Las Vegas Trip Report June 27 - July 4, 2023: Part 1 -- The Waiting

The waiting is the hardest part

Every day you see one more card

You take it on faith, you take it to the heart

The waiting is the hardest part

Tom Petty

Wednesday, June 28, 2023

I had just gotten back from my most recent Las Vegas trip on June 12. The next week, my sister-in-law and her family came to visit. Unfortunately, I caught a rather aggravating cold that week and felt pretty run down, I was looking forward to a week or two of relaxation and feeling back up to par. However, there was a complication:  old blogger friend Very Josie was making a trip to Las Vegas and needed a wingman. I hemmed and hawed about it for a few days, but then this retired guy decided to look at his busy schedule for the next week or so. The result: NOTHING! So ... what the heck. I made my reservation at my Las Vegas "home," which others sometimes call the "dirty castle." I told Josie that I would supply support for her WSOP venture (bring her snacks, iced coffee, etc) into the Ladies  Championship. But first I would pick her up Wednesday night at the airport.

My trip to Las Vegas was unremarkable. I checked into Excalibur and headed to MGM for some $1/2 NL action. I decided to stop for dinner at a favorite spot: Fulton Fish Frye in NYNY. My brother, thundering36, and I tried to eat there each trip. It was great, as usual.

I figured I would play some cash until it was time to pick Josie up around 9:30pm or so. Unfortunately, the plane was listed as "Late" very early, and as the evening wore on, the arrival time got deeper ... and deeper ... and deeper into the evening. It was beginning to look like it might get in around 4:00am, but then it was canceled. With the WSOP Main Event ready to start and with a holiday weekend coming up, I was afraid that Josie might not even make it. I started checking alternate flights, but they were hard to find as most flights leaving within the next 12 hours were filled. Josie was finally able to luckily get a flight and would be arriving around10:30 the next morning. I cashed out with a miniscule loss and headed back to Excalibur to get some sleep.

Thursday, June 29, 2023

I woke up and headed to a grocery story to buy some cheese for the VJ snack bag. I also grabbed some additional snacks for a Twitter friend I was hoping to meet in person: Malia Miranda. I saw that Josie's flight was actually getting in EARLY, so I headed toward the airport and waited in the cell phone lot. When she finally messaged me that she was ready for me to pick her up, I couldn't resist having a little fun:

I picked up Josie and dropped her off at Horseshoe so she could check into her room. I parked my car and burned some time around the WSOP area while Josie cleaned up and took a nap. I saw and finally met the Queen of Cardschat.com, Debi O'Neill. I had been heavily involved in Cardschat many moons ago. Debi is only one of three people I ever staked in poker. Unfortunately, as I was giving her a hug, a WSOP official came up to me and said, "I'm sorry sir. You'll have to leave the area." I guess my beard was a dead giveaway that I didn't belong in the players area of that particular tournament! 

Josie later came down we got her a Caesars card and got her enrolled in the Ladies Championship in somewhere around level four. My phone was almost dead, so Josie let me go to her suite to recharge it. It was a good thing I went up as the temperature in the room was was 81 degrees and the air was cranking out like a blast furnace. I was able to get a maintenance guy to come up in only 15 minutes. Fortunately, he had just begun his shift. He said that if she called when she got in later that evening, who knows how long she would have waited since they get an enormous amount of night maintenance requests. I asked him the chances of his fixing the problem, and he told me 50%. Luckily for Josie, things fell to the right side of the 50% and cold air came rushing in the room. I gave the guy a nice tip and headed to the WSOP. Josie was doing her usual thing and chipped up. She was cruising really well for some time. Meanwhile, I finally heard from Malia, who told me she wasn't checking Twitter. She found me despite my writing down the WRONG table number!

With Malia -- another Chicago connection

Later on, it was time to meet up with an old poker blogger friend: SmallBoatDrinks. He was in town for work but came over to say hi. He was also able to finally meet Josie.

Josie was bummed because her nice chip stack had been sliced in half when she lost a hand to a two-outer instead of having a great stack. Mike and I kept saying "Don't donk it off." She took a risk later on that did not go her way and was out. Actually, it was pretty amazing that she played so long and so well after all she put up with in getting to Las Vegas. She was certainly exhausted. She thought about skipping the tourney, but hey -- this is the World Series of Poker. Incidentally, I did get in some $1/3 NL action at the WSOP tables and doubled up when I dodged about 15 outs to win a Q-Q vs A-Ksooted all in pre-flop hand. gg me!

Josie headed up to her suite immediately after exiting the tournament, and we planned to meet the next morning at Caesars Palace for the Bacchanal Buffet. Afterward, the biggest cash game/tournament heater I had ever seen would begin. I mean, two of my friends, MemphisMOJO (RIP) and cmitch bough won tons while finishing third in the WSOP Seniors event, but I only witnessed cmitch's final table. The Josie run was amazing ... and will begin in Part 2.

Thanks for reading!