The WSOP Satellite-Thingy Experiment at the Bike

This past Saturday, I made a last minute decision to head on down to the Bike (in picturesque Bell Gardens, CA) and play in a weird type of WSOP Satellite.

It was last minute cuz I didn’t even know about it until the day before.  But when I realized my dance card was empty for that particular Saturday, and I had a vague memory of some kind of WSOP event taking place at the Bike, I decided to check into it.  Fortunately, I know a good place to research stuff like that, PokerAtlas.  Of course, I work for them. So I found this link and learned about the WSOP satellite-ish event they were running.  The first day of the whole thing was that very Saturday.

I had noticed in the past that the Bike had run what I call, for lack of a better term, “weird” tournaments.  What’s weird about them?  Well, they have different buy-ins, starting stacks, and structures for different sessions.  I don’t mean that you just have the option of taking an add-on or re-buys (although there’s that too in this case).  I mean you can buy-in to what seem like totally different tournaments, but they’re really the same one.

Example: On Saturday at 1PM (or 6PM) I could buy into the session for $75 and get 5K in chips, 30-minute levels to start (20-minutes after the first four) and starting blinds at 25/50.  But if I wanted to enter the 3:30PM session, it would cost $235 for 25K in chips with the blinds starting at 50/100 (and antes starting at level 3 instead of level 5) and 25-minute levels after level 4 (20 for the first four still).  These are all Day 1’s, But if that’s not complicated enough, players have the ability to buy directly into Day 2.  That costs $2,100 and starts with 250K in chips (and blinds at 1K/3K/6K).

When all is said and done, the top 25 players get seats to the WSOP Main Event and $500 in cash, and there’s plenty of money left over for a lot more players than the 25 to get cashes.

Take a look at the link above and the structure info sheet that this links to and tell me what you think. Maybe this isn’t as complicated or as convoluted as I think it is. Or maybe it’s worse.

I had noticed earlier this year that the Bike was running similar tournaments (apparently they’ve been running tourneys like this for years), and I dismissed them out of hand as preposterous and not something I had any interest in.

Furthermore, I’m not really interested in playing satellites—at least what I would call “normal” satellites.  You know, where basically the only prize is an entry into a bigger tournament.  I’ve played in a few, but the more I’ve thought about it, the less I liked the idea.  Let’s face it, even a really, really good player—someone a lot better than me—doesn’t cash in even half the tournaments he or she plays in.  So, in order for me to get any actual return on my investment, I’d have to perform very well in two tournaments back-to-back. I just don’t like the idea that I’d do well enough to cash in a tournament, only to have to perform even better in a much bigger tournament where the odds against me are even greater, to actually have a payday.

But this particular “satellite” series was different.  I noticed that for the $75 buy-ins, it said that 10% of every session would finish in the money and that 5% would advance to day 2.

Hmmm….in other words, if I did well enough, I could get paid, whether or not I advanced to Day 2, whether or not I ran well enough to win an actual Main Event seat.

That made it more appealing to be sure. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought it was something worth doing.  I do work in the poker biz, and actually playing in this odd format would be a experience worth having, It’s a good idea for me to try things out of my comfort zone for my work. Especially since the Bike has used this format for years, and I assume other poker rooms around the country use it too.

I figured that getting in the top 10% of the field wouldn’t be out of the question, I seem to do that quite often in tournaments.  Getting into the top 5% (and thus make it to Day 2) would be a lot harder, but still doable.  And if I got into the top 10%, I get some money—and have an interesting experience as well.

Of course, I noticed that for the session I was going to play in, there was an single $50 add-on, and that appealed to me as well.  A tournament with a $5K starting stack doesn’t sound like it has a lot of play.  But the $50 add-on got an additional 8K chips.  That’s a 13K stack for $125.  That’s actually a bigger starting stack than the Aria tournaments I like for the same $125. 

So, I journeyed down to the Bike and gave it a whirl.  I admit, I just assumed the $50 add-on had to be taken before the first hand.  That’s the way they do it with the $5 add-on on their Nooner tournaments.  And I never even considered asking, because the fact that the add-on made it somewhat like the Aria tournament is one of the things that sold me on playing.

But it turned out, players had until the end of the registration period (4 levels and the break) to take the add-on.  I wonder what your thoughts are on this.  Obviously, if I didn’t take the buy-in, I might have gotten enough chips to have gotten past the break without having to take the add-on and saved myself some money.  But if I busted the 5K, I’d basically be playing twice with relatively short stacks instead of one big stack.  To me, taking more chips than the original buy-in for less money than the entry fee was a no-brainer.  But I guess I can see the logic behind playing a short-stack strategy knowing I have the option of using the add-on if/when I needed I needed it. Thoughts?

The tournament got off to an amusing start when the guy running it announced the starting blinds were 25/25, and that’s what it said on the tournament clock.  Well, the blind sheet I had in my hands showed it was supposed to be 25/50.  Heh heh. We played a hand or two at 25/25 before someone bought it to their attention and they corrected it.  

That was probably the error of one guy, and it might have had to do with the fact that the Bike’s actual Tournament Director was in Vegas playing in an WSOP bracelet event.  I had been following his run on Twitter, and he wasn’t at the Bike on this day (he had busted, but cashed, in his event).

However, another error wasn’t so easy to explain.  They had the second break one level sooner than was listed on the structure sheet.  It made more sense to have it then, since they had to do the $100 chip color up, but they didn’t have it that way on the printed structure they were handing out.

Before I get to the poker, I have to tell one story that relates back to a post I recently did.  Remember my gripe here about people taking away my diet Coke before I was done with it?  Well, at the Bike they recently laid off all the people responsible for bringing you soft drinks, they called them “porters.”  The cocktail waitresses serve only alcohol, which they charge you for (California State Law, they are not allowed to serve free booze).  So you have to find an actual waiter or waitress to get you a soft drink (recall that, to compensate for not being able to serve free booze, they serve inexpensive—and possibly free, depending on the game you’re playing—food).

I had somehow gotten a waitress to bring me a diet Pepsi during the second or third level.  I would guess I still had at least a quarter of it left when the break came.  Plus lots of ice, which I’m ok with.  When I returned from the Men’s Room, I couldn’t believe that my drink was gone!  Unbelievable. Hadn’t I just done a blog post ranting about this very thing?

There’s a couple of reasons this was more unlikely than in Vegas.  For one thing, the porters they laid off were also the people who cleared the empty dishes, empty cups, etc.  So who the hell was it who cleared my drink away?  They don’t really have anyone to do that!

But worse, they don’t serve the soft drinks in glasses or plastic cups.  They serve it in those paper (cardboard?) cups that say “Pepsi” on them and have the blue emblem on them. And with a plastic lid.  The point being, you can’t look at a soft drink and determine that it is empty or nearly empty.  You have to grab the cup and shake it to see if there’s anything in there.  So someone grabbed my cup, and somehow determined that there wasn’t anything in it, even though there was.  While I was away from the table.  The nerve!

I have a lot of notes from the tournament, but I will only discuss a few key hands.

On the third level, with pretty much my starting stack intact, I had the dreaded pocket Kings under the gun plus 1.  I made it $400 (blinds were 75/150).  Only the big blind called and the flop was Ace-Jack-X, not great for my dreaded hand.  I c-bet $600 and was happy that my opponent folded. Remember this: it wasn’t the last time I had KK on this day.

I was hanging around with close to my starting stack when a big hand happened that put me in position for a long run. It was level 4 (100/200) and I had 5-6 in the big blind.  There was no raise and five of us saw the flop, which was 9-6-6.  I led out for $800.  Only one guy called, a player who had had some early success and had almost twice as many chips as I did.  The turn was a Jack and I bet $2,000.  He called.

The river was a King.  I realized that made a straight possible (no flush possible) but I dismissed that quickly. He would have to have Queen-10, and why would he call the flop with that?  I was more concerned about him having a bigger 6 than mine—or a boat.

I bet $4k, thinking my hand was good.  Until he almost immediately announced, “I’m putting him all in.”

As an aside, I’ve played enough poker to know that wasn’t a legitimate bet on his part.  You have to declare an amount—or say “all in.”  You can’t say, “I’ll bet what he has left” or what he said. I knew what he meant, and I didn’t argue the point.  But the dealer should have told him that.

I thought long and hard.  Again, I pretty much dismissed the idea that he had made a back-door straight.  But I was concerned that he had the other 6 and if he did, he almost surely had a bigger kicker (or even a boat).   How would he have a 6, I wondered?  I had the excuse that I was the big blind, but he limped in early position.  Ace-6 suited?  Or may 7-6 suited?  I couldn’t dismiss the possibility.

But I counted out my remaining chips and realized that I had put too much of my stack in to fold at this point.  Especially since I still thought there was a good chance my trip 6’s were good.

So after a long time in the tank, I convinced myself to call.  I was already starting to wonder if I was going to play cash next or if I would just go home.

He flipped over King-9 for two pair.  My trip 6’s were good, and I had a very nice double up. 

Everyone was saying, “Great call, gutsy call.”  The other player said, “I sure didn’t put you on that.”  I guess not.

Later, during the first break—right when someone was taking away my unfinished Diet Pepsi—I ran into the guy in the Men’s Room.  “Took a lot of balls to make that call,” he said.  I just said, “I got lucky.”  I believe that’s the most appropriate response in that situation.

The same level I picked up some more chips with 8-9 in the big blind.  A couple of players had called an aggro’s raise to $500 so I came along.  The flop was 8 high and I called the aggro’s $2,500 bet.  We both checked the turn.  He bet $2,000 on the river and I put him on air.  I was right.  He had overcards, nothing more.

Oddly enough, this guy lost a big pot last hand before the break, and although he had chips left over, didn’t return.  I believe it took most of the next level to blind/ante him off.

I kept surviving level after level, winning small pots, and not losing any big ones. Note: there were 177 players in this session, and they were paying 18.  The last nine would get either $200 or $250.  The top nine would advance to day 2, where they were assured of at least $400.

So at level 14, blinds 500/1500/3000 I had around $50K, pretty desperate.  I shoved with 8-8 and 9-8 suited (first in) and didn’t get a call.  Then I looked down at pocket Aces.  I had been thinking that with my short stack, if I got Aces it would probably be worth it limping with them in a risky attempt to get more chips.  We were still quite a few players away from the money.

But when a guy raised in front of me, I went ahead and shoved and he snap-called.  He had about half the stack I had and he flipped over Ace-Jack.  He actually caught a gut-shot on the turn but missed, and I had some more chips to play with.

By level 15 (500/2000/4000), players were dropping rapidly.  We were down to less than 30 and getting close to having only two tables.  If I could maneuver my still-short stack, I could cash.

I had around $73K, and I felt I probably had to shove, not raise, if I was first in with a decent hand.  I shoved with pocket 9’s first in, and no one called.

I was still stacking my chips when my next hand was delivered. I hadn’t counted my new stack yet, and I obviously hadn’t figured out for sure if I was still in a fold-or-shove mode or if I could play a little.  But I had to think fast, cuz that very next hand was the dreaded pocket Kings.

Despite everything you’ve read on this blog, I was actually happy to see that hand at that time.  I just wasn’t sure what to do….did I have enough to raise and try to get max value, or should I just shove as I had with the 9’s?  Or should I really take a gamble and slow play and just limp?  No, I couldn’t see doing that and risking someone with a crappy Ace hitting the flop.

I decided to raise but raise big.  Instead of $12,000 as I might have put out, I made it $15,000. It folded to the small blind (I was UTG).  He called.  His stack was shorter than mine, about $50K when we started the hand.

I was going to shove pretty much any flop that didn’t have an Ace.

The flop was low, something like a pair of 6’s and a deuce.  He checked and I immediately announced “all-in.”  He thought about it for just a few seconds and shrugged and said, “Call.”

He flipped over pocket 5’s. WTF?  There was no 5 on the board, all he had was the 5’s. He started to stand up to leave and then, of course, of course, because it was me, because it was pocket Kings, the dealer put a 5 on the turn.  And failed to put a King on the river.

Ugh.  To me, that hand was horribly played by my opponent.  He had no business calling my raise with pocket 5’s.  Not with our stack sizes.  I could see him maybe taking a chance on shoving back against my raise, but to just call there was awful.  I’m not sure why he called, my flop shove either, unless he put me on an Ace-King type hand and felt I was just c-betting with nothing.

Of course, I couldn’t help thinking that I should have shoved preflop.  But based on the way he played the hand, he might have very well called me there and the result would have been the same.

The very next hand I was the big blind.  No one raised, a bunch of players limped in and so I checked with 6-9 off.  I probably didn’t have enough to get anyone to fold with a shove, and I could see the flop for free and shove if it was good.

Well it wasn’t bad.  It was 8-7-2.  I flopped an open-ender.  I shoved.  If I got called, I’d have to hit my straight.  Sure enough, the biggest stack at the table called and tabled Ace-8.  So in addition to the straight outs, there were three 9’s that could save me.

But no, there was no 5, no 10 and no 9.  And I was out in 23^rd place.  Just five spots away from the money.

I had played nearly 6-1/2 hours.  I don’t think I’ll play in a tournament like that again, but I don’t regret giving it a try.

As usual though, I do regret getting pocket Kings

Sunday Night With MOJO

Sunday night I was planning to write a blog post about my adventures at The Bike the day before, a long session of poker trying to satellite into the WSOP Main Event.

But a wonderful distraction prevented me from doing that.  I had been following on Twitter the adventures of Dave Smith, aka Memphis MOJO.  Dave was playing in the Seniors Event at the WSOP.  I believe he plays in that every year.

I only wished I was still in Vegas so I could rail for him in person.  Hell, I could have been in the audience for the final table.

Anyway, as you must know, MOJO is a long time poker blogger.  I’m pretty sure he was one of the first bloggers to comment on this here blog, and he comments regularly.  Also, he was one of the first to put my blog on his blogroll. So we’ve been blogger pals since the early days of my blogging career. 

I’ve only met MOJO once, very briefly, back during the 2012 WSOP, when we were both playing in a Deepstack tourney there.  The story of that brief meeting is covered here.

Despite the fact that my only meeting with him was over in less time than it takes to read even my briefest blog post, with all the contact we’ve had on our blogs (and our other blogs) through the magic of the internet, I consider Dave a friend.

Anyway, they were webcasting the final table on the WSOP site.  And Dave made it to the final table!  I had to check in on him.

And once I did, it was riveting.  I couldn’t stop watching.  The odd thing is, despite the fact I work in the poker biz, I don’t watch a lot of poker on TV. In fact, I almost never watch it. I don’t actually find it that entertaining, and any time I spend watching it would reduce the amount of time I have to write. 

But this…this….I just couldn’t take my eyes off it.  The fact that I knew one of the players, and that I really, really, really had someone to root for, made all the difference.

Besides, clearly MOJO was representing all of us poker bloggers.  I kind of felt that, if he won, we all did.  All those bloggers in my blogroll were basically on the stage with Dave, playing along with him.  That’s what it felt like to me.

When I started watching, the table was 9-handed, a full final table.  Even before it was mentioned on the live feed (actually, it’s on a 20-minute delay since they reveal the hole cards), I noticed that all but one of players had a first name that started with a “D.”

The host of the feed was Dave Tuchman and for most of the time his “color commentator” was Matt Salsberg.  And there were quite entertaining.  They of course tried to provide background info on all the players at the table.  They apparently knew at least a little about most of the players.

But MOJO seemed to be the player they knew the least about, and that sort of made him the underdog.  The longshot.  The one fact they knew about Dave that they repeated constantly, much to his delight, I’m sure, was that Dave was the oldest player at the final table. 

But they asked viewers to tweet them any info they had on any of the players, and they would read the tweets on the air.  That didn’t really register with me at first, until I heard them read a tweet from none other than Lightning36 himself. I believe he tweeted a quote from MOJO’s blog about the event, before it started.  When I heard Lightning’s name, I thought, “Hey, I know who that is!”

Then it hit me that I could tweet to them too.  And I felt that was my duty to get a tweet on the air demonstrating how all of Dave’s fellow bloggers were out there railing for him, and supporting him.  I came up with something real fast, because I knew the feed was on a delay and Dave was one of the shorter stacks so…..I hoped to get it to them before he busted (if he did).

So I tweeted to them: “Dave represents all us poker bloggers. Also a Bridge wiz.”

OK, pretty lame and more than a bit self-serving I guess.  Keeping under 140 characters isn’t my strong suit.

Sure enough, Tuchman read the tweet on the air….or started to.  Right after saying “Robvegaspoker tweets ‘Dave represents….” The current hand got really interesting and he had to interrupt himself to discuss the hand (I believe someone busted out on that hand, but I’m not sure).  I was sure they would never get back to my tweet.  But no, Tuchman was real good about it, and after the hand was over, he read the full tweet.  So now I’ve been mentioned on a WSOP final table telecast!

They had actually mentioned Dave’s bridge prowess a bit earlier, but I think it was after I sent the tweet.

The fun thing about the webcast was the comments they made about Dave’s play.  First off, I have to tell you, that Dave is the tightest tournament player I’ve ever seen.  Really.  He makes me look like an absolute maniac.

I really have no idea how Dave survived so short-stacked for so long playing so few hands.  But the commentators mentioned it often, especially when he folded a hand they felt playable.

Twice within a brief span, Dave folded pocket 8’s, and once pocket 7’s.  I was surprised too, but Tuchman and Salsberg kept referring back to it.  And when it got down to three-handed, they kept pointing out that Dave was basically letting the other two players play at each other while Dave was almost a bystander, just playing the occasional hand.

They speculated that Dave was playing that way because of the payout schedule and his desire to protect his position on the pay scale and move up—and that money was more important to him than the bracelet.

I can’t speak for Dave, but I don’t think that was it at all.  I think that’s Dave’s normal style.  I think he was playing a style that he was comfortable with and he felt had an excellent chance to win the event with that style.

Of course, the two best moments for me were the two times I saw Dave dealt the mighty deuce-four, aka the Grump, aka The Most Powerful Hand in Poker.  Both times he raised with the hand (this was after folding pocket 8’s twice).  The first time, no one called his preflop raise.  The second time, he had a caller, but on a flop that totally missed him, he made a continuation and took it down.

After the first of those hands, I tweeted that MOJO had raised with deuce-4 and won the pot (and of course, copied Grump on the tweet).  MOJO tweeted back that he did that “on purpose, in honor of Grump.”  But seriously, how could you not raise with such a big hand?

I mentioned Dave’s tight play.  Frankly, I was very surprised at the tight play in general.  As the table kept losing players, I would have expected a lot more aggressive play, and an all-in on almost every hand.  But that was not the way it went.  There were “reasonable” raises made most of the time.  Three-handed, no one ever shoved for a long, long time, despite the short stacks.

The commentators definitely noticed, and several times noted that this was the difference between a Seniors Event and an open tournament.  They were saying that if there were younger players at the table, the raises and the all-ins would have been bigger and more frequent.  I was thinking the same thing myself!

Anyway, I believe Dave was the short-stack the entire time they were three handed.  And because of the delay, before I saw it on the webcast, I had read Dave’s tweet that he was out in third place.  Hey Dave….how about a spoiler warning? J

But I watched the event to see Dave’s busto hand.  And it was quite interesting.  Dave had Ace-10 offsuit and shoved from the big blind  Dan Heimiller, the chip leader had completed from the small blind after the button limped.  The limper folded but Heimiller took his sweet time making a decision.  I can’t recall the chip counts but Dave had more than enough to really cripple Heimiller if he called and lost.  And with only a pair of four’s, the obvious move there was to fold.

That’s what the commentators were saying.  No way did it make sense for Heimiller to call.  Way too risky, especially the way Dave was playing.  The best Heimiller could hope for was a flip, with Dave having two overcards.  Why take a risk like that?  If he lost, he’d almost have to just shove in one or two hands with any two cards.  And if Dave had a pocket pair, it would almost have to be better than his 4’s, and he’d be a 20-80 underdog. 

But Heimiller had been making a lot of questionable calls all night long—especially on the river—with weak holdings.  And he had played many, many hands in ways that defied explanation. The commentators couldn’t figure him out.

So Tuchman and Salsberg were sure that he would eventually call, even as they were saying that it would be bad play.

Heimiller called.  The board bricked for Dave.  No Ace.  No 10.  No straight, no flush. 

And Dave was out.

Had he won that flip, he would have been the chip leader and very likely would have taken home the bracelet.

For his three days of poker, Dave took home a tidy $279K.

It was an awesome performance by Memphis MOJO.  He really showed how to work a short stack, and also how to work a tight strategy even as the blinds and antes got huge.  Very impressive.

Congratulations, Dave.  Well deserved.  You did us fellow poker bloggers proud!

Since Dave was making news with his sensational performance, I stole this pic off his blog where he is “reporting” the news!

Good game, sir!  (EDITED TO ADD: MOJO HAS POSTED HIS THOUGHTS ON HIS RUN, YOU CAN FIND IT HERE.)

The Vegas Trip From Hell

My most recent trip to Vegas was cursed.  It was cursed from the outset.  Even before I left L.A. for Vegas.  And even after I returned to L.A.

I’m not talking about the poker.  The poker was ok.  In fact, if you ignore the WSOP bracelet event I played in, (see here), the poker was pretty good.  It was just everything else—all the peripheral stuff— that went wrong.

Two days before I was scheduled to drive up to Vegas, I had a dentist appointment.  I am in the process of getting a dental implant—a lengthy process that takes many months.  I was sure all the hard—i.e, painful—stuff was over.  My understanding was this was going to be a brief visit, no muss, no fuss.

Wrong!  There was Novocain.  And stitches.  Stiches?  When he was done, my dentist asked if I wanted to a prescription for painkillers.  WTF?  This wasn’t what I was expecting at all.

And he also gave me an anti-biotic—just in case.  And he told me to stick to a soft diet for a week or so.

None of that was good for someone about to go out of town for 10 days.  You mean I can’t eat what I want to in Vegas?  Seriously?  Also, you know anti-biotics can wreck havoc with your stomach.  Not the most pleasant thought when you’re planning a 4-1/2 hour car ride.

Another issue—what if something goes wrong when I’m in Vegas—300 miles away from my dentist?  It’s been known to happen.

I can assure you, had I known the nature of the dental work I was in for, I would never have scheduled this appointment for two days before my trip.  I could have easily scheduled it for after my return home.  My fault I guess for not asking more questions.

By the time Friday rolled around, the day I was to drive to Vegas, I was not in good shape.  The pain was manageable with Advil, except for one thing.  As had happened when he did the initial work, I had developed a painful canker sore.  This time it was in the worst place possible, on the side of my tongue.  And it was rubbing up against the stitches (which were not the dissolvable kind).  I couldn’t chew on that side anyway, but chewing on the other side was just as bad, because moving my mouth meant the canker sore on my tongue was rubbing against the exposed stitches.  It was really uncomfortable, to say the least.

Actually, even just talking bothered me a little.  Only by keeping my mouth totally shut and unmoving was I able to avoid the discomfort. 

It was about 2/3’s of the way through my stay that the canker sore finally started fading away and I could eat without the discomfort. 

I didn’t get much work done the day I went to the dentist.  The pain from the work made it hard to work, and I had wasted a good many hours that day trying to get my computer working right.  My damn ant-virus program just totally disappeared off my computer that morning.  I had to call up the anti-virus folks and have them walk me through manually uninstalling and re-installing the program.  That was a couple of hours wasted right there.

Then, the day before I was to leave, I got an email indicating the deadline for my next Ante Up column was moved up a week.  With eight days notice.  (It had to do with trying to get the next issue out in time for the end of the WSOP).

Now, it’s true, it doesn’t take me eight days to write a column.  But it sometimes takes me a lot longer than that to figure out what to write about.  And at that point, I had nothing in mind, not a thing.

But the other thing with the deadline moving up is that it meant that I would have to write the column in Vegas.  Originally, I was expecting to be able to write it after I got back home. 

This meant I’d be spending more time writing about poker and less time playing poker (or socializing in general).  It meant I might have to spend an evening in my hotel room writing the column instead of playing. 

I figured my luck would change soon.  Hopefully in Vegas.  Wrong.

There was a problem with my hotel.  Or was there?

I was staying at the same place I had in April, one of those places that has a full kitchen, a few miles away from the Strip.  You know, the same place where this story took place, right on my birthday.

What I haven’t reported yet—until now—is that on my previous visit, I had checked out of that hotel a day early due to a plumbing problem.  I alluded to that in the post here.  The night before my last full scheduled day in town, I noticed that the toilet wasn’t flushing properly.  Then I noticed it was actually leaking onto the floor (not overflowing—the water was coming from underneath).  The floor got flooded a bit even when I took a shower. 

So I had no toilet when I woke up for my last full day in town.  It is the nature of hotels like this that they don’t have maintenance people working 24/7.  Or any time during a Sunday, when this was.  I called the front desk and was told that the only thing they could do was move me to another room.  Ugh.  But there was a problem.  The place was booked solid and I’d have to wait—hours perhaps, if not half a day—until someone checked out and they could clean a room for me.

Well that sucked.  To make a long story short (something I’m really good at, as you are all aware), I decided that, if I had to move everything, I’d go to a “real” hotel” for my last night in town and perhaps have access to a bathroom sooner than if I waited at the place I was staying. 

So I packed up all my stuff, packed up my car and drove over to an off-strip hotel/casino, where I got a room for less than I was paying where I was (because it was a Sunday nite, not a Friday/Saturday nite).  I might have considered just driving home but you don’t want to drive from Vegas to L.A. on a Sunday—trust me.  Anyway, I had to wait a few hours for a room at the new place, and basically I had wasted most of the day moving.  When I finally got into a room, I took a nap, further taking time out of my last day in town.

But while I was napping, they slipped a note under my door and offered me a deal I couldn’t pass up.  For just $15 total, tax and resort fee included, they’d let me stay one more night.  And that explains why I was in town instead of back in L.A. when the three-part post that continued here took place (I already linked to the first part, that’s why I’m linking to the second part now).

Despite that, I went back to the same place for this trip.  I figured that had been such a fluke thing, nothing like that could happen again.  Besides, they had been real nice about it, and had given me essentially two free nights for my troubles.

Well, on this trip, I had no plumbing problems, fortunately.  But after I brought all my stuff in from the car (and I take a lot of stuff, since I’m basically setting up house for 10 days), I turned on my laptop and tried to log into the free internet the hotel offers. 

It took a long time, and I actually had to call the internet provider.  But my assumption was that the issue was with the logging-in process, not the actual internet service itself.

I soon left for an evening of poker.  Upon returning to my room late at night (or actually, early the next morning), I had all kinds of internet connectivity issues. When I did have a connection, it was horrifically slow.  And frequently it would drop the connection altogether.  I called the ISP again (unlike the front desk, the internet provider is available 24/7) and after a hour or so, I was told that there was nothing wrong with their internet service, and that the problem must be with my laptop.  My wireless adapter must be broken.

I thought this was bullshit.  My laptop had been fine the day before, when I made sure everything was up-to-date on it.  But they insisted they couldn’t help me.

Well, you know I can’t survive 10 days without the internet.  Weekdays I’m working and of course can’t do one thing without the internet.  I couldn’t file my column without the internet.  I couldn’t update the blog without the internet.  You get the idea.

The next day was Saturday and I started out trying to solve this internet issue. I complained to the front desk and after throwing enough of a fit, they actually had the regional manager of the chain call me.  He was nice enough, and I explained how it was essential I had internet connectivity or I couldn’t stay there.  He said the internet works fine whenever he uses it from that very location.

Now, this chain offers free internet, as I said, but that’s for “basic” service.  They also offer “enhanced” internet for a price.  The only thing we could come up with was for me to try the “enhanced” service and see if it worked better.  After a bit of arm-twisting, he agreed to reimburse for the cost of the enhanced internet if it solved my problem.

I didn’t have time to check it then, by this time I had to get going if I wanted to play in the 2PM tournament at Binion’s that day.  I didn’t really need the internet for work on this day.

But I had time to check something.  Ever since a computer disaster several months back, I always remember to throw my old laptop in the trunk of my car whenever I go to Vegas.  I can’t afford to be without a working computer up there.  So I hauled it into the room from my car and tried it.  And during this brief test, the internet worked fine!  Holy shit, was it possible that tech guy was right and I needed to have my laptop fixed?  I began to think that my Sunday was going to be sent bringing my laptop back to the place I brought it (with an extended warranty).

Late that night, I tried my new laptop and—even without the enhanced service—it was perfectly fine for the few hours I needed it.  WTF?  Had they somehow fixed it, even while telling me there was nothing wrong with it?

I went to bed happy that night.  But in the morning, the internet was unusable again, and so I tried the enhanced service.  It still sucked.  And when I tried my old laptop, it still seemed unacceptably slow to me..  The amount of time I was wasting with this was getting to be ridiculous.

I realized I would likely have to find new accommodations.  Fortunately, because I spotted the problem early, I hadn’t bought any food yet, which I might now have to transfer to a new place.

Actually, the place I was staying had offered to move me to a new room to see if that made a difference.  Except, this being Memorial Day Weekend, they were booked solid and wouldn’t have another room I could try until sometime Monday, I had another idea.  The same chain has another location not that far from where I was staying.  In fact, I had already booked that location for my next trip (this location was booked). Since I had never stayed there before, I had always planned to visit there this trip just to make sure I was satisfied with the location and the property.

So I decided to take my laptop over to the other location and ask if I could test it with their wi-fi.

And that’s what I did.  And I sat in the lobby there and tried the internet for about 15 minutes and I had no issues whatsoever.  The speed was fine and it never dropped off. I ran the speed tests the tech guy had had me run (which he admitted proved that my connection was unacceptably slow) and had much better results. 

They had rooms available at the same rate I was paying.  I asked to see a room to make sure it was acceptable, and it was.

By now, it was late in the afternoon and I knew I wasn’t going to be changing hotels this day.  I figured I might do that the next day. I wasn’t going to be working this day anyway. But first, I would see if I could try another room where I was staying. Relocating in the same hotel would be less of a chore than packing and unpacking the car.

When I finally got back to my room that night (or the next morning), the internet was ok again.  But when I woke up in the morning, it was unusable.  I had an idea.  I took my laptop to the lobby and tried it there.  It was fine.  I mean actually, it was great.  So I figured, there must be a room somewhere where I was staying that would have acceptable internet. 

I asked to try a new room and they said they would call me when they had a room for me to check.  They had to wait for all the folks there for the Memorial Day Weekend to check out.  In the meantime, since it was clear I was moving somewhere, I started packing up all my stuff, not a lot of fun.  Imagine taking 10 days worth of stuff and having to pack all of it up after only three days?  At least I didn’t have anything perishable in the fridge—but that meant one more thing to do (buy food) when I finally got settled.

It took a long time for a room to be readied.  I had requested a first floor, and the only room available was the one directly across the hall.  I assumed that would be no better, being so close to where I was.

The day was wasting away, and still they didn’t have a room for me to check.  The only other one was on the second floor, about as far away from the lone elevator as possible.  I decided to try it and the internet worked flawlessly.  All I had to do was borrow a luggage cart and start packing (hint on how much stuff I had….I have to make two trips with a luggage cart).  Then, I had a hunch.  My room wasn’t really that far from the lobby, and yet the internet was much better in the lobby.  I might as well try that room across the hall. Maybe just moving across the hall would get me on a different node—or whatever you geeks call it.  If it was ok, it would be a heck of a lot easier moving to it than the one on the second floor.

I tried that and the internet worked.  It was a little slower than the 2^nd floor room but it held the connection and was more than acceptable.  I decided to go with it.  It would save time and a lot of strain on my back.

So….I moved all my shit into the room across the hall.  Before unpacking, I had to stop for lunch—I had to walk across the street to a restaurant since I had no food—and then hit the supermarket to stock up.

By the time I was all set up, the entire day had been wasted with this move.  This was Memorial Day, but I hadn’t planned on having fun.  I actually planned on working, since I would be taking off the very next day to play in the WSOP event.  But instead, I wasted the entire day moving.  I swear, if I had just driven up from L.A. that day, I would have had more time for fun and/or work.

And of course, when I finished and was ready to log onto the internet, it didn’t work.

I have readers in Australia and I’d be surprised if they didn’t hear my scream.

I went out to the lobby—they actually have an area with desks and chairs—and I was able to access the internet without a problem.  WTF?  OK, I guess I’d have to work in the lobby during my stay.

I had barely usable internet later that evening and in the morning before the WSOP event.  Or maybe I had given up and was already using my cell phone as a mobile hotspot. I can’t recall.  But I had decided that I wasn’t going to waste any more time moving or calling the ISP or any of that.  As long as I could use the hotspot, I’d live with that, and if I had to pay for extra data above my plan, which was the reason I didn’t want to use my phone to connect, I’d just live with it.  Surely it would cost me less money than if I wasted any more time trying to relocate to find a place where the internet was reliable. 

Well, the disaster of the next day has already been reported, here.  Another part of the explanation of why I am calling this the trip from hell.

When I finally returned to the hotel late that afternoon, the internet was of course not working.  I went to the lobby and worked a few hours there, and it was fine.

When I returned to my room, I noticed the internet was still working, which gave me an idea.  Next day, I went to the lobby, accessed the internet from there, and then moved back to the room with the same internet connection. Was it possible was that just by logging in from the lobby and keeping the connection I obtained there, I had solved my internet problem?

No.  I soon lost the connection.  I went to the lobby and couldn’t get on the internet from there either.  I had no choice but to use my phone.

I used my phone the next few days.  I would always try the hotel’s internet first and use it for as long as it lasted—which usually wasn’t very long.

Before the weekend arrived, I found time to knock out a column for Ante Up.  Fortunately, I’d been in Vegas long enough to get some ideas for it.  I finished it Friday, and since I had until Monday to file it, I was going to wait till Sunday to proof read it and send it in to the editor.

When I got back to my room Friday nite, the internet didn’t work. I didn’t scream, I just used my phone as a hotspot.

Or tried to.

Suddenly, the laptop refused to connect to the mobile hotspot.  I rebooted the laptop.  I rebooted the phone.  Nope. My laptop kept giving me the error message that it couldn’t access the hotspot and that I should contact my network administrator.  Who, I believe, was me.

Shit.  Well, fortunately I still had my old laptop handy.  That accessed the hotspot fine.  To me, that was kind of proof that the ISP had been right all along, that the problem was my laptop, not the ISP.

But my old laptop had problems keeping a decent connection with the ISP, and I had no choice but to use the phone’s hotspot.  Every time I tried accessing the hotspot with my new laptop, I got the same message.  Once it stopped working, it never worked again.

I limped across the finish line, as it were, using my old laptop and my cell phone to access the internet. That’s how I filed my column on Sunday. I really couldn’t be certain the issue was with the hotel’s internet or not.  I had conflicting evidence.

For once, I almost couldn’t wait to leave Vegas.  It was so good to get back to my desktop PC and a good, dependable internet connection.

Of course, one of the first things I did when I got home was test my laptop.  And you know what…..it was definitely problematic.  I did the speed tests and it was very slow.  I noticed that it would sometimes fail to load pages and would give me the “unable to access” message.  So I tried my old laptop and that worked fine.  Speed tests were noticeable better.  Like 6X’s faster on downloads (no difference on uploads).  I plugged my new laptop into my router (so, a wired connection) and I got the same speeds as my desktop, tho I have no idea what, if anything, that proved.

But….even at home, I could not get my laptop to connect to my cell phone’s hotspot.  And again, I had no problem getting the old laptop to connect.

Conclusion:  There was indeed a problem with the laptop itself.  It wasn’t the hotel’s internet.  The problem was on my end.

I took my laptop into the local branch of where I bought it and told them that it was having internet connectivity problems.  They said they would check it—under the extended warranty that I had purchased.

As I was initially finishing up writing this post, I got a call from them telling me that they could find absolutely nothing wrong with the laptop, and that they were able to get consistently the same internet speed—without interruption—with it as with the other machines they had there.

Are you freakin’ kidding me?

But, it turns out there's an interesting twist.

Between the time I finished writing this and the time I am getting around to posting it, I received further news on my laptop.  After telling me there was nothing wrong with the laptop, they did volunteer--at my insistence--to keep it on overnite, with a constant ping test to see if there were any dropped packets.

Guess what?  They called me in the morning and said that it did indeed lose packets overnite, and they were conceding that the wireless adapter was bad and should be replaced.

Then the guy said, "You have two options.  You can replace the built-in adapter, but it would be cheaper to just buy an external adapter."

To which I replied, "I purchased the three year extended warranty, that's got to be covered, right?"

The guy said that when it was checked in, that was not noted.  He double-checked and agreed that they would have to replace the built-in adapter at no cost to me.

Phew.

Now, am I cynical enough to think that if the guy had realized all along they would have to fix it at their expense, he somehow would not have discovered the adapter was bad?

Well, I'm not sure.  But I wouldn't be surprised.

Now for the bad news.  After checking into it, they called me back and said they couldn't replace the adapter in their shop.  They have to send the laptop back to the manufacturer to have it repaired.  That will take an estimated 6 to 8 weeks!

I'll be to Vegas at least once, maybe twice, before I get it back.

Yeesh.

Anyway, since this was such a bummer of a post to write--nothing funny or enjoyable at all for me--and because I couldn't think of any kind of an especially appropriate picture to even search for, I decided to post a pic that would put a smile on my face. This pic is it:  (Edited to add, I've edited my previous post (here) with an animated gif of the lady directly below, turns out she fits perfectly with the theme of my previous post, be sure to check it out))

Ah hell, this was such a miserable tale of woe, I'll post another pic for good measure.