A week at the Wynn

My journey to Vegas got off to an inauspicious start as I struggled to make my way from Mile End to Heathrow in time for my early morning flight to Las Vegas. I was up by 5 o'clock, but the simple fact was that I hadn't allowed enough time to get from one side of London to the other. In particular, Acton Town to Heathrow seemed a lot shorter (an inch between thumb and forefinger) than it actually was. Note to self, notches on the Piccadilly line are not to scale. Punctuality has never been my strong suit, it's not in my genes to be reliable. My mother bumped in to my father on the main street the night before their wedding at 5.25pm. 'Did you get your suit sorted?', she inquired anxiously. 'Of course', he grinned confidently.'What kind of man do you think I am?', he bluffed as he scarpered off before the shops shut. Though my flight hadn't left, it was too late to board by the time I arrived but perhaps my father's smile came in handy as the clerk put me on the stand by list for other transatlantics at no extra cost. When my name was called at the departure lounge it was for a business class seat to Denver with a short connect to Las Vegas. As I relaxed in my massaging chair, sipped champagne, and savoured course after course of gourmet food, my early morning tube scramble seemed a world away.
My room at the Wynn was pretty sweet, and the hotel is quite spectacular, undoubtedly one of the most luxurious on the strip. As this was my first trip to Las Vegas, I spent much of the first couple of days wandering around slack jawed and gawping at the plastic world around me. In an effort to familiarise myself with my surroundings, I decided that despite the baking desert sun I would walk to the Rio. While my depth perception and inner compass worked fine and I was correct in thinking that it really wasn't all that far, I entirely underestimated the heat, and sweat so much that I was soaked through, the protective factor 30 washed away. Of course, I wasn't actually soaked through, rather I would have been, had the hellish sun not evaporated any liquid in seconds.
I familiarised myself with the Rio and its layout and later that day I played the first of two $500 WSOP mega satellites that I would play on the trip. I was unsuccessful in both attempts, and these are short stack, fast structured events. Having said that, I think there is tremendous value in playing them as I saw some pretty horrible play and a fast structure is really just something to adapt to rather than something to complain about. You know what it is before you play it. Many seasoned pros play these regularly leading up to the Main Event and sell the 'lammers' or tournament chips as they win them. If a decent player was to play 20 of these and end up with less than $10k in his balance, he would have to consider himself pretty unlucky. Over the rest of the week, I met up with Rob regularly for a beer, a burger, etc and Neil was kind enough to treat us to dinner one night at the Wynn in the company of Jesse May, Barny Boatman, and Anne Laymond. Rob and I sat back and let the storytellers get on with it (not that we had much choice) and it was one my personal highlights of the trip.
My first WSOP bracelet event was event #54 $1000 No Limit Holdem. The event is a bit of a blur to me but I was happy with how I played, and proud to make day 2 in my first ever event. My day two table was really soft but featured two familiar faces, Paul Mulvihill (Leedutd22 online) from Dublin and Antonio Salorio (famous for losing $100k playing deuce seven on season 4 of High Stakes Poker). I had chatted with Paul a bit the previous day as I was familiar with him from grinding the same games online, and as a fellow Irishman. Antonio, I had played with a lot the previous day though we had barely tangled and I respected his game. Though I started well and built my stack up a bit by being quite aggressive, I ultimately played a weak ace too fast on an A high board and Antonio snapped me off with a deceptively played AK. I was happy with my play over all but should probably have taken my foot off the gas against Antonio in this spot, there were plenty of cheap chips to pick up uncontested if I had concentrated on that. 520/3844 wasn't quite good enough to cash and though I was disappointed to bust out, I had definitely gained some confidence with the big one still to come.