DAY ONE ends on a very POSITIVE note!

Well, alrighty then!

I finally got outa Allie's house and picked up Keith and Eddie Pullins at the Rio at 12:28. Called Venetian and found out we only had until 12:30 to get in. OH SHIT. So I get the poker room manager to hold all three of us seats.

We get there, and I draw (coincidence?) their new 'feature table' which will be used for all Final Tables, elevated table on a small stage, pretty sweet. I get seat 5. Perfect. Early, a guy had just lost a big hand...and on the very next hand, at cutoff, he just shoves all in. Steam shove? I am in the SB with KQ suited. Hmmmm...I have 3800. Its 1725 to call. Gamble? Try to get up to over 5k? Seems like a good time to make a loose call, so I do. He has AK. Ugh. Don't improve. Now I am shortstacked.

No big deal...pick up a few hands and make a few plays...and in an hour I run that up to 9000. Then the wheels fall off. In two hands! I'm in the BB. Blinds are 200/400. Cutoff goes into this long pause....he has 3200 chips. Cant decide whether to raise or go all in. Finally goes all in. I look down at freaking QQ. I call. He turns over AA. Jeezuz. I don't improve. Takes a big chunk out of me. On the NEXT hand, in the SB....I look at AQh. Guy raises from cutoff (again, VERY aggressive player) to which I re-raise all in. Well, then the BB insta shoves. WTF>? Cutoff folds fast, like I KNEW he would. And ta-da! BB shows AA! Run into AA back to back. Awesome! And I am OUT of the 12pm Mega.

I sit in to a $80 SNG. Or should I say...Donk-N-Go. I would love to know where some of these people find the money to play poker. Dead relatives? Armored Truck fell over somewhere? Money tree in the back yard? You can't believe how many bad players I watched stack off to other players holding top pair only. I was on the recieving end of it three times myself. I raise UTG with KK in one. Guy calls in LP. Flop comes J93. Two hearts. I bet out 2/3rd of the pot. He raises me. Hmmm...I look at the board. "Sir, you either have AJ or KQhearts I suspect. Well, good luck, I will put you all in." What does he turn over? AJ. No hearts. Doesnt get lucky. Leaves.

Another hand...kind of funny because I will GIVE these clowns SO much info its stupid. TK Miles always teases me...saying to me "Hey Monkey, how's it going man? Still telling everyone what you have?" So this guy raises, two callers, I have 44...of course I'm getting in there. I tell the dealer I need him to flop me quads probably! He flops K-4-9, rainbow. First raiser bets out 500. Fold, fold, I just call. No one else calls. Turn is a J. Kind of concerning. Not too bad. He bets 1500. Now I raise it to...hmmm how much does he have in his stack behind? 3800. I raise to 3600. Requiring him to cough up another 2100...which should basically pot commit him. Good prediction. He goes all in. Turns over KQ. NO TEN DEALER! Nope. 3. He leaves. SO BAD. If he has been listening to me, it would have been pretty easy for him to figure out that I flopped a set. But they never listen, the bad ones.

Anyway, this SNG....I win the first couple hands. Then lose one. People are making horrendous preflop raises...then of course checking it to the river waiting on an A to hit. At 25/50 we get a 250 raiser. Then a call. Thats when my phone rings, its Squirrel. I look at my hand early...its AA. Oh! Hi there aces. Pretend to be talking to my phone whiles its still ringing..."Hey Sweetie, I would answer but I can't because I have a really big hand and I am about to re-raise this guy....so I will have to call you back...." as it continues to ring. Saying that....the next two clowns CALL the 250 anyway. It gets to me...and with almost 1000 in the pot...I raise it to 1000. I get called by the original raiser AND one of the other two. Wow. The flop comes K-9-3. First guy goes all in. Second guy calls. Whatever...I'm not folding there...not in a freaking $80 donkfest. The first guy (genius #1) has KQ. Offsuit. Brilliant. The second guy (genius #2) has 33. Hmmm...33 for 250, then 1000? Great play sir. But you win. See ya. Great start to the trip.

I decide right then and there to LEAVE....go unpack all my stuff into the suite at the Rio. Then come back and play the 4pm Mega. I get to Rio...get all my stuff outa the car...get upstairs...and WOW! What a killer room. 1600 sq ft. Amazing view of the city. Just a gorgeous room. Get all settled in, then back in time for the 4pm.

It was one of those megas where everything just went right. My reads were all SPOT ON. My good hands held up. I caught a couple donkeys SHOVING into my BB and waking up with 10-10 and AKc two times to felt them. The OPEN SHOVE for a ridicuously low pot seems to be the 'big play' out here so far. Guy shoved 12k into a 300 chip pot holding K5! I called his ass (holding 25k) with AKc. The dealer flops a 5. Turns him a flush draw...come ON! Ace of hearts on the river! Nice. See ya donkey! 5 people won $2300. 6th got $1100. We got to 6 at around 8:45pm...which sucked because it meant I couldn't play the 8pm mega (closed at 8:30) and try for a 2nd Mega win on the day. At 6 players we all decided to come off of $200 each so 6th could also win more...so we all won $2100. Which brought my first day total to a +1500 day. Not a bad way to start.

I found out that the $1k at Rio is Sat/Sun, not FRI/SAT...so my plans changed a bit. Instead of taking Friday off, and hitting the pool, which now...clearly would have been a bad idea, since I am looking out there and seeing overcast skies (which is one of the RAREST sites in Vegas you will ever see!) I instead decided to play the first Deepstack event, a $340, that they are expecting about 700+ players for...hopefully making the Final Table, on Saturday at 4pm....if not, take Saturday off...then play the $1k on SUNDAY at Rio. So I registered for both, drawing seat freaking 10 for the Venetian. Makes me so irritated when I sign up early and STILL get seat 10. Then walked (the MARCH of the PENGUINS man...the Trail of Tears!) from the hotel room all the freaking way to registration and signed into the $1k on Sunday. Got a better seat for that one. Did a lap of the tourney room, said hi to everyone. Saw Chris Moneymaker playing cash game....after JUST finishing for the night in the 40k..and him sitting 2nd in chips. We have gotten pretty chummy the last couple of years. Talked to him for awhile. He seemed to be in pretty good spirits. Saw my buddy Frank Kassella, who is from Memphis and got ZERO mention on the front page of notables still in the 40K....he is sitting on about 320k. Saw and talked to Adam 'Roothlus' Levy, Alex Jacobs, found Allie and E-tay at the 'SHUTTERS' bar...hung out with them for a little while...then finally went to the room to get some much needed sleep.

It's kind of a trip getting out here and seeing all the guys we all see on TV all the time. And then of course...all the EUROs everywhere. Its what makes you really realize where you are. And how serious these next 5 weeks are. I am not enamoured with any of these people, dont take that the wrong way. I am not one of those guys who thinks that knowing any of them means I am anything special. Cuz I am not. I just welcome the opportunity to get into the ring with these "PROS" and deliver my own special brand of Monkey Beatdown on some of them, and gain some respect in the poker world.

Had a very interesting conversation yesterday with a guy who knows almost everyone in Vegas, and knows all the behind the scenes shit. I won't mention his name. He was at one of my Mega tables, in fact, he would get whacked with KK against AQ only about two from the money. Asked me later if he should have folded to the lady (who I would later bust ONE from the money) when she SHOVED into his BB. HELL NO! I said. What is shoving with? Not AA! If you KNOW you are ahead...and you are below the average...you HAVE to make that call. No, you did the right thing. You just got unlucky. Welcome to MY world!

So anyway, we got to talking about Ceasers, and their hairbrained efforts at running their stupid Mega Stacks tourney. He agreed, as 99% of the players I have talked to have, with my viewpoints on it. Then he tells me something really eye-opening. Tim Mix...who is the pokerroom manager at the Venetian...literally went OVER THERE a few months ago and met with Jim Padula...who is their head poker room guy. About a year ago, he eliminated the Poker Tourney Director and just assumed the role himself. Good lord. So Tim goes over there with the hopes of working out a deal that will benefit everyone. The players, the casinos...everyone. Tries to get them to change their start time for the event. Padula completely shuns him. Clever. Real clever. Later in the day...Tim and one of his floor guys walks by my table and sees me using the Ceasers Palace card marker that I use for protecting my hand and for those 'coin flips' when I can't decide whether to call or fold. (it was 2--0 for me yesterday!). He immediately gets offended...picks it up and gives me a dirty look. "Hey Tim...I saw your guys' new ones...very nice! Get me one and I promise you will never see the Ceasers one as long as I'm playing here again." 5 minutes later he brought me one, and the Ceasers coin went right into my bag.

So...Venetian made the attempt...and Ceasers basically told them to get lost. How does that make you players feel? Should piss you off. And what is this guy Padulas deal? I kind of think I know. I think it goes a little something like this. Someone sits OVER the poker room, someone like the Marketing Dept. I get the feeling that Jim Padula has an incentive clause that sees him earn a bonus if they compete with Venetian on a competitive basis. He has to probably hit certain numbers in comparison to Venetian's to earn a bonus. So...if Ceasers were to do the smart thing (using common sense and logic here, an very under-appreciated skill these days) and start their tourneys at 3pm, like I keep suggesting....there would no longer be a COMPETING entity. Thus rendering his chance to make a bonus useless. So I get the feeling, this is being masterminded for one reason and one reason alone...the betterment of ONE PERSON. That or just Ceasers having too big of an ego to do whats best for poker.

AGAIN...I would ASK ALL OF YOU...STAY AWAY FROM CEASERS MEGA STACKS! Until they pull their heads out of their asses...and start doing what is right for the players...and putting a decent damn structure together...make them feel it. Skip it!

And as I mentioned yesterday...Venetian HAS fixed those holes that were present last year. Granted, they did remove the 25/50 opening round...which kind of sucks...but not that big of a deal. Because they have added a LOT of other good levels in. Its a great tournament, and I hope they get big numbers for all of their events. They have a great room, good dealers, great food service, they offer food comps with every tourney registration, the cocktail waitresses finally switched uniforms, to the ones being worn by the Palazzo waitresses, skirts 1.5 inches shorter than the old ones...so they are AWFULLY nice to look at. Try finding a decent looking cocktail waitress at Ceasers. HA!

Well, I pretty much expect now to be shot on sight if I try to walk into Ceasers. Whatever. I don't care. They give us a bad product, I will talk shit about it to anyone and everyone who will listen. At least their big brother, Harrah's is figuring it out. The N.O. tourney kicked ass, and the WSOP events all are going to be 5x better this year than last year...so I am starting to think there is a lot of seperation now between the two properties.

I guess that pretty much wraps up todays entry. In fact...wow, its 11:20am now...I have just about half an hour to get showered and over to the Venetian for todays big $340. Hope to see a big field and hopefully some of my readers! If I should happen to chip up big early I will slap a blog update on here from my cell phone!

MONKEY