Trip Report: WPBT Las Vegas

Prologue: In which facty wins a spot, then loses sleep.

Here is my deep dark secret: after I won the seat at the Desert Shootout a few weeks ago, first I was happy, but once the adrenalin wore off, I was scared. I was really worried about making some stupid play and looking like a dork. Or winning and have people say I got lucky and didn't deserve it. Or laughing at the table and having a piece of spit fly out of my mouth and land on someone. Or knocking over someone's beer. That is a lot of stress on a girl!

So I didn't sleep so much before the trip.

Oh yeah also I'm a teensy bit afraid of flying.


Chapter One: Hard Lessons at The Hard Rock (ok, it was at the Aladdin, but I'm alliterating)

We walked in to the Aladdin poker room and fhwrdh started pointing, "GRob, Speaker, Badblood, BG," etc. I thought he may be having a temporal lobe seizure and looked for something to stick in his mouth, but suddenly remembered that those were all blogger names and he was trying to point them out to me. Some of the bloggers called to him and encouraged him to enter the $100 NL tourney that was about to start. He did and I bought in to the 3-6 limit game.

I sat down next to a nice older lady who was sipping a nice ladylike iced tea. The rest of the table was filled with mostly cranky men, one loose Asian guy and two college kids at the end who were narrating every hand. Nice old lady next to me told us about her kids, how great the Aladdin buffet was, and how nice the weather was. She also took everyone's money and became my new poker hero.

Suddenly, I felt something brush my back and turned to see fhwrdh with a bitter pissed look on his face. He was out. It was the fhwrdh: Money in with the best hand, watch the suckout, head to the bar. I stayed in for one more round and cut my losses since everyone was still getting 0\/\/n3d by Grandma.


Chapter Two: The Imperial Palace

One of my many hobbies is playing text adventure games - like Zork. The Imperial Palace won my heart because it was just like one of those games:

You are at the Imperial Palace front driveway. There is a set of doors before you, some taped off with caution tape. You must enter them in the right combination. There is a sign here.

read sign

RAMP IS FOR EMPLOYEES ONLY. NO WHEELCHAIRS ON RAMP.

enter left door
enter right door
enter middle door

You are in the CASINO. It is smokey here. In the distance you can hear the dinging of slot machines and the random shouts of winners and losers. The front desk is to your left. A DEALERTAINER winks at you.

check in

You have checked in to the HOTEL. The elevator takes you to your floor. Your room key reads 11148.

exit elevator

You are in a maze of Asian influenced doorways, all alike.
n
You are in a maze of Asian influenced doorways, all alike.
w
You are in a maze of Asian influenced doorways, all alike.
w
You are in a maze of Asian influenced doorways, all alike.
n
You are in a maze of Asian influenced doorways, all alike.
e
You are in a maze of Asian influenced doorways, all alike.
s
You are in a maze of Asian influenced doorways, all alike.

You get the idea. Luckily I am really good at text adventures. We found our room, dropped our bags, checked the sheets for cleanliness, and scrammed to find friends.

Coming soon: Chapter 3: The Legend of Bill Rini