WSOP 2009 Trip Report

[Fonzi]

My 2009 WSOP Trip Report

As many of you know my trip started out with my flight being cancelled and me having to scramble to find a new flight into Las Vegas. I finally arrived 14 hours later, but my bags didn't arrive until later.

I spent the first night at a friends house and tried to relax and get adjusted to the time change. I woke up at 5:30am, and ended up taking about a week to fully adjust. On my second day I checked into the Rio and met up with lkport, Dunbar and Sharbear for a quick dinner before heading out to catch a show. It was great to finally meet them all face to face and have some laughs.

Day 3, I woke up early and went down to register for event 51 only to learn that it was SOLD OUT. It's safe to say I was not at all happy and spent much of the day kicking myself to not going down the night before. I met up with alabamaslim in the afternoon to give him his poker marathon prize and HPC gear for Event 54. With nothing to do in the evening, I got the group together and we heading over to the Golden Nugget for the Rounders Radio/Suited pockets poker tournament where we met up with a bunch of other forum members including Vger and some other friends. Shortly after busting out I grabbed a drink and decided to put some money in a slot machine and the unthinkable happened, I hit a jackpot. I never hit jackpots, little did I know that this was to be one of the most bizarre trips I've ever taken to Vegas.

Day 4 was a lazy day, I took a nap, went in the pool and pretty much just lounged around. In the Evening we met up with Rezster, Mainstick and the some others and headed over to the Cake Poker party. I was in full party mode as you can see from the pictures.



Day 5, Event 54. I was feeling good until I got to the table to find cameras everywhere pointed to the seat to my immediate right. There sat Miss Austria 2003, Tanja Duhovich, who was sponsored into the tournament by Everest Poker. So I'm thinking, ok, this is an easy mark and patiently waited for a good opportunity to teach her a lesson in poker. During level 4 with the blinds at 100/200 in late position she raised to 600, I flat called with 44. the flop comes KJ4 rainbow. She quickly checks, I bet out 1k, she reraises me to 2k. At this point I should have probably taken a little longer to think. I had her on AK possible on KJ so I pushed allin. She quickly called and turned over KK for top set. I missed my 1 outer on the turn and river and was left crippled.

After a table change I busted out when I was forced to play weaker hands. Left with nothing to do for the evening, I rounded up the troops and we all headed over to The Ultimate Bet party at Studio 54. While I had no plans to attend, it turned out to be a very good party with tons of pros in attendance. I managed to get some contact information from some of them for future interviews and had a great chat with Annie Duke. Check out some of the pictures.



Day 6, I can't for the life of my remember what I did. But I do remember hitting a small jackpot on the slots. WTF? I'm freerolling now.

Day 7, This is the day I looked forward to the most. I got a special invite to attend a private dinner with Doyle Brunson. I've met Doyle in the past but this for me was special. The food was pretty good, but having a long chat with the godfather of poker was the highlight of the night. My wife who attended with me had a half hour chat with Mike Caro about why he hates Las Vegas, it was pretty funny to hear his take on things. After the dinner we headed over to the PKR party at the Playboy suite at the palms. I brought an extra pair of underwear just in case I decided to go for another swim, lol. The place was jam packed with people and it with all the doors open it was HOT! They did get a great turnout of poker pros at the party, but to me it was a little to crazy and a much different crowd then the Cake party, so I decided to not jump into the pool, although I desperately wanted to cool off. After a couple of hours of sweating, we decided to leave.

Day 8, Not much going on during the day, but 3 parties for the night. lkport and I met up with Borgo, Redeyed and dodonumber2 and their friends and went to the Aced Poker party at the palms. I was much smaller then we thought it would be, so we didnt stay too long. I did manage to sneak away and hit the Bodog party 3 floors down which had a bowling alley in the suite. It was pretty damn sweet to watch the Bodog girls bowl strikes. After hanging out a bit I got the rest of the gang and we headed over to the big Doyles Room party at the Wynn. It was to commemorate Doyle Brunsons 40th year in the WSOP and all the stars came out. Including, Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth, Jen Harmon, Daniel Negreanu, Marcel Luske and man many more. The only drawback was that they started charging for drinks 2 hours into the party. I got tired way too early and decided to head back to my hotel and get some sleep.

Day 9, The WSOP Main Event begins. I went to check out the action in the Amazon room and bumped into FTP pro Rafe Furst who we work with for Bad Beat on Cancer. We walked around and checked on mutual friends and then he invited me into the FTP players suite. FTP had a very nice layout with the large room divided for Red pros and online qualifiers. There were plenty of comfy couches and loads of food for the players. It's nice to see the Online Poker Sites taking care of the players. We all complately forgot about a great party going on, so me, lkport, Borgo and dodo went to the Gold Coast to play some poker, only it was taking forever and I decided to try something new... We went and played Bingo for an hour. This was by far one of the funniest things we did in Las Vegas.

Day 10, the 4th of July. We net up with a Bodog rep and discussed future tournaments and promotions for HPC. It was a great meeting that actually lasted 2 hours, so look for some great new tournaments to be held at Bodog in the near future. After a short nap, myself, lkport and dodonumber2 headed off the stip for a private BBQ. Once again he had great food and plenty to drink for everyone. We had some laughs listening to Gavin Smith talk shit about everyone and everything in the poker world. Around 9:30 pm, the world series of rock, paper, scissors began. It was a $500 buyin with 32 players. The winner got 10k and 6k went to Bad Beat on Cancer. Like last year I got knocked out in the 2nd round.

Day 11, I played a $550 Main event satellite and got crippled in level 3 with an odd hand. I raised in mid position with ATs and was reraised allin from the BB. I had some information on the player and thought it was possible for him to be trying to steal. I had him covered by about 1250 in chips and
decided to make the call. He turned over ATh and wouldn't you know it, 2 hearts came on the flop, the turn was a blank and the river brought another heart to give him the flush. At this point I was just sick and on monkey tilt. I was out 15 minutes later.

Day 12, not much going on.

Day 13, I leave for home.

Next year I'm going to do what I did in 2008, I'm going to take 2 trips, one of them early in the series so I can focus on playing poker and then another one around the main event so I can be the party planner. It was great meeting everyone, sorry if I left anyone out, but my memory is starting to go.

Only 11 more months until the 2010 WSOP, I can't wait to do it all over again. Check below for some more pictures.

[Fonzi]

More pictures

Notice they are topless and painted








I'll post more as I edit them

[dpk57]

thanks for pictures fonz one day hope to make it there for wsop.

[jjbones21]

Sounded like everyone had a blast. I hope I can make it there one day soon also.

[YellowRoses]

Sure sounds like you had a great time. Hope you post more pics from the trip.