What Happens In Vegas...
I went with an old friend and PokerStars colleague - we met in London and caught the same flight to Vegas. I managed to lose points at Chinese Poker when we played for practice, but win as soon as we started playing for money. Immigration at Las Vegas was much less painful than at Los Angeles, and we were through the airport and out into the blistering 42 degree heat relatively quickly.
We stayed at Harrahs, which is right across the road from where we stayed last time, at the Mirage. It's a bit of a step down, but it was cheap and right in the middle of the strip. Plus, Harrahs ran a free shuttle to the Rio, which would be handy for my frequent trips there.
Thankfully, the table wasn't entirely populated with overpair folders, but I never quite caught a break. In the first big hand, I was all-in for about $600 against a very loose-aggressive player, holding the 6♦ 7♦ on a 6♠ 8♦ 10♦ board, against his pocket jacks. I missed every out and mucked my hand quietly.
About an hour later, I somehow managed to get all-in for over $1000 on a flop of 10♣ 9♣ 8♦, holding the 10♠ 8♠. My opponent called so quickly that I thought I was losing, but when he triumphantly tabled his A♦ A♥, I had a brief moment of hope. Brief, because the turn and river came K♦ K♥, giving him a bigger two pair and the win. He jumped out of his chair, screamed 'Yes', and then inexplicably claimed 'I thought he might have had a set'. Nice call then, mate.
That wasn't the stupidest thing I heard though. During another session at the Venetian, I managed to get all-in preflop against the least fun player at the table, holding aces against his kings. A king on the turn sealed my fate and as I went to the restroom to calm myself, the old guy said 'I knew he had aces.'. Apparently he had called because he felt kings were running hot (he had caught the case king when all-in with trips against a girl's full house earlier in the night). Losing when all-in preflop with aces isn't fun, but doing it against a mardy old man is even worse.
A typical old man
My friend Stuart wasn't so lucky either. He ran a set into a bigger set on more than one occasion. At the Wynn, a big hand came up in his $1/$3 game. A very masculine-looking woman with a huge nose and extremely long fingers had raised preflop, he flopped a set and she instacalled his all-in bet, her tentacle-like hands exposing an overpair of kings. The turn and river were both kings giving her quads. She apologised with all the sincerity of a drunk politician and left the table before he could win it back.
One of the things I'd been asked to do while in Las Vegas was following the WSOP progress of David Williams, a young professional poker player most famous for his second place finish to Greg Raymer in the 2004 main event. I was to interview him a couple of times, and get his opinion on all things poker. I was looking forward to it - David is round about my age, and I thought we would get on fairly well.
David Williams
The first interview took place at his apartment, high in one of the fashionable new high-rise buildings overlooking the strip, where David was playing Chinese Poker for $500 a point with Michael Mizrachi and Nenad Medic. I was introduced to him and we tried to shake hands - I extended my hand in the traditional fashion, while he held his hand out sideways for a cool, modern handshake, resulting in an embarrassing clash of fingers. I asked him a few questions about his plans for the WSOP, and it didn't take long to realise that he lived in a world very different from my own.
'Pure want to host my birthday party, and invite celebrities and stuff', he was saying. Pure is one of the hottest nightclubs in Vegas (I don't get why - the music is shite and it's full of morons, but hey) and he was brushing it off as if it were nothing unusual. 'I just had the stripper pole installed this morning' he said, pointing to a podium in the corner of his living room where a floor-to-ceiling pole had been, if you pardon the pun, erected. 'Lindsay Lohan invited me to her birthday party' came next. I jokingly tried to pretend I didn't know who Lindsay Lohan was, but it went straight over the head of everyone there.
It didn't take me long to realise that despite our similarities, David and I had nothing in common. I wondered if David found it hard to make friends in the 'real world' - it seemed that everyone he hung around with (Mizrachi, Medic, Evelyn Ng, Noah Boeken etc) was involved in high stakes poker too. I wondered if, after all the novelty of celebrity wore off, he found it hard to keep relationships going with women he met. I thought of the lyrics to 'Change', by mind.in.a.box:
I am the one who has no real friends,
Shallow people flocking to my banner
Always trying to make easy amends
Cherishing my own overbearing manner
Life always fragile
I will never change
Love always fleeting
I will never change
Change by mind.in.a.box
The Rio is a very strange place during the WSOP. On my first visit, I felt like I was seeing something awesome. After all, if you're a poker player, particularly one like me who is used to crappy British cardrooms, walking into a room which has 200 poker tables in it, each with 10 people sat at them, is a startling experience. However, it quickly dawned on me that the WSOP wasn't quite what I expected.
The World Series of Poker isn't a small, informal affair run as a labour of love anymore. It's a huge event, and it's never been so commercial. There are sponsors for everything, from the cards to the drinks to the surveillance cameras. The whole of the Rio Pavilion seems generic and sterile - it doesn't have any of the character of a traditional casino like Binions. What used to be a top restaurant has now become a cheap buffet - pasteurised, inoffensive, classless.
Of course, when an event grows this big you have to make compromises. Surely then, if the atmosphere has suffered, you can at least expect a world class poker game? After all, this is the World Series of Poker.
Well, no. Some of the dealers and floorpeople at the Rio were very inexperienced, and often weren't properly versed in the rules. Consequently, there were dealers arriving at my Razz cash game who didn't know that the high card brought it in. Decisions made by floorpeople would vary depending on who was making the decision and how loud the players at the table shouted.
Cash games and satellites were run from a makeshift list system on a whiteboard at the back of the room, with the brush shouting players names over the PA system and dealers screaming open seats halfway across the room. The whole room was chaotic for every second of every single day, and it was grating. I didn't enjoy spending time at the Rio, except for one cash game session during which a pretty, friendly girl sat directly opposite me.
The first event I played was the $1500 Limit Hold'em. I was drawn on a table with only one person I recognised, CardPlayer columnist Roy Cooke (who plays high stakes Limit Hold'em regularly and has written extensively about the game). I had been reading his articles for several years but chose not to tell him that. Two other players at the table complimented him on his writing, so I knew pretty quickly that they were knowledgeable players also. The table broke pretty quickly and I don't remember much, except Cooke giving me a truly 'if looks could kill' type stare when I three-bet him from the button preflop, holding A-Ks.
Roy Cooke
My next table was poker heaven. To my right were a few fun young players, including (I think) Justin Bonomo, who was short-stacked. A couple of seats to my left was the World's Worst Poker Player™, whose strategy for every single hand was:
1. Limp
2. Call
3. Repeat as needed
I saw people successfully value-bet queen-high on the river against this player. Ironically, he went on a tear and because of his image was able to get paid off on his big hands. At one point, he was chip leader in the entire event. I had a couple of key hands against him - in the first I value bet a flopped middle pair, no kicker all the way to the river, fully expecting to take the pot at the showdown. However, Limpy McCall had flopped top pair (with a deuce kicker!) and smiled happily as he collected my chips.
In the second hand, I three bet the initial raiser preflop with two black kings and he cold-called from the small blind. The flop was 10-9-x with two spades, and I bet and was called by Limpy McCall and the preflop raiser. The turn was a seven of spades, and all of a sudden Limpy turned into Checky McRaise. I decided that a) my hand was quite possibly good and b) I was getting the correct odds to draw to my flush even if it wasn't, so I called. The preflop raiser folded after some thought and the river was a blank. Mr. Flat Call checked, I checked, and he proudly showed 9-7 offsuit for two pair. Rigged.
After that hand, I went pretty card dead, which equals death in a limit tournament. I went hours without being able to flop a pair, and was eventually eliminated holding K-Q suited against my opponent's J-10.
A few days later, we met up with some old acquaintances that we knew from our university poker days, who were rather spookily also called Alex and Stewart. I also met InsidePoker's editor for the first time, who took over covering the World Series after a couple of weeks.
In a moment of genius, somebody suggesting going to a 'Gentleman's Club'. For a brief second I was imagining sitting in a big leather chair and reading the newspaper with a cigar in one hand and a cognac in the other, before I realised they meant a strip club.
We made the conservative decision to go to Spearmint Rhino rather than one of the less well-known names. I'm sure strip club purists would have been appalled, but I didn't want to take the chance of ending up in some dinge hole, being robbed of my wallet and watch by an old, fat dancer. On the plus side, there was a free shuttle service from the hotel and the entry fee was a mere $30...
I have been to strip clubs in Edinburgh before and didn't really enjoy the experience. The clubs are dingy and bad value for money, and you're hassled almost constantly by dancers who aren't as pretty as they should be. Spearmint Rhino was different. The place was clean and comfortable, and the music was really good - the best I'd heard in Las Vegas. Men and Women alike were there enjoying the experience and having fun. Once we'd found a table, waitresses brought drinks to us all night, and some of the women were stunning, even when compared to normal people.
What's more, lap dances in America are much more of a 'full contact' experience. I was somewhat shocked when I was approached by the first dancer of the night, who straddled me, then took my hand and placed it square on her arse - all before saying 'hello'. It didn't take me long to get the hang of things, and before long I was groping like a champ.
After the first girl had removed her hand from my crotch and walked off with my $20, I realised that not only was it the first time I'd had a lap dance from a black woman, it was the first time I'd made physical contact with a black woman. That's living in Scotland for you - it's hardly the most multicultural of places. In fact racism in Scotland is surprisingly and disappointingly rife. Nonetheless, I made a mental note that it would not be the last time.
'Do you know what they say about Asian girls?', said the next dancer, an oriental girl who was too skinny for my tastes. 'No', I mumbled. 'They say our pussies run crossways!' was her reply. I pretended that I didn't know she'd stolen that line from Hannibal Rising, although to be perfectly honest it would have been hard to say something witty and eloquent with her nipple in my mouth.
Later on we had moved to a different part of the club that was much darker and I was having yet another dance after somebody had explained that I was playing the World Series the next day. 'Black girls are lucky', said the dancer, who I hadn't realised was black, it was so dark. I made sure that as much of her 'luck' rubbed off on me as possible, after all I would need it.
Spearmint Rhino
After I had caressed as much pert ass as I could handle and my bell end had been rubbed red raw, we left the club at 7am. Some in the group had made several trips to the ATM and one person spent in excess of $700 on drinks and dances. Being a Yorkshireman with Scottish blood, I had of course spent much less money and got much better value for it than anybody else, although my wallet was definitely lighter than it was earlier that day.
Later that day at 5pm, I sat down for the $1500 Razz event. I was extremely confident going in - Razz is probably my best game, technically. I was happy to be sat at a table which had no big names at it - the most famous player there was Jen Creason (founder of PokerWire and Andy Bloch's fiancée), who wasn't really concentrating and was too passive in any case, and apart from her there was perhaps one other strong player at the table. While in the Limit Hold'em event I was never going to be one of the best players at the table, at this Razz table I was the best by a clear margin.
Also at the table was the winner of InsidePoker's Razz qualifier, who looked like Hoyt Corkins but sounded like Boy George. While he seemed like a pleasant enough fellow, he was quickly identified as the weakest player at the table by pretty much everyone, and I won a fairly large pot off him early on. By the first break I was the table chip leader, with just over 4000 in chips.
However, it was all downhill from there. In a big pot against Creason, we both had almost identical boards on sixth street. On the river, she improved while I didn't, and all of a sudden I was short.
Meanwhile Boy Corkins was accumulating a lot of chips. People were getting involved with him holding all kinds of weak hands, in the hopes that they could outplay him on later streets. However, he kept catching good and they kept paying him off. He dealt me the final blow holding 10-7-2 against my 8-4-2 (with two fours and two deuces gone), all-in on third street. I caught 8-8-8-K giving me a pair as my low hand! A thoroughly frustrating experience.
With all said and done though, although I wasn't successful in either event, I didn't feel outclassed - even in the Limit Hold'em, which is not my strongest game by any means. I certainly feel that if I work on my game over the next year and keep improving, I'll have a good chance to make some noise at the 2008 World Series.
I can't wait to go back.
