VEGAS, BABY! VEGAAAASSSSS!

I was in Las Vegas a couple weeks ago, and what a time to be there.
The trip – with my wife and another couple – wasn’t necessarily a poker jaunt, but it just so happened that the World Series of Poker was going on at the same time. At this time of year more than any other, Vegas is the Mecca of poker. Sweet.
We landed in Vegas on Sunday afternoon (June 5), and spent the rest of the day checking out the sights at the casinos (the wives had never been before).
We really wore ourselves out, hiking from our home base at the Monte Carlo up to the Venetian, stopping at every casino along the way. By the time we got back to our rooms at 11 p.m., everyone was pretty much ready to crash. I had some work to do, filing a story for Tuesday’s paper, so I stayed up later. After I was finished, I decided to jog over to the Rio to stick my head in at the WSOP. I didn’t think the women would be necessarily thrilled about that activity, so heading over late at night on my own seemed like a decent idea.

It turned out to be a good call, even though the Rio turned out to be a lot further away than it looked on the map. I arrived at around midnight, and on my way to the Amazon room, I spotted my first quasi-celebrity – former NAPT final tablist Chris DeMaci, discussing the details of a bust-out hand with a couple buddies.
Stepping into the room itself was trippy. It’s a massive space, rows of poker tables as far as the eye can see – a familiar sight from the WSOP main event broadcasts. Just inside the door, the final two tables of Event 9 ($1,500 2-7 draw lowball) were being played. Seated at the end of one of the tables was superstar Jason Mercier, sitting behind a towering chip stack he could hardly see over. So cool. I also recognized ESPN.com columnist Bernard Lee and Pittsburgh pro Josh Brikis. Watching from the other side of the ropes was Sam Chauhan, the noted mindset coach who has worked with the likes of Antonio Esfandiari, David Williams and Chris Moneymaker. Between hands, Lee would come over and confer with him.
I watched the Mercier-Lee table for a while, then wandered over to the feature table area, where they were down to heads-up in Event 7 ($10,000 pot-limit hold’em championship). The two players remaining – Amir Lehavot and Jarred Solomon – weren't particularly famous, but it was exceedingly cool watching them battle it out for the bracelet. Lehavot had the chip lead, and after giving Solomon a double-up (A9 > A7), he wrapped it up when his AQ held up against Solomon’s AJ. (The photo at the top of this post was taken on my iPhone at the moment the river card came off to clinch Lehavot’s bracelet.)
Maybe five feet away from me, apparently there in support of Solomon, was online superstar Daniel Cates. The 21-year-old was the top online cash-game earner last year, turning a profit of about $5.5 million. So sick.
I took a cab back to the Monte Carlo and rolled into bed at around 1:30 a.m., my mind thoroughly blown by the whole WSOP scene. The next day, I had the opportunity to play some poker myself. I’ll detail that in my next post.