Vegas in New York, and Vegas in Vegas

Wow. It's kinda like the weather this weekend in New York City might be some oddly delayed reenactment of hell freezing over following my winning of the Mookie a couple of weeks back and then last week tying the record (I think) for being the longest-reigning Mookie champion when last week's tournament got voided thanks to full tilt's servers last week with 7 runners left. I mean, can we really live in a world where I am the reigning Mookie champion for two weeks running? I think I remember Miami Don doing this once before -- the real way, by actually winning back to back as I recall -- but I'm pretty much positive no one has won this thing 3 straight weeks. Well, all I know is that, after suffering through a springless Spring so far where the highs in New York have stayed roughly in the 40s and 50s without so much as barely touching the 60s, suddenly on Saturday it was upper 60s, and then on Sunday -- whoooosh! -- 92 degrees in Central Park.

I spent the day in the city with my kids and had a great time, but it was hard to explain to the little ones exactly where all this heat came from. The best I could do was explain the science of the seasons, and how the tilt of the earth leads the northeastern U.S. to be more heads-on directly facing the sun for about half the year, and that it is significantly warmer during that period regardless of what other more localized weather pattern is currently affecting the area during the mid-year months. Not that that does anything to help them to understand why it goes from 50s to 90s in basically a two-day span, but hey, it's a good lesson for them about the unpredictability of the weather in general. So it's down to a "mild" 82 degrees here on Monday, but then Tuesday is slated to be up near 90 once again as we make one more run for the recordbooks in what has otherwise been a far cooler than normal spring where I live. All I know is, Sunday didn't just set a new record for high temperatures all around the nyc area -- it absolutely obliterated the old records. I'm talking by like 10, 12 degrees in many cases over the previous all-time highs, generally set more than 50 years ago.

So anyways, standing outside all day on Sunday really got me thinking about the one place I frequent where that weather wouldn't have been the least bit out of the ordinary for much of the year -- Vegas. In fact, it got me thinking about it so much that I ended up talking to a bunch of people, firming up my plans, and buying my tickets for my annual pilgrimage this summer. Being that I will already be away with my family at the beach, I won't be flying my usual direct JetBlue flight out of New York with the extra legroom, leather seats and the DirecTV, which is a bummer. In fact, the only airport within a three-hour drive of where we will be at the beach is one of those tiny, commuter-style airports that reports on doors instead of gates for the planes that fly out of there, and none of them are direct flights to anywhere worth going to. So the downside is that I will be connecting both ways in Charlotte, North Carolina, although the layover in both directions is not more than an hour so it shouldn't be too bad:

Thursday, June 25, 2009
US Airways # 383

Charlotte Douglas (CLT) to Las Vegas Mccarran Intl (LAS)
Departure (CLT): June 25, 7:55 PM EDT (evening)
Arrival (LAS): June 25, 9:28 PM PDT (evening)

It's Economy Class, but I did manage to snag me some emergency exit row seats for both legs of my flight, in both directions. And not just any emergency exit row seats -- the one with no seat at all in front of it, so this should be a nice substitute for my extra-legroom JetBlue seat that I am always happy to pay the extra $25 for.

As of now I have a flight scheduled back to Charlotte and then to the beach for Monday morning, June 29 at 11:30am Pacific time. I say "as of now", because the plan as I have mentioned previously is to play in my fourth consecutive World Series of Poker while I am in Sin City, and of course if one of those events runs over into Monday, I will need to make the big switch, but will of course be more than happy to do so if it means I am still hanging on in a big-time poker tournament. So, looking at the WSOP schedule, here is what will be on the slate during the time I will be in Las Vegas:

Thu, Jun 25th 12:00 PM
Event 48: $1500 PLO8

Fri, Jun 26th 12:00 PM
Event 49: 50k HORSE

Fri, Jun 26th 5:00 PM
Event 50: $1500 LHE Shootout

Sat, Jun 27th 12:00 PM
Event 51: $1500 NLH

Sun, Jun 28th 12:00 PM
Event 52: $3000 Triple Chance No-Limit Hold’em

Sun, Jun 28th 5:00 PM
Event 53: $1500 Stud Hi-lo

Event 48 would be great, I love to play pot-limit O8 and I believe I could do more or less as well in a $1500 O8 event as I could in a correspondingly-sized no-limit tournament. But I simply can't get myself into Vegas in time for the noon start. Even if I wanted to try to push up my flight a bit earlier, I have commitments in the morning on Thursday, June 25 that will prevent me from being in town anywhere near the noon PT start time for Event 48. So that one is out. And, since I like money, Event 49 is out as well. Event 50 is limit holdem, and a shootout at that, and that is just gross so no way on that one either. Event 51, at $1500 is right in my wheelhouse as far as the buyin I am looking for, and the timing is good except that it will (hopefully!) prevent me from hanging out much on my only Saturday night in Vegas. Still, I think that's a chance I have to be willing to take, because Event 52 on Sunday is "triple chance no-limit, which I have no idea what that even is, and then Event 53 is another doable one for me, $1500 hilo, but the timing on Sunday at 5pm ET is just so bad that I would basically likely have to be out in Vegas for a couple of extra days, and that just doesn't seem like the best idea as a result.

So the end result I think has to be that Event 51 is it, the $1500 no-limit holdem tournament starting at noon PT on Saturday, June 27. Unless things change for me, that's gonna be the plan. Feel free to stop by my table in the Amazon room at the Rio that afternoon to kick me in the balls for daring to introduce some drama (I love it!) into the BBT4 after several weeks of quietude on that front.