April 30th, Milwaukee: I wake up when Jenson enters the room. I look at the clock; it reads 8:21am.
“Oh sorry, did I wake you?” he says
“Oh, no not really, I think I was kind of up and just not fully aware of it. I got to sleep super early last night. You off to work?”
“Yea, off to the working world for me.”
“Alright dude, have a good one. I’m just gonna hang out writing today, I’ll be back here at 6pm to get the ride back to Madison with you.”
“Sounds good buddy, later.”

I lay around in bed for a while debating whether I’m actually going to get up or try to fall back asleep. It’s so bright in the room that I eventually give up on the idea of sleep and throw on some shorts and tennis shoes. I go for a run around the neighborhood then return home and take a shower.

I walk over to ‘Whole Foods’ where my friend Derek works and ask if he’s around. They tell me he’s currently on break. I order an Asian chicken stir fry and have a seat in the café area. Derek eventually returns from his break and hangs around chatting to me for a bit before he has to return to work. When I finish my food I walk over to the nearby coffee shop and run into a class mate from college. We can’t remember each other’s names anymore when we see each other.

I hang around the café writing for several hours. When the time approaches 5pm my computer starts running low on battery so I pack it up and walk back to Jenson’s place. He returns home shortly afterwards and I pack up my things then we drag the heavy bags downstairs into his car.

The ride from Milwaukee to Madison is about 90 minutes and we spend the duration talking about my experiences abroad, his career options, and his relationship to his girlfriend Ali. For a long time I thought Jenson would pursue a serious career in film, but after spending some time in the industry he’s questioning whether that’s the right track for him. Unfortunately there’s not a ton of film work in Milwaukee compared to most other cities.

When we arrive in Madison he drives us over to the West side and drops me off at my parents house. I ring the bell and nobody answers. I open up the garage door and bring my bags inside. A bit later my parents and brother return home and we make plans to get dinner, though my brother Joey has already eaten so he won’t be joining us. My parents give me the option of choosing the restaurant, I pick Thai.

At the restaurant I catch them up with what I’ve been up to since we last spoke in person nearly a year ago. At the time they’d come out to visit me in Las Vegas during the WSOP and check out the city, a 180 turn from their years of disapproval at my career choice. At dinner they do their best to catch me up on people I knew growing up, but at this point their names and relevancy are starting to slip from memory in some cases.

After dinner they drop me off to meet my brother at ‘Pegasus Games’, a gaming store that sells things like ‘Magic Cards’, which I collected throughout middle school. I’ve grown out of those things since, but I still enjoy having geeky conversations about X-men, DC comics, anime, and whatever else. There is a cute girl working behind the counter that my brother clearly likes. When we leave the store I ask him to drive me down to a party at my friends place and spend the ride instructing him how to get her phone number.

We park the car near the campus downtown. I tell my brother he should come to the party with me and hang out for a bit. We get up to the apartment and I am greeted by my good friend Semo who visited me in Australia, and I lunge at him for a huge hug then we exchange our standard racial slur barrage
“Holy fuck it’s good to see you money grubbing Jew son of a bitch!” I yell
“Right back at ya you greasy haired dago guinea mother fucker!” he retorts.

He immediately places a beer in my hand and we start playing ‘asshole’ with some girls and his good buddy ‘Chewy’ (it’s a drinking game.) I am told there is a keg in the bathroom. Semo suggests I do a keg stand and I am quickly on board. We enter the bathroom and Semo and Chewy hold me upside down while I grip the keg. A girl named Brittney offers to hold the tap in my mouth but I demand my brother does it because “I want this to a be a fucking bonding experience!” Joey is 19 and in his second year of college but apparently has no experience with kegs because he attempts to place the entire tap in my mouth and doesn’t know where the beer comes out of
“Damn it Joey not the whole tap!” I lecture him while being held upside down. Eventually we get things sorted correctly and I do the most pathetically short keg stand of all time, then claim it’s not my fault because I haven’t done one in five years.

We return to the general party and eventually Joey leaves because he is driving and not drinking like a responsible young adult. I stick around with Semo and Chewy and continue to play ‘asshole’ with the girls. After we finish our game things start clearing out and I’m chilling on the couch talking to one of the girls, Sarah (name has been changed), who is rather plain looking but seems very down to earth and chilled out. I am not flirting with her and she is not flirting with me, though she is laughing at my jokes quite a lot. Semo tells me he needs to get out of here with her roommate Brittney, and so Chewy and I walk back to the apartment we’re crashing at together in preparation for waking up at 8am for the Mifflin Street block party.

We’re lying around watching sports and just shooting the shit. I believe it is the second time I’ve ever hung out with Chewy (not the poker playing one) and he is a very full on kind of guy who just says whatever the hell he feels like, a trait we share and point out that we appreciate in each other. I get set up on the couch and he gives me some pillows and blankets to get comfortable with. He’s about to go bed and he blurts
“By the way if you need to jerk it I got some quality lube”
“Yea, might as well. Haven’t in a couple days or something. Thanks for the offer”

I take the bottle and my laptop into the bathroom and fire up some porn. Suddenly my phone beeps and I look down at a text message from Semo that reads:
“Do you want to hook up with Sarah?”
I call him immediately and ask “Wait, what the fuck?”
“Yea man, she was saying she wants to hook up with you. Do you want me to give her your number and she’ll text you?”
“Yea, fuck yea, I got nothing going on. Have her text me. Man that is so random, she didn’t even flirt with me at all.”
Thank God I checked my phone first.

About 10 minutes later I get a text from Sarah asking what I’m up to. I tell her just relaxing at Chewy’s place but not feeling ready for sleep. She says it’s too bad I didn’t stay out longer. I say I can always come back out. She says I should. I say I will then, and then ask where to meet her. She tells me what bar to come to and I say I’ll be there in no time.

I walk outside and am greeted by an enormous scene of fire trucks and flashing lights. Some moron in a white BMW has driven directly into the side wall of the building next to the apartment by the sidewalk I need to walk down. There are police all around and a crowd of people looking on. Good thing I didn’t leave five minutes earlier, that’s the second close call of the evening.

I walk over to the bar at closing time and find Sarah. I greet her with a hug and walk with her and a couple friends back to the apartment where the party was held, which I believe to be Sarah’s place. We hang around drinking for a while and I am instructed to take a shot, which I do but not before I curse everyone out for making me do it. I notice Sarah sending some texts on her phone. About 20 minutes into our little gathering I get a call from Semo
“What the hell is wrong with you dude? Take her home and have sex with her already!”
I guess it’s not her apartment.

About five minutes later I say “Well it’s 3am and we need to be up at 8, I’m heading out. You coming?”
“Yea I’m coming she says”
We step out of the apartment and I turn to her and ask
“Did you text Semo or something?”
“No, why?”
“Ah nothing, he just called before. No worries.”

We walk arm in arm back to her apartment, which eventually turns into her holding my hand. She takes me up to the apartment and we proceed to the bedroom. I sit down on the bed and say “Come here” and we start making out. Making out leads to clothing coming off, which leads to dry humping, which leads to difficulty getting an erection because I have had quite a bit to drink, which eventually leads to erection, which leads to difficulty getting the piece of shit condom Chewy gave me on, which leads to her procuring a better one, which finally leads to sex. I do my best to be good for her, though I’d guess between the alcohol and general exhaustion from being up since 8am I am nothing spectacular. She seems to be enjoying herself though.

When we finish I lay there completely spent for a minute, then ask if I can borrow a toothbrush. Dental hygiene is underrated. She tells me I can. I enter the bathroom and take a look down at myself; the condom has burst wide open. God fucking damn it. I brush my teeth and mouth wash thoroughly. I return to the room and let her know that the condom broke. She does not seem particularly concerned. She goes into the bathroom and it occurs to me that I can’t seem to remember her name. I check my phone for the message Semo sent me. Ah yes, Sarah, that’s right, her name is Sarah.

When we returns we lay around bed draped over each other chatting for a while so I can get to know her a bit
“You don’t have to cuddle me if you don’t want” she says
“Well I’ve got this weird spine thing where I can’t lie on my side without something between my legs. So it’s either your leg or a pillow. What do you prefer?”
“I like having my arms around something.”
“Do you use a pillow too?”
“No I have a teddy bear.”
“Ah, just consider me a much fatter version of a teddy bear then.”
“Hehe, stop it you, you know you’re thin.”

I mostly chat to her about travel, where she’s been and would like to go. I tell her about the various places I’ve been. We agree that a person should travel as much as they can. She seems like a nice girl. We lament the fact that it’s 5am and Semo will be in the room waking us up at 8. Then we drift off into sleep.

Afterword: I have since spoken to Sarah to let her know that I was recently tested and came back clean and to ask whether she’s on the pill. She confirmed that she’s on birth control and also was recently tested. Then we agreed that either can booty call the other whenever we’re around the same city.

April 29th, Milwaukee: I wake up and look at the clock. It’s slightly past 3pm. Man, jet lag can seriously go fuck itself. I throw on some shorts and go for a run around the neighborhood. I intend to use my month in Wisconsin to get back into working out very hardcore.

I return back to the apartment and take a shower. There’s no food in the house so I pack up my computer and walk over to the nearby ‘Subway’ again. When I finish eating I go around the corner to the local coffee shop, set down my bag, and go to the counter to order a coffee. There’s a very cute brunette sitting by herself near the counter studying. I’m standing around waiting for my drink to arrive and suddenly the brunette says to me
“Are you waiting to order?”
“Ah nah, already did. Would be rather rude of them if I were huh?”
“Oh my mistake, never mind then.”
“No worries.”
And then I draw a total blank and just stand there like a fucking moron waiting for my drink. The best looking girl in the place just started talking to me instead of the other way around, and I can’t think of anything to say. What the hell is wrong with me? My drink comes up and I take it over to my seat. I should just slit my wrists right now.

I sit around the café for a couple hours working on my writing. I run into an old professor of mine and spend some time catching up with him. He is a nice guy despite the fact that once during class he’d asked he once asked if someone saw a play that’d been playing in Milwaukee to which I responded
“I did, God I hated it”
“He directed it” said another student with wide eyes in a hushed tone. Foot; meet mouth.

I call my friend Derek because we have plans to hang out today. He tells me to walk over towards his place and we’ll meet half way. I pack up my things and start walking. We meet in front of a convenience store and buy two six packs of quality Wisconsin beer that I can’t get in Australia.

We walk over to his place and crack open a couple beers inside his apartment. We’ve been playing fighting video games together since we were six, something we continue today with ‘Street Fighter 4’. After a few matches he whips out a bag of weed and we fire that shit up. Then we just start talking.

We wind up sitting around his apartment just chatting for over an hour about the thoughts and views we’ve developed over the past few years. At one point he goes on a rant about how ridiculous the economic fallout is, how it’s absurd that anyone trusted people with vastly greater knowledge in the industry to safely invest their money, that it’d be like trying to sit down at the poker table against someone like me as a recreational player. I immediately turn to the computer and show him the blog entry I wrote on the very same subject only a couple weeks ago. I can’t decide if it’s great minds that think alike or just stoned ones.

We go to a local restaurant for dinner. The food is fucking awesome. I tell him that it was a very good decision to go here. He agrees.

After dinner we hang out a little longer at his place, but he has to go to bed early because of work. I take the bus home. When I get there I go upstairs, fire up my computer, and try to finish some writing. It’s only midnight but I feel very tired. I turn the computer off and lay down in bed. I am asleep almost instantly.

April 29th, Milwaukee: I wake up and look at the clock; it reads 3pm. Sounds about right. The apartment is empty as it seems both my friends are at work. I take a shower then sort through my bag for a shirt that isn’t completely wrinkled from having been folded up in my suitcase for so long. I settle for a black one that I assume is too dark to see the wrinkles on without thorough inspection.

I walk over to a local ‘Subway’ for breakfast and get a sandwich. There are free copies of ‘The Onion’ near the entry. I grab one and spend my meal trying not to laugh too hard in the middle of the restaurant. I exit the shop and walk over to the bus station just as a bus pulls out of the stop. I ask the homeless guys chilling there if it was the one I need, and they confirm that it was. Then they return to their discussion of the song ‘Tipsy’, stating that in their day they got a whole hell of a lot more than tipsy in the club.

Eventually another bus comes by and I take the ride into the center of Milwaukee. I get out a block up from my destination; ‘Uhle’s’ cigar shop on Wisconsin Street. When I walk into the store the girl behind the counter, Tamara, is thrilled to see me and gives me a big hug. We’ve known each other for years and even went on a few dates though things never fully clicked, though I suppose we had enough chemistry that she did agree to our first date during a phone call in which she coached me through vomiting into my toilet due to excessive alcohol consumption. Losing heavily at beer pong has its consequences, but that cemented her as one of the coolest chicks ever in my book.

I hang around the store smoking and catching up for a few hours then catch the same bus back to the North East side. I walk over to my friend Cagle’s place and have a long chat to him about what we’ve been up to since we last saw each other two or three years ago. His long term girlfriend cheated on him with some guy 10 years her senior then wound up marrying him. We always told him that’d happen with her, he never listened.

At 7:30 my friend Caitlin picks us up to give us a ride to dinner with my old friend Derek, her boyfriend, riding shotgun with her. I’ve known Derek since I was six and Caitlin since middle school, though I haven’t seen either in a year or two. It’s hard to remember anymore. We meet our friend Erica at an Indian restaurant and spend dinner rehashing old stories and telling some new ones. I shout dinner in exchange for everyone buying me drinks at the bar we’re going to afterwards.

When we finish dinner we head out to Brady Street to have drinks at a local lounge. I am convinced to take a shot. Then I have a beer. Then I am given another shot. Then I am given another beer. Then my friend Vera shows up, a girl I’d had a lot of chemistry with before I left Milwaukee but we got to know each other too late to see if anything could materialize. She had messaged during dinner to ask about having drinks and I told her to meet us out. When she shows up my friends say they need to leave as it is getting late
“I slipped them $20 to do that” I quip to Vera.

They leave and I am alone with Vera. She orders a mixed drink, I get another beer. She’s the kind of clever and witty girl that is incredibly easy and fun to talk to, and I am flirting considerably, which she reciprocates. Then she mentions that she’s dating someone, which I take as a way of telling me to cool it. I tell her my Adelaide tournament story, which afterward prompts her to tell me about how the guy she’s dating has been a completely controlling psycho lately who assumed she had sex with some friend of hers, which she didn’t, and that she questions whether she’ll see him again when he returns from out of town. I take this as a sign to heat it.

She tells me a story about a work colleague who took her out for drinks and tried to make a move. I tell her that she should know that a man will almost never ask a woman out for a one on one encounter and have platonic intentions
“Well I messaged you tonight, and I have platonic intentions” she says
“Yes, but I have absolutely zero platonic intentions with you” I shoot back. She giggles and leans in closer. Our legs are touching.

I’m starting to feel a bit tipsy and suggest that I walk her home because I don’t want to get drunk. The homeless guys would not approve. We exit the bar and I tell her to lock her arm into mine because I don’t have the tolerance for cold I once did.
“It’s a very long walk back to mine” she says
“Well I don’t have anywhere to be and I’m enjoying the conversation”
“Okay, are you hungry? Do you want me to make you some food when we get there?”
“Yea I could eat”
“But you have to promise me you won’t sleep over”
“I promise, besides, you look like a snorer. I’m not down with that. So what do you want your fake name to be when I write about you in my blog?”
“You’re going to write about me?”
“I write about everything interesting that happens to me, and I consider you interesting, though only slightly.”
“Hehe, call me Vera, I’ve always like that name.”
“Vera it is.”

She was not lying; it is a considerable walk back to hers. When we make it back she makes a joke that the security guard will think she’s a huge slut because he’s seen her walking in late at night with the guy she’s dating recently. I love it when girls are self deprecating.

We take the elevator up to her apartment. Inside it has a great view overlooking West Milwaukee. I remark how dead it all looks at this hour. She heats me up a piece of chicken pizza and I tell her I’m also stealing the carrots out of her fridge. I finish my food and tell her to order me a cab. Before I go downstairs I say to her jokingly
“Call me next time you want to hang out as more than friends, cause this platonic shit doesn’t work with you and me, cause ya know next time I’ll make a move, you’ll shoot me down, it’ll be super awkward for everybody involved”
“How do you know? How do you know I’ll shoot you down?”
“Well there’s only one way to find out”
I step towards her, lean in, and kiss her. I do not get shot down.
“Relax, you feel rigid and nervous” she says
“Well maybe that’s cause I’ve been waiting four years to kiss you”
“You’ve been waiting four years to kiss me huh?”
“Well I don’t recall any previous opportunities”
We kiss hard for a moment then I pull back and add
“Actually I’m just nervous about my breath, what with the pizza and all.” She giggles and we stand in her apartment kissing, overlooking half of Milwaukee, a city silent and asleep but for us.
“Okay, enough of your womanly tricks on me, I have a cab to catch.”

I walk to the door; she follows me and gives me a hug. She smells perfect.
“So when are we gonna hang out again?” I ask
“Just call me before you leave town k?”
“I think that can be arranged.”

I arrive in the lobby about 30 seconds before my cab does. I start talking to the driver. He asks how my night’s going. I tell him it’s been pretty good.

April 28th, Las Vegas: I awake feeling well rested and feeling ready to grind my 20 BB stack into something meaningful. I take a shower, throw on a suit, and run down to the convenience store for my standard breakfast; protein bar, meal replacement bar, and vitamin water. I make the quick walk over to the Caesars poker room and arrive comfortably early.

At my table I find ‘Mlagoo’, ‘Bkice’, and ‘Allin@420’ waiting for me
“How the fuck did this happen?” I ask when I see the lineup. Oh well, at least I have some aggressive players to shove over. Play begins at the 600/1200 with 100 ante level, and the table is playing pretty aggressively.

I blind off for an orbit, and then take down the blinds by open shoving mid pairs a couple times. Then I find KK and ‘Allin@420’ raises in front of me. I shove over the top and he folds, then says it’d be cool if I could show a deuce but he knows I’m actually a nit and can’t. Damn him and his psychic accuracy. My stack has increased comfortably over 30,000 when I get involved in a big hand against Mlagoo:
My stack: ~33,000, Mlagoo: ~90,000, blinds 600/1200 with 100 ante. I hold Qd Qh UTG+2.
Preflop: UTG limps for 1200, UTG+1 folds, I raise to 4500 next to act, it folds to Mlagoo on the button who thinks for a bit then reraises to 11,500, it folds back to me, I go all in and Mlagoo calls instantly
“Yea, I was not happy about this spot” I say as I turn over my cards, as I know that given positions, stack sizes, and the UTG limp Matt knows I have a pretty tight range. He turns over his hand and reveals AA. Ah shit.
Flop: J 7 5 rainbow
I get up from the table and start walking towards Mlagoo to shake his hand.
Turn: Q
I start laughing and walking backwards towards my chair.
River: A
I start laughing and spin around, walk over to Mlagoo to shake his hand and wish him luck. If I’m going to bust I’m glad my chips can go to someone I like as much as Matt.

I walk back to my hotel room and start looking at flights to Milwaukee. I find one that leaves in about five hours that is direct and only costs $100. I book it and start packing my stuff. I’m chatting to the girl I met in the hot tub online and she kindly offers to give me a ride to the airport. I’m also chatting to Gobbo and suggest the two of us get lunch so I can give him the $64,000 in Bellagio chips sitting in my safe Shaundeeb wanted me to deliver to him. We decide to meet up with Augie at a Japanese place near his place for a mellow birthday celebration for Augie.

I check out of the hotel and meet the girl outside at the Bellagio. The car is parked behind Scotty Nguyen’s sick ride, which I think is a Jaguar. The license plate reads ‘NL Baby’. I don’t think I want to be that close to him in traffic. We drive over to the Japanese place which it turns out offers a vast array of Asian options, including Korean BBQ, which I obviously snap call order. I tell Gobbo I have the chips for him and ask whether he has a bag he’d like me to put them in. He tells me he’ll just put them in his pocket so I hand them over and he does.

After lunch we drive to the airport, park the car, and then find a restaurant to hang out in while we wait for my flight. I get a coffee, she gets a margarita. We discuss the upcoming WSOP and how I’ll make her dinner next time I’m around town.
“Are you going to miss me?” she asks suggestively
“No” I deadpan
She’s hung out with me long enough to know I’m messing with her and she laughs at me for about a solid minute
“Oh really?” she challenges
“Well, I might miss your presence a bit, but it won’t be staying up at night crying into a pillow kinda missing you”
“Well obviously you fool” she teases back.

Eventually it reaches the point that my flight will be boarding soon so I kiss her goodbye and walk to the security check. It’s an American airport, so off go the shoes, belt, and suit jacket. I board the plane and take out the ‘Wolf on Wall Street’. I read it for about 20 minutes until I reach the end. That book was awesome. I set it down in my bag, lay my head back, and fall asleep almost instantly.
~
“Alright there folks, we are beginning our descent into Milwaukee” announces the pilot, jerking me out of my sleep. Damn did that nap work out well.

The plane lands in Milwaukee a few moments later and we disembark. I collect my luggage and grab a taxi over to the apartment of my friend Jenson, who is letting me stay at his place during the time I spend in Milwaukee. I drag my bags up the front steps then get in the elevator. It takes about eight minutes to go up three flights. I knock on his door and greet my we greet each other with mutual enormous enthusiasm.

We go have waffles at an all night food place near his apartment and do our best to catch each other up. Sometimes I really miss Milwaukee.

We walk back to the apartment and Jenson leaves me at the door to go sleep at his girlfriends place. He has essentially given me his place and room for however long I want during my stay since he spends every night at hers. Inside the apartment I fire up my computer and do some writing. It’s not until 5:30am that I feel tired enough to try to get to bed. There is light coming in from the window over the bed. It makes it very hard to sleep.

April 27th, Las Vegas: In order to buy into the Caesar’s $5,000 I’ve had to take one of the 5k Bellagio chips that Shaundeeb gave me via Charder to the cage. He gave me $69,000 in chips in total, $5,000 to use towards the event and $64,000 to give to Gobbo to hang on to. Naturally at the cage they give me some trouble about where I got the chip and who in the hell Christian Harder is (you people don’t know who the fuck Charder30 is!?) They tell me to take it over to the poker room cage instead, where they wind up giving me far less trouble and quickly peel off a stack of $5,000 in cash and hand it over to me.

I walk over to the Caesar’s poker room after having been delayed over 20 minutes by the chip exchange, making me 10 minutes late for the tournament. I buy in with my wad of Bellagio wrapped hundreds then find a seat on a table that appears to be a very soft line up. After watching a couple orbits I realize the French guy in seat four does not fold for any reason. No pair? No draw? No problem! Call! My first hand of relevance is against the French guy and another random old guy who is a huge aggression nit:
Effective stacks: ~25,000, blinds 25/50, I hold 8s6s in the SB.
Preflop: UTG folds, UTG+1 calls 25, the French guy in MP1 raises to 175, MP2 calls, folds to me in the SB, I call, BB calls, UTG calls.
Flop: Jc 7s 4d
Everyone checks.
Turn: 5s
I like that card only slightly. I bet out 625, the BB folds, UTG folds, MP1 calls, MP2 calls.
River: Td
I bet 1600, MP1 folds, MP2 min raises to 3200. I know I’m going to reraise, I’m just trying to think what to and what I do if he instantly crams or thinks for a bit and crams. I feel like with this guy I should be more worried about an instant cram, but really I think I should call anyway because he may be the type to over value his hand. I reraise to 7500 and he thinks for a bit and calls with a set of tens. Kind of wish I’d raised bigger now.

A single orbit later I get involved in another large pot, this time directly against the French station:
My stack: ~33,000, French guy: ~25,000, blinds 25/50, I hold 5c5d on the button.
Preflop: UTG folds, French guy raises to 200 UTG+1, MP1 folds, MP2 calls, folds to me on the button, I call, BB folds.
Flop: 8s 8c 5s
French guy bets 200, MP1 folds, I raise to 1000, French guy calls.
Turn: 2d
French guy checks, I bet 2500, French guy calls.
River: Kd
French guy checks, I bet 6000, and now the French guy sort of slaps the table is annoyance and makes a frustrated call. QQ I guess? I table my 55 and he shows his pair of aces and mucks. I can’t believe he didn’t stack off with the way he’s playing; even if we are 500 BB’s deep.

I find a small card rush and do quite a bit of preflop raising. The guy on my immediate left three bets me a number of times, but every time he does and we get to showdown or I fold he shows me some monstrous hand, so it seems he’s just running hot. With this history we wind up getting involved:
My stack: ~40,000, UTG+1: ~40,000, blinds 50/100, I hold AsKd UTG.
Preflop: I raise to 300, UTG+1 reraises to 800, it folds back to me, I call. I think folding isn’t absurd here, because his reraise range his like TT+/AK, but we’re also 40,000 deep and I have AK which last I checked is the nizzles, so we’re seeing the flop.
Flop: Kc 4c Js
I check, UTG+1 bets 1000, I call.
Turn: 7h
I check, UTG+1 bets 2000. I call, but when I think about his range that double barrels here with the preflop 3-bet I’m pretty confident I should actually be folding.
River: Ah
I check, UTG+1 quickly bets 5000. Now I go into the tank, and when I think about it I’m really just calling for a chop here. QQ and TT don’t triple barrel here from a guy like this, and I’m losing to AA/KK/JJ and in a tie with AK. He didn’t even have to think about his river bet, and he’s had it every time. I groan a bit and fold, then he flashes me AKo and I feel dumb for not just folding the turn.

I continue to beat up my table for a bit throughout the level, but unfortunately for me the table is broken and I’m moved to a much worse seat. The table has Danny Wong on my right, Scott ‘Mastr’ Seiver on my left, and Todd Terry a few seats over on my left, plus another young online guy across the table. I’m hopeful that at least Scott will spend his time entertaining me with his hilarious Seth Roganesqueness. Unfortunately he soon pops in his Ipod headphones and starts owning fools instead.

Not long after I arrive I find myself in a large pot with Todd Terry:
My stack: ~35,000, Todd Terry: ~30,000, blinds 100/200, I hold JdJh on the button.
Preflop: Todd raises to 500 UTG, folds to me on the button, I call, SB folds, BB calls.
Flop: 2s Ts Jc
BB checks, Todd checks, I bet 1125, BB folds, Todd calls.
Turn: Kd
Todd checks, I bet 2900, Todd thinks briefly and calls.
River: 5c
Todd checks, I think about my bet size for a while then fire 7000, Todd goes into the tank and folds. He says he had AsKs.

Then for a very, very long time nothing happens. I go massively card dead and with a slew of good players on my left rarely bother to get particularly out of line. Level after level passes without the slightest eventful hand, and after several hours of play on my table of boredom I finally get moved to one with a softer line up, though there is still ‘BKice’ and ‘Sketchy1’ on my left, but not immediate. Near the end of the day I get involved in a hand with a straight forward middle aged Asian guy:
My stack: ~33,000, Asian guy: ~50,000, blinds 400/800 with 100 ante. I hold 9s9d in the BB.
Preflop: Folds around to the HJ, HJ raises to 3500, folds to me in the BB, I flat call because 3 betting against this type of player with nines here is definitely a bluff, though a go and go isn’t crazy, but I prefer that with unpaired hands and I expect this guy to play pretty straight forward post flop so I like the call.
Flop: T 6 3 rainbow
I check, the HJ bets 5000, I call.
Turn: J
I check, the HJ checks.
River: K
Bleeeeegh. I check, the HJ thinks briefly and bets 8000. I smirk at Sketchy and say “Perfect turn/river for 99 huh?” and fold
“That’s exactly what I thought you had” he says.

After that I spend the rest of my day folding, and when things draw to a close I find myself with 25,700 in chips, meaning over the course of my 10 hour day I’ve managed to increase my stack at less than 100 chips per hour.

After the tournament finishes a friend and I go over to Panorama and meet up with some other friends. Naturally we smoke up and take a dip in the hot tub and discuss our respective days of poker. Then we go to order food, but it turns out in Vegas your delivery options after midnight are surprisingly few. I always figured Vegas and New York City would be the two places that you’d have an infinite amount of options when it comes to late night delivery, but apparently that’s only true of one of them. How annoying.