Friday I've Arrived

Night before Vegas and I can’t go to sleep because if I sleep I won’t wake up for flight, which leaves at 6:00 am. Thus, I recruit John “The General” Lee to stay out with me for drinks. I figure that this will help me get home late, pack and get to airport. I get home about 3:00 am which is perfect because now I can just pack and leave for airport.

Got to LaGuardia U.S. Airways and the waiting area rocks…they have Bloomberg machines, phones at desks and the such. Got on to Pittsburgh and my flight was delayed for an hour and half. So I walked around airport, which was really nice. For some reason they put covers over the Maxim magazines in case kids are looking at the covers? I didn’t get this but I went along with it…I suppose after living in LA and NYC you tend to think no biggie about everything.

While waiting for my flight I met this nice Jewish lady who was born and raised in Queens. What can I say, she was a nice Jewish lady and I love old folks stories. She told some good ones. In any case, she started to rag on Bush and I seen some people get a little bit bent out of shape but she didn’t care. I thought this was funny as heck…wonder if the bloggers would rant at the tables and get people bent out of shape…haha!

Arrived to the Plaza and met Pauly and the crew who were already getting ready to hit the Rio and sweat the bloggers. I wasn’t really star-struck by any of the players. I figured I lived in Westwood and saw movie stars all the time…ask Grubby about my stories.

Oh, funny story, on the way to the Rio I get thrown in the back of Felecia and Glen’s SUV and we make some jokes about throwing the Mexican in the back…haha! I guess it might sound bad reading this…but we were happy to be together and everything was funny as hell at that point. Oh, it was the first time I met Glenn, Maudie and Felicia.

In any case, I got to see Otis play for about an hour or two. Unfortunately I got to see him get busted also. I thought it was great when we were eating on break when Al said, “I’m not leaving until Otis is out of the tournament”. Yes, brother…the bloggers stick together. In any case, Otis went all in and I could hear Pauly under his breath chanting…Ace-Ace-Ace…but one never came and Otis was out. Everyone paid their respects to Otis and I figured the guy was tired so I just said good play we shall talk later.

It was now time to storm the Castle. I went and did well at the 2/4 game because I couldn’t get on the 3/6 game. Then the wheels came off and I bleed my 100.00 buy-in plus the 50.00 I had won up until that point. I was tired because I hadn’t slept and I wasn’t thinking right…and although I never do this I was upset that those dorks beat me for my money so I had to hit the blackjack table. I ended up winning like 220.00 from the 20.00 I bought in for. I was on a roll and hit a few lucky hands…wait, aren’t all hands in blackjack lucky? After tips and dinner and drinks…I won about 200.00 at the Castle.

Oh, another thing that I have been trying to find a way to talk about without hurting anyone’s feelings here. I finally met Iggy. He is a…how should I say, Little Person…I think that’s what they like to be called…or is it vertically challenged. In any case, when he had two of those chairs pads that the dealers use to sit on when dealing I thought how odd. Week after week Iggy puts himself out there and people bash the crap out of the guy at times. Then when he’s in public they bash him more. It was good that he had blogger support there. Serious, it must be tough having to put up with that when you hit card rooms or just normal everyday settings…more on Iggy later.

It’s past 12:00 and I review my food intake for the day and it reminds me of my youth…McDonalds give it to me three times:
Breakfast: Sausage McMuffin w/egg and hash brown
Lunch: #2 Quarter Pounder w/cheese and fries
Dinner: #8 Fish filet with fries and Hot’n Spicy sandwich

I know, you are in Vegas, a foodie, and you are eating McDonalds…what can I say. It happens.

Now back to the Plaza and we are thinking about playing some more poker. Everyone is tired because they arrived on Thursday and were up all night playing and got very little sleep. I want to make my claim that I haven’t slept in some days also…but I let it go. I hear Pauly get a call from his editor that he wants some writing done by tomorrow. I think, who said the life of the writer was fun. Think of it, you get a call at 2:00 am from your editor telling you to get him some crap by tomorrow morning. So I know that Pauly needs some space and time to write. Pauly knows I can’t sleep much myself so he asks if I’m going to Binions….oh, the stories of Binions…next post.

posted by Joaquin "The Rooster" Ochoa @ 8:59 AM