Las Vegas, It’s A Mad World
July 18, 2007
This is my favourite pic from the dozens I took at the World Series of Poker. The look on Chris Moneymaker’s face just after doubling up in the first level of Day One reminds me of my own surprise that I managed to get through each day in one piece.
The problem is that Las Vegas is a place where you all too easily lose your cash, mind, sleep, patience, dietary control and a lot more. I managed to tick most of those boxes, but thankfully the mischievous sense of humour, hard work ethic and the friendship and support of the press corps at The Rio kept me going for 11 days. When I say days, we’re talking 12 to 14-hour days, culminating in a 17-hour marathon covering the final.
I was working for the PokerStars Blog throughout the WSOP, and I’m pleased with the results. Let me say right now the credit goes to my boss Brad “Otis” Willis, one of the best poker writers in the business who inspires us all to higher levels. He’d been out here for four weeks before me, so how he survived intact I don’t know.
I don’t want to bang on about the event itself, other than add my sincerest congrats to Britain’s Jon Kalmar for his sensational fifth place and the handy $1.2 million that came with it. As he admits himself, what a difference a week makes: A day before the event began he tried to book a flight home - distraught and with his bankroll shot to pieces. With the cost of changing his flight too prohibitive, he staked the lot on one last shot at the very last satellite to the Main Event - and won it. What followed is a very happy piece of poker history.
I first met Jon just a few weeks before we all came to Vegas. It was at a Sky Poker staff tournament in London’s Loose Cannon Club, and Jon and his wife had come to play as guests of Norman Pace. He was a friendly guy and clearly extremely clued-up about the game.
He can be forgiven, then, for giving me a monumental rub down at the final table when, as chip leader, I donked off half my stack, with 4-4! Who am I to argue with a Main Event final tabler?
And so on to some colour from the past week or so. To keep us hacks sane, we had to let off steam on a regular basis - and that normally involved booze and some money:
The World Series of Lime Tossing:
Prop bets are everywhere, but this one became a mainstay. Brad and Dr Pauly started it off, and soon it became as keenly contested as the World Series (okay, not quite). Outside, through the bowels of the Rio Convention Centre, is a porch area with steps leading down to the car park, where the dealers would sit on their breaks. At the bottom of the steps was a cigarette bin. The aim of the game was to “toss” the lime from your Corona beer into the bin, or at least hit the bin. But the big problem was the more goes you had, the more beer you had to drink, and the harder it got. It was $20 for hitting the bin, $100 for getting your lime to nestle in the crystals on top where the fags go, and $150 for getting the lime in the hole in the middle.
I tossed maybe five times and failed miserably. Trouble is, each lime is different and I failed to take into account the changing wind and humidity conditions. Brad hit it once, Pauly another time. But for me, a fat zero.
I nicked this pic from Dan’s Pokerati blog, showing Brad using the “underhand” method of tossing. Not a bad technique, and it certainly seemed more successful than photographer Neil Stoddart’s overarm “throw-it-as-hard-as-possible and hope for the best” efforts. Dan himself managed to hit the bin on his first attempt, much to our chagrin as we each gave him $20.
Blackjack:
I am not the world’s best blackjack player. All I know is that a 10 is good, and if the dealer has a 10, or anything that a 10 would help, it is bad. That’s why I avoid the blackjack tables, but sometimes a bottle or two of beer at The Hooker Bar can cloud one’s judgment. Hooker Bar? Well that’s what we call the bar in The Rio casino area. On the occasions we went there after a long day’s work, it was always fun spotting the working girls trying desperately to “get to know” the tourists or drunks pouring their dollars into the inset video poker machines at the bar. If a girl starts chatting to you while you’re at the bar, chances are she is not after advice on whether to hold J-J or go for the flush.
Anyway, I digress. This particular night, one or two beers passed our lips and some nit-wit persuaded me to play a little blackjack. One hour later, and after I had infuriated two dealers with my total lack of understanding, I had shot through $200. The house has an edge over the amateur player, it has a cliff-face over a clueless idiot after ten bottles of beer.
Pai Gow:
I must work on learning from my mistakes. Just two days later, during another cooling off drink at the Hooker Bar, Brad suggested we play Pai Gow. Later in the week, Brad told me that his suggestions before 1am were good ones, but anything he suggests after 1am is generally best avoided. Too late in this case, and off I went to the Pai Gow table at 2am. I’d never played it before, which didn’t help, but Brad’s insistance that you can only lose money slowly gave me hope.
He was right - it took me six hours to lose $300.
By that time there was little point in getting back to Treasure Island, my own hotel, and sleeping before coming back to work for 11am, so I went to the nearest shop, bough a new top, deodrant etc, freshened up and went straight to the press room without having slept a wink. Somehow I made it through another 12-hour day without nodding off once.
The Celebrity Culture:
You can’t escape it. The Main Event had a fair smattering of US “celebs”, most of whom I had never heard of, but who got plenty of whoops and cheers from the locals when the excited tournament staff introduced them over the tannoy. Tobey “Spiderman” Maguire was the only real big name I spotted playing, but he had an incredibly arrogant habit of covering his face every time a snapper tried to photograph him at the table. Most players had their pics taken during the event, so why he felt he was different I don’t know. He cashed, though, so fair play on that front. To be honest, nothing surprises me in the WSOP, and had Britney Spears or Paris Hilton sat down to play, eye would not have batted an eyelid
The day before the Main Event proper, the big celebrity guns were out in force to play in Annie Duke’s excellent Antes Up For Africa tournament. We had a Hollywood-style red carpet parade which included some bloke called Ben Affleck who was apparently engaged to some bird called Jennifer Lopez. Despite having worked for The Sun, I am not really into the celebrtity culture, but did manage to get a pic of Affleck and of Matt Damon, star of the poker film Rounders.
Poker:
As you know, in the week before I started working here, I was playing low-level cash games in a Bankroll Challenge where some friends and blog readers had invested up to $30 each. Their input made up about $400 of my $4,000 roll, which ended up a rather disappointing $345 up. I rounded it up to a 10% increase and was able to pay back everyones little investment, plus their relative 10% on top.
I’m told that since then Ferrari dealerships across the UK have reported an unprecendented increase in business.
Since the end of the challenge, I did not have much time to play again. On the Wednesday, two days before the Main Event, and the day I moved from the MGM to Treasure Island, we had a great dinner with Tori Coxon from JCPR and some journalists from London who were here on a press trip. Several of us had a cash game in the TI poker room afterwards, and I finished $400 to the good (I apologise that this did not happen often enough for the duration of the Bankroll Challenge.)
I must mention here that one of those on the press trip, and who had been bought into the Main Event by PokerStars, was Brit author David Flusfeder, whom I first met here in Vegas two years ago. He ended up cashing for about $30,000 - a great effort, especially as for most of Day 3 he had former World Champ Robert Varkonyi sitting on his right, as this, one of so many excellent Neil Stoddart photographs, shows…
The day before the Main Event there was the traditional WSOP Media Event. Owing to my lack of sleep (because of afore mentioned TI cash game) I was 30 minutes late and already blinded low. But I doubled up twice quickly before getting two nasty beats that sent me spinning to my adoring Rail (okay, the adoring bit I made up).
And the only other tourney I have played in was after another Brad-after-1am suggestion, which was to decamp from The Hooker Bar and go play the 2am tournament at Treasure Island. This usually only has ten or so runners, but our bedraggled ensemble of bloggers and reporters doubled that. I got off to a flyer, hitting a set of queens on hand one, but despite also hitting a set of aces I faded, before passing away when J-J was up against A-A and the J-J again was overtaken by 7-7. Blah.
On the upside, I managed to play a grand total of seven sit and goes online during my entire stay, winning four of them.
Vegas:
Since starting work I have seen very little, well, nothing of Vegas itself, apart from the nice Strip view from my room.
Odds and Sods:
In Dortmund at the German EPT event, I swore never to take a taxi ride with Neil Stoddart again, after we got into a farcical row with the driver who tried to con us. It nearly ended in blows, and it did end with the local police coming to sort the deranged driver out.
A few months on and I Neil and I climbed in a cab at 2am after work to head back to TI. I should’ve known something was up when the driver claimed he had escaped from the Foreign Legion, showing us a pic of himself in uniform that, quite frankly, I could have hired from the local fancy dress shop. He then claimed he had had a breakdown but was “completely fine” now, before thinking it was funny to pretend to have a relapse and driving all over the road.
This time I really mean it when I say I will never share a cab with Neil again. He attracts Taxi nutters, he really does.
As well as Jon Kalmar, it’s always a pleasure to see other Brits at the Main Event tables here. Neil Channing, who cashed, was in patriotic mood when he found a little flag to implant in his stack.
And I stumbled across Big Deal and Bigger Deal author Anthony Holden wearing natty shades. “I’m hoping they make me look like Greg Raymer,” he said. Not quite, but good effort.
Finally, here’s a car I spotted in The Rio car park…
Here’s what happens when you get in the way of the all-powerful ESPN film crews…
And here’s what happens when you don’t put you clothes tidily in the hotel room drawers and wardrobe when you arrive…
So that’s it. I’m signing off before flying back to the UK tomorrow. I hear you have all had a terrible few weeks of weather. Well to be honest, after scorching temperatures (even high by Vegas standards) of up to 116 degrees for more than three weeks, I’m ready for a bit of rain.
And a bloody good curry.
Comments
Got something to say?