In the spirit of
f3lix's Vegas thread, I decided to make one of my own. A few things:
1.) Just as a fair warning, this is incredibly long, so stop now if you want to avoid reading all this shit that will probably bore you.
2.) A lot of these pictures and stories would only interest someone who is very intrigued by the world of professional poker - so, just another fair warning - if you don't like poker - there's a good chance this will put you to sleep real quick.
3.) All of these pictures are posted in chronological order - so think of it as a photographic timeline of my trip.
4.) A good deal of these pictures are quite blurry. The reason for this is because no flash was allowed in the poker room at the Rio. As you might be able to figure out, no flash means the shutter stays open on the camera longer - and thus makes the picture blurry unless everything is completely still - which is near impossible. That said, I press on...
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Friday Night
I had a hard time getting off a decent picture, so this is as good as it gets.
The view from the plane as we were flying into Vegas:
The first thing I did when I got to the Rio was go to the poker room. I was so stoked to see what it was like. I didn't even bother calling my buddy Michael (the guy I know from online poker that I was meeting up with on this trip) until after I had walked around the poker room for a few hours.
Here is a shot of Allen Cunningham (looking upward contemplating a move) with Paul Phillips (pink shirt) in the background:
After this I went and met up with my buddy Michael, and his friends Aaron, Andy, and Warren. We met at the Wynn (which I think was the nicest casino I went to the whole trip - it's brand new - and absolutely "top-notch" ... thanks to Aaron for overusing the phrase "top-notch" - I love it now). I found them sitting in a bar near the main entrance of the casino, and immediately ordered a White Russian - a drink that I would eventually consume quite often on this trip. I followed the White Russian with a Red Bull so I could stay awake long enough to hang out late into the night - I was very tired after traveling - and gained two hours on the flight out there - which didn't help one bit.
After the bar at the Wynn for a while, we went to this place to get food (also in the Wynn). The Terrace Cafe or something like that. I had this Lobster Bisque Soup that was probably the best soup I've had in my life. Can't wait to try it again. After this we headed back to the Rio, had a few more drinks at the "I-Bar" (which had some amazingly hot cocktail waitresses). A few more of Mike's friends who were sorta off doing their own thing met up with us at the bar. I had this weird-ass drink called a Fresh Scent that had mint leaves and cucumber bits in it. It wasn't that great, and was definetly light on the alcohol. After this we called it a night.
Here is a pick of Michael and I after the damage was done:
continued...
[ July 14, 2005, 10:47 PM: Message edited by: Ugly Bastard ]