Rising at the early hour of 1:30 pm, Blaz bestowed upon me the coveted PokerSoup.tv ball cap. Showered and now properly dressed, we headed off to Harrah’s to take advantage of the half price buffet. Kind of odd eating breakfast at 2:30, especially since there was no breakfast food available, but we made do. The usual fare… crab legs, shrimp, sushi, sirloin… all the basic proteins (carbo –loading is for real athletes, we’re poker players!).

We planned to play the $80 NLHE Tourney at Harrah’s that night at 8:15, but had time to kill, so headed over to the Tropicana to see if we could find some non-Hold’em cash games. The Trop’s poker room was crowded and seamlessly merged with the service bar and race track wagering station. Blaz and I were disappointed to find nothing but Hold’em being spread, so we started an interest list for an Omaha table, grabbed some chips and took some open seats at a 4-8 LHE table. Did I mention the Trop was crowded? Oh yeah, so my seat backed right up to the service bar which ensured that any drink I ordered took three times as long to arrive as bald gentleman with the oxygen tank 50 yards away who was intently picking horses for the next race. The bartender could have poured directly into my mouth without stretching from my seat. Ugghh, and every discontented waitress in the room would bump my chair with every passing.

Time to leave – wrong. This table was even better than the night before at Harrah’s. Blaz and I sat in the 6 & 8 seats. Seat 1 was occupied by Greg Raymer, Jr. This guy looked like a poker player, raised like a poker player, and called every value bet like a donk. Not quite loose aggressive, but he liked to raise and generally would showdown any two cards. In the 2 seat was Mrs. Right. Not right for poker, but certainly right for this game. A perfect calling station, Mrs. Right went to the river every time she had a pair (not top pair, just a pair). I don’t have a good description of the guy in seat 3, my view of him was blocked by the European and AARP members on my right (not sure which of them the distinguished scent was emanating from, but it wasn’t pretty). Nevertheless, he didn’t stay around long before he was felted and on his way out.

Tony Soprano sat between Blaz and I. He was pretty short-stacked when we sat down, but doubled-up two hands in a row early in the session. The rest of the Soprano family came in (because they’d lost all their money playing Poker and Slots) and soon Tony had busted out and left. The 9 seat was occupied by The Asian. Splashed around some in pots, but basically just limp folded and listened to his iPod. Seat 10 was the only real poker player at the table. This very attractive young lady sat down about 30 minutes into our session and played solid, aggressive poker. Unfortunately, with three players at the table, it didn’t take long before the fish in seats 1, 2 and 3 departed and we ended our session. A positive one for both Blaz and I, an extra $82 in my pocket would cover my buy-in to the night’s tournament.

Total for the morning:

Tropicana 4-8 LHE Cash                                    + $ 82
Total                                                                          - $38

Author: pointledge

pointledge is a regular contributor to PokerSoup and our own GetAStake.com success story. You can find him playing games online and live.