Reno
Hilton World Poker Challenge - Day 0
I
don't know if there'll be a day 1, but
here's the story so far...
The
drive over the mountain was the easiest
ever, perfect weather and no traffic.
I carried so much computer equipment to
my room that I kept getting funny looks
from security, I have two laptops and
can network them together, a CD burner
and other stuff, and I may have a third
PC by the end of the week. This is all
because of my clock, and the lesson I
learned when I wanted to move data the
last time I was here.
First
thing that hits you as you enter the hotel
is the THREE THOUSAND AND TWO HUNDRED
TEENAGERS, yes, you heard me. They are
part of something called SWAT, something
to do with snow-boarding, teenagers everywhere,
staying 6 to a room, I could be arrested
by the thought police at any moment, I
think they leave tomorrow. There are signs
up on each floor with the rules they have
to follow, they weren't thrilled with
their 10pm curfew and 'no swearing' rule,
in fact one of them told me in the elevator
that the rule f***ing sucked.
I
played the PartyPoker freeroll, won the
first round, then went down to the casino,
it was a mad house. The poker room had
12 tables going solid, including a 50-100
limit holdem, outside in the casino the
tournament area takes up half the floor,
and had 4 or 5 satellites going most of
the time ($40 limit, $60 no limit). Some
big names are here, including Scotty and
Amir, Linda Johnson, Chris Bigler, David
Plastik, Mike Sexton and a few others
I recognized. I heard that some of them
may be here the first week, then move
on to Tunica, but I wonder if they will
if the numbers aren't as good there. Anyway,
Mike Gainey was very pleased with the
turnout and said he wants to thank all
his friends who are supporting him.
Back
to the room for PartyPoker round two,
I had a horrendous 3 bad beats (KK vs
88, 8 flopped, AA vs TT, T flopped, and
finally QQ vs 22, yeah...) so was soon
back downstairs for more bad beats in
two limit satellites (JJ Vs A3o, QQ Vs
96o), geez, I hope this all ends soon.
The last satellite was going when I went
to bed at midnight.
On
'The Clock' front, it's looking great,
they have two big screen TVs set up in
the casino tournament area, and Mike Gainey
and Dave Lamb have been amazingly supportive
of having an on-line casino sponsoring
the first event. I'll have more details
about that tomorrow, but just to say that
the banner ad they sent me to display
at the bottom of the countdown clock looks
really good. This is all quite exciting
to me, it's the first ever sponsor of
a regular US tournament (I think, not
counting TOC of course), it's not major
money (about $1000) but it least it shows
that sponsorship is possible. It will
be interesting to see how people feel
about having ads displaying during tournaments.
Well,
tomorrow is the $330 limit holdem, that's
my game...
Paul
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