Having spent about 10 days in Prague, Czech Republic, I offer the following observations:

The business part of the trip I spent at the Prague Hilton, a very fine hotel and of course quite Americanized. The family vacation part of the trip I spent in a small apartment at the foot of Vysehrad Castle. When I went to bed at the Hilton I heard the sound of the HVAC(Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) system. When I went to bed at the apartment I had my windows open and heard the sound of people walking across cobblestone. In the former I could have been anywhere in the world. In the latter, I knew I was in Prague.

A day trip to Terezin, a former concentration camp, is a sobering affair but well worth the tri Being a “model” camp, I can only imagine what a visit to a death camp like Auschwitz-Birkenau or Treblinka must be.

I still can’t get over the fact you can get a beer at the movie theatres in Europe. The assigned seating made everything very efficient, although it was easy because the show was sparsely attended.

Smoking is everywhere. I played a little poker in the Hilton Casino and the way they dealt with the smoking issue there was to make half the table non-smoking. Fortunately smoke doesn’t bother me.

This is the last hand I played in Prague. I was on the button in an 8-handed 200/400 limit holdem game (that’s like 10/20 US). All fold to the Swede one off the cutoff and he raises the 200 blind to 400. He’s been very aggressive preflop but has shown little aggression postflop beyond a continuation bet. I am confident I can outplay him postflop.  I have a very tight image as I have only been showing down premium hands. I three bet with 89. The small blind, a new player to the game who is drunk and only recently joined the game calls the additional 500 and the BB joins in as well. Flop comes 673. Drunk and BB check, Swede bets, I raise. I’m really liking my hand here as I flopped absolute perfect for my hand, with a well disguised OESD(Open End Straight Draw) given my image and action in the hand. The Drunk calls, BB folds, the Swede three bets and I cap it. The drunk calls two more bets and the Swede calls. Turn is the gorgeous 5 giving me the nut straight. This time the Drunk leads out with a bet. The Swede calls, I raise and both of them call. The river is the K, putting 3 diamonds now on the board. The Drunk leads out, the Swede makes a crying call saying “show me your straight or flush” and while I normally don’t put people on runner/runner I just call. The Swede had KK (and was very surprised to see my hand), and of course the Drunk had 24, with the winning flush. 8400 pot down the drain. That was enough poker in Prague.

Graffiti is a real problem in Prague. We saw very few children in the tourist areas. Pilsner Urquell tastes better in Prague. The Tram system works very well. Cobblestones are brutal on the feet.

No related posts.

Certainly not my normal commute today. Up at 4:00, into the Chicago office at 8:30. Out of the office at 6:00, back home in Minnesota at 10:30. Would not want to do that every day.

But if I did, I certainly would have the opportunity to meet more great folks like some of the ones I met tonight. Like the construction worker on the train who comes home sloshed at 6:30, thinking nothing of standing next to you in a crowded train and coughing extremely loud and violently into your ear every minute or so. Nice. The hacking and swallowing of the phlegm is a nice touch.

Or the guy on the plane, who after we land whips out his cell phone and proceeds to make three calls, each eliciting additional information for the benefits of the entire plane, because that is how loud he talks and frankly, that’s how he rolls. Things like how cool he is because he drives a beamer. How he had to come back tonight because of connecting flight problems from a spur of the moment trip to Sydney to watch a friend play in the Aussie Millions poker tournament. When you’re this cool it’s hard to know who to hang with, your pals at the strip club, the home poker party or trendy Ciao Bella. The entire plane knows this guy is a playah.

Me? I just know he’s an asshole.

Travel. Such fun.

No related posts.

In my entry 2006 Cities I included Lucca, a small Italian city near Pisa. Amy and I spent a night there this summer as part of our Italian trip, which was a 10-year anniversary, 2nd honeymoon vacation.

Long time reader and fellow blogger Robert K. Brown posted a comment to that article about the coincidence of him reading it around the same time he found a journal documenting his own trip to Lucca. As Robert is a much better writer than me, I thought I’d include here his own words about the famed Walls of Lucca, and include a few photographs as well.

From my journal, since it’s suddenly handy:

The walls of Lucca. Again, I found myself impressed by both their stature and their perfect condition. Giovanni told us that it took 200 years to build them, and were finished sometime in the 1500′s (the date 1560 sticks out in my mind). Lucca was never attacked. The walls were so formidable, and so well-engineered, that it was deemed a futile cause. 30-40 feet thick, probably 30 feet high, ranging a good 4 km around the city. There is a two lane road atop the wall, now, lined with trees. Cars are no longer allowed on top of the wall; it’s actually a pretty nice jogging path now.

But the defense system was amazing. The “U” — where the wall seems to come back in on itself — held cannons. They would protect the length of the wall. Also, one could be able to put together a sortie of men, protected in the alcove between the walls, and do additional battle with the enemy, if necessary. The large block in the middle of the “U” created two narrow passageways into a more expansive alcove, hence only a few men could defend it from vastly superior numbers. Dad was suitably impressed.

In addition to the heretofore mentioned defenses, the grass fields outside of the city were below the water level of the small moat. Thus, the grass could be flooded to create a marsh upon which no seige weapons could be brought. Quite the marvelous feat of engineering.

View from atop the wall:

Going into the U section of the wall:

A couple of views inside the wall:

On top of the wall:

It really is quite impressive, I only wish we had more time to explore the city.

No related posts.

Kottke’s My Year in Cities seemed like an appropriate way to remember my own 2006.

Chicago *
Amsterdam *
Brussels
Paris
London
Barcelona
Cambridge
New York City
Rome
Florence
Lucca
Venice
Positano
Las Vegas

One or more nights spent in each place. Those cities marked with an * were visited multiple times on non-consecutive days. Bold cities were non-work travel. The family also came to Chicago once while I was there for work. A little more travel than normal and a couple of the trips were for unusual circumstances. I expect less travel in 2007.

No related posts.

No related posts.

We got back yesterday from a six day summer vacation in New York City, managing to have to put up with only one 100 degree day there. Of course that was the day that Connor and I headed out to Coney Island while the girls shopped at American Girl and Build A Bear Workshop. Coney Island was not worth the hour subway ride that’s for sure – what a dump! Still, it was fun getting out of Manhattan even if the heat was stifling.

We planned our trip around one main event each day, giving us plenty of wind-down time that we knew we would need. One day was the American Museum of Natural History, then Wicked, then the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum. That was probably Connor’s favorite. We also played in Central Park, visited the Statue of Liberty, shopped at Nintendo World, and of course visited FAO Schwarz and the Toys R Us in Times Square.

For a kid who doesn’t eat much Connor has inexplicably fallen for watching the Food Network, particularly enjoying Iron Chef America, Unwrapped and The Food Network Challenge.

On Unwrapped he saw a special on Chili’s Baby Back Ribs and having remembered liking some ribs my dad made a few years ago he decided he wanted to give them a try. He ate up a full slab of bbq ribs at Dallas BBQ, officially proclaiming them as the best ribs ever. I can confirm they were pretty good. Back at home tonight we went to Chili’s to try the ribs of song and left sorely disappointed – overcooked, stringy meat with a bland ketchup/sugar glaze. Terrible. Connor has made it his new mission to find ribs better than what he had in New York City. I’ll be happy to help.

I’ve been lucky enough to have had two vacations this summer – 8 days in Italy with Amy and 6 days in NYC with the whole family. Both different kinds of vacations to be sure. I know I certainly got more of a break in Italy, but it’s hard to argue with the merits of being together with family. Connor has been talking up Maine for vacation next year. Time to start planning.

No related posts.

You know you are in a blogging rut when you’ve been in Barcelona for a week, including the night FC Barcelona won the European Cup and you haven’t written a damn thing.

Most blogging tips I’ve seen say “don’t create an entry just to apologize for not blogging” so that isn’t what this is. It’s a reminder of how cool RSS and services like Bloglines is. What’s the harm of adding someone that doesn’t blog like they used to? Nothing, really. Take a look at someone like Mark Pilgrim, who about 18 months ago vanished off the face of the blogosphere, only to start writing again last month. Because of RSS I knew immediatly when he started writing again, without visiting his site very day. Before RSS it took effort to check a site every day and then certainly if someone wasn’t writing you needed to take them off your list because it was work to go to their pages. No longer.

Pretty cool, if you ask me.

No related posts.

Today is my last day at work in Vegas – 16 hours Monday, 14 on Tuesday, 17 on Wednesday, 12 on Thursday and 11 on Friday. Today looks like it will only be 8. I wish I had put a pedometer on at the start of this because I have done a ton of walking and my feet are totally shot. User Conferences are hard work to run but it’s a pretty fun change of pace for me. But I have to say a “Segway”:http://www.segway.com/ would have been pretty cool for roaming the halls of our conference center. Did I mention my feet are killing me?

Didn’t see too many interesting things but I did hear from a co-worker that they saw Pete Rose placing bets in the sportsbook at Caesar’s Palace. Oh and after we were done with one of our breakout rooms it was converted into a dressing room for Jerry Seinfeld. I had to go up and get our computer that was still there and was able to see how they set it u I’ll post the picture later (crappy as it is) but I did find it interesting that Jerry’s dressing room includes a full living room setup with real trees and a carpet under the coffee table made of live grass sod. I’m guessing that he likes to take off his shoes and socks and rub his tootsies in the cool grass.

Hmm, that gives me an idea…. Nah, I’d better not.

No related posts.

I don’t write about my Chicago trips much because they are mostly pretty boring – NWA from Minneapolis to Chicago Midway, Orange Line to Quincy, work at the Sears Tower, stay at the Club Quarters. The occasional dinner that isn’t room service. Every couple of weeks. Boring, boring, boring.

But today is turning out to be pretty interesting. First the flight here is the one that got me from Gold to Platinum on NWA, 75,000 miles this year. A lot of that 500 miles at a time to Chicago and back. Ugh. Then the fog was so bad at Midway that after circling for an hour and an aborted landing that got us to within a couple hundred feet of the ground we ended up landing at O’Hare instead of Midway, which is really a pain for me because the Blue Line to downtown takes about 20 minutes longer than the Orange line from Midway.

Then while walking back from dinner at “Rivers”:http://www.riversrestaurant.com/default.asp my boss got a call about a fire downtown. As we walked toward our hotel we realized it was very close to the Club Quarters, and in fact our block was roped off with police tape. We had to show our room cards to get under the tape and when we got to the door of the hotel we were able to get a good view of the “fire which is currently still burning”:http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041207/ap_on_re_us/high_rise_fire_1 and is on the 29th floor of the LaSalle Bank Building right next to my hotel. In fact I can now smell smoke from my room and can hear the news helicopters overhead. Should make for an interesting night. I’m watching the fire coverage on TV and it is still blazing pretty good.

We tried staying outside for a bit to watch but they asked us to go inside to get away from the “flying glass.”

I’ve got my sweats on and I’m ready to evacuate if necessary.

I think I like boring better.

p(update). [UPDATE] – Blogs of War has a “good timeline”:http://www.blogsofwar.com/archives/2004/12/06/chicago-high-rise-fire-lasalle-national-bank-building/ of the fire.

No related posts.

Northern Japan “was hit”:http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=234689 with a “magnitude 5.9 earthquake”:http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=616882&section=news at 11:16 this morning and about 10 minutes later we felt it in Tokyo. Now I’m told it was a minor shake but let me tell you that is not something I want to feel again. I was on the 10th floor and the ground shook so much I felt like I was walking across one of those rope bridge catwalks. 30 seconds of shaking and I was dizzy for about 5 minutes. Very odd.

No related posts.

Today I saw the movie “Saw”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387564/ at the “Virgin Toho Cinemas”:http://www.roppongihills.com/en/introduce/intro_03.html in Roppongi Hills. I like to watch movies in other countries. For one thing most of the theaters outside the US serve beer. This one was no exception.

There were some differences from what I’ve experienced in Europe, however. For starters the movie cost 1,800 Yen (about $17). If I read it right I believe the matinee price was 1,500 Yen. Yowza, that’s expensive.

The other interesting difference was that there were assigned seats. You picked out where you wanted to sit ahead of time very much like if you were attending a Broadway show.

Finally, in addition to regular popcorn they also served carmel corn. I couldn’t help myself.

Saw is one insane movie, by the way. I can see why some don’t like it but I did. I do, however, expect to have nightmares tonight and I’m not looking forward to that.

No related posts.

Back in Tokyo again, this time because of Mr. Sarbanes and Mr. Oxley, the evil bastards. See “here”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes-Oxley_Act if you need to know more.

Because I didn’t have much lead time when booking my flight I didn’t get a very good seat, and through a series of poor decisions and bad luck the 12 hour flight from Minneapolis to Tokyo has officially been declared the worst flight I have ever taken. Let me count the ways:

Mistake number one – I chose a window seat instead of an aisle. I usually prefer the aisle but I have found it easier to sleep when on a window seat and for this long flight I was planning to get some slee My bad luck the window seat I chose was one of those where the window is forward of the seat such that there is just a wall where your shoulder can ordinarily tuck into the window a bit if needed.

And that space would have been nice because unfortunately this was a pretty full flight and there was a guy in the middle seat next to me. A big guy. No, I’m a big guy. This was a really big guy. Our shoulders were mated for the trip.

Next mistake – instead of stowing my backpack in the storage above the seats I put it under the seat in front of me. Except it was a little too stuffed so I actually had it under my legs. Seemed like a good idea for 10 minutes or so, by the time I realized it might be a good idea to stow it elsewhere the overhead bins had filled up.

The magazine storage pouch behind the seat in front of me was already full with some extra NWA magazines but I put 4 more into it plus a water bottle, so that effectively moved the seat in front of me closer by about an inch. Which really sucked because the moron in front of me went into full recline 15 minutes into the flight and kept it there for 12 hours.

A wall to my left, a big equally uncomfortable guy to my right, my legs over a backpack and the seat in front of me reclined back into my la I was essentially trapped. It’s a good thing I’m not claustrophobic. And to make it worse every time I looked at the bald head in my lap I looked to his right and looked at the empty seat he had lucked out with next to him.

As the guy next to me said as we exited the plane, “At least I didn’t have a guy reclined in front of me – that must have sucked.”

Great, the guy in the middle seat felt sorry for me. It doesn’t get any worse than that.

No related posts.

I’m in Orlando this week for the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, one of the bigger tech conferences of the year. Keynotes from Steve Ballmer (Microsoft), John Chambers (Cisco), Craig Barrett (Intel) and Scott McNealy (Sun). A lot of sessions on content management and intranets, looks to be mostly focused on Sharepoint. I did see there is a birds of a feather lunch with one table for Blogs and Wikis use in business.

Weather here this week is unreal – high 80s with no clouds forecast for most every day. And I’ll get to spend quite a bit of time in it because I have to walk about half a mile to and from the bus stop for the conference shuttle. That’s what I get for saving the company $100/night by staying in a second tier hotel. Plus with the conference spread over 4 hotels there will be plenty of walking between sessions as well, much of it potentially outside. The sunburn won’t be from golf, honest!

No related posts.

I’m in Tokyo this week conducting interviews – came in Saturday night both to save on airfare and give me a day to get acclimated to the time change. Spent most of today riding on the subway and walking around in stifling weather – 85 degrees Fahrenheit with high humidity. Ugh. Thankfully many of the shops I visited had strong air conditioning.

I visited Asakusa, Ginza, Harajuku, Ebisu and Shinjuku, where I am staying. I’m playing around with “Flickr”:http://www.flickr.com/ and have posted some photos here.

Harajuku was an interesting dichotomy – a huge forest with the Meiji Shrine on one side of the tracks, “The Cool Kids Of Harajuku”:http://www.photomatt.com/pictures/0004/source/22.html in the middle, and a crazy shopping scene on the other side. The guide book I have said the kids (here’s a couple more pics of the “cool kids”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/51035631765@N01/tags/harajuku/ from my Flickr) would be at the shrine but they appear to have turned this into such a show that they just stay near the station now. I’m sure the many people who came to take their pictures were thankful not to have to walk all the way to the Meiji Shrine.

Japan is pretty cool, but I feel totally overwhelmed.

No related posts.

Week-long family vacation to San Diego. Stayed at the Hilton Resort San Diego, visited Legoland, the “San Diego Zoo”:http://www.sandiegozoo.org/ and the San Diego Wild Animal Park. Spent a day getting soaked at Soak City U.S.A, half a day catching Barracuda and Calico Bass with Seaforth Sportfishing, part of a day driving out to have dinner in the middle of the desert in “El Centro’s”:http://www.cityofelcentro.org/ 106F heat. Boarded ships at the Maritime Museum, played golf, go-kart and games at “Boomer’s”:http://www.boomersparks.com/parks/sandiego/ and even found time to see the “new Harry Potter”:http://harrypotter.warnerbros.com/main/homepage/home.html flick. Sure there was the unscheduled trip to Scripps Mercy Hospital but other than that it was everything you could ask of a vacation. Can’t wait until the next one.

No related posts.

I never did get to the Arctic Circle this trip as I had hoped – I waited until the last minute to book my ticket and by then it had become prohibitively expensive. My bad. One of the places I had hoped to visit was the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden. This hotel, which gets rebuilt every December, sounds pretty incredible. 5,000 square meters, 25 suites, 60 bedrooms, a full ice bar, the works. All made out of ice. Even the beds are made out of ice. Slabs of ice covered in reindeer pelts. Sounds chilly. Of course even being the Arctic Circle things can’t last forever:

Sadly, the sun’s rays begin to melt the newly built Icehotel in late April. Although the last guests check out at the end of April, work continues into June, by which time Icehotel has become water hotel.

OK, so I would have visited the site of the Ice Hotel. While I wouldn’t be seeing the Ice Hotel and the full-sized Ice Bar there I did get to go to the second best thing – the Absolut Icebar in Stockholm. Located in the Nordic Sea Hotel just outside of the Central Station, the Icebar is a year-round fixture at the hotel, built into what is essentially a very large freezer.

Most everything here is built from ice. The walls, the bar, the tables, even the glasses. I’ve been to Red Square at Mandalay bay in Las Vegas which features a bar with a strip of ice running down the middle of it, but this bar is 100% ice. They also don’t hand out parkas and gloves at Mandalay Bay like they do here.

You’ve got to like Absolut Vodka if you come here, because that’s all you’ll get. Lots of fancy colorful drinks, all with Absolut vodka in ice glasses. I took a few bites out of my glass after draining the drink. Can’t do that every day.

No related posts.

Saturday night in Stockholm was spent like “many”:http://www.feedster.com/search.php?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=eurovision&btnG=Search&sort=date&inrss=&inrssid= “others’”:http://www.benhammersley.com/dparchives/008301.html “across”:http://www.technorati.com/cosmos/search.html?rank=&url=eurovision&sub=Go%21 Europe: having a small dinner party at a friend’s flat and settling in to watch the Eurovision Song Contest.

The ESC pits 36 different European nations together in a song contest somewhat similar, but mostly different, than American Idol. Each country ran separate contests to pick the best contestant who would then represent their country in the ESC. Some countries took a different approach – Greece had their runner up perform the song of their winner, relegating the winner to backup singer status, because they felt the runner up was more sexy. Given the reaction to the girls I was with I would say they made a good decision. Malta chose to split their contest into best song and best singer and then sent the best singer to sing the best song. The contest is hosted each year in the previous years winners country and this year it was hosted in Turkey.

Last night was the finals which was the last 24 countries. Each contestant performed for 4 minutes or so and once every country had finished the televoting began. The only stipulation was you could not vote for your own country. I noticed that the Swedes were honestly planning to vote for the performances they thought best despite wanting their own country to win. When I suggested that it might be better for them to make their votes for the worst performances they quite seriously looked at me like I was an evil genius for coming up with such an idea, but then summarily dismissed the idea and voted for their favorites. Perhaps the Swedes aren’t so “evil”:http://www.johnsjottings.com/archives/2004/05/12/stockholm.html after all. The production of the show was actually quite good and fast paced. No commercials other than pictures of Turkey between each performance.

The Swedes seem to take this thing very seriously. Everyone knew each of the four winners they have had in this contest dating back to the fifties, which included ABBA being discovered by winning in 1974. When Norway was performing they noted that the song was given to them by the Swedes to use this year, sort of implying that it was something that didn’t even make their own national contest but that it was better than anything Norway could come up with. Once the voting was complete it was confirmed that was probably true as Norway did not get a single vote other than a 3 from Sweden.

The bulk of the contest was then seeing the votes come in country by country, from each of the 36 original contest countries. The top 10 vote getters from each country were allocated 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,10 or 12 points. It was quite funny to hear them complain about how Greece gives the 12 points to Cyprus every year but to see on the “final tally”:http://www.eurovision.tv/english/scoreboard/scoreframe_final.html that the four countries that gave Sweden 12 points were Iceland, Norway, Finland and Denmark.

In the end the winner was Ukraine, who I thought did put on the best performance. Sweden finished tied for fifth which everyone blamed on having to perform in English – to their ears it sounds much better in Swedish.

I don’t listen to much music these days and I certainly don’t watch any MTV, but this was a fun exercise in European nationalism at it’s finest and it really was quite enjoyable.

No related posts.

We arrived in Stockholm on Sunday, my family on vacation for one week and me on business for two. We don’t get to do much together other than dinner but still it’s such a good experience for the kids that it’s totally worth it.

Having been in Denmark a few weeks ago and Sweden now for a few days I have already made a few observations about how different the two cultures are. If I may be so bold, and being 50% Swedish and 25% Danish I think it is OK for me to make this observation, Swedes believe that people are basically evil and Danes believe that people are basically good. And from what I’ve seen they act that way too.

How do I mean? Consider the train systems. In Denmark they use the honor system. For the express trains from the airport you buy a ticket that is meant to be shown on the train but nobody ever checks your ticket. On the commuter trains it’s the same, no turnstiles to enter the platform, no checking on the train. In Denmark they trust you will buy the correct ticket and after it is used up you will buy another. Although nobody ever checks. I took a week’s worth of trains without ever having a ticket checked.

It’s a different story in Sweden. Within 4 minutes of being on the express train from the airport our tickets were checked. They have a turnstile system for the commuter trains and you can’t get in without illegally jumping over them. The Danes trust you pay and the Swedes don’t – simple as that.

Now what’s really interesting is the different behaviors I’ve seen in each country. I’ve already seen three people jumping the turnstiles in Sweden. One was wearing a business suit and the others looked like they could easily afford a ticket as well. Swedes think nothing of jaywalking, too. Why is that a big deal? Because after my week in Copenhagen I could count on one hand the number of jaywalkers I saw. There were more jaywalkers in the first Swedish crosswalk I saw than I saw all week in Denmark. Danish punk-rocker with facial studs and a bad attitude? No cars for hundreds of meters in either direction? Then you wait at that crosswalk. You pay attention to the rules. You are basically good, despite the rule-breaking exterior.

So Swedes are basically evil and Danes are basically good. And the people in charge of the trains know it.

No related posts.

Las Vegas Trip Report – Day One
Las Vegas Trip Report – Day Two

Saturday was my last full day in Vegas and I spent most of it at Bellagio playing craps and $2/4 no-limit ($200 max buy-in). I would have preferred playing a higher buy-in but the next highest up was a $10/20 with a $600 minimum buy-in which is a little deceiving, you would really want to buy-in for a couple grand in that game, and be willing to stomach $5,000+ pots which I am just not prepared to do.

There were two $2/4 tables running – one was the main table and the other the must-move feeder. I got up to about $700 on the feeder table and really didn’t want to move but after a couple of hours I got the call and moved to the main table where for a couple of hours I vacillated between $500 and $900, never able to bust out of that range. I finally quit after a bad play in which I called a $100 raise holding KJ with a board of T6K2A. I had my opponent on a flush draw and rightly figured his raise as trying to show an Ace. I felt it exactly right yet instead of raising I just called and he showed KQ to make a big dent in my stack that caused me to leave only a $200 winner. I hate when I know what my opponent has and make the wrong play.

One funny story from earlier in the day on the feeder table. There was a guy to my left who was new to poker and he didn’t know what chopping was. Twice I asked him if he wanted to chop and both times he said “let me look at my cards first.” So the third time I asked again and before he had a chance to look at his cards I raised him $30 blind. Of course he didn’t notice I had not looked at my cards. Just my luck he called. Board of low cards came and I bet another $60 blind again. He went into the tank and I’m thinking how stupid I am for playing blind for this much. He finally mucks and I flip my cards over for the first time to see AA! And not 5 minutes earlier I had complained of not seeing bullets yet on my trip (I got them twice more on the main table, once against the same guy when he also had bullets).

Made a losing bet on the Kentucky Derby but enjoyed watching it from the table with an absolutely packed sports book right next door.

Overall a very good trip – I actually finished ahead in poker which I had not realistically expected given my chances in the $1,500 no-limit tournament. Some bad craps luck made me a $500 loser but that’s pretty good for three days of entertainment if you ask me.

I’m going to try to be a good boy all year so I can go again in 2005.

No related posts.

I’m in Vegas for the World Series of Poker, the event I’m in today is the $1,500 No-Limit. Most people know the WSOP by the final championship event which takes place later in May, which is a $10,000 buy-in event. But there are about 30 other events that go on over the period of a month or so.

I got in Wednesday evening/Thursday morning about midnight so I really had a full day yesterday and so far everything has gone pretty well. I got a first class upgrade on the flight, there was some confusion about my reservation at Harrah’s so they gave me the original deal I had before I had to change my plans, which was two nights comped and the other two nights at $60 per night. Then I played a little craps before going to bed and won $500. A nice start to the trip.

After a paltry two hours sleep (forgot to take the Benedryl) I had something to eat, played a little $2/4 no-limit at Bellagio and then made my way to the Horseshoe downtown. When I first came to Vegas I would walk downtown – now I can’t even fathom doing that and am happy to pay the $12 cab fare.

I played in a couple of satellite tournaments finishing 3rd twice (winner gets tokens good for a seat in today’s event). I had only planned on playing two so I went to the 4 Queens to play some craps and won $200 which I used for another satellite. In that one I managed to get to heads-up and we agreed to a deal where I got 2 $500 entry chips and the other guy got one with the $120 and I picked up the tip. I had him heavily out-chipped when we started heads-up and I didn’t want to do a deal but after he won a few hands I sensed things were moving in the wrong direction so I offered and he accepted. I think I got a pretty good deal based on the chip count – in fact I would have been willing to throw in another $100 if he had asked.

After that I milled around a little watching the first day of the pot limit Omaha event which was filled with a number of name players and also the final table of Wednesday’s $1000 no-limit with rebuys event which was being filmed by ESPN. When you get to watch these events live you realize (if you didn’t already) just how much is being edited – it’s pretty boring to watch.

Went back to the hotel and actually managed to get a good night’s sleep so I feel ready for today’s event. I will probably play in one more satellite to get warmed up and then it’s the real deal. I don’t have high hopes to make the final table but I’ll give it my best shot.

Las Vegas Trip Report – Day Two
Las Vegas Trip Report – Day Three

No related posts.