stevesbets

I arrived in Las Vegas 3 days ago to play in the main event of the Word Series of Poker. The first thing I noticed upon arrival was the massive advertising presence that pokerstars has this year compared to past years. They had banners all over the airport, the palms (where they put up players this year) practically looked like “pokerstars casino” due to all the signage and every employee donning a shirt with the pokerstars logo. Also their hospitality suite was in a far more central location (two years ago it was in a random room in a random tower of Treasure Island) than usual. They upgraded supernovas to palms place which I have to commend, my room is spectacular.

I played  in day 1a and managed to make it through the day with about 3x starting stack. I have an absurd 5 day wait till day 2 which is July 8th on my 25th birthday. On day 1 play was almost ludicrously bad and I hope that continues. Some highlights included two people getting all in on a k52 flop in a 1500 chip pot at 100 200 blinds for 30k (about avg) stacks each with KJ and K6. After K6 lost he sat there befuddled, shaking his head saying over and over,”I just knew he had a higher kicker”. An older gentleman who was at my table for the last 60% of the day managed tobuild a 100k stack wiht one move only, shoving all in with the nuts no matter how big the pot is, what position he’s in, or what street the hand is on. He shoved 20k into a 1k chip pot on the turn out of position on a board of T J Q K rainbow. He shoved 30k into a 5k pot on a kj28 board with 2 hearts and somehow got called by kqhh (he had 22 and held), and he hit the nut flush vs top set and managed to win a massive pot that way too. What a player. My tables were all pretty full of players like this except for a breif stint at a table with 5 players that I have played over 500 high stakes sngs on stars with apiece. I think as a general rule the older the avg age of a wsop table the weaker it is. I spoke with some other regular online players and we all think play is worse in the wsop main event than in an avg 10 dollar online tournament which is pretty remarkable.

Aside from just the play, the WSOP has become quite a dog and pony show in its own right. Before starting play, wayne newton took the stage in the center of the amazon room and hummed along to the tune of viva las vegas before saying shuffle up and deal. There are camera, celebrities and throngs of spectaters bascially in every square inch of the room, it’s a pretty cool sight.

Since I have had a few days off in between days of the tournament I have spent time wiht friends and done various vegas activities. Tongiht I went on a helicopter ride over the strip which was pretty cool. Cab drivers are all such characters in Vegas. So far I had a very overly happy woman that reminded me of that woman Mabyl something from last years wsop telecast. Next I had a woman who went on about having a blackbelt in karate and how she constantly had to chase hookers into casinos late at night who tried to jump out of the cab and skip out on the bill. She said everyone in the casinos knows her as the crazy lady that chases hookers. Finally, a disgruntled middle aged man who randomly told us that cab drivers get an ABSURD 50$ a head for every person they deliver to strip clubs. This makes the strip clubs the only reason most cab drivers in vegas even do what they do. I have a few more things to write about but I’ll save them for later. Watch for updates about me on pokernews.com during Day 1b on July 8, and send me birthday presents!