Bond18 – Around the World in 90 Days: Days 71-72

Posted by Bond18 | Filed under Bond18

Things are much quieter now. More and more people are leaving Las Vegas having busted out of the Main, and those left are just hanging around playing a few days of online tournaments then heading out shortly.

Over at the World Series, it’s the bubble day and only Sirwatts is still in from our house. Everyone else is at home hanging out and making arrangements to get out of town. At the moment, I’m the only person in the house planning on playing the Bellagio $15,000, though if Watts busts, he’ll almost certainly be playing.

Today is pretty uneventful. I spend most of my time doing catch up writing, then going out to eat and playing Nintendo Wii with housemates. Watts comes home early, having busted before making the money, leaving our entire house out. He tells me he’s definitely going to play the Bellagio $15,000 and the house discusses which day we should play.

While browsing 2+2, I find out Jimmy “Gobboboy” Fricke has made the final table of the Bellagio $5,000 preliminary event, which has a first prize over $440,000, well enough to get him out of make up. I follow his progress all day until he winds up the winner, having made no deal because he held on to a commanding chip lead for the majority of the final table. I call him up to congratulate him and invite him over to the house to hang out.

Around midnight, Gobbo and some of his housemates roll over and we hang out while playing Chinese and Wii. We decide we should all go out for a big dinner tomorrow at the Bellagio, then buy into the main. Gobbo tells me last he talked to Timex and Steve, they were sure they are getting out of the backing business and that we should start looking for new backers. I had discussed this with both of them during the series, and both said they wanted to see how the series goes before they make any decisions. They’ve certainly had an awesome series, having Gobbo hit for about $450,000, myself for $300,000, and Vanessa for nearly $400,000 (not accounting for buy ins.)

When I get up the next day, I get on AIM and talk to Timex about his backing plans. He says it’s possible that our entire team will be sold/transferred to another backing team, but right now it’s not certain. Gobboboy has already been arranged for under a new backer, and with Vanessa returning to law school and way out of make up, they’ve simply parted ways amicably. As for me, Timex says he’ll talk to other backers and vouch for me, but is also considering keeping me as his lone horse. I’d be happy to continue working under him or for new backers as long as they don’t insist on trying to take my online action. If the only backing deal available/offered was one that involved taking all my online action, I would simply stay un-backed and spend a ton of time grinding online and occasionally playing the live tournaments in the region, which have smaller buys in the area of $3,000-5,000.

At 7:30PM, a large group of us meets up at Prime at the Bellagio for our planned balla ass dinner. It’s one of the first times during the trip I’ve been able to go out and have a nice meal without having the time constraint of returning to the tournament. We get started on the wine and beer, and by the end of the meal, I’m starting to feel it. The bill comes to over $2,500, which the eight of us decide to credit card roulette for. When it’s all said and done LearnedfromTV (Tom) gets stuck with the bill and I eat free again. Jesus, I’m running so good at CC roulette this summer.

We go to the cage and buy into tomorrows $15,000. I run into Tim Vance who is playing the first day of the Bellagio tournament.

“Hey Tony, I read your blog entry, you made me sound like a gangster!”

“Oh shit, sorry dude. Well I did call you one of the most awesome people in poker. You want me to take that out.”

“Nah it’s alright. I’m the one who told you that story afterall.”

“Alright, well I’ll make sure everyone knows your not some insane gangster.”

So for the record, Tim Vance is in no way an insane gangster. He is simply a guy who got shot because he was hanging around the wrong dude’s girlfriend and said wrong dude got a bunch of sand up his vagina and decided going nuts with one of his phallic objects would make up for what the other was failing at.

Tomorrow will clearly be the worst day to play since on Sunday all of the online players will be glued to their computers. My plan is to play Saturday at the Bellagio, but if I happen to bust out, go and play the Venetian $5,000 event, since most of the online pros will be at home and most of the live pros will be still in the Bellagio, making for a very soft field.

After buying in, we head over to the Rio to close out our deposit boxes. The Amazon room is so quiet and barren, with only one table of cash games running outside of the action still going in the Main Event. I find Dr. Pauly and discuss what’s happening in the Main Event. He shows me a list of the players still in, and Brandon Cantu, Mark Vos, Phil Hellmuth and Mike Matusow are the largest names still in.

“Jesus Pauly, it’s like a who’s who of poker douchebags!”

“You don’t like Mark?”

“No, I like Mark quite a lot and consider him a friend. He’s still a douchebag though.”

After we finish closing out the boxes, we find our way to the Bonus Texas Hold ‘em pit and start getting degenerate. Tom announces he’s going to take $1,000 and try to win back the CC roulette he lost. I buy in for $500 because I’m a massive house games nit, and even that amount feels too big. Bonus Texas Hold ‘em is a pretty deceptive game where I can see how people would be tricked into thinking they have an edge, but according to Grafyx, if you run the numbers, the house edge is pretty substantial. I ask the pit boss for a cigar comp and start downing Heinekens like the douchebag I know am, then start blowing smoke all over the pit and yelling like a jackass every time I win a hand. When it’s all said and done, I’m up $10 and Tom has won back the majority of his dinner loss. I’m a bit more drunk than I’d hoped to be and when we arrive home, I start downing water, making sure I don’t have a hangover for tomorrow’s event.

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