Vegas Day 2

After Vegas Day 2 I was exhausted. After LITERALLY getting thrown out of the Rio at 3am (they were having a planned power outage, but that's not what you were thinking, was it...)I just had to get home and pass out.

We started the day at the Excalibur after hitting the IHOP, and I found out that second nut flush is no good for $125 at a $200 buy-in NL table. They did have KingLucky's favorite 100 Hand Video Poker game, which they didn't have at the Palms or the Orleans the night before. From there we went to the Rio to gawk at the stars playing the $5000 PL hold em event. Every big name player was there, and the highlight of my stargazing was asking Barry Greenstein how he was going to play in the Pot Limit Hold em event at the same time as playing the final table of the Omaha Hi/Lo event. His answer? "I don't know." I saw how he did it, when they took a break from the final table, he went over to his stack at the hold em table that was being blinded off, played one hand, doulbed up with a straight, then went back to the ESPN final table.

I also got to see Robert Williamson make an attemt at throwing cards into a trash can from 30 feet away, but his attempts were so pathetic that Chris "Jesus" Ferguson came over from the final table of the Omaha Hi/Lo game to give him some quick card throwing lessons.

From there we went downtown to play some of the crazy table games at the Fitzgerald. They play a weird-ass game called Extreme 21, and no, you don't have to drink Mountain Dew while you play it. The dealer plays against every hand individually and must beat the players hand without going over 21. So if you have a 12, once the dealer reaches 13 you're beaten. But if you get a 20, the dealer has to get a 21, EVEN IF HE HAS TO DRAW WITH HIS 20. I've never ever seen a dealer get a 29 at blackjack before, but I saw it at the Fitz. It was a fun variation of BJ where good hands hold up an awful lot more, but bad hands where you are counting on the dealer busting are out garbage.

We wandered Freemont Street to the sounds of Blue Oyster Cult and ended up in the Poker Room at Binion's Horseshoe. Or Harrah's Horseshoe, whatever you want to call it. Honestly, a complete dump. But I won about $50 at $2/$4 in a little over an hour and winning is always fun. I just missed the $60 NL tournament they play at 8pm. It looked like fun, there were around 100 people playing in it. One $40 rebuy and blinds that don't increase to terribly fast. I might try to catch it later in the week. When I cashed out of the poker game I began searching for KingLucky, who managed to find the most remote slot machine in Binions, so it must have taken me an hour to sniff him out.

After we got something to eat it was getting close to midnight so we headed back to the Rio to see how the PSO crew was doing and to cash in a $100 chip I forgot I had. I found out that Barry Greenstein had won the Pot Limit Omaha event and dedicated it to Charlie for Felicia and I wondered if she came down to watch him win it. Sure enough I saw her from across the room and waved her over to me. She came over but asked "Who the hell are you, waving me over like that?" and I said "I promised I wouldn't dodge you like I did Maudie." She laughed and said "DUGGLE!" She introduced me to Pauly and we hung out for a few minutes until Mike at PSO called my cell phone from a poker table about 100 feet away and demanded I play at his NL table because they needed players. Felicia (pronounced Fuh-lee-see-uh, who knew?) made fun of me for trying to look important by getting a cell phone call.

I bought in for $300 and began playing WAY OVER MY HEAD POKER. So much for sticking to small stakes. I played $100 NL at the Excalibur, but this was an entirely different deal. But I played smarly aggressive and got up $150 before chasing two consecutive nut flush draws and finishing the game up $25. I was happy to escape with my bankroll intact.

The side games at the Rio during the WSOP are incredible. Early in the day there wasn't a lot of action, maybe a dozen tables, but when we went back there were over a hundred, and all the stars who busted out of the PL Hold Em event were playing. It's fun playing at a table next to Antonio Esfandiari, even if your chips are red and say $5 on them instead of gray and say $500.

We played poker til around 2am and wandered the Casino until they ejected us due to the aforementioned power outage. Highlights were talking to Barry Greenstein, finally meeting FuhLeeSeeUh face to face, talking to Dr. Pauly for a few minutes and figuring out that if I don't stay away from the Craps table, $2/$4 poker is going to be above my bankroll limitations soon!