On Friday Kevin and I went to Vegas to check out the WSOP Main Event FT, and also possibly have some fun on the side. I know it was a success because I am alive in Phoenix and typing this right now, although I guess that might be considered a failure to some :). We arrived at our hotel, The Tropicana Friday afternoon and it was truly one of the worst hotels I’ve ever been in.
I went to Vegas one time before and we stayed at the Imperial Palace, which sucked and I said then I didn’t want to stay in a crappy hotel in Vegas again. Even if it’s really cheap and you’re only there to sleep I feel like staying at a nice place would improve the quality of the Vegas experience. Shortly after we got there we met up with Ben (Beerocrat) and his gf Caroline at Dos Caminos @ Palazzo, a lovely Mexican restaurant. My chicken tacos were a little bit disappointing but it was a pretty nice place that I’d like to go back to. Ben had to go buy a shirt and get prepped for an ESPN interview with the rest of the guys in the Newcastle Poker League which Steve Begleiter was a part of, so Kevin and I went to the sportsbook to watch the Canucks play the Stars. Luckily for us, Casino Royale ($1 beers) was right beside the Venetian so we maximized our value and triple fisted those for the game.
Around 7pm we headed to Tao for Steve’s pre-party. I decided then that living a baller lifestyle and having private parties at hudge clubs in Vegas would be enjoyable. We met Jon Little (FieryJustice) and Ylon Schwarz (4th in Main Event last year). At one point I ordered some Jaegerbombs, and in true Vegas fashion, against my will, the bartender put ice in them. Thanks for the Jaegersips eyeroll. We also had a chance to meet Steve and he was great, it sucked to see him bust in 6th to one of Moon’s standard suckouts but $1.5 million isn’t so bad.
After Tao Me, Kevin, Ben and Caroline went to the Piano Bar at NYNY. If you’re going to Vegas soon and haven’t been there, I suggest you go. Things started to get a little hazy and I made the wise decision of heading back to the lovely Tropicana Hotel Resort and Spa so I could rest up for a long day of watching poker. The next morning it was a bit of a chore to get Kevin out of bed so we could go get breakfast and get in line to watch the Main Event, I literally ripped off each piece of blanket and pillow off of each bed as he tried to sleep, I got on top of him and bit him, then he tried to curl up with a blanket under a desk, and I whipped him with my belt for about 5 minutes until he finally came out and tried whipping me. Looking back it was a pretty gay looking scene but I succeeded and he got up and showered to begin the day. We made our way down to Rio and got in line with about 500 other people. The theatre held 1,500 people and we barely got in, our seats were awful but we were just happy to be there. There was so much buzz in that theatre, it was such a treat to be there. Here’s a high quality pic I got of the players right before play began:
Play went so slow, all the breaks took longer than they said, they constantly had to change tapes, and in the first hour of play we only saw 2 flops. Looking back on all the all in showdowns there were I would say that the best hand seemed to win about 25% of the time, it was so ridiculous but it made it a lot more dramatic and entertaining. Ivey busted in 7th with AK to Moon’s AQ and the place seemed to get completely deflated after that, and not long after that Moon overshoved about 40 BB’s with AQ over Begleiter’s 2.5x EP open and obviously got there against Steve’s QQ. It was so sick how bad Moon played the whole final table yet still managed to get 2nd for over $5 million. Steve handled himself great after busting, but it was pretty depressing out in the lobby hanging out with his crew. At the beginning of play I had decided I’d like to play in some WSOP events in 2010, but after seeing that hand go down I decided I never want to play a donkament again :).
At this point Kevin and I didn’t have much interested in watching and it was 1:30 am so we went to IP to goof off at a 2-4 limit table. This table was so ridiculous, it would have been very easy to make a reality show of it. The 48 year old woman to my left was not so subtley flirting and being a pervert to anyone, petting the dealers back and calling him sugarnuts, trying to make innocent double entendres, etc. Another woman who was a similar age and probably a 1.5/10 was talking about her sexual escapades the night before and I was openly making barf sounds at the table. I managed to get hit in the face with the deck hard and finished up $98 woooooooo. Next thing we know it’s 7:30 am and we’re getting a bit tired of this game so off we go. Went to Casino Royale and grabbed some $1 margaritas with the intention of not sleeping at all. There are a lot of joggers in Vegas early morning, and we were in a goofy mood, so we eventually followed a pair of joggers for about a block and a half while double fisting margaritas. Someone took a picture of us even, I wish I could see it. If you happen to have a friend on facebook who posts a pic of 2 stupid brown guys chasing some joggers while double fisting please let me know because I’d love to see it. In the end the female got a bit creeped out and they accelerated out of there. We went back to the hotel to get showered and dressed, and felt pretty good considering it was about 9am and we hadn’t gone to sleep yet, but that was short lived. We did a lot of walking to try and find Ben and Caroline who slept til noon, psshhhh, so when we couldn’t find them we had some food and got our tickets for Love, the Cirque du Soleil Beatles show. At this point it was clear I needed a nap so we went back and had a 3 hour life boost, and we were once again ready to roll.
We went to Nove @ Palms with Ben and Caroline, a lovely Italian restaurant on the 51st floor, pretty respectable view as well:
It was a great way to spend a part of our last night there, and a nice warmup for the Cirque show, which was amazing and I can’t wait to go to Vegas and eventually see the rest of them. I lost a lot of steam towards the end of the show and was worried it might be the end of it, but Kevin wanted to go to the Piano bar so bad I couldn’t let him down, and Ben and Caroline joined us again. Nothing too eventful happened there except for a whole pile of Canadians drinking and singing to some great songs.
That was about that then, we left the following morning. Leaving Vegas is a bit weird, it’s almost nice leaving because a lot of Vegas is so scummy and spending a lot of time there can get sort of gross, but at the same time there’s plenty of ways you can have a non-scummy good time which is what we did. I’ll update how things are going in Phoenix within the next few days. Bye!