Posts Tagged ‘Rio’

Ethics for Sale

Some of you may have heard that Phil Hellmuth overslept yesterday morning and was getting blinded off in the tournament. Apparently Mike Matusow called security at Phil’s hotel and got them to enter his room and wake him up. I didn’t know any of this at the time, but I was still at my starting table with Russel Rosenblum and Sorel Mizzi when Phil came dashing into the Amazon room, with a floorman shouting after him about whether he knew which table he was going to.

Russel: I wonder if the floor is going to scurry to get me to my seat if I show up late.
Me: I don’t understand why Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke aren’t getting the kind of shit that the Full Tilt guys are getting.
Russel: I don’t want to say too much here, but Phil and Annie are just paid spokespeople, whereas the Full Tilt guys may have been somewhat more that that.
Sorel: That’s… putting it very carefully.
Me: Yes, sorry, I know that. I guess I misspoke. I do understand why they don’t get as much shit as Lederer, but people still put money on UB because Phil and Annie were endorsing them, and those people are never going to see that money. I just don’t think Phil and Annie should be getting invited on stage at the WSOP like they’re the best and brightest in the poker world.
Sorel: But they’re just sponsors. They aren’t on the inside. They don’t know anything more about what’s going on behind the scenes than you do.
Me: Based on what I knew, I wouldn’t have worn a UB patch.
Sorel: But come on, if they are just throwing money at you…  Read the complete post...

Last week, I posted plans to play a few of the early WSOP preliminary events. I was scheduled to leave for that trip this morning.

I woke up feeling miserable this morning, so much so that I didn’t feel up to the long flight from Charleston, SC to Las Vegas, nor was I confident that I’d feel up to playing the $5K tomorrow, which was my primary reason for going. After looking over my schedule again, it didn’t seem worth it to fly out there for just a $1K, a $1500, and a small-field $10K, so I just canceled the whole trip.

Despite having reservations for a flight and a room at the Rio that together amounted to more than $800, it cost me barely $50 to cancel everything. I lost my first night at the Rio, which was wicked cheap because it was a weeknight, and the cost of my flight is fully reusable within one year. Heart Southwest Airlines!

My biggest regret is that I was planning on meeting a few of you in Las Vegas, and that isn’t going to happen now. I’m very sorry to miss you, but hopefully some of you will be around during the Main Event as well, which I still fully intend to play.

So apparently Vegas isn’t quite as dead as I thought and waiting until the day before my arrival to make hotel arrangements was not wise. The Rio is booked solid until Tuesday, so I’m spending my first three nights at the good old Imperial Palace. I stayed there last year, and honestly, I expected worse. Hopefully I didn’t just get an abnormally non-crappy room.

Quick little Twitter update/clarification (sorry I am just learning how to use this): you don’t actually have to have a Twitter account to get updates. Just go to http://twitter.com/thinkingpoker and you can you see my most recent Tweets.

I’ll be using that for occasional chip count updates and reports on important hands, but I’ll still try to post more substantive stuff on the blog as time permits. It shouldn’t be a problem through the first few days of the main event, but should I make it to Day 3, I’ll have a lot less free time from then on out.

Wish me luck!

The finale of my trip report from the 2008 WSOP is now appearing in the October issue of 2+2 Internet Magazine. I must say, getting down to the final tables of this huge tournament is a pretty thrilling experience, at once exciting and surreal:

“On Day 6 of the main event, the Amazon Room was empty. Nine tables were collected in one corner of the immense room, 80% of which was utterly vacant. A single cocktail waiter patrolled between tables. Floor staff and press chatted idly as they waited for something to happen. Tensile cord stretched an oval around the 79 remaining players, so that every table was on the perimeter and observers could easily watch any of them.”

If you haven’t read them already, you should probably start with Part 1 and Part 2.

Even though I eventually won a WSOP seat through Stars, they were out of hotel rooms at the Palms, so my only option was to take $1000 in exchange for their sponsorship. Cheapskate that I am, I spent my first few nights at the Imperial Palace. The room was nothing special, but it was better than I expected. It even had a little balcony with a decent view of Caesar’s and Bellagio:

Having survived Day 1, I decided to treat myself on subsequent days. I booked a suite at the Rio, which was remarkably cheap (I’m paying barely more than I did at AP), and is way bigger and more badass:

It has a slightly better view as well: