Fear and Loathing in Locke Vegas 2010: Part 7

This series of blogs first appeared on the PKR Forum in June and July 2010.  I won a WSOP Experience Package worth $4,000 through a PKR Road To Vegas Tournament League that ran for several months.  Most players are referred to by their PKR user names. 

Part 7

'Just another freak in the freak kingdom'

The main reason for selecting the Imperial Palace was location. So I waste no further time and take a walk up the Strip. The heat is utterly relentless but at least you can dive off into air conditioned buildings every few hundred metres. There is the old school Flamingo, the Irish themed O'Sheas, home of Beer Pong, and the spectacular Bellagio fountains. In front of Planet Hollywood is the Miracle Mile. This is a circular mile of shops containing all sorts of outlets, some areas are themed in different styles much like the shops at the Venetian. I walk up as far as City Centre and enjoy the spectacular architecture from another angle. You couldn't talk about a walk up the Strip without mentioning the Mexican 'Pimp Run'. I had heard Jabba making reference to this on the Wednesday night but hadn't really taken it in. Every few hundred metres along you would find 2 or 3 Mexicans in orange or green t-shirts dishing out leaflets to anyone who will take one. The t-shirts promise 'Girls direct to your door.' They make this sort of regular noise by slapping the card leaflets against their hands. Whilst it is a little annoying they are no more in your face than just putting the leaflets under your nose, clearly where they stand and how they behave is subject to some police scrutiny.

The spectacular City Centre

I return to the shade of the Imperial Palace at about 4pm. I am meeting Chivalrous Gent and others for dinner later but have two hours to kill. What better way to fill it than the $1/2 NL Hold'em game in the Palace's poker room. To say the table is soft is an understatement. I get off to a bad start losing $110 in an ugly pot. I am about to reload $100 when I find QQ and jam it in preflop. Unfortunately the spewtard I am jamming on has woken up with pocket aces. A glorious Q on the flop gets me level. I then flop two more sets in the space of ten minutes including cracking aces again. I then pound on the table with the full fury of a big stack. 2 hours later I am almost aggrieved to have to leave, up to the tune of $500 dollars.

The Venetian

Dinner is at the Grand Lux cafe at the Venetian. From the Imperial Palace it is less than five minutes walks so you can see the usefulness of it. I meet up with teh Chivster plus entourage, Elz442, Trymean77, Khaine81 and Discomonkey. I have to say it is always a pleasure to spend dinner with Chiv. He is a fellow foodie and his brother has a seriously amazing knowledge of wines and beers. Both like the refined things in life. We are also probably the only idiots wandering round the Venetian in suit jackets. After dinner several members of the party have a craving for cigars, luckily the Venetian has a kiosk selling some of the finest on the planet. We end up in a fairly flash bar complete with VJ and spend a pleasant few hours before going our separate ways, though a number of us are at the Imperial Palace so can walk back together.

It is about midnight when I settle in for my second session in the poker room. Clearly I have been saving up my luck for today as this session just gets silly. About forty minutes in I flop a straight flush and get paid off by an overpair. When the dealer halts rather than shoving the pot straight over to me I ask what is going on. I am told there is a High Hand Bonus in operation and my hand needs verifying by the floor. For doing nothing other than flopping a monster and getting it to showdown they ship an extra $250 my way. The session turns into small pots gained and small pots lost. I am thinking about leaving at about 2am but decide to play one more round. I'm glad I do as a pot comes up where I flop an open ended straight flush draw. A short stack goes all in on the flop and the original preflop raiser just flats him so I have to call. The turn brings my 2nd straight flush in two hours. I am just thinking about how to get the most value from this when the other guy in the pot shoves all in. I take all of about 0.2 of a second to call announcing 'This is the sickest thing ever...' The short stack had a pair and the other guy made a full house on the turn. I ship the pot... and another $250 bonus!!! Soooo sick. I of course feel it would be rude to leave at this point and keep playing for another hour. I bleed away a few dollars in a couple of coolers but end up leaving $800 to the good and $1,300 on the day.

 Epilogue  

I never finished the blog at the time.  My last day was spent back at the Aria's poker room.  I won a nice little cash session then went out just before the money in the evening tournament.  I got a relatively early nights sleep and the following morning found myself back at Mccarran Airport.  It had been a brilliant eight days that I would never forget, a first taste of poker's biggest stage that had whet my appetite for more.  After a bad start I had turned it around to a nice little profit on the trip. 

Fear and Loathing in Locke Vegas 2010: Part 6

This series of blogs first appeared on the PKR Forum in June and July 2010.  I won a WSOP Experience Package worth $4,000 through a PKR Road To Vegas Tournament League that ran for several months.  Most players are referred to by their PKR user names. 

Part 6

'There was also a certain bent appeal in the notion of running a savage burn on one Vegas Hotel and then... checking into another Vegas hotel'

Sunday saw a slight change of pace. Today's activity was at Tao Beach at the Venetian. I get over to the Venetian for 1:30pm then proceed to wonder round lost for about 40 minutes. The Venetian amuses me greatly, the exterior is as though some one had taken the most memorable landmarks of Venice and jammed them into one small space. Inside everything is fake renaissance opulence with high painted ceilings as though Michaelangelo had stopped by, lost his life savings by putting everything on red, and been forced to pay his way by doing the interior decoration. There is a long line of shops that resemble the typical ones found in Venice. Whilst you are inside the ceiling is painted with blue sky and clouds and there is a 'canal' complete with singing Gondoliers. Curiouser and curiouser.

The Venetian shops

Tao Beach is well hidden. I eventually locate the correct lift and whilst many guys are being turned away I am safe in the knowledge that once again I am a VIP. Up a few floors and I am outside, though on a part of the Venetian rooftop. The main pool area is okay but not as nice as the Aria. However this pool is just for mere mortals, not PKR players. At the far end the sound of thumping House music is unmistakable. The smaller side pool is clearly where a very high proportion of the young, rich and beautiful people of Las Vegas have come to hang out for the 4th of July. Amongst this throng of bikini clad women and toned men is a small enclave reserved for white, pasty and flabby internet poker players. Actually that is unfair, most of our party fit in well but if I were to repeat this experience I promise that I will spend more time down the gym first, honest. We have a couple of cabanas complete with their own safe, games console, drinks fridges and sofas. At the back air conditioning units are blowing away in a futile, and seriously environmentally unfriendly, effort to tame the midday Vegas heat.

A busy bar at Tao Beach at the Venetian

Our numbers are few to begin with but gather steam as the afternoon wears on. Waswini surfaces at about half three. Amazingly he looks perfectly fine and is suffering no after-effects from the previous night, despite having no memory of the whole experience. On some level I know this is still the same planet that I normally inhabit but I'm beginning to doubt it. Whilst we have a supply of free drinks coming out of the fridges a glance at the bar menu shows we can order a wide range of extra items. My favourites include a bottle of tequila for $3,000 and a bottle of brandy for $6,000. Like a Vietnam veteran I suddenly want to sit in the corner, start rocking back and forwards and mutter to myself 'This is not happening man.' The food is frankly a little more reasonable and I enjoy a 'Kobe Beef Burger' for a bargain $30 with exquisite fries. The party goes through to sunset but by six o'clock I have had my fill. Sundays are for cooking a nice roast diner and then settling down to multi-table like a madman. This glimpse of an alternative paradise of the rich is almost a step too far. I'll come back after I win the Main Event next year....

I escape with RiverBoatRay, another strong performer in the R2V and a veteran of many Vegas trips. The intention is to be back at the Aria for the 7pm tournament. Unfortunately we discover it is cancelled as the holiday rush has filled out every table in the poker room with cash games and the alternative venue spaces are all occupied by private functions. Cash it is then. I finally clock up a decent session and finish $400 to the good.

I awake early Monday morning compared to my last few starts, but then I have to be checked out by noon. The thought of saying goodbye to my super lush room is most upsetting. I know that I will come back here again though. I get a taxi across the strip to my new digs, The Imperial Palace. So far on this trip I had seen little of the horror that so inspired Hunter S. Thompson's book. Vegas had seemed cleaner and shinier, the mob influence displaced by the corporate machine. Suddenly I had discovered that flip side to the American dream. This was the cheap and cheerful end of the Vegas experience. Grannies shovelling quarters into slot machines. Fat, obese, stupid Americans hogging the corridor space with their self-inflicted mobility scooters. At the heart of this madness were the 'Dealertainers'. An area of blackjack tables where each dealer is dressed as a different iconic singer. On the hour they would take it in turns to get up and sing a song as their star, or in some cases mime really badly. The horror. The casino is gaudy and old. It is like Great Yarmouth gone global. I have only just got here and already I want out.

The Imperial Palace.  Do not stay here.

It takes 40 minutes to get to the hotel desk in the queue to check in, don't you swines know I have been kicking it VIP all week? Sigh. The layout of the building is extremely confusing. My key card suggests I use Tower 4 to reach my room. This involves lugging my suitcase up a small escalator before I can get to the lift. Of the 3 lifts in this area only one seems to be working. The corridor carpet on my floor is extremely worn and dirty from decades of grime silently screaming 'Replace me!' The room is basic and plain. I guess for $33 a night I can't complain but after the Aria this feels like serious culture shock. Two nights here, I can cope with that.

Fear and Loathing in Locke Vegas 2010: Parts 4 and 5

This series of blogs first appeared on the PKR Forum in June and July 2010.  I won a WSOP Experience Package worth $4,000 through a PKR Road To Vegas Tournament League that ran for several months.  Most players are referred to by their PKR user names. 

Part 4

'The line between madness and masochism was already hazy'

Six a.m. Friday morning. Somehow I manage my best nights sleep in Las Vegas at a grand five hours. Just enough time to hit the buffet before playing the $150 1pm Aria Deep Stack for the 2nd time. This time there are about 60 runners. I make it to about 20th before the standard bad beat disposes of me. Zero luck at the tables since arriving in the desert and with expenses I am now stuck about $900 on the trip. This was supposed to be a decent working holiday, a cake walk. Damn you Poker Gods. Yet another awkward cash game session follows.

I escape the tables in decent time to get ready for the PKR Party. The party is at the side building of Mandalay Bay called, creatively enough, The Hotel. A group of us grab a taxi. I feel a word is in order about Vegas taxi drivers, on the whole they are an incredibly amiable bunch. The rare one does not speak much English but most are very chatty and very likeable. They also have lots of great tips on where to go and what to do. My favourite turned out to be the son of a prolific TV scriptwriter and his two brothers were both published authors. Whilst the writing bug had passed him by he was a keen thriller reader and we had a good chat about his favourite writers, a number of whom I had met. Vegas is a strange place but an oddly friendly one.

At The Hotel we wonder round lost for a bit before running into PKR_Paul and Ashley Hames with their video camera. They lead us to the private elevator to The Mix Lounge, the venue for tonights party. At the queue outside it are loads of old friends. Not just qualifiers but other members of the PKR Massive including JJBird22 and Chivalrousgent. We are finally let through and find ourselves in a glass elevator going up and up with an awesome view of the Vegas skyline by night. The lounge is on the top floor of the building and with an outside balcony area offered an awesome view all night long. Loads of the PKR gang turned up throughout the night. Apparently other guests including Kara Scott and some of the Cardrunners crew were there too. Clearly I was talking too much to notice, oops. Drink was free all evening including champagne and anything else you could think of. I met Scardey77 from Canada, the only Canadian qualifier for the WSOP package  . He was having a great time but felt a bit guilty being away from home as he was away from his three month old baby for the first time.

The View from The Mix Lounge

The evening went far too quickly. At 2:30am we were getting bundled out by the bouncers when it felt like we could have stayed for hours longer. At this point Zlatan35 was in a particularly amusing state of free bar drunkenness that saw him wrestling with Ashley Hames on the Casino floor. He was also falling over quite a bit and got stopped by a casino floorman after attempting to climb onto a dancing podium occupied by a scantily clad gyrating woman so that he too could express himself through dance. We were eventually able to bundle him into a taxi. A few more drinks at the Aria and it is yet another 5am finish to the day. Vegas is part holiday, part endurance test.

Ashley Hames wrestled by Zlatan35

Part 5

'Against that heinous background, my crimes were pale and meaningless.'

As had become routine I awoke midday Saturday and sought out the buffet. The moment I got off on the promenade level it was obvious just how much busier the Aria was. 4th of July weekend was bringing the people in big time. I had to queue for a buffet table for 20 minutes (/OMG) when I had previously just walked in every time. I also had to smile at the American capitalist machine at work. On previous days you could get breakfast from 7 -11am, then brunch up until 7pm at which point dinner kicked in. Though saying that you could pretty much get dinner at any time of the day, it just cost the different prices. As I reached the front of the queue I could see today had no breakfast option (I was too late anyway) and only a 'Holiday Brunch' was advertised. This cost me $33 dollars rather than the $22 I had paid for brunch the day before. What extra delights did I get for my hard earned 10 bucks? Sod all... exactly the same as yesterday but a $10 hike just to milk the weekend 4th of July trade that little bit harder.

I hit the $150 Aria Deep Stack again but this time there was a strong PKR presence and a lot of uber-donks in for the weekend. The tournament had about 74 runners. At the first table is some of the most retarded poker play in the history of the universe, I mean worse than the dumb nonsense you see in the PKR Open on a daily basis. My favourite guy is a massive overbettor. Blinds are 25/50 with a 10k starting stack. 3 times in two rounds he open raises to 1,300... then con bets on the flop for more than half his stack...for the love of God just give me a hand!. LeRouli stacks two players on about the 3rd round... overshoving his full house on the river and gets called by not one idiot, but two, with a straight. A couple of rounds later he makes another full house and sucks in Mr Overbet who calls with trips. The table doesn't get any harder and myself and LeRouli just carve it up between us. We redraw from 3 tables to 2 with 18 left about after 5 hours of play. Suddenly I feel like I'm sat at the final table of a PKR Primetime as I have old adversaries Trymean77 and Azurecoil to compete against. The whole dynamic of the game just shifts. There are a couple of other okay players at the able so what had been a cakewalk took on some higher level dynamics with some more intricate play going down. On the other table are 3 more PKR players, 1BlackMamba3, LeRouli and a guy whos name I don't know.

At the final table of 10, with 7 places paid, I am still in along with Trymean77, Azurecoil, 1BlackMamba3 and the unkwown PKR player. We should have had Paul down with his camera as this was clearly just a PKR event in disguise. Az busts in 10th to a bad beat. Our nameless guy then shoves all in for about 4 big blinds. I have a decent stack and look down to find pocket 8s. I call. I then wish I hadn't as an old American uber-nit jams over the top of me for another 20,000 chips. It is a horrid spot. I'm convinced he has AA or KK but even if he does I am still priced in to call. This is a snap call in a cash game but here it is a stop and think moment. I factor that if it is even remotely possible he could have AK in his range here then I would be making a hideous fold and bite the bullet. Shortstack turns over pocket 10s (oops), Nit turns over KK. First card out is an 8 (fist pump on standby) and the 2nd card is a king (FML). We are down to 8 players, I need some chips fast and Old Man Nit is now the chip leader by a decent margin. I manage to double through with A J against K J and the bubble bursts just after. I am still short at this point. I raise up with a pair of 5s and 1BlackBamba3 jams over the top. I know he is an aggressive player and will do this with a lot of high card combos so I have no choice but to make a reluctant call and hope I am flipping. He shows jacks and I am gone in 7th for $330 dollars. 1st prize was $3.5K so I wasn't particularly happy, especially as the 4 non-PKR players were all awful. I believe a 5 way deal was struck which Trymean77 was a part of. Maybe I was a little too aggressive in this one but meh, that's my game.

Mclash 80, Jabba, Danski, PKR_Simon at Pure

Another evening another VIP Party to attend (God, isn't life just hideous). This time we are at the VIP area of Pure over at Caesars Palace. The taxi ride over takes forever as traffic on this busy weekend seems to have jammed up the entire centre of Vegas. Eventually we make it. Pure is a nightclub. A nice one but still... just a night club. There is a large main room then a VIP lounge area and a small room off of that. We had the 'Owners Room' to ourselves and a couple of lounges in the area outside. I hate to think how much it cost overall, a lot. There was also an upstairs area which lead out onto a rooftop terrace that looked out onto part of the strip. There was a lot of talking, laughing and drinking. Kelly Rowland appeared in the main area and performed 2 songs. Must be nice to be paid a small fortune to turn up and do less than 10 minutes work...

KingKai and Waswini

It was day 2 of event 54 today and about 7 players had made it through from the 2 day 1s. At the club we heard about the varying stories of people who had been playing but none was crazier than that of Beyne. Beyne played on the Day 1b on Friday and after the 2 day ones had finished there were about 700 left in and Beyne had the 39th biggest stack. Now some time after this and the PKR party at the Mix Lounge several of our crew had found themselves sat at 5am in the morning playing Black Jack. Day 2 of the tournament started at midday. Apparently a dealer took offence to a comment Beyne made and asked him to leave. Beyne didn't think he had done anything wrong (and probably hadn't!) so refused. Unfortunately he also decided to refuse to leave once the Cardroom Manager asked him to. So the police were called and although he wasn't charged with anything they held him for about 12 hours. Beyne finally made it to Day 2 of the tournament very, very late. So late that when he got there all that was left of his 39th biggest chipstack was 4 big blinds. The crazy part, although some might say this is just standard on Planet Beyne, is that he was able to bounce back and turn that 4k back into 200k and put in a deep cash finish... MBN as they say.

At about 2:45am myself and PirateNation decided to head back to the Aria, or at least that was the plan. As we exited the club area into the main floor of Caeser's Palace we were confronted by a worried looking Jake who asked for some help. Slightly to one side being stood over by a large bouncer and Ovnis was our very own Waswini, slumped in a wheelchair. He was just about responsive if you tapped his shoulder but only to the extent of a small twitch. He couldn't hold his head up and certainly couldn't talk. The bouncer was saying an EMT (paramedic) was on the way and that if we couldn't walk him out then he would have to go to hospital in an ambulance. We try standing him up but it just isn't happening. The EMT arrives and has a look at him. He breaks out the smelling salts which induces the biggest reaction yet. Waswini twitches up about ten centimetres then slumps down again. Despite this the EMT is not overly worried about him but confirms we need to get him out or he has to go to the hospital. We wheel him down to the taxi rank. Quite wisely the taxi drivers take one look at him and tell us nooooo way. Jake, ever the thinking man in an alcohol based crisis, grabs a limo instead. The driver is quite happy to charge through the teeth to take a drunken Fronk home. Myself and PirateNation have to grab an arm each and manouver him into the back of the thing, no small task. At the other end We have to repeat the same feat and carry him towards the door of the Aria. The doorman quickly grabs another collapsable wheelchair and we put him back in, head slumped. We wait with him whilst Jake goes to find out what room he is staying in. I comment to the Doorman 'Another quiet night in Vegas.' He gives me a look before saying 'This is the tenth one like this tonight.' Fourth of July weekend...

Eventually Jake returns with the room number. We wheel him up in the lift. Jake is looking at himself in the mirror and questioning where the spots on his face have come from. I suggest that getting more than 30 minutes sleep a night might help. Jake leaves us once satisfied the door key works. We wheel Waswini into his room inadvertently waking up the friend who is staying with him. There is a good selection of spirits on the table and a large amount of empty pizza boxes. Pirate rolls Waswini into bed at which point he decides to roll back towards the wall and start vomiting. Satisfied that our public service remit has been filled for the evening we leave, safe in the knowledge that at least some one is there to keep an eye on him.

 

Fear and Loathing in Locke Vegas 2010: Part 3

This series of blogs first appeared on the PKR Forum in June and July 2010.  I won a WSOP Experience Package worth $4,000 through a PKR Road To Vegas Tournament League that ran for several months.  Most players are referred to by their PKR user names. 

Part 3

'It won't be long before they tear us to shreds.'

The PKR welcome party is at the Deuce Lounge, one of the many separated areas on the main floor of the Aria. The PKR staff posse are all present as are some of the qualifiers. More turn up as the evening wears on but not everyone makes it due to flights and other annoyances. Everyone is is in good spirits. Most of the staff have already been out for a few days or more.  For the most part they actually got a few days off of work to do this rather rather than spend these hard days by the poolside Cabana on the blag.  PKR_Jake, the VIP Manager, doesn't seem to have had more than one hours sleep a night for about a week. This is never a good sign. Beyne has been on psycho blackjack swings all week. Reports have him from anything to up $50k to down $100k in the space of the same evening. Bellagio comp room buddy James666 shakes his head whenever the subject comes up. Suddenly at 24 James is looking like the sensible and mature one on Team PKR Pro - how on earth did that happen? PKR_Jake is having his own table games rollercoaster and from here on in I think should be known as Mini-Beyne.

PKR Welcome Party

Jabba explains PKR V2.0 has been delayed by a few weeks and assures me fun and exciting ideas are coming soon for the tournament section, subject to 'patent approval'. Being starving myself and Jabba order some snack food from the menu. You know you are in VIP land when 4 mouthfuls of food set sets you back $20. Also at some point during the evening a smart toilet attendant appears as happens at some posher clubs in Britain. Some things I don't mind tipping for, but seriously, don't expect a dollar when I am perfectly capable of reaching for the paper towels all on my own TYVM. This is probably a recurring theme from our VIP week. I'm sure these places have staff that are used to big tippers in their VIP areas, I bet none of them counted on stingy tight ass poker players.

Beyne and Danski

At about midnight I put in a couple of hours at the 1-3 NL cash tables before heading off to bed. Reported sightings place some of the more hardcore members of the staff heading back out of the Aria at 5am in the morning having already been out to a club inbetween. Hardcore degens.

I wake up after 4 hours in bed once again. Still, I need to get to the Rio to preregister before the event so this is not a bad thing. I stuff myself silly at the gorgeous Aria buffet so I will not need to eat for a while once the nerves kick in. The buffet is just awesome, stuff from all over the world, lots of things that just do not belong on a help yourself line. I get a taxi to the Rio. As I walk from the main casino through to the convention centre it slowly becomes more WSOP orientated. Giant banners of past players of the year fill the hallway. After registering I dawdle around. At the moment barring a few cash tables the two halls are empty. Tables are everywhere. The scale is immense but not as intimidating as I expected. I sit in the Poker Food Hall with DWH103and another qualifier  With 20 minutes to go the nerves start kicking in. At this point I just want to start playing. Not playing is now worse than playing could ever be. I pace around for the last ten minutes and find my chair.

WSOP at the Rio

 I don't recognise anyone at my starting table. With my fairly deep knowledge of poker this is a good sign. After the immortal 'Shuffle Up and deal' I am suddenly playing in the WSOP... /OMG. First hand I am in the big blind. A few players limp in and I look down to see K 9o. I check the option and am rewarded with a K 9 3 rainbow flop. I check, as does everyone else. I bet small on the turn and everyone folds. I have won the first hand, not a big pot, but it makes me feel better. I pick up and lose a few small standard pots but am glad to see I am fast picking up a strong read of the table. In the first big hand on the table I put both guys on their exact hands. There is such a thing though as concentrating too hard however as my first key hand showed. This is probably the most embarrassing hand of poker I have ever played. A guy raises in late position who has been more active than most and I look down to see 10 6 of clubs. I decide to flat call and screw with him a little if the opportunity presents. The flop comes low with 2 spades. He fires a standard small continuation bet. I decide as a lot of hands he has here will be two big overs to try and raise him out. If he jams I know he has the big overpair. If he calls I know he has a likely weak overpair and I can then check the turn and try and represent the spade draw if it lands on the river or bet it if the spade hits the turn. He calls and the turn is a brick. He checks, I check. The river is not a spade. He checks again though... suddenly I feel like bluffing again may take the pot anyway. I fire out a decent bet into the pot. He calls pretty quickly and I just want to muck my 10 high. As experience has taught me that weird things happen in poker I show my cards face up after looking like I want to muck them. When the dealer says flush I almost fall out of my seat. I have been so intensely concentrating on my bluff line that I clean failed to notice that I had runner runnered a club flush. The other guy is of course disgusted that his pocket 10s (exactly the sort of hand I put him on after he just called the raise!) have been beaten by some donk who doesn't even know when he has a flush. This table image would have been perfect for exploitation though sadly they break this rather soft starting table just fifteen minutes later.

My 2nd table seems okay to start with and I am up 1K on my 3k starting stack after close to 2 hours. After the 2nd level we break. The trick to finding a toilet during a WSOP break is to start walking to the far end of the Rio as fast as possible. The queues are actually bearable down the far end. I run across a few people for a quick update but it is straight back into action. No PKR staff are anywhere to be seen after the particularly heavy night they had.  In quick succession the 3 guys at my new table I marked as idiots bust out... none of them throwing chips my way. In the most annoying fashion possible each is replaced by an obvious online Pro. To my left sits down a Russian guy, not one of the top tier of superstars, but some one who I recognise. He strikes up a conversation with the guy to my right who he knows about how well all the guys he is staking (thousands of dollars worth) have done during the last couple of weeks. He knows the guy to my right because he is being staked by Timoshenko.  I buckle my seat belt and  prepare to dig in. I of course go card dead at this point and get played back at constantly in the sort of ugly spots you just can't do a lot about. After 3 and a half blind levels I am down to 1.8k from the 3k starting stack and take a stand with pocket 6s against an obvious big ace. He turns over A Q and the flop of course drops A Q x on me. You have to win flips to win bracelets and I haven't in this one. I spend the next few hours catching up with who is in and who is out. I spotted Gavin Griffin and Kara Scott playing but then in quick succession saw most of the rest of the poker world. Moneymaker, Dennis Phillips. Going into the other room were some sick tables, especially in the $25K six max event. At one table is Greenstein, Seidel and Sam Trickett. On the next one over Phil Ivey is drawing a huge rail as always. At a feature table is John Juanda, and at the main flashy TV table sits John Duthie. Elswhere is Juha Hellpi, Barney Boatman, Vanessa Rousso and on and on it gos.

TV feature table

 At this point Pirate Nation arrives having only just got into Vegas. We head back to the Aria and hit the NL tables. I have an annoying session where I can't win a flip. Despite that I am only down about $100 dollars. I spot a super soft table nearby and ask to go on the waiting list. As this happens I see a player get up and Japete gets the seat before I get a chance, damn you Spaniard! I wait 90 minutes dying a slow death at my nitty table watching the drunks dumping their their cash off left right and centre. When a seat finally opens the game has broken up within 10 minutes. FML. I think about sleep, it now being about 1am but instead take a seat at the $4/8 limit game where PKR_Danski, PKR_Jake, PKR_Scott and PKR_Harry are engaged in psychotic action with an uber-donk and a couple of spewtards. 4 or 5 players are regularly seeing the 5 bet cap putting $100 dollars into most pots preflop. As a guy who plays a lot of $3/6 and $5/10 limit the scale of the action is mind blowing. Being rivered in a $300 pot at $4/8 limit is just not an average occurrence. Sick beats go down left right and centre. Insults and banter fly. A really nice guy joins the table who claimed to be 54 but looked about 35. The PKR posse took to calling him Peter Pan for the rest of the night, when Dan wasn't calling him his 'Dawg' in a really bad American accent. The game broke at about 6am in the morning by which point Danski was pre tipping every dealer and taking the piss out of their names ('Ping' being the favourite) and tipping everyone at the table each time he won. Somehow I ended up stuck about $200 dollars despite being the least drunk whilst Scott and Harry walked off with about $600 a piece.

Fixed Limit degeneracy

Stay tuned for the truth about Waswheelchairgate, which PKR Pro spent the morning in a Las Vegas jail drunk tank and more exciting adventures!

Fear and Loathing in Locke Vegas 2010: Parts 1 and 2

The following series of blogs first appeared on the PKR Forum in June and July 2010.  I won a WSOP Experience Package worth $4,000 through a PKR Road To Vegas Tournament League that ran for several months.  Most players are referred to by their PKR user names.

Part 1

'We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.'

My journey to Vegas does not begin until tomorrow but I'm planning on blogging regularly whilst I'm out there and I wanted to start setting the scene. This journey feels a long time coming. I got into poker about about five years ago having previously never played a hand. Something clicked from that first time and within a matter of weeks I was reading everything about poker I could lay may hands. Amongst all that strategy and history the specter of Las Vegas was never far away. I'm going to take a couple of favourite books to re-read on the long flight so I can remind myself of the Vegas I never had a chance to know. So much of it ripped down and rebuilt so long ago. So much buried in the old school/new school poker blur.

I haven't been either that excited or that nervous so far. I guess the first moment will hit as I fly into the airport, the second will be walking into the Rio and getting smacked in the face by the sheer scale of the WSOP. Up to this point I feel like I deserve to be there, I've been so close so many times that this trip has been earned; the hard way, the long road. I'm a decent player and at the moment I'm playing full time so this feels like the first trip of many rather than some once in a lifetime deal. I'm glad I went to the UKIPT last month as although not in the same league it at least prepared me a little bit for what to expect. The only real annoyance is that I was unable to land a Main Event seat before leaving, I had some chances but it just wasn't clicking for me in the sats I played.

It is also a journey to remind myself of one of my favourite writers, Hunter S. Thompson... possibly the greatest political journalist who ever lived. Of course to most he is just known as the writer of 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.' He had a love/hate relationship with the city that I think will likely reflect my own opinions.

Tomorrow will likely be a reflective day all round with things really getting going on Wednesday and then Event 54 to play on Thursday.

Part 2

'We can't stop here. This is bat country.'

Seven and a half hour flight to Toronto during which I watch 'The Hurt Locker' and 'Wallstreet'. Both oddly comparative to poker. Disarming bombs much like playing No Limit Hold'em whilst Gordon Gecko was born to guest on 'High Stakes Poker'... "Greed is good." A couple of hours sat around in an airport lounge in Canada, there is a beautiful city just beyond that that glass I cannot get past . US customs are swines to, I have never felt more like a criminal in my life. Another four and a half hours of flight and Vegas swims into view. The desert around it is utterly dark in the night sky from the plane. Suddenly thousands of tiny pinpricks of light are visible in the distance. As the plane comes in on approach the vast behemoths of the casinos become easily distinguishable... dwarfing everything else around them.

The first advert I see whilst waiting to reclaim by suitcase is for 'The Gun Store'. It promises that I can fire machine guns there including AK47s and M16s, amongst many others, just as I have 'always dreamed of.' LOL. God bless America. I am kicking it Old School for my first night and take a taxi to the Golden Nugget. It is a pertinent choice after rereading 'The Biggest Game in Town' by Al Alvarez on the flight over. Despite being up for 23 hours and it being 11:30pm local time by the time I arrive I want to do some exploring. I check out the Nugget, have a wander round on Fremont Street and the old core of Vegas including that place of poker pilgrimage Binion's. Everything is colourful and casual. The heat outside strikes you the moment you walk out of any of the air conditioned casinos. I see a few children wandering around with parents and question how I would handle enquiries from them a six year old about what the fairly explicit Gentleman's club advertising was all about. This place strikes me as a strange place to have kids in tow.

'Glitter Gulch'

I don't trust my flight addled judgement so opt for a short game of $2/4 Limit at Binions rather than No Limit, surrounded by the old photos of the early days of the WSOP. I run like crap including several sick coolers and call it quits after 90 minutes $100 down. It is about 2:30am local time when I go to bed. I wake up four hours later with a pounding headache unable to go back to sleep. Breakfast and some paracetamol help matters. Just before eleven I check out of the Nugget and get a ride to the Aria. Whilst the Nugget epitomises old school Vegas the Aria is a stunningly modern development. Everything exudes class and big money. On opening my room door the place springs to life, curtains automatically drawing back to reveal a stunning view of Las Vegas including the Palms and outwards towards the mountains. The plasma screen contains all sorts of neat toys and options. I unpack then explore.

The view from my room at the Aria

The casino is stunning, shops and eating places everywhere. There is a poolside area of real beauty baking in the extremely intense Vegas heat. The poker room is very, very cool featuring 'The Ivey Room', a new venue to take on a lot of the uber high stakes action when the right players are in town. I register for the $150 1pm tournament then run into Ashley Hames. Amusingly he can't stand the modern gadgety-ness of the place preferring the less expensive down to Earthness of other Vegas venues. Ash is also in the tournament but takes an early bath. 37 people register in total. I survive nearly four hours of missing every flop, amusingly only going to a showdown once. Other than that I keep picking my spots, stealing and jamming, to maintain an average stack. My luck runs out when I shove a pair of sixes into queens preflop and I'm out in 20th. During the break I run into Pokerkate88 who sounds like he has had an amazing time driving here from San Fransisco through Death Valley. Japete also appears having been down to the Rio to check it out ahead of tomorrow.

The pool area at Aria

Hopefully I will sleep better tonight and will find some better flops at the Rio tomorrow. First there is the PKR welcome party to negotiate though!

Black Friday Take Two

Players often suggest that the Poker Gods, those malevolent higher powers that screw with our luck on a regular basis, have a sick since sense of humour.  They must have.  There is otherwise no explanation as to why everywhere has 'Black Friday' offers this weekend.  Whilst I was aware of the American Thanksgiving holiday I was oblivious that the 'Black Friday' moniker is used to mark the start of a traditional holiday sales period.  We are seven months on from poker's Black Friday and I honestly cannot imagine many American players feel like they have much to be thankful for.  Then to rub salt into the wound everywhere they look today will be those Black Friday offers.  To anyone with money trapped in the carcass of Full Tilt I think you could barely be more offensive if you took out a giant wad of cash and slapped them in the face with it before proceeding to 'rub it on your titties' in front of them.

It was pretty obvious that Black Friday was going to have repercussions for the online poker world but I don't think at the time anyone could have imagined just how far they would reach.  Most people with any sense knew that there was always a lurking possibility of the American Government taking action against US facing sites.  There was a reason that many sensible businesses had withdrawn from the market after the UIEGA legislation had been bought in (UIGEA WIKI).  Those businesses now stand to gain the most from their patience when the American market eventually reopens.

Pokerstars and Full Tilt built empires based on their decisions to stay in America.  Pokerstars will at the very least face a massive fine, maybe worse, but it seems unlikely that their position as the world's number one poker site will be threatened any time soon.  Their professionalism in making sure US players got all their money back won them a lot of fans.  Full Tilt on the other hand has become a pariah and managed to knock back the reputation of poker in a way that Ultimate Bet could have only dreamed of.  The revelations that have come out, and will continue to come out, about the financial mismanagement of such a huge business, are a truly chilling tale that suggests greater regulation will be an industry necessity in the future.  If you don't really understand what has been going on this article by my friend Snoopy explains it all very neatly: Full-Tilt-Story-Timeline . 

Black Friday has led to a lot of poker losers, some in obvious ways and others less so:

1) US players unable to play online - Full Tilt and Ultimate Bet money not returned to players so far.

2)  Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson - Two of the previously most well respected players in the game may as well now be hiding out in a mountain in Afghanistan.  There is an awful lot of explaining to be done from the pair of them and then we might just stick them in prison as opposed to lynching them.  There have to be question marks hanging over many other big names regarding their involvement with Full Tilt as well.  More big reputations will likely be destroyed before the dust settles.

3) Televised poker - Commercial TV needs two things to make it happen, an audience and advertisers willing to sponsor programmes or buy up the advertising slots.  These have been boom times for poker TV but only because there were sites looking to sign up players through advertising.  Full Tilt and Pokerstars were the biggest purchasers of US TV advertising time, without them a lot of poker programming will not be renewed. Less TV means less people getting into the game.

4) The reputation of poker - After years of poker coming out of the smokey back rooms and positioning itself in the context of a televised sport this has done a huge amount of damage.  Many people who were burnt by Full Tilt will not likely trust their money to another site without greater reassurances and industry regulation.  Many people will happily associate poker with being illegal or being dodgy thanks to the money laundering actions of the US facing sites.  Some of poker's ambassadors have turned out to be huge crooks, it makes it difficult to get the important points about freedom, liberty and choice across when your spokesmen have been acting so irresponsibly.

5) US players at the WSOP - The World Series was not affected dramatically this year and may yet grow next year.  Either way if the US online market stays shut it will be to the benefit of European players and the detriment of American ones.  You can study all the theory you want but nothing compares to playing thousands of hands a week to improve your play, your understanding and your reading ability.  Without playing online the ability of those players unwilling to move abroad will stagnate.

6) Ancillary poker services - America was the biggest poker market.  Players who cannot play online will not be using training sites, they will not be purchasing tracking software or other add-ons.  It is no surprise that a lot in the poker Media, particularly in America, have been looking over their shoulders.  Like TV, without sites paying for adverts in your magazine, you may not be able to run your business.

It is not all doom and gloom but the skies do seem very cloudy right now.  Hopefully though today's Black Friday will give way to a sunnier Monday somewhere down the road.

The End of a Very Short Era

And so London's Fox Poker Club has been sold to Genting Casinos a smidge over a year after it launched.

http://www.foxpokerclub.com/2011/11/23/fox-poker-club-sold-to-genting-casinos-uk-ltd-for-an-undisclosed-sum/

I will be interested to see how this pans out for a number of reasons.  Firstly there is a question of how much of what is currently in place will survive.  It may not be the greatest of poker venues but it was being run on the floor by people with a love of the game and that generally made up for its other short comings. Casinos are not known for being the biggest fans of poker but Genting do seem to be making the right noises having recently signed up the Hendon Mob and announced their first ever poker tour.  Secondly the venue had ties to PKR for its first year and this leaves serious questions about the future of PKR Live and the PKR Social concept.

Me and some fish at a PKR Social :)

When I first heard about the Fox Club I imagined in my head that some one was going to try doing a Dusk Till Dawn in London.  If you have not been to Dusk Till Dawn in Nottingham then you are missing out.  It is the best card room in Britain by a country mile and the only one that matches up to the best Vegas has to offer.  It is big and spacious and has good facilities. It is designed by people who love poker for people who love poker with great tournaments and proper respect for the game and the rules.  The staff are a cut above the average casino poker dealer.  Maybe this is why I never quite fell in love with the Fox.  It never feels much more than a big cupboard with some poker tables in it.  If you don't hear the sound of a glass being knocked over every couple of hours you have clearly gone on a very quiet night. I also think it is poor for playing major tournaments at as the toilet facilities are woefully inadequate when 120 people go on a break at the same time.  The food was also great when it first opened, sadly what was on offer has been pared back and simplified.  Eating nice food at a poker table can be quite awkward though and the place lacked table space to act as a proper restaurant.  It does have a great location in the heart of Shaftesbury Avenue and is close enough to China Town to bring in the local degenerate gamblers.  The acquisition of a full 24 hour license was also very important.  Opening without one was a very major set back.  The best cash games are always just getting going at 2:00am... not being packed up and shoved out the front door.

PKR Live was already looking an unlikely prospect for next year but this can only add to the chances it does not happen.  This would be a shame, but worse would be that the socials that were experimented with this year were not repeated in some way.  A lot of people would love to see a return to The Loose Cannon.  The early PKR Live events were awesome fun and the venue was perfect. It contained the madness in a way the Fox could never hope to achieve.  These are uncertain times however and I think PKR will look to move forwards rather than look back as they generally always do.  As to the future of the Fox Club... we shall wait and see.

The Biggest Loser PKR

One of my fiancee's guilty TV pleasures is the torturing of obese people, otherwise known as weight loss television.  Be it English, American or Australian in origin the concept is the same.  Take a couple or family, or multiple sets of couples and family pairs, who have serious over eating issues and put them on the road to normality through an intense period of physical exercise, nutritional balance and emotional reflection.  You often find yourself wondering how some one lets them self get morbidly obese.  Sometimes there is a serious emotional trauma or medical condition as a trigger but often it is a combination of poor will power, a general sense of having given up and most of all low self esteem. In the case of the USA culturally bad eating habits with regards to portion sizing also play a big part.

At this point I guess you are wondering where the poker comes in.  The concept of winners and losers clearly has a central part to play in the game of poker.  Poker is a zero sum game so for some one to be winning some else has to be losing.  The majority of online poker losers fall into two categories.  The first deposit once, lose money, and are never seen again.  The second group stay around a lot longer and make small deposits on an infrequent basis.  These people see poker as a hobby.  They have a real love for the game and don't mind continuing to chase the dream as long as an evening doesn't cost more than a night out would have.  Let's face it, an evening out at a pub, nightclub or theatre can be way more costly than a couple of poker tournaments.  Some of these hobbyists will eventually become break even and winning players.

So what about the big losers?  Beyond the 'donkeys' and the 'fish' are the 'whales'.  These guys are few and far between but when you find one they can stun you when you find out how dedicated to being bad at poker they are.  Consider an online site like PKR.  It has constant games but is by no means the biggest poker site online.  Most tournament players you find sat at your table will be somewhere between a few hundred dollars up or a thousand dollars down.  The biggest tournament fish I have come across was down $20,000 dollars on Sharkscope.  Stop and consider this for a moment.  At the moment on PKR there is one monthly $500 tournament, one monthly $250 tournament and nothing else above $150.  The average tournament buy in would probably work out around $20.  So to be down $20,000... you have to bad for a very long time. You have to stop and admire that dedication to being awful.  Most players who stay in the game for a few years at least pick up enough of an understanding to hover close to break even.  Some guys though... they never learn.  It is more common among live players but online most people get better or get bored of losing.  In many cases the big losers are rich businessmen who have a love for the game and enjoy playing an aggressive style and like bluffing a lot.  It is their way of blowing off steam and there is a lot about poker that appeals to those in the finance sector, especially stock traders.  In many cases what they lose is peanuts compared to what they make or to what they would be losing playing Blackjack in a casino.  Clearly there is a less pleasant side where people have gambling issues or an addiction.  This is very much a minuscule minority in my experience but it definitely exists.  This is a more complex area and is something I will return to in its own blog at a later date.

Clearly in cash game poker there are ways to lose money a lot faster.  Even great players can get smashed by variance in the short term and go on hideous losing streaks having done nothing wrong.  So if that can happen to the best of us... what chance does a really bad whale have?

So, moment of truth time.  How much money do you think the biggest loser on PKR has donated to the rest of the community?  Stop and really give it some thought for a bit and then come up with a figure...

Okay, you have one?  So clearly you guessed upwards of $20,000 given my earlier example.  Did you go above $100,000?  The biggest loser on PKR has given away over $200,000 from his personal funds.  I don't know who this mystery individual is but I could certainly hazard a guess at four or five names.  I won't though, as that would be rude.  I can only hope that a) this individual really enjoys his poker and b) he gave at least three times as much to charity.

That degree of what can only be described as degeneracy is quite baffling to me.  Before you feel too outraged or horrified though let us bear in mind that everything is relative.  There are people who can blow through millions of dollars in a week at the casinos in Las Vegas playing games that they have no edge against versus the house.  Let us also remember that the entire Western economy was apparently paid for on credit cards for the last ten years.  As I said yesterday poker is a funny old game.  However it is a funny old planet populated by funny old, and young, people.  Does any of it really make any sense?  Probably not, but if it did just think about how boring everything would be...

Getting Started

There are more than enough bad poker blogs out there so I hope not to be adding to the slush pile.  Whilst it may be the reality of an online grinder that we get up, play several thousand hands a day, moan about how epically bad our luck is, and spend hours agonising over whether or not flatting the turn or shoving would have made us an extra $2 over a hundred hand sample... well it can just be a bit boring, especially to the more casual poker fan. I'm looking to use this blog to properly record my occasional live poker trips, especially to bigger tournaments and events, and to capture some of the fun and messiness of hanging around the fringes of the live poker circuit.  Vegas tales are, I think, far more fun than debating the merits of triple bet range merging.  I'm also hoping to rehouse some of the material I have built up on the PKR Forum, where many of you will probably know me from, as a player moderator under my alias 'LockeLamora'  .

I'm not pitching this exclusively at the pro/semi-pro crowd though and often little to no poker knowledge will be required. Expect plenty of film and music talk along with other cultural waffle and the occasional rant about the state of society/the economy/how filthy my kitchen is and whatever other nonsense pops into my head. Let me know what you think and feel free to make suggestions if there are particular things of interest that you would like to know about. 

I started playing poker about seven years ago when the post 'Chris Moneymaker' boom really kicked off.  Something about it just clicked with me straight away after my first home game experience whilst studying for an MA in Norwich.  At the time I was working weekends for Ottakar's and went through the poker section for something to read the next time I was in.  I bought Phil Hellmouth's 'How To Play Poker Like The Pros' and read it cover to cover twice.  After this I made my first online deposit on Party Poker and never really looked back. This combination of an early interest in the strategy with my natural level headedness means I have never had a losing year in poker.  That is not to say I have not done some daft things along the way but it was always profit that took a hammering and never my own wallet.

About two years ago a combination of needing to move location and an increasing sense of frustration with being a Branch Manager for Waterstones led me to quit my job and give poker a go full time.  I have not exactly set the poker world on fire but I have made over $40,000 in that time and had a a lot of interesting experiences.  I have played in four World Series of Poker events including this years $10,000 Main Event.

So there are a lot of stories to be told, or retold for those of you who live on the PKR or Black Belt Poker forums, and new adventures to be had.  There is experience to be shared, of winning tournaments with several thousand people in, of blowing up a poker bankroll in the worst possible ways, of learning to start all over again, of coming close enough to touch large sums of money only for the chair to be pulled out from underneath in the cruelest possible fashions.

It is a funny old game populated by funny old, and young, people.  Please join me whilst I spend my time grinding from the sidelines.  If poker terms are new to you a grinder, or a rounder, is some one who eeks out a living from the games.  In some respects all professional players can be called this but there is definitely a difference between the hot shot high rollers and tournament demons and those of us who count our hourly rate in dollar rates more akin to ordinary work than in epic swings and huge pay days.