It really doesn’t seem like it has been a year since I’ve been in Vegas. Time flew by and here I am again. I had a good time in Oklahoma and made it safe to Vegas.

I flew here with some of the DeepStacks crew and hung out with them on Sunday night. We went and checked out the new casino Aria. It is pretty impressive. I didn’t get to see everything they had to offer but what I did see was very nice. The poker room is pretty neat and they have a room called “The Ivey Room.” Apparently it is supposed to rival Bobby’s Room at the Bellagio. Below is a picture of the Aria poker room. You can see the Ivey Room in the back.

On Monday I rented a car and was invited to Tom McEvoy’s wedding. I attended the reception and it was awesome. He seemed really happy as did everyone else in the room. It was a fun reception and I had a great time. On Tuesday afternoon Tom was holding a $230 buyin tournament at Caesars to celebrate his marriage. There would be 10 pros with $1k bounties on their heads.

I woke up around 11am on Tuesday and found the nearest 24 hour fitness center. I worked out for about an hour, came back to the house, grabbed some lunch and headed to Caesars. There were about 180 players that decided to play in the tournament. I got off to a quick start and slowly built my stack up. The blind levels were 20 minutes long and we started with 4k in chips so the tournament would be over pretty quickly. My first table broke and I had a healthy 12k stack when the average was probably around 7-8k.

I was moved to a table that had a pro bounty, Kathy Liebert. The very first hand I had to post the big blind of 400. It folded to Kathy on the cutoff and she made it 1200. The action got to me and I looked down at J4ss. She had roughly 2k behind and this was a very easy shove on my part. Tom was watching and I told him “This won’t be pretty.” I obviously wanted her to call with any two cards. She obliged and called with A9o. The board ran out J94Jx and I won the pot and collected her $1k bounty.

I won and lost a couple pots/races and found myself down to 12k at 400/800/100a. About thirty minutes after being at the new table they filled Kathy’s old seat with Mike Matusow. There was only one problem, he had everyone at the table covered. A woman I had played with all day limped for 800 to my right and I shoved KJss in mid position for about 12k. Mike called in the small blind with AQo. I lost the hand and Mike started berating me “I busted the Internet kid! These Internet donkeys suck!” Haha… he was just having fun with me, no harm done.

After the poker tournament I went to the Palazzo with Chris and Buff (From DeepStacks.) We went to Lagasse’s Stadium. It’s a sick sports bar with stadium seating in front of a huge TV screen as well as lounge seating all over the place. It was packed because the Suns were playing the Lakers and we had to sit outside. We found a table/couch next to a TV and ordered a great lunch. The food was really good there and I will definitely be going back to watch some sporting events there. Most of their seating appeared to be couches and comfortable chairs. Let me find a picture…

That’s the area we didn’t get to sit in but the seating is like that all over the place. It’s different and fun to sit and relax while watching a game. I don’t think that picture does the place justice.

Today I got some things done around the house and went over to Dan O’ Brien/some other’s house. Their house is definitely sick. Their setup in their living room with desks, computers, and a big TV is perfect. The whole house was very nice. I watched Jason Mercier play some 400-800 8game and then me and Dan played ping pong. The matches were pretty good and we ended 2-2. We ate some Chipotle and then I participated in the INSANITY workout with Dan and his two roommates. That workout is tough, especially after eating a chicken burrito from Chipotle lol. I managed to get through it and got my workout in for the day.

I’m still getting settled into the house. Brad (Smerks) will be coming tomorrow and then Tim (Tim0thee) and others will be getting here Friday. I will be playing the $1k WSOP event on Saturday. I’m looking forward to it. Goodnight.