Trippin'

As planned, I was primarily a fringe participant in the blogger hijinks in Vegas. I did get the opportunity to meet a few folks at IP on Thursday night and at the Venetian on Saturday. It was quite cool attaching faces and voices to some bloggerly identities.

Given my relative obscurity in the bloggerly community, I was pleased how folks were gracious and made a stranger feel welcome.

A great trip overall with not a lot of poker. There was some bad luck and bad play at $1/2 tables at Riveriera and the Venetian, tournament cashes at Binion's and Orleans, a mistaken registration for an O8 tournament at Orleans on Monday. (Finished in the mid 40s in a 60-person, very elderly field. Actually, kind of fun.)

I busted in the WPBT Classic just before the second break. I got great cards early when none of those solid, tricky players were ready to spew and not much of anything after that.

My buddy Shep arrived from D.C. late Thurday night. We slipped seamlessly into our traditional pursuit of Vegas-induced ridiculousness. The high point involved crashing the Las Vegas Metro Police Department Christmas party at the Hilton on Friday. No arrests, incidents of police brutality or criminal charges resulted, even after our cover as a recently retired FBI agent and a D.C. cop were blown near the end of the evening.

My head did feel like a target for police baton training on Saturday after multiple bartenders severely cracked my skull with bottles of Ketel One and jars of green olives. My attorney is working out a settlement with Oscar Goodman as we speak.

Today, I'm hacking sputum in rainbow colors. It's either a wretched cold or I contracted TB from the desert rats at Gold Spike.

I'll flesh out a few other details/observations about the trip in the next few days.