AlrightJack's Vegas Diary

Day 4 - Saturday 9th JUly 2005

A slower start to the day than usual, mainly cos Ive holed myself up in the hotel room writing this diary, but I eventually leave at about midday to check out the tournament times in the Orleans card room. At 7pm theres a $100 + $25 + $5 event with one optional rebuy. I try to buy in early but the rather clueless member of staff I ask about it eventually tells me I cant buy in until 5.45pm. OK, time for a bit of BJ. I get sucked out and lose $200, so off to the Rio for Day 1 part three it is.

Every day it seems to be getting busier at the Rio, with more and more spectators wanting to get as close to the action as possible. Getting to some parts of the floor takes ages. The aisles are crammed, especially where theres a well-known face on a table close to the rail. Plenty of Brits start their assault today. Julian Yo-yo Thew, Barry Im from Sheffield Neville and Gutshots Nick Persaud to name a few.

Heading for the media room I find Tikay and El Blondie looking rather serious and stressed. It seems my inability to access the forum today wasnt just another issue with my laptop, but a forum meltdown that they are desperately trying to resolve. At least Jen and Tikay get a much-deserved break the 12 hours per day theyve been putting in takes extreme dedication. Theyve been struggling on with a temporary solution, but intend to finish early.

I watch the TV table for a while, but its pretty dull you cant really see whats going on and most people watching are just leg weary spectators glad of a seat. Barry Nevilles updates on his progress make up for it though.

Ive got 50k now, me tables full of muppets, I want 200k by the end of the day and the chip lead. Then theyll know who Barry from Sheffield is!

I decide to take a final look at the lifestyle exhibition before heading back to the Orleans. Its the last day of the exhibition and I want all the freebies I can get for research purposes of course. The first stand I come across is one with author Peter Alson signing copies of his new book. Several years ago, when I had just started working for City Index I read Peters Confessions of an Ivy League Bookie a great read that I highly recommend to anyone who works in the industry. I dont buy his book, but we do have a brief chat and he tells me the rights to the film of the book have been sold, but nothing is being done about actually producing it.

Then I bump into Lenny Barshak, the CEO and main shareholder of Tribeca tables. I tell him about what Ive been up to and the games Ive played and he laughs condescendingly at the $100 to $200 buy-in tournaments Ive entered.

Hey, I play $200/$400 limit he says rather gratuitously.

How rich does he think I am?

I then get into a conversation with a random who thinks the WSOP is unfair to the better players. His reasoning is that if a good player gets put on a table that is full of tight players and that table never breaks, they dont stand a chance to build up a good stack. He also believes that there are loads of tables like this that will not lose any players at all during the first day, thus penalising the good players that find themselves on them. Players who get moved around a lot will get ample opportunity to increase their stacks, he reasons. His solution is to redraw seats every two hours.

I tell him that IMO not only would that be logistically impratical, but that hes having a bubble if he thinks there is even one table that loses nobody all day. I make it big odds on that every table loses at least one player across all three first days. On average each table loses between 6 and 7 of the 10 that started. However he remained convinced he is right.

I buy a copy of the recently published Harrington on Holdem, a pair of Graham Hieuws new poker specs and enter every prize draw I can going before leaving the Rio.

I get to the Orleans cardroom just before the start of the tournament and find myself on a table with at least 3 people whove never played live before. For the $100 + $25 buy-in you get 800 starting chips, but for an optional extra $5 dealer tip, you get 200 more, bringing up the starting chips to 1000. Everyone takes it. My table is quite weak and I get up to 3,500 at the break. Ariston, Burnley John, Womble and Junior are also playing, but none are on my table.

After the break the blinds begin to get rather severe and it becomes virtual all-in poker after another 30 mins or so. I decide to reraise all-in the table cannon who has now preflop raised four hands in a row. I do have a hand this time though, so when a K comes on the flop my big slick looks good against his pair of ladys, but when their case sister shows up on the river its adios AlrightJack and another failure to even get close to the money.

Just as I get busted Burnley John makes his exit and 10 mins later Womble, the last remaining member of the Blonde raiding party, rises from his seat.

A couple of drinks later and we manage to drag Ariston away from the fruut machines and video poker and head for the bar/blackjack tables, where I recoup $140. Eventually we decide to head for Ariston and Womble's rather fragrant hotel room for a few private sit n gos. There are four of us playing Ariston, Chubby Nowab, Colchester Kev and myself. We play winner takes all, $50 buy-in NL Holdem. Simon wins the first one, Russ the second and when I river a straight against an extremely unlucky Kev holding pocket rockets I take down event number 3. I win the fourth and final game as well and a quick heads up against Russ - where his A3 fails to outdraw my AJ - to make my first poker profit of the trip. Up $300 on the session and its time to head back to my room to pass out.