a good friend of Jamies, and I swear it never ceases to surprise me how many fucking people Jamie knows. I mean we walk literally twenty feet and somebody stops us and asks Jamie how he's doing and that it has been a while. It it wild. Anyway, I've never been to a Series before so it was pretty neat to see all the pros just walking around. Howard Lederer, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson and a bunch of others. In the one single table satellite I did good in and chopped for $1120 I was playing with the 2002 WSOP main event champion Robert Varkonyi. He was actually a really nice guy too. When he sat down at the table, somebody yelled out "No bracelet-holders allowed at this table!" and this middle-eastern guy perked up and said "Who? Who has a bracelet?" somebody joked and said "The kid in the one seat" (that was me) and I never said anything back. Varkonyi just grinned. A little bit later, the middle eastern guy raises a pot and I called with QJ of hearts. The flop came A-K-9 and he checks, I check... turn comes a 10 giving me the nuts. He goes all-in with a huge overbet, I call, he shows three aces and I all but bust him out leaving him with one chip left. He started saying "It's ridiculous how bad these bracelet holders play, look, see! He goes and busts my TWO ACES. I knew those bracelet guys can't play at all!"
I found that so funny for some reason, somebody eventually informed him that I wasn't the bracelet holder. Or actually he said, "I meant the other guy, I don't know if the kid has a bracelet, do you?" (asking me) and I said "No, not yet!" and Varkonyi chimed in and said "Oh you can buy mine!" he only wanted a very modest seven-figures for it too, what a steal.
We stayed there for several hours and Jamie introduced me to a lot of people. This floor-manager Tony that had been around Vegas for forty years. He was just full of stories about all the old-timers and things they had done. He told us many of them, but one I remember was Jack "Treetop" Strauss playing a huge movie star I had never heard of but that was really big back in the day whom I can't even remember the name of now. If I get any details of it wrong, I apologize but re-telling it from memory. They were playing for $20,000 each and this was in like 1974 or something. Anyway, the movie star had bet before the flop, Strauss had called and before they dealt the flop... Strauss asked if he wanted to trade cards. The guy said, sure, and they traded cards. The flop was dealt and the moviestar bet, Strauss raised and the movie star called. The turn Strauss bet again, the moviestar called. On the river, Strauss goes all-in and the moviestar called. Strauss asked him, "Why would you do that? You know what I had?" and the guy replied "Yeah, but I forgot what cards I gave you!"
He also introduced me to Joe Bartholis father who was very cool and also had a lot of stories of his own. Then when I was playing a satellite, Jamie comes and taps me on the shoulder and said, "hey there's another guy I want you to meet" and I look behind me and Joe Bartholi the WPT $25k winner for $3,7 million was standing behind me. Him and Jamie apparently knew each other for years too. As I said, it's amazing to me how many people he knows. Joe seemed like a very cool and laid-back guy that wasn't starstruck at all.
After this, it was off to the Bellagio. Here we met even more people. He introduced me to Jean-Robert Bellande and we were sitting there sweating him and talking to him for like four hours. He was playing $150/300 half and half Badugi and Triple Draw 2-7 and then a little later they kicked it up to $200/400 straight Badugi. He was also a very cool guy, funny as hell. He talks more shit than Mississippis own Tim Burt, and I never thought I'd find anyone who did that. Actually, that's not entirely true, Tim when he's being drawn out on might talk even more than Jean-Robert. Anyway, Bellande was playing three-handed when one of his opponents made some weird play and Bellande told the other guy that was playing, "Lee, Lee listen to me, we gotta kick it up to 200/400. If he's going to keep doing shit like that and play like that we need to kick it up and play higher. You listening to me Lee, we're making it 200/400, he can't keep playing like this."
It was hilarious. Anyway, I played only like an hour of $5/10 no limit and picked up exactly $500 and we ordered some table-side food service while we were sweating Jean-Robert. I had some breakfast wrap that was awesome, with bacon, egg, cheese and sausage and cereal. Jamie had a NY strip steak I believe. It was $70 total with tip. That is pretty sick to me. I also got introduced to "Devilfish" another pro-poker player that Jamie knows, he was slumming around in the 15/30 game picking up hot chicks while playing. After watching Bellande play for several hours we decided to leave at about eight in the morning and go back to the hotel. It definitely was neat. I have to admit it is very cool to meet all these pros, I'm not used to being around the whole Vegas scene so it's still all new to me and it is great. As Jamie said, to him it's not anything special since he knew the guys before they became big-time. Anyway, that's about it. I woke up now at 4pm, hopefully I can go to sleep somewhat early tonight. I bought into the first official event of the World Series of Poker, the $1500 No Limit Hold'em event on Tuesday. It will probably draw 2500 people and have a several hundred thousand prize for first. It will definitely be a long-shot but hey, it's all about a little bit of timing in the right places and I know I can win a bracelet too. It's just a matter of a lot of luck when the fields are so big, but I'm playing well right now so looking forward to it. I still haven't decided on how many events I'm playing during the WSOP it all depends on how it goes.
posted by Swede at 3:51 PM
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