VISITING ENGLAND

I’m always looking for an excuse to travel, and this was a good one: Visit London to attend the ICE and CAP conventions. ICE is for online sites and CAP caters to casino- and poker-affiliates. Basically, my job, as a sponsored pro with VictoryPoker.net, was to party and schmooze. No problem, I figured, I know how to do that. With my friends Phil Laak, Antonio Esfandiari, and Dan Fleyshman out there as well, I felt sure that it would be a blast.

On our second night in town, we went to the Fire and Ice party, thrown by Michael Casselli, who co-owns Bluff magazine. There was a Roman theme going on, and good-looking actresses casually strolled around topless. Obviously, that was pretty great, but I was more excited about sitting at a table with Doyle Brunson. He’s such an amazing guy and a total inspiration. Talking to him is never less than a treat.

One good thing about going to a gambling convention is that 90-percent of the people there are degenerates. It’s no wonder then that the most crowded booths had open bars. One of them was Microgaming. Years ago, I had money on a site they were involved with, and the site went bankrupt. In the process, I wound up losing a bundle. For a second, I considered asking one of the reps to make good on it. But then I decided to start recouping my losses via shots of liquor. I am on my way to being made whole!

On the third night in London, my friends and I went to an awards dinner hosted by Michael Casselli and Phil Laak. Of course we were late, and, having failed to get the memo that said it was black tie, we stood out in jeans and hoodies. Everybody had a good laugh, and we squeezed in at Doyle’s table. I got to spend more time with a legend, and it was completely awesome.

The after-party was at a club called Jalouse. It was a very nice place, in the mold of a top Vegas spot, so we all felt instantly at home. Jasper, a Finnish movie star who owns coinflip.com and is buddies with Ilari ‘Zigmund’ Sahamies, set things up there and we went in with him.

It turned out to be quite the scene at Jalouse. Top-guys from all the affiliates and sites were there, along with loads of poker players. Not surprisingly, the pounds were flying. Iíve seen a lot of money blown on bottle-service, but everything pales next to what went down at Jalouse. Bottle after bottle of Dom made the rounds, and there were more toasts than I can remember. Have to love the gaming industry! There also were more beautiful, Scandinavian women than I’ve ever seen. I definitely need to book a trip to that part of the world.

It was a classic night that ended in an after-hours club. On the way there, I booked a $100,000 heads-up match with a Danish kid named Thor. We’re going to play three tables of $25/$50 until somebody wins 100K. I’m not sure what his game is like, but we were both drunk, a challenge was issued, and I couldn’t bring myself to back down.

At the afterhours club everyone was a mess and Jasper, who had Affiliate of the year, had dropped his trophy several times, making it more of a jigsaw puzzle. For all their talk Fins drink like little girls .

The next morning I woke up hungover and deathly ill. Drinking didn’t help, but my hotel room had been awfully cold and London was endlessly rainy. Not exactly what you get used to when you live in Las Vegas. As a result of being sick, I wound up missing the casino- and poker-affiliates convention, which was a major bummer. Even worse, by the time we were scheduled to fly home, I felt as sick as a dog. I told Antonio that I thought I was going to die.

He quickly offered to bet me that I wouldn’t. We wagered $100 and he laid 1,000-to-1. We agreed that the money would go to my family if I died en route to Vegas. The good news is that I lost the bet and Iím starting to feel better.