Eh, I'm bad at keeping my blog updated on a regular basis. Deal with it, I have!

What's happened since my last entry? I've been to Vegas and had a fantastic time, making the final table in one tournament (of course, the smallest buyin out of five!). I had a really good time out there and felt I brought my A game to the table 95% of the time, maybe two or three tangible mistakes during my 11 days and roughly 70 hours of play. I had enough action sold that my cashing for $4k in the $500 deepstack PLO at the venetian meant all my expenses were covered, and Vegas is a really cool place, meaning I had a free holiday, which was pretty cool. Dave and Mike, both 2+2ers, told me on the saturday night various things about Vegas and the Strip, including some details about rows of Mexicans in bright t-shirts with words like 'GIRLS DIRECT 2 U' emblazoned on them, handing out flyers to all and sundry, including men with their wives and young daughters. I didn't believe them, and I found it hard to believe my eyes when I actually saw it going down!

I stayed at the Gold Coast, because I was out there to be a pro, not gambling on table games, saving money ($40/night and vaguely acceptable), and walking or taking shuttles where possible. It's also five minutes walk from the Rio, where my WSOP events were taking place. I saw Berry Johnstone walking through the pit in the Gold Coast and can only assume that even WSOP main event winners aren't above taking the cheap option, so that made me feel pretty good about my choice. My first room was pretty horrible but I got them to move me to a recently-refurbished room which felt like it could be mistaken for vaguely balla, with a view of most of Vegas.

Colin and Dave and I gambled amongst ourselves, starting with straight chinese and moving onto some real degeneracy. Big two (or big deuce) is like a cross between bridge, chinese and hearts, and definitely has more of a skill edge than chinese, though it's marketed as straight-up gambling. It's really not - how often you win is more than anything down to the hand you're dealt, but there's a massive skill edge in getting paid the most when you do win. I'm definitely the fish in this game, unfortunately, though I also ran bad. I found weird ways to run bad, including losing every time we played credit card roulette.

Our home game turned into a six-game mix. None of the games involved betting, just scoring and calling. One round of chinese; one round of chinese with 2-7 hands in the middle (meaning you get stronger hands on the front and back more often - royalties need to change and it does involve more skill, IMO). Then a round of big deuce.

After that came the calling games. In 9-card omaha, you discard two preflop, two on the flop and one on the turn, leaving you with a 4-card hand on the river. We wanted to eliminate the possibility of bluffing, though, and keep it as gambly as possible, so instead of betting or calling, everyone antes up before the flop, then on the flop everyone decides whether or not to call, holds out both hands with a chip in one of them, and simultaneously releases a the hand with the chip in if they want to see the next street or drop nothing if they want to fold. If everyone folds, the pot is chopped; if only one person calls, he obviously gets the pot. No-one ever folds the turn.

The next game we tentatively called 'Irish Split', a descendant of straight-up irish holdem. The same betting model as above, though we go straight to the flop after antes; 6 cards dealt, hi/lo, discard one on the flop and one on the turn.

The last game was, well, silly, but probably gave potentially the biggest skill edge: chip-tossing. Everyone takes turns to throw a chip against the wall, closest wins all three.

There's no doubt, though, that the highlight of my time in the US (first time in > 12 years!) was New York. My connecting flight back was via Newark, and just as the gate opened for the flight to London, they announced that they needed five passengers to accept $400 in vouchers to take a later flight. I'm sorta interested at this point as I've got no commitments back in London to make, but decide that I'll be spending money in New York and it wouldn't really be worth it for $400. Half an hour before the gate closes they announce they're upping it to $600; now I need to observe everyone else, because I think the gate is getting desperate and they'll up the offer again if no-one accepts. The plan goes perfectly, and ten minutes before the gate closes they make it $900, and I snap-call.

As I'm at the desk, closing out the deal, the gate is closing, just as this pretty young english girl runs up to the desk and wants to get on board, but she can't get on. It was the same airline's fault she was late, so she got the same deal. We start chatting, and after ten minutes I tell her we're going to do the tourist thing in New York for the day.

We get to Penn Station (on like 29th? I think) and walk all the way to Times Square, and sit and chat for a while, thinking about taking in a matinee but we decide not to. We walk, slowly, to Central Park and find a big rock to sit on, with a good view, people-watching, sharing anecdotes and comfortable silences. After half an hour, we decide to find another big rock, and do the same. Not long after, it started to rain, heavily - but it was mid-june rain, nice and refreshing, so we find some shelter. Once the rain calms down a bit, we decide to start walking back to the station - we only had four hours until our flight, after all!

It took us a while to get back, passing the Empire State, but again we decide we don't have enough time to do it properly as there's a long line of people waiting for it. At this point, it starts raining really heavily, and as you can imagine, the working stiffs of New York were going absolutely crazy, while we were walking slowly, getting soaked, and enjoying it

We didn't get to sit next to each other on the flight back, as other people are selfish, but we'd planned to go for coffee and breakfast in London. As we parted ways, we shared a kiss, and for fear of sounding like a schmaltzy hollywood romantic comedy, this has to have been the best vacation day of my life. I spent the day with a complete stranger and spontaneously, unexpectedly did the tourist thing in New York, which I'd never seen before. She lives in Devon, unfortunately, but I expect I'll see her again. Whatever happens, this is the sort of thing you remember your whole life.