2012 WPBT Winter Classic Report – Eat, Walk, Play

Another WPBT Winter Classic is in the history books, and my wife and I were fortunate enough to be there. The three activities we engaged in the most on the trip are in the title of this post, with “Play” perhaps being the least of the three. Below is my report on this year’s shenanigans.

First, an observation: hardly anyone who attended this year’s gathering seems to have an active poker blog any more. So, a lot of the links you see below for named people will be for their Twitter handles, since that now seems to be the more common method of communication among this group. Maybe we should start calling it the WPTT (World Poker Tweeter Tour)?

 

Thursday Nov. 29

This evening was taken up by dinner and the screening of the Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2 movie event with our friends Ron and Barb Moore. Ron was the visual effects supervisor for TNG as well as many other TV shows and films. We met Ron and Barb on a couple of Cruise Treks and have been friends with them since. We had a great time catching up with them and watching the TNG episodes and bonus features at the screening. Side note: Ron has just written a book about his career in visual effects, titled “Flying Starships”; you can get more info about it at his website.

 

Friday Nov. 30

 

The big event Friday morning was the hike on Oak Creek Loop trail in Red Rock Canyon just outside Las Vegas. Dan (aka PokerPeaker) suggested it, expecting two or three people to show interest. 15 of us showed up, and everyone enjoyed the easy and scenic hike. A group photo by Astin can be found here; I took some photos too, which you can see here.

 

Friday afternoon and evening was mixed games time at the Aria poker room. I played for a while and finished up a few dollars. These sessions are more about having fun playing with fellow bloggers, but walking away with a few extra bucks does sweeten the deal.

 

Saturday Dec. 1

 

Pat and I started our day with breakfast at the Hash House a Go-Go at The Quad (formerly Imperial Palace). The “twisted farm food” at the Hash House is excellent and highly recommended. We then walked through Bellagio to look at their Christmas decorations on our way to Aria for the WPBT tournament. Bellagio always puts up a fabulous holiday display in their Conservatory.

 

Things started out slowly for me in the tourney. I took a few pots to keep my stack from shrinking too quickly, but didn’t chip up as much as I would have liked. I made a couple of ill-advised plays that cost me some chips, but managed to stay in contention through the first two breaks. Near the end of the second break (or was it the third?), I was talking to Dan, who was seated to my left and had a very healthy chip stack. I mentioned that my stack was getting short and I was nearing the danger zone. He said a double-up would put me back into the thick of things. First hand of the next round, I picked up AQ and went all in. Dan insta-called with KK. I spiked an Ace on the flop and got that double-up. Those chips allowed me to steal a few pots to keep pace with the table and eventually stick around for the final table. I had never gone that deep in previous WPBT tourneys and was thrilled with making it that far. Plus, my last-longer partner Alan (aka metsfan) was still in the game and at my table, so I knew we had a good shot at winning that prize. My run would not last much longer, though, due to a cooler hand of KK vs. The WookieWay’s AA. He had me covered by about 800 chips, and I was out in 9^th place out of 58 runners. I didn’t cash, but I’m very pleased with the deep run. I found out after the tourney ended, with CJ (aka the Luckbox) taking it down, that Alan and I tied with Dan and Michael (aka Grange95) for the last longer. My share of the last longer pool almost covered my buy-in to the tournament, so that worked out quite nicely.

 

When I tracked down VinNay to get my last longer winnings, I found him at the Monte Carlo Café with Alan and his fiancée Kat, plus my old pal Wil Wheaton, Shane Nickerson, Ryan (aka absinthetics), Chilly and another gent whose name I failed to get. They ate their dinner while Pat and I chatted with them, after which VinNay suggested that we have our own mini slot tournament: each player would choose a $0.25 machine and deposit $20. At the sound of the virtual bell, the contestants would play for 5 minutes, and player with the highest remaining total would take all the winnings of all players for the tournament. I joined in, expecting it to be a chop of zero money left for all of us. But, several of us hit a few winners during the 5 minutes, with Vinnie coming out on top. His haul was something like $180+; not bad for five minutes of slot play.

 

Sunday Dec. 2

 

Pat and I decided to go for the Caesars buffet pass, which gets you into any buffet at the Caesars properties, as often as you like, in a 24 hour period. Because, you know, we hadn't eaten enough already on the trip. We started by having brunch at the Flamingo buffet, and then drove away from the Strip which was being closed for the Rock and Roll Marathon to be run that afternoon and evening. We visited one of the outlet malls, plus Green Valley Ranch Casino, and the Ethel M Chocolate Factory and their Cactus Garden which was fully decorated with holiday lights (photos here). The traffic around the Strip was monstrous when we got back, which complicated matters a bit but didn’t prevent us from getting to the Spice Market Buffet at Planet Hollywood to use our buffet pass for dinner. Gotta get our money's worth.

 

Before I went to bed, I played in the Sunday night $3/$6 mixed game at The Quad (I still want to call it the IP). They were spreading some really weird games, only two of which I ended up playing. The first was Stud Eight, but the twist was that each player got four cards to start, all face down, and then each player would look at his cards and discard one. Then a designated player would turn up one card, and the player to the left would turn one up, etc. Play then continued as in regular Stud 8. I won over $40 in a few minutes playing this game, getting some good hands that got paid off. I gave it all back in the next game, though: 3-2-1 Omaha Eight. What the hell is that, you may ask? It starts like regular Omaha High-Low, but three flops are dealt, plus two turn cards and one river card. I’m not the best Omaha player but I have a decent idea of how to play it. This version, though, confused the crap out of me. After I lost my earlier winnings, I decided it was time to call it a day. I’m sure the regulars who were in this game wanted me to stick around so they could try to get more of my chips, but I didn’t feel like giving them that chance.

 

Monday Dec. 3

 

We used our buffet pass to stuff ourselves one last time with breakfast at Harrah’s, then headed for the airport for the flight to L.A. to visit Pat’s dad. We spent the week with him and came home Friday.

If I have any regrets from this trip, the first would be not having spent more time with some of my blogger friends, and not getting to spend any time with those who couldn’t be there this year. The second would be not taking more photos, especially at the tournament or mixed games. But overall I had a great time and look forward to doing it again next year. Many thanks for April for organizing the poker stuff, VinNay for handling the last longer, Dan for suggesting and leading the hike, and the Aria poker room staff for everything they did to make us WPBT folks feel welcome.

 

Happy Holidays to all, and see you next time!

2012 WPBT Winter Classic, and other updates

You heard right - it's time for another World Poker Blogger Tour Winter Classic gathering in Las Vegas, the weekend of November 29 through December 3. Check April's blog for more details, and RSVP if you haven't already at the Facebook event page. It is bound to be a fun time, so don't miss it.

I will be attending again, and staying at the Imperial Palace. Yes, it's not the classiest property in town, but the location and prices cannot be beat. My wife will be coming with me too, and we plan to do some non-pokery stuff while we are there. One of those things may be a tour of the Neon Museum, who have recently opened their new visitor's center. If we do that, it will most likely be Saturday morning. We are also going to meet some friends Thursday evening at the Orleans and go to the movie screening promoting the Blu-Ray release of the second season of Star Trek - The Next Generation. Beyond that, some other activities might include a trip out to Red Rock Canyon on Friday morning for an easy hike with some blogger friends, a visit to the Ethel M chocolate factory, hitting one or more of the outlet malls, and who knows what else. Anyone who wants to join us for any of these adventures, let me know.

In other news, I recently took an early retirement package from my job, and as of October 31 I am officially retired. I have taken advantage of my newfound free time to ride the players' bus up to Winstar Casino one day last week to play some poker. After losing a big chunk of my buy-in early, I came back and finished ahead by about 22 big blinds after roughly three hours of play. I probably could have done even better if I hadn't played as loosely as I did the first half of the session. I plan to go back up there on a semi-regular basis, depending on whatever else is going on.

I will do my best to post updates here, from the WPBT trip and from my future poker sessions.

Not dead yet....

Six months is a long time to go between posts, I will agree. If only I had six month's worth of intriguing news to report. Still, just to prove that there is life remaining in this blog, I thought I would post an entry.

Yes, I have played a little poker since December. I've played for a few pennies on line at Bovada, but all I have left on that site is a few pennies, and I haven't logged on there in a while. I have put in a couple of live sessions up in Oklahoma, at the Winstar Casino just over the TX border and the Riverwind Casino in Norman, and both sessions were profitable. At the Winstar a few weeks ago, I left with about $12 more than I bought in with. This past weekend, my wife and I went up to Norman to visit our son who is at OU for summer classes. I nearly doubled my buy-in there after about a two hour session. Feels good to walk away ahead.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think of these results as signs that I am turning into a "good" player. I think most of my basic instincts are on track, but every time I sit down at the table, I realize how much I *don't* know about how to play poker well. I really need to play more ring games to get more experience under my belt. My profits in these sessions have mostly come from winning a few big pots when I caught cards and they held up. I know that I play too tight/weak a lot of the time, and probably concede some pots that I should go after. However, there was one hand at Riverwind where I decided to take a chance, and I am embarassed to say that I don't have a good feel for whether my decision was a smart one (not taking into account the result).

$1/$2 NLHE; my stack was about $250. I was in late position and started with AdJh. Preflop raises were not chasing a lot of people out of the pots at this table, so I decided to limp in behind a few others and see if I could hit something before committing much money to the pot. The player to my left also limped in, and the flop came cheap.

Flop: A J T rainbow

It was checked to me and I bet roughly the size of the pot with top two pair but a drawing board. The player on my left went all in for about $110 more. I thought about it for quite a while. My opponent said, "If you have KQ you have me beat, otherwise..." This player didn't strike me as very sneaky or deceptive, so my first reaction was to think that he did not have KQ himself. I did consider the possibility that he was trying reverse psychology on me if he did have that. I then considered that he might have a set of tens and was trying to push me off a draw. In the end, I had the gut feeling that he really didn't want me to call, and therefore might have a hand that I could beat like A-rag, so I called him. He turned over AsJc, the turn and river didn't change anything, and we chopped the pot.

I didn't feel particularly comfortable with that decision. What I want to develop is the ability to analyze these types of situations more clearly so those decisions will come a bit more easily. I can go back and re-read the poker books that I have, but I know that it requires actual experience more than anything else to improve my skills.

In on-line poker news, AlCan'tHang has joined forces with up-and-comer Face Up Gaming to start up a new blogger tournament series. They held an ice-breaker tournament June 9, which I was unable to play. Here is the info for the next tourney; more details at Al's site:

Tournament: Bloggers 2
Date: Saturday, June 30th
Time: 3pm ET - Noon PT
Buyin: Freeroll
Password: battle2

Face Up is a monthly subscription site; Al should be able to tell you whether you have to sign up for the subscription to play in the tourney. If everything works out for me to join the fun, I hope to play, and to see you there.

My favorite poker-related Xmas gift of 2011

We opened our gifts tonight due to plans we have for tomorrow, and I got an awesome T-shirt as one of my gifts. Behold:

I <3 this shirt so much, I will be taking extra-good care of it. But, yes, I will be wearing it at future poker gatherings, for closer inspection.

Try not to be too jealous.

WPBT 2011 Winter Classic report

I have browsed around to some of the poker blogs that I know but I haven't yet seen a report about this year's WPBT Winter Classic weekend. Maybe there are some posts out there that I haven't seen yet. In any case, here is mine.

Wednesday night
Check into Imperial Palace around midnight. It's 2:00 AM Dallas time and my wife and I are dead tired. She makes a joke about just staying up all night instead of going to bed. Ha, I say, because we have to get up for...

Thursday morning
I take my wife to the airport so she can catch an early flight to spend the weekend with her sick dad. It would be nice if she could spend the weekend in Vegas with me as originally planned, but it will be better for her to spend some time with her dad and help him out.

Breakfast at McDonalds is followed by a short rest at the hotel before looking for a poker tournament to play. I choose the 10:00 AM $50 buy-in at Planet Hollywood. To kill time before it starts, I play some $0.25 video poker, Deuces Wild. Down to my last $3.00, I hit four deuces and cash out for $250.00. Nice start to the weekend, eh? I use $50 of my winnings to buy into the tourney. About two hours later, I finish third for another $150.00+ payout. I'm on a roll!

Back to the IP, where I see CK, Bam-Bam and Pebbles playing Let It Ride. I watch them play and can't figure out how the hell this game works. Bam-Bam says, "Sit down, I want to buy you in for one hand." After a few minutes of "No thank you"s and "Come on"s, I give in and sit down. First deal, I get some big hand (can't even remember what) and get paid double or triple my bets. Next hand, something just as good or better. I think I got three of a kind at least twice in the space of 30 minutes. After going up about $200, I tell Bam-Bam that I think we should quit while we are ahead. He insists on splitting the winnings with me, despite my offer to let him have it all since I didn't do anything more than sit there while the cards were dealt to me. I still owe him and Pebbles drinks, dinner, or something. My run good continues, but not for much longer.

Sherwood Forest bar, Excalibur: this year's blogger meeting spot. I drive to the Excal with lightning36 and meet up with lots of old friends and acquaintances. There is talk of heading to the Palms for the Thursday night Pokerati NLHE/PLO game, but very few actually leave the Excal and I am not among them. Eventually lightning and I play for a little while in the Excal poker room. I lose about $50 and decide I need some sleep. I drop lightning at Bally's and hit the sack.

Friday
Feels good to sleep in. After a fabulous breakfast at the Hash House A-Go-Go, I go for a walk. Antiquities, a memorabilia store in the Forum Shops at Caesars, has a sign announcing that Pete Rose will be appearing there that afternoon. I grew up in the Cincinnati area and have always been a fan of Pete's. I walk some more, come back after Pete's starting time, buy a book that he co-wrote, and get his autograph on it along with a few pictures.

Back to the IP again. I spend a little time in their poker room playing $2/4 Limit HE with what looks like a bunch of locals. When lightning calls to say he will be there soon for our trip to the Pinball Hall of Fame, I am about $20 ahead. PokahDave catches up with us too, and lightning drives us to the Pinball HOF. We use up just about all of the quarters that I had brought with me, leftovers from my previous visit there a couple of years ago. Fun times. After that, lightning wants to go visit the graves of Redd Foxx and Stu Ungar. Why not, Dave and I say, and off we go. A little searching and a query to one of the cemetery employees, and we find the graves. We pay our respects and head out.

Aria poker room. After a quick dinner, we walk to the Aria to join the bloggers for some poker. The mixed game table is full when we get there, but a $1/3 NLHE table is opened up and I sit in. A couple of hours later, I have dropped my buy-in after some loose calls and card dead streaks. A leisurely walk back to the IP and an early bedtime for me.

Saturday
Recommendation to anyone reading this: find somewhere else to eat breakfast besides the Emperor's Buffet at IP. Below-average food and selection for the same price as most other places. Harrah's and Flamingo are both easy walks from IP and the buffets are much better. Another leisurely walk to the Aria for the tournament at noon. Very early on, I call off about half my stack to MrsChako with AA vs her set of 5s. I should have known better, but instead got myself short on chips early. I stuck around longer than I thought I would, but eventually busted out in 52nd place to Dr. Pauly. He seemed pleased to get my bounty, a copy of the Yes CD "90125" - remastered edition with bonus tracks!!

More walking ensued, including a trip back to the IP, with stops at the Aria gift shop and Miracle Mile mall, with OhCaptain. Always a good traveling companion. Eventually we ended up back at the IP poker room, where a maniac was holding court with a table mostly full of bloggers who were intent on taking advantage of his wild and loose playing. There wasn't a seat open for me at first, and when I finally did get to join, I was on the maniac's right and did not get to play with him. The guy to my right eventually felted the maniac, much to the chagrin of the rest of the table. Then that guy left, taking most of the chips in play with him. By then I was running behind again and thinking that I had better turn in, having an early flight to catch Sunday.

Sunday
Flew home.

I had another great time at the Winter Classic. The poker and other activities were fun, but as always it was the people that made it special. My thanks to everyone I got to meet or spend time with. Extra thanks to April, the Aria poker room staff, and the others who worked to organize everything. I hope to see all of you again very soon.

Overdue update, including WPBT Winter Classic news

Yes, it has been quite a while since I posted here. My poker activity has been sporadic since the WSOP, so there hasn't been much to talk about. Let's see what my memory banks can produce from the last few months.

As with so many other poker players, my playing has been reduced quite a bit since the Black Friday shutdown of the big online sites. I played in a few play-money tournaments on PokerStars with some other bloggers, but dropped out of that group when the host insulted me during one of the games. I didn't see any point in sticking around for that. I still have a few dollars on Bodog and play there for small change once in a while, but not much. I tried a free month on ClubWPT.com by mailing in a postcard, but the game offerings were sparse and I didn't care for the interface much., so I didn't send in any more cards to keep it going.

I played in a tourney at Riverwind in Norman OK when we moved our son up there in August. Didn't get very deep in that one. I did better when my wife and I went on another cruise to Alaska in September. I played in a one-table tourney in the ship's casino and chopped first place. I also helped organize a freeroll tourney for the Cruise Trek group that we sailed with, as I did on a previous cruise in 2006. I finished second in the freeroll, which won me a voucher for credit toward a future cruise. So that trip turned me a poker profit.

I play semi-regularly in a local bar league, and have finished in the points a couple of times recently. But I know that my game is rusty and I need to be more focused and brush up on my skills. That need is magnified because I will be playing some "serious" poker in four weeks.

That's right, I will once again be attending the WPBT Winter Classic in Las Vegas. I almost ended up not going this year, but decided that I do not want to miss out on the fun. My wife will be along for the trip again, and we will be doing some non-pokery stuff when I'm not playing. We will be staying at the Imperial Palace, arriving late Wednesday and leaving early Sunday. I'm looking forward to seeing lots of the poker blogger crowd the first weekend in December

On a non-poker note, I am thrilled that the Texas Rangers made it to the World Series for the second consecutive year, but (naturally) disappointed that they weren't able to get that last strike (twice!) to seal the deal. They had a great season and I expect them to continue to play great baseball for years to come.

See you in less than a month in Las Vegas!

2011 World Series of Poker report - Doyle Brunson liked my shirt

I never said that I was prompt about posting trip reports. Better late than never, though, right?

My first ever World Series of Poker experience was, overall, fairly positive. I played in the Seniors Championship event, and although I didn't get very far in the tournament, I don't feel like I made any real boneheaded decisions that cost me a chance to go deep. I played a fair amount of poker outside the WSOP, and did some other touristy stuff; more about that shortly.

My adventure started when I flew into Las Vegas the morning of Thursday June 16, the day before the start of the Seniors event. I picked up my rental car and drove across town so I could register for said event. I'm glad I got there early in the day, because I only had to wait in the registration line at the Rio for about 15 minutes. By the time I finished, the line had grown out of the room and just got longer as the day wore on. I then wandered around the convention area of the Rio, where the WSOP events were being held, so I could figure our where everything was. I had never seen so many poker tables, or poker players, in the same place at once. I knew there would be a big field for the Seniors tournament, as well as hundreds of players for the other events. It didn't take long before I saw my first recognizable poker pro, Bertrand "ElkY" Grosspellier, walking through the Pavilion. Soon I was spotting pros every other minute, and I gave up trying to keep track of them all, so you won't see a list of them here.

Eventually I caught up with one of my blogger pals, AlCan'tHang, and chatted with him for a few minutes. Later I would meet up with Dr. Pauly, Special K, F-Train, CKBwoP, and other friends and acquaintances. I didn't do much more than soak up the atmosphere around the WSOP area at the Rio that afternoon.

After a brief trip downtown, I ended up at the Palms to play in the Pokerati mixed NLHE/PLO game Thursday evening. I wasn't playing very much, just treading water, until an interesting hand came up. In middle position, I called a straddle bet of $5 with T9 of clubs. The button, pro Matt Stout who was sitting in for some fun and games, raised to $15. I called the raise to see what might develop, and we were heads up. The flop was TKT, giving me trips. I bet $15, and Matt called. The turn was a 9, filling me up. I thought about checking but decided to see if Matt  would call me again like he did on the previous street. I bet $25, which he called fairly quickly. The river was an Ace. I announced all-in, which Matt snap-called. I showed my boat; he turned over QJ for the straight.  After that nice pot, I played for a short while longer and decided to call it a night, having been up since about 4:15 AM Dallas time.

The next morning, I attended an interview session with Phil Gordon and Doyle Brunson which was sponsored by BadBeatonCancer.org, which had a booth at the WSOP asking players to donate 1% of their winnings to cancer research. Phil interviewed Doyle about his life in the poker world and about Doyle's own survival of cancer. After the interview, Doyle took questions from the audience. I got in line and asked Doyle how he liked playing in the cash game shows made for TV like The Big Game and High Stakes Poker. He said he loves playing in those games and isn't bothered by the televised nature of them. You may be wondering, where did the title of this post come from? Well, I wore my red Texas Rangers T-shirt that day, with "TEXAS" in big letters on the front. As he finished answering my question, Doyle, a Texas native himself, said, "I like your shirt, by the way."

The Seniors tourney started at 12:00 noon, or actually several minutes later, after the introduction by Oklahoma Johnny Hale and general ceremonial stuff. I had no pros or celebrities at my starting table, but those who were there were nice enough people. A couple of people got annoyed by this or that, but by and large things were pretty friendly. I played tight to start, as did everyone else. I took a few small pots, mostly playing position, but didn't build my chip stack. I made it to the first break with a few more chips than the 3,000 that everyone started with. I knew I was going to need to step things up a bit when we got back, but the cards weren't coming and my opponents had pretty much the same idea as I did, so I found it hard to play back at anyone. As my stack started to shrink, I was looking for a chance to double up while doing so would still gain me a decent stack. I found it when I got AK in late position and reraised all-in the UTG player's 3XBB opening raise. He called, showed QQ, and busted me when the A on the flop had a Q right next to it. I suppose I could have folded preflop, but really, how could I do that? And if I had just called, the chips would have ended up in the middle when the A hit the flop. I don't regret that move, or really anything else I did in the tournament. It just wasn't meant to be, for me, and I'm fine with that.

After I busted, I tracked down Special K, who busted ahead of me on a bad beat. He suggested that we play some cash at Caesars Palace, to check on that action and to get more information about a Super Seniors tourney they were hosting the next day (which turned out to be too pricey for us). We hopped the shuttle bus from the Gold Coast, where we were both staying, to the Strip and walked over to CP. We ended up seated at separate tables, and I think I got the luckier draw. On my immediate left was a gent who was in nearly every hand, making weird bets, calling down with very weak hands, and more or less giving his chips away. I managed to get some of them myself and doubled my buy-in before fatigue got the best of me. I would have loved to stay longer and try to get some more of his donations, but I really felt the need to crash, and to catch the shuttle back to the Gold Coast before it stopped running.

Saturday, I went back to the Rio, thinking about entering the daily $230 deepstack WSOP side tourney. I played some cash at the Rio's regular poker room early in the day, losing a little of my profit from the previous days. By the time I went to check on the deepstack tourney, it was full. I decided to take a break and see what shows were on that might be fun. I had seen an ad for "Recycled Percussion" at the Tropicana, which sounded a lot like Stomp! where the performers bang on all manner of household objects as percussion instruments. That sounded good, so I went to a discount ticket booth on the Strip and bought a ticket for that night's performance. I got a text from Special K, who wanted to play some poker at the MGM Grand. I told him I would meet him after the show.

"Recycled Percussion" was fabulous. A high-energy show with lots of audience participation: everyone coming into the theater was given a drumstick and asked to grab an item out of one of four bins of pots, pans, buckets, and other stuff to hit. It was almost certainly the loudest Vegas show I have ever attended. Go see it if you get the chance.

My session at the MGM Grand was not so fabulous. Just a few minutes after I sat down, I got involved in two big hands. In the first, I started with AA, raised and got one caller. Flop was J rag rag. I bet about half the pot and got called. Turn is another J. I bet half pot again and got smooth called. Figuring that my opponent called me with top pair on the flop and just turned trips, I checked the rag that fell on the river. Opponent bet, I thought for a few minutes and folded. A few hands later, I got AKo in the cutoff. I raised to $12 and got reraised by the button to $25, which I called. Heads up, the flop was KQx. I bet $25 with top pair; button raised all in and had me covered. If I had thought this through, I would have figured out that the three most likely hands where he would push like that, AA, KK and QQ, all had me crushed. My best hope was that he had AQ (I'm ahead) or AK (we probably chop). But, I didn't think it through, called him, and he showed AA. I didn't suck out, and decided to call it a night.

Sunday morning, I walked over to the Rio to sign up for their 10:00 AM daily (non-WSOP) tourney. Only $60+5 to enter. The structure was pretty fast but that didn't bother me for such a small buy-in. I got aggressive early, caught some hands and built my stack and put some pressure on the table. We only ended up with 24 entrants because of a shortage of dealers. After making it to the final table, the cards cooled off for me. I hung in and was the beneficiary of a four-way all-in that busted all three players who were shorter stacked than the winner of the hand. That took us down to four, with three places being paid. We all agreed on a save for the bubble of $20 each so the bubble would get (most of) the buy-in back. I was one of the shorter stacks but another player busted ahead of me, so I made the money. My short stack would not last long, though, and I finished in third place. That payout made up for the buy-in that I lost at the MGM Grand the night before.

I decided to take another tourist break and drive out to Red Rock Canyon Sunday afternoon. It was hot and dry out there, but the scenery was great and I was glad to get out and stretch my legs. I also picked up some nice souvenirs for my wife and son in their gift shop. Much better than the tacky crap in all the casino gift shops. On my way out of the park, I got a text from lightning36, who had just arrived in town for his WSOP trip. We met at the Harrah's buffet for dinner and had a great time catching up.

The trip turned out to be a lot of fun, and I'm glad I went. Not counting the Seniors event buy-in, I came home with more poker money than I started with, and that is always a nice feeling. Will I play in the WSOP again next year? A lot can happen between now and then, so I will make no commitments nor predictions now. What I will say is, I won't rule it out.