My Girlfriend comes today!!!

So like the title says, my girlfriend Lauren is coming in about 7 hours. My parents actually just got here an hour ago so I'm going to have more visitors than I know what to do with. It's a welcome change though, considering I'm usually all alone here. It'll also be nice to have a few days that don't consist of poker and watching movies. I can finally get out and experience some more of Vegas. My dad came here and jumped into the $2k event today. He wanted to come out yesterday to play the Stud 8/B event because he claims he's good at the game and used to play it all the time back in the day. I'm thinking I might start playing some lower stakes draw games on UB to mix it up. I used to play some 7 card stud on there just for fun, but I think I might try seriously now, as well as buy book on it. I want to become good enough to enter one of the smaller buy-in WSOP events and hopefully be able to compete. I also want to learn how to play this game aggressively, which is what the book is for, so I can throw off the all of the old timers who have been playing this since they were 15. Plus it's always fun to hear bitter, old people make comments about younger people in casinos.

By the way, I am going to go on another rant here for a paragraph. So far I am loving the World Series and I love the whole competitive thing about trying to win a bracelet. From being out here, you can really sense that people are after these bracelets and it really isn't just about the money. I came into this World Series not giving a damn about a bracelet, and I even jokingly said I would sell mine on EBAY if I won one. But after seeing all of these respected pros and internet kids entering every event possible in the attempt to win one, it makes me want one so much more. Ok, that was just my introduction to the rant. The essence of the rant is what I have named "bogus bracelets". I know it sounds corny and lame, but I wanted the name to have some consonance without using the vulgar B-word. So, let me explain the bogus bracelets. From reviewing the schedule, I have labeled three events as bogus bracelet events: the Casino employee event, the Ladies event, and the Seniors event. These events make no sense to me. Poker isn't an athletic competition or an activity that favors a certain stature or size. Poker is a mind game and that's what makes it so great. Anybody can play this game and be good at it, no matter what size, gender, or age they are. So why does the WSOP have to have events that limit the entrants to a certain category? I know the argument could be "they are trying attract every type of person to the WSOP" but fact is that they don't need to. Every event I have played in so far has had women and old people in it, so they certainly have plenty of chances to win a bracelet like the rest of us. All these segregated events do is allow people like Jennifer Tilly to walk around and think they are good because they can beat a field of 500 women, in which half of them don't even know all the rules. She has sponsorship deals (mostly due to her looks) with internet sites, and people actually think she is a good player!!! This woman hasn't done anything in three years, and the two events she has won in her life have been ladies events! So this post turned more into a Jennifer Tilly rant than a bogus bracelet rant, but the two are highly correlated.

Getting back on topic, I won't be playing any poker until Sunday's $3k event, which is good because I haven't been able to fade a draw for the past couple of days and it's starting to get me on some major tilt. I'm picking up Lauren around 6:30 at the airport and then we will come back here, get her settled in, and then go out to dinner. I was also planning on taking her to play some 3 card poker, and I'm definitely staking her. Every first timer in this game that I have seen play, always wins big! So far my sample size consists of myself, my dad, and my brother, but Lauren has the lady luck factor and first time factor, so I feel it's a good investment. I plan on maybe ending the night with the Bellagio fountain show, but I might save that for tomorrow since we will be seeing the O show of Cirque De Soleil, which is at the Bellagio anyways. It should be a good couple of days off.

Oh and final note: Before I came out here, my brother Jono wanted some action and gave me $1500 to use toward a $3k event and I told him I would give him 40%. SO if I had to guess, I will finish top 5 again and end up giving another 60-80k away to another family member...