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A Viva Las Vegas blog
Sky_SamT
Member, Administrator, Moderator Posts: 984
Back in March time I was asked to go and work in Las Vegas with our Viva Las Vegas qualifiers along with Dan and Tikay who were going to be out there producing a ton of content for the site and the YouTube channel. Naturally I said yes and was looking forward to getting out there and meeting all the guys and girls that would be travelling with Sky Poker.
Before I travelled though, there was all the administrative stuff to do. Working with Andy Jack who represented Living it Loving it I was contacting the qualifiers and chasing those who weren’t as prompt at getting back as others. Ensuring that 35 people have booked flights, updated passports and confirmed room reservations is not the easiest job in the world. Steven Lundie was our final qualifier with only about a week to go and thankfully he was very quick with all the boring stuff and we were ready to go.
Having been to Las Vegas 3 times previously I knew what to expect with the beaming hot weather and the stark contrast you get with the chill of the air conditioned casinos. I had shorts, trousers, jeans, t shirts, shirts, hoodies and jackets packed and I was ready to go (well at least I thought I was). Before you travel to America you have to ensure that you complete an Esta form. This is basically a way to check that you are fit and proper to travel to the States. An Esta lasts 2 years and having completed one last year I was good to go without paying the $14 for another. I strode up to the check in desk at Manchester airport and gave the lady my passport and awaited my ticket.
“Hi Mr Tyrrell, have you completed your Esta”
“Yes I did it last year so it is still valid”
“And have you changed your passport since then?”
“Yes it is new this year is that”
“You do know that your Esta is only still valid if you have the same passport?”
“No I didn’t know that no”
A frantic 5 minutes ensued whilst I hastily completed another Esta on my phone and returned to the check in desk.
“That’s great Mr Tyrrell that is all okay now. I didn’t want to tell you before but there was a 50/50 chance it wouldn’t be approved in time and you wouldn’t have been able to fly”
That would have gone down well with the bosses.
I boarded the plane and sunk my complimentary welcome drink to try and settle the nerves. I am not the best flyer and in the next 10 hours I had a few more nerve settlers whilst watching American Sniper and about 10 episodes of Friends and Entourage that I had already seen several times. We touched down in McCaran airport with the strip in all its glory away to my left. I was itching to get off the plane and get stuck in. However US immigration whilst not being the friendliest place in the world is equally not the speediest. It is not uncommon to be waiting 2 or 3 hours to officially enter the state of Nevada but my luck was in this time. I was summoned straight forward to present my finger prints along with my passport and within a couple of minutes I was picking my bag up and in a taxi to the Palazzo.
I got a standard Vegas taxi driver who was all about selling Vegas to me. When he learnt that I was here to work he was rather shocked and the sales pitch for gun ranges, go karting arenas and strip clubs subsided. I was dropped at the Palazzo and greeted by the friendliest staff in the world. I knew from previous trips that the service anywhere in Vegas is generally exceptional but the guys on the Palazzo were on a whole new level. They even had a guy whose job it was to take your surname and walk you the 3 yards to the check in desk to prevent you to the lady who would allocate your room. I was given a room on the 40th floor overlooking the Wynn hotel and its breath-taking golf course. The room itself was very impressive, the bed was the size of a small house and why wouldn’t there be a TV in the bathroom?
The rest of the day was spent trying to keep my eyes open as long as possible whilst familiarising myself with the surroundings. I took a trip to Planet Hollywood and hopped in an $80 turbo tournament. I bluffed all of my chips off in the third level to a lovely Spanish lady and declined the $80 rebuy for 20 Big blinds. I visited New York New York and had a drink with an old friend who was in there before taking in the Aria and railing a $100/ $200 cash game that both Sam Trickett and Dan Colman were playing in.
I had eventually been awake 32 hours when I went to bed. Typically my body clock allowed me a grand total of 4 hours sleep before I was bolt awake once more. I had a 7 o clock breakfast date with Tikay who was taking Neil, Dan and I up in to the mountains to his Las Vegas hidden gem. More to come on that next time along with my account on meeting and greeting the Sky Poker qualifiers as well as tales of wedding chapels, hypnosis, deep runs in the wsop, not so deep runs in the wsop and working with Tikay and Neil every day!
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Day 2 and I was in the entrance hall of the Rio at 7am as instructed for our trip to Mt Charleston. 7 am in Vegas is a strange time. It is just about the quietest time on the roads and it also seems to be the crossover between the night time gamblers and the morning chancers. After a few awkward minutes loitering about in the lobby I was greeted by Dan, Tikay and Neil and we were on our way. Upon arrival at the lodge where we would be having breakfast I could not believe the difference in the temperature between Vegas and the mountains. We had travelled by car for about half an hour and stepped out into actual fresh air and a temperature that was about 30 degrees cooler than when we had set off. For those of you haven’t been to Vegas during the month of June it is hot. Imagine walking around an oven and occasionally blowing a hot hair dryer in your face. Okay, this may be a slight exaggeration but trust me it is HOT!
Breakfast itself was a delight. They do breakfast a little differently in the States and I quickly learnt that if I was to have breakfast I could forget about eating lunch that day. My heaped plate was accompanied by a side plate because they had actually run out of room. Tikay, Dan, Neil and I discussed the plans for video content that would be produced whilst we were in Vegas and we also discussed the plans for the welcome party that night. After Breakfast and a spot of filming we set off back to the strip and to the Rio where Neil would be playing in the $1,500 NL Holdem event that day.
I returned to the Palazzo and met with Andy Jack who represents Living it Loving it. They are the third party who had supported us with the organisation of the trip and would be helping with the hospitality whilst we were there. For the welcome party that night we had a fantastic hospitality suite stocked with plenty of food and more importantly it seems drink. The players started arriving and the drinks started disappearing. My role was to welcome the players, introduce myself and advise of the plan for the week. There were a lot of tired bodies who had done a lot of travelling that day but it seemed that a good night was had by all. We had hired a lady called Christie to help us serve the food and drink throughout the night. At the end of the night she could not believe how much drink the players and guests had got through.
“Oh my God, I can’t believe how much you Brits drink”. She would get used to it by the end of the week.
Tikay and Dan produced a video at the session and you can watch it here. Put some faces to names and there is even a cameo appearance from me at the end.
A few of the guys and girls headed out after the welcome session, I politely declined the offer of a limo to the nightclub and went to bed in preparation for our Las Vegas tour the next day.
Meet at the fountain in the lobby at 1pm was the instruction given to 35 players and guests. It wasn’t a compulsory trip but the turnout was fantastic. Even William Kerr, James Jeffery and Ben Nuttall had made it out of bed in time, although I imagine they were suffering a little bit. After a minor blip with the transport and a couple of laps of the Palazzo we all boarded the coach and we were on our way.
First port or call the Rio and the World Series of Poker. We took the players in to sign up for their Total Rewards Card. This is a card that you need to have if you want to register for any World Series event. We then sent them into the registration centre where they would hand over $1,111 in return for a piece of card which would tell them where they were going to be sat the next day. I was making a note of the seat that each player would be in. I think that the WSOP had purposely spread them out all over the Rio to ensure Tikay and I would have a lot of walking to do in the coming days.
Once everybody had their seat for the next day it was back on the bus and we began our tour of Las Vegas. For the tour we were hosted by a Brazilian lady named Alexandra. Alex was brilliant, obviously English isn’t her native tongue and she admitted that she was nervous as she usually did such tours in Portugese. We firstly visited the Las Vegas sign “Welcome to fabulous Las Vegas Nevada” This is the sign that welcomes visitors as they drive in from the South of the city. We hopped out took some pictures of each other posing underneath it and we were back on our way.
Our next stop was one of the many wedding chapels dotted around Las Vegas. This visit was a planned one and the reason behind this was because we had a couple amongst us who were to be tying the knot later in the week. Bob Cakans had won his seat in a freeroll and to celebrate this had brought along his daughter and her fiancé. Vicky and Robbie hadn’t picked their venue so I thought we would stop off and visit a chapel along the way to give them some inspiration.
Back on the bus and we were off to the Luxor. A quite remarkable hotel inspired by the Egyptian pyramids, the casino floor in the Luxor is the biggest in Vegas and according to Alex can hold 6 Boeing 747’s side by side. There were none there much to everybody’s relief. We next visited the world famous Bellagio. The conservatory and botanical gardens in the Bellagio are a must visit for any Las Vegas tourist and of course the fountains outside the front of the hotel are perhaps the most famous attraction in Vegas. We watched the fountains dance to the tune of Nessun Dorma before we boarded the bus once more and headed to Freemont Street.
Downtown Freemont Street is the old part of Vegas and has some true old school Vegas character. For some reason it appeared to be the most popular part of the visit. Whether it was because of the Freemont Street experience and the light show or because of the free bar that I put on in the Golden Nugget I am not sure. The tour came to an end and it was back on the bus to the Palazzo. Even though I had been to Vegas three times previously I had a fantastic time taking in the attractions and I think the same can be said for the others on the trip.
Rest assured there won’t be such a long update for every single day of the trip but I still have plenty of stories left to come. Until next time.
"“Hi Mr Tyrrell, have you completed your Esta”
“Yes I did it last year so it is still valid”
“And have you changed your passport since then?”
“Yes it is new this year is that”
“You do know that your Esta is only still valid if you have the same passport?”
“No I didn’t know that no”
A frantic 5 minutes ensued whilst I hastily completed another Esta on my phone and returned to the check in desk.
“That’s great Mr Tyrrell that is all okay now. I didn’t want to tell you before but there was a 50/50 chance it wouldn’t be approved in time and you wouldn’t have been able to fly”"
Luv that, last time I flew to US (April), I was not asked that question by the airline, and yes I had renewed my passport but not updated ESTA.
Upon arrival in Chicago, I was pulled aside and sent to CPB offices. After a while, I was given the news of my error, but allowed to enter. I now have a "paroled" stamp in my passport.
I have not forgotten about this recap, I have just been very busy and not found the necessary half an hour required to update. But here goes.
We left it after the second day of the trip, I had done some moonlighting as a Las Vegas tour guide and had left it with the qualifiers and I having a few drinks in the Golden Nugget. If I remember correctly there were a few hands of blackjack played that night and some spins of the Roulette wheel but there are better stories of that to come. Plus I don’t want the bosses thinking I just spent the week punting away on the tables!
Day 3 was game day, The little one for one drop. $1,111 to play cards in one of the most famous tournaments in world poker with some of the biggest names in world poker. There were 2 flights that day. The first was for the early birds, a 10am start which meant a meet at 9am in the Palazzo. There were some markedly fresher faces that morning than there had been the previous morning and this time the coach was on time and we were away to the Rio. After telling the guys umpteen times the day before that they would need to bring with them their player card, seat draw and ID I knew we would have no problems upon arrival at the Rio and absolutely everybody would be well prepped. Paul Jackson taps me on the shoulder
“Sam do we need our passport”
“Yes Paul”
“Oh dear”
Paul swiftly departs to the taxi rank to return to the Palazzo to pick up his passport. I later read on his blog that he tried to pin this on me for not telling him. I laughed and moved on.
Neil Channing met us to give the guys a pep talk and Tikay was there too to take the pictures. Tikay had done well to get past the Las Vegas fashion police that morning in some vibrant turquoise shorts and horrific pink socks. I assured the guys that he was old and if he thought it looked good we had to support that.
Shuffle up and deal was called and the cards were in the air. We had 22 guys playing the first flight and they were literally in every corner of the Rio. Brasilia, Pavillion and Amazon were all in use and for the next 4 hours Tikay and I were dashing round checking on our guys in order to update the forum with real time stories and chip counts. Special thanks to Liamboi who saved me from having to visit the blue section of the Brasilia room from the end of the second level due to the fact he ran out of chips.
Aside from Liamboi (and Neil) it was full steam ahead and our guys were amassing chips quietly. I left Tikay to look after them and headed to the Palazzo to pick up our flight B players who began at 4. As expected they all had their passports with them and the cards were in the air at 4pm. The days at the WSOP are long and gruelling for the players 10 1 hour levels with breaks included meant if you made the end of your first day you had been in the Rio at least 12 hours.
We made the end of Day 1 A with 3 Sky Poker qualifiers still going strong; Tim Rowland had bagged up a well above average 67k and he was joined in day 2 by David Maudlin and Lee Rogers. I can imagine that these guys were exhausted and let me tell you I was too. I had racked up 30,000 steps all over the Rio and was ready for bed. Tikay mentioned something about the young ones having no stamina just as he returned from his 3 hour nap/ gym session!
I headed back to the Palazzo and left the Day 1B guys at it. They would be there until gone 4am and I needed my beauty sleep. 7 of our guys made it through 1B which meant we would be returning for day 2 with a total of 10 qualifiers when we would head full steam into the money.
A quite remarkable story transpired the next morning around Simon Cameron who was showing as having 43k on the overnight chip counts but we will pick this up next time.
Tikay had done well to get past the Las Vegas fashion police that morning in some vibrant turquoise shorts and horrific pink socks. I assured the guys that he was old and if he thought it looked good we had to support that.
That's outrageous. I thought I looked pretty crucial, to be honest.
I never saw him in the gym, either.
Loving the blog Sam. I've been feeling not too enthusiastic about writing my blog. Pretty painful trip poker-wise. You have been nudging me into it.