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.

Tom Colicchio from Top Chef owns Craft restaurants and he’s got a Craftsteak in Vegas so we decided to check it out. Located in the MGM, I had high hopes for this restaurant after the bad experience at BarMasa earlier in the week.

We decided to go for the gusto and order the Angus Beef Selection (Chef’s Angus Menu – $110) where the chef will pick 3 courses for you.

The meal started with warm fris salad which tasted just like breakfast in your mouth when the poached egg melted into the bacon. However, my favorite salad was the Persian cucumber salad, which was light and vinegary. This was the perfect prequel for the steaks.

Next, the main course. It wasn’t surprising that the Filet was cooked to perfection at this well known steak house, but the Porterhouse was not only perfectly prepared, but we were both surprised at the great seasoning as well.

Unlike at other outings, I made sure I had room for desert. Personally, I like very light desert so the Sorbet with fruit was perfect for my taste. However, for decadent pleasure, the Monkey bread with banana ice cream was to die for. The clever mix of monkey with banana just tops off the greatness of this dish.  If you just want to get great desert after your dinner, I highly recommend getting this desert.

It was a nice change to be completely satisfied with a great meal. Personally, this was too much food for me, but if you want to taste the different offerings here, let the chef decide for you and I’m betting that you will be as happy as I was. Be sure to make this place one of your stops in Vegas.

BarMasa Entrance

The new Aria Hotel and Casino is located in the new City Center in Las Vegas. The entire complex is stunning to look at. It’s a complete change from the 80′s look of the Balagio, Paris, and Mirage. BarMasa is located towards the inside left. The entrance is so large, you might not even realize what it is.

By Los Angeles standards, this restaurant is gi-normous, but by Vegas standards, about what you would expect. Basically, it’s a bar and one large room with mega-high ceilings.

Service is very good but maybe because it’s new, some of the servers seems a little tentative, like they’ve never done it before. The prices here are somewhat expensive, even by Vegas standards. We decided to try the Sushi sampler for $98 shown below.

Sushi Sampler

Although it may be hard to tell in the picture, the portions are very small. The selection is good and everything is fresh but the preparation technique is not top notch. In LA, you could get this same thing for $20. The strange thing was the sushi chef loaded the cucumber roll with wasabi to the max. I’m used to wasabi, but this was over-kill.

There was no need to even ask about “free” green tea. I knew what the answer was going to be. All in all, although the ambiance is good, don’t come here for the sushi. It’s over priced and not close to anything that I would consider great sushi. In fact, I would have to rate their sushi sub-par and would never order it here.

I’ll have to look for another good sushi spot in Vegas this trip.

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.

Recently, I was trying to make reservations on Southwest Airlines’ website using Firefox. For the life of me, I was not able to make it work. Yes, I’m using the current version of Firefox. Maybe that’s the problem.

All I had to do was switch over to Internet Explorer and everything was right in the world again.

I really don’t blame the Southwest website designers for this problem because I know how hard it is to keep your website working for all versions of all browsers on all platforms. It’s a real headache.

While playing at a tournament in LA, a guy told me to checkout the Hard Rock poker room.  So while I was in Vegas, I decided to check it out.

Before I even got to the poker room, I noticed some go-go dancers doing pole work in the Casino itself. They are the “Hard Rock Hell’s Belles” dancers doing their thing at the black jack tables.  And these girls are actually hot.  I really wanted to walk over and tip them but I decided to control myself.

When I got to the poker room, which is kind of hidden away in the back, the first thing I noticed was the good looking hostess that walks you over to the table.  However, that turned out to be nothing compared to 2 dealers they had there who were hotties.  I don’t mean hot for a female dealer.  I mean HOT!  One was named Bella, and the other was a blond who’s name I can’t remember right now.  Bella was wearing fishnet stockings, mini-skirt and 4 inch high heals.  No, I’m not joking.

When was the last time you saw a poker dealer wearing a mini-skirt?  When was the last time you saw a dealer you wanted to see in a mini-skirt?

Just so there’s no misunderstanding, I’m pretty used to looking at attractive females.  Your average wannabe Paris Hilton does nothing for me.  You have to be really hot for me to even take notice.  And Bella and the blond were both hotties.

So I’m playing and trying not to stare at the dealers, and up walks a stunning blond player.  WTF?  Yes, that’s right. Even the players looked good here.  Then a couple sits down, and they look like models.  I was clearly the ugliest player there.  No, the ugliest person there.

In any case, if you want to play around some really good looking people, this is the place to go. For more details on their strange “Hard Rock Straddle,” see my poker site.

This year, the Adult Entertainment Expo (AEE) was fairly small and some of the industry people didn’t show up. One thing I can tell you is I had a hell of a time trying to get my entry wrist-band because I paid for it online before the show.  The “Triple X Crew” where I bought my online tickets were so disorganized, it took longer for them to figure out what to do with me than for me to just stand in line and buy the ticket at the show.  It was horrible.  I’ll never do that again.

As for the show, I haven’t been to it in 10 years.  So it seemed very small to me, but I don’t know how it was last year.  I didn’t really see anything super interesting there except some lighting equipment that I might want to buy. Here are some of what I saw there.

After an absence for 10 years, I will be returning to CES (the Consumer Electronic Show) and the AEE (Adult Entertainment Expo) in January 2009.  Even though I haven’t been in the electronics industry for many years now, you may have noticed from this website, gadgets are my life.  So, I’ve decided it was time to return to my roots.

Of course, there’s also the added incentive of knowing some new adult talent who will be at AEE.  In my fantasy, she’s going to hook me up with some of her co-workers.  Then, I woke up from my dreams.

At CES, I’ll be looking at any and all small HD camcorders that record on any solid state media, spy cameras, new cool cell phones, stuff for my PS3, and anything else that gives me a gadget woody.

I will be reporting directly from the show starting January 8th.  Stay tuned.

While the World Series of Poker 2008 is going on at the Rio, Microsoft has put their Surface OS tables in the lounges there.  This video shows some “applications” for the Surface, iPhone-like operating system, like games and ways to pickup on the ladies, or vice versa.

Frankly, I’ve never seen attractive chicks like these playing video games, or even touching anything geeky, other than the iPhone.  Maybe the iPhone will finally bring in the good looking people into the world of gadgets and geeks.  One can dream.

Shibuya is a slick and posh looking Asian slash Japanese restaurant inside the MGM in Las Vegas.

From the outside, you can see the biggest “screen saver” wall you’ve ever seen. They tricked me into thinking that there were 50 large screen plasmas but actually, there are only 6 x 3 or 18 in the middle area.  The other screens are the same size but are dummies that change color.  In any case, it’s impressive and must have cost a lot of money.

There are about 15 seats at the sushi bar with 5 sushi chefs. If my math is correct, that’s 3 customers per chef. I guess that’s why the prices are so high.  The other room contain most of the regular seating and looks like something out of a futuristic Asian movie set.

I decided to order a mixture of some of my favorite foods:
Yellow tail sashimi  – $16
Shrimp tempura udon – $16
Salmon sushi – $9.50

All items ordered were presented well and tasted as good as they looked.  However, you are paying extra for the ambiance and exceptional service.  Of what I ordered, I liked the sashimi the best. The Udon was good but not exceptional. The sushi was normal portions by LA standards, and certainly not what you may expect for $9.50.

For desert, I ordered the sake soaked dark chocolate cake which was to die for. It’s a tiny portion, but that’s about all you can eat because it’s so rich.

This would be a perfect place to come to impress your date.

Shibuya
MGM Grand
3799 Las Vegas Blvd. South
Las Vegas, NV 89109
(702) 891-3001
Map