Carrera

pics of clonie required

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Attempting to blog at Carrera's Felt Poker blog (updated 16-5)

bigloser2448

yeah, nakie ones if possible. I'm just sayin.

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Check out Bigloser's Blog: The Genesis of a Micro-Grinder...

http://www.feltpoker.com/blogs/bigloser (updated 5/25/08 )

johnny

Day 1 of 3

I woke up on day one with my regular early morning scream of horror then went back to sleep for two hours. Yay early afternoon flights! All the commuting for the entire trip went really smooth and fast. It was a direct flight to Vegas and the crowd at the gate were a mix of couples and lone guys obviously going out for the WSOP. The guys were paired off or in small groups and were taking their turns listening to strangers bad beat stories so that they could in turn tell their own. None of them looked very intimidating. Where I was sitting I had a choice of looking at a woman with gorilla legs.. I mean I understand shaving your legs is a pain in the ass but if you're going to wear shorts on a trip wtf. These legs looked like Gabe Kaplan's chin. Or I could look at a guy in a nerdy checkered shirt sitting there with his boney knees way too high with a Cinnabon placed upon them, eating it with a fork and knife with his spindly elbows flying everywhere and looking around while chewing in a slightly insane way. Yeah, you didn't win your seat online. Or I could watch two older jew guys talk "And then the river was a ten! Oye!" I chose the darkness.

Within a half hour of landing I'm checked in at the Rio. I relax in the room for a minute and then head into the convention center area where the WSOP is. I see the promotional booth for the energy drink that is sponsoring the invitational freeroll tournament that I'm in and there is a sign there that says "Tournament Sold Out." Hmmmm. I walk into the Brasilia room where I'll be playing tomorrow and see Johnny Chan a couple feet in front of me. To my left is Clonie Gowen and behind her is Phil Hellmuth. They are playing in the $10k Omaha championship. I watch for a while.

This is a picture of 1/3 of the Brasilia room, which is smaller than the Amazon room. The player in the black t shirt is Johnny Chan.



I had a difficult time photographing the rest of the room. I couldn't figure out why the camera wouldn't focus. This was the scene turning to my left. Clonie gown is sitting at the first table and over her shoulder is Phil Helmuth.



A man in a suit with a energy drink logo stands next to me and Johnny Chan turns around holding up his chips and says "Look, I got like $100,000 now!" It's good to see the long time pros get exicited about something like that. I introduce myself to the suit and ask if they were selling additional seats to the freeroll. He says Yes, but sorry they are all sold out now. I say "Oh, I'm in it already." and he says "Oh, that $100,000 will look mighty good in your pocket!" in an overenthusiastic way and I realize the tournament isn't going to be what I thought.

I check things out for a while and find out where the side cash games are. I passed the poker room of the Rio earlier and it was tiny with $1/3 and $2/5 NLHE running and that couldn't have been it. I find out that they use the Amazon Room, the main convention room, for the cash games just filling up tables that aren't being used for the tournaments. The minumum game is $2/$5 NLHE with a minumum $200 buy in. The games got large. The $25/$25 NLHE min buyin $2500 seemed to be popular. Also, the PLO had a minumum buy in of $5k. There were smaller O8 games. There were limit hold em tables for $10/$20, $30/$60, $100/$200 and higher I'm sure.

I watched a little cash poker. The games didn't look exceptionally tough, which surprised me. I didn't sit to play yet because I had to eat dinner and then I wanted to relax a little before walking over to the Palms for the VIP party for the tournament players.

Walking back into the casino area I passed Joe Hachem who was looking kind of serious and keeping his head down so I didn't bother him. A little further down was Chris Ferguson who I got to shake hands with and talk to for a couple minutes and he was really, really receptive to fans chatting and seemed to be a genuinely nice guy.

I ate dinner at theAmerican Grill which is supposed to be known for their dry-aged steaks. I got the bone in ribeye and it was ok, not earth shattering, wouldn't get it again because it wasn't worth $35. Then I went back up to my room to change and relax before trying to walk to the party.

Here is a picture from my hotel room showing the walk to the Palms. Not too far, but the temperature was over 110 degrees.



The party was poolside. It was far too dark to get any good pictures. In this picture there is a stack of chips rising out of the pool with a mostly naked girl dancing on them, but you probably can't see it.



I met feltie SPAM at the entrance to the party and they let him come in too. It was a lot of fun meeting SPAM. We had a drink and talked poker and stuff and checked out the party. Gavin Smith walked by and headed for a staircase. A security guy let him by and then I noticed that there was a VIP area above us where the pros probably were.

The next day I talked to people at the tournament who were pissed because they were told they would have access to the VIP area and they did not. One of the guys said that he was going to complain to Absolute Poker and I asked why them and he said that he won his tournament entry on their site... so that's another way that more people were than was represented to me when I chose to make the trip.

SPAM and I talked for quite a while and before we left we met Layne Flack who was also really nice. I congratulated him on his bracelet. Clonie Gowen, as well, was super friendly. I was standing next to Gavin Smith for a while but didn't bother him because was kinda drunkie and it just didn't seem like it was the right move at that time.

SPAM gave me a ride back to the Rio and I went to bed to rest up for the tournament because registration started at 9AM and they said to be there earlier than that.

__________________
Blog Updated 6/21, Oooops, I'm goin to Vegas in a few days.
11:09:32 PM Randy: limit poker is easy
11:19:03 PM Randy: ok, i suck at teh limit

Mirage: FU PKOER
Mirage: F
Mirage: U
Mirage: FUFUFU
Mirage: up a $1.45 still YES

Snickers99

Nice...can't wait for more!

__________________
"I'm disappointed in you, Scotty" -- Michael DeMichele at the 2008 WSOP HORSE Final Table
Check out My Blog, updated 8/24/08

Mirage

Nice, day 2 please!

Randy

Great report so far, waiting for more.

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Ugignadl

Sweet report, cheers Johnny.

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I have been blogging. Last updated April 29th. http://www.feltpoker.com/blogs/ugignadl/

johnny

Day Two A (Tournament, Cash games to follow in Day Two B).

I woke up to the sound of my cell phone ringing and answered it slightly annoyed that it would be going off before the alarm even went off at 8AM. It was my girlfriend Spammy making sure I was awake and it was 8:45... 2nd trip in a row the alarm clock didn't work! Oh well, registration lasts 2 hours from 9AM so I take my time showering, but I do pass up the Starbucks on the way to the registration figuring I'll get a coffee after I'm taken care of.

As I came to the Brasilia room I saw a line snaking out the door. Oh well, this is what I get for being late. They did say to get their early. I follow the line down the hall and see it turning down another hall. Uh oh. It's not like these are short hallways, they are convention center sized hallways. I turn the corner and the line continues and I eventually see it turn another corner. Fuck.

I get to the end and there must have been 1000 people in this line. And I'm almost and hour late... add these two together and there is no way that the sum = a quick line. But... ahhhh... I discover another variable as I'm talking to people around the line: They tournament folks are later than I am and they are starting the registration process at 10AM.

As the line progresses we move by the Cardrunners booth and Lee Jones is there. I want to hop out of line and ask to take a picture with him for obvious doom-switch posting humor on the board here but he was on his cell phone so I left him alone. We pass the energy drink booth and there is a pad of paper there with a little sign that says "Alternates" What? Alternates for an invite-only tournament? Yes! The guy next to me in line pops over there to ask what's up with the list. The guy says that you can put your name down and if you're called as an alt the entry fee is $1000. Even so they have names down.

This inspires some conversation in our segment of the line and I express that it kind of sucks for our value that they are letting in more people when we earned our invitations they listed the breakdown of the 1500 possible invites and even had deadlines. Then I found out I was the only one in our group who didn't just buy in right there the previous morning, some for as little as $99, some for up to $400, but most paid $200. They were later selling seats for up to $500. Greeaaaattttt.

They asked if I was playing in the Main Event since I had said that I just got to town. I said no. They said "You didn't come here just for this, did you?" I replied that according to the rules I read this tournament had tons of value. They laughed. I turned my back and remained quiet, brooding in a sea of pissed-offedness.

Once it started moving the line went fast. You give them your name, they check it off, and then you pick a seat card out of a box. Except for me.

"Your name?"

And I give it. He looks down the list. He looks down a second list. He looks again.

"Do you have a receipt?"

Fuck.

"Well, I have the emails you sent printed out back in my hotel room."

"Fine, wats ur name?"

I give him my name again and he writes it in pen at the bottom of the list.

"Take a seat."

Whew. I looked over the registration list the second time as he did and I definitely was not on it. wtf? Man, that could have gotten ugly. Even though I was allowed to take a seat I was worried about technicalities should I cash.

I went to get a coffee before the thing started and I see the line still snaking around the bend. Huh? There were 1500 max invitations how could the line be that long? I follow it and it's just as long as when I got there. That would mean there are at least 2000 people in this thing, probably more.

While walking up the remaining line I saw Brian Townsend and Cole South near the Cardrunners booth so I walked up and said hello. These two play the highest stakes on Full Tilt and have made millions playing cash poker. They are also rather young, so you might expect that they would have a bit of an attitude but there was no hint of that at all. They were just two cool guys hanging out and happy to talk to people. Notice the glowing orbs of pure poker skill hovering around them in the photo.



I pick up a combined Starbucks coffee/energy drink in the WSOP store. They had bottles of water set out for everyone at the tables already so I didn't buy one. It's obviously going to be a while before all these people are sat so I drink my coffee out in the hall and relax a bit.

The line is getting down so I go in to sit down and there is someone in my seat. Oh. I walk up and say excuse me and he ignores me, he's filling out his release form which we were all supposed to fill out before coming, but then again he might not have even known he was playing until this morning. The dealer tells me to let him be and sit somewhere else until he's finished. Fine. He gets up with his buddy who was sitting in the next seat and they go to leave and he picks up my water bottle. Oh hell no... this was my internal tipping point. I say "That's my water." He says something in Russian, I think, like he doesn't understand. So I grab the water and yank it away from him and he says "Oh." Yeah, oh. Silly thing but it was a build up of slightly irritating things and I would have gone to the mattresses over that fucking bottle of water.

While waiting for the start our side of the table chats a bit. The guy sitting two seats to my left got in as being an alternate and he was like #17. I think they just let anyone who put their name on the list sit in the tournament. I mean, he's sitting as an alternate and the tournament isn't even all sat yet let alone started.

"You paid $1k to get in this?" I said.

"What?" he replied, "If that's the case then I'm walking."

"Well how much did they tell you it cost?"

"They didn't say anything. I told the guy that I hadn't paid when I picked my seat and he said that at least I was honest."

Brilliant. Man, I'm a total fucking idiot, gullible, naive, fool for traveling for this tournament.

To top it off we look at the tournament software screen and see that the blinds would be 30 minutes, with 25/50 starting blinds, and we get $2500 in chips. Now, I didn't know the structure before accepting the invitation and making my reservations, which you might agree is really fucking stupid. However, this is my defense:

I received the invitation in my email and had just a few days to reply. Timing was very short overall so I decided that a reply email to try and find out the structure first wasn't feasible. I decided to make a decision based on the facts I could find out myself and get right on securing airfare and hotel reservations before the prices started getting more expensive:

There are 1500 invitations.

The invitations are sent out really late and the tournament is on a workday, therefore there is a good chance of a small field.

The quality of the players on average is probably not going to be that strong.

Minimum $500,000 prize pool.

There is $30,000 added in bounties.

It's actually listed in the official tournament lineup on worldseriesofpoker.com so the structure has a shot at being good.

I went on their website and saw the breakdown of the 1500 invitations and it seemed good. 1200 through buying the drink I think? Then smaller groups based on different sweepstakes or contests. This information is no longer there to look up.

All in all I thought it added up to being a good value for the $800 in airfare and hotel that it would cost me.

Cont....

__________________
Blog Updated 6/21, Oooops, I'm goin to Vegas in a few days.
11:09:32 PM Randy: limit poker is easy
11:19:03 PM Randy: ok, i suck at teh limit

Mirage: FU PKOER
Mirage: F
Mirage: U
Mirage: FUFUFU
Mirage: up a $1.45 still YES

johnny

The pros started arriving just before the start. There were 4 names from the list in my original post. I think it's possible that a lot more were supposed to show up but didn't because a few days before this I was playing HORSE on Full Tilt with Phil Gordon and I asked him if he would be at the tournamant and he said that he would but he wasn't there. Chris Moneymaker was there and he was looking slim.

Johnny Chan was there, of course, it being his thing. I saw Cyndy Violette too. Phil Laak and Jennifer Tilly both came in and it was fun watching them try to find their seats. Don't they do this all the time? Jerry Yang was playing two tables away. Amarillo Slim told a story on the microphone then Johnny Chan said "Shuffle up and deal" A minute later he was walking around and taking pictures with people and I thought "Shouldn't he be playing?" It was funny watching him take pictures. Someone would come up and pose and he's pull a paddle with his energy drink logo on it from his back pocket and hold it up in front of them for the pic.

The accouncer said that there were 15 (I think, could have been less, wasn't more) bounties but more could be added later. Really? But with the tournament structure who is gunna be left? What are you going to do, have someone sit with 2500 chips and 500 blinds and put a bounty on him with 30% of the field remaining? Really? You can't even put in the full value of the bounties?

Our table doesn't have any bounties or pros. It does have a lot of people who watched poker on TV and figure that from hand one they should wait until it's their turn then take a deep breath, look at their cards, and ponderously consider what to do before limping. It's evident that it will be about an orbit and a half per round. People were folding T high on the river and showing their laydowns.

My cards are worthless for the first three orbits and in the 4th I get AQs. The blinds are 75/150 or 100/200. In the first few rounds the average PFR at this table was 10x the BB. heh. I raise it 4x and all fold except the BB who pushes 300 or 400 more and I call, not that her stack size was relevant considering the raping the tourney structure was inflicting on my stack. She has AA. I'm down to about 700 in chips already. Just after the hand the guy puts racks on the table... that was the last hand they are breaking up our table. Really? Really? I look around and there are lots of empty tables.

I sit at my new table with my shortstack. On the table to the left Shannon Elizabeth is playing. At another neighboring table is Amarillo Slim. I hope to fing a good spot to get my money in. Sitting to my right is a chinese guy with a big stack. We're in MP and he pushes his stack. One guy calls with KK and gets doubled up. The chinese guy, actually we'll call him "shithead" had Q7.

Next hand Shithead pushes again and I notice he's pushing blind. He gets called, he doubles up villain. I hope he lasts until we get to the blinds. If I call his push with my small stack in EP someone else is going to call with a stronger hand and I'll be toast. But if I can catch a hand I'll triple up.

He pushes again and wins with something like 48o. The other villain is pissed. Shithead says "Hey, maybe $400 is a lot of money to you but it's nothing to me. I don't care." I guess Shithead must have paid $400 to get in.

A few more pushes and he's gone. I'm in seat four. I look to the person across the table from me in seat one and say "Did he do that the whole tournament." Seat one was a stripper... they just kinda let a bunch of strippers play. She rolled her eyes and pointed at the people sitting to my left and said "Have a conversation with them."

Fuck you, you fucking bitch. Fuck you in your ass, you stripper whore. Fuck you and everyone you know. "Have a conversation with them." Hey bitch, I'm sorry I don't have a $20 bill to shove at your snatch at the moment, you fucking skank. Fuck you, you sucking sacaputa. I hope you fuck Gus Hansen and add one more STD to your arsenal. I dare say one thing in your direction, eh Princess Puff-It-Up? Fuck you. Seriously. Fuck you.

I then triple up when I push QTo and hit a straight but I'm still under 10bbs as the blinds are so high. It folds to me on the Button and I push J9s and the SB calls with K2 and wins and I'm out.

I walk out and go to cool off. I decide that I really took the spirit of the tournament the wrong way, as it was simply to promote the energy drink. That was their goal, and yes it did sound different from the web promotion but what did I really expect? I took it too serious. Live and learn.

I saw Johnny outside and said hello and talked to him for a minute. He was very exicted that they had over 2300 people in the tournament, and was obv excited about his new energy drink enterprise. He told me that he pushed 64 blind on the first hand and loved it as people called salivating for his bounty. That's why he was out walking around so fast. I decided pretty quick not to be pissed and to try to make the most out of the rest of my trip. We took a picture together:



I decided to go have lunch and rest in my room so I wouldn't risk hitting the cash tables with tilt.

__________________
Blog Updated 6/21, Oooops, I'm goin to Vegas in a few days.
11:09:32 PM Randy: limit poker is easy
11:19:03 PM Randy: ok, i suck at teh limit

Mirage: FU PKOER
Mirage: F
Mirage: U
Mirage: FUFUFU
Mirage: up a $1.45 still YES

Mirage

Oh man, what a bunch of shit johnny. ugh. I feel for ya.

Looking forward to the cash games report!