It is Wed morning and we are heading home in a few hours. Just got back from a swim in the pool on another beautiful sunny day in Vegas. Despite my difficult bust out in Day 2A yesterday, the rest of the day was fun. We headed to the strip for some fun and gambling and won some money! I played 3 card poker at Caesars and won about $125 and Rose did some shopping at the Forum shops. Then we had dinner at Caesars, and headed down to Carnival Court (the outside party place at Harrahs) and both of us played Blackjack together for a LONG time and had fun, listened to the band and came out a small winner together. Then we went inside of Harrahs and I played more 3 card poker while Rose hit the slots.

I hit a straight flush for a 40:1 bonus, plus my 3 bets for a total of $470 in one hand and about 5 minutes later, Rose calls me and tells me she is right behind me on a slot and just hit it for $1,000!!!. I then went to the craps table and picked up another $50 and she hit more slots. We played some more blackjack and slots and held our own to retain all the winnings, so a nice night in the end for Team Kraker...

We picked up some nice signs at Margaritaville for the pool house as well and caught more of a really good band. We are headed over to the Rio now for a last minute WSOP fix and to hit the WSOP store one more time and then time to head to the airport.

While I would have liked to have gone deeper in the Main event, this was a dream trip for me and I loved every minute of it. I really enjoyed blogging and all your feedback, and look forward to returning with more pictures, videos and stories. As for my poker career, after WPT Bootcamp, and now the World Series of Poker, this is just the beginning!!!

See you back in Rexford,

Larry and Rose

Well, I guess it wasn't meant to be... I ran into a "cooler" as they say on the last hand before our break and was eliminated. I really felt like I played well today, especially with Brandon at the table playing table captain with his huge stack and raising or re-raising constantly. I got into several confrontations with him and won a few, one by shoving on him, and he won several from me, one by shoving on me (this one got written up on the world series website on the live updates). We had a lot of media coverage at the table which was fun.

Before I get to the final hand, I'll start from the beginning. When I sat down and handed by card to the dealer, he says "You're from Rexford, you gotta be kidding me". He grew up off of Exit 8. Can't remember his name, but didn't recognize it. I think he lived on Appletree Lane??? Anyways, I figure.. Ok, good Mojo right. Right, 2nd hand, he deals me Pocket Aces. I raise, get a caller. Flop comes K83, perfect flop. I bet, he calls. Turn is a blank, I bet again, he folds. Immediately up to around 27k. A bit later (new dealer), I get Aces again. I raise but nobody calls and I steal the blinds and antes (1,200). Damn. I lose a pot and am down to about 25k when the big hand with Brandon that appeared in the updates came up. Brandon raises to 1800, and I look down at pocket Tens in the cutoff. There are 4 left to act behind me and I don't want to giv e them a spot to try a squeeze play by just calling, so I re-raise Brandon to 3,800. Folds to Brandon who quickly announces all -in. I have 21k left. My first reaction was to call since I thought he likely had AK. But then I thought why did he shove? He hadn't shoved yet and my gut suspected there was a chance by overbetting the pot he was trying to make it look like AK when he really had an overpair like QQ,KK or AA. I thought for a bit and decided to fold. At best I'm racing against AK and at worst I'm screwed against an overpair. If you go to the worldseries of poker website and click "All Updates" and go to the 2nd to the last page (e.g., If there are 8 pages, it would be on page 7) there will be a heading "Easy Peasy" which has the writeup of that hand between Brandon and I.

Next orbit, I get Pocket Queens. I raise to 1,800 and Brandon calls from the big blind. Flop comes Jack high, Brandon bets, I shove, he folds. Next orbit, I get pocket Kings, raise and get one caller. Flop comes J,9,5 with 2 diamonds. He bets, I raise, he folds. Up to about 27k. Try to steal Brandon's blind with raise to 1,800, Brandon reraises to 4,500 and I fold. I am down to 30k. I go up and down like a yo you from here up to 30, down to 20, up to 27 down to 22, etc for the next 2 hours. I was very active at the table and liked my play thus far. The last hand before break, I have about 20k to start the hand. I look down at AJ of diamonds in middle position and raise to 1,800. A guy behind me calls everyone else folds. Heads Up. Flop comes J42 with 2 clubs. Great flop. With the blinds and antes, there is 4,800 in the pot, so I bet 4,200 and he calls. Hmm... He had been paying to draw to flushes all day (hit 2 of them), so I put him on either a draw, or a medium pocket pair between 4's and J's (e.g., 8's, 9's). Turn is an off suit 6. There is over 13k in the pot and I have about 14 left, and I cannot fold top pair top kicker here, so I shove and he insta-calls and rolls over 22 for a set. I need the miracle Jack on the river, but no go.

So sick. I wish I had to change my flight again, but I don't. I am heading home with Rose tomorrow after 13 days in fantasy land. I had so much fun it is hard to explain, I just wish it didn't end today. I cannot thank everyone enough for all the support and well wishes. It made a HUGE difference, it really did.

Below are 2 pictures that Rose took of me at the table today. Brandon is in Seat 5 across from the dealer (leaning back in the first picture).

Here is another one with the Pokernews live update team next to me getting chip counts... Looks like I'm "firing at the pot"...

I have even more pictures and videos to show when I return, and of course a ton more stories that didn't fit in the blog. It was a helluva ride... Hopefully I can win another seat next year!

Thanks again,

Larry

It is Tuesday morning and I am ready for Day 2 in a few hours. After 4 days off, I am ready to play. I have to keep this short as it is getting late (slept in a bit), and don't have many pics since it was a day off from the WSOP on Monday.

Yesterday was a fun day, and nice and relaxing. Rose and I headed down to the pool and had lunch poolside (pic below) then went swimming and hung out by the pool all afternoon (in the shade of course!). Here is her and I at the pool bar having lunch.

After hanging by the pool, we came up to get ready for the party, and while Rose got ready, I played blackjack (couldn't get on the poker table, too long a wait list) for about an hour and won $150 (first $$ I have won since the Caesars tourney over a week ago). Then we got ready for the party, had dinner and headed down to the Rain nightclub. There was a LONG line to get in, but in the end it was worth it. Now we know what it is like partying like a rock star at a VIP type party in Vegas. There were about 1500- 2000 people there including all the Pokerstars team pros. Joe Hachem played MC for part of it, and there was music, dancing, go go girls dancing in cages, hanging from the ceiling, girls everywhere. They really treated us like VIPs in every way. Here is a pic of Rose and I on the Pokerstars red carpet!

They had a number of acrobats performing different acts from the ceiling, and also had Dita Von Teese doing a few high end burlesque shows up on stage. Unfortunately since there was the burlesque show, cameras were not allowed in the party (only media), which sort of sucked. It was a star studded affair (poker anyways), and a lot of fun. There we were in the middle of the dance floor, dancing up a storm, shoulder to shoulder with Daniel Negreneu, Ali Nejad, Amanda Leatherman, Hevad Kahn and countless others also dancing up a storm right around us.

Also, I hooked up with the Pokerstars.tv crew who filmed my first interview and he grabbed me and said let's do another interview right now. It was a bit rushed as we had only been at the party for about 10 minutes, so we ran out to the red carpet and we did a brief interview on my thoughts on the party and upcoming Day 2. As I said it felt a bit rushed and I'm not sure if it came out as well as the first interview (plus he was REALLY close to me with the camera this time), so look for that on Pokerstars.tv later today...

Anyways, we had a great day relaxing by the pool followed up with a great party at Rain where we certainly felt like VIPs and partied like rock stars.

It is now time to go and try to build my stack on Day 2A. I will be texting Mike (er, Jack) with chip counts throughout the day so look from email blasts from him on my progress, and I will write a blog when I get back to my room which hopefully won't be until about 1:30 am again at the end of Day 2A.

I am really hungry for this now as I am NOT READY TO GO HOME. So wish me luck, and hopefully tonights blog reads "Day 3 here I come"...

Larry

It is Monday morning, and all four flights of Day 1 are now complete. Today is an off day for everyone. There were a total of 6844 players in the main event, but only 3663 advanced to Day 2, so nearly half the field is gone. Let's take a bit of a roll call shall we... Negreneau out, Ivey out, Annie Duke out, Phil Laak out, Chris Ferguson out, Grinder out, Lenny Kraker IN. LOL. They will pay 666 players (the room booed when they announced that particular number, why not 665 or 667?). First place will pay over $9.1 million, and if you make the money you will get $21,000 and change.

Of course the big news was that Rose arrived yesterday and we had a great day. Her flight was actually a half hour early (more good mojo right?), luckily I checked on-line and saw that so I had to hustle to the airport to pick her up. We were both hungry, so first we headed over to the Rio for a late lunch (dinner for her), then I gave her the grand tour of the entire WSOP, including the Gaming Expo where we scored a few more photos. After hitting the gaming expo, we toured the Amazon room, the Champions Lounge, the feature table arena (where Hellmuth was playing), the Pokerroad radio set, and everything in between. It was so much fun for both of us, since she has been following my trip on the blog and seeing pictures and hearing what I tell her on the phone, and now she can see it all first hand and relate to everything. She really enjoyed it, it was a alot of fun.

As we were walking down by the Pokerroad set, we turn around and here comes Phil Ivey with a camera man following him. He walks right past us and out the door. He just busted out of the main event and I cannot imagine that Rose and I are not in that shot as he walked within about 4 feet of us as he passed. We were walking right at the camera, so with any luck, we will get some TV time with that one.

We continued to meet more people as we stood in line for photos and when we were watching the feature table for a bit in the arena. As I mentioned yesterday, it is very entertaining once people find out I'm playing in the main event and advanced to day 2. They continue to ask all about it, and ask my last name and really go out of their way to wish me luck. It is quite fun. One lady was there with her mother and told us how they have a big home game with about 15 people every Saturday night in South Dakota, so I promised her if I made the final table I would fly out and play in their home game with them one night. LOL.

Luckily Rose got to see the Gaming Expo before it closed down at 6pm. We got a few good photo opps but it was winding down late in the afternoon. First up was Greg Raymer the 2004 main event champ. Here he is signing an autograph for me...

Then of course, the obligatory pose with Lenny...

Next up, right around the corner was Andy Bloch...

And last but not least, is our beloved Australian champ from 2005, Joe Hachem. We both got T-shirts that say "I met Joe Hachem" that he signed. As he was signing, I introduced myself as a Pokerstars qualifier and told him I advanced to Day 2. He congratulated me and asked how many chips I had. When I told him 21,300, he said "Well, you've got 7,000 more than me". Apparently Joe is going into Day 2 with about 14k. He wished me luck, and I told him "Hope to see you at the final table". He was very welcoming and friendly. Of course, since Rose just returned from Australia herself, she asked him where he was from, and he said Melbourne. So, we gave the camera to someone else so both of us could get in the photo.

After the grand tour and all the photos and autographs shown above, we headed down to the strip to Margaritaville to hook up with Pete and his crew. Had a few drinks there and caught the first set of a really good band, then headed over to Caesars Palace to gamble a bit. Pete's nephew Danny and his girlfriend met us at Margaritaville as well, so it was damn near a family reunion in Vegas. Lol.

In any event, a really fun day for both of us. Today we are going to head to the pool for a bit before it gets too hot, then hit the strip for some casino action and then tonight the plan is to hit the Ghostbar for an early evening cocktail or two to check it out after which we have our big Pokerstars gala at the Rain nightclub here at the Palms. So a full slate of Vegas activities on the agenda for our day off today, then tomorrow is Day 2A at noon.

I am ready to play, and can't wait. Thanks again for all the emails and support, I hope I can keep it going and continue the journey.

Stay tuned...

Larry

Next up, is Chad Brown. Chad is a Team Pokerstars Pro and is also engaged to Vanessa Rousso (also a Pokerstars Pro). Some of you might recognize him as he used to be an actor before he became a pro poker player. He was extremely engaging asking me about my chip count and how Day 1 went for me. Very nice guy.

Speaking of Vanessa, here is Vanessa Rousso. She was seated at the same booth as Chad, and was equally as engaging. She too asked about my Day 1, then told me about her day 1 (she has around 50k in chips). They both continued the same message I've been hearing, that with 21,300 in chips, I have plenty to play with, and one double up and I'll be an average stack. Vanessa is VERY pretty and just has that "adorable" quality to her. She seems very genuine. It is quite fun to be trading Day 1 stories with the poker pros and telling them that you advanced to Day 2.

Next up is Men "The Master" Nguyen.

Here I am with Kenna James...

At one point as I'm wandering around I see a bunch of people in line up on a stage at the back of the expo. After looking closely I finally realize it is Doyle Brunson. However, if you have noticed in the pics above, I have 2 different shirts on. Well Doyle has his own on-line poker site and I'm wearing my Pokerstars shirt. So out of respect, I run over to another booth and throw down 10 bucks for this black shirt (which I like anyways) to wear over my Pokerstars shirt while I get my picture taken with Doyle. I figured I don't to piss off Doyle since I wanted a photo! LOL.

Now at this point, I realize that I forgot to charge my camera and it is blinking red with low battery. Crap. Well, time to head back to the Palms anyways to drop off my loot and hook up with Pete. But as I'm walking out there is big crowd of people in the hallway, and there is Scotty Nguyen in the middle. I work my way up to him for a picture, give my camera to a guy to take it for me, put my arm around Scotty and as the guy presses the button, the camera just shuts off. Right on cue, Scotty says "The camera shut off, baby". LOL, that was hysterical. We tried again, but no luck. So my pic with Scotty will have to wait for now.

Here is a picture of what it looks like when they bring an ESPN camera to your table. In the back left is the camera man and his sidekick with the microphone boom is front left.

Here is a shot of the ESPN feature table in the Milwaukees Best Light arena. Perhaps I will be lucky enough to play here, it is quite cool.

Speaking of playing at the feature table, I may well have a shot for some TV time after all. I was checking out some websites that have different leaderboards on them, and one of them had the table draws for Day 2. I am at Orange 11, and so I started searching for other Orange 11's and Brandon Adams (a big name pro) who finished Day 1A 2nd in chips with 170,000 is in seat 5 at my table. Since ESPN always follows the Day 1 chip leaders progress on Day 2, I cannot imagine we won't have some serious camera action at our table. Let alone if we happen to get another big name. If that happens, who knows, I may be sitting at the feature table shown above. Keep your fingers crossed.

It has been quite fun as I meet people from cab drivers to the various staff and band at Hooters that Pete introduces me to, to just regular people... As soon as they hear I am playing in the WSOP and advanced to Day 2, they get really into it and ask questions and go out of their way to wish me luck and hope to see me on TV. Many ask for my full name so they can follow the action. It is very cool.

One final thought...As you can imagine, I have told Pete and his crew countless stories of my WSOP exploits and answered tons of their questions. And whenever we start talking about the WSOP, Pete's friend Bob always finishes the conversation by saying "I'm telling you Larry, I have a good feeling about this"... Boy Bob, I sure hope you're right...

Larry

It is 2:40am and I just got back to my room. I have 21,300 in chips and have made it through Day 1 and am moving on to Day 2A on Tuesday! YEAH!

I just wrote this entire blog and something happened and I lost it, so this will be brief as I am exhausted from a long day of poker. 1297 players started and only about 640 of us survived. I still have plenty of chips with the blinds starting at 250/500 on Tuesday, I have over 40 big blinds which allows me to play regular poker.

We started at Noon and didn't finish until 1:30am. I had John Hennigan 3 to my left at my table, who is literally one of the top players in the world with 1 WPT title, 2 WSOP bracelets and plays in the biggest cash games in the world with Doyle, Phil Ivey, Barry Greenstein, etc at the Bellagio. He started to become a raising machine towards the end of the night which made things difficult since he was on my left. But I played good poker and made it through. Now I have 4 days off to relax and attend my Pokerstars party, before starting Day 2A on Tuesday.

I really have to go to bed now, so I will update with more details tomorrow, but suffice it to say, today was a GREAT day. I had a blast playing ALL DAY in the Main Event and accomplished my first goal of making it to Day 2. I am one happy camper let me tell you... Time for bed...

Larry

I am now checked into my new room at the Palms for the rest of the trip and it is really nice, although I miss my running mates :(

After I checked in, I layed down for a bit to rest, but never really fell asleep. Ironically, my brother in law Pete had scheduled a vacation with some friends out here and he just arrived today. He called when he arrived to let me know he was here, but I told him I was just going to lay low tonight since the main event is tomorrow. I will hook up with him and his crew after Day 1.

The Rio Business Center makes custom posters with the World Series Logo on them for players, so I designed one today and had them make it. It says "2008 WSOP Main Event" at the top, has the logo in the middle and then it has my name and "Rexford, NY" on two separate lines at the bottom. Also has a picture of a bracelet and the Rio logo at the bottom. Wait until you see it, it is really cool... For $45 you can't beat it...

Anyways, I had to go back to the Rio to pick it up today, so I walked over around 5:30 after I got up. It is quite a short walk and would normally be no biggie under regular circumstances... however, it was 111 degrees today which made the walk BRUTAL. When I got to the Rio, I strolled into the Brazilia room since I heard Phil Helmuths voice announcing a tournament. There was a crowd of people surrounding the final 2 tables of the Ante up for Africa charity tournament. I weasled my way to the front of the ropes somehow and it was unbelievable who was at the final 2 tables of this tournament. There were a few "regular" people left, but over 10 of the 15 people left when I got there were either celebrities or poker pros. Here is the who's who (hang on to your hats)...

Shannon Elizabeth, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Ray Romano, Casey Affleck (Ben's brother), Clonie Gowan, Mike Matusow, Andy Bloch, Annie Duke, and Phil Helmuth's wife (lol). As I mentioned, Phil Helmuth was playing MC and announcing the action, while Don Cheadle (one of the organizers) was close by helping out as well.

Security was clamping down on the no flash photography rule, so it was hard to get clear pictures (sorry they are a bit grainy) but I took a bunch and have a few below. But then I finally woke up and said to myself "hey, this camera will take video too"... duh, after 5 days I realize this...LOL... so anyways, even better than the pics is the short video clips I took where you can hear everything as well. The videos are great. I can't put them here in the blog but I will show them when I return. Here is Shannon Elizabeth with her amazing smile (and she is always smiling). She is absolutely STUNNING in person. Is it too much to ask for her to be at my table tomorrow? LOL

Here is one of Mike Matusow on his chair when he was all in and hit a miracle card on the river to stay alive. The crowd went wild when this happened, and so did Mike obviously. You can see Phil Hellmuth just couldn't believe it.

Here is Matt Damon looking on, with Don Cheadle on the far right in the green hat, and the back of the head in the lower right is Ben Affleck.

Here is a pic of Ray Romano signing an autograph for a fan right next to me...

Finally, here is one of Ben Affleck... He was playing for Phil Hellmuth and sitting behind him making all the decisions as Phil MC'd. Here he stood up to answer his phone I think... Matt Damon is on far left... Annie Duke is behind Ben ..

As you can tell, it was a blast watching the final 2 tables play out. Everytime I think this trip can't get much better, something like this happens. Now the only thing left to do is go DEEP in the Main Event baby!!!!!!

I play on Day 1A tomorrow which starts at Noon PST. We will start with $20,000 in chips, blinds start at 50/100, and play five, 2 hour levels on day 1, with a 20 minute break after each level, and a 90 minute dinner break after level 3 I believe (around 6pm). So if I survive day 1 we will likely end around 12:30-1:00am with the breaks.

I ran into Mike's friend Joe who we had dinner with the other night and he was at the main event last year watching his friend play and said it is ridiculous how many ESPN cameras are around. There are so many, they don't allow spectators in the room for the first 4 - 5 hours until people start to get eliminated and thin the field I guess. I asked Joe what my odds were of getting a celebrity or big name poker pro at my table and he said "really good". Last year his friend had Annie Duke and Robert Mizrachi (both poker pros) at his table and the ESPN cameras were around filming them all the time.

I am hoping that I get at least one big name at my table so ESPN films our table at some point. I will be calling Jack King and/or Willis at each break to give them a status update. I am ready and hungry for this. It has been an amazing experience thus far, and now it is time to get down to business in the Main Event. I am pumped up.

Wish me luck, hopefully I will come back to the hotel late tomorrow night and update the blog with an entry titled "On to Day 2"

Larry

Ok, it is Wed morning and Mike and John unfortunately have to catch a plane home today so we are getting ready to head down to catch Pokerroad radio and a few other things before checking out, so I will keep this one brief for now and do something more detailed later. I change hotels to the Palms today for the remainder of my trip.

So yesterday was a blast to say the least. We headed down stairs in the morning to catch the Pokerroad radio broadcast which is alot of fun as always. Below is a pic with Joe Sebok, Gavin Smith and Ali Nejad from the show. Those guys are funny as hell and really good guys.

After the show, as we were chatting with Ali, we ran into Liz Lieu (a prof. poker player) and Ali grabbed LIz for us and took a picture for us. Yes, she is hot.

Then after lunch, we ran over to the Palms to the Pokerstars office to pickup my WSOP bag of clothes. It is a big rolling High Sierra bag which is awesome filled with PokerStars gear. I got about 8 shirts, a fleece, a hoodie, 4 hats, a visor,etc. Totally cool stuff...

Next, Mike and I headed down to buy a few things at the WSOP store, and poked our heads into this room called the "Champions Lounge" which turned out to be a Pokerstars VIP room of sorts. We quickly secured VIP passes and started walking in when a guy comes up to us and asks us if we are on-line qualifiers to the main event. I tell him yes, and he says "Great, would you like to shoot a commercial for Pokerstars?". I stand there staring at him for a second thinking, ok, what's the gag here. And Mike interjects and says "Yes he would!..". I then reply with "Sure, of course". I run up to my room to get my Pokerstars shirt on and run back down to the lounge. We proceed to do an interview on my experience with Pokerstars, how I qualified and the WSOP... It is now up on www.pokerstars.tv

Go to the WSOP 2008 section under Video blogs and you will see my video. It is pretty funny, and watch closely for the cut out to me and Mike chatting it up after we finished the interview. He kept rolling the tape for more footage... After that was done, Isabelle Mercier walks in to the lounge (Team Pokerstars Pro), so we get a picture taken of course (see below). Yes, she is also hot! (LOL)

We also met Howard Lederer who was the guest on Pokerroad radio, pic below.

After the whole interview extravaganza, we all ran down to the strip to play a few tourneys. Nothing big to report on the tourney front, Mike and I final tabled the 9pm tourney at O'Sheas (59 players), but missed the money when we both took bad beats to get eliminated just out of the money. So suffice it to say that yesterday was an AWESOME day...

Later,

Larry