Tao of Poker

Writing, Bonus Whoring, and Video Poker

Despite the brutal heat, I woke up early on Friday and headed over to Wild Wild West for their $1.49 breakfast special. I ordered the French Toast with bacon. Add an iced tea and hashbrowns, and the entire bill was $4.77. I wandered back to the Redneck Riviera and wrote the entire afternoon. I have three new freelance assignments to work on and I took on another personal creative project (that hopefully I can share with you soon). Since I moved to Las Vegas, I hadn't had chunks of time to write for myself. Since the WSOP and the Bellagio event are both complete, I have unfettered writing time. That soothes the soul.

I also played a little online poker yesterday. I had a tough session on Full Tilt. I also took advantage of the reload bonus on Poker Stars. Yeah, I'm back to bonus whoring. If you don't know, Poker Stars is offering a 20% reload bonus up to $120. You need to deposit $600 to get the max bonus. You have until July 28th at 11:59 pm ET to take advantage of the Poker Stars reload bonus. To clear it, you need to earn 5 FPP's for each $1 in bonus money. The best part.... the Poker Stars Bonus never expires and you can work it off while clearing other bonuses.

I had a victory dinner with the Poker Prof, Flipchip, and a family friend at Palm. That's one of my favorite places to eat in Las Vegas. I've been to the original Palm on Second Avenue in New York City. I ordered the filet mignon and ordered it "medium" this time. I also feasted on a heaping dish of mashed potatoes. We all split a huge size of chocolate cake for dessert.

I went back home and wrote some more before Grubette called! She was at the Wynn and was stalking Daniel Negreanu who was playing Three Card Poker with a couple of cute Asian girls. I told them that I'd meet up at MGM. I called a cab and of course it never showed. After 30 minutes, I called back and they said I had to wait twenty more minutes. Calling for a Las Vegas cab is a pain in the ass. They are unreliable and that's one of my least favorite things about this town. I never have a problem if I'm at a taxi stand at a casino, but even the line at the airport is a bitch and a half.

Anyway, since the heat subsided a bit and it was only 99 degrees instead of 113, I chose to walk to the Strip. I bought a bottle of water and headed towards the bright lights. It's 20 minutes door to door from the Redneck Riviera over the freeway to the Excalibur and another 10 minutes to navigate the pedestrian bridges from Excalibur to NY, NY to the MGM. I made it in 30 minutes and wasn't sweating as much as I anticipated. I found Grubette, Grubby, and their friends at the food court. Since Grubette was tired after a stellar meal at Nathan's, she crashed and that left Grubby and I mulling around a decision. It was 2am and we stood in the middle of a row of slot machines. We've had this discussion many times before... poker or strip clubs? And after a lengthy debate, we'd usually end up at a strip club. However, Grubette promised that we'd go on Saturday so we decided against it. The wait for a seat in the poker room was too long so we headed to the Centrifuge bar next door.

I played a little video poker and made a huge run. After getting cold-decked, I was down to my last $0.25 and built it up to $3 before I hit quad 10s on a "max bet." I ran it back up to $15 and cashed out. I was only down $5 and got several free drinks. The Centrifuge is a circular bar and every half hour the scantly clad waitresses and the female bartenders dressed in tigth black pants, get up on the bar and dance. We told one of the bartenders that we were locals and she befriended us right away. She even gave me a drink after "Last Call" while her and Grubby chatted about traffic issues. She was from Argentina and I'd love to eat whipped cream off of her stomach.

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You should be reading... Jeremy's Love and Casino War and BG's Random Thoughts and Thoroughbred Selections.