12:10 PM - Amazon Blue, 47-2. It was a mob scene getting in the room. The riser from which the opening festivities will start is right in front of me. There are a lot of TV/video cameras and microphones around.

12:17 PM - Jack Effel starts the opening announcements. 5 levels, 20-minute breaks, 90-minute dinner break after level 3, 2-hour levels. We’ll play until about 1 AM and the survivors will return on Tuesday for 2-A. Then Wayne Newton walks up the center aisle trailed by the ladies of Jubilee. Wayne gives a brief, enthusiastic speech about having fun and winning money in “my city … Las Vegas!” On cue, members of the UNLV Marching Band rush out, playing “Viva Las Vegas.” At 12:24, he says the magic words: “Shuffle up and deal.”

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My “First” World Series of Poker

As I walked into the Rio at about 11 o’clock, I thought about my first in-person memory of The World Series of Poker. I had read Al Alvarez’s book, The Biggest Game in Town, and was intrigued by poker and the World Series, but very much from afar. I had still never played the game, but very much wanted to learn.

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With 666 of my close personal friends, I made it through Day 1 of the World Series of Poker. We started today with about 1,300, so the chip average for the day’s finishers was just under 40,000. I have 49,025 and I’m thrilled to have it. I was once down to 5,000 in chips and needed to hit an ace on the river after I was all-in to stay alive. And the two best hands I got during the last two hours both cost me a bunch of chips.

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You know how they say, “It doesn’t matter when you play Day 1 of the Main Event because you end up with a tableful of people you never heard of anyway?”

They don’t know shit. Amazon Blue Forty-Seven/Two, my table, had David “Devilfish” Ulliot and Maureen Feduniak. And to make things more interesting, Devilfish declared war on me personally about a half-hour in.

I’m dictating a detailed account from the Compound at the dinner break and will post it by Friday morning. But the short version is this: From a low of 5,000 chips (we started with 20,000), I now have 38,000 and Devilfish busted so long ago he probably has his money down for the 2009 Main Event.

I’m sitting on the balcony of the compound, smoking a Havana Bolivar Belicoso and making these entries by stepping inside when the mood strikes. This will be my last entry before playing in the Main Event tomorrow, Thursday, July 3, Day 1-A.

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[from the notebooks of June 3]

I made it to Day 2 of the Mixed Hold ‘Em but missed the first several hands. I arrived early and was told the time had been pushed back from 3 PM to 3:30. Then I was told the tables had changed. It turned out the tables had changed but not the time. So I started, like Day 1, late and disoriented.

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[Written June 25, from the notebooks of June 2]

At 1AM my table breaks and I move to Table 4, Seat 4. Erick Lindgren is in Seat 2. Patrik Antonius is in Seat 6. Chau Giang is in Seat 7. Did I mention there was a pretty tough field in this one?

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[written June 25 from the notebooks of June 2]

7:10 PM - The player in Seat 1 was born in the U.S. but lives in Australia and he’s talking about how it is impossible make a living of playing poker in Australia. “They have a big rake and a time charge.”

Everyone groans. Another player mentions that he seems to run into Australians wherever he goes, especially when he’s traveling in Central and South America.

Seat One: “Yeah, Australians go all over. I don’t know why they like to travel so much but they do.”

The dealer doesn’t miss a beat. “It’s probably to get away from the rake.”

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[written June 25th from the events of June 2nd]

The $5,000 Mixed Hold ‘Em was my shining moment of the World Series so far, which is odd because nothing good ever happened in that tournament.

I start by arriving late at 5:15 PM and have to ask which game we’re playing (limit hold ‘em) and the structure (100-200 with 50-100 blinds). I just feel like a rube having to ask after everyone else has played several hands. Barry Shulman is in Seat 2 and J.J. Liu is in Seat 3.

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Today is Wednesday, July 2.

I think.

I do know that I play the Main Event tomorrow and that’s Thursday July 3, so this must be the 2nd. I’m staying away from the Series today - the mounting crowds and excitement, the star-studded Ante Up for Africa tournament, the lavish WSOP parties - to write.

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I busted out of the $1,500 HORSE a little while ago in 82nd place, two off the money.  I had a lot of chips, lost them on some freakish hands where opponents made wrong plays and got lucky, and then went out with a superstrong hand in Stud against an opponent with a pair of deuces who hit a 2-outer.

In the process of figuring out how to tell this, I came to a couple conclusions, in varying degrees obvious or surprising:

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It’s 3 AM and I honestly don’t know how to make this entry short or fast. But I have to.

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 [written early AM June 23]

It’s pretty obvious that it’s time for me to go home. I don’t think I’ve cashed in a World Series event since George Bush’s daddy was President, and I’m not even succeeding in the satellites anymore. They’re trying to give me their money, but I just can’t seem to close the deal. I’ll be driving home on Monday, and returning to the World Series next weekend. In the meantime while I’m home, I’ll get caught up on a lot of interesting entries for you. But let me just leave you with a fitting story of how my current visit to the World Series of Poker ended.

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[written June 17 early a.m.]

Okay, so I’m running good. There’s no doubt about that because I just played two more $525 single-table satellites, my third straight night in the satellite room, and I won them both. I should be doing well, but not this well.

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[written June 15, p.m.]

If you try something once, it’s research. If you try it twice, though, you’re a member. So I spent Father’s Day evening playing in another pair of $525 single-table satellites.

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[written June 14, p.m.]

4:20 PM - Table 4, Seat 3. $525 single-table satellite. 20 minute rounds, 2,000 chips.

4:30 PM - Here’s the quality of player in the $525 satellite. It’s the first level, a player in early position with Q-Q limps. Four others limp. He check-calls all the way with a king high board. And the guy betting folds face-down after he’s called on the river. Then the player who folds re-raises all-in on the very next hand with Ad-5d. He runs into K-K and is out in three hands.

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[written June 14, p.m.]

The point of the story I am going to tell is this: Get the fuck to Las Vegas as soon as you can. Quit Full Tilt. Throw your computer in a dumpster. Cut off your girlfriend’s arm and sell the rings off the fingers. Do whatever you can to get to the World Series of Poker. But when you get here, don’t turn left at the end of the Convention Center hallway to go to the Amazon Room; turn right into the CardRunners.com satellite room.  The opportunities provided in the satellite room are so lucrative as to justify any sort of mayhem necessary to get your ass there.

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[written Friday the 13th in darkness] 

“I love Razz because when you are out, you feel happy to be away from the torture, so it is all upside.”

- Annie Duke

This is not a blog entry, so much as it is a ransom note.

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The next event I’ll be playing will be the $1,500 Razz, an event I’m still kicking myself for missing last year. It starts at 5 PM on Friday the 13th. That seems very fitting.

I’ll be taking a lot of notes and I’ll try to share as much as I can, as soon as I can.

P.S. - Someone told me there is great value at the WSOP in the Satellite Room. So if you have a few bucks and want to be here, but not really enough to play the events you want to play, consider checking out the satellite action. Some players are foregoing the cash games to bulk up their bankrolls on satellites, either using the winning chips for buy-ins or selling them for cash to other players buying into events.

It seemed the less I cared, the better I did. I entered the $3,000 HORSE on Wednesday night. It was a similar experience to several of my limit events so far: cleaning up on players who have no idea how to play these limit games, running into some big hands or better players or bad luck (or a combo), then scratching along at the bottom trying to stay alive at the end of the night.

Here are some of the interesting things that happened. It was an unsuccessful adventure, but an adventure just the same:

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