I hate poker

This morning, Carl got a phone call from Cliff around 10:30. We were both pissed that he would call so early but he had flown into Vegas and wanted to have brunch. When I say "he flew into Vegas" I mean it literally. He came with two warrant officers in a sweet gray military plane and they called it "training". Carl and I had gone to bed around 6 AM but I managed to throw on some clothes and meet Cliff and his friends at the Bellagio Cafe. He had to leave around noon but it was a nice surprise.

After brunch I ran a few of my errands then drove back to the Rio around 1:30 PM. Carl was still sleeping in the room so I woke his punk ass up and we headed downstairs to sweat the $5K NL final table. We got there just as it was starting and the crowd was just too big. It was a star-studded table and the railbirds were out en masse. It actually may have been bearable if the smelliest man alive wasn't standing right next to me. He was about my height, 350 lbs. and smelled like rotting flesh. I picked up the smell immediately, looked around for a second and immediately knew it was him. I watched one more hand then left the area. I bought into today's $2500 NL event and headed back to the room with Carl.

Around 4 PM we headed to an Italian place off the strip called Carmine's. I wasn't terribly hungry but Carl convinced me that I should eat. We met my friends Mike and Brian and had a pretty nice meal. After linner, Carl and I headed to Mike's house to watch the latest High Stakes Poker and Entourage episodes. I love both shows and have decided that Tivo is the greatest invention of all time. At 6 PM I entered 4 tournaments: 3 WSOP qualifiers and the $30 rebuy on Paradise. I spent a lot of monry on the $30 rebuy but went pretty deep and busted in 17th. I felt like I played well but ran into some big hands at inopportune times. Ah well. I went deep in one of the WSOP qualifiers and busted in 6th place with 3 seats awarded. It was pretty painful, especially because I don't think I played very well. I have some sort of mental block when it comes to satellites and I definitely boched a few hands. I need to get it into my head that it's just another tourney until you have enough chips to fold your way in. Bleh.

I'm excited for tomorrow's event. It'll be nice to have 2500 chips and I enjoy live play much more than online poker. Here's hoping that I run good and play decent.

Al's in town and I'm excited to say hello. I'll probably throw back a few SoCos if I get knocked out early. Pauly is still going strong with his WSOP updates and there's no place better to get your news. I actually like his personal blog better but I think the first link has most of the poker stuff. Here's Carl's blog again and here's the website of the house that we're moving into next week. It's so sick. I can't wait.

Tomorrow I finally play in my second event of the year. Carl's cashed in 2 out of 4 events so far and I'd love to go 2 for 2. Hasta.