SCOOP 2012: More wins for the women

SCOOP logo.gif The recent win by Kami Chisholm (drkamikaze1) in the SCOOP Event 4-L Badugi tournament was a first for women in the event and Chisholm’s first SCOOP win. But Chisholm is no newcomer to poker as her second place finish in the 2009 WCOOP PLO8 event for $47,000 and her live event win at the PCA attests (see interview below). But she is thrilled to be doing extraordinarily well overall in SCOOP this year with two final table finishes and an impressive slot on the SCOOP leaderboard.

Her win in the badugi event ($9,003) along with a fourth place finish ($5,900) in the SCOOP Event 10-M Stud tournament gives her an overall ranking of 31-35 on the SCOOP leaderboard. A huge “congratulations” to her, with wishes for even more success to come. And there’s still time to make it an even bigger and better year for women.

That’s exactly what PokerStars was thinking when they decided to offer a $5.50/$0.50 satellite to this Sunday’s Low $109 Main Event with a buy-in that affords even players on a limited budget a chance to get into the action. So there’s still time for you to make your mark in this year’s SCOOP and possibly bring home a championship. You can find the satellite under the tournament number #552603719.

With that in mind, PokerStars Women spoke with Kami shortly after she won the tournament, and posed a few questions about her approach. Reading about her success is sure to fire you up for this Sunday’s tournament, so register now, and start planning your assault.

PokerStars Women: You’ve won a live event at the PCA in Limit Hold ‘Em (2010 PCA Event #26, Limit Hold’em Six Handed), finished second in the 2009 WCOOP PLO8 for $47,000, won the Venetian Deep Stack Horse Event, placed fifth in the WSOP Ladies Event, and now this. You’re a very versatile and dangerous player it seems! Have you made an effort to master a lot of different games, or is that just how it worked out?

Kami: Most people have a hard time with being strong at a lot of games, which is why HORSE tournaments are my favorite, and why I have had the most success in them. I tend to get bored pretty easily, so being able to play a lot of different games keeps me interested and fresh, so I don’t get into a rut. It’s also really fun when a series like SCOOP or WCOOP comes around, because I know I can have a shot at the tournament series leaderboards. It’s much easier for a skilled mixed-game player to cash in a lot of tournaments than for a NLHE specialist (except maybe Isildur!) as the fields are smaller, and with the slow structures of SCOOP and WCOOP, the edge is higher for a versatile player.

PSW: Can you tell us how you decide which events to play?

Kami: My plan has always been to play as many SCOOP events as possible, as I’m a tournament specialist who focuses on the limit games and PLO8. So I am playing all of the medium and low limit events, and as many of the high events as I can as well.

PSW: So why badugi?

Kami: Badugi is not my favorite game, but I do enjoy playing it. I’d like to play it more, but there are very few badugi MTTs that are above micro limits, which I rarely play anymore.

PSW: It’s a difficult game to master and not that well-known. How did you get started in it?

Kami: The same way I learned all the limit games, by just jumping in and starting to play. I wouldn’t say I’ve mastered the game; I don’t even think I’m particularly strong at it. Rather, I think I’m just good at limit MTTs in general.

PSW: What was it like when you realized you had won the tournament?

Kami: Well, I was expecting to win the hand, so it wasn’t a shock. But we were playing heads-up for a long time, and I had been playing for almost 14 hours straight at that point, so I was very happy for it to be over and to have won!

When I’m deep in a tournament, I never look at the prize payouts, as it’s not really about the money to me. Not that I mind the cash of course, but I don’t look because I want to keep the focus on winning, no matter what. Thinking about the prize pool is just a big distraction from that.

PSW: You played in Monte Carlo recently as a PokerStars Women Live satellite winner. What was that like, and what did you think of Monte Carlo?

Kami: I love playing the women’s events, so I was thrilled to win a package. Women are always so much fun to play with, and Monte Carlo itself is a trip. I feel like I definitely got to see how the “other 1%” live! I’m happy to be back home in the real world now though.

PSW: Have you had a specific type of training program in poker?

Kami: I’m pretty much self-taught in the limit games, where I learn mostly through playing and book study. I have had some great NL coaches, and I have watched a lot of videos and done other training for NL. It’s amazing how much I always feel I still have to learn though.

I don’t know that I would say I’m one of the top players at any specific game, but I think I’m above average, which is enough to be a winning player. Remember, you don’t have to be the best player in the world to win, you just have to be better (or luckier) than the folks at your table on a particular day!

For more on Kami’s success this year, see Brad Willis’ earlier PokerStars blog report. And for more on upcoming events, see PokerStars Women.

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Anticipation builds for Monte Carlo satellite winners

One of the world’s greatest poker festivals in a location that epitomizes luxury and opulence is a lot to look forward to. But that hasn’t stopped three PokerStars satellite winners who are doing just that as they anxiously anticipate the PokerStars Women Live event to be held in Monaco from April 29-May 2 as part of the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final. The qualifiers will enjoy a PokerStars Women Live tournament package valued at €2,500 that includes the tournament buy-in, three night luxury hotel accommodations and €500 for expenses. They will also receive a goody bag with some first-rate PokerStars swag and an invitation to the always anticipated EPT party that culminates the festival. The women are different in their approaches and experience, but they can all agree on one thing–they are excited to be attending and anxious to get started.

One player, Callens Ann-Roos from Belgium, said she “went completely crazy” when she won and she was sure her neighbors heard her screaming when it happened. But she wasn’t the only one going crazy. She said her husband, who is “her biggest fan” was watching the tournament with her and screamed even louder. After the screaming was over they called all their poker friends to tell them the news. Her husband, who is a poker player too, will be coming along with her.

Ann (screen name vddann), who is 38, says this is her second satellite to a PokerStars live event. She won a satellite last year to PokerStars.BE BPS Namen (part of the Belgian Poker Series). She credits her aggressive heads-up game with contributing to her win, but comments that at the beginning of the tournament she was calm and selective, playing only 10 to 15 percent of hands. When the blinds got higher however, she played up to 30 percent. Her image also contributed, she remarked. “The first impression for my opponents was my tight image, and in that way I could make some bluffs and steal some pots!”

Although she’s most interested in playing the tournament, Ann says that she plans to do some sightseeing as well. But then she commented, “Maybe I’ll try to pick up another side event too!” As for strategy, she says “I don’t think I will play differently than in other tournaments. I will be myself and play my game.”

Finally she wanted to make sure to add, “Thank you PokerStars for giving me the opportunity to play in the ladies event in Monte Carlo!”

Another player who can’t wait to make her mark at the tournament is Ingrid (panda_kls), from Lithuania. She has been dreaming about it for a while now. “I am very excited about going to the Grand Final in Monte Carlo. I have had this dream since last year, and finally I have reached it through a satellite!” This is her first time to participate in a PokerStars Women Live event as a satellite player, but she did play in the women’s event at EPT Vienna in 2010, where she says she gained some solid experience.

Ingrid, 29, is married and the mother of three small children. Her youngest, a son fourteen-months old, was sleeping next to her in bed with her and her husband while she played the tournament. “It was late at night when I won, and the minute I did, I screamed and jumped up off the bed and all around! I had to release all that energy and share my excitement!” She says her husband is planning to come with her to the tournament and they are looking forward to celebrating his birthday while they are there. “My husband will support me and I feel safe and secure when he is with me. I am very confident and my emotions are under control when he is by my side.” Ingrid also plans to have fun with friends and maybe take part in some side events and cash games while she is there.

Looking back on her win she says “My secret in winning this satellite was my strong wish to take part in the ladies event. When I won the first satellite to get into the final I already knew that I was going to win it.” She says that playing good cards and hanging tough against an aggressive player heads-up was also important. “Of course I believe that you need luck in poker, but even more I trust in knowledge.” Ingrid will try to add to that knowledge by consulting some Lithuanian poker pros prior to the tournament. “They can give me some good advice on how to play this kind of tournament,” she commented.
Beyond studying, her pre-game strategy is just to try to get some rest. We wish her the best with that, but from what she’s told us so far, it seems she may be counting euros in her head at night, instead of sheep.

The final player we profiled for this article is Kami Chisholm, 37, a Canadian player who has lots of experience playing live events at the World Series of Poker and elsewhere. She has also had some top finishes. She won the 2010 PokerStars EPT Caribbean Adventure Event 26 – Limit Hold’em Six Handed and placed fifth in the 2010 Ladies Event at the WSOP. In addition, she won the Venetian’s Deep Stack Extravaganza 2010 HORSE event. She has placed in the money in several other tournaments and is a very experienced live player. She says this trip will be a work trip for her, but remarks that it didn’t prevent her from “doing a happy dance, calling her girlfriend, and posting on some message boards” when she won.

Kami (screen name drkamikaze1) says that the long trip from Canada will cut into any time she might have for sightseeing and the like, but she says “I’m pretty focused on the tournament anyway. I’ll try to enjoy the pool a bit, but I will make sure to get plenty of rest so I’m ready for the event.”

An aggressive approach was the key to her win, Kami says. “I played the event very aggressively and raised a lot of hands. But I patiently waited for very good spots to play the big pots.”

We look forward to seeing these players along with many other new faces at the upcoming tournament in Monaco. There is still time to win your seat and to make your dreams come true by playing in this fantastic event. See the PokerStars Women Promotions page for all the details. We hope to see you there!

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Ocho – WPBT, Part 2

By Pauly
San Francisco, CA

Saturday morning. I sidestepped a German couple at the Aria and felt like the Joe Walsh song Life Is Good. On top of the world. Rested. Catching the first buzz of the day. Itching to gamble. In the previous years, I stayed up way too late raging hard on Friday night and staggered into the tournament on little to no sleep on Saturday at noon. This year I booked a room in the same casino where we played, so all I had to do was walk downstairs. Perfect scenario, especially if/when I busted early I could drop stuff off in my room, check the scores on a few games, then head back downstairs and sweat friends at the final table.

* * *
“I live in hotels, tear out the walls.”

I woke up with college basketball on my mind. I placed a few bets on the UK-UNC game, schedule to tip off at Noon EST or at the horrendous 9am hour in Vegas, so I set my alarm in order to get a bet in. The first business of the day featured a quick meeting in front of the sports book. I felt confident with a hot tip from G-Rob.

“I watched every minute of every Kentucky game,” explained G-Rob. “I watched every North Carolina game too. Seen every game both teams played. I’m telling you… Kentucky wins, covers, and the score will be low. Bet the under.”

G-Rob spoke with the sincerity of a Sunday preacher, yet his assessment on the game seemed like a well-crafted pitch from slick boiler room stockbroker. It’s hard to resist G-Rob because of his secret weapon — perfectly coiffed hair. My brother Derek always suspected he was a member of a CIA black-op mind control project to keep the sheeple under constant hypnosis. With disdainful ignorance, I heeded G-Rob’s advice and without hesitation I marched up to the window at the Aria’s sports book.

I also tailed a college football pick from the legendary Johnny Detroit and bet Southern Mississippi +13.5 against the Houston Cougars. All of the so-called experts on the boob tube were all over the #6 ranked Cougars. The public was also betting Houston heavily, but the “Wiseguys” syndicate were all over Southern Miss. I trusted their intel and tailed their pick, rather than bet on the same side as the schwill-drinking, booger-eating, “Jersey Shore”-loving dickwads bumping chests in the sports book. Sometimes,you gotta fade the public.

* * *
“They say I’m crazy, but I’m having a good time.”

The 8th Annual Winter Classic was hosted at the Aria’s poker room for a second year in a row. The staff liked the gang at the WPBT so much (and tolerated all of our peculiar quirks) that they invited us back. Phil Ivey’s high-roller’s room was idle while we played and he was nowhere to be seen. Otis spotted him in Maccau earlier in the week, but if Ivey is the Ivey I know, he’s been holed up in a nosebleed cash game with Chinese oligarchs. For the meantime, the only celebrity in the room was former L.A. Dodger pitcher Orel Hershiser. Ironically, he wouldn’t be the only former big leaguer that bloggers would play cash games with someone in our crew.

Jordan pulled a few strings at Pokerist.com and secured a fistful of cash to sweeten the team last longer side bet. Teams were comprised of three players and the best team finish wins the motherload of cash. Change100 and Derek were my teammates on Tao of Fear. I had special hats made for the occasion which incorporated Tao of Fear’s grey alien logo. The ETs live among us and have been assimilated for decades. They infiltrated the casino business as robotic-like Pai Gow dealers, surly doormen, and chefs manning omelet stations in the breakfast buffets.

WPBT OCHO – My Starting Table:
Seat 1. (EMPTY)
Seat 2. BrainMC
Seat 3. Lightning36
Seat 4. AGSweep
Seat 5. Mrs. Chako
Seat 6. Falstaff
Seat 7. Kat
Seat 8. Yestbay
Seat 9. YOUR HERO
Seat 10. Jess Welman

The first thing I noticed… the majority of the field was relatively sober. AlCantHang didn’t show up at the crack of dawn to force-feed Southern Comfort down the throats of a forty bloggers. In previous years, at least half the field was juiced up from pre-game cocktails or still drunk from a hell-raising bender from the night before trying to keep up with the AlCantHang Experience. Only one or two people had the zombie-like stare that you get when you stayed up all night gambling and lost all of your soul. One of them was Grubby. I was getting ready to crash around 4:30am when Grubby sent me a text wanting to degen it up. I politely declined in order to finish reading A Treatise on Money by John Maynard Keynes. In order to write a report for Tao of Fear, I plotted to crash a hedgefund mangers convention at the Venetian later that week, so I had to brush up on Keynesian economic theory in order to bullshit my way into the door.

Sorry for the tangent. Moving on…

Action progressed slowly for a blogger tournament. Aside from the lack of serious binge drinking, I suspected the field (save the few Cannucks who had access to online poker) was rusty in the wake of Black Friday. It had been almost 8 months since many of us played online poker on a regular basis. Fucking federales.

I had a copy of Gigli with me. I handed out the DVD as a joke during the first WPBT tournament at Sam’s Town in 2004. The “Bennifer” movie is so appalling that it’s a fitting departing gift for the first one out of the WPBT Winter Classic. Bill Rini took down the first Gigli, and it’s become a tradition ever since. Unlike the posh “Hammer” trophy that Iggy spends big bucks to present to the winner, I paid next to nothing for the Gigli DVD. It cost $0.01 on Amazon. Serious. A fucking penny. It cost $3 to ship, though. Therein lies the hustle.

No one busted out in the first two levels. Yestbay came close in the first orbit when his Aces were snapped off by Mrs. Chako’s set. He somehow managed not to go broke, but he found himself on life support. Mrs. Chako embarked on a heater and jumped out to an early lead in the opening level. She was a set monster and vacuumed up chips from everyone at my table. I evaded one of her traps when she flopped a set of 7s against my pocket 10s.

Once the third level began, I wondered when someone would bust. We had eight tables with only a couple of “shorties” including Shane Nickerson. That’s when PokerVixen wandered over to collect her boobie prize. Even though she was wearing a Micros’ “run good” t-shirt, she was jinxed because she had just given up her citizenship to that weird land to the north of us… “Canadia”… where its citizens interject the letter “u” into random words and also attempts to pass off “ham” as bacon.

I took out Yestbay and collected one of my favorite bounties to date — a YES greatest hits CD. I was always above average, but I misplayed a couple of hands. I blame Jess Welman’s radiance for my live “misclicks.” I exposed my hand twice when action was still going. One time it cost me a chance to double up against Jess. And the other? It didn’t matter because I ran into a cooler.

OhCaptain moved to my table after Yestbay busted. I only sat with him for a few hands before I got involved in a hand that marked my demise. Kat open-shoved. OhCaptain raised all-in. I had both him and Kat covered and I called with Kings. I think Kat held A-Q, but OhCaptain tabled Aces. Fuck me. Kings into Aces. Crippled. Two hands later I moved all in with 8d-7d. Jess Welman busted me and won my bounty — an autographed copy of Jack Tripper Stole My Dog.

The funniest moment of the tournament occurred after a Grubby moved to our table. He had pounded Kettle and cranberry drinks for a few levels and was a little tipsy when he got to our table. On his elimination hand, he got it all-in against Jess. She busted him and Grubby stumbled over to shake her hand.

“Where’s my bounty?” he blurted out.

A perplexed Jess smirked. “Wait, a second,” she hollered, “where the heck is MY bounty?”

It took a few seconds before Grubby noticed his error. He apologized and said he had forgotten his bounty in his hotel room that he hadn’t seen in days because he had been up for a couple of days chasing the progressive jackpot on Rockin’ Olives slots at the Bellagio.

I was the first member of Tao of Fear to bust, but Derek and Change100 were knocked out in the next level. Our team was dunzo. At that point, I went to the bar and grabbed some grub before returning to the final table to sweat the action. I had just missed AlCantHang and Otis’ elimination hands. With three to go, it was down to Timtern, Melissa Hayden, and quiet random guy that we later found out was Chilly’s friend from St. Louis who had never played a live poker tournament before. Figures. Murphy’s Law, right?

Timtern busted in third place and Melissa was heads-up against the random guy. She took him down to win the WPBT Winter Classic, and more importantly the trophy. She didn’t really care about the money; rather, she really really wanted the trophy. Congrats!

* * *
“I’m just looking for clues at the scene of the crime.”

After eight hours in the poker room followed up by an hour or so at the bar drinking overpriced beers, the time hath come to go slumming at the Imperial Palace. The IP used to be home base, but we opted to spend a few extra bucks and stay at the Aria this year and not worry about contracting Legionnaires Disease.

“It smells like socks and hairspray in there,” said Joe Speaker as he took a long drag off a cigarette. He stood outside getting some fresh air because the IP was its usual zoo for a Saturday night. Dealertainers that were bad dopplegangers for Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift belted out popular songs. Bloggers milled around the pits and rubbed elbows with Budweiser slurping cowboys, hipsters dressed like cowboys, and meth-addled hookers dressed like David Bowie. AlCantHang held court at the Geisha Bar and kept the tab running. I stood around for about an hour saying nothing but just watching people, mostly of the Whiskey Tang variety. You learn a lot about humanity on a Saturday night in Vegas. You don’t wander inside the IP unless you’re looking for a cheap thrill. Hunter said it… buy a ticket, take the ride.

The IP was as low-brow as you can go for the Strip. The simplicity of the cheap thrill irked me. Maybe it was the putrid odor? JoeSpeaker was right. The IP reeked of sweaty socks and hairspray.

I bailed as soon as came to my senses. Playing heads-up middle-stakes Pai Gow at the swanky Aria seemed a thousand times more appealing. I didn’t care if they the pit boss sent out a dealer who was a bot or alien. I just wanted to flee the IP before the rash on my forearm spread to other parts of my body.

“It’s hard to leave when you can’t find the door.”

I gazed out the window of our 34th floor hotel room. The Palms was visible in the near distance.

“That’s where Otis and Jose Canseco are,” muttered Derek. He referenced the insane cash game that a few of the G-Vegas boys found themselves playing against Jose Canseco. The word “worst player” was a popular phrase used to describe the former baseball player. I only wished I jumped in a cab to the Palms instead of trying to go slumming with cowboys and hookers at the IP. I missed my opportunity at free money and lost a shot at padding my bankroll with steroid-induced Canseco bucks.

Sunday morning. A new day. I had finally gotten back on track at the sports book after a profitable Saturday. Kentucky only won by one and failed to cover 6, but I won the rest of my bets, including So. Miss upsetting Houston to win outright and cover. After a dismal start to the trip, I finish Saturday with a decent profit. I was pumped to make some more bets and hit up the sports book first thing on Sunday morning. The lines were already wrapped around the wall. I got word that the Wiseguys were betting Carolina big all over town. Carolina, led by Cam Newtown, was originally a 2.5-point underdog but once word got out that Tampa Bay’s QB Josh Freeman was sitting out, the line jumped to Carolina -1.5. I bet Carolina along with New Orleans, the Jets, the Pats, and Atlanta. I had a few other teasers, but those were not as important as my monstrous bet on the Pats laying 20.5 against the winless Indianapolis Colts. When I showed F Train the ticket, he shook his head then pointed at his crotch and uttered, “Huevos.”

“Si. Mucho grande huevos.”

The rest of my friends thought I was crazy. Crazy? Maybe. Stupid? Definitely. Last year, I told Dawn Summers to bet her final table winnings on the Pats. She didn’t listen to me and missed a chance to turn $1,500 into $3,000. This year, I was riding the Pats again. My blind faith in Tom Brady and Bill Bellichek became my downfall. I’ll spare you the bad beat story, but New England had the game covered going into the 4th quarter before all hell broke loose and they blew a three touchdown lead. I lost my big bet and was scrambling the rest of the day to try to get unstuck. I whiffed on Atlanta and lost an impulse bet on the Cowboys. The Jets won and when I cashed that ticket, I let it ride on the Saints. I doubled down on the Sunday Night Football game hoping it would help cover the day’s losses.

We watched the game inside the Skybox sports bar adjacent to the sports book. The staff had no clue what to expect from our group which bum rushed them as soon as the doors opened. I greased the staff and the found us a nice spot in the corner. Jordan secured $1,000 from Pokerist to fund the Sunday debauchery. $1,000 lasted just under an hour before we had to start paying for stuff by ourselves.

The highlight of the day was the intricate cake that Pokerist surprised us with. The cake cost $500 and took up the entire table. Classy. The cake tasted good and it was the only thing I actually enjoyed on Sunday while sweating the games. Losing the big Pats bet put me in a bad mood and nearly killed my spirit. The cake helped me rally and I was ready for the next item on our agenda… the half-marathon.

* * *
“Lucky I’m sane after all I’ve been through.”

The plan was simple… sweat the first half of the SNF game at Mandalay Bay, then cheer on our friends at the finish line of the half-marathon. It didn’t occur to me the logistical nightmare of hosting a 44,000 person race. Mandalay Bay was packed but sort of looked like a refugee center. Friends and family of the runners were scattered throughout the casino as they tried to stay warm.

Heather and April found a spot in the middle of Las Vegas Blvd near the front of Mandalay Bay. About 15-20 of us stood and watched random runners jog by us. Derek hung over the rail and smoked a cigarette, while StB pounded a beer. It would have been a perfect spot to burn down a doobie, but there was an undercover police car nearby.

In order to keep warm, I blurted out random things to runners as they passed us. I can’t recall most of what I said, but all I know was that by that point of the night, I was roasted, faded, and drunk. Grange95 had a few pops in him and he kept the chatter lighthearted. The guy in the Borat costume passed us and all he wore was a green thong. Many other runners took the opportunity to don superhero costumes, wear pink tutus, and dress up like Elvis (or is it Elvi?).

Mrs. Otis posted Otis’ split times on facebook. We got word he was a couple of miles away. I told everyone it was a perfect time to practice our chant, so we belted out “O-tis! O-tis! O-tis!” We were loud and in tune. All we had to do was wait.

I spotted Poker Peaker whizzing by. At first I didn’t think it was him until I recognized the Colorado flag symbol on his running shirt. He posted the fastest time out of the group. Bad Blood flew by us not much longer and barely looked like he had broken a sweat. We wondered about Chako, Mattazuma, G-Rob, Curtis, and of course Otis.

We almost missed Otis. I knew he was wearing a green fluorescent shirt and we had an approximate time he’d be near us, but that was it. Luckily, he came to us when he spotted Grange or Drizz’s head on the rail. He snuck up on us with a flyby and we hesitated a few seconds before everyone belted out the chant.

“O-tis! O-tis! O-tis! Oooo-tis!”

He ran for a few seconds than thrust his arms in the air forming a fluorescent green V. It’s something I’ll never forget. The V. Otis had been through hell the previous week, yet that did not deter him from completing a task he set out to do. After 13 exhausting miles, he neared the finish line — something both tangible and personal. His resplendent V piercing through the dark, freezing night is one of the most inspiring symbols I had ever seen in Las Vegas.

“Life’s been good to me so far.”

To be continued…

Support indie writers by buying Pauly’s book Lost Vegas.

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Public can bet outcome of 2011 WSOP Main Event Final Table

Martin Staszko is the preference to prevail at 14/5

Nevada Gaming Control Board approved changes to sports book betting earlier this year with the addition of action on non-sports events. Although odds have been posted in the past on non-sporting events the bookmakers could not accept wagers and did it for fun only. The earliest non-sporting meet that bequeath courier peculiars besides indeed receive chances is the latter defer of the 2011 Creation Series of Poker Leading tournament to be played in November.

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2011 WSOP November Nine Photos

November Nine chasing the chain

The stage is set and the final nine players from a WSOP Main Event starting field of 6,865 players are now on break until the final able reconvenes November 5-7 to determine the 2011 WSOP Championship winner. The November Nine was stubborn in the pristine sunrise hours on Wednesday, July 20th, whereas John Hewitt pushed total-in also was eliminated in 10th seat, $607,882.

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2011 WSOP – Day 23: Timex Flashback, Jason Mercier Wins PLO Bracelet, and More Sordid Tales About Chasing the Dragon

By Pauly
Las Vegas, NV

I met Timex a few hours after he turned 18 years old. Flashback to 2007. London, England for inaugural WSOP-Europe at the Empire Casino in Liecester Square. The bouncers gave the kid guff and wouldn’t let him inside because it was less than an hour after Midnight. Technically, he was 18 and eligible to set foot inside a casino in the UK, however, one of the bouncers was being a stickler for the rules and said he couldn’t enter until the morning when the casino re-opened. After a bit of negotiation, Timex was allowed inside the Empire. Funny thing is that at the time, he probably had more cash in his pocket than the yearly salary of both bulky guards at the front.

Timex was a wunderkind — a baby-faced teenager who ran one of the biggest staking syndicates in the world. At the time, Timex rivaled the Russians, Bax-Sheets, and Erick Lindgren in terms of backing numbers. I only caught a glimpse into their world because a friend of mine was one of Timex horses with a make-up of almost six figures. Part of me to this day is still astonished at how a high school kid from Canada could amass a big enough bankroll to back several of the premier online pros (circa 2007). With a knack for investing in profitable tournament players and generating income from his own deft skills at the tables (he holds the record for being the youngest EPT champion), Timex should be probably be working at Goldman Sachs or at Barcalys in London.

Then again, when you’re 21 years-old the last thing you want to do is wear a suit and grind out 16-hour days at a trading desk, especially when the alternative is the life of a baller poker pro, when sleeping in late and skipping the first two levels of a tournament is the norm because you’re spending your nights with your face buried in warm bosom of an exotic dancer, working her way through grad school for Anthropology, of course, because all Vegas strippers are either coke whores or PhD candidates. Every once in a while you hit the jackpot and find both.

Timex played in his first WSOP this summer because he’s 21-years old now — a dinosaur in the online realm, where teenagers ruled the virtual world like the meathead jocks in a John Hughes film. If Black Friday didn’t happen and online poker continued to flourish, it was a matter of time before rogue 12-year olds dominated the scene. It’s the video game element to poker — for some kids, it’s like when I was in high school and finally beat Zelda on the first incarnation of Nintendo. Then again, for some of these superusers and other known-cheaters, the online poker world is just like Contra, where you were just a few steps away from unlimited lives by using the cheat code (Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A).

In the post-boom (yet pre-Black Friday era) the time an online pro is able to legally play at the PCA or the Aussie Millions, they’re like Chinese gymnasts — at least five years past their prime.

Did you see the last summer Olympics? Some of those tiny, acrobatic gymnasts from China looked like they were eight years old. Who knows, but maybe right now, there’s uber-wealthy Chinese businessmen creating massive sweat shops, and instead of hiring little kids to sew swooshes onto golf shirts, running shoes, and basketball sneakers (with a retail price the equivalent of three months wages), they hired kids to play video games — in this case online poker. Currently, scattered throughout Southeast Asia, thousands of sweat shop kids are sitting in front of an impressive grind station and playing 43 simultaneous SNGs.

Sorry for the tangent. Moving on…

Timex made the final table of Event #35 $5,000 PLO 6-handed, but busted out in 6th. Also at the final table was David Chui, four-time bracelet winner, who busted out in 4th place. When it got to heads-up, Jason Mercier was pitted against some dude named Hans from Nicaragua. Whenever I see someone with a German name with a Latin American country listed as his home nation, I instantly get suspicious. If Hans won, he’d instantly become the Godfather of Nicaraguan poker (that is, if he wasn’t already a Godfather in some other realm). Alas, it was not meant to be. Hans was slayed by Jason Mercier.

Mercier won his second career bracelet, and both were in PLO. Everyone knows he can play NL, but you can add PLO to the roster of games in which Mercier dominates. According to Hendon Mob, he has over $1.5 million in career WSOP earnings and over $6 million in lifetime earnings. Mercier has certainly come along way since he got shanked in a bar fight in Italy. He was in the wrong place, at the wrong time. But on Day 23, he was at the right place, at the right time.

According to a tweet from @JessWelman, one of the weirdest incident thus far at the WSOP happened at the final table during one of the breaks. Allen Bari, who won a bracelet earlier in the year and is staked by Mercier, was shithoused drunk and threw his flip flop at Mercier — either trying to hit him, or knock over his fortress of chips. The security quickly 86′s Bari from the Mothership. When Maercier won, they let him back in during the winner’s photo.

Guess which guy is Bari?

* * *

I got a text from my fake-lesbian friend Halli that a douchebag video poker pro wouldn’t leave her alone as she minded her business pecking away at a video poker machine, so I saved her from that awkward, yet annoying situation. Instead of blowing big bucks on booze, I suggested the Pai Gow tables at the Gold Coast because we could drink essentially for free. We had only one problem — she didn’t know how to play Pai Gow. I gave her a quick tutorial in the parking lot and we sat down at an empty table.

I knew KevMath was slumming at the Gold Coast because of his tweets. He had the day off and was on a bender that included bingo. He joined us, we ordered a round of drinks, and one slight fumble caused a spill. The last time I played Pai Gow at the Gold Coast, we also experienced an embarrassing table spill and shortly after we all got cut off. We were extra saucy that night, but that was not the case because we were in the middle of the first round. What amazed me was the expanded surface area of the spill. According to the Bill Chen formula for spilling bottles of beer at the Pai Gow tables, this spill was a category 3 (out of 5).

The deck was ruined and the pit boss quickly fetched a new deck. I asked for the old, wet one but my request was denied.

When a new dealer took her seat in the box, she joked with KevMath,“You no pee on my table! No pee!!”

I never considered urinating on a Pai Gow table, but come to think of it, there were instances over the last few years when I was so tilted by Pai Gow dealers that I could have whipped it out and let ‘er rip.

Eventually more troops arrived including Change100 (who was grinding out our rent money at the Venetian), WhoJedi, Homer, and Landon. We had reuinited three of the original five who were with us during Monday’s festivities, except we had a significantly less booze, due to the slow-moving, yet slammed cocktail waitresses.

I left some of the boys still in the trenches and left early to go home and write (if you consider 3:45AM early). I could have taken a leak on the table after WhoJedi took my exact seat and got dealt A-A; 5-5-5-5-x. He also had a fortune bonus riding, which he always plays, so he added a few more bonus bucks to his dominating hand. Dammit. I knew I should have played one more orbit. I was so pissed, I could’ve pissed on the table.

Support indie writers by buying Pauly’s book Lost Vegas.

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2011 WSOP – Day 5: Apocalypse Now (Guest Post by Change100)

Editor’s Note: While Dr. P snuck off to Ohio to cover two Phish shows for Coventry Music, we have our first installment of the Tao All-Stars featuring Hollyweird’s favorite blonde… Change100.

* * *
Apocalypse Now

By change100
Las Vegas, NV

There’s something in the air at the Rio and it isn’t the exhaust from the Poker Kitchen. It’s not the stench of Eskimo Clark’s unwashed clothing or even the stale odor of Camel Lights wafting off the lips of the leather-skinned man in the three seat. It’s pure, unadulterated desperation, and it’s everywhere—in the 2 for 1 specials at floundering Strip hotels, in the steely quiver of your opponent’s voice as he growls “nice hand” without meaning it, in the sweaty palms of under-rolled punters who cast off their last $1,000 to the sweet-faced girl at the cage who replaces those bills with a paper seat card and a bids you a flat “good luck.” All the luck in the world can’t save the global economy anymore, and here in Las Vegas, this summer might as well be the last night of the world for a vast majority of the poker community.

The 2011 WSOP is put up or shut up time for scores of displaced American online pros, weekend grinders, and tournament players on the last legs of their backing deals. Make a big score and you might survive to play another year. Pull a donut hole and you’re dunzo. This is everyone’s last chance to shine—the eleven o’clock number, the evening gown competition, the closing statement to the jury before Black Friday’s true sentence is handed down. We were all punch-drunk in the six weeks between Black Friday and the opening salvo of the WSOP. Some staggered around with stars in their eyes, others slumped to the ground, a few whipped around and threw wild punches—not only venting their anger, but questioning virtually every authority figure in the industry. Whatever those answers are, they’ll be a lot clearer after we all go home on July 20th. But for now, it’s time to grind like there is no tomorrow.

I pulled up to the Venetian on Sunday afternoon to play my first cash game session of the summer. I hadn’t seen a crowd like that in at least two years. Valet parking was completely jammed, the cab line was 50 yards long, and the sidewalks were overflowing. A taxi driver told me that Memorial Day Weekend numbers were through the roof and the scene inside reflected it. More than 40 cash games were going at mid-afternoon and another 50 tables were set up outside the poker room to house one of the first Deepstack Extravaganza events. I sat in a $4/$8 limit hold’em game while I waited for the $8/$16 mix to fill and within five minutes was unapologetically slowrolled.

I hadn’t even opened my mouth and was playing my first hand, yet this douchebag in a cheap golf shirt (who would have busted what was left in his rack had he not rivered his gutter) decided to reveal his inner asshole, faux-frowning at my top two pair for about ten seconds before saying, “Well, I’ve got the straight,” turning his cards over one at a time. When I departed over three hours later, I surveyed the $2/5 NL tables in the middle of the room. More hoodies. More headphones. Fewer tourists with Coronas. Serious faces. Folks far more concerned with making money than having a good time.

Two nights later I was back, staring at an As-Kc-5c-Js board after being check-raised on the turn. With Ks-5s in my hand I certainly wasn’t folding, but suspected my two pair were no longer good.

“You have a thing for hitting gutshots” I said, thinking aloud and recalling a previous hand, as I made the call. The river was a blank and he checked to me. I checked behind and he showed the Q-T.

“Knew it,” I said, knocking the table. “Nice hand.”

“You think you’re some kind of professional? You think you can read my mind?” the man practically spat as he dragged the pot.

“Yeah, I’m a $4-$8 pro. All you need to pay the bills,” I laughed.

“Well we can go to $10-$20 if you want Miss Professional. We can go as high as you want. You just say the word.”

“You know, I was having a pretty good time until you opened your mouth. Am I alone on this?” Stone faces all around.

The same was true at the Rio. You expect at least one guy in your $125 satellite to be wearing Beats headphones and mirrored sunglasses, but six? Are these what my online tables always looked like? The play wasn’t any more threatening or nuanced than usual, but everyone was so…serious. Whether or not their lives (or at least their weekend) actually did depend on the outcome of this satellite, it sure as hell seemed like it.

It’s not just the low-limit punters that are growing testier by the hour. Arguments stole the headlines for the first three days of the WSOP. Whether it was Ivey vs. Tiltware, James Bord vs. John Juanda, or Men the Master vs. Hollywood Dave, it became abundantly clear that this year, people were willing to call each other out publicly—for cheating, for reneging on promises, for wearing the logo of an online room that has yet to pay out its U.S. players. While UB yellow-and-black thankfully appears to be long-gone from these hallways, a few daring red pros are still sporting Full Tilt patches. While some like Tom Dwan can afford to tell their sponsor to fuck off if they don’t want to deal with the potential consequences of wearing a logo, others may still be hoping in vain for past due paychecks, forgiveness on makeup, or even a shot in the dark at staying signed.

“It just doesn’t seem as fun this year,” a longtime member of the media said to me this afternoon as we sat up on the half-empty perch. “There isn’t that carnival atmosphere anymore.”

He was right. As much as the WSOP tried to increase the grandeur of poker’s premiere festival this year (just look at that spaceship masquerading as a final table) the wide-eyed wonder that always accompanied it is long gone.

“Numbers might be up,” he said, “but that’s just because no one’s broke yet.”

change100 is a writer from Los Angeles. This is her sixth year at the World Series of Poker.

Support indie writers by buying Pauly’s book Lost Vegas.

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The Sahara Doesn’t Live Here Anymore

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

Editor’s note: In honor of the Sahara closing its doors, he’s a re-post of something I wrote a couple of months ago…

The Sahara Casino is closing.

The Sahara represented my parents’ Las Vegas and the innocent simplicity of the sepia-tinted photos of early 1960s: waking up late, eating room service omeletes, lounging by the pool, sipping tikki drinks next to perfectly-coiffed Don and Betty Drapers, eating a surf and turf dinner, consuming more tikki drinks, catching a glamorous show with Louis Prima or Don Rickles, then gambling the night away in the casino playing roulette, craps, or blackjack until the wee hours — only to wake up late the next day and repeat the process. My parents and their generation experienced the original desert Paradise, meanwhile, I got Paradise Lost, or the watered-down, sold-out, corporatized version of Vegas. Ergo, Lost Vegas.

One of the original six casinos in Las Vegas, the oasis known as the Sahara opened its doors in 1952. The owner, former bingo parlor magnate Milton Prell, was chummy with Col. Tom Parker (a.k.a. Elvis’ manager). Elvis supposedly got married in Prell’s suite at the Sahara (although some accounts credited the Aladdin as the location of Elvis’ nuptials).

Sahara’s designer, Del Webb, owned the NY Yankees in the post-War II era (before selling to CBS, who then sold the team to George Steinbrenner). Webb eventually purchased the Sahara from Prell in 1961-62. Webb-Nevada became the first public company to own a major casino. In subsequent decades (1982, 1995) the Sahara traded hands among other big business interests until it landed in the hands of Sam Nazarian and SBE Entertainment Group. At the turn of the century, the casino added a rollercoaster and a NASCAR theme to capitalize on middle America’s fascination with auto racing. A decade or so later, the doors are closing. But for good? Will the fate of the Sahara be the face of things to come in the next few years as more Strip properties close its doors?

A gaming conglomerate could swoop in, renovate the joint, whore out restaurant, bar, and retail shopping space to a bunch of other corporations and then re-open its doors. A hedge fund manager could get bored gambling on Wall Street and on a plutocratical whim, buy an authentic casino instead. Heck, maybe Gahdaffi will finally hand over power to Libyan rebels and relocate in Las Vegas in the top 3 floors of the Sahara? Or maybe a wealthy social media gajillonaire will buy the property, implode the old Sahara, and build a spanking-new casino? But does anyone want to party in a non-hip part of town on the north end of The Strip?

The Sahara in its physical nature will eventually cease to exist, but the once-alluring spirit of the casino will live forever in photographs. I’m glad someone documented the old Vegas. Kudos to those citizen documentarians.

Here are a five photos of the Sahara…

The Sahara
(photo via Vintage Vegas)

Louis Prima rocking the Sahara’s Casbar Lounge in the 1950s
(photo via Vintage Vegas)

Sahara Pool in the 1960s
(photo via Vintage Vegas)

Modern Sahara with Monorail
(photo by Wolynski)

Modern Sahara
(photo by Flipchip)

* * * *
Las Vegas rose up out of the nothingness of the sand. A former Mormon missionary outpost had transformed into a gambling Mecca by gangsters, real estate developers, and bankers. Mecca is actually an inappropriate word to describe Las Vegas because there’s nothing religious about a pilgrimage to modern day Sodom and Gomorrah — the epicenter for the orgy of consumption.

Las Vegas has very few relics of the past. When you visit European cities like London, Paris, and Barcelona, you glimpse many centuries into the past with historic churches, preserved ruins, and other very old buildings that blended in with the modern architecture. However, Las Vegas’ visionaries look to the future by erasing the past. Casinos used to be sanctuaries of brazen fun, but have since become oil wells that suck the Nevada desert dry of wealth. When the owners realized their well reached peak production, they scrambled to find potential buyers — clueless new owners who were blinded by greed instead of realizing the the law of diminishing returns of a casino. Alas, when wells were no longer profitable to operate, they were unceremoniously shut down until the skeletal remains of the casino got imploded on local TV.

Instead of rusty derricks and rigs peppering the barren landscape of Saudi Arabia’s Gahwar region or tumbleweeds-ridden West Texas, the Vegas barons don’t let their old wells sit around for too long. I must admit that the casino/well analogy doesn’t exactly fit in this instance because you can’t re-tap the same well after all the oil has been extracted, but Las Vegas casinos owners have repeatedly rebuilt new, glitzy, modern monstrosities on top of rickety, languishing dinosaurs of yesteryear. And yes, they still rake in the cash.

The Sahara dominated the Las Vegas universe fifty years ago when it had a lot less competition, but that might has well been 500 years ago because lot has changed in the last century, let alone the last decade, yet for better or worse, the Sahara failed to stay ahead of the curve. The desert oasis is on the verge of becoming completely wiped out from Vegas landscape.

From nothing, it was born, and back to nothing it shall return.

* * * *
October 30, 1998.

“Isn’t that adorable?” said the old lady in the hot seat, pointing at a faded pack of four disheveled wooks wandering through the casino in a search of the elevator to their room.

“Yes, they decided to wear their hippie costumes a day early,” agreed her husband.

The old lady flashed a peace sign at the quartet of scraggly troubadours.

“Ma’am, they’re not wearing costumes. Those neo-hippies dress like that all the time,” I said after doubling down on an 11.

“Why would anyone want to look like a homeless person?”

I didn’t want to tell them that the kids were in town to see the same band I was in town to see, so I changed the subject. I played a ton of blackjack that weekend, more than poker, grinding it out at a lowly $1 table waiting for forty fucking excruciating minutes to obtain a piss-warm Corona from one of the surliest cocktail waitress I have ever encountered in Vegas.

I played blackjack with a smattering of friends including an acquaintance from Olympia who detailed how she smuggled hash from Holland into Germany, then sold it to troops on the Air Force base where she worked as a sous chef in the Officers Club. Meanwhile the rest of my extended circle of friends sat in the poker room behind the blackjack tables. I lived in Seattle at the time (five years before I’d even opened up a Party Poker account) and a my poker buddies got hooked on hold’em after Rounders was released in theatres that summer. A bunch of us from my home game flew down to Vegas to meet up with another group of friends from New York City for an epic Halloween party weekend bender. We stayed up for two nights straight, gambled on college football at the Mirage, got kicked out of Olympic Gardens, and caught two Phish concerts at Thomas & Mack Arena (highlighted by an entire set on Halloween when they covered Velvet Underground’s Loaded in its entirety).

The Sahara was the main base of operations that Halloween weekend with two rooms for 8 people, which cost us $10 a piece per night. Everyone was scattered between the Casbar Lounge, the poker room, and slumming at the $1 blackjack table. That weekend was a long blur. Trying to record the events as it happened proved to be difficult, let alone trying to rewind the events in my head 12.5 years later. Despite the foggy hallways of my mind, one moment stood out: late night after the Halloween concert when we actually walked from Thomas & Mack Arena back to the Sahara via a pit stop at a bar inside the MGM. Sounds so cliche, but it was Halloween, I was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and tripping balls on The Strip after (accidentally) ingesting several double-dipped hits of blotter. Double the visuals, double the fun. I was a lit monkey for a week.

That trip also marked the best buffet fried chicken I had ever devoured in Las Vegas (or the South for that matter). The chicken was so delicious that I ate it at the buffet twice that weekend. Can’t say I’ve ever eaten it since.

* * * *
When I moved to Las Vegas in 2005, I bunked with Grubby in Henderson. We often drove to the Sahara to play in their nightly 7pm tournament — mainly because the poker room provided free sandwiches to their players during the first break and they let you buy back in if you busted in the first couple of levels. We played a few times a week and Grubby usually made the final table, but I always fucking bubbled the final table. Although I grinded my buy-in back at the soft cash tables, it still used to bother me that I couldn’t break the nagging streak of not making a final table.

The free food was a decent promotion. The food wasn’t anything special — everyone got a piece (or two) of a six-foot deli sandwich. I think the poker room order three or four. A homeless guy showed up exactly at break time every night. He snuck into the back entrance to the poker room and filled up on a couple of sandwiches that he stuffed into a plastic bag before he escaped out the side door.

Winning (or chopping) the Sahara tournament (either the 7pm or the 11pm one) became a badge of honor among my friends — many of whom hold that dubious distinction. Shit, I’m still embarrassed that I couldn’t final table that sucker once, let alone win it outright. The Sahara had my number. I just couldn’t string together any run good in their tournaments.

After a while, the Sahara nightly tournament lost its luster among perpetually grumpy locals and it couldn’t compete when the mid-Strip casinos expanded their poker rooms. Once the Venetian and Caesar’s began their daily tournaments, they locked up the hard-to-please locals and it got increasingly hard for the Sahara’s poker room to keep up. Same goes for the rest of the casino. The NASCAR shtick in a sluggish economy wasn’t profitable enough anymore.

(photo by Flipchip)
I had not gambled at the impoverished Sahara in several years. I’m pretty sure the last time I played poker at the Sahara — I went busto due to a vicious bad beat, oozed with negativity and was probably thrilled to death to leave that dump. Alas, never had any incentives to go back once I migrated from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. Since then, I spent next to no time hanging out in that demilitarized zone north of the Wynn and south of the Stratosphere, aside from the odd sojourn to Olympic Gardens.

My Sahara poker memories are few but Halloween 98 sticks out as one of my all-time favorite trips to Sin City. Those incriminating stories (many of which occurred inside the Sahara) were trimmed from the final draft of Lost Vegas, but I guarantee those hijinks will be included in the Phish book (as soon as get around to finishing that).

I have one last memory of the Sahara that I want to share. Luckily, the moment was captured forever on film by Hollywood. I’m talking about a scene from Leaving Las Vegas, when Elisabeth Shue’s character did the nefarious “hooker limp” in front of the palatial lobby of the Sahara.

Appropriate tribute.

The ghosts of the Sahara limp into the dark of night. The Sahara is nevermore.

* **
Check out Wolyniski’s pics of the moment Sahara closed its doors.

Support indie writers by buying Pauly’s book Lost Vegas.

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You’re invited Free Block Party at The Venetian and The Palazzo May 4, 12:30 PM

Late night at The Venetian's gondola port, free food, free drink, public invited

Late night at The Venetian' gondola port

No comments

Closing the Sahara

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

The Sahara Casino is closing.

The Sahara represented my parents’ Las Vegas and the innocent simplicity of the sepia-tinted photos of early 1960s: waking up late, eating room service omeletes, lounging by the pool, sipping tikki drinks next to perfectly-coiffed Don and Betty Drapers, eating a surf and turf dinner, consuming more tikki drinks, catching a glamorous show with Louis Prima or Don Rickles, then gambling the night away in the casino playing roulette, craps, or blackjack until the wee hours — only to wake up late the next day and repeat the process. My parents and their generation experienced the original desert Paradise, meanwhile, I got Paradise Lost, or the watered-down, sold-out, corporatized version of Vegas. Ergo, Lost Vegas.

One of the original six casinos in Las Vegas, the oasis known as the Sahara opened its doors in 1952. The owner, former bingo parlor magnate Milton Prell, was chummy with Col. Tom Parker (a.k.a. Elvis’ manager). Elvis supposedly got married in Prell’s suite at the Sahara (although some accounts credited the Aladdin as the location of Elvis’ nuptials).

Sahara’s designer, Del Webb, owned the NY Yankees in the post-War II era (before selling to CBS, who then sold the team to George Steinbrenner). Webb eventually purchased the Sahara from Prell in 1961-62. Webb-Nevada became the first public company to own a major casino. In subsequent decades (1982, 1995) the Sahara traded hands among other big business interests until it landed in the hands of Sam Nazarian and SBE Entertainment Group. At the turn of the century, the casino added a rollercoaster and a NASCAR theme to capitalize on middle America’s fascination with auto racing. A decade or so later, the doors are closing. But for good? Will the fate of the Sahara be the face of things to come in the next few years as more Strip properties close its doors?

A gaming conglomerate could swoop in, renovate the joint, whore out restaurant, bar, and retail shopping space to a bunch of other corporations and then re-open its doors. A hedge fund manager could get bored gambling on Wall Street and on a plutocratical whim, buy an authentic casino instead. Heck, maybe Gahdaffi will finally hand over power to Libyan rebels and relocate in Las Vegas in the top 3 floors of the Sahara? Or maybe a wealthy social media gajillonaire will buy the property, implode the old Sahara, and build a spanking-new casino? But does anyone want to party in a non-hip part of town on the north end of The Strip?

The Sahara in its physical nature will eventually cease to exist, but the once-alluring spirit of the casino will live forever in photographs. I’m glad someone documented the old Vegas. Kudos to those citizen documentarians.

Here are a five photos of the Sahara…

The Sahara
(photo via Vintage Vegas)

Louis Prima rocking the Sahara’s Casbar Lounge in the 1950s
(photo via Vintage Vegas)

Sahara Pool in the 1960s
(photo via Vintage Vegas)

Modern Sahara with Monorail
(photo by Wolynski)

Modern Sahara
(photo by Flipchip)

* * * *
Las Vegas rose up out of the nothingness of the sand. A former Mormon missionary outpost had transformed into a gambling Mecca by gangsters, real estate developers, and bankers. Mecca is actually an inappropriate word to describe Las Vegas because there’s nothing religious about a pilgrimage to modern day Sodom and Gomorrah — the epicenter for the orgy of consumption.

Las Vegas has very few relics of the past. When you visit European cities like London, Paris, and Barcelona, you glimpse many centuries into the past with historic churches, preserved ruins, and other very old buildings that blended in with the modern architecture. However, Las Vegas’ visionaries look to the future by erasing the past. Casinos used to be sanctuaries of brazen fun, but have since become oil wells that suck the Nevada desert dry of wealth. When the owners realized their well reached peak production, they scrambled to find potential buyers — clueless new owners who were blinded by greed instead of realizing the the law of diminishing returns of a casino. Alas, when wells were no longer profitable to operate, they were unceremoniously shut down until the skeletal remains of the casino got imploded on local TV.

Instead of rusty derricks and rigs peppering the barren landscape of Saudi Arabia’s Gahwar region or tumbleweeds-ridden West Texas, the Vegas barons don’t let their old wells sit around for too long. I must admit that the casino/well analogy doesn’t exactly fit in this instance because you can’t re-tap the same well after all the oil has been extracted, but Las Vegas casinos owners have repeatedly rebuilt new, glitzy, modern monstrosities on top of rickety, languishing dinosaurs of yesteryear. And yes, they still rake in the cash.

The Sahara dominated the Las Vegas universe fifty years ago when it had a lot less competition, but that might has well been 500 years ago because lot has changed in the last century, let alone the last decade, yet for better or worse, the Sahara failed to stay ahead of the curve. The desert oasis is on the verge of becoming completely wiped out from Vegas landscape.

From nothing, it was born, and back to nothing it shall return.

* * * *
October 30, 1998.

“Isn’t that adorable?” said the old lady in the hot seat, pointing at a faded pack of four disheveled wooks wandering through the casino in a search of the elevator to their room.

“Yes, they decided to wear their hippie costumes a day early,” agreed her husband.

The old lady flashed a peace sign at the quartet of scraggly troubadours.

“Ma’am, they’re not wearing costumes. Those neo-hippies dress like that all the time,” I said after doubling down on an 11.

“Why would anyone want to look like a homeless person?”

I didn’t want to tell them that the kids were in town to see the same band I was in town to see, so I changed the subject. I played a ton of blackjack that weekend, more than poker, grinding it out at a lowly $1 table waiting for forty fucking excruciating minutes to obtain a piss-warm Corona from one of the surliest cocktail waitress I have ever encountered in Vegas.

I played blackjack with a smattering of friends including an acquaintance from Olympia who detailed how she smuggled hash from Holland into Germany, then sold it to troops on the Air Force base where she worked as a sous chef in the Officers Club. Meanwhile the rest of my extended circle of friends sat in the poker room behind the blackjack tables. I lived in Seattle at the time (six years before I’d even open up a PokerStars account) and a my poker buddies got hooked on hold’em after Rounders was released in theatres that summer. A bunch of us from my home game flew down to Vegas to meet up with another group of friends from New York City for an epic Halloween party weekend bender. We stayed up for two nights straight, gambled on college football at the Mirage, got kicked out of Olympic Gardens, and caught two Phish concerts at Thomas & Mack Arena (highlighted by an entire set on Halloween when they covered Velvet Underground’s Loaded in its entirety).

The Sahara was the main base of operations that Halloween weekend with two rooms for 8 people, which cost us $10 a piece per night. Everyone was scattered between the Casbar Lounge, the poker room, and slumming at the $1 blackjack table. That weekend was a long blur. Trying to record the events as it happened proved to be difficult, let alone trying to rewind the events in my head 12.5 years later. Despite the foggy hallways of my mind, one moment stood out: late night after the Halloween concert when we actually walked from Thomas & Mack Arena back to the Sahara via a pit stop at a bar inside the MGM. Sounds so cliche, but it was Halloween, I was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and tripping balls on The Strip after (accidentally) ingesting several double-dipped hits of blotter. Double the visuals, double the fun. I was a lit monkey for a week.

That trip also marked the best buffet fried chicken I had ever devoured in Las Vegas (or the South for that matter). The chicken was so delicious that I ate it at the buffet twice that weekend. Can’t say I’ve ever eaten it since.

* * * *
When I moved to Las Vegas in 2005, I bunked with Grubby in Henderson. We often drove to the Sahara to play in their nightly 7pm tournament — mainly because the poker room provided free sandwiches to their players during the first break and they let you buy back in if you busted in the first couple of levels. We played a few times a week and Grubby usually made the final table, but I always fucking bubbled the final table. Although I grinded my buy-in back at the soft cash tables, it still used to bother me that I couldn’t break the nagging streak of not making a final table.

The free food was a decent promotion. The food wasn’t anything special — everyone got a piece (or two) of a six-foot deli sandwich. I think the poker room order three or four. A homeless guy showed up exactly at break time every night. He snuck into the back entrance to the poker room and filled up on a couple of sandwiches that he stuffed into a plastic bag before he escaped out the side door.

Winning (or chopping) the Sahara tournament (either the 7pm or the 11pm one) became a badge of honor among my friends — many of whom hold that dubious distinction. Shit, I’m still embarrassed that I couldn’t final table that sucker once, let alone win it outright. The Sahara had my number. I just couldn’t string together any run good in their tournaments.

After a while, the Sahara nightly tournament lost its luster among perpetually grumpy locals and it couldn’t compete when the mid-Strip casinos expanded their poker rooms. Once the Venetian and Caesar’s began their daily tournaments, they locked up the hard-to-please locals and it got increasingly hard for the Sahara’s poker room to keep up. Same goes for the rest of the casino. The NASCAR shtick in a sluggish economy wasn’t profitable enough anymore.

I had not gambled at the impoverished Sahara in several years. I’m pretty sure the last time I played poker at the Sahara — I went busto due to a vicious bad beat, oozed with negativity and was probably thrilled to death to leave that dump. Alas, never had any incentives to go back once I migrated from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. Since then, I spent next to no time hanging out in that demilitarized zone north of the Wynn and south of the Stratosphere, aside from the odd sojourn to Olympic Gardens.

My Sahara poker memories are few but Halloween 98 sticks out as one of my all-time favorite trips to Sin City. Those incriminating stories (many of which occurred inside the Sahara) were trimmed from the final draft of Lost Vegas, but I guarantee those hijinks will be included in the Phish book (as soon as get around to finishing that).

I have one last memory of the Sahara that I want to share. Luckily, the moment was captured forever on film by Hollywood. I’m talking about a scene from Leaving Las Vegas, when Elisabeth Shue’s character did the nefarious “hooker limp” in front of the palatial lobby of the Sahara.

Appropriate tribute.

The ghosts of the Sahara limp into the dark of night. The Sahara is nevermore.

Download PokerStars for 2011 WSOP Satellites. Support indie writers by buying Pauly’s book Lost Vegas.

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