I flew in on Tuesday night on the same flight as McGarrett, who I know from the bustling Boca Raton poker scene. Before I forget, congrats to McG on making in deep into Day Two – he came in around 800th. Great guy (and pocketfives poster). We were both pretty rinsed out but I can never sleep in Vegas, so I woke up at like 5 a.m. and walked down to the poker area. I registered for the Big One and then went in and played some 20-40. A woman steamed off a thousand in about 20 minutes but I didn’t get much of it. I spent the rest of the day checking out the pool, the poker convention, etc. and generally just chilling before the big party night. BTW the convention area was worth checking out for many reasons, one of which was the fact that they hired every half-decent looking model and off-duty stripper in Vegas to hand out promotional items. <READMORE>

McG and I decided to hit the P5 shindig early so we could get over to the Palms. It was very cool to meet a lot of the guys there at the Imperial. Sam E Nole looks about 15, but one of the things I was glad to see was that not everyone is in their early 20s. It’s actually a pretty diverse group, at least in terms of age. Anyway, the P5 deal was a great warm-up, and we made it to the Palms at around 7:30. We walked over to the Paradise party first. They had a big line to get in, which was annoying, but it went fast. Paradise had a list but it didn’t matter because you could bring a guest (so I was McG’s) and besides, Laura from Dise remembered me from LA last year, which was nice. The food was just ok – they sent the same spring rolls around like 75 times – but the open bar worked well for me and I thought Paradise did a good job making their qualifiers feel important – photos with their models, goodie bags, random B-list celebs, etc. I talked to Boston Rob and Amber for a quite a while. Amber is really cool and was very down to earth. She told me her dad is Amber’s Dad from Paradise, which I got a real kick out of because I’ve played a ton of poker with that guy and it never occurred to me that he was THAT Amber’s dad.

The Dise party is also where I met Evan P (Paushtero) and Paco (don’t remember Paco’s screen name) and we all hit it right off. Only Evan had to play on Day One, so we were all getting pretty tuned up. I checked out the UB party up at Ghost Bar (I won my seat thru UB) and they had by far the better food and location, but I thought the UB party felt like it was all about Esfandiari and Annie Duke and Devilfish and not about…. well… me. They let anyone in and didn’t really do anything special for the satellite winners. So I ate some shrimp and went back to the Paradise gig. I figured it would be good to catch the very end of the UB party so we could stay up there at Ghost Bar, so I brought McG, Paco and Paushtero back up there and we made it just in time. We got a table out on the balcony, which has an incredible view of the Strip – my theory was that once the UB people cleared out, the 17 to 1 male-female ratio would improve. I was correct. After a while, two great looking women came out there and we all noticed. McG and I are family guys, but P&P are single and I care about people so I tried to wrangle for my boys. I actually walked over and said, "Do you girls want to meet the soon-to-be winner of the World Series of Poker?" They loved it and we ended up partying with them for the next few hours. I don’t remember much from there.

In the morning I hit the UB breakfast, which was nothing special. We watched the Day One kick-off – saw the P5s guys there and wished Paustero luck. Then McG and I went to the Palms for the noon tourney. They had about 125 players and over 15k for first. I came out on absolute fire and had the chip lead for probably 2-3 hours. The a/c was down in the tourney room so it was hot as balls. Ironically, I cooled way off as the temperature fell (they finally fixed the a/c) and didn’t even make the money. A New York pro named Vinny Napolitano (sp?) was on my left and he absolutely tortured me, coming over the top of me twice in bad spots. I know the guy’s name because amazingly, he was at the buffet the next morning and I had breakfast with him and his boys, one of whom was a pro I recognized (Ray Faltinsky? Something like that). BTW, props to Paco who won over 4k for 2nd in the 3 pm at Palms the same day. Anyway, it was fun to have a huge stack in the tourney and I hoped it was a precursor of things to come in the WSOP. But it wasn’t.

At the WSOP on Friday, I drew seat 10, table 122. Soft table – no name pros, some definite dead money. Two guys with PokerStars hats on. NSXT2 was behind me at table 123. Good GOD does he talk a lot. He kept telling everyone he was in their heads, stuff like that. Most of it was good natured and fun, but I could tell he annoyed some people, including one of the guys he knocked out. Which is intentional, no doubt. He also got a 10 minute penalty for dropping an F-Bomb. I was sitting next to F'ing River from Paradise – nice guy. He and I enjoyed Todd’s antics. F'ing River played ok – he's got some gamble in him. He doubled up on quad twos and had a lot of chips at times, but he was gone before 9 pm. My tourney was really disappointing. I played just about perfect and stayed alive an amazingly long time (about 10 hours) for someone who never got a hand.

The first major hand I got into was this one: I get 10-10 three off the button and make it 3.5x. Button (loose PokerStars guy) calls. Flop is like 2-4-7 with 2 spades. I bet 600, he calls. Turn is an offsuit 8. I bet 1000 and he raises to 3000. I lay it down. That was the hardest decision I had all day. Long story short: I stayed alive by stealing and taking the occasional small pot, but I never doubled up. Never had better than top pair – no sets, no two pair, no flushes, etc. By 10 pm, a HUGE stack had taken F'ing River's seat and he was pushing the table around. He reraised to 3k from the button and I pushed in immediately with QQ from the small blind. He called with AK, flop was 10-10-K, ace on the turn and I missed on the river. The only thing I could have done different is gamble more, but I just didn’t have many opportunities. I had 2-2 once and called after one limper – I folded when PokerStars raised 6x from the blind. He got one caller and the flop was K-7-2, so that would have been a great spot. But he raised enough preflop to shake me. My best play of the day was one where I had AQ, raised preflop and got called by the table rock. Flop was K-10-x. I wanted a free card badly and I put him on JJ or AQ. So I said "I can't see – does he have a purple chip?" (I could see – the guy had me covered easily). And then I checked. It worked and he checked behind. Turn was another king and I bet like 1200. He called and now I KNOW he has JJ. River was a queen and I debated a milk bet, but instead I checked and he couldn't check fast enough behind me. I said "show me those jacks" and the old guy looked like he just seen a ghost. It's sad when that's your WSOP highlight hand. But like I said, I just didn't get many chances.

It was a fantastic week and one of the best parts was getting to know the P5ers. Good times. I learned a lot and will be better from the experience, and I'm happy with the fact that I played my game and didn't blow up on mistakes like I did at Bellagio (another story). Let's do it all again next year, boys.
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