Three Days

Three days. Three days till Vegas.

So my plans are coming bit more into focus, and frankly it's not in a way that I particularly love. But it looks like, through a combination of factors, that my little plan to play a poker tournament every day is falling flat on its face.

For starters, there isn't a tournament I will be able to just jump in to anywhere near the strip on Thursday night at midnight when I get in. There's only one or two places with a daily tournament at midnight or later, and those are all in old Las Vegas or otherwise a long ways away from the MGM where I'll be staying, and I'm just not that ambitious to head over there within minutes of my arrival. I will already have four friends in the city for my brother's bachelor party when I arrive on Thursday night, and at least some greeting drinks will need to be imbibed before I can plausibly leave to plays some poker, so there just won't be time enough for me to get, for example, to the Rio for their 11pm nightly tournament that I understand is pretty decent for what it is.

So a poker tournament on Thursday night seems like it's out. Similarly, on Friday the Venetian has a great structure for their daily noon nlh tournament, but the issue there is that my brothers and friends are already registered for dinner at Prime at the Bellagio on Friday night. I forget the exact time of dinner, but assuming it is anywhere around normal dinner-eating time, then I don't foresee myself signing up for that great Venetian tournament because it typically lasts well into the evening and I know it saves the final table for the final day, which would also interfere with my World Series of Poker plans. Sure, I could skip dinner at Prime. But, #1 this is my brother's bachelor party and that is one of the few plans we have made that is supposed to be "set in stone" for the group to do together, and #2, the meal I had at Prime last summer when I was in town for the WSOP was to this day one of the five best meals I have ever eaten in my life, and I don't really want to miss that again. As I recall, my brothers and I split the raw seafood tower, and then I proceeded to eat far and away the most delicious, most tender fillet mignon of my entire life. I remember literally not using my knife at all because the meat was so tender, I could easily cut it just with my fork. And the steak had that kind of flavor that you wouldn't even consider using steak sauce or really any seasoning at all on. If the guy had come around trying to sprinkle some fresh ground pepper on it, I would have physically stopped him before he got close. That shit was just perfect last year, and while I'm sure Prime can't equal that experience from last summer, it should be a great meal and a great time with my friends celebrating the last of my generation in my family to say goodbye to his glory days of being single and fancy free. So, with Prime looming on Friday evening, it is unlikely that I will want to be playing anything more than a quick sitngo anytime on Friday afternoon.

If I'm a man, depending on what time we roll out of Prime on Friday, I may think about hitting up the Rio or someplace else for an 11pm tournament. The Rio is a good option for two reasons. First, they have a good structure tournament with typically bad WSOP donkeys playing it at that hour. Secondly, I probably want to register early for my WSOP event anyways rather than leave my ability to start on time on Saturday up to however good the logistics people at Harrah's have figured out crowd control at this year's World Series. So far the few reports I've seen have been mixed, but there've definitely been some stories of long lines shortly before the big events kick off, and people missing the first hour of their tournaments because they're stuck in line at registration, so I'd kind of like to get over to the Rio sometime on Friday anyways to get that taken care of. So, Friday night at 11pm at the Rio is a possibility for a poker tournament, but then I'll need to figure the likely effect of such a decision on my Saturday noon start time for WSOP Event #51. That one could go either way and will probably depend largely on how I'm feeling on Friday night after that sweetass Prime feast.

On Saturday, of course, I will be in the World Series, starting at 12 noon at the Rio. This is traditionally where I've had the chance to meet up with a few bloggers in past years, and it sounds like I may be able to do the same this time around. Sounds like at least BBT4 killer 1Queensup1 will be in the same event, so hopefully he and I can meet up and laugh about how Your World Champion Philadelphia Phillies have somehow lost like 9 of 11 games but are still 2 games up on the Mets who cannot get out of the way of some of the worst teams in baseball, or something like that. So anyways, of course the plan is hopefully that I will be in the WSOP all day on Saturday, something which I will write more about later in the week as far as my expectations for the WSOP this year.

Assuming no final table of my WSOP event -- more on that later this week as well -- Sunday might be another good opportunity for me to get my poker on in a tournament forum. If I'm not in the WSOP, most of my bachelor party friends will be clearing out of town sometime before noon on Sunday, while I will be sticking around until Monday morning (unless I need to delay my departure due to some incredible tournament run or something), so if I'm not in the WSOP, then on Sunday I am basically on my own starting around mid-morning. Maybe that can be a day for me to check out the Venetian and play a tournament there for the first time in my life. Man I have got a lot of research to do still before I actually have any idea what my plans are this weekend.

All I know is, I'm on a plane bounded for the Left Coast in less than 80 hours. Unfortunately, I've got about 80 hours of work to squeeze in along with commuting, meal times, and of course some sleep sprinkled in as well, but don't worry. If this is anything like past years, this should be just about the longest three days of my life, so I should have plenty of time to get everything done that I need to get done.

More tomorrow on my expectations for the WSOP in light of some of the incredible stuff that's gone on this summer already.