Life at the house

Life in the "Poker-WG" is very interesting to say the least. It's a group that consists of around 15 of Germany's arguably best online poker players that all came to Vegas for the WSOP. The funniest thing is that although nearly everyone is a professional poker player, hardly anyone here is playing any poker at all. That doesn't mean that there isn't plenty of betting and gambling, though. Matter of fact, nearly everything around here is bet on.

The other night 12 of us went to the bowling alley at the Gold Coast casino, which turned out to be a good deal for me. 9 of us threw in $100 each to the prize pool, which was to be distributed among the two bowlers with the best scores in the first game. For some reason I went on a really nice run and bowled a 168, good enough for the win and my all-time best score. In the game after that, I topped myself and bowled a 193! Finally, in the 3rd game I outdid myself once again and bowled a 195! The others felt hustled, but I insured them that my scores were nowhere near normal for me. All in all, sidebets included, I made just under $1k for my efforts.

We then proceeded to play a couple table games at the Gold Coast casino, starting off with Three Card Poker. A couple guys hit some nice payouts ($5k and $4k) and then after an hour or so we moved to Craps. We played for about another hour before calling it a night. I ended up around $500.

It was nice to win some money that night, because before we went out I lost another $6k playing my last chinese poker session ever! I've never seen so many 3-pair card combinations, it was really sick. In theory it's just a neutral EV game, the money is passed from player to player and at the end of a decent sample size (100,000 hands) everyone should have the same amount that they started with, but the swings of $100/point just get too extreme sometimes.

We've also been playing a ton of pool, which I have been doing quite well at. Skillwise I am definitely one of, if not the best player in the house. That results in me having to lay people odds to play me, usually ranging from 1.25 all the way up to 3 : 1. I've been doing really well, though, I'm probably up between $3-4k in total. It's definitely my go-to game when things aren't looking bright :)

Last night we rounded up 12 guys to go to the Tao in the Venetian. Flo had reserved us a table with a 4 bottle minimum and unfortunately we got duped into getting a table right at the entrance of the club. We still had a great time though because the club itself is pretty amazing. They closed the whole place down at 4am which is kind of strange if you're used to the European clubs that stay open til 8 or 9am.

It's such a crazy lifestyle here at the house, I don't think I could do this for more than a few weeks at a time. Right now I am just really looking forward to being back home and grinding it out online, as lame as that may sound. I have three more days left here before flying back to Berlin. There have been talks to driving to Lake Mead to do some jetskiing, that would be pretty cool if it all works out. Also, we've been looking into doing skydiving over Las Vegas. I am scared of heights but a freefall is something I've always wanted to try out. We'll see if someone can get the trip out there organized.

I took a ton of pictures but have no way to upload them to my laptop right now. Expect a thorough picture blog in the near future!