Day 294 on the road.
Starbucks, Boca Park Shopping Center, Charleston at Rampart, west Las Vegas
After running a few errands in Laughlin, I drove in to Vegas yesterday and checked into my room at the Palace Station Casino Resort. I will be here two nights before moving on west.
I spent the afternoon at the Amazon Room at the Rio Casino Resort Hotel watching Event 2 of the World Series of Poker. (Photo on left,I took from the rail.) Event 2 is a $1,500 buy-in No Limit Holdem tournament that registered 3,929 players and offers a prize pool of over $3 million. Today, the final table will conclude with the winner taking home around $831,000. I watched for about an hour as some of the greatest players in the world tried to survive an onslaught of aggressive online players.
When I left Texas last year, my goal was to visit the Rio and watch the pros play at a World Series of Poker event. If nothing else, I have at least accomplished that goal! (Photo right, I took of pro Ted Forrest and others while watching the action.) The tournaments are held in the enormous Amazon Room at the convention center attached to the Rio Casino Resort. Hundreds of poker tables were lined up as far you could see. I played in a cash game located in a section dedicated for games like $10/$20 Holdem and $75-$150 Omaha Hi Lo Split.
(Photo left, is Doyle Brunson, the "god" of poker and a fellow Texan. Texas Dolly is perhaps the best known poker pro in the world.)
The WSOP tournament events will continue throughout the next six weeks or so. The Final Event, the big momma of all the events with a $10,000 buy-in, will be held the first week of July. The Main Event will take a week to narrow the field down to the final table. The players who make it the final table of the Main Event will not play for the championship until November. This is something entirely new, giving the players time off to regroup and give ESPN time to hype the shows that will be aired throughout the fall. ESPN will air the results of the final table in November on the same day it concludes, via tape delay.
If you would like to sponsor me for the Main Event, feel free to contact me. I only need $10,000 plus expenses for the week. If I win, I'll have about $8 million to share with you!
The final table production site for ESPN broadcasts.
