Long lines at registration

Even with the long lines, I have to say that the WSOP people keep tweaking the event each year for the better, and this year was again slightly better than last year, in my opinion. Considering how large this event is, it’s amazing how well it is organized.

Unlike previous years, I was not able to enter the main event, although I got to within 6 more knockouts to winning my way in via Mega satellite. For my last table, I sat to Mini Tran‘s right but I didn’t see her make any crazy moves. In my opinion, she is a fairly straight forward old school player, compared to many of these 20 something online players who like to 3 and 4 bet you with air.

One thing I noticed was the porters were giving out bottled water and Red Bull for just the cost of a tip. I’m not sure how they can afford to give out Red Bull for free, but I’m guessing they are a WSOP sponsor. While they’re at it, Jack Links should have given away their beef jerky to the players as well.

Poker Player's Championship

This year, I entered at least one tournament each day, and if I got knocked out early, entered a second one the same day. To change things up, I tried the Deep Stack tournament at the Venetian on one of the days. I’ve played cash games there before but this is the first time I played a tournament there. From what I could tell, the tournament was run smoothly. The only person I recognized in the field was Dennis Phillips from the 2008 November 9.

There is an Asian restaurant called “Noodle Asia” right next to the poker area where they have very good Chinese food. If you’re there, try the Hong Kong style Won Ton noodles and the Lamp Chop if you’re hungry for some meat.

Seared Petit Lamb Chop at Noodle Asia - $8.95

If you need some other drinks or snacks, you can go out the door, go up the escalator, then down again to get to the Walgreens which I think is open 24 hours. This is very convenient for tournament players during their breaks.

As a sign of the times, take a look at the picture below.  Apparently everything in the casino is connected to some central server. You can’t get away from big brother in Vegas, that’s for sure.

Slot Machine at Venetian

Although I failed to cash this year, I felt at ease and never felt like I was out of place. I tried to have fun even when I was not doing well at the table. All in all, I had a good time and I will be back next year.

After the online poker armageddon in April this year, it appear that there is a downward dent in the number of participants at the World Series of Poker. This was expected because those online poker websites sponsored hundreds, perhaps thousands of participants.

All the numbers aren’t in yet but I’m calling this year a re-boot because it appears that the graph will be down and will have to climb back up in the next years ahead. Unless the US government changes its mind on online poker, the numbers probably will not come back to the highs of the last few years.

Unlike last year, I was not able to win my way into the main event so I decided to try one of the small $1,000 events. I’ll still try to get into the main event via a satellite but I’m not holding my breath.

In my rush to get to Vegas, forgot to bring my great Blue Shark sunglasses. Luckily, they had a booth at the WSOP and happen to be having a WSOP sale selling their normally $150 glasses for $100 cash, including tax. I decided to get one of their brand new versions.

The way this works is, you have to win your table, called a shootout, then all the winners from the tables are combined and the ultimate winner is decided. You start with only 2,000 in chips and the levels are only 15 minutes so there’s no time to waste.

However, there was only 3 tables going and they told us that unless 10 tables are filled, a seat would not be awarded and the winner would only get $3,000. These guys need to advertise their tournaments a little more.

As it turned out, it didn’t matter for me because I didn’t make it past my table.

Update 6/25/2011:
Forgot to mention that if you use Foursquare on your phone, check-in to Hollywood Park and you will get a $10 matching bet coupon for Black Jack. I tried it and won $20 from my $10 + coupon, even though I don’t know the correct way to play the California version of Black Jack.

Then, this year at the WSOP, I found a pair of Poker Amor glasses at the WSOP store. It was better than my old ones but when I looked at their website, they had a better looking one called “Secret Agent”, so I decided to order it online from pokerarmor.com.

Poker Armor (Secret Agent) $58.95 - front view

As with the other pair from Poker Armor, the new ones are not dark, but has a reflective type coating and there’s less of it near the bottom so that you can see your cards easier.

Poker Armor - nose pads

What I don’t like about these glasses is the nose pads are small for me because I don’t have a tall nose.  I think it might be fine for people with a higher nose. Also, the lens seems to be slightly deformed and causes me to have a little problem with my vision when I wear it too long.

So I started looking for other poker glasses and found one at bluesharkoptics.com which has more expensive glasses but with more variety.

Blue Shark (John Pham Edition $139) - front view

This website will make custom poker glasses for you, including prescription glasses, and you can even send them your frame and they will make the lens reflective. After examining their available glasses, I decided on the John Pham edition because it has normal nose pads like regular sunglasses.

Blue Shark - nose pads

Also, as you can see in the photo below, the temples have a rubber strip on the inside to grip your head to prevent the glasses from slipping down.

Blue Shark - head grip on temples

These temple grips are really great for me because I tend to look down a lot when I’m waiting for the other player to make their decision. This sometimes causes my glasses to slip down and I have to keep pushing them back up. The temple grips on these glasses prevent any slippage.

The only thing that sometimes bother me is the nose pads are visible to me and sometimes are distracting. Yes, I know I just complained about the low nose pads on the old ones, and now I’m basically complaining that these are too high. I guess I’m never happy.

Otherwise, I’m happy with these new glasses but have not won any tournaments using them yet. If you don’t mind paying extra for your poker glasses, I recommend the glasses from these guys. When I win a big one, I’ll ask the Blue Shark people if they want to make the Cochinoman signature glasses.

Jackpot

Finally got a table share of a Jackpot at the Hustler. It’s been a long time coming. AK vs. QQ and the flop was AA6. I asked the dealer for an A on the turn and got it. Nice.

Compared to 2007, this year’s WSOP was better organized and seemed to be running a lot smoother. I liked that the 1st day wasn’t a marathon 16 hours, and instead was not even 12 hours (including the 90 minute dinner break). This made the experience more enjoyable and I actually had a lot of fun, unlike in 2007.

During my day off from the tournament, I saw an interesting spherical camera device that was hanging above one of the tournament tables. There was an operator (see the guy in the white hat on the left) that was controlling it using what appeared to be game console controllers. The sphere had multiple camera lenses on it, including one at the bottom (see picture below).

360 degree camera?

I don’t know what this device was but it was not being used at an “important” table so I assume it was some kind of experiment, perhaps by ESPN.

Just like in 2007, I stayed at the Rio for the advantage in the tournament to being closer to it during the breaks. As a matter of fact, I was able to leave the table a couple of minutes before the 20 minute break, get back to my room, order food, go to the bathroom, and still make it back in time. One thing I didn’t know until this year was that I could just ask room service to leave the food in my room even if I wasn’t there in time. This made it a lot easier for me to have my dinner waiting for me in my room.

Something I did this year was to go to the grocery store near the Rio (Food For Less, a few blocks away) and stock up on food to put in the frig in the room. This is a lot cheaper (including the taxi cost) than eating and drinking from the room bar. This was definitely the smart move and I’ll be doing this again next time.

The only thing that was a fail at the Rio was the internet connection, or lack thereof. It was so intermittent, it was basically unusable. I literally spent several hours total over a few days talking to the customer service people for the Internet service.

If that wasn’t bad enough, even the checkout service on the TV was not working properly. As you can see below, I guess the Internet service wasn’t working for the hotel either.

Rio TV

Despite this one glitch, my stay at the Rio was good and I plan on staying there again when I return to the WSOP, hopefully next year.

Poker Armor Sunglasses

Just like in 2007, I had to make a big decision with a medium pocket pair (10s) hoping they had AK, but turned out to be KK in one case, and QQ in another case. Both of these decisions turned out to be my downfall because I didn’t have enough chips to work with after these bad calls. I have to learn to know when to let these hands go.

Doyle Brunson shown here on day 1D

Right after dinner break on day 2, an active player raised, got flat called by the guy next to him, and I decided to put what is called a squeeze play on them with 10-7 suited. The active player quickly folded, but the flat caller went into the tank. After a long time, he called with K-10, which was bad since I didn’t have 2 live cards. Nothing came and I was out of the tournament with a whimper.

Although I didn’t cash like my last outing in 2007, I felt a lot more confident and relaxed. I never felt nervous like the last time, and I felt like I knew what was going on at the table at all times. What a difference 3 years and winning a couple of tournaments make. I really want to go back in 2011, and will probably do more than just one event.

TV table from day 1B

My first day at the WSOP did not start well for me. After starting the day with 30,000 chips, at one point, I was down to about 12K. Mostly, this was due to a lot of loose play on my part but I was determined to not play scared this time.

After slowly working my way back to about 22K, I picked up A, J off suit. The flop was K, J and 5. I bet out and unfortunately, got one caller. This caller happened to be the tightest player at the table. Not good for me. The turn was an Ace giving me 2 pair. I decided to make a big move and went all in. The tight player called with Q – 10, giving him a straight. Basically, I had 4 outs (2 Jacks and 2 Aces). I stood up to get ready to leave the table, when a miracle Ace came on the river for me giving me a full-house.

This double-up got me excited enough to start playing well and managed to finish the day near 60k, which is above the average chip stack.

Next: Day 2A on Friday.

It seems like just last year but it’s been 3 years since my last WSOP. There were no big name poker players on the plane from Los Angeles but Gene Simmons was right after us in line.

One thing that I did notice is that in 3 years, they have improved the registration process a lot. Instead of an ad hoc room, they had a cage like they do for a small casino, and another table area for pre-registered people like me. Registration was quick and easy and everyone was very friendly.

This time, I’m not here to just cash. I’m here to win.

Scotte Vest Ultimate Hoodie Microfleece - $56 with Promo

It’s normally $70 but with the promo code “BLUFF2010″, it’s $56. It may seem a little high for a microfleece hoodie, but take a look at the pockets it comes with.

The most unusual one is a see-through pocket where you can put your iPhone, or Palm Pre in my case. You can sort of see the screen and more importantly, you can touch the screen to operate your phone. There are routes for your headphones to go through to your head so you can go to the next song without even taking your phone out of your pocket. Nice feature.

Palm Pre in clear touchable inside pocket

On the other side, there are 2 pockets that are vertical so that you can put water bottles or your drink of choice so you’re always ready to some refreshments.

Inside pocket for drinks

There are other pockets (like on your upper arm) but the one that I like are the ones on the side which you’re most likely to use. They are equipped with magnets so that they automatically close shut. It’s nicer than velcro because it’s very easy to open but you don’t have to worry about your wallet falling out after you take your hand out of your pockets.

Side pocket with magnets

After testing out my new hoodie at a few tournaments, I’m really liking this mega-pocket outfit. You may see me at the WSOP this year wearing it.