I tried doing something fun to relax so I got tickets to see the Blue Man Group, a popular show at the Venetian, which came highly recommended. Let me tell you I can’t see the beauty in watching three blue men playing air drums and walking around in the audience throwing marsh mellows. Oh well, I guess I’m just not cultural enough.

So after busting from another no limit event I decided to skip the Vegas shows and just go plain vanilla and watch a movie. I wanted to see Fantastic Four, but Juha Helppi told me his cab driver recommended Knocked Up so I agreed to go see it. The movie was actually quite funny, but this will be the last time I go see a romantic comedy with another guy. Two grown up men watching a romantic comedy is as gay as a fellow Full Tilt pro of mine (can’t say his name since I fear he might cancel my blog or ban my FTP chat).

Today I’ll be playing the 10k PLO Championship, the event where I took 8th last year. This is one of my favorite events and my best shot at a bracelet. Hopefully next time I post an entry you won’t have to read about how I fucked up or got sucked out on, but can read about what went down at my bracelet party.

After the PLO I’ll probably leave Vegas for a couple of days to relax before the Main Event. I’m still undecided whether I’m going skydiving to Perris Valley or surfing to Huntington Beach. Might actually do both.

How’s that for a draw?

I don’t really want to get into the specifics of the heads up at this point as my future opponents would get too much information about my play and could use that against me. I’ll walk you bye a few key hands of the battle of the Finns however.

About 5 minutes into the heads up Patrik flopped a broadway straight and I had a straight flush draw and a pair. I also made two pair on the turn and this hand ended up costing me about half my stack. I lost a few pots quickly after this, being somewhat cold decked, and was down to about 5k, having started with 40k in chips. Patrik now had a 15 to 1 chip lead. Ouch.

Then our all in fest started. First I was all in with A6 vs. A3 and won. Then K6 vs. K8 and chopped (wow, this was a big one) and then came one of the sickest all ins of the heads up. I pushed with A7 and Patrik called with K9. The flop came K93 and I stood up to shake Patrik’s hand. The Ace on the turn gave me some outs however and as the 7 fell on the river I had escaped elimination once again. Now I had clawed myself back up to about 27k in chips and we had a game again.

We went back and forth for a while now and were pretty much the only two guys still playing. I finally got the chip when value bet the river with 2nd pair on a paired board. The very next hand after getting the chip lead Patrik limped on the button and I raised it up to 13k (blinds were 1.5k and 3k) with AKs. Patrik then shovedall in and I called. Pat made a move with JTo and my AK held up.

During the heads up Patrik played great and was a really tough opponent, by far the toughest I played heads up so far. He was very unlucky to lose all the races when I was all in. He did, however, screw up on the last hand so I don’t really feel bad about beating my friend.

As I’m writing this I just beat John Hanson (a high stakes player from New York who beat me and Barry Greenstein in a 225k PLO pot last summer with an ace high flush draw vs. my middle set and Barry’s over pair and king high flush draw). In this match I ran pretty good and crippled John when I flopped the top set of nines. My next match is in 2.5h against either Eric Lynch or some random dude named Paradiso. I guess I have to hope I face this Paradiso guy in the next round.

Life wasn't all bad though. My Pai Gow accidents had earned me a suite on the 57th floor at the Wynn and access to a super nice host named Michael. Since poker wasn't going too well I decided to take a day off. I called Michael and asked him to arrange a table at Tryst (Wynn's night club). At Tryst some kid came up to my and said that I was a hero in his world.

As I wasn't quite sure what I had done to deserve this recognition I kindly insisted that he should find himself a better role model. I suggested Phil Hellmuth. All in all we had a super solid night out, rediscovering the smoothness of Patron. Life still sucked but it was getting better.

After my day off I re-entered the Rio in better spirits. I was playing so much better after my break and made it to the dinner break with a decent stack and without drama.

During our dinner break I went to the VIP and found Phil Hellmuth practicing on the putting green. Phil insisted that we putt for 1k a putt, but I‚ve seen him putt every day for two weeks straight so Iwanted some kind of edge. After a couple of minutes of negotiating we agreed to putt ten putts at $500 at putt, with Phil putting one handed.

It seemed like a good deal to me, but this man has eleven bracelets, always plays above the rim and never breaks under pressure. I still liked my chances. Phil managed to sink one of his ten putts and when I sank six out of my ten Phil ended up losing $2,500. This had to be the sweetest 2.5k I ever won.

I then went on to play the 3k NL event and made it to Day 2 with a decent stack, as did Phil. Hopefully I can squeeze out a decent score form this event and post another happy blog entry tomorrow.

The only thing that I've really managed this trip is lose about 10 lbs. For most people this is a good thing but not for me. Not having much extra weight on me I don‚t really enjoy losing the little extra that I got. The reason for this weight loss was my long nightly online sessions combined with the worst room service in Vegas. Last year I spent about 150 nights at the Bellagio and wanted to try something new so I went to THEhotel. In the end, however, I had to crawl back to the comfort of the Bellagio in hopes of re-gaining my lost weight.

Bellagio has its dangers though. While at THEhotel I was far away from all my buddies and the casino games at the Bellagio. It took me about 2h after checking into the Bellagio before I discovered myself at one of the Pai Gow tables having a Greygoose with cranberry juice and soda and gambling away with a couple of Swedish poker player buddies of mine. What started out as a drink and a couple of hands of Pai Gow turned into an all nighter. Surprisingly enough we lost. I then spent the rest of the morning playing online winning back my Pai Gow losses.

After being up about 20k or so I realized that the $1,500 NL event at the WSOP is starting in a few hours so I took a quick nap and shower and headed to the Rio. 20 minutes later I lost a coin flip for all my chips and was out of the tournament. No shocker.

All in all this trip to Vegas has been a joke so far. It's an exact repeat of last year. I'm doing good online and really can't be bothered to play the WSOP events. Yet I wake up every morning and drag myself to the Rio, only to play my C-game and get busted a few hours later. Tomorrow is the day of the ladies event so at least I get one day off. Might go to the Rehab club at the Hard Rock Hotel and chill out. If I still feel I won't be playing my A-game on Monday I probably won't even show up.

Being Saturday night and all I might be heading to Pure at Caesars now. Roland de Wolfe says he's going to be there with some British mates of his. Could be some proper boozing involved...I'm tempted...