The Next Big Adventure is On!

The announcement of my next big jump into the poker world is here. On Thursday I am traveling back to Binions in Downtown Las Vegas to photograph and participate in Tilt Zero Poker’s “Fear and Tilting.” The trip will feature a VIP party with Doyle Brunson and a poker tournament with Johnny Chan. This reads like a poker player’s trip to heaven or poker fantasy camp.

This is all a result of my trip to cover the Doyle Brunson North America Championship and the Fiesta al Lago at the Bellagio last month (see blog entries below). That is where I met Monster. This guy and his assistant Chris are working their butts off to make Tilt Zero and their new magazine a big-time hit. When someone works this hard and it loyal to his people then that is a great place to get involved so long as you are willing to work just as hard.

As I’ve mentioned before, I am so appreciative to guys at www.lasvegasvegas.com for giving me the opportunity to get involved and for treating me so well. Flipchipro, Dr. Pauly, and the Poker Prof are terrific folks and you should read their site daily (and twice on Sunday).

This takes me back to how I met Flipchipro and the Prof. I refer to it as the “Tobey Maguire Incident”. It was Fiesta al Lago III on October 2004. I was hanging around the tournament poker area at the Bellagio, looking for the faces that I had seen on the WTP and WSOP broadcasts. I saw Eric Sidel, Kathy Lebert, and Men The Master among others. I saw some people taking pictures so I, of course, joined in.

Then a voice on the PA started announcing the players for the final table of the previous day’s event. Among the names was Tobey Maguire. This was Tobey’s first big final table and he drew a good crowd. I wandered over and started taking some shots as did a white-haired gentleman to my left. I noticed that this other fellow had a nice Nikon camera setup.

Next thing I know, Tobey is chatting with the security guard and then the guard starts heading our way. He was polite but firm in his request for us to stop taking pictures of “Mr. Maguire.” My older friend protested that he had permission from Bellagio management to which the guard offered (threatened) to have that reconsidered.. At that point, we both agreed that we would take no more pictures of “Mr. Maguire.” Geeez.. That was my second run-in with a celebrity that month, but “The Cameron Diaz Incident” or “Hayden Valley Glee Club” is another story for another time.

From there I learned that my partner in crime was Flipchipro from LVV. He then introduced the Poker Prof and professional poker player Charlie Shoten. With that I was started down a road that continues to run in the right direction.

So if you happen to be in Vegas this weekend, stop by Binions and look for the guy with a mustache, goatee, and camera and say hi.