Relate to the matter as I drop the bomb…

Some people go to a spa in Arizona for a week of de-tox. Nothing but living right and relaxing. While I am sure that has its merits, I agree with what Kyle said.

Vegas may be the exact opposite of a de-tox. It is basically a tox-booster, but the body and the brain need the tox-booster every bit as much as they need a de-tox…

Absolutely brilliant.

The plan was to play at the Venetian for a little bit, play their $150 tournament, then hit the Hard Rock for the Round of Each game. As often happens in Vegas, we never made it to step 2. We played $1-$2 at the Venetian from 10am to 1am then went home. I booked a $430 profit (winning $700 at one table in just a couple hours.)

It all gets pretty blurry after that.

It was a strange trip. It’s the second time that I was in Vegas during the Main Event, and I have to tell you that it makes a big difference. For one, the players were much much more international. Rarely did I play at a table that was even a majority of Americans. More than once, I was the only American at my table. I played with Swedes, Danes, Japanese, Canadians, Frenchies, Englishmen, Latvians, Russians, Spaniards, Israelis and Germans, to name a few. And they were young. At one point, I asked everbody at the table how old they were – I was the oldest guy at the table. Hell, one Dane at my table got ejected from the Venetian for playing underage!

So, yeah, the demographics were totally different than what I was used to. Only the table where I won $700 at the Venetian had the demographics I am used to. And my schtick worked against them very well (in one pot, I bet on the come and almost got Aces to fold. She called and I drew out on her for a $600 pot). But it didn’t work against the uber-aggressive Swedes, that’s for sure. I don’t mean to say I was out of my league as in these guys were particularly good (though some of them were.) They just played so differently, and by the time I thought I knew how to adjust, it was too late. So the rest of the trip went downhill, financially.

I wish you’d take off your sunglasses so I could stare at your eyes.
I put on my sunglasses so I could stare at your tits…

The first table I sat at had 2 strippers (one retired, one “active”). They spent an hour talking about “the business”. The elder stripper would have been terribly annoying had she not been so easy on the eyes. She was driniking champagne at the pace of about 1 per 20 minutes. She was buying $100 more in chips about once an hour.; She hadn’t slept in a couple days. There was a Swede sitting next to her that told us, when she went to the can, that the only reason he was still playing was to go home with her. She finally gave up around 3pm and he went up to her room. He came down a couple hours later to brag. Just think of how many guys pay this girl hundreds of dollars to see her boobs – then this Swede WINS hundreds of dollars off her and then has sex with her for free.

Omigod! You’re from St. Paul. We were playing with a guy earlier today who said he was from St. Paul.
That was me….and it was five minutes ago…

I sat a couple seats from Emmit Smith on the plane. What are the odds?

It’s a long way from $12 million to the $2-$5 game at the Venetian…

I almost played $2-$5 at the Venetian with Jamie Gold. He sat down at the table next me, and I asked to move, but he got moved to the $5-$10 game right before they called my name.

I played $1-$3 at the Wynn with Pat Humphreys. She is a pretty good poker player.

One night, Kyle and I played the $150 tournament at the Mirage. You get a $50 for every person you knock out. I knocked out nobody. In fact, although I played 2 hours, I only won one hand. Kyle made it to about 6th place but not in the money. That’s poker.

One hand at the Mirage, I made a huge bet at a board of KK772. I had 88. My opponent called with 22. Yes, he called to play the board for a split. Unfortunatly, I couldn’t find much other competition like him. We played at the Mirage until 10am that day. We took a break from the poker for 1-2 hours when I turned $100 into $1000 at the craps table. Then, just to prove that I am a magician, I turned $1000 into $300. Back at the poker table, we were drinking martinis all morning. That didn’t work out very well. That was the night that I really got clobbered. Oh well, that’s poker.

At one table we played with a guy that was a real know-it-all. I enjoyed jerking his chains a bit. At one point I claimed that the straddle is four times more likely to win a hand than any other position. He looked like Kyle after telling him that no Longhorns have ever been in trouble with the law. Know-it-all was ready to go home, so he bet his remaining chips ($52) on a flip of a coin. I won. That’s poker.

At one point we played at the Wynn, and nothing really happened. I think I lost about $100.

Does this stress me out? Are you fucking kidding? I once bet $1700 on the 49ers and didn’t even watch the game. I went to go see Titanic with Johnny the White Man. So, to answer your stupid fucking question, no I am not stressed out. I will sleep very well tonight…

We finished the trip with another trip to the Venetian. I played with a third stripper. At one point, she put a $500 rack of poker chips on her rack. She stood up without them falling, pointed to the racks and said, “Now that’s talent!” Most of the guys packed it up around midnight. I decided to play until 4am. The last 4 hours I played $2-$5 in a very tough game. I finally was having some fun at poker as these guys were good. I pulled a Junell at one point, smooth-calling a paired board to pop it on the turn (with nothing). I did a min-check-raise and got JJ to fold. By 4am, I turned $500 into $800 and got my last two cards of the night. I told myself I would play any two cards, so when I got 69s, I couldn’t fold. Flop comes 345 with two of my hearts. I end up going all-in for just more than the pot. I put my opponent on an overpair. If he did have one, I would be the favourite with 15 outs, twice. He insta-called and showed 67 for the straight. OK, now I have 9 outs twice to the flush plus 3 outs to split the pot. That makes him a 3:2 favorite, and he is feeling pretty good (in fact, he is telling me that I’m an idiot for betting like I did into a made hand).

But what nobody told this guy is that he is in my movie. I am the fucking star of the movie, and he is, at best, an extra. People like movies with happy endings, and my movie is going to have the happiest fucking ending of all time. Anyway, it’s the last hand of the night, and I ALWAYS win the last hand of the night. There’s $1800 in that pot, and it’s all going to be Daddy’s in about 30 fucking seconds, so deal those cards, Bitch…

Blank. Blank. No hearts, no chips. Plane leaves in 4 hours. Time to bounce.

Did I mention I’m excited?

I get there just in time to play in Day 1D of the Main Event…but that’s just gonna have to wait another year due to the previously discussed liquidity issues.  I have to say that owning two houses is not twice as awesome as owning one house.  At all.  With liquidity as an issue, it’s pretty hard to justify $10k to play poker for a few hours.  So, it’s all cash games for me, plus the $100 tournament at the Venetian.

It’s going to be a lot of the same:

• Sierra Nevada
• $1-$3 at the Wynn
• Always buying up to the max
• Actin’ the fool
• Bein’ the fool
• Check-raisin’ tourists..
• Stacking my chips in pyramids
• Appr. 20 hour sessions

Some things will be different.  Umm, I might go to Mirage..never played there.

I currently have the most wicked Vegas streak know to mankind, and I intend to uphold it.  I’m undefeated* in Vegas since 1994.

*It’s slightly fuzzy math because for Junell’s bachelor party, I exclude a very expensive Bellagio poker tournament.  I think it was $1000 but maybe it was $500.  I won a little bit at the cash games on that trip.  I did not win (anywhere near) enough in the cash games to cover that tournament.

I intend to keep the streak alive.  WE’RE GOING STREAKING!!!!!!!!!!

…and I can’t wait!

Some prop bets

• Over/under on CCM lap dances = 4
• Over/under on my longest poker session = 23 hours, 10 minutes
• Over/under on times ARH and I die laughing at something and KTL just rolls his eyes = 8 times before we check-in
• “Last longest” bet between Kyle and CCM (no, not in a poker tournament….at the Glitter Gulch)
• Over/under on Higgy’s bad beat stories = 5
• Line on number of beers drank by Phil versus number drank by me = +37
• Total number of trips to the ATM machine for all 6 guys = 5 (by Saturday at noon)

I never managed to post about all the conference re-alignment.  In summary, I am pleased with where UT landed.  The money pie is bigger, there are fewer slices, and UT gets a disproportionate share.  So it makes sense economically.  As far as competition goes, sure we lose CU and NU, but we play one more conference game every year, so that I believe is a net improvement to our schedule.  While I love CCGs, it was never fair (think 2001) that we had to play one when the Pac-10, Big 10 and others did not.  You think Ohio State or USC might have missed a chance to play in a National Championship had they been forced to play a CCG?  So I like it from a competitive standpoint, too.  And there is more to life than football, and CU and NU offered nothing in the other major sports.  So, yeah, I like where we landed.

I think Tom Osborne is a little piece of shit.  He is just a whiney little bitch who is still mad that UT, during the formation of the Big 12, pushed through the banning of partial qualifiers and added the CCG.  To make matters worse, we knocked them out of the National Championship game in 1996 when we beat them….in the CCG!  Then we went on to go 6-0 against them in the regular season and 2-1 in CCGs.  See ya, Tom.

I also think there is a little bit of fuzzy math that went on.  The “new” TV money we got was coming to us anyway as we were at the end of our TV contracts.  So the pie was going to grow regardless, we just now have fewer slices.

And while I agree that conference re-alignment will continue from now until we die, I think that UT’s fellow Big 12ers have grown to realize that, in the words of Jack from LOST, “we can either live together or we can die alone.”  Missou, in particular, after digesting its humble pie, isn’t about to start sneaking around and flirting with other conferences.  And OU (all along) and A&M (eventually) realized that they are better off with UT than on their own (Exhibit A: Arkansas).  So I think we are on more stable ground than we were, say, a year ago.

I know I havent been posted much, and I’m sorry.  We moved from Dallas to Houston and I only just now kinda sorta have a desk and PC set up. 

The WSOP is going on, and the biggest news (to me, at least) is that  Phil Ivey won his eighth WSOP title, which now makes him tied with Erik Seidel in Wins in Fifth Place.

He won $329,840   in the $3,000 buy-in H.O.R.S.E. championship, and now Ivey (at 33 years old!) has won more bracelets than all but Phil Hellmuth, Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, and the late Johnny Moss. 

“I think I can win 30 gold bracelets,” said Ivey afterward.  “I think I can reach that if I keep playing and stay healthy.”

+ + + + +

I’ll be in LV in 11 days, and it can’t come soon enough.  I arrive on Day 1D of the Main Event, but I won’t be playing in it.  Liquidity is a bit of an issue as I currently own 2 houses (anybody want to buy a gorgeous 3-bd Tudor in Lakewood?)  But I’ll play plenty of cash games, to be sure.  Joining Dr. Fro are A.R. “Rock” Hickey, Cameron “the Csar of Tiddy-Bars” Moates, Andrew “calls off all his chips Higdon, K.T. “Safety First” Liner and Phil “No Joke” Croker.  I plan to hit the Wynn where there is truly no limit in their NL Holdem game and will probably hit the Hard Rock for their Round of Each NLHE/PLO8 game.   If anybody has any suggestions, let me know.  It’s been a year since I’ve been there, and no place can change in a year as much as Vegas!  So let me know your suggestions.