Saturday, July 15, 2006

Las Vegas Road Report Part One

So much to report, so little time! OK, so, taking that back a little, we arrived in London on about the 5th of July, spent three nights there working from the office. Played a little poker (a office tournament). Nothing too exciting although I won about £170 in a cash game so that was ok. The hotel was good, we stayed at the Sanderson which is next door to the office so very convenient (just a shame work did not pay for it all!). The fact that it is maybe the best hotel in London also helps.
On the Sunday we flew out to Vegas. All considered the flight was not too bad. It was very empty and as a consequence they gave me four seats which meant I could lie down and try and sleep. Still, flying is... well, flying! We were meant to walk, jog etc, not fly. My hatred for flying grows.
The hotel at Vegas is ok, it is Aladdins, soon to be Planet Hollywood. Nothing special but not offensive. We were obviously pretty tired which was not great news as the following day provided my first World Series of Poker event, the $1000 buy in No Limit Hold'em. The bad news for the people that backed me was that I exited after a couple of hours. My pocket jacks ran in to pocket twos, which ultimately turned in to four of a kind, twos! My second World Series of Poker event is on Tuesday so hopefully I will have better news for the backers!
Aside from the WSOP, poker is going very well. I got a final table of a tournament at out hotel the following day and finished sixth, it wasnt a huge payout, only about $170 but better than nothing. The following day I decided to play the big one at Caesers Palace, the buy in was $130, it had a great structure, a 40 minute clock. After about 7 hours I hit the final table and with only four of the original 170 starters left, we decided to make a deal and split the prize pool up based on a chip count. I got just under $2700 for my work. I was very pleased with my play, especially as the biggest hand I got throughout the whole tournament was a pair of jacks (these are starting cards for the non poker playing readers!). It was quite hard work but worth it at the end of the day.
Tonight we went to see Dashboard Confessional who were superb. They also had two support bands, Say Anything and Ben Lee. Both of which were entertaining. To finish the evening off, we went to play a little Paigow Poker in the casino (it is a card game against the house, not "real" poker) and I won $125 in about 15 minutes. At that point, we decided to go to the restaurant and eat.
Had quite a funny day earlier, many of the casinos run promotions to try and entice you in to their gambling dens. One of which was at Caesers. I went to the Promo Desk to "swipe our card" to see if I had won a free gift for the day. I was a little bored as it was hot (it was 117 degrees earlier apparently) and we had queued at other desks to get the bad news, we had not won. Well, I am sure you can imagine my shock when the women announced "Congratulations Sir, you have won Golf Clubs". Now I dont mean to be ungrateful but, I thanked her and asked if I can have something else as they are not a lot of use to me! I am waiting for them to come back to me. I even told them they can just give me a T-Shirt and we can call it quits! I mean come on, if I get the delievered to my hotel, it will cost a fortune to get them back to Greece, if I ask them to deliver them to Greece, it will also cost a fortune. Lets also be frank here, golf can be very dull, especially when we don't have a golf course on our Island. The one benefit is my bunker play would improve with all of the sand surrounding us!
All in all, a nice few days and very profitable. I will try and post some photographs over the coming days.
Anyway, for now, Keep Safe
Simon

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