Disclaimer: This is LOOONNGGG and will be posted in three different chunks. I've tried to shorten the original document to include just poker content (the word version has lots of other shenanigans in it). Consider yourself warned...

Prologue

The long anticipated eve of the Ironman was here. No one could sleep. They checked and rechecked their bags: Bankroll – check. T-shirt with dumb saying – check. Sandals that will inevitably give you blisters – check. Awful hat – check. Elvis sunglasses – check. It was finally here. For five noble warriors, it was go time. Let’s meet our competitors:

Name: Dan T – the reigning Ironman champion from 2006

Superpower: Picking restaurants, tilting his brother Doug with horrible sports bet suck outs, finally owning a cell phone

“Kryptonite”: Getting sawed off by sets and running quads; sweating like a fat man at a free dance while walking the strip in jeans and a black shirt

Quote: “Looking forward to next year and packing some shorts to wear”

Name: Doug T – the tournament assassin

Superpower: Deep stack tournaments

“Kryptonite”: The sun and any hotel that isn’t the Venetian – not sure our princess ever left the comfort of the V without being dragged somewhere

Quote: “I’d be completely tilted, but I’m too bored.” And “I only have two requests…”

Name: Jon B – “Diamonds In Ass” – look out suckers – if he calls, you’re dead

Superpower: Playing tighter than a Trojan on a clydesdale

“Kryptonite”: Finishing second in the worst dressed category (the first loser)

Quote: “I got finger raped at the fashion mall by an Israeli chick selling fingernail polish”.

Name: Mock – a man who brought it, and by it, I mean an ensemble of the worst clothing I’ve ever seen in my life

Superpower: His absolute disregard for self respect and money

“Kryptonite”: Pocket aces – no good

Quote: “How can a Mexican restaurant run out of tortillas?”

Name: Eddie – serving as Julie your cruise director for this crazy trip

Superpower: If this were a contest of simply staying awake and drinking, I’d be in the hall of fame; alas there are other events…

“Kryptonite”: Mock – the man owns me (but not like that)

Quote: “…so then I walked by this midget dressed as a leprechaun hawking $1 beers…”

Mock had already been grinding away at the V for nearly 6 hours already and had a healthy profit going. The guys went down to find him at the poker room while I checked in. Continuing the Ironman tradition, we were all cramming into one room, which made the key situation tricky. Mike had already checked in and gotten two and luckily I was able to get two as well, so we were set.

I caught up with the guys at a bar near the poker room. Mock had already bought them a round while they waited for me. As I walked up, I could tell Mock was ready to win the Ironman as he already had busted out a shirt that had us cracking up. It was a beige number that looked sort of like a Christmas present with a bow on it, complete with tag that read, “To: Women From: God”. It was hilarious on a variety of levels.

To kick off the event and set the official “start” time, each Ironman played $1 in a slot machine with the winner having to buy inaugural round of drinks for the group. As luck would have it, Mock wound up the “winner” by only losing 50 cents. So, a 50 cent loser got to buy a $35 round of drinks. As we were sipping our cocktails (Mock made sure to order mine with fruit in it), we drew for our signature hands. Mock: 7/3, Jon B: 6/2, Doug T 8/2, Dan T: 7/4, and me: 7/3 (yes, it should have been ominous foreshadowing that I drew the same signature hand as Mock). We then all submitted our first round NCAA confidence pools and it was off to Treasure Island for a quick cash game and then to the 2am tournament.

We arrive at the TI and immediately get seated for a new game. It would make the only the time of the trip where all five Ironmen were at the same table. Nothing to note here other than everyone tried putting their toe in the water for their signature hand. I think this was when I began to realize this was a bad idea when I had raised with 7/3 off suit got two callers and then my continuation bet of $30 was re-raised to $75 by Mock, so I folded and decided I wouldn’t try that much anymore.

The tournament got going (only two tables worth) and of course I was the first one knocked out and of course it was by Doug (who also took out Jon). That earned me a mandatory penalty box trip to the 2/4 table where I managed to give away $44 before the game broke and I got to play no limit again. Doug wound up winning the tournament by splitting first with one other guy for around $450 each and then running it off for the remaining $60 or so. Doug became the early bad beat leader when his AJ was run down by A2 when a 2 spiked on the turn.

All of the guys had headed back over to the V while I decided stay in a very entertaining 1/2 NL game at TI. After grinding away for about two hours I’ve got about $400 in front of me, I get As10s on the button and raise to $15. Two callers and we’re off. Flop comes Ks7s3d. Guy ahead of me with $150 bets $25 and I call, other guy folds and we’re heads up. Turn is 9s. Guy bets $50, I pop him for his last hundred and he calls. I flip over my nut flush and he turns over K7 for two pair. River of course is a 7 and he fills up. It might have been the vodka red bulls, but I really didn’t tilt as I (insert Teddy KGB voice) paid the man his money. The very next hand I get Qs10s and raise again from cut off hoping to get credit for being on tilt if the board hits right and I get some action. The guy I just paid is the only caller and the flop comes AsKs5c. He checks and I bet $30. He calls. Turn is 2s and he checks. I bet $50 and he calls. River is 8h and he says, “All in” and I call, flipping over my flush. The guy wigs out as he flips over his pocket kings realizing his set is no good and storms out of the room swearing. Unfortunately, after running hot and cold, I walk out of the room up exactly $1 after a 6 hour session.

I head over to the Venetian where I find that Mock has been grinding away and hasn’t gone to bed yet either (now 9am or so). I sit down in the game and after playing well, then giving away my stack, then grinding it back up to $400, the following hand shakes down. I’ll let Mock tell it…

“I have A-Q, get two callers, including Fast Eddie. Flop is Ad-Qs-2s. Turn is a blank. River is As. Eddie, playing his new fave hand (the sneaky nut flush draw) busts out with third best hand, losing to ducks full and my aces full, and goes tilting off into the night as I try not to laugh. Eddie could have avoided this tilt if he remembered the old poker rule: Never bring a flush to a boat fight. Bonus for me: this hand won me the Ironman title as biggest pot ($1,095.00 US) and best bad beat.”

Until I re-read this little excerpt at the end of the trip, I had forgotten how awful my play was here. Note to self: Vodka red bull = the devil.

After getting a short nap, we headed over to the Sahara for their 11pm tournament. But before we could do that, I couldn’t avoid embarrassing myself yet again. I had to head upstairs quick to grab my Ironman score sheet while the other guys got in the cab line. Now, if you haven’t been to the Venetian, to get to our room, you had to take one elevator to get to a level, then walk down two different long halls to get to another elevator to take you to your floor. I was trying to hurry knowing that the guys were going to give me hell for holding them up in getting to the prestigious and luxurious Sahara (Doug’s fave) so I was literally running to get away from this older couple and get my own elevator. Sadly, the door didn’t close in time and I they got on. I punched 7 and they punched 6 and up we went. I held the door for them and let them off first and then walked quickly around the corner and down the far end of the hall to our room. The maid was just closing the door and asked, “Is this your room?”. I replied “Yes, and by the way, when you come back for turn down, could you bring us some extra towels?” and handed her $5. She said she would and took the money and started back down the hall. I put my key in the door and…nothing. I tried again, nothing. What the? I looked up and noticed the room number was 6-402, not 7-402 and realized I had gotten off on the wrong floor. Now I had given $5 to a maid to bring towels to people who were going to have no idea why they suddenly had a dozen towels. Great…

I get back to the guys who are now angrily standing at the front of the cab line and we pile into a mini-van and head to the Sahara. It was pretty much as we remembered it (Dan: “The place is a dive and I feel like they've opened up a casino inside one of the airport smoking lounges, but after two straight years I've kind of warmed up to it like a stray dog.”) and despite all suffering from severe gastro-intestinal pain after eating at “Paco’s” Mexican restaurant last year, we found ourselves there yet again. The highlight of the meal was Mock asking for tortillas and being informed that they were “out”. Say what? By the way, Mock’s attire for this evening was a t-shirt that had a big sign on the front of it that said, “$1.00 – See the Giant Penis”. Classy.

The tournament was uneventful as no one cashed, but it did wind up being profitable for Mock. He was the first one out of the tournament (beating me by literally 30 seconds) and lucked out by not having any available 2/4 games to sit in, I ok’d him playing no limit. In one hour, he took a $300 buy in to $2200+ and thanked me for selecting this tournament.

Friday

This year’s trip saw a little more sleep for everyone than last year, but we still didn’t get much. By the time I opened my eyes Friday morning at 8am, I was once again in the lead for least amount of sleep with about 5 hours since we landed Wednesday night.

I again could not resist the urge and walked down the strip to the Flamingo. I love this place. The dealers are great, the people are uber-touristy and there is always some sort of strange foreign character there to take money from (refer to last year’s write up of the drunk Canadian). I sit down at a table where two young guys from New Zealand are playing horribly, yet catching cards and stacking chips like crazy. They were also annoying as hell, taking minutes to call or even make bets. At one point, I actually called the clock on one guy and dealer turns to him and yells, “10, 9, 8, 7, 6…” (he was MORE than irritated and didn’t even give them the full minute).I quickly call the Ironmen and cancel our Omaha tournament saying I just couldn’t leave this outstanding table. Problem was, I couldn’t get any cards. One interesting hand did play out though and normally I’d feel bad, but not with these jack asses.

I get QQ and call the annoying guy’s usual $17 raise. Flop comes 7s5h10c. He bets $30 and I call. Turn comes 2c. He bets $30 again and I raise to $75. He calls. River comes Qc which doesn’t make me happy as this guy has been chasing and catching flushes all day. He checks, and I check behind and flip over my Q saying, “Made my set on the river”. All day long, dumb ass had been doing this annoying thing where he doesn’t table his cards, rather he just flips them around in his hand until mucking. He sighs and says, “Darn, and I flopped two pair too.” before tossing them into the muck. However, as he was flipping them, I noticed that the 7 and 5 he had in his hand were clubs. He had rivered the flush, but didn’t realize it and mucked his hand! The guy to my left saw it and said quietly to the dealer, “Hey, he threw away the winning hand!”. The dealer replied quickly, “It’s not my job to protect his hand if he’s not going to put his cards down” and that was that. $250 pot for me and not an ounce of conscience = priceless.

Meanwhile, back at the V, the gang was trying to climb out of the hole. Doug was busy playing the big buy in deep stack tournaments at the V and when I mentioned walking down the strip from the Flamingo he exclaimed, “You saw the SUN???”. At this point, Doug looked a little more like a vampire than I was comfortable with so I went looking for the other guys to see what was up. Dan and Jon were sitting at the same table and I got a seat to Dan’s left. About 15 minutes in, Dan raises to $15 and I call with pocket 7’s. Flop comes K7x and Dan fires $35 at it. I smooooooooth call. Turn is a blank and Dan bets $50. I say “all in” and turn to look at Dan. At this point, I’m wearing my Elvis sunglasses and a shirt that says, “I’m probably lying” in big letters across the front. Dan is clearly annoyed, but I can tell he thinks I’m full of it. He eventually calls and his big slick goes down in flames to my set of 7’s. Dan is clearly tilted but not saying a word, so I go ahead and hold my hands up to his forehead as if warming them by a campfire (which Doug sees from the table behind us and starts laughing). Jon tells me, “That might not be a good idea, that’s the third time he’s run into a set this session.” As it turns out, he’d run into a fourth set before starting a magnificent comeback.

Stay tuned for chapter 2...