Las Vegas, June

All sorts of things come to mind when we think about Las Vegas, the Bellagio fountain and Conservatory, the summer weather begins but hasn’t usually hit it’s heat stride yet, Red rock Canyon, Ghost towns and most of all people watching!

June is also the middle of the WSOP (World Series of Poker). This little event has changed a lot since it first started at Benny Binions place. It has grown exponentially with the popularity of the game itself. Poker used to be a backroom, hushed tone game that brought to mind rooms with a table and a lot of cigar/cigarette smoke, drinking and occasionally the fight or two with or without firearms. No one played the current fad games, it was a simpler if more dangerous occupation back in the day (as recent as the year 2000).

The WSOP went from one table of long 8 time pros who knew each other and had played together for years to a popular game with over 75 events and hundred of other tournaments and games in town over the two months that it runs. We go to play cash and to rail bird any of our favorite players. We have been part of Daniel Negreanu’s VLOG in the past and have met and are friends on twitter with many of the pros who frequent these events.

The only deviation in our usual pattern for an event of this nature was that we were also meeting Geezer Guy and his lady friend and had to make some accommodation for meeting with them. Contrary to our norm, we rented a 2 room suite on the south end of the strip at the Delano which is part of the Mandalay Bay property. The rooms consist of a twin queen bed suite with sitting room and a bath and a half with a connecting door into a king suite. The rooms were nice but not an outstanding experience. Housekeeping was less than stellar in their attention to detail but very spot on at checking the honor bar status. There is an exorbitant charge for everything at this hotel. There is no slack given for ANY status less than whale even if you have their credit card. The suite was an “OK” but not anything special. For more on this see my post “Really Vegas”. The up side of this was that we got an up close view of the ongoing construction of the new Raiders stadium.

GeezerGuy has a new lady friend after the passing of GeezerGal. We had agreed to meet in Las Vegas for a few days to meet and greet her and let E spend some time with her daddy. We flew into town and got our rental car to early to check into the hotel so we headed out to a new lunch place called EAT in Summerlin. This is a brunch place that has a fabulous breakfast/lunch menu that serves up hearty foods that are very one off a kind styled by the chef. They also have an iced coffee that is darn near perfect. Back to the Delano to check in and meet up with Geezerguy and ret a little then out for our first dinner to an old comfortable (for us) meal at the Roma Deli. This is an historic restaurant that was host to many of Vegas’ past characters. It is now owned by a group who includes Poker Legend Todd Brunson and has had a very needed update to it’s facilities. A hearty thumbs up to Todd and the crew for making this iconic Deli/restaurant a must stop on any visitors list of eating establishments.

Wednesday saw us doing our usual unwinding and hanging out and then Thursday we hit one of our favorite past times; we headed downtown and ate at the sister restaurant to Eat in Summerlin. The EAT in downtown is just as quirky and the food is just as fabulous.

Speaking of eating…OMG, go to Jessie Raes BBQ. This place is a hole in the wall that was packed for lunch and is 100% worth it. they serve fabulous BBQ and in working man’s portions. They are right next to the new stadium and are going to be off the hook! Catch them on instagram and say hi to Jessie.

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So, after some family time it was off to our regular Vegas schedule… Our first stop being a @thetrooper97 (twitter and YouTube) meetup game. He hosts these weekly games on Thursdays at the Westgate casino where he has coffee, pizza and good company. Everyone comes and there are usually 2-3 tables of fans (players) there. We have been followers of his since before he had a thousand followers on any media. Tim is a great guy and very social. He markets his own brand of coffee as well as a clothing line for players and fans. A good time was had by all and even tho we didn’t win it was a great afternoon/evening.

Off to the Rio for the WSOP! Caesars Entertainment bought the rights to the WSOP brand many years ago and has run with it ever since. The venue is the convention center at the Rio and is monstrous. Just walking into the area you get the feeling of excitement. The noise from millions of riffling poker chips and the background of thousands of voices is mesmerizing and kind of hypnotic! While walking around looking for old friends, celebrities and other folks we ran into @kevmath. We have followed him for a long time on Twitter and he runs all the social media for the WSOP series of tournaments. Kevin is a mountain of a man and has a heart of gold. Another twitter star we got to meet was @Aleeyah. She is another poker reporter that we have wanted to meet for a while. Unfortunately one of our very good friends from the reporting world wasn’t arriving until after our vacation was over but if you ever get the opportunity to meet B.J. Nemeth (@BJNemeth on twitter) definitely take it! This guy is probably one of the nicest people we have ever met. His heart is huge and he is truly kind. A Star Wars geek who gives out Lego mini-figs to strangers and travels the world over, coming home only long enough to recharge, love his dog and rescue strays. Flynn, in keeping with being a rail bird, found Daniel Negreanu and got a couple photos from the rail!

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We railed an old friend at the seniors event and got a little caught up (@washdude), Darren, it”s always fun with you around!

E looked at me and said the vibe was getting to her. We are normally cash game players with an occasional tourney thrown in here or there. A departure in our norm hit us and we both registered for an afternoon deep stack tournament. Not a bracelet offering but at least a WSOP event! E broke out before the money but yours truly faded a field of 213 players to cash in 18th place! You can check those stats on the Herndon Mob!

After our time there we hit a lot of poker rooms and had a bunch of fun. Meeting up with old friend Chris Abramski for “drunk poker night” was a blast and we were out till 4 a.m.

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We are looking forward to our next adventure here.

Join us next time for a fun adventure somewhere…we don’t know as we are both back at our jobs and working lot’s of overtime to pay for this vacation LOL.

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