Vegas - Day 4 Final Event - Day 2

Another good, fun day in Vegas. I woke up late and headed back to Bellagio. I got there about an hour after play began for the day. As it turned out, the rest of the LasVegasVegas.com crew knows to pace themselves and did not show up for another hour after that.

I concentrated my photography a little more on the creative and capturing the intense moments today. I got the portraits yesterday. The players didn’t disappoint me. I’ve posted some of my favorites here including the Devilfish, David Uilliot peering over his glasses in my direction and Vasilis Lazarou at the moment he got sucked out on.

On of the most incredible moments I have ever seen was one player (I didn’t get his name) was in the small blind with Johnny “F.” Chan to his left in the big blind. The way I heard the start of the hand was that the SB puts in a healthy raise. John thinks and goes all in saying that the player was in big trouble. The SB calls and Johnny turns over AA. The SB also turns over AA and no flush hits the board for a split pot.

Other bright spots were meeting more of the poker pros including an Italian Redneck from Greenville, NC, the poker room manager from the Bellagio (who comp’ed my dinner), and meeting fellow poker blogger Bad Blood.

My poker play even picked up. I played at the Monte Carlo tonight. Theirs is a poker room that has been around for 10 years or more. They had one of the best $2-4 games I have seen in Vegas. It was loose passive with lots of locals that made winning pots with nothing easy. The played with only one $2 blind. This led to several hands where no one bet. The room is non-smoking and very nice, but small with only about 8-10 tables. Still, I enjoyed it and will go back.

Oh yea, did I mention that Cortney Friel (Shana Hyatt's replacement) showed up to tape her segements. I guess she will do OK.