Heading East to Vegas

Before the World Series started I wanted to visit some friends in SoCal and play some golf and visit some of the local watering holes. Last Wednesday I flew out to Long Beach. My non stop flight was detoured through Canada and was forced to make a "gas stop" in Salt Lake City. A pretty crappy start to what is sure to be a great overall trip. This 4.5 hour flight turned into a seven hour journey, but not to worry because I was compensated with a $25 dollar voucher for a future Jet Blue flight!

During my stint (wed-mon) in Cali, I had a great time. We squeezed three rounds of golf into the mix, with the highlight being playing a great track called Strawberry Hills (?), this was a really nice course in Irvine California. My golf game declined at a rapid rate during the three rounds. Thursday morning, I got the short stick working and finished with an 81, but by the third round (and toughest course by far), there were a couple X's on the card as well as numerous three putz.

As far as the nightlife goes, I was expecting nothing less than complete chaos and I was not disappointed! During my stay a we hit up a bunch of restraunts including a great seafood place (crab legs hmmmmmm), outdoor Italian place, a Steak house by the Commerce and a little sushi place. Dinner was normally an apetizer (or pregame) to the night of festivities. One night we hit up this college type bar, where I swear Steveg is on the verge of world class level in Mrs Pacman. From there we managed to get on the pool table and proceded to beat all challangers for a couple hours...a blurry finish to say the least. Then when visiting Cali you obv have to hit up Sunset Blvd and do the whole bottle service thing at least once. On Saturday we made the trek northward and with only a few minor problems, including the police, lack of registration, a glass wall and no garage door opener we eventually arrived in LA and did the whole club thing. A good time was had by all !!

Sunday I played the online circuit for the first time in a longtime. I had built up some chips in the stars 1k event only to eventually go card dead and be forced to shove with 76s and run into the K3 ball to be taken down. I cashed twice, with a final table on FullTilt and a small cash in the stars $100 rebuy.

Off to Vegas

Monday morning the entire LA crew and I loaded up three cars and made the trek to Vegas. The Rio was expected to be a complete madhouse with rumors of the first event selling out. I headed straight over there was was alternate number 28. With 250 tables and only 1500 starting chips I was not expecting the wait to be very long. I was called midway throught the first level.

I feel like I played fairly well this tournament. I built by stack from 1500 to 2900. Then shoved over a raiser and bunch of callers with JJ, all folded except the initial raiser who called with AK and was unable to make a pair which increased by stack to 8k. I hung around there for most of the day, with my high point ~12k. I donked most of my stack with K4s defending my blind. A hand I may have screwed up on every street. Shoulda folded preflop, shoulda possibly raised flop, shoulda def folded turn....but anyway tournaments are dumb. I was crippled after this hand and ended up finishing ~315th. I would have like to make the money (270th) more to boost my tourney confidence than anything else. But anyway, my next event is the limit event tomorrow.

WSOP hand of the day
Every Tourney I play I will post my favorite hand. With the blinds at 25-25, a solid tight player makes it 125 UTG (first position) the next player makes it 300 and a New York Pro (MM) makes it 500 from third position. The UTG player shows me QQ and lays down the hand. The other guy calls 200 more.

The Flop comes AJx, check check.

The Turn is a blank and with the pot 1175 the first guy checks to MM who bets 200, the other player moves him in and MM calls with his set of aces.

Nice double up sir...