First Day in Vegas

    I survived my first commercial flight!  Everything was smooth until we began to land.  We were hitting small air pockets like crazy and it was making me feel really queasy.  I was okay once we landed.  After I got my rental car and got settled over at my sister's house I went over to the Rio to register for the World Series of Poker.  This place is amazingly huge, holy crap!  I make my way to the convention area and make my first stop to get the mandatory Harrah's Rewards Card.  Next stop was tournament registration.  There were two lines; one for pre-registration and another for non pre-registrants.  The pre-registration line was a bit long (good thing I didn't pre-register Todd!), but the other line had no line!  I gave him my rewards card and $1,500.  He printed out and handed me my registration cards.  One is to hand to the dealer at my table and another is for my records.  They also gave me a voucher for $10 off any of Harrah's restraunts.  This event is going to be a huge field!  I'm at table 149 seat 9.  My guess is that there will be at least 2,800 people if not more for this event.

    In the same room was a field of poker tables with table numbers hanging on the lights above.  While walking around I saw that the Rio had closed their normal poker room and are using the empty tables in the convention area for cash games.  Also, event number 24 was in play which was a 7 Stud Hi/Lo event.  I saw several notable people playing such as Steve Danneman, Gregg Raymer, Chip Reese, John Juanda, Chris Ferguson, Howard Lederer, and Shawn Shikawn playing in the event.  The Rio was also holding around the clock satellites for different events.

    After strolling through the tournament area I decided to make my way to the Bellagio to check out their poker room.  The room was packed with people and it was a fairly big poker room!  There was also a high stakes section where I saw a notable pro who's name I can't remember at the time.  I remember seeing him in the 2006 US Poker Championship.  He sort of  looks like a young Richard Kind (from Spin City).  Surrounded by glass with fancy artwork was Bobby's Room.  Unfortunately nobody was playing when I was there.

    Today being my second day in Vegas, I think I'm going to go back to the Bellagio to play some poker!