I managed to spend a week or so in Las Vegas before hitting the road again. This time I was driving to L.A. with the girl that Iím seeing (heretofore known as The Girl). Gnarly traffic added a couple hours to what should have been a four-hour drive. But things began looking up after we got to West Hollywood in time to have dinner with my friends Keith Gibson and Brian Rast.

Keith and Brian are both high-stakes poker pros. We play in a lot of the same games and theyíre always fun to hang out with. We ate in a nice, healthy Italian restaurant called Pace before heading to Le Deaux, which is supposed to be the hot club in L.A.

Having spent more than my share of time in Vegas nightspots, I immediately noticed two key differences: People in L.A. dress a lot more casually, and the girls are definitely less attractive. I donít care about peopleís clothing, but I do care about the girls. Admittedly, though, they seem a more intelligent in L.A. and more adept at holding decent conversations.

The other thing I noticed right away is that nobody in L.A. really cares about us being poker players. In Vegas, being known as a high-stakes player comes with a certain amount of† status. Not the same thing in L.A. Of course, though, when you have two tables and bottle service, you do get noticed a little bit.

Before the night ended, I had to do some gambling. So, on the ride home (The Girl abstained from drinking and served as designated driver), Brian and I played Wits and Wagers. Itís a trivia game that I just happened to have in my car. We went heads up for $100 a question. I finished with a $600 profit but figured that I wasnít getting the best of it. Brian went to Stanford and Iím just a lowly state college dropout. So I definitely dodged a bullet there.
Eating and clubbing are fun, but the real reason for this trip† was to attend a dual birthday party being thrown by Phil Laak and Jennifer Tilly. The cool thing about their set-up in L.A. is that they basically have two houses, right next to each other. One is the house that they live in. The other is a really nice guesthouse. They invited The Girl and I to stay in the guesthouse, and thatís where the party was as well.

I half-jokingly told Jennifer and Phil, ìThat one day I am successful enough that I have one house to live in, and another house for throwing parties and putting up my friends.î

The party, as expected, was great. One interesting thing was the mix of people: half Hollywood types and half poker players. The poker players all hung out together and I think we did most of the drinking.† When I made a comment about the traffic in LA, all of the pro-poker players I talked to said they didn’t leave their house from 1pm to 7pm.† I found this assuming and in mind it kind of defeats the point of living in LA .

One person who pretty much straddled both worlds was Shannon Elizabeth.† She plays a bit of poker, but, more importantly for me, she was in American Pie.† I saw her naked about 200 times when I was 12 years old and developed a bit of a crush. But by the time I got drunk enough to approach her, she had already left.

On Sunday, slightly hung over from the party, we moved from Jen and Philís place to Hotel Casa Del Mar in Santa Monica, which I really like. I have to say that when Iím ready to leave Vegas, Santa Monica will be one of the places on my list. Itís right on the ocean, people there look great, and we found some terrific restaurants. These were places that were good and low-key ñ they didnít have the shock and awe of my usual Vegas haunts ñ and all the better for it.

Over the course of our trip, I got The Girl to start gambling with me. Being the vegas girl she is she wants a pair of Dolce & Gabbana boots so I decided to freeroll her for a portion of the boots on every bet. So far, though, she hasn’t won any bets .