Hi Mom Hi Def

Vegas Open

I flew down to Vegas to play in the ambitiously named National Poker League Vegas Open, held at Caesars Palace in their beautiful new poker room. I was fortunate to make the final table in event No. 2, which will be broadcast in high definition on the INHD channel in July. While there I returned to my old stomping ground, the Golden Nugget, now under new management which might mean Andy “The Rock” Bloch is allowed to eat at the buffet again. The new owners, Landry’s, opened an instance of their premier class of restaurant there, Vic and Anthony’s, an old-school steakhouse in a city already rife with them. I ate there several times and enjoyed both the food and service. As for the wine, apparently an entire shipment of Darioush 2002 to Vegas got cooked en route. After three bottles at two different restaurants I gave up.

The Full Tilt crew filmed a loop of my usual self-promoting hyperbole that I think is going to come out very well. If you’re at the Rio for the World Series, stop by the Full Tilt hospitality suite and watch it, along with loops of all the other Full Tilt pros. Last year they had free broccoli too.

Speaking of the World Series, I was in a bit of a quandary because I accidentally won a seat on another site without realizing they would want me to wear enemy gear. They kindly cashed me out, understanding the conflict, but it took a couple months to get through to the decision maker and that left me with very little time to win a seat on Full Tilt. Fortunately I played in the 720-player freeroll last night – freerolls are the only type of poker I can play in Kirkland, “East Berlin” Wash., without being considered a felon – and won one of 20 seats. Super satellites are such an odd form of poker since it is correct for everyone to gang up against the short stacks. The two big stacks were moving in on every hand rather than letting the short stacks gamble and knock themselves out, but it was good for me as a middle stack. I mucked pocket Queens on the big blind en route to victory. That qualified me for the Full Tilt $10 million bonus for winning the big one.

I’m writing this on the plane back to Vegas, planning to spend most of July in town for the World Series. I will play most of the televised events and limit Hold ‘Em events and spend some time looking at condos although I’m not exactly sure whether or where I’ll move. I’ll likely stay in a State without an income tax but I might get a second home and split up my time. Since I can’t play poker for money at home, I’ve been playing the cash “skill games” offered by MSN. For the life of me I can’t discern any qualitative difference between playing a Bespelled tournament for money and a poker tournament – both involve about the same mix of luck and skill -- but I think it unlikely that the Washington attorney general will arrest Bill Gates for felony gambling.

I’ll be hanging around the Full Tilt hospitality suite much of the time so come by and say hi to me and the other Full Tilt pros.