2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day One

Rio Las Vegas Hotel & Casino

Lynn and I got to an early start. We were loaded up and checked out of the Motel 6 by 8:15 AM. I was hungry; I think we both were. The plan was to find somewhere to get breakfast. But first I wanted to go by the suite hotel where we would be staying for the duration, and see what time we could check in. After some time navigating the maze that is Las Vegas in the confused zone between the I-15 freeway and the railroad tracks, we found our way to our hotel. It was 8:30 AM. I caught the attention of the desk clerk and, to my amazement, despite the sign reading "Check-In Time 3:00 PM" over the counter, she told me that there was a room available right then. So we checked in, unloaded the car, and unpacked. It is a reasonably comfortable suite, not luxurious, but clean and well-appointed.

The next order of business was breakfast. We took to the car again. I thought that a casino coffee shop was the thing, and so we pulled into the garage at the Gold Coast (across Valley View Drive from the Rio). It was a long hike from the garage through the casino to the coffee shop; and the coffee shop was open to the casino floor.

Lynn is seriously allergic to tobacco smoke. I could smell it as we walked through the casino. I didn't notice it in the coffee shop, but she did. By the time we finished breakfast, she had to hit her inhaler. I paid the bill, and we made a quick getaway to the nearest exit (followed, infuriatingly, by a clueless gambler with a cigarette). The exit put us out by the Gold Coast's swimming pool. We wandered through the byways of the hotel until we found a security guard who bent the rules to direct us to a service entrance near the loading docks. I went to fetch the car, and we returned to our hotel. Lynn has now laid down the law for herself: No more casino floors, period.

Back at our room, I coaxed the internet connection to life, and spent a bit of time catching up. Then I wrote up my travel report of the previous day, and uploaded it to As I Please.

At last it was time to do what I had come to Las Vegas to do: play poker at the WSOP. I put myself together and went out to do battle with the other knights of the green felt.

If you believe the street maps, the Extended StayAmerica hotel is half a block south of the corner of Valley View Boulevard and Flamingo Road, and the Rio is at the northeast corner of that intersection. What the street maps don't get across is the Brobdignagian proportions of Las Vegas urban geography, and the brutal quality of the mid-day sunlight. I was muttering something to myself about mad dogs and Englishmen when I got across Flamingo Road and faced the choice of ways around the parking garage to get to the Rio's entrance. But the walk from my hotel to the entrance to the Rio, between a quarter and half a mile, was shorter than the walk from the Rio's main entrance to the exhibition halls where the WSOP is being held.

I had been to the WSOP at the Rio for a weekend in 2006, so I was prepared for what it is now like: a chimerical cross between a poker tournament, a trade show, and a three-ring circus. Three different ballrooms are filled wall-to-wall with poker tables. One of them is for single-table satellites, one for evening tournaments and so-called Mega-Satellites, and the largest, the Amazon Room, has the main tournaments as well as high-stakes cash games. The corridors are lined with exhibition booths, complete with booth babes, touting products such as Cardrunners poker training videos and All-In energy drink. WSOP logo-wear stores sell branded products like T-shirts, caps, sweatshirts, decks of cards, keychains, and so on -- every sort of WSOP-branded items imaginable. WSOP-branded underwear? Condoms? I didn't see any, but that doesn't mean they aren't there.

I re-upped my special WSOP-edition Harrah's Total Rewards card, and found my way to the cash games in the Amazon Room. This is a huge exhibition hall, with acres of poker tables. One section has the shrouded and blue-lit final table area. At least two thirds of the rest of the room is given over to tournament tables. And maybe fifty tables of cash games are crammed into one corner of the room. Triangular latticework overhead supports individual lighting for each table, screened by white muslin. The effect of the lighting is that the room seems quite dim, even though the tables are adequately lit for card play.

I put my name on the list for my favorite WSOP game, the $50-$100 eight-or-better stud game. There was a table going strong and a few names waiting on the list. I figured it could be a while, so when the brush called down a $2-and-$5-blind no-limit hold'em game and said there were open seats, I took a seat and bought in for $500.

The dealer high-carded us for the button, and, in seat 4 of a nine-handed table, I wound up starting in the hijack seat (two off the button). My first hand was unplayable; so were my second and third. But when, in my fourth hand, the player under the gun, to my immediate right, opened for $15, I squeezed my cards and saw two black kings. I intentionally reraised small, doubling the bet to $30. Everyone dropped out but the initial raiser, who raised again, $60 more. Just at that moment, the brush called down the list for a forced-move stud/8 game. I wanted that game, but I was in a hand, dammit. Meanwhile it was suddenly reasonably likely that the man to my right held pocket aces ... or kings, or a smaller pocket pair, or AK, or any two cards for that matter -- I just didn't know.

I said, "I want to play in that stud game they just called down," and raised again, $120 more. The man to my right said, "All in." Did he have aces? Let's find out. "Call." I said. He turned his hand over to show his aces. I showed my kings. The dealer burned and turned the flop: K 8 rag. I win! Turn was another 8 and the river was a blank. I had gone all in with the worst of it, gotten lucky, and doubled up. I was apologetic as I racked up the chips ... and then sold a rack back to my victim.

I made my way to the new game, although there was some doubt as to whether it would actually start. Nevertheless I bought more chips and was ready to play. A young guy sat down at the other end of the table. He was really eager to play a mixed game of some sort, of any mix. "How about eight-or-better, badugi, and triple-draw," I suggested. "Sure!" he said. Another player waiting for the game to start was Marty, a familiar face from the several times I had played in this game before. He was going along with the young gun's desire to play a mixed game; but another seated player objected. Marty proposed a compromise: start an interest list for a new mixed game. The young gun thought that would work. Meanwhile this game would be straight stud/8, and be a feeder game to the main game.

The game got going, and it filled up. For the first few hours I couldn't win a showdown to save my life, and it was my misfortune to make a few very good second-best hands. I burned through my first buy-in and a good chunk of my second. Worst hand: when I started with a hidden pair of tens with a small card in the door (not the best starter by any means in stud/8, but the conditions were right for it to play well) and caught a third ten on fourth street, looking like my hand had died but in reality it was quite strong. I was up against two low draws, and they both bricked on fifth street; but one of them came out betting anyway. I raised, and the other low hand reraised, to my surprise, as I put in the fourth bet. I jammed on sixth street also, when they both caught low (one of them with a possible straight). I failed to fill up on the river, and the possible straight was in fact an eight-high straight, rough 8 for low. The other guy thought he'd had a low but in fact had a pair of threes. Yes, it was that good a game.

I bided my time, got moved to the main game, and promptly scooped a three-way pot with a wheel. Cold streak over! I rebuilt my stack from down $2.8K to down a little more than $500 -- which meant that I was very close to even for the day. It was 10:00 PM, and I had been playing for pretty much exactly eight hours. Maybe I was in Las Vegas now, but I'm still treating poker like a job, and my shift was over. I picked up my chips at the dealer change, and cashed out, down $59 on the day. But because my cashout was above some threshold, at the cage they photocopied my ID for currency transaction reporting purposes. They aren't going to file a CTR for a $3K cashout, but that's a big enough transaction for assiduous bookkeepers to be on the lookout for structuring.

I walked the long distance through the Rio and the not-quite-as-long distance down Valley View to the suite hotel. Lynn, bless her heart, had gone out to Trader Joe's and stocked the kitchenette. Two fingers of scotch and a plate of pasta later I was staring at my computer screen, wondering if I had what it took to write up the day. No, I was too tired. We went to bed before midnight.

2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Zero
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Two
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Three
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Four
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Five
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Six
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Seven
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Eight
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Days Nine and Ten
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Days Eleven and Twelve

Tags: poker wsop world series of poker las vegas rio no-limit holdem trip report travelogue eight-or-better stud