Tecmo vs The World

This year I booked a 2 week trip to Vegas. The first week was for poker & meeting/hanging out w/ poker peeps, and the second for hanging out with my girlfriend whilst eating tons of amazing food. Seems like a great plan to me! I flew out on Monday, June 27th and was particularly excited to finally use my sweet new headphones. I purchased a pair of Sennheiser PXC 450 NoiseGard Active Noise-Canceling Headphones on Black Friday (the Thanksgiving one) for ~$250 (they are normally $450) with the intention of using them at the poker tables and on airplanes. They have a fantastic “Talk-Through” button that allows for two options, noise-cancelled bliss with your music on or silenced music and amplified exterior sound. This means you can easily press the Talk-Through button and hear what is going on around you without removing the headphones. This is VERY useful at the poker table, not to mention on the plane when the pilot is making announcements.

In addition, I had received a year end bonus gift of an iPad from my part-time employer. In preparation for said flight, I rented the movie American Gangster on iTunes and downloaded it to my iPad. I don’t enjoy flying very much at all, but I was determined to make the experience as good as it could be! Armed with my noise-cancelling headphones, iPad, and movie, I was prepared to eat peanuts in style. It turned out to be one of the best decisions ever. I rented the extended version so as to take up as much of the 4.5 hour flight as possible, and the movie ran about 3 hours long. Not only was it a great movie, but it was 3 hours of bliss on a plane! Soooooo worth it. The guy next to me was watching something on his tiny iPod using his earphones and I’m right next to him watching a full-length movie on a giant screen w/ badass headphones haha. The flight actually ended up taking 30 mins less than estimated originally so that was a nice bonus too.

I landed and checked in at The Gold Coast. TGC is not the greatest hotel, but it’s cheap and right across the street from the Rio so it’s all good. If you’re looking to save some $ while still being near the WSOP, I definitely recommend it. Excited to play the WSOP Triple Draw event the next day, I unpacked, watched some TV, went over to the Rio briefly to check things out, and then went straight to bed to get some rest.

For a detailed report on the following two days of my WSOP event, check out the two posts below.

http://tecmopoker.com/2011/07/10/2011-wsop-triple-draw-day-1/

http://tecmopoker.com/2011/07/15/2011-wsop-triple-draw-day-2/

After playing the WSOP event, I had a busy day planned for Thursday, June 30th. The Deuces Cracked guys were having a trampoline dodgeball game for the Founders & Coaches, and they were gracious enough to invite me along as well. If you’re like me, you’re saying “umm, trampoline dodgeball? what?” But whatever, I knew we’d have a great time so I wasn’t going to miss it. Unfortunately it was at this place called Skyzone, which isn’t too far from the strip, but that necessitates a cab ride. If you don’t know anything about Vegas cabs, they pretty much attempt to longhaul you (take unnecessarily long routes to increase the fare, which contrary to its name, is far from fair) at every opportunity, so I knew it would be an expensive trip. Luckily, Matt Flynn, a buddy of mine who has written a couple of fantastic poker books (Professional No-Limit Hold ‘em: Volume I & Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em), was also invited so we split a cab. The driver inevitably longhauled us a bit, but we finally made it there. As a point of reference, SkyZone is 10 miles from the Rio, which is where we departed. The cab fare ended up being $60. Yea, ridiculous.

But I digress. We walk in to Skyzone and are greeted by Chuck aka Danzasmack, Jay aka KRANTZ, and Rob aka Entity. Knowing that Bryce aka NixonTheGrouch was going to be rooming w/ me for a short time in Vegas, Chuck, who had yet to meet Matt Flynn, assumed Matt was Bryce. Everyone then laughed at Chuck and informed him of his mistake. Granted, it was a totally logical assumption on his part, but we weren’t about to pass up the chance to laugh at him. Both Matt & Bryce agreed the other got the worst of that miscommunication, but I think Matt clearly took the ignorant end of that draw. We then looked around and realized we were surrounded by children….and arcade games….and possibly even a ball pit. Suddenly we became aware that this was not necessarily an adult activity. Undeterred, we waited for everyone else to show up. All told, we had ~25 people show up to play and DC reserved our own dodgeball section, meaning we could act as immaturely as we liked, while at the same time not being afraid of pegging some 10 year old in the head and subsequently feeling the wrath of tens of soccer moms. What ensued was an amazingly exhausting yet incredibly fun hour of nostalgic dodgeball with an added trampoline twist. See below for 3 epic videos (starring yours truly in the first) from that hour.

 

 

 

 
After an amazing time (thanks to DC!), I hitched a ride with John aka KasinoKrime back to my hotel, along w/ Matt Flynn and Janis aka shuttle. My buddy Bryce and his friend Rachel were flying in that night to stay w/ me for a few days so I showered and got some dinner at The Gold Coast buffet. (I’ll be making a future post dedicated to reviewing the food in Vegas so I’ll save my opinions + pictures for that one.) Bryce & Rachel arrived while I was eating so I finished up quickly thereafter.

That night was the DC Home Game (annual event where DC employees and members all get together and play poker for fun) at the Aria and we started to make our way over there. Instead of cabbing it, we decided to take the free shuttle to the strip and walk the rest of the way. While cheaper, that turned out to not be the best decision. We ended up taking a Homeward Bound-type journey around the back of the Aria, at one point traversing on roads without sidewalks & dodging cars via the median, but nevertheless we eventually found a door that lead to the actual casino. (Vegas Tip – If you don’t know how to get somewhere, it might be worth it just to pay the extortive cab fare.) Once inside, we stumbled our way into the tournament poker area and finally found the rest of the DC dudes.

I greeted many people, including Aaron Wilt aka WiltonTilt, Jared Kenworthy aka jk3a, & Aaron Gerdes, whom I met at the dodgeball game. Jared had quite a bit to drink and was a wee bit drunk (understatement) He introduced me to his buddy, the Doctor, who seemed like a cool dude. Then about 5 minutes later, Jared introduced me to the Doctor again. Then about 5 minutes later, again. And again. Did I say a wee bit drunk?
 

 
They passed out some free The Micros shirts at the Home Game and I snagged a sweet yellow one, along with a new DC shirt.
 

 
We ended up playing a mix of Badugi, 2-7 Triple Draw, Razz, Omaha 8, and Crazy Pineapple which was a lot of fun (except for Razz obviously). I met Danielle Andersen aka dmoongirl, who is one of the main characters of the upcoming poker documentary BOOM, along with Lana, the marketing director for poker training site CardRunners. Both were super nice and super bad at these particular games haha. I ran into both of them multiple times throughout my trip and they seemed very cool. (I’m sure once you get to know them, their TRUE personalities come out though ) Hope to see them again next year!

Here is the trailer for Boom if you haven’t seen it yet:
 

 
So yea, we played that mix for several hours and I finished down a bit. Luckily, DC coach TerryFan was playing PLO at the table next to us and I booked some of his action. He won a good amount too! Unluckily, I only booked 1%, which resulted in me looking over every so often and seeing him raking in a pot, then I’d walk over and he’d toss me a $1 chip

All in all, it was a great time and I’ll wrap up part 1 of this trip report with a video from the Home Game.