I’m not even playing any events in the World Series and I’ve already taken my first bad beat.  With a couple of hours to kill before starting to report for day two of the Casino Employees Event, I found Heat on TV only to realize I wouldn’t have time to watch the whole thing.  Poker can be a rough game sometimes.

The World Series didn’t creep up on us this year.  One second it hadn’t started yet.  The next, the carnivorous new room, The Pavilion, was full of cash games, satellites, and the 722 entrants for the $500 Casino Employees Event.  13 hours later, the day was over, save for those playing the $50k 8-game Players’ Championship.  It was a good day, though.  The Rio was full of energy, which was probably because nobody had lost a string of buy-ins yet.

On my way out of the Rio I made a mental note to buy some vitamin C, a bottle to fill with water (seriously Rio, where are the water fountains?), and to look into a stronger prescription for my glasses.

I got back to the Hard Rock at about 1:30 and decided to buy into one of the many $1/2 no limit games they had running.  On Thursday night I played and doubled my buy-in before leaving a few hours later.  Last night I was up between $30-50 for most of the night before busting with the lesser of two sets, making me even for the trip on cash games.  But when you consider the Coronas that would have cost about $10 a pop at the bar, I’m actually ahead about $200 after tips, so it ain’t so bad.  I’m disappointed that I wasn’t able to book a win yesterday, though.  One dude at my table was wasted and kept falling asleep.  Once in a while he’d wake up, shove in a preflop raise to $12 and fall asleep again.  Another dude kept ordering shots of Patron for the table.  I’ve learned that the Hard Rock’s tequila shots are gigantic.

I’m going to stop at the Hard Rock box office on the way out today so I can buy a Gin Blossoms ticket.  Whenever I mention they’re playing, I seem to be the only one excited about it.  That can’t be right, isn’t anyone else on a ‘90s college rock kick?

The first $1,000 NLHE event starts today.  There was only one such event last year, and it drew over 6,000 players. There are a number of them throughout the series this year, so it’s going to be interesting to see how the numbers compare.  I’m predicting a big, big turnout for it today.