Going To Summer Camp

As I've mentioned before, I'm heading to Las Vegas on Sunday. It will be my first time in Sin City for the World Series of Poker, which has been described by some as "summer camp for poker players".

Each year, some of my old Home Game buddies head out to the WSOP. This year, there are at least a dozen making the trip sometime during the WSOP, with a majority of them making the trip in late June. I would have preferred to go at that time, but next week is the only week I was able to get, and I was lucky to even get that off work. There will be one or two buddies down there during part of my visit. I've offered to be an airport taxi for them, since I will be driving my car.

You might be surprised to learn the drive from Reno to Las Vegas will take eight hours. Not only is there no Interstate Highway, there are no direct roads between the two largest cities in Nevada. This is mostly because of the mountains, and Uncle Sam owning large chunks of Nevada.

I should be arriving on the Strip around 1:30 - 2:30 in the afternoon. I'm staying at the Rio, so I'll probably just play there on Sunday. I want to spend some time in the Satellite Room, because everyone says that the single table satellites are very soft.

On Monday, my main activity will hopefully be the 4pm $240 Heads-Up tournament at Caesars Palace. They already ran one of these, and it sold out quickly from what I've read on 2+2. So I will sign-up for this when I arrive on Sunday. I really want to play this tourney because I've never played in a live Heads-Up tourney, although I have ran one for our Home Games.

On Tuesday, I will head Downtown to play in the $235 Noon event at the Golden Nugget. On Wednesday, I'm planning on doing the Daily Tournament Run. I'll either be starting at the 9am $70 at Caesars, or there are a couple of 10am tournament that are possibilities. I did a little research, and made a list of the best daily tournaments that start each hour from 9am to 10pm. As soon as I win the first one (or maybe bust-out), I will run to the next one. I'm hoping to play in five to seven tournaments.

On Thursday, hopefully I will be playing in WSOP Event #28, $1500 NLHE at 12pm. I say hopefully because right now, I'm only 40%. I really want to play. After all, isn't that the point of going to Vegas in June? But as you know, thing haven't been going as planned lately. As it turns out, I haven't hit bottom yet, as I'm down $594 since Monday. So if things don't improve in Las Vegas, I just can't risk $1500 for a tournament. If I don't play in the $1500, I will play in the 12pm $350 at the Venetian. Either way, I will do a Live Blog on this day, just like I did for the Atlantis Main Event in March. Both events start at noon, so tune in to follow me.

The rest of the trip will involve Cash games and other tournaments. The WSOP has side tournaments that I will try out, either the 2pm $235 or the 6pm $185. Golden Nugget, Binion's, Caesers Palace, and Venetian have tournament series running that I may try out.

As for the Cash games, one of my goals was to play $2/$5 in each of the big poker rooms (Aria, Bellagio, Caesars, MGM, Rio, Venetian, Wynn). But since I've been dumping money lately, I might not be able to hit all the rooms.

As for a non-poker goal, I'm planning on walking the Strip every morning. Unlike most poker players, I'm a morning person. I wake up each morning before my alarm, which is set for 6:30am. I also do a lot of walking every day as a mailman, up to 5-6 miles. So walking the Strip in the morning before the Vegas heat kicks in is a good way to get some exercise and burn off some of that buffet food.

I'm planning on staying down there until Monday 6/20 or early Tuesday 6/21. Of course, if thing keep going as they have been, I can always check out of the hotel and start the drive home.

Naturally, I'll be doing a lot of blogging. Hopefully, it will be more smaller entries from my iPhone, rather than a few larger entries. But I'm not sure if I'm physically capable of doing a small blog post.