Day One, Event Two
I'm a blogger. I blog.
How gay does that sound?
Seriously though, I have approximately the sweetest job in the universe. Today I officially began my tour of duty covering the 2008 World Series of Poker. I missed the opening of the Series yesterday, but I headed to the Rio just before noon today to begin covering Event #2, the donkparty that is the $1,500 NLHE tournament.
Immediately upon entering the corridors surrounding the WSOP area, the scale and spectacle of the event become instantly clear. The space is enormous, but it's practically shoulder-to-shoulder as you make your way towards the doors. The hallways are just packed with players making final preparations for a day of gambling. A quick cup of coffee. Last minute phone call to the wife. Stop by the massage booth for a quick demo. Where is the damn bathroom? Put out your cigarette, wish your buddies good luck, and head out into the sea of players flooding the Amazon Room.
Today's field size presented a bit of a logistical challenge for us and the tournament staff. By the time all was said and done, 2,048 players came out for Day 1a (with another ~1,700 expected on Day 1b tomorrow). With Event #1 -- the $10,000 PLO World Championship -- still running in the same room, there simply wasn't enough space for all the tables, despite the cavernous nature of the Amazon. As a result, the field was split into four areas. Besides the main stage in the big room, 23 tables of players were seated in the adjacent (and much smaller) Tropical Room, as well as in the Rio's poker room on the casino floor, and even right in front of Buzio's Seafood Restaurant in the hotel. We sort of had to set up on the fly and get situated quickly to attack the reporting cohesively. Divide and conquer.
I ended up starting out in the Tropical Room all by myself. It wasn't ideal, but it ended up working out very nicely. From my vantage point in the corner, I was able to survey the entire room in one pass. Some of the notable players that I was covering were Daniel Negreanu, Jeff Lisandro, Dutch Boyd, John Murphy, and the legendary Johnny Chan. Lisandro and Dutch Boyd were sitting directly in front of me, and Johnny Chan was one table over with John Murphy.
If I'm honest, there wasn't really much going on in the room, which made for a rather paltry number of blog entries for me. I had to go off-topic and dig a little bit for material, but did find some noteworthy hands to discuss every now and then. I had the chance to talk to Johnny Chan briefly as well. He seems like a real down-to-earth normal guy, easy to get along with him. Regardless, if I were playing next to him, my stomach would be doing backflips.
After about five hours of play, all of the tables in the Tropical Room had been broken and combined back into the rest of the field playing next door. I packed up my gear and headed over there with them. Players were dropping left and right, so my boss told me that he'd let me leave at the dinner break. Fortunately, we were overstaffed early in the day, as it allowed us to spread out to the various tournament scenes around the hotel without being spread too thin. But once the players combined into a single location, there were just too many of us to stick around. So I gladly headed out.
How gay does that sound?
Seriously though, I have approximately the sweetest job in the universe. Today I officially began my tour of duty covering the 2008 World Series of Poker. I missed the opening of the Series yesterday, but I headed to the Rio just before noon today to begin covering Event #2, the donkparty that is the $1,500 NLHE tournament.
Immediately upon entering the corridors surrounding the WSOP area, the scale and spectacle of the event become instantly clear. The space is enormous, but it's practically shoulder-to-shoulder as you make your way towards the doors. The hallways are just packed with players making final preparations for a day of gambling. A quick cup of coffee. Last minute phone call to the wife. Stop by the massage booth for a quick demo. Where is the damn bathroom? Put out your cigarette, wish your buddies good luck, and head out into the sea of players flooding the Amazon Room.
Today's field size presented a bit of a logistical challenge for us and the tournament staff. By the time all was said and done, 2,048 players came out for Day 1a (with another ~1,700 expected on Day 1b tomorrow). With Event #1 -- the $10,000 PLO World Championship -- still running in the same room, there simply wasn't enough space for all the tables, despite the cavernous nature of the Amazon. As a result, the field was split into four areas. Besides the main stage in the big room, 23 tables of players were seated in the adjacent (and much smaller) Tropical Room, as well as in the Rio's poker room on the casino floor, and even right in front of Buzio's Seafood Restaurant in the hotel. We sort of had to set up on the fly and get situated quickly to attack the reporting cohesively. Divide and conquer.
I ended up starting out in the Tropical Room all by myself. It wasn't ideal, but it ended up working out very nicely. From my vantage point in the corner, I was able to survey the entire room in one pass. Some of the notable players that I was covering were Daniel Negreanu, Jeff Lisandro, Dutch Boyd, John Murphy, and the legendary Johnny Chan. Lisandro and Dutch Boyd were sitting directly in front of me, and Johnny Chan was one table over with John Murphy.
If I'm honest, there wasn't really much going on in the room, which made for a rather paltry number of blog entries for me. I had to go off-topic and dig a little bit for material, but did find some noteworthy hands to discuss every now and then. I had the chance to talk to Johnny Chan briefly as well. He seems like a real down-to-earth normal guy, easy to get along with him. Regardless, if I were playing next to him, my stomach would be doing backflips.
After about five hours of play, all of the tables in the Tropical Room had been broken and combined back into the rest of the field playing next door. I packed up my gear and headed over there with them. Players were dropping left and right, so my boss told me that he'd let me leave at the dinner break. Fortunately, we were overstaffed early in the day, as it allowed us to spread out to the various tournament scenes around the hotel without being spread too thin. But once the players combined into a single location, there were just too many of us to stick around. So I gladly headed out.
posted by Eric at
6:04 AM
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