I got to LV late on a bad flight on tuesday night, and after a few drinks and a brief cash session (+-$0) at Planet Hollywood, decided to just crash so I would be ready for the 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo 8/b event at the Orleans the next day at 12:00pm.

Stud 8/b has always been one of my better games and I was definitely excited to play another relatively big Stud 8 event in LV. I got up early and decided to try to satellite into the event, which had a $225 buyin. I met the satellite and Orleans open poker room manager (not the normal PR manager) at the right side of the downstairs room and we chatted for quite a while about how great the structures are this year, and how they have changed things to allow players to use their satellite vouchers in pieces or to go against bigger buy-ins which i thought was great. So you could win a $1060 satellite and use it for 4 separate $225 tournaments. Also he (Marlin was his name if I recall) told me how much more player friendly the casino's take was this year than in previous. I was impressed with this guy, and if he is only working there for the Open, he should consider running tournaments like this all over town.

So, the satellite I played was one of two amounts they had for a $225 event. One was $45 and the top person got a seat and second got $60...Remember it is stud 8, so only 8 players/seats per table. The other was $80 and normally would pay 2 225 vouchers to first place and $110 to second. Before we started, though, we made a deal that first and second would each get a seat and $55. I played really well, but was short stacked the entire time and the guy in seat one was hitting cards like a madman. I ended up going out in, you guessed it, 3rd place...nothing...When it got down to 3 handed, i was so short that every hand I would spout out a dollar amount that they could buy me out for, when i had