Why Does Vegas Exist?

After a few days, the crazy excess begins to wear thin.

The appeals of Vegas are many. One thing that draws people to this place is the idea that Vegas is a place where they can "act out"; the "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" idea. All they frustrations and forced conformities of our daily lives can momentarily be shed like a work uniform. Whether in your nine-to-five life you have to wear a suit or a name tag, you still have a dress code. But here in Vegas we're all fawned upon, plied with free drinks and endless amusements. We stop being the person we were back in Des Moines or wherever and become someone else. People let their more base urges out of the dungeon for a few days and hand over the keys to them. And who's to say this is entirely a bad thing?

Logic is not welcome here. Logic belongs to that dreary world you are on vacation from. Every day here I walk past a bus stop advertisement that has a picture of that Dos Equis "Most Interesting Man in the World" guy, with a caption that read "No Matter What His Cards Are, He Always Doubles Down." This I think sums it up. The brave chivalry of saying screw you to logic.

On the strip the casinos pay 6-5 when you hit a blackjack, but in the old downtown area it pays 3-2. Why? Because the vacationers on the strip don't care. They're here to have fun, not do math. The folks downtown might be more serious about actually maybe winning, but the strip mentality is far more common than the downtown mentality. For most people, this little weekend orgy is here to balance off what the rest of their life is like.

So I guess I'm not saying anything you don't already know.

So what does this say about me? Well, I have a life back home that is pretty awesome, so why did I need this? I'm not sure. I feel a little sheepish saying this, but I've had an epicly great time here. I've enjoyed myself and I think I've even learned something about myself. Are you supposed to learn valuable life lessons in Vegas? Are you supposed to leave more spiritually in-tune and at peace with yourself than when you came? No, probably not.

I think maybe something got let out of my personal menagerie of demons and it went out on the strip without me. Right now it may at the craps table on a roll or in a limo with four showgirls. I don't care, as long as it stays here when I get back on the plane to go home. Good bye little demon. Have fun.

So, why does Vegas exist?

Because we need it to.

The Lessons I Learned at the WSOP

My WSOP experience, part 3.

Being moved to a new table mid-tournament sucks. You have no reads on any one, so when some guy makes a move you have no clue if he's a rock or a maniac. I lost some more chips at Razz when my good starting hand failed to improve. Then, after only twenty minutes, they broke up the table and I had to go somewhere else again. With under 2,000 in chips left I needed to double up fast, and I took my shot on Razz again. This time I was up against two guys, which is great because I could triple up. But it was not to be - my draws left me 10-high. I was out just after the start of level five. Ironically it was Razz - the easiest form of poker to learn - that would be my undoing, rather than one of those games I had just learned earlier that day.

I learned a lot from my WSOP experience. Probably the biggest lesson I took away is that you should take on those things you always wanted to do, but were afraid of. You will mostly find your fears were overblown.

As I write this it is three days later. I'm still in Vegas and more crazy shit has happened than I can write about. I've been on a great winning streak, but gave almost half of it back in one late-night session at the Wynn. I'll try to go through my notes later and write about it later. For now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to enjoy my remaining time in this crazy place.

I'll fill you all in when I get home.

I'd like to thank my wife Sara, my friend Eric and Paul J. for making this nutty thing happen. I owe you all a beer.

And to all my friends: Let's all come down here next year. We'll take over this freakin' town!

All In Against Negreanu.

My WSOP experience, part 2...

I forgot to tell you about the grumpy bearded dude (GBD) who sat down between me a Seamus midway through level one. Until this point, Seamus had been the "table captain" but this dour young guy with over-sized headphones sat down and started attacking every hand. He seemed to take it as a personal affront if anyone dared enter a pot with him, and if he lost a hand he would shake his head in such a way as to  make it clear his opponent just got lucky. In short GBD was an asshole.

Alright, now that I got us up to speed...

The break was coming to an end and the players were sitting back down. I had just returned to good ol' table 343 when somebody started shouting, "Alright! Let's do some gambling! We're gonna play some poker today! Whaddya say!" I looked up an there, getting ready to take the seat vacated by Melancholy Boy, was Daniel Negreanu. "Let's play!"

Negreanu and GBD seem to know each other well, so GBD is probably some top level player too. They both go into a long discussion about the WSOP and how it's gone downhill. It was great to be a fly on the wall and hear how the top level guys were grumpy because there were so many events in the WSOP now, and how it was just designed to make money but that the prestige of the tournament had suffered. Negreanu, like GBD, was playing a lot of pots and fairly aggressively. Seamus tried to play back at him once but lost a pretty big hand.

When we got to Pot Limit Omaha, I was in the big blind with Ad Kd 4d 4s. The extra diamond was actually a bad thing, but on the whole this is a pretty good hand in my limited knowledge. It folded to Daniel, who raised three times the big blind. With my heart in my throat I called. GBD called too. The flop came Qc 4c 9h. I had a set, which unless someone had a bigger set, was the best hand possible at this point. I reasoned I should bet big and take it down here rather than let one of these guys draw out on me. No way am I giving Daniel Negreanu and his GBD asshole buddy a free look at the turn. So I bet the pot. GBD thinks for a few seconds...and goes all in. Negreanu folds.

Shit. Shit Shit.

I have to think. The only hands I'm behind right now are QQ and 99, but something tells me GBD doesn't have those.The good news is I have GBD covered by about 3,000, so even if I lose I'm still alive, although badly hurt. I call, flip over my hand, and GBD flips over his: Jc Ac 9h 8h. I'm ahead, but he has four to the flush and other outs too - like a runner runner straight. But I am the favourite. I have some top level pro all in at the WSOP and I am the favourite to win. I feel elated! This is the best!

Then a club hits on the turn, and GBD has hit flush. All the elation dies in a heartbeat. I need the board to pair on the river to win with a full house, but that doesn't happen. I'm down to just under 3,000 now. It doesn't look good.

I have to take a chance and the next opportunity to do so happens in a hand of Omaha Hi-Low, in which I tangle with Daniel Negreanu - one of the best players in the world at this particular game. We both are going for the low hand but I'm needing some luck. I get lucky on the turn when I hit a 2-6 straight, an insurance policy that might give me the high half. If I river an ace for the wheel I'll probably scoop both high and low and be right back in this. But that doesn't happen. As we split the pot Daniel seems a bit disappointed but shrugs it off. "Pleasure doing business with you," he says.

Then the floorman comes up behind me and tells me I'm being moved to another table...

TO BE CONTINUED...

A Musical Interlude...

Before I take you back to the Amazon Room, let me share some of the songs that, when this is made into a movie, will  made up the soundtrack. (I will continue to add to this as the movie continues being written)

Get Lucky - Daft Punk/Pharrell.
This is the theme song for the trip. I heard it everywhere and it is appropriate as all get out. Apparently I was only one of two people on the planet who did not know who sang it - the other being the Starbucks employee that I asked, "Who sings this?" He thought it was Bruno Mars, but then he Shazammed it and we both learned something.
Beautiful Day - U2.
See my first Vegas post.
My Sharona - The Knack.
For the rest of my life I will associate this song with learning to play 2-7 lowball games while having lunch at TGI Fridays two hours before entering the WSOP.
She's a Sensation - Ramones : If you are in Vegas, do yourself a HUGE favor and go to BJ's - a bar one block east of the MGM Grand on Tropicana. The food is outstanding and so is the music they play. Where else are you gonna hear an obscure Ramones song like this? Nowhere.
You Don't Have to Be a Star - Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis
Maybe I was delirious at this point, but listen to the baseline on this song! This song is way better than I remember it being. Seriously. I heard it walking around the Cosmopolitan, I think. It stopped me dead.
Let it Go. - Idina Menzel.
Eric goes in to a bathroom and starts doing his business at the urinal. The are also two obviously gay flamboyant young men in there. A big redneck comes in and starts giving the boys a hard time, trying to make them uncomfortable. The two don't say anything, but start singing "Let it Go." The redneck gets very uncomfortable and leaves as fast as he can. Perfect!

Born to Play Badugi

If you have have been to a trade show at large convention centre, then you have some idea of the space that the WSOP is played in. Imagine hundreds of poker tables filling a gigantic room. In the middle of the hall at the back is the "television table" where a small theatre has been set up around a single poker table with cameras suspended from poles in the ceiling. When I registered I was given my table and seat assignment. Eric and I showed up a few minutes before the start - milling about until they let us go to our seats.

An announcement informed us that there had been some last minute changes to the tournament structure. The starting stack each player would receive would be only 7,500 - not the 15,000 that was stated on the WSOP website. Also the bind structure has been raised. Both these changes were bad news for me, because it would accelerate the pace of play, giving me less chance to feel my way in. We were told that we could get a refund and not play if we wished, but I didn't really consider it. It was too late for me to back out now.

When we were allowed to sit, I made my way to the amazon room, orange section, table 343, seat 3 - and sat down in my $1,500 chair. A photographer took my picture in case I made it deep so they would have a face to put on the website. There were only six seats per table, and when the tournament started only four seats at my table were occupied. In seat one was a melancholy looking young guy with sad eyes. Let's call him Melancholy Boy. In seat five is a slouchy young Irish kid - I dunno, let's call him Seamus. I'm saved from being the old man at the table by seat six;  an older gentleman who looks more like a businessman than a hardcore poker player. Let's call him...Bob.

The first game we played was No Limit Hold 'Em (Thank God!). I was dealt Ad 8d in the small blind.  Bob folded. Melancholy Boy put out a minimum raise. I really wanted to fold my first hand, but a suited ace short-handed seemed good enough, so I called. Seamus also called. The flop had two diamonds, giving me a flush draw. I checked and so did the others. I hit the nut flush on the turn and checked it. Seamus bet the pot. Melancholy Boy folded. I re-raised and Seamus mucked. Bingo - I just won the first hand.

How this mixed game thing works is the dealer button moves around the table clockwise with each hand. When the button gets back to seat one, the game changes. Every level is an hour long and each new level brings high blinds, antes, and bets for the different games. It's hard to keep it all straight and even the dealers are frequently referring to structure sheets to see how much the antes and bets are.

I held my own through the first two levels, wining at least one hand in each of the different games and feeling pretty good. I took a big pot off Melancholy Boy in Badugi when I hit a badugi on my first draw and stood pat. I kept betting and he kept calling until he folded on the last street. Then when we were playing 2-7 triple draw I hit a monster hand on my first draw (again!) and stood pat. Again I was up against Melancholy Boy, and he seemed dubious that I really had it. "Do you always hit it on the first draw?" he asked in a thick accent I could not place. I shrugged. He called, but when I stood pat on the next draw and bet again he folded.

I was not the only one to have taken a bite out of Melancholy Boy. Seamus had taken a pretty big pot in Omaha. By the middle of the second level Melancholy Boy was down to about 2,000 in chips. He went all in twice when the game came back to No Limit Hold Em, winning a small pot the first time but busting out the second time when his AJo did not improve against Seamus's pocket kings.

By the break after level two I was up to around 9,500, and feeling very good. However with the reduced stack and the levels increasing I was sure I'd have to open up my play pretty quick. Eric gave me some good advice on waiting another level before starting to make any moves, and I returned to my seat feeling really good.

TO BE CONTINUED....

My 2-7 triple draw low ball (no-limit) education.

The plan was to play in the World Series of Poker, but there were only two events starting that day I could enter. One was a $3000 buy-in hold-em tournament that should draw about thousand entries, and the other was a $1500 buy in which the game would rotate between ten different kinds of poker:

• No-Limit Hold 'Em
• Razz
• Limit Hold 'Em
• Badugi
• 7 Card Stud
• 2-7 Single Draw Lowball (no-limit0
• Omaha Hi-Low
• Omaha Pot Limit
• 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball (limit)
• 7 Card Stud Split Hi-Low 8 or Better.

It would be crazy for me to enter this tournament. I have never even played three of these games. Of the remaining seven, I have only played three in real-life (as opposed to on-line) for money - the two forms of hold em and the pot limit omaha. I have played about twenty hands of Badugi in my life. 

So what do I do? Yup. I decide to sign up for the ten game mix. This like deciding to learn to drive by competing in the Indy 500. So utterly stupid that it makes sense on some level. If nothing else, my play will be hard to figure out.

We walk around the strip, catch a shuttle to the Rio, and I sign up. We have couple hours to kill. Eric has played most of these games, so over lunch he teaches me the basics of the games I've never played. We wander some more. play some video poker, and we both win. I'm up $632 so far, not including my WSOP buy-in.

Time for the tournament to start! Wish me luck.

It's a Beautiful Day.

When people who live in Vegas say it's hot, it's hot.

The day we arrived it had hit 46c, and when I woke up at 6:30 yesterday morning it was already 27. I was still tired, but like a kid at Christmas I was not going back to sleep. I needed toothpaste, so I showered, dressed and walked out the door into the blast furnace looking for a coffee shop.

There always something kind of beautiful about a city in those quiet moments shortly after dawn. The light seems a little brighter and when you are in a strange city everything seems clear and crisp. Even at this early hour there is traffic on Tropicana Boulevard,  but it is light enough that I could hear strange bird calls and I spotted a little tan bird I'd never seen before. In the pale blue morning sky hung just a thin sliver of the moon like God's fingernail clipping. You know, I thought to myself, the world really is a beautiful place. As I crossed Tropicana heading towards the MGM Grand, my heart was filled with love for all of creation. I saw a man crossing the street headed the opposite way, and when he got near our eyes met and gave him a friendly nod. "You want some coke?" he asked. "Um, no." I replied, and we walked our separate ways. Ah, yes. What a wonderful world.

I entered through the massive lobby of the MGM Grand and went into the massive gift shop. In a move of merchandising genius that my retail background could appreciate, items such as toiletries were placed way at the far back corner of the shop, forcing the dazed tourist to walk through a maze of t-shirts, hoodies and ball caps to get to. But at $10.75 for a tube of toothpaste I balked and, somehow avoiding buying a Floyd Mayweather T-Shirt, got the hell out of there.

Telling myself that I was looking for a coffee shop, I wondered into the casino. Seeing a sign pointing towards the poker room, I thought that it was very likely the coffee shop was in that direction. Finding two tables in full swing, I suddenly realized that if I sat down to play poker, a waitress would just bring me a coffee. It's all about the coffee.

I got $200 in chips, sat down, and witnessed the end of a hand where a guy took down a $150 pot with a pair of nines. The thought crossed my mind that this might go well. And it did. About two hours later I cashed out up $320. This, added to my video poker win of the night before, put me up $518 for the trip so far. With this much cash in my pocket, I felt like doing something crazy. Something extravagant. So, I went back to the gift shop and bought the toothpaste.

Walking back to the fabulous Howard Johnson on Tropicana, I was once again filled with love for the universe and all the creatures in it.

It's a wonderful world.

The Journey Begins

So, I started the day reading stories and singing songs to kids in a bookstore in Calgary, and I finish the day up $192 playing video poker in Las Vegas.

My buddy Eric took care of everything logistics wise. While I spent the morning doing my "Icky Sticky Bubblegum" schtick to toddlers, Eric was arranging getting us on standby and booking accommodation. I would highly recommend that anyone planning anything last-second and crazy like a sudden trip to Vegas have a friend like Eric, who will do all the work for you. If this were a movie, you could not have a character like Eric in it, because Eric eliminates all conflict that movies need. Eric gets shit done and he does it quietly without any fuss. Eric also snores very loudly, but hey, nobody's perfect.

Tomorrow, win or lose, I'll cross one off the bucket-list and enter the ten-game mixed event at the WSOP at the Rio. This is event #39 I think. It does not start until 4:00pm, which is great because that gives me almost all day to figure out how to play three of the ten games that I've never played before. I've played almost an hour of Badugi online, so I'm feeling pretty confident there.

Has anyone ever been less prepared to play in the WSOP than me? I plan on using my lack of experience to my advantage, as it will be so apparent that I don't know what I'm doing that no one will be able to get a read on me.

So goodnight from the lovely Howard Johnson motel off the strip.

A Strange Journey Begins...Maybe.

As you may or may not know, the World Series of Poker is now in full swing. By "now" I mean June 17, 2015 and by "full swing" I mean that it is nearly half way through the 70 odd tournaments that make up this thing.

If you are like me, you probably have always thought it would be fun to play in the WSOP. I will openly admit that every time I'm in a bar somewhere and I see poker on a television, I think "Someday I'm going to play in a big tournament. It looks like so much fun." But, if you are like me, it has always been relegated to realm of "Someday, I'm going to write a novel" and "Someday, I'm going to finish painting the house." The realm of crazy dreams.

I used to be obsessed with poker. I wrote this blog back when I played live poker fairly often - back when the dream of maybe playing a big tournament seemed not so crazy. But then I began to lose interest. I stopped playing regularly and stopped writing this blog. But still I think of playing in the WSOP someday.

Suddenly, it appears that "someday" may be tomorrow,  and if all goes well my friend Eric and I will be on a flight to Vegas in about twelve hours.

Life is odd, no?

How it came about is this:
Over a month ago I had booked a little time off work so I could fly somewhere that has nothing to do with this story to talk to a guy who has nothing to do with this story about a thing that has nothing to with this story. The trip fell through because this guy said he had this thing to do in Budapest (If I had a dollar for every time I've heard that excuse), but the time is still booked off work.

Yesterday, my last day before this super-long weekend, was a particularly trying one. Yes, I know, I said I worked in a public library. If you don't think working at a public library can be stressful, then you have not been in one lately - particularly an inner-city library where the "marginalized" come to test the limits of your liberal social conscious. But I digress. I had a shitty day - let's leave it at that.

I meet up with my wife Sara and some friends at a bar after I finish my evening shift. I mention my crappy day. I mention that I'm off for five days. Somebody, (was it me?) suggests a trip to Vegas. My buddy Eric, who is semi-retired/self employed, likes the idea. I remember that the WSOP is going on, and wouldn't it be fun.... 

So it would appear we are going to make this happen. I'll keep you posted.