Day 1 on my WSOP week. Pasadena-Phoenix

Posted by bellatrix

June 4, 2008

So this is it! Travel week is here. I’m writing this on Tuesday, but it is a small blog of my weeklong experience that will be observing and playing at Event #12 (1500$ LHE) at the WSOP.

Ok, for those of you who don’t know me, I am an astronomer, well astrophysicist. I don’t know what sounds better. At parties the astronomer is better received, but I guess amongst geeks (category which I associate online poker players with) astrophysicist stands better. Anyway, we got some time at the MMT, which is a 6.5m telescope near Tucson, AZ. I thought:”hey, I’m not doing anything that weekend and I’m a pretty good limit hold’em player. I should stop by Vegas and play WSOP”. Anyway, since I love driving through the desert, I thought I would drive there and just post random stuff along the way. Maybe that way, you can accompany me through the excitement again. I don’t get to play that much live anymore since my daughter was born.

Monday. Still at work during the day. I left around 6pm (3 hours later than planned). Traffic was a breeze out of LA area, however, so not being stuck on I-10 is always a good thing. About 2 hrs out of Pasadena comes the first stop interesting to poker players: Morongo Casino Resort

Ah, that casino holds a special place in my heart (not necessarily a good place). I remember my first few adventures as a BJ card counter. This was it. Early 2004, they had just gotten rid of the hand collection fee that so many indian casinos had back then. So here I was, a new counter with my stupid 5000$ bankroll. Actually, it was 5900$ (ty Cache Creek). I was ready to beat this BJ game. It was a 6decker with 80% penetration, best in the Palm Springs area. They were already building the new casino you see in the picture there, but they were still located in a long bunker type building, which today is a bowling alley.

Did you know you can experience crazy monkey tilt at blackjack? When the dealer just puts beat after beat on you. When you push out the big bets with a big advantage (well, for BJ anyway) and he still pulls out 5 card 21s. Anway, after arriving there on that faithful night in 2004, suddenly I was down 2000$, just like that, wham, wham, wham. It was amazing, i was walking around in total numbness. And like a crazy gamblor, I chased my losses. Ever had one of those U shaped sessions? That one was my first one and thank god it ended going up (I still lost like 120$ for the night, but it wasn’t the disaster of 2000$). But there I was, up for 20 hours, crazy stare, dealers telling me to go home. Ugh, not my proudest moment. Just a cautionary tale for all you people out there playing with an edge, variance is such a bitch.

Anyway, that day was also the first time I really noticed the poker room. I mean, I had seen a lot of people playing poker in Vegas before, but I was always just intimidated watching. I always thought these were really amazing sharks playing, when in reality I was just staring at a measly 3/6 game from afar. Anyway, I noticed all these “children” playing and then I realized, oh, 18 yrs old Indian Casino. That’s right, if any of you kids is reading this, Morongo Casino is where Alan Cunningham just escaped, when he was starting college (he never finished, gee I wonder why) and they would take 18 year olds. The poker room used to be in this tiny room behind glass. But the poker boom was happening, so the room was packed and the air was really bad inside. Really, I was happy to be in the casino with the smokers (it’s not that bad) than in that enclosed room with like 100 people in it with no air.

Ah, how the times change. I managed to get over to Morongo in December 2004 just one week after the new casino and building opened. Fancy! Full! Vegas! After scouting the horrible games now with just 65% penetration, I left in disgust with the 120$ they owed me and 180$ more. I never stepped a foot in the casino ever since and not today either, but it was fun reliving the memories.

Anyway, on I went, whizzing past the Desert Cities (Palm Springs, Indio, etc.). It was getting dark. I made a quick gas stop at Chiriaco Summit. It’s also the site of the Gen. Patton museum, which used the desert as training camp for the army to get used to Saharan heat. And hot it was. It was 9 pm and it still was 85F outside. Anyway, the tanks looked quite ghostly totally surrounded by darkness.

Crossed the CA-AZ without incidents and made another stop in Quartzsite, where the Hi Jolly memorial is. This is quite an eerie cementery to be visiting at 10:30pm, but I enjoyed reading the history of Hi Jolly and his camels. Lots of really old graves there, too with many d. 18xx dates. After that quick stop I hurried on to Phoenix and was at my booked hotel at around 12:30am. Went to bed pretty quickly. Anyway, day 2 (observing at MMT) will be up sometime tomorrow.

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