It's curtains for Vegas

This is Kevin and I am writing the final blog of our Vegas trip as we head to San Diego in my truck (obviously I am not currently driving). Today (7/15) was our checkout date from Vdara and therefore marks our departure from Las Vegas. We all played our last Vegas poker sessions in Aria last night and on a good note, all won during those sessions even if it may have been a small amount for some of us. On the trip, all three of us ended up in the black for our poker playing. Thus we all avoided the miserable situation of leaving Vegas stuck.

But before we wrap up the trip with some final thoughts, there are some recent events worth sharing. First, Matt Boucher took on a prop bet, which involved consuming an 11x11 burger from In-n-Out Burger. For those of you not well versed with In-n-Out lingo, an n x m burger indicates a burger with n beef patties and m slices of cheese. Due to an incident with a fireman, YouTube video, and a 100x100 burger, In-n-Out Burger now only serves burgers up to 4x4. Fortunately, the In-n-Out manager was very accommodating and recommended we construct our own 11x11 burger with a 3x3 burger and 4 Flying Dutchmen. With that Matt Boucher was able to take on a burger with 11 patties and 11 pieces of cheese. He crushed it and consumed the entire burger in less than 20 minutes. Well-done Matt. While he was successful and looked fine at the time, there was a concern about the cross-country flight he was boarding in less than 3 hours. Those poor passengers around him had not been given any advanced warning. We apologize if any of you reading this were caught in the presumed firestorm present on that flight.

In other news, Scott and I had the privilege of playing with NBA superstar Tyrone Lue at the Bellagio. Previously, one of the best poker games of my life involved the Bellagio, Tyrone Lue, and Damon Jones (NBA player as well). To my surprise, Lue played very un-fish like, but fortunately there were plenty of Europeans at the table and one super-fish who had just busted from the WSOP Main Event earlier in the day who was eager to take his revenge on the world by playing every hand he saw (please note this an incredibly ineffective strategy). To put this man in perspective he had the skill level of Bryan Russell trying to take an angle on a running back. I ended up destroying this super-fish.

While were on the topic of poker, our very own Matt Affleck (UW grad 2010), is crushing at the WSOP Main Event. He was been flirting with the chip lead for the past couple of days and is currently in the top ten in chips with only 200 people remaining. Note he was also a chip leader last year around this time and thus this repeat accomplishment is quite significant. We have been told that he was given an ESPN couch interview. We look forward to seeing what is said in that interview and the prospect of visiting him back in Vegas in November during the final table. Get some Matt.

In a real time incident on the highway, we just lost a trash bag full of Scott’s dirty clothes out the back of the truck and Scott is not pleased. By the time we could turn around an approach the bag again a solid 15 minutes have passed and I am expecting to see a disaster seen with Scott’s clothes scattered about the highway (note at this point in the trip we have much more dirty clothes than clean ones so this potentially represents a significant loss). To my surprise, upon arrival to the scene the clothes bag is in one piece conveniently located between two lanes. In a daring effort Wes grabs and the bag and we are quickly on our way and have luckily avoided any cops in the process. I did not see the conversation with the officer where I am explaining that we pulled over on inside part of the highway to pick up a part of our (apparently unsecured) load, ending well. I guess we are running well.

Since it’s the end of the trip all of us are able to calculate our hourly wage for our hard work here in Vegas. It dawned on me that I spent a decent portion of time shuttling people back and forth from the airport to avoid annoying cab expenses (They tilt me, too). If I had been playing poker instead of operating my company, Kevin’s Vegas Airport Shuttle Service, I would have had an expected income of $225. To my dismay, I realize it would have been +EV to literally pay for all of my friends cab rides and instead play poker. Also, since I do not hail from the Foster School of Business, I just am realizing now running a business which does not accept any sort capital is probably a poor business model and will not make me a millionaire. Oh well, I guess I know a better approach for next time.

Two nights ago, after playing some ball at UNLV (for those of you following the summer league, it is currently taking place at UNLV, although we never got a chance to observe for ourselves. After the game, “Suicide Tom”/”The Balla”/”Taro” invited us over to his house for some beers and a BBQ. We were very excited to visit the house of 9 presumed millionaires (They kill online poker). The house that they have rented for the month, which would be more appropriate to label as a mansion, did not fail to disappoint. Backyard amenities included a basketball court, pool with hot tub and a putting green. The inside of the house was even more impressive. It included a master bedroom like I had never seen before. A general theme in the house was Giant televisions surrounded by smaller (50 inch) LCD televisions. If things go well, maybe next year we upgrade to something like that, although Vdara treated us very well.

That should get everyone up to speed and it’s time to start wrapping up this final blog post. For those of you interested our travel plans, they involve swinging through California before heading back up to Seattle. We will be avoiding the 20-hour drive and breaking it up a bit for the way back. I don’t think any of us have any interest in a 20-hour drive in my truck ever again. We plan to stay in San Diego Thursday night and Friday night then head up to LA Saturday morning. Scott is planning on showing me around LA and selling the prospect of living here. He says it’s great, but with the current state of California debt and frequent risk of earthquakes (for those of you who saw the movie 2012 you will remember California disappeared into the ocean as a result of earthquakes), Scott has a lot of work to do. We plan on departing from LA on Wednesday morning and visiting Sam Wright in Berkeley to continue to break up the trip. After that it’s home free. For those of you eagerly anticipating our arrival, we are planning on arriving sometime late Thursday night (7/22). Then it’s time to look reliving the infamous party bus experience.

And to finally wrap things up, this month in Vegas has flown by extremely quickly. It seems like just the other day that we were arriving here, but the experience has been nothing short of awesome. Vegas is like a fairy-tale land where there are no rules and the ridiculous is encouraged, but as a whole the crew is starting to get worn down and it’s time to return to the real world. We want to thank all the visitors who shared in the experience with us; hopefully you guys had a good time as well. A month of poker next summer is a very real possibility, but for now we say good-bye, Vegas. With our crew it will only be a matter of a couple months before we return.

Vegas is Winning

Wes Louie here. I've been away for a bit partially because I was bed ridden for a day or so. In the time Wald was away from Vegas, both Scott and I got pretty damn sick, but on separate nights. I blame the sandwich Warbis made me eat at Planet Hollywood but I can't be certain. I am sure that this was one of the worst nights of my life though. Scott can vouch for my misery since he experienced the same thing I did a day before I did.

On the bright side though, Warbis and Schweik were nice enough to pay us a visit! And who would have thunk it, 2 of the 3 nights they were in town, I threw up. Keep in mind I haven't thrown up for a very long time. I went all of graduation week and 3 weeks in Vegas without throwing up, yet somehow, Schweik managed to bring it out in me twice. That wasn't the only thing that Ryan and Jake brought out in me, they revived the degenerate gambler in me. Between Schweik's Roulette Strategy and a few free top shelf drinks from Aria and Bellagio, I was right where my ancestors wanted me. Gambling. Table game after table game. There was blackjack, roulette, pai gow, and my personal favorite/specialty...blackjack switch. For many of you out there, these games are all losing investments. However, little did you know that I am a professional blackjack switch player. For more on my skills, please consult Scott. However when it comes to Roulette, Schweik is the man to talk to! He led the team to many a victory at the Roulette table. Not going to lie, he also led us to a few losses as well, but the team victories when we all followed his lead were a damn good time. We also managed to dabble in some sports betting. We (Schweik and myself) bet an over under on runs scored in the first 5 innings, and we also bet Yankees to crush the Mariners, thankfully we scooped both. Warbis bet the Germany game and managed to collect a little extra cash there as well.

While Afflect was busy battling at the final table, Warbis decided to take a walk over to UNLV to check out the summer league game which featured Quincy Pondexter. While Schweik and I railed Afflect (railed is the term used when watching someone play from the sidelines), he was able to book a 5th place finish in a Bellagio tournament. After he busted, he was able to comp Schweik and myself in for free at the Bellagio buffet. Free buffets in Vegas are quite tough to beat people. It's like a $30 value!

The drinking on the weekend was aggressive to say the least. We had one night where we killed a 5th between 4 of us within a half hour window, and then went immediately to purchase slushies with 7 shots or so in them. By the end of the night I was destroyed and I almost puked on a blackjack table. The other night people went out was the night I was destroyed and stuck in bed. Everyone went to a local hot spot called Stoney's and apparently had a ridiculous night. Scott said he saw multiple people drunker than he has ever seen them before.

Oddly enough Vegas is winning, Scott almost died one night, I almost died one night and Jamie was almost sent to the hospital 2 nights ago. He was at the Aria buffet and was handled a plate of pasta that just so happen to be served on a scolding hot plate. He received 2nd degree burns on his blister filled hand. Paramedics were brought in on the spot but that wasn't enough. A personal call was made to a doctor that night at 5am in order to properly care for his hand. Jamie has been in pain for days, well, he would have been if he wasn't drugged up on every pain killer under the sun. Let me tell you guys that James Shaevel on pain killers is never a dull time. As much as we wish he wasn't in pain, we're all enjoying the haggard James Shaevel show. But on a serious note, get well soon my man.

On a side note, we are at the tail end of our Vegas stay. We will be leaving the desert July 15th and making our way to San Diego to visit the one and only Denise Tamura. We were informed tonight that she has planned a home cooked lasagna meal for us the night we arrive. The 3 of us could not be more thrilled especially since our room here has no oven and we haven't been able to have a real home cooked meal in about a month. So not only are we looking forward to an amazing home cooked meal, we will be able to spent a day or two in San Diego with Denise. Plans to devour some authentic mexican food are already brewing in my head. After our stay in SD we will make the drive to LA where Wald and I will be crashing with Scott for a few days. We will be playing cards at Commerce, hooping a bit, returning to visit the Twist Twins, getting Wald his first Bay Cities sandwich and last but not least, saying hello to Hanna and Larry Heineman. After our 3 day stay in LA we will continue our drive north into Berkeley to visit Sam Wright and hopefully through Sonoma to visit Ben Mo. As far as our return to Seattle these are the 3 pit stops we have planned.

However! When we do return to Seattle, we have big things planned. We are hoping to put together party bus #2. I would love to do a bon fire at Alki/Golden Gardens. I hope to get some hikes under my belt, and last but not least, tear up the ave. So until then boys and girls, clear your schedules, prepare your livers, lace up those hiking shoes and don't forget to unplug that lamp in the corner.

Clubbing

Via Kevin -

After a weekend of drunken debauchery with my roommates, I went into recovery finally being sober for a couple of nights. It was nice staying away from alcohol for a bit and getting down to playing some more cards, but by Thursday night Scott and I were both more than ready to partake in one of our favorite pastimes, drunken 1-3 no limit poker where we get belligerent and berate lesser players in front of them. We knew that there would be some drinking this last weekend with Cassie, Sam, and Brittany coming into town for 4th of July weekend (obviously a big weekend), but couldn't resist the lure of some drinks on Thursday night. I came to regret this decision later down the line, like for instance Monday night. 5 nights in a row is a lot for a non-greek college alum to drink alcohol. Anyway, back to the beginning of the weekend.

The previously aforementioned girls came in on Friday and were ready to party with an intensity that I was not expecting. Night one started with ladies night at the Bank (the club in the Bellagio). The girls loved it, they got free admission and free alcohol. The guys on the other hand got the privilege of paying a slightly increased admission fee, which did not include any complimentary alcohol...how fun! I had already left the club at this point, but highlights include the club making it rain on Scott (stripper style). He came out $22 richer. Way to grab all those one dollar bills off the (I'm sure very clean) floor! Also, perhaps inspired by Birdman and Lil' Wayne, some black guys started poppin' bottles of champagne and making it rain on Scott and the girls again (this time with champagne). But not everything was positive from the night. According to Scott's scouting report, the talent level at the Bank was low as there weren't too many persons of interest. That was our Friday night.

By Saturday night the girls were ready to go out to yet another club, which was tough to commit to since the poker games were very very juicy this weekend. Wes and Scott were unwilling to leave those games, but I had a hard time to saying no to a night of partying and agreed to tag along. This time the destination was club Haze, which is located in Aria and less than a 5 minute walk from our room. We met up with Sam's brother Adam who is a professional poker player and his friend Shaun, also a pro-poker player. Getting into Haze was significantly more annoying than getting into the bank. We had to tip bouncers, pay full admission, but we finally got in and the club it self was pretty sweet. There was this dancer on a 20 ft pole doing Cirque du Soleil like things. She was awesome. Also, the music was great. And props to Shaun for making friends with a group of black girls who had a table with bottles. There was literally no other guys who got in with these girls the entire time I was there. Yet he kept coming back with glasses of patron and grey goose for us to share. It was great. Good work Shaun.

Next comes Sunday, the 4th, obviously a night for going out and this time both Wes and Scott were joining me which was big (I'd only had Scott come out with me once thus far and no Wes). We also had Jason, Matt, and Jake joining us in the addition to the girls. The destination was Lavo at the Palazzo. Unfortunately for Matt and Jake, they were wearing polos and promptly turned around by the bouncer at the door. We came up with a plan to get Matt and Jake into the club; we told Matt and Jake to go into a store and buy a button down shirt and return it the next day. Unfortunately for them, the only store close that was open on a Sunday night at 11:30 pm on July 4th was the gift shop at the Venetian. So Jake went in and asked about the return policy on the only button down shirt for sale (it was covered in rhinestones stones). The guy asked "Are you guys going to the club?" and Matt said "yes". The guy explained that if they wore the shirts then the shirts could not be returned. Jake then asked, "What if we're not going to the club?". The man said, "Since I know you guys are going to the club you can't return the shirts". That was the end of Jake and Matt's night and it was probably for the better since they would have looked ridiculous going into a club wearing matching rhinestone button down shirts. Once the rest of us got in, the club was packed and we had a good time. Sam almost got into a fight while dancing, but fortunately Scott was able to step in a prevent a brawl. As a result of the work of Brittany, we were able to dance with two tree-like volleyball girls which was quite entertaining. Thanks Brittany, I crave nothing more than giant (which means slightly over 6 ft before heels) blonde volley-ball girls... I'll call it quits for now and we will discuss the rest of the weekend soon.

July 4th weekend Part 2

Wes Louie here. Thought I would do a little follow up on the whole club scene that Wald informed you all about. After the awesome night at Lavo (at the Palazzo) with Sam, Cassie and Brittnay, my cousin Jason and I had plans to go and earn some free rooms at the Venetian/Palazzo. The game plan on the night was to blow $500 playing $25 a hand. Jason had got a tip from someone saying that if you play 3 hours of blackjack betting a minimum of $25 a hand, that was enough to earn yourself the free room offer. I had no interest in investing finacially in this matter but I always love a good table game experience. I normally choose to get a little alcohol flowing, and by a little I mean a lot. Once I get pretty drunk, I start getting a little loose, a little loud, and quite frankly, easily the loudest person in the casino. So my cousin and I decided it would be a fun idea to have me play using his money that way I still get the gambling experience and he still earns his free room. Little did we know that at our table there would be a man who would appreciate the madness that a drunk Wes Louie brings to the table as well. This is the part of the story where I introduce you to our new friend Jay. Now Jay is a very special kind of man. He comes to Vegas like any other man to escape the stresses of life. Naturally, while his wife is sound asleep in bed, he sneaks away to the blackjack table. Lucky for us, he just so happen to choose our table to gamble his millions at. This blackjack session started off just like it should, losing. That 2.5% edge the house reserves for itself was getting the best of us. We were down to about our last $150, but still full of energy. For those of you who have never seen my "energy" at a blackjack table, it is essentially me attempting to will the cards I want from the dealer. I'm talking full on screaming and openly stating my disgust for the dealer if things don't go my way. Occasionally it becomes personal with the dealer, but most of the time, the screaming winds up working in our favor. After we finally start to rally a bit we get ourselves back to about $250 in chips. Our boy Jay on the other hand, is now sitting with about $1,000. He starts to raise his bet, as well as play 3 hands, so he now has about $300 riding on every hand he plays. The next hand we play, he winds up staying on all 3 of his hands, I hit on mine, and bust. But it just so happen that the hit I took, would have been the dealer's money card which would have made him a loser on the hand. Jay felt compelled to give us the bet back that we sacrificed in order to make him a winner. So Jay throws a $25 chip our way. We try to refuse because it seemed so ridiculous but he insisted that it was good karma. Like any intellligent person, if a stranger is going to force money on us, who are we to take this pleasure away from him right? Little did we know this would continue all night. Jay's other technique was throwing us 2-3 $5 chips which are red. He threw them to us before the bets were finalized and he wanted us to bet these chips on our bet as "putting the cherry on top". If we won, he wanted the original chips back that he gave us, and we kept the extra profti. So he allowed us to freeroll for $10-$15 additional dollars a hand every other 4 hands or so. So at this point Jason Scott and myself are all rooting for him to win almost more than ourselves. He is betting anywhere from $25-$400 a hand. When he was betting $100+ a hand on 3 different hands, we were screaming for dealer bust cards, celebrating when he pulled a triple winner, we celebrated it all. I also should have mentione that this was at about 4 in the morning. We started this madness at about 1am and after about 3 hours of this madness alongside Jay, we had collected $275 in handouts from Jay. Literally no risk was ever taken to collect this money, simply our energy and support was apparently worth $275 to this man. We kept the Jay donations separate from our other chips, but thankfully, we had run our stack up to about $700. Jay however was not so fortunate, at this point we had seen him go into pocket for a little over $3000. When things are going well, everyone is celebrating and screaming because of the easy money being won. However, when things started to go south for Jay, we went speechless. When things "go south" I mean he has $400 a hand out there and the dealer pulls a sick 21. Therefore, $400 a hand, playing 3 hands, the man is losing $1200 in a matter of seconds. When that happens a time or two in a row, you start to feel pretty awkward. Jay asks us how we're doing and we tell him we are up about $700 at this point. He wants to know why we aren't celebrating too much, but its because the man to our right is losing his shirt. It's a bit comical because of how much of a degenerate he is. It's 5am and he is reaching into his pocket to chase this money. Eventually we got so tired, and it got so awkward, we just had to call it a night. Thankfully Jay was in decent spirits upon our completion of the blackjack session. The final tally on the night was $275 donated from Jay and $745 won from actual blackjack. It was a perfect session, we got free drinks while playing, $275 in handouts, pending free rooms at the Venetian, and $745 for our time. Not a bad way to spend a couple hours in the middle of the night right?

I (Scott) will concluded this weekend that stetched into Tuesday. What Wes decided to leave out of the Jay story was at around 3:45 am a group of four girls approched the blackjack table that we were at. One of the girls takes out a few hundred dollars in chips and looks like she wants to play. While that is going on another girl in the group says "Hey Asian guys, what are your names?". Wes and Jason introduce themselves and the girl took a unique liking to Wes. She immediately started complementing Wes on his looks and spitted her most awkward game. She went from where are you guys from to are you a model!? Wes lets her know that he isn't a model, but she pushed on and said "Are you kidding me, your jacked! You have to be a model!". She then complemented his hair (in case you've never seen Wes he rocks a buzz cut) and a some other things. Wes flattered and a bit confused smiled, stayed pretty composed and thanked her for her complements. Once this girl got the clue that Wes wasn't interested she was ready to move on, so she sent the signal to her friend who was "their" to play blackjack (ended up playing only one hand and lost) and they were well on there way.

Me and Wes wake up Monday morning just after 1:00 pm and go to the Aria buffett. Sam Wright and Nick Bernardi were on the way to Vegas from LA. We met them at Aria and no later than 10 minutes of being in our room the first beers were cracked open. We took Nick and Sam to the Aria cafe for a late lunch then went to the Aria pool. By the time we got back from the pool it was 6:00 pm and Nick and Sam were looking for some drunken gambling. We decided to start favorite drinking game of all, drunken 1-3 no limit at Aria. Me, Wes, Wald, Nick and Sam put our names on the list a got a couple of drinks while waiting. Wes and Wald got seats pretty quickly while Sam, Nick and I had to wait much longer. Luckily the wait was well worth it as they opened a new 1-3 table. One of the best poker players in the world, Annette Obrestad, was sitting at my table. I saw her sit down a freaked out a little bit. I frantically searched for Wes and Wald in the poker room to tell them that Annette is sitting at my table. I found Wald first, and interrupted a hand he was playing to tell him to move to my table. Without hesitation Wald tells me to lock a seat up. I eventually relay the message to Wes who joins us about an hour in. A player of Annette's skill level would never play a 1-3 game normally but she was around Aria and the friend she was with wanted to play so she did. In the brief time we played with her you could see how good she was, she was essentailly soul reading everyone at the table and especially Wald who lost a few pots to her early on. Wald stayed composed (keep in mind we were ordering drinks throughout the 2 hours we played with her) and won a big pot off her. Wald had pocket aces (the best starting hand in hold'em) and they got all the money in before the flop and Wald won. I completed the job a few hands later by winning a big pot off and taking all of her chips. That is probably our proudest poker moment (winning a big pot off a well-known and very well respected professional). We left the poker room giddy and pretty drunk

One of the only requests that Nick and Sam had was to get a Nathan's hotdog from New York, New York, clearly inspired from the Nathan's hotdog eating contest the day before. So we went to New York, New York a got some hotdogs. The hotdogs very dissappointing and we headed down the strip and went to Planet Hollywood. On the way there we saw a women who was no younger than 35, sitting up righgt and completely passed out on a bench outside of Paris. We obviously found this funny and tried taking a picture with her. Unfortunately, the one got was too dark and blurry. We got to Planet Hollywood and wandered the casino floor until we ran into "The Pleasure Pit", which is just normal table games with half naked girls as dealers. We were unimpressed and moved on down the strip towards the Flamingo. Nick expressed an interest in playing craps somewhere on the strip, so right when we entered the Flamingo Nick bolted for the craps table. He won and moved onto Casino Royal. Casino Royal is without a doubt one of the worst casino's on the strip, it looks like a fun house from the outside and is a fun house inside with mirrors on the ceiling and crazy dealers. We do go there because they offer cheap table games and even cheaper drinks ($1 margaritas and $1 Michelob everyday). Nick also played some craps there. Sam and I started a UDub chant when Nick got the dice to roll and let's just say the other players at the table and employees didn't approve. Nick won again and we moved on the Wynn. Nick played another round of craps at the Wynn and kept his winning streak alive. We called it a night after the Wynn.

We woke up the next day and went to the Bellagio buffet for breakfast/lunch. Nick and Sam played Keno during the meal, turing into degenerates before my very eyes. Sam broke even and Nick lost $2.00. After the meal we met up with Sam Croffut and Cassie and went to the Vdara pool. Wald and Wes joined and to my surprise I found out Wald was going to attempt the watermelon prop bet (For those who are too lazy to look up past posts the bet is eating an entire costco watermelon in an hour for $20 USD). Wald had prepped earlier in the day with a run, some tanning and consuming as little water as possible to get dehyrated. He started at 3:30pm and wasted no time, he killed the first 1/4 of the melon in the first eight minutes. The watermelon started to have its way with Wald after that as he struggled to get the next fourth down. By 4:15pm Wald still had between 1/4-1/3 left and he gracefully conceded.

Wes, Nick, Sam and I headed to Aria to play some Pai Gow and we said goodbye to Cassie and Ms. Croffut. It was a positive first experience for Sam and Nick with Pai Gow because they both won. After a very short craps session for Nick at Aria it was time for Sam and Nick to leave. They were only in Vegas for 30 hours, but they did a lot in those 30 hours.

Since this post is so long I will save the details for the next post, but Jamie successfully completed day 1 of the main event, along with Tom and Matt Affleck (who played Tuesday).

We are looking forward to the arrival of Jake "your boy" Schweikl, Ryan Warbis and Colin (my favorite) Perez tomorrow. We'll have more stories to share with this group in town.

My name is Wesley Louie, and I embellished

Wes Louie again ya'll. First off, I would like to clear up things about my last post. My intentions were to create a humorous yet miserable image for you all. Upon reading through the post later in that day, I realized how poor of a job I did haha So to clear everything up, there are no hard feelings on my part. The misery that I spoke of was not by any means enjoyable, however I was happy to make the sacrifice for a friend and would be more than willing to do it again. I very well could have been drunk the morning after when I was writing the last post, although not an excuse for the last post which portrays my boy in a negative light, however perhaps a reason why my writing style was so poor.

On to more recent news, there is a new prop bet! Kat I know you're excited to read that last sentence haha Any guesses? :-) Well, depending on how well you know us, you might be quite close. It involves eating. The new prop bet on the table is can Wald eat a full Costco watermelon in an hour. $20 is the value behind completion of this unbelievably respectable feat. The prop bet attempt is supposed to take place sometime early next week. I spoke with the Captain this morning and I heard about his game plan. He had prior plans to change the oil in his truck early next week, and he plans to go for a jog while his truck is being worked on. The thought process behind this is that he should come back pretty dehydrated and therefore in need of all the liquids the watermelon can offer. We got word of Nick's father, Terry, attempting this back in college and ever since then, he has never had the desire to consume watermelon. Some of us fear that Wald will experience this same turnoff however Wald assures us that his passion for watermelon should not be affected by this bet. Do keep checking back on our posts for any and all things Watermelon Prop Bet. I am even flirting with the idea of attempting it with him...WWDPWD

Wald and Scottie are currently taking shots of Makers while Scott stretches to limber up for the trip to the Bank tonight. Scott was able to work his magic with Natalie in order to hook up entrance for about 10 into the Bank. Some of the crew is playing drunken 1/2 at the Bellagio to prefunk the night, some are landing in Vegas as we speak and the rendezvous will soon take place at the Bellagio. Madness will undoubtedly follow. I'm sure a blog post will be added in the near future on all things Bank. We've been to Vegas over 5 times and never have we seen what the inside of the Bank looks like, so tonight is a big night. Wald mentioned Cabo form, the Party Bus, and "it's going to be a big night"...lookout Vegas.

Excitement for Schweik and Colin obviously growing by the day. Prepare yourselves boys.

That's about all for now, so until next time, may your cards be live and your pots be monsters.

The Calm Before the Storm

Wes left you guys with a funny miserable image from this past weekend. Let me (Scott) just say I was not even close to as miserable as Wes. The little amount of sleep wasn't great but we are in Vegas...

Since Wald's roommates and Jeff left it has been pretty calm. We have been detoxing with food, pool and poker. Remmy (Ryan) left today and had a very successful stay. He left us his Aria room key so we can now go to the Aria pool whenever we want, which is nice because it's a lot bigger than the Vdara pool.

As Remmy leaves more visitors come in. Bobby (Gupta) arrived last night, on his birthday no less. We enjoyed a festive meal at the Grand Lux (At the Venetian), where wine and Bacardi were going down faster than BP's stock price. After the meal, part of the group attacked the table games. They started at Blackjack and ending with Craps. As the casino and everyone else in the world predicted it didn't go so well. Fun fact about the free drinks you get playing table games as opposed to poker, the table game drinks are stronger than the ones you get playing poker (it makes sense). To drown our sorrows we made it back to Matt and George's room and continued. We were flipping hold'em and omaha hands for shots. Tom ran better than Usain Bolt with Moses on his back; even when Tom lost he had an amazing hand.

The cab driver we had on the way to Bobby's birthday dinner was unreal. Image a slow talking southern accent on guy who looks like this http://www.mikeandmandy.us/wp-content/uploads/bucktooth_mugshot.jpg (add one more tooth) telling us crazy stories about what has happened in the back of his cab. Let's just say the back seat of some Vegas cabs isn't as clean as you think.

Rumors of Ms. Lemieux (Katie) arriving in vegas a few hours ago are running rampid, but because I haven't seen or heard from her yet I can't confirm these rumors. Also Adam Kubiskey (aka the greatest fantasy football GM the east coast will ever see) will be in vegas sometime soon. Sam Croffut and friends will be coming in this weekend for the 4th, hopefully they are staying at the Venetain so we can accompany them to Tao Beach. And breaking news out of Berkeley, CA is that Sam Wright (that's right, BMI guy) and Nick Bernardi will be making a one night stop in Vegas on July 5th. It's going to be hard to top this past weekend, but with this group coming in on top of it being 4th of July weekend things will be crazy at the very least.