Starting from the beginning – Pauly was hosting a drink-a-thon at the Geisha Bar at the Imperial Palace on Thursday night, the 7th. Everyone was on the invited list and I had to do the usual time clock episode at Bellagio. I knew Craig (CC) was coming into town, and on my way to work, I sent him a text message asking where he was. Response: Caesars u?

My response: Heading 2 Bellagio.

I hit the room, it was screaming with noise and people everywhere. Of course Bellagio’s Fifth Annual Five Diamond World Poker Classic is in full swing. I signed the EO/Play and immediately was granted permission to play – with this caution “Don’t get lost somewhere because I have no back up.” In other words, I might have to deal in a heart beat’s notice. OK! No problem-o, I do remember how. Jason is the assistant supervisor during these tournaments (relief supervisor when the room is normal) and one of my favorite people in the room. He was the one cautioning me – and the one that said I could clock out when I checked backan hourlater. SWEET!

During thatone hour time clock adventure, I found a seat next to Marie in a $4-8H game. Craig made the room, we stashed his computer and a few other things with Valerie (phone desk), and he took a seat in our game. As usual, I fed the Vegas Poker Economy by not dragging a pot. If my life depended on making a flush or straight draw, I would have to ask for forgiveness and get ready to die…it ain’t gonna happen. The Card Fairy is sprinkling fairy shit all over my head and I’m in the terminal dead card zone. I had a glass of wine with Marie as the chips sailed and flew around us, and Craig and I made plans to go to the Geisha Bar and meet the incoming Bloggers.

Since I seem to find a strange fascination with trivial things that mean absolutely nothing, my fingerprints showing through the side of my glass of wine had me snapping a few pictures.

Around 9 p.m. Craig and I left Marie still fighting the green felt battle and we headed to the snack bar for a meal before leaving Bellagio. Craig brought me a gift. It is so damn kewl that I hope he markets it and finds a big audience for it. It’s a book of his interviews that are main page articles he’s done for PokerWorks, called ‘Poker Face’. Tks CC.

We took the skywalks over Las Vegas Bouldevard AKA The Strip to the Imperial Palace. The city is screaming with noise and people, the rodeo’s in town, the Las Vegas Marathon was set to run on Sunday. There are caution signs everywhere on the streets announcing that ‘special events’ are being held or when the Strip and other streets will be closed for the marathon. Some of the bloggers were in, others would be arriving later in the night, and the section in front of the Geisha Bar was packed to the max with us.

It’s pretty amazing that we all come together just because we have a few things in common – we blog and most of us play or are involved in poker somehow. That’s the tie that binds. There’s never any prejudice or bad vibes running through the gathering, it’s a feeling of coming home. One of the biggest problems I still have is names to faces, not that anyone’s shy about introducing themselves, they aren’t. Most of them intro by their blog name, some by first name, then trying to put their first name with their blog name – and never having the opportunity to visit with most of them for an indepth period of time -leaves me without a clue. Maybe I’m just losing it and can’t remember shit. But whatever the case, I have an absolutely incredible time with all of these people.

Here are a few random shots, and the night shot photo, gray scale looking one, is a reflection in a mirror. I love night shot as the next post or two will show because I have a lot more pictures in that medium.

We milled, drank, hugged, milled, drank, hugged some more and visited. Michael Craig came to meet us…he’s a full blown blogger and fun to have at any meeting. The last two tournaments we held, he went out with A-A. I’m spoiling the fun by getting ahead of myself but this time he raised all-in with ‘the hammer’. That’s a world famous, name brand hand in case you didn’t know, 7-2. Results will have to come in his blog or my next post.

Iggy showed about an hour later. He was starving. Human Head, Mrs. Head, Alan, and I decided we would go to Denny’s Restaurant, just down the Strip and have food. Iggy wanted to take his luggage upstairs first and he would meet us there. I thought we were going to need a GPS to find Denny’s. We made it. Iggy arrived a few minutes later. We shared a meal and conversation and then back to the IP.

Maudie arrived somewhere in here, loading up with a shot of tequila (probably more than one) and we talked about her future ‘ink’ job. It’s always great to see Maudie, we share a special kinship and it’s intangible so you figure it out. Maudie was going to have her very first tattoo done at the Palms on Friday. Gracie planned to go with her, and stay to possibly have one done on herself, but it was first come first serve and Gracie ended up leaving Maudie there to get ‘inked’.

I’ve never been much of a daytime person so I gave up the blog festivities somewhere around 11:30ish and headed for home. Damn it! I wish I’d gone to bed and slept -up until 5 a.m. – my normal hours. I had a buffet to attend on Friday, hosted by Gracie.

We ended up with 28 grazing bloggers at the buffet. They insisted on an 18% gratuity before they would agree to seat us. Okie Dokie! Done deal. We loaded up on food and great conversation. The food is decent but I can never eat $25 worth of buffet. The best part was sharing part of our lives and just relaxing through the food and afternoon.

We parted ways, everyone drifting towards the MGM Mixed Game planned at 9 p.m. and a cocktail bash hosted by Pauly and AlCantHang at the Sport’s Book Bar that night.

*Post poned*