N82 Guest Writes a Blog [12.19.2005]
Note from ZJ: I was really lazy tonight, and Nat offered to write a blog, so I let him. If you do not like it, please direct all hate mail to
[email protected].
Late at night on Thursday Dec 15th, Oz (aka Ozzy 87, formerly known as
bigslick789) and I realized Gigabet could very well make the WPT final
table of the Five Diamonds $15K event and that it could be a fun trip
to go see Gigabet play. After he made the final table, we decided on
a whim to book tickets to Vegas to go see the final table taping. We
also were invited to go to LA with ZeeJustin after our time in Vegas.
Oz and I left his house in Staten Island at around 7 am on Friday for
the Newark airport. After stumbling around the airport trying to
figure out where to check-in, we eventually managed to board our 9:20
flight to Las Vegas. We arrived around noon Vegas time, took a cab to
the Bellagio and got a room with a pool view (our first room wasn't
made up at all, so they upgraded us). The final table didn't start
until 7 PM local time, so we had around 6 hours. We headed over to
Gigabet's (Darrell Dicken) room to say hello and to wish him good
luck. Sheets (Eric Haber) and emptyseat88 (Scott Fischman) were in
the room along with Gigabet's brother and his parents. We left with
sheets and Scott to get some food at Noodles in the Bellagio. After a
great lunch, we headed to Scott's house in Henderson to kill some time
prior to the final table. After sitting around for a bit, it was time
to head back to the Bellagio and make sure we got seats to see the
final table taping.
Once we got back to the Bellagio, we headed back to Gigabet's room to
say good luck again and to get our tickets for the taping. We then
went downstairs and took our seats, which were obviously in the
Darrell Dicken seating area. We happened to be next to the Patrik
Antonius section, which contained who's bad (Robert Mizrachi),
Exclusive (Noah Boeken), Marcel Luske and E-WeE (Eric Mizrachi). Gus
Hansen and The Grinder (Michael Mizrachi) later showed up to sweat
Patrik as well.
Play started off with immediate action, as the first pot went to the
turn. Patrik quickly established himself as the table captain, taking
down most of the big pots. Gigabet never managed to get anything
going and he went out in 5th after getting in behind in pretty much
every pot where he showed down a hand. We left the final table for a
few minutes to talk to Gigabet and the rest of the group. I headed up
to our hotel room, where I met ZeeJustin, who had just recently
arrived at the Bellagio after driving in from LA during the day.
Scott and a few other players were also in our hotel room watching the
closed circuit broadcast of the final table. We eventually went back
downstairs to watch the rest of the taping, after which we got a quick
bite to eat at Cafe Bellagio. After that, the three of us headed
upstairs to go to sleep.
Saturday consisted of all-day online poker. The Pokerroom Grand
started at 12 PM local time, so Oz and ZJ woke up for that. They also
both played in the Party Million Guaranteed at 1:30 PM local time.
Unfortunately, they didn't get much going in either one, although Oz
got up to 70K in the Grand before losing all his chips on a 3h 4h 7h
Kh Xx non-paired board with the Ah versus 5h 6h. Oz also played a
bunch of cash games on UB while ZJ played a ton of tables on
PokerStars to try to get TLB points to make sure he won the weekly
contest. He managed to set the weekly point record in that
competition with around 2960 points. Oz also entered the Party $215
special later that evening and managed to get to the top two tables
before running into lordhutty's aces in the big blind.
We headed out of Vegas at around 1 AM after Oz busted to drive back to
ZJ's LA apt. The trip was very smooth except for one crisis: we
almost ran out of gas. Soon after passing the Zzyzx Rd exit on US-13,
ZJ noticed the gas light was on in his car. Luckily, I'd brought my
Magellan navigation system, which can help you locate the nearest gas
station to your current location. The only problem was that we were
in the middle of the Mojave desert and there was literally nothing
within 50 miles of us. We determined that our best course of action
was to try to make it to Barstow (about 50 miles). About 5 miles shy
of Barstow, we found a 76 gas station where we finally managed to fill
up. The tank took 19.2 gallons on what I'm assuming is a 20 gallon
tank, so we cut it pretty close. Anyway, we made it back to his place
in Sherman Oaks and passed out on his couches.
Oz and ZJ woke up "early" again to play the Party and Stars Sunday
tournaments. Once again, they didn't get much going, but that's the
nature of huge field MTTs. ZJ played a bunch of STTs while Oz ran
some 50/100. We went to an Ahi Sushi restaurant for dinner then saw a
late-night showing of King Kong. I enjoyed the movie for the most
part (as did Oz and ZJ) and I'd recommend that everyone go see it, but
be prepared for a very long movie. Oz stacked a few more people at
50/100 NL on UB and we went to sleep.
Today we haven't done that much other than go to the gym, but tomorrow
we plan on going to an amusement park with JJProdigy (formerly known
as TheTimeIsUp) and then we're going to go to dinner with shaniac.
Thanks to ZJ for letting me be a guest writer on his blog.
-Nat Arem (N 82 50 24)
