Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Happy New Years
Yes I am posting this from the couch just a couple minutes before 2009. I am somewhat tipsy on Vicodin and a couple bottles of Samuel Adams... For those that don't know I took a trip to Big Bear Mountain east of LA last weekend and after two days of snowboarding I took a nasty spill on the final run of the trip. I think I tore my MCL again but won't know for sure until the swelling goes down and I can get an MRI on Monday. Here's to wishing everyone a healthy and happy 2009!
Friday, December 26, 2008
Las Vegas City Life
One of the things I love about the game of poker is the social aspect of it. During what seemed like a year in Las Vegas on my trip I met an amazing amount of people. What is also crazy is the amount of extremely anti-social people you run into. Fortunately there are fewer and fewer of them every time I go up there. Those who know me surely know I never shy away from a good conversation (That way it's less awkward when you take their money) One of the players I met was Bob Shemeligian, writer for the New York Post as well as Las Vegas City Life. Over quite a few hours we talked about all the latest happenings in poker including the cheating scandal on Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet. He asked if he could publish a few quotes from me and I said "cool" (How's that for a quote). Here is the article he posted in Las Vegas City Life newspaper. I will be expecting a call from my commanding officer on Monday morning.
http://lasvegascitylife.com/articles/2008/12/11/news/local_news/iq_25625422.txt
You just never know who you are going to meet in the craziness of a poker room.
http://lasvegascitylife.com/articles/2008/12/11/news/local_news/iq_25625422.txt
You just never know who you are going to meet in the craziness of a poker room.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Craziness in Vegas and Pokerstars
So since my last post back in November a lot has happened. I went home over Thanksgiving and got to see a lot of family and friends back in the good ol OH-IO. Great times partying with the old crew from Miami and Bucyrus.
I wanted to try and keep this thing going while in OH but there just isn't as much going on when I'm not in that ridiculous city 5 hours to the North. Fortunately ( or unfortunately as my liver is screaming at me "For God's sake stop") my squadron had a formal dinner at New York New York the weekend of the 12th-15th. The Venetian was nice enough to put me up for another 3 nights this time around so I was looking forward to the poker room and my favorite playgrounds (Tryst and Tao)
Mark "Turd" Ferguson was going to crash in my suite so we rolled up there on Friday morning and started drinking after posting a quick $300 win in the poker room. Everyone was going to Tryst where a friend had a sick table for us right next to the dance floor. The goal was to take it easy Friday night so that we Saturday night would be epic in our dress blues. Does this ever work? Of course not and I crawled back to the hotel at around 4am. This is where the story took a weird turn. Usually my drunk ass walks up to a BJ table to drop a quick G, not this time. I actually won a quick 2 G's and passed out a somewhat happy man that morning at around 6am.
Saturday I got up around noon and worked my way down to get my standard Turkey Bagel at the Food Court Deli downstairs. I have eaten lunch at the Venetian Deli more than anywhere else I think since I got back from deployment. I hit up the poker room and made another small profit of just under $500. I was on a good roll gambling and was ready for an insane night of partying in our blues. Turd and I got our uniforms on and cocktail hour started at 7pm but I told him we had to run by the Bellagio because the %15,000 WPT 5 Diamond World Poker Classic was starting that day. We got there and walked over to the famous Fontana Bar overlooking the Bellagio Fountain and walked through checking out the pros in action. We were checking out all the players when out of nowhere we hear someone yell "Gotta love men in uniform". We looked over to see Phil Helmuth getting up from his table to come over and shake our hands. Certainly had nothing to do with him actually wanting to shake our hands as much as it meant everyone would be looking at him again. lol After a couple minutes talking with Phil, Turd thought it was way more important to get to the bar for a bud light so we left. I think Phil was in pure shock that we didn't want to stay and talk to him... funny stuff
We grabbed a taxi to New York squared and attend the Dining Out. It was an ok time with some good dinner and a great video made of our deployment with 100's of pictures. You coudl tell the night wasn't going to be anything special when all you heard throughout the room was how bad people were hurting from the night before at Tryst. After dinner we headed downstairs and people started dropping like flys. It was a pretty nasty effort considering how often we are in LAS VEGAS in our dress uniform. It didn't help much that half of the squadron was either married or dating someone that was 16 (or so it seemed). Well Rhino and his wife finally ponied up and said let's go party. I knew some of the doormen at Tao through Eddy so we rolled over there and walked right past a line of no more than 500-600 people and were on the dance floor in less than 5 minutes. I have never had so many people says thanks and shove shots in our face than we did that night at Tao. What a great time made even better when P Diddy and Jamie Foxx took the stage and worked the crowd for a couple hours for Jamie's B-Day party. After a couple hours Bob and Kristi left and I was just hanging when this dude shook my hand and invited me up to their VIP booth for a drink. Little did I know at the time that is was 2006 AL MVP Just Morneau of the Minnesota Twins. There were just a couple ladies up there! I had a few drinks up there and did a shot with Rob Bowen (Catcher for the Oakland A's) We hung out for the next couple hours until two girls dragged us over to Tryst to end the night. The place was nuts and Rob saw Joe Rogan and Chuck Lidell over at a table. My drunk ass told him I knew them both (kind of true.lol.... Chuck from Costa Rica and Joe from the Playboy Mansion Party) We walked over to their table and I introduced them. The next thing you know we were sitting at their table and doing what seemed like shots #60 through 80. You guys will never believe this but I have ZERO idea how the night ended. I know I came back to the room at around 6:30 and that is only becuase Turd told me the next morning. Little did I know that I gave my cell number to Rob and texted me the next day and said I have to bring a crew out to Scottsdale for spring training this Feb and hang with the guys. Should be interesting. I got an email from him yesterday and we are trying to work out a fly by for one of their games. We'll see about that though. Here is a picture of Joe Rogan, Me, and Rob Bowen...
And Jamie Foxx and P Diddy on stage....
My god what a book. Not even going to bother telling the whole story of yesterday in one of the Sunday Majors online. Bottom line was there were 3,857 entries into the $215 buy-in $750,000 guaranteed tourney on Pokerstars. After 7 hours of play I busted in 35th for just about $1,500 with 1st paying $99,000.. ONE TIME PLEASE! I promise it is coming one of these days!
ZERO plans for New Years. No Eddy I am not coming to Vegas if you are reading this! My liver just can't take it....... Talk to all of you over the holidays though.
I wanted to try and keep this thing going while in OH but there just isn't as much going on when I'm not in that ridiculous city 5 hours to the North. Fortunately ( or unfortunately as my liver is screaming at me "For God's sake stop") my squadron had a formal dinner at New York New York the weekend of the 12th-15th. The Venetian was nice enough to put me up for another 3 nights this time around so I was looking forward to the poker room and my favorite playgrounds (Tryst and Tao)
Mark "Turd" Ferguson was going to crash in my suite so we rolled up there on Friday morning and started drinking after posting a quick $300 win in the poker room. Everyone was going to Tryst where a friend had a sick table for us right next to the dance floor. The goal was to take it easy Friday night so that we Saturday night would be epic in our dress blues. Does this ever work? Of course not and I crawled back to the hotel at around 4am. This is where the story took a weird turn. Usually my drunk ass walks up to a BJ table to drop a quick G, not this time. I actually won a quick 2 G's and passed out a somewhat happy man that morning at around 6am.
Saturday I got up around noon and worked my way down to get my standard Turkey Bagel at the Food Court Deli downstairs. I have eaten lunch at the Venetian Deli more than anywhere else I think since I got back from deployment. I hit up the poker room and made another small profit of just under $500. I was on a good roll gambling and was ready for an insane night of partying in our blues. Turd and I got our uniforms on and cocktail hour started at 7pm but I told him we had to run by the Bellagio because the %15,000 WPT 5 Diamond World Poker Classic was starting that day. We got there and walked over to the famous Fontana Bar overlooking the Bellagio Fountain and walked through checking out the pros in action. We were checking out all the players when out of nowhere we hear someone yell "Gotta love men in uniform". We looked over to see Phil Helmuth getting up from his table to come over and shake our hands. Certainly had nothing to do with him actually wanting to shake our hands as much as it meant everyone would be looking at him again. lol After a couple minutes talking with Phil, Turd thought it was way more important to get to the bar for a bud light so we left. I think Phil was in pure shock that we didn't want to stay and talk to him... funny stuff
We grabbed a taxi to New York squared and attend the Dining Out. It was an ok time with some good dinner and a great video made of our deployment with 100's of pictures. You coudl tell the night wasn't going to be anything special when all you heard throughout the room was how bad people were hurting from the night before at Tryst. After dinner we headed downstairs and people started dropping like flys. It was a pretty nasty effort considering how often we are in LAS VEGAS in our dress uniform. It didn't help much that half of the squadron was either married or dating someone that was 16 (or so it seemed). Well Rhino and his wife finally ponied up and said let's go party. I knew some of the doormen at Tao through Eddy so we rolled over there and walked right past a line of no more than 500-600 people and were on the dance floor in less than 5 minutes. I have never had so many people says thanks and shove shots in our face than we did that night at Tao. What a great time made even better when P Diddy and Jamie Foxx took the stage and worked the crowd for a couple hours for Jamie's B-Day party. After a couple hours Bob and Kristi left and I was just hanging when this dude shook my hand and invited me up to their VIP booth for a drink. Little did I know at the time that is was 2006 AL MVP Just Morneau of the Minnesota Twins. There were just a couple ladies up there! I had a few drinks up there and did a shot with Rob Bowen (Catcher for the Oakland A's) We hung out for the next couple hours until two girls dragged us over to Tryst to end the night. The place was nuts and Rob saw Joe Rogan and Chuck Lidell over at a table. My drunk ass told him I knew them both (kind of true.lol.... Chuck from Costa Rica and Joe from the Playboy Mansion Party) We walked over to their table and I introduced them. The next thing you know we were sitting at their table and doing what seemed like shots #60 through 80. You guys will never believe this but I have ZERO idea how the night ended. I know I came back to the room at around 6:30 and that is only becuase Turd told me the next morning. Little did I know that I gave my cell number to Rob and texted me the next day and said I have to bring a crew out to Scottsdale for spring training this Feb and hang with the guys. Should be interesting. I got an email from him yesterday and we are trying to work out a fly by for one of their games. We'll see about that though. Here is a picture of Joe Rogan, Me, and Rob Bowen...
And Jamie Foxx and P Diddy on stage....
My god what a book. Not even going to bother telling the whole story of yesterday in one of the Sunday Majors online. Bottom line was there were 3,857 entries into the $215 buy-in $750,000 guaranteed tourney on Pokerstars. After 7 hours of play I busted in 35th for just about $1,500 with 1st paying $99,000.. ONE TIME PLEASE! I promise it is coming one of these days!
ZERO plans for New Years. No Eddy I am not coming to Vegas if you are reading this! My liver just can't take it....... Talk to all of you over the holidays though.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Made it home....
Where to begin since my last post? Friday afternoon Eddy made it to the poker room at The Venetian and we played some 2-5 for a couple hours and both made some decent money. We headed back to our rooms to get ready for the night and planned to meet at the VIP Salon for some drinks at 10:00. I was down to the Salon at 10:00 and no Eddy so I played craps for exactly 20 minutes and won a quick $750. Eddy got there and we proceeded to knock down 3 glasses of Johnny Walker Blue Label ($50 a glass) each. Of course you don't pay for anything back there so that was nice. Eddy insisted we try this pot of tea called 403. No idea what the 403 stands for but it was like 403 horsepower running through my body after that shit. Jesus was it crazy. Like 12 redbulls in two glasses. Wow. Eddy downed like 12 roast beef sandwiches at the Palazzo VIP lounge trying to get under control! lol Hilarious We rolled through Lavo at the Venetian for a little while and that was a pretty sick place but we were both ready to get over to Tao and tear it up. Eddy was boys with Jamie Fox so he wanted to roll over there and meet up with him.
Of course Eddy knows everyone in Vegas so we just walk up to Tao and 14 people say "Eddy what's up" and we walk right in. I got to meet Jamie Fox for a whole 3 seconds flat before the DJ was yelling Jamie Muthaf@&*#( Fox is in the house and he had to get on stage. I got a quick picture of him during a little freestyle. There was a chance to hang with him later in the night but you are never going to believe this, I lost my cell phone battery yet again sometime earlier in the night. JESUS! I lost Eddy and obviously couldn't get a hold of him so I left Tao at like 4am. In my state it was deadly for me to walk through the casino to get back to my room at The Palazzo. I unfortunately stopped by a blackjack table and dropped $1,300 in what couldn't have been longer than 20 minutes. Just makes me sick thinking about it after avoiding BJ tables for over a week already. It happens I guess.
I woke up Saturday morning and got a call, on the hotel phone obviously, from Eddy saying lets meet at the Canyon Ranch Spa to get rid of the hangovers. We met down there and got signed up for a pass and I signed up for a 80 minute massage. The place is amazing and worth every penny we spent there. The massage was exactly what I needed and I felt great a coupe hours later when I left. The plan was that Eddy was going to go play poker and I was going to go try and find a battery for my phone. After 2 hours of driving around Vegas I found a radio shack that had a phone for me. I made it back to the poker room where Eddy was playing some $5-$10 NL. This game is much different than the $2-5 NL I had been playing all week long. The big difference is that there is no cap on the buy-in. In $2-5 it is $1,000. People buy in for $10,000 in the $5-10 game so your money is always at risk in that game. Of course the potential is always there to win big too. Just have to be more careful is all. This is not what I did. I made two huge errors and dropped $1,500 in the first half hour at the table and was furious. I added more money to my stack and started to slowly tear away at the deficit. We played for about 4 more hours and I grinded it all back until I was a $28 dollar winner on the night. What a huge comeback!
We left the tables and planned on meeting back in the VIP room to get things started again. Who do we run into? None other than Bas Rutten and former UFC Heavyweight Champion Randy Couture and his wife. Wow were they amazing guys. Eddy has known Bas for many years. We were going to try and meet up with them later in the night for more drinks but never got to. I will try and post a picture on this if I can. If not I will have it on Facebook and Myspace for sure. While in the VIP salon we all drank a glass of Don Julio Real. ($400 a bottle) and then later had a glass of Louis XIII. ($2,000 a bottle). Probably only time in my life I will ever drink all of this stuff. Well until my next trip to Vegas anyways. lol
Randy and Bas left and we headed over to a roulette table where I proceeded to drop $400. We did manage to down about 5 shots of Patron in the meantime though so we were ready for Tao once again for some more debauchery. We again just walked right in and headed straight to the VIP tables beside the dance floor. We met a couple of fighters that he had worked with in the past and continued to drown ourselves with the bottles in front of us. We got absolutely wasted and I'll leave it at that... Jamie was there again but I didn't get to talk to him this time. My favorite part of the night is that I didn't lose a penny on the way back to my room that night. Or should I say morning. The sun was definitely out when I made it back.
After waking up around 12pm when the front desk called to make me check out. I was experiencing a Top 3 hangover of all time! Eddy was hurting just as bad apparently as he was driving to San Diego with 50 yard line seats for the Sunday Night Football game vs the Colts. He recommended me rolling to the Spa again so I did and sat there for over 7 hours (about 2 of which I spent praying to the porcelain god). It was huge though since it allowed me to get some much needed sleep. After showering and leaving there I decided to try and make it down to the poker room for a couple hours before leaving for my 1am flight home. I sat down, bought my $1,000 in chips, and then immediately felt like I was going to pass out. As I tried to run for the bathroom. I didn't quite make it and stopped at a trash can by one of the tables. I hear "Wes, Wes are you ok?" in the background and I turn around to see JJ Liu 1/2 concerned 1/2 laughing at me. Wow was that ever embarrassing. Not the first and certainly not the last I am sure so I laughed it off and finished the deed in the men's room. Once I got back to my table I played the only mistake free session of my entire trip to Vegas and was able to pocket one last win of $420.
The next 12 hours were some of the most miserable of my life as I took the red eye back to Ohio. (Nate and Joe I do not know how you guys do it and then work the next day! Truly amazing). I tried to sleep on the flight to Minnesota but that worked like it does when I am the one flying the jet. I had a terrible 3 1/2 hour lay over in the twin cities and got another 7 1/2 minutes of sleep there. Now I am finally back in the good ol city of Bucyrus OH and you would never believe it but I am playing two tables of online poker as I type this. Anyone know that phone number for the gambler's help line?
I will stay away from exact spending numbers (jeans are expensive in vegas. lol) but after all of the craziness that is a single man's 8 day vacation to Vegas. I came out a slight winner. One day I may be able to cut out the needless spending and drunk blackjack losses but that will mean I have to grow up! If anyone sees that happening please slap me....
Vegas, my favorite city on Earth to hate!
Of course Eddy knows everyone in Vegas so we just walk up to Tao and 14 people say "Eddy what's up" and we walk right in. I got to meet Jamie Fox for a whole 3 seconds flat before the DJ was yelling Jamie Muthaf@&*#( Fox is in the house and he had to get on stage. I got a quick picture of him during a little freestyle. There was a chance to hang with him later in the night but you are never going to believe this, I lost my cell phone battery yet again sometime earlier in the night. JESUS! I lost Eddy and obviously couldn't get a hold of him so I left Tao at like 4am. In my state it was deadly for me to walk through the casino to get back to my room at The Palazzo. I unfortunately stopped by a blackjack table and dropped $1,300 in what couldn't have been longer than 20 minutes. Just makes me sick thinking about it after avoiding BJ tables for over a week already. It happens I guess.
I woke up Saturday morning and got a call, on the hotel phone obviously, from Eddy saying lets meet at the Canyon Ranch Spa to get rid of the hangovers. We met down there and got signed up for a pass and I signed up for a 80 minute massage. The place is amazing and worth every penny we spent there. The massage was exactly what I needed and I felt great a coupe hours later when I left. The plan was that Eddy was going to go play poker and I was going to go try and find a battery for my phone. After 2 hours of driving around Vegas I found a radio shack that had a phone for me. I made it back to the poker room where Eddy was playing some $5-$10 NL. This game is much different than the $2-5 NL I had been playing all week long. The big difference is that there is no cap on the buy-in. In $2-5 it is $1,000. People buy in for $10,000 in the $5-10 game so your money is always at risk in that game. Of course the potential is always there to win big too. Just have to be more careful is all. This is not what I did. I made two huge errors and dropped $1,500 in the first half hour at the table and was furious. I added more money to my stack and started to slowly tear away at the deficit. We played for about 4 more hours and I grinded it all back until I was a $28 dollar winner on the night. What a huge comeback!
We left the tables and planned on meeting back in the VIP room to get things started again. Who do we run into? None other than Bas Rutten and former UFC Heavyweight Champion Randy Couture and his wife. Wow were they amazing guys. Eddy has known Bas for many years. We were going to try and meet up with them later in the night for more drinks but never got to. I will try and post a picture on this if I can. If not I will have it on Facebook and Myspace for sure. While in the VIP salon we all drank a glass of Don Julio Real. ($400 a bottle) and then later had a glass of Louis XIII. ($2,000 a bottle). Probably only time in my life I will ever drink all of this stuff. Well until my next trip to Vegas anyways. lol
Randy and Bas left and we headed over to a roulette table where I proceeded to drop $400. We did manage to down about 5 shots of Patron in the meantime though so we were ready for Tao once again for some more debauchery. We again just walked right in and headed straight to the VIP tables beside the dance floor. We met a couple of fighters that he had worked with in the past and continued to drown ourselves with the bottles in front of us. We got absolutely wasted and I'll leave it at that... Jamie was there again but I didn't get to talk to him this time. My favorite part of the night is that I didn't lose a penny on the way back to my room that night. Or should I say morning. The sun was definitely out when I made it back.
After waking up around 12pm when the front desk called to make me check out. I was experiencing a Top 3 hangover of all time! Eddy was hurting just as bad apparently as he was driving to San Diego with 50 yard line seats for the Sunday Night Football game vs the Colts. He recommended me rolling to the Spa again so I did and sat there for over 7 hours (about 2 of which I spent praying to the porcelain god). It was huge though since it allowed me to get some much needed sleep. After showering and leaving there I decided to try and make it down to the poker room for a couple hours before leaving for my 1am flight home. I sat down, bought my $1,000 in chips, and then immediately felt like I was going to pass out. As I tried to run for the bathroom. I didn't quite make it and stopped at a trash can by one of the tables. I hear "Wes, Wes are you ok?" in the background and I turn around to see JJ Liu 1/2 concerned 1/2 laughing at me. Wow was that ever embarrassing. Not the first and certainly not the last I am sure so I laughed it off and finished the deed in the men's room. Once I got back to my table I played the only mistake free session of my entire trip to Vegas and was able to pocket one last win of $420.
The next 12 hours were some of the most miserable of my life as I took the red eye back to Ohio. (Nate and Joe I do not know how you guys do it and then work the next day! Truly amazing). I tried to sleep on the flight to Minnesota but that worked like it does when I am the one flying the jet. I had a terrible 3 1/2 hour lay over in the twin cities and got another 7 1/2 minutes of sleep there. Now I am finally back in the good ol city of Bucyrus OH and you would never believe it but I am playing two tables of online poker as I type this. Anyone know that phone number for the gambler's help line?
I will stay away from exact spending numbers (jeans are expensive in vegas. lol) but after all of the craziness that is a single man's 8 day vacation to Vegas. I came out a slight winner. One day I may be able to cut out the needless spending and drunk blackjack losses but that will mean I have to grow up! If anyone sees that happening please slap me....
Vegas, my favorite city on Earth to hate!
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
Playing with JJ Liu
Today was a fun day at the tables. They started a new $2-5 NL table at the Venetian and we headed back to the same place I spent 14 hours yesterday. I grabbed the same seat and settled in for the long haul. The table filled up rather rapidly and I recognized a couple of the players from the past couple of days. The seat to my immediate right was reserved for someone that was coming and about 30 minutes later JJ Liu came and sat down. She was runner up to Ted Forrest in the 2007 Bay 101 Shooting Stars World Poker Tour event for a cool $600,000. She has career winnings of over $1.7 million. So sick. Well I played with her for nearly 10 hours tonight and actually got to know her quite well. Very Very nice lady to say the least. She took a couple rough beats but is a very tough player. I was happy to be on her left the whole night.
The second hand I played I had two red kings in middle position. A lady in front of me raised to $25 and I reraised her $75. She called. We saw a 10 high flop with two spades and I bet out $120. She called. The turn was another spade, she checked and I had to protect my hand. She only bought in for $500 and only had $300 left after the flop bet. I bet $700 and after thinking about it for .2 sec she called with QhQs. Boom a sapde on the river and she wins a $800 pot. Disgusting way to start the night. I was a little pissed so I went on a quick restroom break and dropped a $100 into a slot machine on the way back. Yet another wasted $100 away from poker. lol. I am still up about $700 or so in the pit due the craps table a few days ago though. I am up on craps, down on slots and roulette. Not a dime on Blackjack yet but that is sure to change the next two days with some friends coming into town.
I had a great time tonight and called it a night kind of early at 2:30am and finished up $1,072. No complaints... just made a couple of crucial errors that cost me about $1,000 total over the night. If I can cut out those types of mistakes then I can start making some real amounts of cash.
Maybe a tourney tomorrow, we'll see what Eddy wants to do. Time for some sleep
The second hand I played I had two red kings in middle position. A lady in front of me raised to $25 and I reraised her $75. She called. We saw a 10 high flop with two spades and I bet out $120. She called. The turn was another spade, she checked and I had to protect my hand. She only bought in for $500 and only had $300 left after the flop bet. I bet $700 and after thinking about it for .2 sec she called with QhQs. Boom a sapde on the river and she wins a $800 pot. Disgusting way to start the night. I was a little pissed so I went on a quick restroom break and dropped a $100 into a slot machine on the way back. Yet another wasted $100 away from poker. lol. I am still up about $700 or so in the pit due the craps table a few days ago though. I am up on craps, down on slots and roulette. Not a dime on Blackjack yet but that is sure to change the next two days with some friends coming into town.
I had a great time tonight and called it a night kind of early at 2:30am and finished up $1,072. No complaints... just made a couple of crucial errors that cost me about $1,000 total over the night. If I can cut out those types of mistakes then I can start making some real amounts of cash.
Maybe a tourney tomorrow, we'll see what Eddy wants to do. Time for some sleep
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