In the Works (part 2)

Neglectful of the blog, which will soon change! Mark my resolutive words...

Photo challenge in the works with poker pro Schaefer, which has us posting a photo entry at least once a week with a side bet to kick our lazy asses into gear.

Summer Bankroll Challenge II: Rumble in the Southern Hemisphere begins either Jan 1, or Jan 8. So check out the challenge site if interested, we'll be running the challenge until March 1st, with plenty of side bet action if you follow the link above.

Fun with the Housemates

Fresh off a killer trip to Vegas, I'm not about to just sit around and stew in my room until Seattle and Coast Trip #3. Oh no! I was sent home from work on Monday about 15 minutes into my shift, because of my hacking and sneezing. They didn't want to get sick, and I didn't want to be there--we had a great understanding. I left, went home, and slept from 10am to 5pm on Monday.

That hit the spot.

Today was much better. Got up and worked for a couple of hours, then got home and found that George, Cody and Kristara all had the afternoon off, and were heading to Carson City. Just the place I needed to go! I led them over to Carson on my bike, and dropped it off for its 600 mile service check--you know, the check they do to make sure everything is running smoothly on a new bike. The problem is that this 600mi check is being done on my bike with oh... 2200 miles on it. Go Vegas! Oh well, I changed the oil before the Vegas trip and it should be alright.

We made a few pitstops in Carson, including the Verizon store, Costco and Trader Joe's. My first trip to Costco in a LOOONG time. We just sort of wandered around dumping interesting stuff into the cart. If money wasn't an object, I would have gone ape-shit in that place. Super-large tents for frisbee tournaments, hammocks, xbox360s, ps3's... man, I would totally dig a shopping spree in Costco. I did, of course, get my trademark dozen chocolate muffins. The best buy of the Costco run had to be my spotting of about 300 red "kegger" cups. I probably saved the house $20 on that purchase, because we go through beer pong cups like women go through toilet paper.

Speaking of women, Jen will sadly be leaving the house. I'm not sure when, and I ended up hearing it from Matt, a guy I hardly even know--but she'll be leaving the house sooner or later. That will, for the first time, tip the scales 3 males to 2 females in the house. Once upon a time it was 3 females to me. I'm pretty sure Matt is taking Jen's spot, so it will soon be 4m:2f, which is totally unacceptable. Glad I'll be getting out soon!

We ended up heading down to the beach for a BBQ tonight, which was an absolute blast. Jen, Kristara, George, Matt, Cody and I walked down with all the necessary ingredients for a BBQ: 2BuckChuck, Charcoal, Chicken, Sausages, Corn, Beer, Frisbee, Football. We didn't have any utensils, or plates, but we made do by using the frisbee as a plate, and plastic bags as plates. We rocked it. The chicken was amazing, and it was good to finally get out and toss the football with someone other than Marc, Andrew or Tyler. First time in AGES I've tossed without one of those guys being present. I wowed the ladies with my athletic prowess. Maybe because I'm such a skinny, dorky kid who doesn't look like he could throw a football 10ft--but I was putting on a show in the art of pigskin chucking. And... I needant discuss my frisbee talents here.

We finished by drinking the rest of our beverage of choice on the beach, watching the sun set. I took a nice spot in the sand, leaning up against a post and watched the sun go down for a good 15 minutes. Such a serene feeling to watch the waves crash and have your mind race from subject to subject, trying to make sense of the links.

I get home to find Brandon in the money in the Shootout event. No updates about him yet, but 28 of the 81 to be eliminated before the final table have fallen, and Brandon is somewhere in the remaining 53. Get lucky! Good karma for being such a gracious host the last few days!

Vegas: Trip-Report Part 5: WSOP and Beerpong!

Once the blogger tourney finished up, I was having a hard time figuring out how to spend my last night in Vegas. The WSOP, the Strip, Bloggers, Brandon's House--and I had to leave at sunrise for a 500mi bike ride back to Tahoe. I wanted to have fun, but I also wanted to get some sleep, because I still wasn't feeling all that great, and I wasn't looking forward to the ride home.

Most of the bloggers were heading to various places to drink and play poker, and as much fun as that would have been, I decided that since it was my last chance this trip, I might as well head over to the Rio and catch some of the WSOP action. I bid farewell to the bloggers and zoomed over to the Rio, taking some squirrelly back-streets west of I-15.

When I made it to the Rio, I walked across the casino floor to the poker room, then saw a sign pointing me in the direction of the WSOP room. That walk was air-port length, easily the longest walk I've ever had in a casino. Finally got to the WSOP room, and it was packed. I think three or four events were going on, and the chips being shuffled all across the room was the most memorable noise. I hung to the right and waded through a see of people until I got close enough, yet out of the way enough, to see some poker action.

I looked around and saw the $5k pot limit game was still going on, the one Mr.Smokey1(housemate) was playing in. It started the day with 51 people, and he was one of them. I couldn't find him, and later learned that he busted out, but the rest of the competition in that tourney was amazing. Of the 30 or so people left, I saw Jesus, Joe Sebok, Allen Cunningham, Jeff Lisandro, Humberto and a slew of other "name" players. Behind Allen Cunningham's table, Greg Raymer was sitting with a stack of chips in front of him, playing a different event. I also saw Phil Helmuth among a sea of players in the 1.5k NLHE event.

I saw him get up and shake hands with everyone, assuming he bust out, but I later learned that it was a hand where he "dodged bullets." As an interesting side note, Phil is down to the final 3 players in that event now, and has a good chance to be the first player ever to 11 WSOP bracelets.

I recognized Flipchip from his photo-taking at the blogger tournament earlier in the day, so I stood behind him on the rail while he was seated at a table near the $5k pot limit action. I said, "So you have to work, and Pauly gets the day off? What gives?"

He smiled and turned around and we struck up a conversation. What a cool dude. We chatted for probably 20 minutes. He is a fountain of knowledge when it comes to Vegas and the WSOP, I think he said this is the 36th WSOP he's covered. I asked him if the PokerNews team was the funnest he's worked with so far, and he nodded in agreement. He is still amazed at how much the series has changed over the years. No outbursts, no guns, no chairs or cards being thrown. He first settled in Vegas fresh out of Vietnam, and it was the only place that came anywhere close to the adrenaline rushes he experienced in Vietnam.

We talked about motorcycles and he said he was big into motorcycles when he got back from his duty in Vietnam, in fact he rode around the United States, and at one point had the land-speed record on a 2-stroke. It didn't last long, but he had his picture on the front of a magazine. He told me that he eventually realized he would kill himself if he kept up his insane lifestyle, so he settled down in the only place that could hold his attention: Vegas.

We talked a bit about my possible teaching career, and he applauded me for choosing that path. The more I talk with people, the more it seems like the way to go--hopefully everything works out and I get started in Spring 08! The players got back from break and he had to go do his thing, and I got a chance to scout around a bit for people I might know. The 1.5k NLHE event went on break just after the 5k pot limit, and Phil Helmuth nudged into me as I was walking by. Somebody was handing him something to sign, asking to take a picture, as another person was talking to him about a hand--all while he was trying to get to the bathroom--not the life I'd wish on anyone.

Didn't see anyone I knew, so I left the Rio and headed for the strip to take some pictures while the sun set. I parked over by the MGM and planned on maybe playing a few hours of poker with the bloggers, but after taking a few pictures, I decided to head back to the house and take it easy if I wanted to make it back on Sunday in one piece. Here are some of the shots I took:















The pictures in the middle were taken while I was stopped at the light on Las Vegas Blvd. and Tropicana Way. I got to the left-turn light just as it turned red, so I had a good 5 minutes to snap pictures while I waited. The sunset pictures were taken while I was getting gas close to the house Brandon's renting for the WSOP.

I headed back to the house and found the gang chilling out at the hot tub:



From left to right: Ozzy, Roman, Brandon, Bushman, Lindsay, Jessica

Ozzy and Roman are the prodigies with zillion dollar bankrolls, Brandon is the beer-pong champ, Bushman is the kingpin of the house, Lindsay is the amazing chef, and Jessica is Brandon's friend in town from LA for the weekend (who can do a perfect 1080 spinning on a hardwood floor while sober, but can't come close after one drink).

Luckily for me, tonight would be the "break-in" night for beer-pong! I wasn't too excited to stay up late and drink, but I hadn't really hung out with the housemates all that much, so I'm glad I came back.

Round 1 involved Bushman and Ozzy vs. Roman and Brandon. Brandon and Bushman had to consume all the drinks, because Ozzy and Roman are underage, and underage drinking is illegal. The game went to triple over-time, and I was very, very glad I didn't play. Bushman sported the Asian shirt to taunt Brandon, which didn't work until Round 2!







Round 2 matched Brandon "Beer-Pong" Schaefer and his woman against the two Chrises. Bushman was a bit intimidated by Brandon's "King of Pong" title, but I knew better. Brandon would also be drinking all of the beers for their side, because Jessica doesn't particularly like beer. Oh Brandon, you chivalrous, foolish bastard! Chris and I utterly and completely dominated. I think they were down six cups before they sank a single shot in our rack of ten. One toss I put some arc on, and Bushman went for the bouncer, and we both hit. Three drinks for Brandon, and we get to shoot again! Ouch!

Jessica ended up carrying their team while Brandon drunkenly stumbled about, ricocheting his shots off the sink and the freezer. They both sunk their balls on one shot, to pull the game closer to even, but they were just too far behind to catch up. We hit the last cup and had four of ours left. Brandon sunk his first two shots, but couldn't pull off the miracle to end all miracles. He did save himself two drinks though, which could have possibly knocked him out for the rest of the night.

Don't worry Brandon, you'll have a chance to redeem yourself in Tahoe.

Lindsay made us some incredible pasta, and we devoured it like Garfield on a plate of lasagna. That girl can cook! Played a bit more beer pong, then watched as the game shifted to Mario Kart for the N64. Steve showed up and dominated Brandon for a while at Mario Kart, then Brandon must have sobered up, because he started his own reign, which lasted until I went to bed at around 2am.

Did I mention earlier that Lindsay makes a mean fruit margarita?

Update:

Easy: 97 - chris the spider

Vene Vide Vice

He came, he saw, he conquered.

My friend Brandon gave me a call Friday morning, saying he would be swinging through Portland Friday night and was wondering what I was up to. Fortunately, not much, so we got to hang out a bit for the first time in a year or so. He's been up to no good for a while now, as evidenced on his blog.

Stacey and I and our friend Rob were down at Ground Kontrol (21+ arcade) when Brandon showed up. They have some sweet old arcade games like Street Fighter 2, the original Mortal Kombat, Missile Command, a slew of pinball games, the old Simpsons arcade game... the list goes on. Since there were four of us, we obviously chose to play the old Simpsons game first, so all four of us could play at the same time.

We pumped quarters in and quickly found out that the "Marge" character wasn't playable. So Rob, Stacey and I played Homer, Bart and Lisa while Brandon kept trying to feed quarters into various slots to get Marge working. Then I noticed that Homer had 11 lives. OOps. We rotated and had a good time.

Next we played some pinball games and Brandon smoked us, hitting multi-ball glory on the Star Wars game.

We headed home and played a little bit of poker, then after Rob left we had an intense Spider Solitaire event. 3 computers, 3 games of spider solitaire trying to get the highest score/lowest moves on the easy, medium and difficult settings. Brandon "Phil-Ivey'd" my high scores. And as I was going to bed he said, "If I'm asleep when you wake up tomorrow, it means that I've got the new high score."

Bastard.

His scores to beat are 98 on easy and 114 on medium and 304 on difficult. I tried once yesterday and got 99 on easy*with* a mis-click, just to let you know Brandon...

Brandon and I are going to start a push-up bet. 50 push-ups a day for the first week, then 100 a day indefinitely. We are still trying to work out a bet for whoever bails first. Brandon, what do you think about a %0.5 or %1 bankroll entry into a tourney of the other's chosing? Another way we could do it is say until the end of the year, if one of us doesn't do the 100 pushups a day 700/week, on Sunday that loser has to deposit $5 into the other person's stars account at the end of the week.

For me, I've got to have good incentive to keep something up for longer than a week, and I think this will do just fine. We can always fall back on having the loser wear a dress to Thanksgiving Turkey bowl at Greenlake...

The bet starts tomorrow, my shoulders are going to be killing me.