Poker Rica --> Poker Vegas

A mere two weeks after returning from my terrible failure at the Latin American Poker Tour in the hot, humid country of Costa Rica, I'm set to head over to the blistering heat and dry city air of fabulous Las Vegas. I'll be going there one week after Mezz0 was there for a convention. My hope is that he will join me this upcoming weekend as well. He has been promised a free room and two free 3-4 star meals. Plus I'll be looking to score some drugs, which I always share with only a modest amount of resistance.

Our old man will be in Vegas the weekend after I/we visit, so in three consecutive weekends, each male member of our family will have been gambling in Las Vegas at least once. This may seem odd and somewhat disgusting to some people.

For a conservative (fiscally, religiously, and politically) father, I'm not sure if he finds this poker-fueled random vacation planning troubling or not. Maybe he's just trying to calculate the odds of such a thing happening. He was, after all, the man who spent more one-on-one time with his underage sons at the horse races than anywhere else. Without him, I would have no idea what it meant to hedge a $2 exacta box in the 6th with a $10 wager on the 5-1 horse to place. He never drank when he gambled (or any other time in front of us, for that matter) and he frequently reminded us how stupid gambling was while we were at the track…then he'd walk upstairs and place our bets with the $10 bankroll that he gave us.

Clearly, he was an excellent role model and without this early exposure to responsible gambling I would never have taken up poker. That certainly would have left me with a lot of idle time. But what would I have done with it? Would I be a better person? A college graduate? A poet? More soberer?

Fuck that shit.

Back to Vegas.

Originally I was planning on playing in the $2,000 Omaha hi-lo World Series of Poker event on June 8th and making my first attempt at earning a WSOP bracelet--or at least cashing in a WSOP event--while bumping elbows with various poker celebrities. That was before my minivan developed a transmission problem and I was forced to spend my entire poker bankroll on a new set of wheels. Now, tragically, my live poker bankroll is at $0.00.











I am still desperately craving a seat in this tournament, more so than I was for Costa Rica, even though this tournament lacks pretty much everything Costa Rica had: 4 prostitutes to every guy, Master-P--shaved headed and Harley Davidson bearded--staring down Daniel Negraneau & making him move out of his way, and a welcoming party featuring topless girls painted to resemble rain forest creatures….also smoke machines, cheap booze, $2 packs of cigarettes, Montel Williams, ceviche, rainforests, Orel Hershizer, beaches, and a reconstructed American bomber plane built into a bar on the outskirts of a national forest…and the opportunity to do tequila shots with poker pro Victor Ramdin. Now that was a poker tournament, but without any bracelet possibilities.




<---Does tequila shots with strangers the night before big tournaments to reach peak poker playing prowess.

Luckily (I mean skillfully) I have been on a recent upswing (see image below) on Poker Stars. I've got just under $700 in an online account right now and I plan on logging several 180 person multi table tournaments this week and trying my damnedest to boost that up to $2200…then I'll withdraw $2,000 and I'll be set with my tournament buy in before I leave. Of course, if past performance is any indicator, this plan has "FAIL" written all over it.

<---Games 300-500 = shoulder surgery + oxycontin




What's more likely to happen is that I'll arrive in Vegas this Saturday at 8:30 pm, find a Wells Fargo ATM, withdraw the maximum ($300?), meet up with Mezz0 at the Imperial Palace, eat one of their delicious Philly Cheese Steaks, and start getting drunk and hammering the $1/$2 NL tables at the MGM at about 11:30pm.

By 5:00 pm the following day, I need $2,000 in profit.

It's hard to lose at $1/$2 in Vegas, but it's even harder to win $2,000 in one sitting while drinking heavily...and your opponents can only buy in for $200 at a time. So the goal is to earn $350-$450 by morning. This is an entirely possible and realistic goal. With winnings in hand, I will then go to the roulette tables and bet it all on black twice in a row.

No, no, no. That's just stupid.

Then I will rest up and wake at around noon on Sunday. I'll head over to the Rio and plunk down $225 or $325 for a WSOP single table 10 person satellite--apparently they run around the clock--and I'll put my sit n go skillz to the test. This plan, of course, has "EPIC FAIL" written all over it.

That's why Mezz0 better take the Dirty Whore up to vegas and keep me company at the tables while I explain to him why it is more risky to play $3/$6 limit than $1/$2 NL while he stuffs his face with the leftovers from my plate. It's not about gambling. It's about family.