A Night at The Venetian

Yesterday’s WSOP event was the ladies event and of course I didn’t look at the schedule and showed up to play whatever was going on. Although Beth Shak and Sorel Mizzi tried to talk me into playing the women’s event, with no chance of success I might add. I really do not understand what would possess a guy to play in the ladies event, it’s a lose-lose.

I decided to go to the Bellagio to play some cash games and ran into a friend, Mark Provenzano, who told me he was heading to a HORSE tournament at the Venetian, which was a $550 buy-in and should attract a large field. It was an easy sell, so off to the Venetian I went. There was also a 1k no limit event, which started at noon and had a field of over 300, which I might have played had I known about it. The Venetian poker room has a great vibe, with a wide range of cash games in a comfortable environment. The level of customer service they provide is excellent and I was impressed by how well run the tournaments were. One nice thing is that the tables they had auto shufflers built into the tournament tables, which really speeds up play, the dealers were efficient and we got a large number of hands. The Horse event had a very decent structure with 10,000 in starting chips and the rotation was 20 minutes for each game and at the end of each cycle of 5 games, the blinds increased. Approximately 225 players entered the event and when play concluded for the day, or should I say night, about 60 remained. My only negative is the tournament area is outside the regular poker room, and is somewhat Smokey for my taste. They don’t allow smoking at the table but the border of slots as well as the rail is filled with smokers. I was also surprised when I left and went to claim my car at the main Venetian valet, there was but one valet. That’s right, for the whole casino, only one worker. It took quite a while to get the car, which at 2:30am had me, perhaps a little cranky.

The last couple of hours, the player on my right was a retired English footballer named Paul Parker, who was really quite fun to play against. He was a little wild, to say the least, but had a great attitude and we enjoyed a somewhat lively banter.

I am restarting today at 4pm, and may head over early to play some cash games. I will be back at the WSOP on Tuesday for the 1,500 PLH and 3k HORSE.