So I have arrived in Vegas ready for the WPT big one and I meet up with Ram and Marc Goodwin (pictured right) for some noodles. It turns out that they are not playing much poker as golf is the current flavour of the month.
There is a golf course in Las Vegas called Shadow Creek. The green fee is a cool $1,000 a day. That is a $1,000 a day if you are lucky enough to be ‘invited’ to play there. Apparently, cars and taxis are turned away at the main gate and limo’s are the only acceptable mode of arrival.
On the course, golf buggies are the mandatory form of transport and the majority are (surprisingly) of the bog standard white variety. However, there is one light blue buggy complete with gold fittings, mahogany steering wheel, dashboard and the biggest mutherfugger ghetto blaster you can imagine. Yes I did say ghetto blaster on a golf buggy that is driven around a golf course. As they say, this is Vegas baby.
The number 23 is emblazoned across the side panels and seats, which gives a clue to the real owner (for those of you who follow basketball). So anyway, as Marc and Ram are making their way around in a trivial $10,000 match, our hero (Marc) finds himself with a difficult bunker shot.
As he is laying off left, lining up an inch behind the Bellagio Titliest (available in the fridge in your room), he hears a distant thud. Doof, doof, doof. The distant drums gradually get louder as he is addressing the ball. Doof, doof, doof, doOF, doOF, doOF, and as he is half way through his backswing, DOOF, DOOF, DOOF, “yoh”, “yoh”, “yoh”… Phil Ivey was on the course.
Phil and Marc struck up a friendship in last autumn’s Monte Carlo Millions and now the great one wanted to join Ram and Marc for a knock… along with his entourage of 9 or 10 bodyguards, mates or hangers-on. So the match prevailed en masse, under ‘gambler’s rules’ of course. None of this golf etiquette at the most exclusive golf course in Vegas! Who ever reached the ball first, played first. When you address the ball, there is a rhythm to swing to.
So it transpires two days later, our intrepid heroes (Marc & Ram) have a big match lined up against the Swedish poker millionaires, Martin DeKniffe and Eric123 The Salmon Sangstrom. I think this one was some sort of convoluted $20,000, $20,000, $20,000. $60,000 a corner arrangement where our boys managed to net 120 large.
Anyway, Marc and Ram are on the practice range knocking up at the same time as the great man just happens to be there, again. So Phil sends over his caddie, in the dream machine of course, to ask if he can join them. Ram says, “no way after the bedlam of the previous encounter, we need to concentrate, I can’t stand Rap, you can’t afford it”, sort of thing. The caddie reports back to Phil.
Now I guess Phil isn’t used to geezers giving him ‘the playing hard to get’ policy, so he saunters over himself. “What’s the story, morning glory?”. Ok, well maybe those weren’t his exact words. Eventually he is told about the England v Sweden match and loves the idea. “Michael is up at the weekend and today’s winners must play Team USA”. Michael being Mr. Air Jordan of course, the rightful owner of the dreammobile golf buggy.
Anyway Ram is still insistent that he wants to concentrate, doesn’t like rap and doesn’t want to play with an entourage, and Phil doesn’t want to play high enough, and knocks him back, again. Is the English master of Internet Poker bluffing? Well today is Thursday. This Michael Air Jordan geezer arrives tomorrow… I’ll let you know… oh and somewhere in The Bellagio, some of us may be playing poker…