FULL TILT POKER BLOG

#100 – Prisoner of the Bellagio, Part I

Posted by Editor | Filed under Aladdin/Planet Hollywood, Bellagio, Las Vegas, Mike Matusow, Vegas Daily Poker Tournaments, World Poker Tour

I decided I’ve had it too cushy lately. Other than a trip to the Heads-Up Championship a month ago, I’ve been doing my writing from the comfort of my home, or Robert Williamson III’s home, or my home-away-from-home in Maui. It’s time for me to get back on the Circuit. The hard road. Riding the white line. Roughing it.

So here I am at the Bellagio.

It’s not the picnic/sweet deal/boondoggle that it sounds like. I had to endure an 11 PM traffic jam AND almost a half hour in line. And my room is nowhere near the elevator.

OK, no one is likely to feel sorry for me here. Would it help convince you that I’m making sacrifices for you if I told you the bed, bathroom, and shower all accommodate more than one person yet I’m here by myself? That ten people could comfortable hang out and watch the Masters in my room but I’m not even opening the cabinet housing the (undoubtedly huge) televsion?

I didn’t think so.

OK, here’s the deal. I have a lot on my plate here. I’m going to play some of the opening events at the Bellagio Five-Star, the group of tournaments that starts Saturday and ends near the end of the month with the World Poker Tour Championship. I want to let you know how that tournament is looking, and catch up with some of my friends and see if I can impose myself on the adventures of their daily lives. I’m also here working on an article for BLUFF’s World Series preview issue. They want me to write about the big cash games at the World Series, focusing on Andy Beal’s 2 WSOP assaults on Vegas and maybe some new information about the Beal games and maybe, maybe, maybe something about the future of Andy Beal’s love-hate-love-hate-love-hate…. relationship with poker.

Of course, having just checked in, I don’t have anything to report.

NONSENSE! There’s plenty to report.

First, it actually looks like the town changed since I was here a month ago. Driving east on Flamingo before turning south on Las Vegas Boulevard, I noticed that the Barbary Coast is no more. It’s now called Bill’s. I’m not making this up. It’s still a casino/hotel, it’s still got Drai’s, it probably still has the same carpet that has survived 968,000,000 cigarette butts and absorbed the odor of every single one. I’ll probably stop by to see if it’s anything other than new name/new management/same stifling atmosphere.

Some kind of deal is going on at the Aladdin/Planet Hollywood. I think that deal between two rotten operating companies to create a Super-Rotten hotel-casino may have come to term. When I drove by it into the Bellagio self-park, however, the Aladnet Hollywood sign looked dark. In fact, the whole place looked dark. Must be some grand opening strategy.

I was going to see if they still had the graveyard tournament there. That property once had a very nice little poker room but they lost the space, lost the managers, and probably lost a bunch of the other personnel. The last time I played in a tournament there was the graveyard open, last spring. I did it to punish myself for playing badly in a pair of WSOP Circuit events. The room had relocated from this great private room to a space in front of a Chinese restaurant with a rope around it. One regular of the room told me the best thing about the location is that he got to see a lot of drunk girls staggering out of the nearby ladies room. At my table, on the first hand of the tournament, the player to my left raised and THREE other players went all in. The player on the button pondered what to do and asked the dealer, referring to the initial raiser, “How many chips does he have?” The dealer, whose answer would have come off sounding tired even if it wasn’t 2 AM, said, “The same as you, sir. It’s the first hand.” I busted out of the money but did get propositioned by a prostitute while trying to find the door.

The other thing I remember about that gutted husk of a property is that you have to pass through one of the world’s longest shopping malls to get to the casino from the parking garage. I guess they figure the casino is just a loss-leader for the shopping mall, which must be the business they really want to be in. That would explain a lot of management decisions involving the casino.

Once I confirm that Planet Hollydin is still in business, I’ll check that place out.

I talked with Jennifer Harman and David Grey about visiting them this weekend. They each told me they are in town, and neither said, “None of your business, crumb-bum,” so hopefully I’ll get up with them. I’m trying to track down Ted Forrest. His girlfriend Roxana says signs look good, unless Larry Flynt feels like playing some poker this weekend.

Naturally, I put in a call to Matusow. Just as I was leaving my house at 6 PM, I suggested possibly stopping by on the way in. “I don’t think I’ll be up. We’ve been up since 5 and I’m playing an online tournament, just to stay up a little longer before going to bed. But let’s talk tomorrow.”

He hung up, leaving me with just one question. WHO IS “WE”? Mike’s girlfriend? Sam Grizzle? The Tazmanian Devil? Probably about event on all three.

If I don’t reach him tomorrow, maybe I’ll take bets. But I think I’ll hear from him and get to the bottom of this “we” business. And see what Doug Dalton and Jack McClelland are up to. And a whole bunch of other stuff.

Stay tuned.

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