Poker Gone Wild: 2004 WSOP Part 1

“Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas … with the music at top volume and at least a pint of ether.”
–Hunter S. Thompson
My soul has been cleansed after a full weekend in the city of sin, complete with WSOP main event insanity, continuous alcohol intake, and yes, rolling dice with The King of the Poker Blogs.
Before I pass out from exhaustion get started, I’d like to welcome any new readers that came here from All In Magazine. The premiere issue was released on the eve of the Main Event, and there were hundreds of copies spread all over the Horseshoe when I arrived on Friday. If you’ve never been here before, I suggest you take some time to check out the archives section by clicking on the links to the right. This blog has been going for 8 months now, and I’ve written enough words now so that the odds are decent that a few sentences are worth reading.
The Main Event. The Big One. Doyle Brunson. Johnny Chan. Everybody who’s anybody in high stakes poker, gathered in one tiny casino for a few days, duking it out with the internet pros and the lucky dreamers who won their way in via one of the many satellites. The crescendo that has been building as poker has exploded in the past months reached it’s loudest this weekend, exploding on the helpless Horseshoe Casino in downtown Vegas. 2400 players. 200 alternates. Alternates? Are you kidding me?
It’s only a 4+ hour drive from Hollywood to Vegas, so it would have been criminal for me not to have gone. It seemed like a perfect way to end my first year of poker, even if I was only there as a spectator. Little did I know what I was getting into…
Trip report tomorrow. Must catch up on missed sleep.