Change100 at PokerWorks

My jaw dropped when I opened the door to my room. It was nearly the size of my two-bedroom L.A. apartment. Fluffy white king bed with a chic tan leather headboard. An entire “living room” area complete with a velvet eggplant-colored couch , a coffee table, and two plush easy chairs. A “dining room” area with two periwinkle high-backed velvet chairs flanking an elegant mahogany round table. A bathroom with an elegant vanity and a seperate room for the toilet. Not to mention the two flat-screen TVs, one of which is in the bathroom. I got to watch The Apprentice while blow-drying my hair for Christ’s sake.

My room in the Augustus Tower of Caesar’s Palace is possibly the finest hotel room I’ve ever stayed in and that includes a stint a couple of years ago at a Ritz-Carlton. My assignment here in Las Vegas covering the 5th semi-final round of the Mansion Poker Dome Challenge will take less than 48 hours, but man…. I’m living it up in this room until they fuckin’ drag me out of it!!

I had a lovely dinner last night at the Palm in the Forum Shops where I got to meet the six Poker Dome contestants. Each had won their first televised table and already picked up $25K for their win. Now they were facing a semi-final round where the winner would take home $50K and earn the coveted fifth seat of six at the final table, where the winner will walk away with $1,000,000. I sat between Fox Sports commentator Barry Tomkins and semi-final qualifier John Ritchie, a taxi driver from a small Scottish town 60 miles south of Edinburgh. We had a whole private room set up for us in the back of the restaurant, and a glorious four-course meal that included crab cakes, caesar salad, surf & turf, and a heavenly, creamy slice of cheesecake for dessert. That, and all the champagne you could drink. And some of these players drank A LOT of it! Several of them departed the dinner to register for the 11 PM $60 NLHE tournament in the Caesar’s poker room. Others took the twenty green $25 chips that they received as part of their winners’ package and headed straight for the cashier’s cage. Barry Tomkins told me that a significant percentage of the contestants take the $500 in casino chips and put it all on black or red. Double up… or go to bed I suppose. Tomkins was a cool dinner companion and he ordered what might be my new favorite drink… a martini made with Absolut Mandarin and a splash of lemonade. In the words of Rachael Ray, “yum-o!”

In a few hours I’ll be hopping into my purple rental Hyundai (yes, purple) to head over to the Neonopolis on Fremont St. in downtown Las Vegas to cover the match for PokerNews. I have yet to gamble one dollar and I’ve been in Vegas for let’s see… 22 hours? I’m sure that will change tonight after I finish my piece.

I’m not the only blogger staying in a luxury hotel right now. Schecky, Brandon Schaefer, and Pauly are currently enjoying the swank accomodations at the Palazzo Versace (yes, that Versace) on Australia’s Gold Coast. It seems that Pauly’s roving international game of Chinese Poker has resumed with two new opponents. Shit, I think I still owe him like 50 Euros or something from the last one.

Time to head downstairs and grab lunch. I’ll do my best to avoid the Pai Gow tables on the way. In the meantime here are a couple of photos for y’all.

The view!

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 20th, 2007 at 2:12 pm and is filed under Uncategorized.