BEING A HOMEBODY

Following the trip to Cancun, I had vowed to not leave my condo for 30 days. So far, I’ve gone out to dinner a few times and went to a club once. So, by Vegas standards, I have lived up to the promise.

That said, a lot of this blog will be about two of times that I ventured out over the last week or so. One night out was to celebrate the birthday of my good friend Alec Torelli. Alec, Luke Kim, some girls, and I all went to Bar Masa inside Aria at CityCenter. The sushi there is amazing, and we had a great time. Also in the restaurant were Erick Lindgren, Erica Schoenfeld, my trainer Dave and his wife, and a bunch of their friends. They were all together, and we joined them for drinks.

After dinner, when the check came, Luke and I decided to treat Alec. So we played credit card roulette for the tab, which is pretty standard in my crowd. I won and Luke handed the waiter his American Express card. A few minutes later, the waiter returned and very politely told Luke that the card had been turned down. Luke looked surprised and handed the waiter his Visa card. That, too, was declined. So Luke dug into his wallet.  But he didn’t have enough money on him to cover dinner. Suddenly he found himself in the unenviable position of having to borrow cash from Alec – the guy we wanted to treat.

That’s when we noticed Erick and his group cracking up. Erick tipped the waiter and had him play a pretty good joke on Luke – whose credit cards are all perfectly valid.

This past Saturday I was back at Aria to check out the nightclub Haze for the first time. I went with Luke and Mila and one of Mila’s friends. My buddy Jay had a table there and the plan was for us to go in and join him there. We were waiting and waiting, being totally dissed by the bouncers. Then we finally found a host who we thought would get us in. But he just grabbed Mila and her friend and Luke and I that we have to wait outside.

Trying to get into a club as a guy – with no connections – is the most tilting thing in the world. It was made even worse by a host who was walking up and down the line, telling single guys that if they give him 100-bucks he will let them in. I’ve heard about that sort of thing happening but had never seen it done so blatantly!

When Mila and her friend went in, they found Jay. He came out to get us and everything was cool again. Beautiful women were all over the club, we had bottle service, Snoop Dogg performed. It was a typical night out in Vegas. But, man, waiting to get into the place and being treated like a total undesirable, well, talk about a buzzkill. After Haze, we caught a ride with some random guy and his girlfriend (in his convertible!) and went to Drai’s. Antonio and Brian Rast were there. So we hung with them and the couple that drove us. We got out at around 5:00 a.m.

For Vegas, it was an early night.

At home in the condo, I’ve been playing a ton online and doing really well. Overall, since getting back from Cancun, I’m ahead by about $250,000 thanks to hard work, a bit of luck, and a lot of hours. Yesterday I played $100/$200 no limit on PokerStars and won $140,000, mostly from Daniel Negreanu. That felt really good. Here are a few of the more memorable hands.  No strategy talk as I hope these games keep running and i want to keep playing.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5320924

100k coolers are nice

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5320927P

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5320932P

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5320938P