Two days ago I started resizing and ‘de-red eyeing’ the pictures taken at the WPBT event held at Caesars Palace on the 12th, it took F-O-R-E-V-E-R.  Yesterday I started uploading to the PokerWorks server, that was a real time eating bitch too slice of pie that I did intermittently between reading and sending emails, editing articles for PokerWorks and a few other sites that my team supplies articles to for PokerNews LTD.  BTW, have I ever publicly stated what a great writing team I work with?  They are the best!!!!

Moving on to the blog doings, I have an .mpg of one small clip of the NLH game at MGM on Friday night – tried to upload it to YouTube and received an error.  Perhaps I need to edit and cut some of it. The MGM was great, mainly because I milled, visited, and didn’t play much.  Marie and I went together with the plan to play the mixed games that are a yearly event.  The Mixed was starting late, the $2-5 NLH was a screamer (as evidenced by the .mpg), and Marie and I were on a $2-4 LH list for a long time before a seat opened.  Marie took it, I wondered around and watched the NLH game and visited, hugged, said, “Howdy!” to the bloggers I knew from past events.  Of course there are plenty that I know but I can’t remember their names and blog addresses – and they probably don’t remember mine either – so it works out.

When the room opened another $2-4LH game, Marie moved into a seat by me and we played for about an hour or so.  Ryan came to sit behind us and visit as we played.  Neither of us did any good in the game, and we were both tired and ready to head out by around 10:30 – so we did.  I spent the weekend at Gary and Marie’s spare home on the 5th floor overlooking a large part of the strip…the view is fantastic, the place is like a penthouse, and I felt like I was extremely honored to be handed the keys for the coupla days I was in town.  Nice!

My plans were intertwined – to a degree – with Gary and Marie and we had a busy Saturday morning.  We went to the HardRock for breakfast and then Gary headed to the airport to deliver a son flying out of Vegas and Marie and I headed to Caesars to make sure all three of us had a seat in the blogger tourney.  It was kind of crappy weather in Vegas – but I heard later from my neighbor that it wasn’t nearly as crappy as the weather in Pahrump that I missed out on. WOOT!  I love it when I miss a bad time.

The pictures – you can right click on the ‘big’ image and save it to your hard drive for personal use.  You cannot use the images for any other reason.

This particular tournament was a lot more fun for me, one main reason was that I had already decided to quit trying to remember who was who and what was what, so…if I called you by the wrong name, or I knew I knew your face but didn’t remember your name, deal with it…OK?  And I also planned to just play and not be such a photo bug although you wouldn’t know it from the number of photos on this page.  If I missed taking a picture of you, I wish I hadn’t, next year make sure you tap on the glass so I will get a shot of you, and a few I took the victim subject closed their eyes in the flash – I won’t put those up…I don’t do bad pictures of people and then put them on display. Mostly I took photos when someone at my table tanked and I knew I had plenty of time – or a dealer change came up.  Incidentally, I felt the quality of the dealers on this tourney was excellent, we never had any card flashing – can’t count the chips or the pot – or anyone that jabbered a lot…NICE!

Many were missed at this year’s meet.  We didn’t get to have a one year anniversary celebration because Gracie and Sweet Pablo didn’t show…*sniff*  I missed you!  Where was Grubby?  And Mean Gene?  And Amy Calistri?  And others that should have been there, damn it!

One thing I do not like is the cell phone texting and tweeting at the poker table.  I did jokingly ask a couple of ‘phoners’ when they won a hand with no showdown, if they were going to tweet what they had.  It gets ridiculous at a point when players don’t ante and have to be asked every time and don’t know they even have two hole cards because their face is in their phone screen.

No names are tagged on the pictures – you figure out who you are, please.

I do wish I had my camera up and running in .mpg mode when Otis got knocked out.  It was too funny to even try to describe here but I’ll give it a go.  He had been on the phone screen off and on during the tourney, raised with 7-2 off (true Hammer hand) and showed when he couldn’t call a turn or river bet as he pitched it, and had raised a few times and drug a few pots, but never managed to get a stack going.  He got all-in a few times and usually got beat by someone with less chips than him that was all-in.  The day was wearing long and he was one of the noisy bodies at the MGM  NLH game the night before – and who knows if he had even gotten any sleep?  He was also wearing a big ‘hammer clock’ hanging from a chain around his neck.

The clock was his bounty.  Shortly after the last break he made it to, he came up to the table with the clock in his hand but the chain still around his neck.  The conversation was something like, “No one is going to want this bounty.”  Other voices in the mix and then Otis said,  “I dropped it in the toilet.”

Another player that just came back affirmed that it had indeed hit the john.  Most of us were laughing and Otis sat down to mess with the chain and clock and finally put the clock on the floor (I think, anyway it went under the table). The 5s went busto and we got another player.  It wasn’t long before Otis tangled with him and Otis was all-in.  The 5s had Q-9 suited (I think) and Otis had a Q with a smaller kicker…Otis raised it pre-flop all-in, the 5s called from the SB (if I’m remembering the position correctly but someone can/will always correct me if I’m wrong).  The 5s’ hand won, Otis picked the clock up and laid it by the 5s and stepped away.

Someone, maybe more than one someones, made the comment they weren’t sure they would touch the clock if it was them.  Now is when I needed the camera, as the 5s stacked the pot, Otis stepped back behind him with both hands up and gave him the finger with both hands, doing an extra little push with each hand about four times, that doesn’t even get close to the look in Otis’ eyes – and he did it with a straight face, and perhaps he also bent his knees a bit putting his whole body into the motion of flipping the guy off.  It was too funny for words.  The whole table that could see the action busted up, the 5s never even looked over his shoulder.

Gary, Marie and I had decided we would all share any win made from the tourney.  Gary outlasted us two women but not by much.  I went out first – knocked out by “luckbox” who hadn’t made a blogger event in 4 years and it was great to see him again.  He didn’t have to beat much, I had sat card dead for over an hour and the blinds were at 6k-12K – I was UTG and I pitched my last 3K something into the pot with 10-9 off (hey, it was the best hand I’d seen in forever).  He called me with a weak Ace and it was good.

I went to check on Marie and she was out within a few minutes too.  Gary had very little breathing room in chips but we were going to sit at another table and root him in…we were vested.

This is where the cocktail roast/bitch part comes in.  At the beginning of the tournament a cocktail waitress hit the table right beside mine, I was standing up ready to take pictures and when she was about a foot from me, I pleasantly asked, “Are you taking orders for this table?” I had my knee on my chair so one would assume she’d think I was a player.

Almost snotty like, she replied, “I am going to be taking orders for that table,” as she clipped off each word and then looked at me without moving.  I asked, “Did I say that in a manner that was offensive?”

She didn’t even wince.  “Do you want to place an order?” in a voice like ice.

Fuck trying to get along, let me just order and get it over with.  I asked for a cup of coffee with cream and a Red Bull or Monster (can’t remember their brand of super rush but it was neither of those…Full Throttle maybe) and she spit out the brand they carried and then informed me that I could only have one drink brought at a time.  I said, “OK, coffee.”

She returned 10 minutes later with a glass of Full Throttle.  I was almost laughing, kind of had the humorous twinkle in my voice as she came to me and started to hand me the glass, I said, “I ordered coffee but I’ll take that.”

Then she got into human mode.  She apologized, I said, “No problem.”  On her next trip out she brought the coffee.  Nice!  I tipped her each time.  We got along well after that even though I didn’t order, she brought me a bottle of water later.

The room started another tournament about an hour after the WPBT event and it was down at the end, away from us with 3 or so rows of empty tables between the two tournaments.  As Marie and I were going to railbird Gary, we were standing by him when another cocktail waitress came in, heading for the new tournament area.  Marie asked for a glass of wine.  Holy SHIT!

The waitress responded, “I don’t have time to wait on people that are standing around,” as she snipped on by us.  Guess her job is…what?  Marie said we had just been in this tournament.  She threw out her last blast, “I’m waiting on this tournament,” as she headed off.  Umnhhhh!!!  I just don’t get it.  You are going to bring people drinks – that’s what you do for a living – so why act so pompous and shitty about doing it?

I went to Gary and announced that we were navel lint and Marie needed a glass of wine, which he would of course order.  But at that moment, the first waitress I had came by Marie and she was charmingly willing to bring the wine – and she brought me another bottle of water.

So…Gary busted, we said a few goodbyes and headed out.  I still have no idea who won the tournament – I’ve even checked a few places on the internet that I thought might carry the news…anyone?  See you kids next year.