The Monkey has Landed

Its the most amazing thing when you cross the Hoover Dam...then come up over the hill....at night time. You see the lights of Vegas...and its just incredible. You feel a certain sense of electricity run through you. I think its got to be the same feeling that people have when they fly in for the first time...seeing the manificent lights of the strip. They come excited, pumped, ready for the action.

It contrasts so often with the mood they are in when they leave. 8 times out of 10 people leave Vegas having lost their ass. Its what would make it a weird place to live. A lot of manic/depressive tendancies flying around this place. You can literally stand out by the front of the casino at 11/12 (checkout/checkin time) and guage people's moods. The happy excited, vs. the bummed out/broke/dejected. Would make it a hard place to live.

But for a poker player...like me, who knows all the ins and outs, the pitfalls, the highlights...where to go, what to avoid...what is here opportunity-wise, there is nothing to feel other than an anticipatory glee. We are all chasing certain things in poker. Mine are well defined. And I am ready to start the mission.

It was a pretty smooth road trip. I added a feature to my Facebook, based on, or inspired by my total disdain and irritation with Phil Hellmuth and all his name-dropping, impress us all with his VIP lifestyle status updates. I decided to "Be Phil for a Week" and leave updates on there throughout my road trip. If you happened to read any of them...they were all, of course, bullshit. Just me "Being Phil" for the trip out.

I left Biloxi at 3:30pm Tuesday. Arrived in Houston at 8pm. Visited a local housegame there that my friend ReVa Alexander was dealing. Bunch of good guy, some of whom I knew. Got down 300 when I got coolered twice. But I bought back in for $200 more, ran that up to $550...and after throwing maybe my biggest bluff of the year, called it quits and got back on the road at 2am.

I would never stop. Drove straight to Vegas. Met Allie Prescott and Esther Taylor and some other guys over at South Lake Casino, South Point? Whatever...they were bowling. Not me! No No..bad knee still. Waited them out....and came back to Allie's house to spend the night. Boy did it feel GREAT to finally sleep! Keith Ezykowich flew in this morning...so now our suite at the Rio is ready. I need to shoot over there after I do this and get unloaded...check out our digs for the next couple of weeks.

Then its off to Venetian to play the $225 Mega Satellite to kick off that event. We are playing for $2000 in tournament buy in chips. It would be a great way to kick off the trip, taking that down...and maybe another one on the late Mega. If I win one or two of those, I am taking the day off tomorrow, to get settled in, rested up, and spend some time sunning myself at the pool. Then on Saturday its the huge $1000 WSOP event that should have a HUGE turnout. (Should? No! It WILL!) I'm excited as hell to play that!

Today is my backers birthday...HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOSS!!!!! Lets hope I deliver you a gift today!

Got a speeding ticket in Phoenix. Or did I? Nope! The Silver Tongued Monkey and my Sheriff's Association Membership Card saved me from another one! Plus the cop was just really a cool dude. Shout out to PHOENIX PD!!!!

Oil is spiking! Monkey loves money sitting on his butt! Now, just one big hurricane in the gulf and I should be able to sell sell sell!!!! Not crazy about what its doing to gas prices, but I will take it!

Appreciate all the great emails and Facebook shout outs! Looked at the site meter this morning! WOW! On my page alone I have had over 2400 hits this month...which is a record, well except for that month when all the 2+2 crap with J.Little went down, not sure that month could EVER be topped...it was around 8000 hits that month! But I am up over 1000 from last month! So I guess some of you are actually reading this crap! But again...to those wishing me good luck and all this summer...THANKS! It means a lot.

Before I conclude this entry...I would like to BASH CEASERS. Hold on, let me call them first before I write this...just in case they changed something. Okay...just called. YEP. STILL SUCKS! First of all, when they told me last spring they were 'thinkin about doing their own event' I was like, "Well, I hope to God you don't run them at noon! That would be stupid! Not only competing against your own property (Rio) but diluting the field by cutting the numbers down at Venetian, and thus...here too." But did they listen? Hell no. So what happened? Instead of the fields of 600-750 that we had at the Venetian Deepstacks in 2007, last years fields saw only 450-600. A huge drop. And Ceasers' numbers were about the same. Stupid idiots!

If they had staggered their start time...made it 3pm...then they would stand to increase their numbers by about 35%...which would also increase Venetians by about 25%. For them to run at noon is just assinine. Think about it. There are only SO many poker players around, and only SO much money to be spent. You go play a tourney at noon at either Rio or Venetian. Things end badly at 1:30. You have options. Play the daily at Bellagio at 2? Or go play the Mega Stacks at Ceasers at 3? See what I am driving at? Instead they just cut the options in half. Thus reducing the total take for ALL the casinos. Just absolutely retarded. But they don't get it.

Then there are the structures...which are total SHIT! Today's event, for instance....is a $1000 buy in. Okay great you get 20,000 starting chips. Sounds like a lot right? Well, the levels are 50 minutes...which is also nice. Here is where the disaster ensues. Blinds START at 50/100. At the conclusion of that level, the GREEN CHIPS ($25) come OUT OF PLAY! Blinds go to 100/200...200/400!!!!...300/600....400/800...then, ya ready...??? 600/1200 with 100 ante! So, NO ANTES for the first FIVE levels...then BOOM! You go from 1200 a round in Level 5 to 2800 a round in Level 6. Levels 2 through 4 are a joke. Risking a raise of double the pot every time. They claimed their reason for taking out the antes from early rounds was that it speeds up the game for the dealers. Morons. What it does is SLOW DOWN the whole tournament...because its 3 levels of HIGH RISK/NO REWARD poker...so people a LOT fewer hands...they just sit around and get blinded down. So when Level 5 arrives, with antes...you have a LOT of people sitting around average...which then means...a couple of big raises gone bad...and your stack is fucked!

Plus when they take the greens out of play, it reduces your game strategy tremendously. Good players like to make action raises, not afraid to get callers...welcoming play after the flop. The donkeys, of course, probably LOVE this structure...becausee they are TERRIFIED to play flops...so when they are at 200/400 and are raising 2400 with JJ...they are pleased as punch to take down 600 chips. Good players...who are about stack average...might like to raise there to say, 1050. Get a loose call from a lot of mediocre hands...and then either outflop them or outplay them postflop...but increasing the pot size. Ceasers taking all the green chips out of play totally KILLS that option.

SO FOR THOSE THINKING OF PLAYING THE CEASERS EVENTS....I SAY THIS.....DONT WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY! If I had thought about it, I would have lobbied for a time change and a structure change for a month or so...and when they refused, got a petition drive together and presented it to them. I would love to see NO ONE show up for that piece of crap event...so they might FIGURE OUT just how shittty it is. Meanwhile, I have HEARD that Venetian has fixed a couple of the holes (in my opinion) that they had in their structures from previous events. I hope so...and hope they are the ones I was thinking about...because if it is..then the Venetian event could just about be perfect, like New Orleans was. What a great event that was! I felt a lot of pride over that event, as I worked very hard with them to get those structures in place. Everyone loved it. Maybe, just maybe...these tournament directors are FINALLY starting to listen to us!

When will Ceasers figure it out??? Who knows. Doubt you will see me over there much this summer, if anything...to play their 11pm 'Monkeys Midnight Drunk Fest.' But not too much. I am going to keep a pretty strict regimen this summer...getting sleep, not drinking TOO much, being fresh for the noon tourneys.

Alright...time to get rolling...its 11:41am now, which means I will now DEFINITELY be late for the Mega....no biggie. Thats how I roll!!!!

MONKEY