April 26th, Las Vegas: I’ve gotten way behind in my writing so I’ve decided to sit out by the Bellagio pool all day to simultaneously work on my blog and my tan. On my way down from the room I stop off at the convenience store and purchase a tin of small cigars and a vitamin water, just the resources needed to be a proper man of leisure.

I grab two towels, find a chair in the sun, then lay out and fire up my computer. The sun is so bright that it’s practically impossible to see the cursor on the screen, so once I fire up Microsoft Word I try and not click off the program because I know it’ll take me forever to find the arrow again. Naturally I am also spending a fair amount of time scoping the hot chicks at the pool, but given that I have dinner plans and am leaving immediately after I bust (or win) the Caesars $5,000 I won’t bother talking to any.

I take a break between my writing to go for a swim then lounge around in the hot tub for a while. I feel slightly out of place being alone, but really it’s too nice a day to not get in the water. That and I want to give myself an excuse to stop working for a while.

When I return to my chair I lit up a cigar. I realize now that this makes writing difficult, because either I have the cigar in one of my hands and it’s no longer available to type, or it’s in my mouth and the smoke trickles up to my eyes, messing with my concentration. None of this stops me from smoking.

When I finish my work I head over to the apartment of the girl I’ve been hanging out with an hour before I said I’d show up. I ask her if it’s cool if I use the gym and she suggests we play racquetball, which I am all the fuck about. We go downstairs and I thrash her for a few games despite trying to take it easy on her. She eventually tires of losing and decides to go upstairs to start working on the food. I tell her I’ll meet her up there because I want to practice for a while and run around. I play against myself until I feel appropriately drenched in sweat, then return to the apartment and ask to use the shower.

After drying off and getting changed I chill out on the couch and watch ‘How I Met Your Mother’ while she finishes making the food. She offers me a drink, I go with beer. She sets dinner out on a table with two scented candles on it. I feel like those are the kind of things that’d you’d never think would give you cancer but do. She’s made a spicy Salmon with vegetables dish, and it is fucking awesome. I tell her that the biggest compliment I can give her about the cooking is being too busy shoveling it in my mouth to give a compliment. Then I keep shoveling.

I help her put the dishes away after dinner. Then we hang out on the couch with a bottle of wine watching the drunken, suit wearing antics of Barney for a while. I dig his style.

April 25th, Las Vegas: About 50 feet away from the Caesars poker room I realize I’m $200 short to buy into their $2,000 event today. When I walk into the room I see Matt Stout and ask him if he doesn’t mind loaning me $200 for a day or so and that I’ll happily send him online collateral money. He’s very cool about it and just says to give it back to him in cash whenever I see him next. I head up to the cage and buy in to the event that starts us with 15,000 in chips and begins with 25/50 blinds and hour long levels, a very good structure for a 2k.

My table is mostly unknowns with the exceptions of the always polite Harry Demetriou and gregarious Will ‘The Thrill’. I spend the 25/50 level trying to see cheap flops while we’re 300 BB’s deep with hands that can flop well, but mostly blank off and only win a few small pots. It’s not until the 50/100 level that I get involved in my first considerable pot, which is against Harry who has a fairly tight image:
Effective stacks: ~15,000, blinds 50/100, I hold AKo on the CO.
Preflop: Folds to Harry in MP1, Harry raises to 300, folds to me on the CO, I call, the rest fold.
Flop: Kc Jc Ts
Harry bets 500, I call.
Turn: 4d
Harry bets 1000, I call.
River: 8s
Harry checks, I check. Harry tables Q9o and I muck. His check looks strange, but when I think it over it may very well be the best play against me. None of my one pair hands call a bet, my two pair hands value bet for him anyway, and he gives me a chance to bluff if I have a missed draw.

As the level goes on Will ‘The Thrill’ loses a major pot then starts getting bored and announces to the table “I’m going all in blind next hand! No matta what!”
“You serious over there Will?” I ask
“You know me kid, whattya think?”
“Heh, I think you’ll do it.”
Will is sitting a few seats on my left and is in the BB this hand. He stacks up his chips and sets them right behind the betting line, waiting to cram on anyone who dares raise. When I get my cards I peek down at KTo on the cutoff and when it folds to me I raise it up to 300. The button and SB fold and just as promised Will crams his stack in without looking. I instantly call and he flips his cards over one at a time to reveal Q6o.
Flop: A J A
Turn: 4
River: 2
“Good luck everyone!” he says smiling then walks away from the table with a laugh. That’s pretty fucking balla move if you ask me.

I stay quiet for the rest of the 50/100 level and don’t find myself involved again until after the break:
My stack: ~17,000, HJ: ~16,000, Button: ~20,000, blinds 100/200. I hold As6s in the SB.
Preflop: Folds to the HJ, HJ min raises to 400 and from what I’ve seen he’s been doing this with weaker holdings, the CO folds, the button calls, I call (I don’t call unless it’s a min raise or if it’s a known professional), the BB folds.
Flop: 9s 7h 2s
I check, the HJ bets 750, button folds, I call.
Turn: 5d
I lead out 1600, the HJ calls.
River: Ad
I think it over then bet 2200 and the HJ makes a very frustrated looking call. I table my hand and he shakes his head then mucks.

One unfortunate part of the structure at both Caesars and the Bellagio is that there’s no 150/300 level despite there being two levels of 100/200, one with ante and one without. The 100/200 level with ante is very quiet for me, and I don’t get involved again until it’s 200/400. The opponent in the hand is an older guy of perhaps 70, who seems very weak and straight forward:
My stack: ~19,000, UTG: ~17,000, blinds 200/400 with a 50 ante. I hold QdTd on the CO. We are seven handed.
Preflop: UTG calls 400, folds to me on the CO, I raise to 1600, folds back to UTG, UTG calls.
Flop: 8s 5d 2d
UTG checks, I bet 2200, UTG check raises to 5000. With his showing aggression I think there’s basically no chance I get him to fold anything, and even though he limps a fair bit his line of limp/calling UTG then check tiny raising the flop seems like it could contain big pairs not to mention sets. I elect to just call.
Turn: 9s
UTG fires out 4000, and given that I have 12 clean outs and am getting over 4 to 1 immediate plus the implied I’m stuck calling.
River: As
UTG looks absolutely terrified of this card and immediately checks. He has 11,000 of a 17,000 starting stack in the pot. He couldn’t possibly fold could he? Christ he looked scared of that card though. I want to find out the hard way. I quickly cram my stack into the middle and UTG looks terrified and thinks for a while before folding.
“I had pocket queens” he says
An aggressive Russian kid two on my right glances over at me and gives a knowing look. I smile ever so slightly back at him. Spazzy internet kids have no language barrier.

A couple orbits later I raise AA in late position to 1050 and a woman with 5500 on the CO shoves pre. The button and blinds fold and I naturally snap call and hold up against her KJo when the board runs out 6 T J A 7.

I stay quiet for the rest of the level outside the occasional blind steal and don’t get involved again until the 300/600 level:
My stack: ~45,000, UTG: ~20,000, MP1: ~15,000, BB: ~35,000, blinds 300/600 with a 75 ante. I hold 6h4h on the button.
Preflop: UTG raises to 1500, folds to MP1, MP1 calls, folds to me on the button, I notice the BB has already grabbed chips with which to make the call so I call as well, the SB folds, the BB calls.
Flop: 2d 8d 5s
Everyone checks to me and the BB and UTG are very straight forward players so I fire out 3600. The BB and UTG quickly fold but then MP1 shoves for 13,500 total. There’s nearly 7000 in the pot preflop, plus my 3600, plus his 13,500 which makes for roughly 24,000 in the pot and less than 10,000 to call, so I make the call and he tables 4s4d giving me a sort of clean 12 outs to win, assuming the turn isn’t a diamond.
Turn: Jd
Man fuck you turn card.
River: Ad
My stack slips slightly below 30,000 and we go on dinner break shortly afterwards.

‘Charder’ is at the final table of the WPT $25,000 event today so after quickly grabbing a sandwich I walk all the way down the Bellagio to see how it’s going for him. When I arrive I find out he’s just busted out in fourth place and my friend ‘Atimos’ is now heads up against some random fish that folded KK to ‘Charder’ preflop 25 BB’s effective (for those of you who aren’t big on poker; this basically means the guy has absofuckinglutely zero idea of what he’s doing.) ‘Atimos’ is wearing a very slick looking dark suit, which I pay him a compliment on, though I make sure to barrage him with an avalanche of profanities first for having stolen my moves, but mostly I’m just jealous that his suit is nicer than mine. I find ‘Luckychewy’ in the stands and he is quite drunk and cracking me up.

Eventually I run back over to Caesars and make it back 30 seconds before play starts up again. We restart at the 400/800 level and I wind up being incredibly card dead for the entire level. I have zero legitimate hands, and when I try to make a position open some nit comes alive with a huge reraise and blows me out. My stack slowly but consistently dwindles down, and by the time the blinds go up to 600/1200 my stack has bled into the teens.

Hand after hand I peek down at garbage and there is a raise in front of me. I find one spot to cram over an aggressive player and he folds, but other than that I am so dead I’m basically useless. My stack has dropped to 12,000 when I peek down at K6o on the button and shove when it folds to me. The SB fairly quickly calls and the BB folds. The SB tables A6o
“Awwwww crap, that’s not good” I say.
Flop: Q J 2
Turn: 5
River: 4
“Good hand, best of luck guys.” I tap the table, button my jacket (top button on a two button only people), and walk away. I take out my phone and call ‘Luckychewy’ to see where he’s at and he says I should come over to ‘McFaddens’ at the Rio. I call the girl I’ve been hanging out with and she says she’s tired and going to just relax with some room service at the Bellagio.

I arrive at McFaddens and find a group that includes Shaundeeb, Mlagoo, Lacey Jones, Maria Ho, Maria’s friend, Etay, Deebs brother Billy, Billy’s friend, Luckychewy, and Joy Miller (there was probably others, but I got drunk enough that it’s blurry.)

Chewy and I start slamming screwdrivers and scoping the place. There are numerous bridal parties in the room, so I tell Chewy to come with me and I walk up to one of them and say to the bride
“Oh congratulations! How did he propose?”
I ask her a number of questions about it all while Chewy starts chatting to the bridesmaids. After I get in good with the bride I ask her to identify which of the girls in the party are single for us to chat up. She lets us know and we hang out for a bit then return to our table for drinks. When doing bar scene stuff I do this kind of thing a lot, I chat up groups without blatantly hitting on anyone and just be fun and social, then perhaps come back to them later in the night, sort of like planting seeds all over the bar.

After we drink for a bit Chewy claims that he can dance at least 10 times better than me. He goes out onto the dance floor and starts tearing that shit up. Naturally I join him and together do our best not to look like two drunken white idiots (pretty confident we failed.) After we finish and return to our table a group of girls from another bridal party all hit the dance floor and start going nuts. Etay starts giving us shit about how the second we leave the girls all go out there. When the song finishes the girls go back to their table so I go up and ask them
“Okay quick question, was it just a coincidence you guys all hit the floor when me and my friend left or are we just the worst dancers ever?”
“No not at all, we just love that song!” says one of them
“Come on let’s go right now!” says another and three girls take me out onto the floor and we all start dancing together, including the roughly 50 year old mother of the bride, who can really grind her ass off for a woman of her age (back me up Mlagoo.)

When the song finishes I thank the girls for the dance and tell them I’ll come to chat a bit later. I go back to Chewy and we keep drinking. As I’m walking off to the bathroom the mother of the bride runs up to me and asks
“Where are you going?!”
“Um…the bathroom?”
“OK well when you get back I need you to do me a favor. You need to get on stage with the bride to be and search her body for a coupon.”
“I can assure you I’m the right man for this job.”

When we get back from the bathroom the bride’s mother comes and grabs me and brings me on stage with the bride and a few of the other girls. The DJ starts announcing what’s going on and I lean into the bride and say
“Just tell me what’s appropriate here.”
“K, just peel up clothing and look around a bit, the coupon is in my bra.”
“Gotchya.”

When it starts I immediately drop to the floor and pretend to look up her skirt, then I stand back up and start looking her up and down and slightly peeling up bits of clothing in my search. Eventually I turn my attention to the front of her dress and peek down towards her cleavage, making sure to not actually grope her. She directs my hand to the coupon and I rip it out and yell “YEEEEEEEEEA!!” and start fist pumping. Then the DJ turns on the music and a bunch of the guys come over and we all tear up the dance floor together. Chewy wasn’t lying, he’s a good ass dancer.

At some point I realize I’m starting to get too drunk so Chewy and I go back to Panorama towers. Eventually other members of the group trickle in and we meet up with other residents of the building to all go out to the hot tub and pass around a large blunt while discussing the amusing evening we’ve had. I tell them they should make sure to enjoy shit like this, that one day we’ll all be looking back with envy at the days we were in our 20’s and could get torn up in a hot tub with no consequences, that it won’t be like this in our 70’s. They tell me this is exactly what they plan to do in their 70’s, that there isn’t much else to do.
“Good fucking point.”

April 24th, Las Vegas: I meet ‘Luckychewy’ in the hallway outside my hotel room. We’ve decided to have breakfast (at 2pm obviously) at the Bellagio café then go suit shopping for him and get him started in the pick up game.

I order my berry pancakes and orange juice and he opts for some very delicious looking French toast. Then I spend the next hour trying to go over every detail of pick up I can get into for him, stopping numerous times to address questions. Chewy is a very bright guy so I have no doubt it will all sink in very well and the questions he’s asking are the right ones. We get up to leave and continue our talks through the Bellagio and over into the ‘Forum Shops’ at ‘Caesars’ hotel.

We go into ‘Hugo Boss’ and find him a sweet ass three button soft pin stripe blue suit with a faded blue shirt and tie. They say they can get the alterations done for him before he leaves for Monte Carlo on Sunday. I am again tempted to buy a suit but refrain. Chewy is going to look slick as hell in Europe.

When we exit the store I tell him I’ll start demonstrating some approaches for him before I start throwing him into the fire. We walk down the halls and at the end of one find ourselves standing in front of some kind of water show. There are three girls standing next to us, all holding beers
“Holy shit! You’re allowed to just drink beer in the hallways?” I say to them. This is an example of a situational opener; basically I made an observation about them or a situation pertaining to them and commented on it. Normally during the day I go for the direct approach, which is just walking up to a girl and telling her you think she’s cute, but sometimes situational can be more appropriate, such as if you’re already standing next to them.
“Yea it’s totally cool” says one back “You can drink them in the hall or on the street or whatever!”
“Wow that’s awesome because I’m such a raging alcoholic”
They laugh.
“Which is apparently a trait we all share if you girls are drinking at 4pm in a hallway” I add. This is an example of using challenging humor, one of the things I went over with Chewy. It’s good to be funny, but even better to be funny and challenging at the same time, often executed by simply teasing them. Also note that I state that there is a ‘we’, a wording used to imply that we are familiar with each other.
“Well I’m starting to get thirsty just thinking about it, can I steal some of your beer?”
“Oh yea sure, you can just have the rest of it, though it’s all spit and backwash at the bottom.”
“Oh is it...turns out I don’t care”
We both laugh then I take her offered beer and finish it.

I continue chatting to them for a bit about why they’re here in Vegas, what I’m doing in Vegas, where they’re from, and then go to introduce Chewy but he has moved away from me
“Oh well, looks like I made a three for one trade, yea that worked out pretty well.”
I continue on with the conversation then say I should go find my friend. I tell them we should hang out while they’re in town and they agree. I get the number of the girl who seems most interested, but in a genius move I’ve forgotten her name, all of about 30 seconds after she gave it to me. After she types the number in I pretend like I am typing in her name then save it. I’ve really got to stop doing that. I hang out a bit longer, then tell them I should really get to finding my friend and that I’ll call later.

Chewy has moved so far away that I have to call him to find him again. We continue to move down the halls and after a bit I two cute dark haired girls standing around. I walk up to the taller of the two and go direct
“Hi, I know this is real forward of me but I saw you from across the mall and thought you were really cute so I wanted to come say Hi.”
Half way through my opener I realize the girl is making a call on her cell. It seems it hasn’t connected yet because her eyes go wide when I do this and she starts chatting and engages me. I’ve attempted to pick up a girl with headphones in before, but never a cell phone. First time for everything
“That’s not a boyfriend you’re calling is it?”
“No, no, just my other sister”
Asking about a boyfriend is a clear mistake. First of all, she might have one but was willing to pretend she didn’t if she found me interesting enough, particularly in a place like Vegas. Second, some girls measure their success in life by their love life, and reminding her that she hasn’t got anyone isn’t a great way to get her in the best mind set. Either way I said it, so I just keep running with it. I ask her what brings her to Vegas and she tells me that she and her sister are visiting from Mexico to attend the Britney Spears concert tomorrow. Her name is Diana and she says she hasn’t spent much time in Vegas and would be quite interested in meeting up tonight so I can show her around town. She takes out her phone and has me put my number in it, then I click call which I guess out of instinct makes her hold her phone up to hear head. I copy her and hold my phone up and say
“I’m going to have a whole conversation with you like this” and hold my phone up to my ear, and when she laughs add “Shh, I’m on the phone with someone here.”

Eventually I excuse myself to find Chewy and go off to find him again. I must look really fucking slick to him right now, but the truth is I clearly ran above expectation in those interactions. Historically I’ve only gotten a number in about 40-50% of my day time approaches, and a decent percent of those flake. I tell Chewy it’s his turn and that I’m going to start sending him into the shit. I start sending him into set after set, and although he mostly gets blown out what’s important is that he’s approaching the second I tell him and without hesitation, which is extremely rare for someone on their first day out.

In total Chewy does about seven or eight attempts and winds up with no numbers. However, I consider his first day a huge success just because he was willing to try, and that’s more that can be said for most guys I’ve taken out who often need me to pull their teeth to approach.

In the evening a large group of us goes to ‘Naked Fish’ for dinner, which winds up being at around 11pm. The group decides it’d be an awesome idea to do several Saki-bombs, which leads to them chanting and slamming the table with increasing ferocity as they get more and more wasted. I opt not to partake because I am playing tomorrow, but I enjoy watching the mayhem ensue around me.

April 23rd, Las Vegas: I arrive at ‘The Venetian’ poker room about 10 minutes late for the tournament. I buy in with the $2500 in cash ‘Shaundeeb’ was nice enough to have hooked me up with and find my seat at a table of unknowns. We start 20,000 deep at 25/50 blinds with 90 minute levels. This is a very sick tournament, particularly since a quick glance around the room confirms it is almost entirely made up of value.

My table plays extremely loose-weak in the early goings, and a few of the guys are clearly huge targets post flop. The English gentleman on my right limps or calls a raise nearly every hand, and calls down like crazy post flop. I take every opportunity I can to get involved with him and it’s not long before we tangle in a large pot:
Effective stacks: ~20,000, blinds 25/50, I hold 4c7c in the SB.
Preflop: Folds to the CO, CO raises to 125, button calls, I call in the SB (clearly often bad, but I think given both players involved are really bad post and we’re 400 BB’s deep it’s probably fine) the BB calls as well.
Flop: 7d 2d 7h
I bet 400 (lead is debatable here given texture, and I’d never do it with no flush draw out), BB folds, CO folds, the button raises to 1100. This freaks me out pretty good, because he never seems to be putting in any aggression but he’s absolutely the kind of guy who could flat eights through jacks preflop then raise the flop to see where he’s at. I call and we go to the turn.
Turn: Ts
I check and he almost immediately checks behind. Guess he has a draw.
River: 8d
I check and he instantly and very confidently fires in 2000. I think it over and fold because this guy has no idea how to bluff or value bet thin and would be scared as hell of that card if he didn’t have it. He tables Kd9d then says he won’t show anymore.

In the early goings I find a lot of small pairs and suited connectors with which to see the flop in what are almost always multi way pots. I pretty much blank off every time, or the times I hit a draw it whiffs and the opponent shows considerable strength on later streets so I give up. At some point JC Tran takes the seat on my left, and like the fucking idiot I am I decide to get in a big pot with him which I play horribly:
My stack: ~16,000, JC Tran: ~21,000, blinds 50/100, I hold As9h on the HJ.
Preflop: Folds to me on the HJ, I raise to 300, JC calls on the CO, the rest fold.
Flop: Kc 7c 5c
I normally check fold this kind of texture, but JC flats a ton pre so I fire out 500 (he also peels a ton, making this bet pretty bad.) I am leaning back in my chair and he is leaning forward, and he briefly checks his cards then calls.
Turn: Ad
I check (I should bet, there’s a ton of pair plus flush draw combinations he can have that will peel again and it’s difficult for him to get creative here) and he checks behind.
River: 6s
I think for a while and bet 1150. JC thinks for a while and raises to 4500. What the fuck? I feel pretty confident he wouldn’t play any two pair or sets like this because the board is such that he needs to fast play more. I doubt he plays small flushes like this since he knows he can get sucked out and he won’t get much value. It seems to me his range is big flushes, 66 with a club, or bluffs. I’m pretty sure he knows any pair he peeled the flop with isn’t good (except maybe a king, which I’m pretty sure he’d just call with) so I tank for a while and then decide to hero call. He quickly flips up AcQc and I start thinking about how embarrassed I’m going to be when I have to tell people about this hand. I need to get it out of my head that just because someone is a sick player that doesn’t mean they’re always pulling some kind of move on me.

A bit after the hand we go on break and I’m standing around chatting to ‘Kcannon’ and ‘Shaundeeb’. I tell them to “watch this, you’ll enjoy it” then whip out my phone and call the girl I met in the hot tub
“Hey XXXXXXXX I’m getting my ass kicked at the Venetian today, calling to see what you wanted to do about dinner later. By the way you should consider coming over here so we can bang during the next break (we haven’t had sex but she always jokes about ‘banging’ so I figure she’d appreciate the message.) Talk to you soon, bye!”

When we come back from break only five players have sat down, with the two really bad ones in the blinds. I am first to act and get involved:
My stack: ~9500, SB: ~25,000, BB: ~20,000, blinds 100/200, I hold Jc9d on what is essentially the HJ.
Preflop: I raise to 600, two folds, SB calls, BB calls.
Flop: Jd Js Td
SB checks, BB checks, I bet 1200, SB calls, BB folds.
Turn: Qs
The SB leads out 1800, I think for a bit and move in for about 8000 total and he quickly calls with TT. Aw shit.
River: 8
And with that I’ve managed to bust 400 BB’s playing pretty bad in a field of soft players after a night of being fully rested. I am pretty pissed with myself, but simply tap the table and wish everyone luck politely.

I head back to my room at the Bellagio and start doing some writing. While online the girl from the hot tub messages me and suggests we do some go-karting. I agree and she comes to pick me up from the Bellagio. We meet some friends at the track, including the Binger brothers, Mike and Nick. They make us watch a safety video and tell us not to just go full speed at all times. After that we jump into our cars and put the pedal into the floor.

About 30 seconds into the race our cars come to a stop and I look around to see what the holdup is. When I look across the track I see a car has smashed full speed into the wall and now a piece of it is lying on top of the kart and its occupant. Eventually Mike Binger gets out and is noticeably limping off the track. When the race is over Mike shows us the end result of his fight with the wall; his left arm and leg are torn up and bleeding and the bruises and cuts are several inches long. I ask him to pose for a few pictures (which I’ll hopefully have soon) and he is left moving slowly for the rest of the day.

At night a big group of us goes out to ‘McFaddens’ at the Rio, which is very much like a college party contained within a Vegas bar. There are people drinking hard and dancing everywhere, and the bartender runs around on top of the bar pouring shots down the throat of people who lean back to receive his bottle of liquor. It is just how a Thursday in Vegas is meant to be. Deeb’s brother and his friend are in town, and his brother runs around dancing with every 50 year old woman in the place. I’m drinking beer but taking it moderately easy because I don’t feel up for a big night. I tell people about the hands I played today and they confirm for me that I am indeed the worst of all time. I feel dumb around my group of friends sometimes.

Drinks at the bar naturally leads to a 2am Korean BBQ run. Everyone is fucking ecstatic, particularly when plate after plate of bulgoki is brought out. I should really go to Korea this year.

April 22nd, Las Vegas: I awake with only a minor hang over. My water drinking attempt was clearly a great success. I call my friend and ask him if he plans on grinding today, as Wednesday is the second best tournament grinding day of the week. He tells me he’ll be grinding all afternoon and evening and I can stop by whenever.

The girl and I go over to the Bellagio so I can get changed. I take a shower and change into more casual wear, jeans with a dark button up French cuff shirt, an apt opportunity to try out the new cufflinks. They are difficult to insert. I consider cracking a joke to that affect when asking for her help with them, but decide it’s probably a bit early in the morning for that. We stroll down to the Bellagio café and order the standard Vegas 2pm breakfast. My pancakes have many berries on and in them.

Afterwards we return to Panorama tower to hit the pool and hot tub with friends. I go up to their room first and they are already grinding. They tell me the tournaments I want to play start at 4pm and not 5 like I thought, meaning that I’ve got about 20 minutes for the hot tub. I think things over and take a big hit off the piece. I ask if they don’t mind covering for me for the first 15 minutes or so. My friend agrees.

I join the girl and her friends for a quick afternoon dip in the hot tub. She says she’ll cook dinner for us tonight in their apartment while we’re grinding. I tell her that’s awesome, but then get paranoid about what time it is
“How long have we been in here guys?”
“I don’t know dude, like 10 minutes?” says the friend.
“God, feels like longer.”

I hang out for what feels like hours but is actually about 10 more minutes, then start rambling about how I’m going to be late and need to go up to the room and grind. I return upstairs in my wet suit, grab a towel from the bathroom and wrap it around myself, settle into the couch, thank my friend for covering, then get into my session by registering for everything I can.

We hang out for a few hours in mostly silence, occasionally discussing various spots and what we think the optimal range is for various preflop situations. Around seven the girl comes upstairs with pasta and starts cooking for us. It has seafood in it and is quite delicious, though difficult to eat while attempting to manage 14 tables on a laptop at the same time.

Near the end of the session the apartment starts clearing out as people bust tournaments. Some go to hang out with friends before we’re all to meet up at a club in ‘The Venetian’ for Lacey Jones’s birthday party. By the end of things it’s just me and the two guys living in the apartment hanging out while one of them finishes his session, obviously doing way better than I did again.

His tournaments finish up around 11 and we take his car over to ‘The Venetian’. We’re both playing the $2500 at the same casino tomorrow, so we agree to take it easy tonight. On our way up to the party we pass a cigar store, and decide that this event clearly warrants buying two.

Upstairs in the club the party is a who’s who of Las Vegas poker. There are even people like WSOP top man Jeffrey Pollack, who upon seeing I remark to my friend “Hey man Jeffrey Pollack is here, I should go introduce myself by telling him maybe if he steps it up next year he can be pokers best dressed man.” Seeing as he’s never met me before he would likely not realize that I was joking and I’d come off incredibly arrogant. My friend demands that I do it anyway if I wind up talking to him.

Because I’m a responsible young man the night before a tournament I don’t drink much at all. After my first vodka and orange juice I switch to straight orange juice, and then stand around chatting to the girl I’ve been hanging out with recently. At some point I suggest to my friend that we whip our cigars out, and after lighting then everyone at the party decides they want some too so we start passing them around. At one point two girls are puffing on them and one accidentally ashes down her dress
“AH! IT BURNS!” she yells and starts slapping all around her dress and fanning it trying to put it out. There’s a circle of people around her laughing their asses off. She crams some ice down her dress and tries to fan out the ash. Bringing the cigars was clearly a good decision.

Although I don’t drink much I still manage the occasional party foul, such as accidentally elbowing Maria Ho in the face while chatting to a friend, though I imply to her that her face moved forward much more than my elbow went back. She seems pretty cool about it, particularly as I’ve never met her before. Everyone at the party seems quite cool actually, though as is the case with any social circle there is quite a lot of people discussing each other in hushed tones, though because it’s in a club it’s actually yelling into each other’s ears.

A bit before 2am I tell her that we need to head out because I have to play tomorrow. The night is truly a success, because I have stayed sober and left early from a party with free booze. It’s a Wednesday night miracle.