N 82 50 24 / Nat Arem Blog

Well, it turns out I did go out last night. After TheWacoKidd got 4th in the Party Million he was in the mood to go out and drink. He came over to the Bellagio with apestyles and we went over to the Venetian to meet up with some friends of his. On a sidenote, the Venetian is a piece of crap. It reminded me of crappy AC casinos, not the nice Vegas casinos like Bellagio or Wynn.

Anyway, after going through the weirdest valet parking ever (they basically make you drive through the garage), we met up with waco’s friends at the video poker game bar. Then we went over to this table game called “Bonus Texas Hold’em”. Here’s how the game works:

1. Place an ante of $15-$100. Get two cards.
2. Pay double your ante if you want to see a flop, so $30-$200 to see a flop. Otherwise, you have to fold and lose your ante.
3. After the flop, you can check before the turn or bet an amount the size of your ante.
4. After the turn, you can check before the river or bet an amount the size of your ante.

You can’t bet after the river hits. At this point, the game goes to showdown. If you beat the dealer, then you get your pre-flop, flop and turn bets matched 1-1. You don’t get your ante matched unless you hit a straight or higher. Obviously, that’s where the casino gets their edge.

The “bonus” aspect comes in with an extra pre-hole cards bet of $1-$25. If you get AA, you get paid 30-1. If you get something like A-J suited, you get 20-1. If you get something like QQ, you get 10-1. There are a lot of bonus payoffs, but I didn’t memorize the whole payoff board. Obviously, it’s definitely a sucker bet like anything is at table games.

So anyway, waco, apestyles, Roothlus, muchaka and a bunch of other people played the game for awhile. I can’t bring myself to play table games even when the money isn’t significant, so I just hung out. I did get a bunch of pictures… I don’t really feel like going through them and deleting the worse ones, so I’ll just post all of them.

apestyles blowin smoke in the blue/white shirt at the end of the table, thinair56 (a recent Stuper winner) in the black shirt close to the camera

TheWacoKidd on the left, his friend on the right. I can’t remember his friend’s name, but he got 3rd for $207,000 in the event that Max Pescatori won. I think it was a $2500 NL event.

The same two guys

TheWacoKidd makes the nut flush with AdQd

apestyles again

TheWacoKidd

Waco’s friend’s dirty stack

puff

waco takes a bad beat when the deal flops a wheel against his QQ

There was this random Asian table game railbird who stood by the game the whole night. I’m not sure if this is like his profession or something, but he was obviously entertained. He hit up Waco for like $25 bucks at the end of the night just as apestyles and I were leaving.

Anyway, I came back around 6 AM, got up really late today, went down to the pool for a bit and now I’m about to leave for the 2+2 dinner at ESPNZone. I’ll get a bunch of pics from there and I’ll be back later with another entry.

Nat :: Jul.31.2006 :: Uncategorized :: No Comments »

In typical fashion, I rolled out of bed around 2 PM today. It’s a little weird to wake up after the Sunday tournaments start, but I guess that’s how it is here on the west coast. Ozzy and Justin were going to some pool party at the Hard Rock Casino, so I just stayed at the Bellagio for the afternoon. I played a little poker then went for a swim/nap at the Bellagio pool area. It’s a pretty sick place… they have cabanas everywhere, tons of hot girls, a bunch of different pool/sitting areas, massages, etc. And everything is really nice and well done. I think I’m going to go out there every day this week or at least a bunch of times. I didnt want to get a sunburn, so I headed back up to the room for a few, then decided to go over to the Rio.

After taking a cab to the Rio, I found the P5s guys standing out in the hallway outside the tournament room. It was the players’ dinner break and I got a picture of a few of the P5s guys with LXIXME17, a sick player from Oklahoma. He recently won $215K when he chopped a million guaranteed $1K tournament on some small site (well, normally a small site… I can’t even remember which site it was on):

Adam, LXIXME17 (Brian), Cal and Dan

The P5s guys were headed to the Gold Coast to get a drink and play some table games, so I walked for a bit with them. But I was a little hungry and when we saw colson10 on his way to get a bite to eat, I decided to walk with him to this tent outside with random crappy fast food. It wasn’t very good, but at least I wasn’t hungry anymore. We went back in, talked for a bit with Johnster, then I found Lenny and gboro780 standing near the media room.

Lenny interviewing Bernard Lee. Bernard wrote a long series of pieces for the PokerStars Blog last year after he got to the final two tables of the main event.

Lenny and gboro780

gboro and I went into the tournament room for a bit. We said hi to GB2005 before he busted and I also took a few pictures.

faithless/lucky seven in the rasta hat in the foreground and another P5er at the next table. I’m not sure what his name is, but I’m sure I’d recognize it if someone told me.

The online poker legend and “Grand Master of PLO” Carl “colson10″ Olson. He had around 7 or 8K when I talked to him during the break.

I took a cab back over to the strip with gboro780 because he was headed to Monte Carlo and I was going to the Bellagio. I’m now sitting in the room debating whether I want to go somewhere else tonight or just hang out then go to sleep. It’s around 11 PM, so it’s a close decision. I think I’ll head back out though.

Nat :: Jul.31.2006 :: Uncategorized :: No Comments »

After I woke up around 1 PM PST, I hung out in the room for a bit, showered and got in touch with a friend of mine from home, stevesbets (aka Steve Jacobs). He’s staying at the Wynn with two of his UPenn friends. It turns out they were going to spend some time by the pool, so I went over with them and met up with them at the Wynn pool. It’s such a pain in the ass to go to any other hotel in this town because they want to see your room key to get on an elevator, to get into the pool area, etc. Of course, I only have a Bellagio room key, but I’m an invited guest of someone staying at the Wynn. But there isn’t a good system for verifying that I am actually going to visit someone — the only way that I could get in is to have Steve come out to the desk by the entrance, but obviously he doesn’t have his phone in the pool so I don’t have a way to contact him when I’m standing at the desk. So I basically had to argue with the guy at the desk for a few minutes, then I finally convinced him that I was going to gamble blackjack at the poolside cabana (obv I won’t gamble blackjack or any other table game). He’s apparently allowed to let in people who say they’re going to gamble. Anyway, I hate going to other hotels because of the restrictions.

After the pool, the four of us headed back up to the suite to play online, eat and hang out. I took a few pictures:

Glove (aka cf tourney) close on the left, Steve close on the right (playing either dariominieri or leemur1 I think) and Shrew on the other side of the table

Shrew on the left, Steve on the right

Steve on the left, cf tourney on the right

All three of them

They made dinner reservations for around 10 pm PST at a nice restaurant, but I didn’t have anything except my bathing suit and some athletic shorts with me, so I had to head back to the Bellagio. I briefly met up with hazards21, MrSmokey1, Ozzy, Justin and some other guy at Cafe Bellagio, but they were finishing just as I arrived. We went back up to the room for a bit, then Ozzy, Justin and MrSmokey1 headed over to Bushman’s house. I’m pretty tired, so I’m going to hang out here, maybe get some room service, then go to sleep.

Congrats to everyone who has made it through Day 1A or 1B and good luck to those playing on 1C or 1D.

Nat :: Jul.30.2006 :: Uncategorized :: No Comments »