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RACING AROUND

12*18*09

Great as Vegas is, sometimes you just need to get out of town. Such was the case earlier this week when the producers of a TV show called†Destination X gave us the incentive. They invited some friends and I to go to Pahrump and race Lotus sports cars.† Apparently, this show is all about hot girls doing outrageous activities in† exotic places.† Sounds like fun, right? We rounded up some good-looking Vegas girls and piled into our cars for the 70-minute drive to Pahrump.

We wound up at a place called Club Spring Mountain, which felt like a country club with a racetrack instead of a golf course. Sadly, though, I didnít get to do any driving because I donít know how to drive a stick. Yeah, I know, Iím a guy from Michigan who can only drive an automatic. Itís like living in Las Vegas and not knowing how to place a Super Bowl bet.† Okay, I admit it: I felt like a total bitch.

But there was an upside to my lack of stick-shift knowledge: I got to ride shotgun while one of the hot chicks drove. Not too bad ñ even though I would have preferred being behind the wheel of a Lotus, zipping along a racetrack. Before we hit the curves, the guy who owns the track invited us for a helicopter ride. It was pretty awesome, as his ëcopter is as souped-up as his cars.† We swooped through canyons, flew two feet above the ground, banked around as if we were on a thrill ride.

Surprisingly, though, driving on the track proved to be more treacherous than flying in the helicopter. One turn at Club Spring Mountain is known as Ego Check ñ and for good reason. A friend of mine definitely did not have his ego in check, and he hit the turn with a little too much gusto. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw him doing a 180. He narrowly avoided hitting another car and wasnít nearly as rattled as he should have been ñ even after that mishap, he kept right on driving.† Pretty impressive!

I thought that maybe Iíd get my chance behind the wheel when I noticed that the owner of the track had a really sweet BMW M3 ñ with an automatic transmission. He let one of the girls drive it and I asked if I could take it for a spin as well. I even offered to cover the insurance deductible if I messed it up. But he said no. I guess you have to be a hot girl to drive the ownerís car.

That night there was a good game in Bobbyís Room. I went down there and put my name on the list. But I didnít get a seat until 4:00 a.m. ñ and the game broke up immediately after. That was an uneventful end to a very eventful day.


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Blowing up Cars

11*26*09

A lot of high-stakes poker players get haircuts at the salon in Bellagio. Itís obviously convenient and also happens to be the place where Phil Ivey goes most every day for a trim. My crowd tends to use the same dude that Phil uses. But I go my own way and have my hair cut by a girl there named Lacey ñ who, truth be told, Iím in love with (yes, sheís beautiful). I was en route to getting one of my increasingly frequent stylings when I received a text message from Dan Blizarean, a poker-playing buddy of mine.

†† He had just bought two clunkers on craigslist and he was taking them out to the Mojave Desert. He wanted me to join him. Apparently, Dan told each of the sellers, ìMeet me in the desert. Iím blowing up your car.î The guys pretty much responded, ìAwesome.î They were happy to sell their junk.

†† I considered meeting Dan. But, after I heard about the heavy-duty firearms he and his friends planned on bringing, I calculated that my chance of getting hit by a ricocheting bullet out there was about one-percent. Spending an hour in close proximity to Lacey seemed like better EV. So, while I was getting my hair cut, they hit the Mojave with sniper rifles and a 50-caliber machine gun. It fires bullets that explode on impact, and the cars were their targets.

†† As Dan explained it to me, there were giant explosions, both cars caught on fire, and enormous smoke clouds billowed into the air. Before long, eight cop cars pulled up. Police officers had been called in to investigate. Dan and his crew were told that they canít blow up cars in the desert because it qualifies as littering (an only-in-Vegas ordinance). But everything ultimately worked out okay. Dan and his boys promised to take the cops shooting in exchange for not getting a ticket.

Story in pictures below:

Shooting


†
Sniping

Close range

Dan on Fire

Aftermath

Uh oh

†† I heard all about this on Saturday night. Thatís when Dan had a bunch of us up to his new apartment for a UFC viewing party. As always, the matches were pretty cool ñ we did our usual Rock, Paper, Scissors to see who gets to bet on which fighters; sadly, I did not come out on top this time ñ but Danís place is the nuts. He moved into a 5,300-square-foot penthouse at Panorama and itís the nicest one Iíve seen in Las Vegas. You actually feel like youíre in a house instead of an apartment. The funny thing is ñ with Vegas real estate being in the dumpster right now ñ I could get that kind of pad with two of my friends, weíd look like rockstars, and I wouldnít pay much more rent than I do on my current place.

†† Iíll think about that next week. Right now, I am far from the beautiful sickness of my favorite city. Iím in Kansas, spending Thanksgiving with the relatives, even though Iím sure the Bellagio will be bumping and that turkey dinner with my degenerate friends would be a blast. But donít worry. It wonít be a gamble-free weekend. The Robls love to play $5.00 holdíem tournaments, and theyíd never forgive me for soft playing. So Iím expecting to take the family to school over the next few days. Wish me luck.

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High Stakes Poker!!

11*22*09

The call came at 11:00 a.m. It was from Mori Eskandani, a producer with High Stakes Poker. Iíd been hoping to play on the show for a while, and Mori told me I was getting my shot. But Iíd need to be at the Golden Nugget within four hours, prepared to buy in for a minimum of $200,000. Of course I said Iíd be there, but I did not plan on bringing the minimum. After a few phone calls and a trip to my box at Bellagio, I had $400,000 in cash. This might seem like a lot of money to put together so quickly, but, for a successful high-stakes poker player in Las Vegas, itís really not a big deal. Remember what they used to say about Stu Ungar: Money was the cheapest commodity in his life. Hey, I can relate.

The bigger downside of a short-notice invitation is that I had no time to prepare. My opponents included Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, and Patrik Antonius. Lineups donít get much more challenging than that. Iíd have liked a day or two to review their play and examine what I could do to beat them. But that just wasnít an option. Truthfully, though, at the risk of sounding arrogant, Iím not afraid of anyone at the poker table. So I spent a couple of hours getting mentally prepared and showed up ready to play my best.

Some people go on High Stakes primarily because they want to appear on TV. The money that may be won or lost is secondary. That is not my situation. My $400,000 meant a lot to me. I was there to win. It was the biggest game I ever sat down in and also ñ considering that I was positioned between Patrik and Phil ñ the toughest. But I stayed confident and had a really good time, especially after I got used to play suddenly stopping for makeup retouches and camera adjustments.

No doubt, youíre wondering how I did. Unfortunately, I agreed not to reveal that. But I will post the airdate as soon as I know it.

. . .

Right now all my poker friends are buzzing about a mysterious online player named Isildur1. Nobody seems 100-percent sure who he is. But the belief is that heís a Swedish pro who built his bankroll on the European sites. Heís currently beating the biggest names in poker. Since October, Isuldur1 is ahead more than $3-million, playing heads-up against Patrik, Phil, and Tom. Most audacious of all, heís multi-tabling all of them simultaneously. No one has ever come into these games and just beaten everybody the way he has. He plays them all day long and is obviously very good.

I donít know what will happen long term, but I do have some experience with Isildur1. A few weeks ago he played me heads-up at $50/$100 holdíem. He quit me after just an hour. So I canít really tell you how good he actually is. What I can tell you is that heís definitely confident and thinking. Obviously, when he plays for the highest stakes ñ $500/$1,000 no limit ñ heís making more correct decisions than everybody else. Itís psychological warfare, and so far heís coming out on top.

Nevertheless, Tom tells me that he expects to eventually win. While itís hard for me to handicap their matches, over the years Iíve learned one thing about Tom Dwan: Betting against him is usually a mistake.

. . .

When you spend a lot of time focused on poker, itís nice to have friends who can break you away from your obsession. That was the case a couple weeks ago, on the night of Brian Rastís birthday. I wanted to stay in, but Brian and the guys convinced me to join them for dinner at Cut.

If youíve never been there, you really ought to check it out. Cut is

Wolfgang Puckís steakhouse in the Palazzo and itís really excellent.

Between courses, we played What Lodden Thinks ñ the most outrageous estimate tied into a question about how many guys in Vegas unknowingly have girlfriends who are hookers; the Lodden number was 18,000; Iím confident that the true number is closer to 500 ñ and I wound up winning a couple grand overall. But when the check came, we played credit card roulette and I lost. So the $1,800 tab ñ including our standard 30-prcent discount ñ was on me.

Dinner turned out to be so much fun, that I wound up going with the guys to XS, across the street at the Wynn. Of course, we had a table on the edge of the dance-floor and everybody got plastered. By 3:00 in the morning, some people had too much fun and needed to go home. But a bunch of us decided to keep rolling. Outside the club we ran into Chuck Liddell, and he invited our group to go partying with him. First, though, he needed to quickly run up to his room. He asked us to wait, but, after just a few minutes, four hot girls walked by and we followed. No dude can compete with hot girls. Not even Chuck Liddell. Maybe next time, Iceman!

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