Bad Day For the Pro

I woke up last night around midnight with no idea of my whereabouts, the day, or time. The last thirty six hours has been an exciting whirlwind blur and now I found myself alone in a 25th floor room at the Bellagio. Twenty five hours ago I was sipping pineapple juice at the Fontana bar listening to some heavy strategy discussion between Paul and Mike Odeh. Thirty six hours ago I was in Westminster watching a Nuggets game.

Right from the start today things did not go well for Paul. He never picked up a hand and ran into a lot of trouble with his steals. He found himself at a wild table that was harder to steal from and didn't have the card ammo to back it up. When he busted he was devastated but in a couple days he will wake up and realize, wow, I won $146,460 the other day, not too bad.

It was an intense scene on the rail with the always verbose Mike Odeh making his feelings on some of the players rather clear. There were a lot of really bad plays, shocking to see at the final two tables of a monster $25k event like this. The worst part of it was that the bad plays were rewarded more often than not on this day and the pros were on the wrong end of some pretty ugly beats. At times it was hard to watch but the pain was eased by the presence of Erica Schoenberg, the most beautiful human being I've ever seen at a poker table. The Cardplayer picture really doesn't do justice so I decided not to put it on the blog.

After dinner Paul drove home with his sister and father, who had made a midnight run to Vegas in time for today's action. I'm staying in his room at Bellagio. I could watch the WPT taping or play in a live game but more likely I'll play online and watch the Nuggets take another shot at the Clippers, and maybe get a few frames in at the Gold Coast.

I'm sure it felt like a disappointing end for Paul, but honestly I feel this is the beginning of something special. The whole experience is going to improve his game so much and give him more confidence for next time. I'm lucky to have such a talented friend.