Vegas Recap & NAPT Impressions

Posted by icemonkey9 on Feb 22, 2010 in pokerstars | 4 comments

Poker in Vegas!

My wife felt a little guilty realizing that her plans wouldn't allow me to play any poker during our trip, so she said she'd love to go shopping at the complex at Planet Hollywood and I could play some cash game poker for 2-3 hours.  Awesome wife.  I sat down right before noon and then I saw a bunch of guys in suits show up near where we were playing.  One guy stepped up, another stepped up and they shook hands.  What I found out from the dealer was that it was at that exact moment that Planet Hollywood became an official Harrah's property.

Anyways, at the table, the fourth hand in I am on the small blind and complete with 9To and flop a boat with 99T.  I check, the other two players also check.  Ace on the turn, I bet $5 into a pot of $4 and get two callers.  River is a 7 and I bet $25 into the pot and then get min-raised by the guy on my left and the other player folded.  I re-raise and the guy insta-folds.  Won about $75 on that hand!  About 2 hours go by and I'm completely card dead but make a few steals here and there and am up about $85 when I get dealt AJ suited in the CO.  Three limpers and I raise to $20, all folds except for the player to my right who called.  Flop comes A52 rainbow and he donks for $10 and I flat call figured him for a weaker Ace like 99% of the time.  I had seen this guy call down with 3rd pair twice so far so I figured I am just going to let him bet off the remaining $80 he started the hand with.  The turn is another 5 and he donks another $10 so I just put him all-in.  He tanks, then calls and shows ... omg ... AQ.  Really?  Turn is not a jack or a five, so I lose a $160 pot to a guy that limp-called AQ in the HJ.  My run-bad in Vegas continues ... anyways I got to play, I did have a lot of fun and left the table down just $20.

The PokerStars NAPT

I was not at the Venetian on official business but did manage to grab a press pass both for myself and my wife.  She had never seen the Venetian poker room and was really amazed at its awesomeness.  Here she is outside the hotel and casino:

As you can see the weather in Vegas was perfect, about 65 degrees!  We got inside and got our passes, which we were not ID'd for.  We got to have a nice breakfast, complements of PokerStars in their very nice media lounge which had an area to film interviews and plenty of tables with internet connections.  Inside the poker room we saw a few familiar faces, including Dennis Phillips who came into the media room and said hi to a few people.  If you've never met Dennis, he's every bit the nice guy he comes across on television and is really a great ambassador to the "every man" of the game.

Once the tournament started, most of the players (I think it was 800 entrants into the $5,000 Main Event we saw) had taken their seats, which took up the entire poker room and tournament area at the Venetian.

The tournament featured just about every big name player that PokerStars (and other sites) have to offer.  My wife's favorite all time player is Daniel Negreanu, so we spotted him in the tournament area and stood next to him as he played to watch him in action.  My wife was obviously stoked to see him and he turned to her and gave a smile.  Since she's very attractive she had no problem getting smiles from most of the big-name pros

Here are a couple of pictures I took at the tournament.  I didn't want to take too many because they had an official photographer already taking shots for us media types.  Also, I was feeling like CRAP because I had actually come down with a cold the night before which absolutely SUCKED.  Anyways here's a picture of a table in-action:

And here is a picture of Randy "Nanonoko" Lew (member of Team PokerStars Online) checking out the board:

Cool stuff.  I can't begin to tell you the names I saw at tables.  Maria Ho, Greg Raymer, Havad Khan, Kathy Leibert, Joe Cada, Vanessa Rousso, Chad Brown, Jeff Madsen and countless others.  Once the tournament got started, the number of railbirds at the Venetian grew to epic proportions.  There were also a few celebrities playing, including Montel Williams.  The official "Shuffle Up and Deal" was announced by none other than Jason Alexander (George from Seinfeld) himself:

Good stuff.  The entire tournament was well organized and considering this was the first major tournament that PokerStars had sponsored and organized in Vegas, they did a great job.   After about 30 minutes of just milling around I got real tired (again, feeling like crap) and decided to meet up with my wife and her friends who were in town at the Lux Cafe (awesome place to eat).  We got a table outside near the railing, and who walks by fashionably late to the tournament but none other than Joe Hachem himself.  I had to say something so I just said "Take it down Joe!" and he looked over with a HUGE smile on his face and waved and I waved back.  Apparently Joe loves being recognized as a celebrity, which is probably not a shock to anyone

That was my Vegas trip in a nutshell.  After the cafe we went back to the room and took a nap so I could have enough energy to make our show.  We bought discounted seats to see "Mystere" at Treasure Island which was a fabulous show.  I saw things in that show I didn't know were humanly possible.  Anyways, a good trip to Vegas, got to see the NAPT and play some cards too while enjoying a short vacation with the wife.