Las Vegas: Day 1

Friday, December 10th 2004

I got less than 3 hours of sleep the first night but I had a lot of fun along the way. Daddy from SnailTrax had me laughing the entire day. It's kind of funny how this little trip turned into a big event. Boy, am I really glad that I was part of this. Who would have thought that Al's Boathouse Bash would spawn this crazy trip? It just shows you what great ideas a few hungover poker players can come up with in the wee hours of the morning at the airport.

When Paul and I got into the cab Friday morning in NYC, we almost went to the wrong airport. Thank goodness we realized we needed to go to JFK. We forgot to print up our flight info. We always fly JetBlue to Vegas from JFK. They have direct TV for everyone which rocks! What a great way to waste 5 hours in a plane. As soon as we got off the plane, we saw Senator John McCain at the taxi cab stand which was pretty random. It was especially random because I ran into Senator Ted Kennedy the last time I was on vacation. Who's next? Bubba Clinton?? Shortly afterwards, Pauly and I ran into AlCan'tHang, EvaCanHang and the Philly crew. We pulled up to the Excalibur at the same time. I got out of the cab and there was Al to greet us. We checked in and ate soon after. I was dying to eat some Chicken fingers at the Sherwood Forest diner. Mission accomplished! It tasted great. I always eat chicken fingers at the Excalibur diner (for almost every meal . . . . weird, huh?). I can't get enough of them. Anyway, Pauly and I ran into SnailTrax, Boy Genius, and Bob at the sport book after lunch. Daddy informed us that he puked in the wee hours of the morning. Ouch. Daddy was the first blogger to arrive and the first blogger to puke. He puked shortly after he ate a late night patty melt. Too funny!

So after hooking up with these guys, we went over to the bar and met up with Al, Eva,and Big Mike. We decided to go over to the poker room and get a $1-3 spread table going. Al, Bob, and I downed a ton of double shots of SoCo. I never drink at the poker table but I figured why not this time. I couldn't let Al and Bob pound SoCo shots alone. I downed 5 double shots in no time. Of course, Al and Bob were still going strong after I quit. BG kept razzing me because I kept calling his raises and catching cards to win. People started to slowly show up as our session went on. Everyone kept asking the manager to call for Dr. Pauly on the loud speaker. It was kind of funny. Glenn and Felicia showed up and got the poker room to start a Omaha hi/lo game. The Omaha 8 game was the second blogger table going. I didn't bother to play since I'm not that good. Maybe next time! Otis and Badblood showed up. They were playing in the Luxor freezeout tourney. I've played in those before. The blinds go up really fast. Badblood made the final table. He also made the money. Nice job Badblood!! The very loose $1-3 table I was at had the following bandits and thieves:

Seat 1: Me
Seat 2: Some tourist guy
Seat 3: EvaCanHang
Seat 4: Bob
Seat 5: AlCantHang (later Maudie)
Seat 6: Dr. Pauly
Seat 7: BG
Seat 8: Daddy
Seat 9: Tourist # 2 (later Mas)
Seat 10: Tourist # 3 (later Otis)

EvaCanHang doesn't like to limp and I found that out early. She always raised preflop. She's a tough read sometimes. She's so fearless at the table. Bob and Eva were pounding beers the entire session. Bob was also downing shots with Al and me. What a champ! Maudie soon arrived and sat down to play. We all started chatting like old high school friends. It kind of felt like a night on Party Poker. There was so many familiar people in the poker room. A little later into the session, the Hangs, Felicia, Glenn and others headed out for sushi off the Strip (all you can eat . . . yum!). It was crazy to see all these bloggers and meet them. You read everyone's site and play online with them but it was a little surreal meeting everyone in person. I can now visualize and picture everyone in my head the next time we play online together. I had a feeling this was going to be an exciting trip. As soon as I saw a small monkey riding a dog on espn like it was a bull, I knew Rodeo Week was going to be a blast. Bloggers and Cowboys baby! How 'bout that! We played for a little while longer and decided to get some food for dinner. We ate at the diner again. It was right next to the poker room. I actually ate something different than chicken fingers for the first time in a really long while. Believe me, I have no problems eating Chicken fingers twice in one day. But this time around, a burger with fries was crying my name. I was starving and knew that would do the job. Paul and I had dinner with Bad Blood, Daddy, and Maudie. Great time and great conversation!! Badblood's muscles took up most of the dinner table!!

We went back to the poker room afterwards and I took some vicious bad beats from the fishy Excalibur clientele. My Hilton's were even cracked by 76o. That sucked bad but at least everyone was having fun playing low limit games. Every blogger was trying to win hands with the hammer. Badblood was taking on the NL tables and was wearing his hammer shirt. The night definitely had a Party Poker feeling. As Paul said, the only difference is that we all had our pants on!! CJ and Bill Rini showed up as the night went on. So did HDouble and Iggy. The Hammer was being dropped all night and eventually all week at the Excalibur poker room.

Iggy tried to trick everyone. He wasn't supposed to be coming. A few people knew about it. It was supposed to be a big surprise. At one point in the night, Iggy came over to Paul and Maudie and told them that he was a big fan of their blogs. I was kind of suspicious right away. I heard a description of Iggy once and this guy looked liked that. The nail was in the coffin when he mentioned me and my site. Iggy couldn't resist and blew his cover. He had a great plan involving a midget and Sam's Town but he just couldn't hold out. I'm glad he couldn't. The midget showed up to the tourney anyway! Maybe Iggy might have a career in midget pimping! Maudie and Paul were shocked to see Iggy. So was I. Iggy was in town! And he wasn't a midget. During dinner, Maudie confessed that she brought two shirts for Iggy. She brought a regular sized one and a small sized shirt just in case Iggy was a little person. How funny is that!! And later on, he ends up sitting down at our table. What foreshadowing! We played low limit together at the same table for a while. It was a blast!!

As soon as we ended the session, we decided to go wake up Daddy. He passed out in Paul's bed a few hours before. He had been up all night and day partying hard. On the way to our room, we stopped at the bar for a few more drinks with Iggy and Maudie. It was almost 4am in Las Vegas and we were getting hammered with Iggy and Maudie at the Excalibur! I would have loved to have stayed up all night but the blogger tourney breakfast was only a few hours away. Maudie went to bed so we finally ran upstairs to the room to wake up Daddy. He had no clue Iggy was coming and was surprised and excited to see him. We hung out for a while in our room before we went back downstairs. Paul and I had some late night parties in our room. We had some great late night conversations with those who attended. Friday night's party had BG, HDouble, Iggy and Daddy. Hank and BG showed up to our room shortly after we woke up Daddy. Surprisingly, there was 6 drunk gamblers in one room getting wasted and no one lost any money. Next time, I will bring some dice. We even tried to wake up Al Cant Hang but he drank well over a bottle of SoCo and was passed out cold.

We went downstairs to play some more poker. What are we crazy? It was only a few hours from departure time to Sam's Town. Clearer heads prevailed and we decided to drink more instead. BG decided to go to bed. Hank took off (probably for the craps table). Soon, Paul and I decided to crash. Big Mike came strolling up to the bar. Iggy, Daddy, and Big Mike decided to stay up the rest of the night and pound Guinness. They were really ripped come tourney time. All of us were but they were champs that day. Paul and I knew better and retired to bed so we could get some much needed 2 to 3 hours of sleep before the tourney. We finally crashed around 5:30am and got a 8:15am wakeup call.

The first day went great. I met a ton of bloggers I never met before. It felt like a reunion even though most of us had never met before. I'd only met Felicia, Glenn, AlCan'tHang, Boy Genius, and EvaCanHang before. It was an unbelievable first day. Everyone seemed to live up to what I was expecting of them. Some looked a little different visually but personality wise, everyone was cool and lived up to the hype. It was kind of weird and exciting to meet everyone in person. I'm really glad that so many people showed up. I couldn't think of better people to spend my vacation with. We gambled and got wasted together like old friends. I went from NYC to Las Vegas in a matter of hours and now I was surrounded by a band of poker misfits. And you know what that means, right? Hide your bankroll and order a double shot. There's still 4 more days left in the trip . . . Nice!

Saturday is the big day . . the Blogger tourney at Sam's Town!! Everyone is sleepless, drunk and hungover! What a great way to start the first ever Blogger's Holiday Poker Classic! My day 2 trip report will follow soon. In the meantime, please check out some of the other blogs and their great trip reports. Pauly, Iggy, HDouble, Poker Prof, Flip Chip, and Foiled Coup from Lasvegasvegas, Dick from Buy It In Vegas, Riding the F Train, Boy Genius, Bad Blood, Bill Rini, Felicia, Glenn, Otis & CJ & G-Rob, Al Cant Hang & EvaCanHang, Maudie, Signor Ferrari, - EV, Bob, Grubby, Mas from Genius of Poker, Martin from JMC Automatic, Brian, Linda from Poker Works, and Daddy from Snail Trax.