Like the weeks I’m out there, my trips to Vegas have started to merge into one. I don’t even know how many times I’ve been now: five, six, seven? I’m really not sure. What I do know is that I’ve spent a large chunk of my life standing in the Rio convention centre jotting down numbers on my notepad and doing my utmost to make a hand of Limit Seven-Card Stud High-Low sound interesting. At first, I’ll be full of beans, but eventually that glazed look will soak up my face and I’ll have trouble deciphering one hand from the other.
For many, Vegas isn’t just about relocating a routine to more extreme pastures, but escaping the one that has become so stagnant back home. One of Vegas’ major attractions is that it transports you into an almost dream-like land where time is forgotten and everything you do is based on the ‘now’ rather than planning for the ‘later’. Vegas removes that rhythm that you’ve become accustomed to, and replaces it with something more unpredictable. For all its sins, Vegas makes people feel alive. Whilst I may be ‘working’, I still feed off this, and being able to leave the comfort of the office chair and turn my world upside down for two months is something I continue to embrace.
Preparing for Vegas is like a military operation for me. As my old school teacher once said, “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail,” so I’ve created an unnecessarily long to-do list of trivial tasks I need to complete before I’m safe to leave the house. Every year, without fail, I treat myself to an annual shearing at the local salon. It’s in Hampstead, and ridiculously expensive, but it makes me feel pseudo important for a day and allows me to momentarily forget about the prospect of updating fat, sweaty men for the next two months. They also have good looking foreign assistants who give you head massages whilst they wash your hair. This is worth the admission alone. At first, I thought the Snoopy charm had finally made a rare, but successful appearance, but I soon realised that it's little more than a formality. It's like the hookers in the Wynn bar in Vegas: I wish they'd just say what's going on before they allow you to think you're actually attractive. Still, I think that massage the closest I’ve come to being unfaithful.
It’s important to be fully prepared in the underwear department. When you’re on a cycle of three or four boxers with an emergency pair that has just about enough cloth to cover your left testicle, two months in a hotel room starts to look a little daunting and the words ‘commando’ and ‘genital chaffing’ quickly leap to the forefront of the mind. So, on the eve of my flight, I head off down to Brent Cross to stock up on undies. I don’t know why, but I possess an uncontrollable urge to buy the brightest possible (maybe because no one else can see them), and this week was no different, although I did resist the urge to go for the UK ones that said ‘100% British Meat’ or a pair with a helicopter print and the words ‘Big Chopper’ etched into the seam.
Again, in what is an unnecessary extension of my to-do list, I upgraded my mobile phone. The guys at Orange are just a nightmare to deal with and wouldn’t break a smile if Ken Dodd tickled them with his feather duster, but I decided to brave it. At the end, and despite it formerly being a free service that takes a few seconds, they tried to charge me £6 to transfer my numbers across from my old phone. Of course, I’m British and stubborn, and although I already had too much to do, I saved myself the money and opted for the manual route. I think I made a mistake as I’m still on the ‘Es’ and on the verge of giving up through RSI, so apologies if your name is above Erica Schoenberg’s. She just sneaks in.
I lost my driving license a while back. I replaced it straight away, but lost it again within a week and was too shamed, and poor, to order another. Since then, I’ve had no call to use it, and even on the one time the police waved me over, I was able to put my foot down and lose them. From my experience, you just don’t need a license, and if you do get called into court or something, you just order one, so what’s the point in doing so until then? Well, Vegas finally gives me a reason, as, like Ben Grundy here, they seem to think I’m still in my acne-ridden, nirvana-loving teens and will readily request I.D. whenever I order my manly Strawberry Dacari. Carrying a passport around is a real pain, if not a little risky, so after around three or four years, I’m finally a licensed driver again. I guess it says something about me that the main reason I bought a new one was because of alcohol, rather because it's a prerequisite for the car Dana wants us to rent.
I’m working three days a week for PokerNews whilst juggling my usual Black Belt Poker duties, so I doubt I’ll have too much time to play. However, I did play the UKIPT last week, although to little effect. I concluded in my last blog entry that, for someone in my position who can’t devote enough time to conquering cash games, that trying to get lucky and spiking a tournament was the most enjoyable and potentially fulfilling option, but it can still be a demoralising process that requires skin as leathery as Mickey Rourke’s.
My exit from the Main Event was nasty, but not worth reporting. After my departure, and as I waiting for my food at an unused poker table, Marty Wilson perked up and exclaimed with his trademark mischievous smile and Black Country twang, “Oh no, Snoops, what you doing over there?” “I’m chip leader,” I joked. “Just thought I’d kick back, relax, read a magazine. You know, no point in playing now.” About 45 minutes later (I kid you not), a player from Marty’s table rose from his seat and leant in on the rail: “Excuse me, how many chips do you have?” “Er… naught,” I replied, wondering why I was receiving a rubdown. “Oh, I thought you said you were chip leader.”
In the side events, I experienced a strange feeling of deja-vu as, on both exits, I raised from early to middle position with small suited connectors, received two callers, flopped an opened-ended straight and flush draw, got it all in against top set, and missed my outs. Spooky and frustrating, but I wasn’t too fussed – it just feels that I’m on an endless cycle of ‘win in cash, spend it on tournaments, go home even’, and that it could be a while before than tournament win arrives. I guess the key in the meantime is just to make sure I enjoy myself and don’t get too pissed off with anything that happens at the felt. Harder said than done, but I’m trying my best.
I’m going to be at the Rio almost every day this year and will be braced like a coiled spring at ringside to note all the gossip from this year’s World Series. As such, I’ll be writing a blog every few days regaling you with any tales of poker fun and frolics I’ve stumbled upon. I have no shame – please read the blog and leave the occasional comment as I like knowing that people are actually reading what I’m doing. I guess it’s OK if you’re Anne Frank and know that your diary will be enshrined in a museum one day (or at least read by a Nazi general), but I can’t see my blog reaching that wide an audience, so make sure you pop in now and then to give me a ego-massaging wave.
I’m currently cleaning my room even though I’m flying in several hours. Why am I doing that?
