Tick.
That's eventually going to be followed by "Tock," but time seems to
be moving so slowly, I think we'll wait awhile until we get there.
The room is ready, save a few lighting changes, and all that's left
to do is have a couple cocktails tonight and wait for Mike and Meg
to tell the dealers to put the cards in the air.
With as many celebrities as are wandering around, I'd be half-tempted
to see if I could find Tom Petty and ask if he'd sing that song about
the waiting. And the hardest part.
But that would be just silly.
So, with little left in the way of good color, good pictures, or good
stories to tell (trust me, they are on the way), I thought we might
as well get some information out on the table.
Today's schedule:
7:30-9:00pm--Winners' Cocktail Reception
10pm-3am--Main event super-satellite ($200 buy-in with $200 rebuys)
Single table Sit & Go tournaments
Single table main event satellites
The super-sats will pay out an entry to the main event for every $8000
that makes its way into the prize pool. If a player already has an
entry into the main event, s/he will be paid out in cash.
Expect updates here as they are warranted. I suspect before this is
all said and done, the updates will be coming faster than you can
hit your refresh button.
Oh, yeah...
Tock.
Day 1: Wednesday, January 05, 2005
The sound of one foot tapping
Bags o' fun
All day yesterday, people kept talking about The Bags. It was "bag this, bag that." I got the impression the bags were really important. I sort of figured everybody was talking abouut litle gift bags. Maybe something with a few coupons in it or something.
Okay, so I tend to underestimate things.
In the middle of the room, all by itself, sits Daniel Negreanu's bag. A few minutes ago, somebody walked by and said, "I've got Michael Jordan's bag." (Yeah, MJ is going to be around here, but that's a whole other tournament and a whole other thing).
That's two of the bags, but, to be sure, there are just a lot of bags around here. Hundreds of them.
Now, I don't want to sound like too much of a shill, but PokerStars
is really going out of its way to treat its winners well. For the past
two days, PokerStars' staff has been stuffing these big red duffel bags
full of stuff that, frankly, I'd like to be taking home with me. Three
or four nice shirts, beach hats, beach shoes, frisbees, teddy bears,
and a whole bunch of things that I can't remember at the moment.
As I speak, the valets are loading luggage carriers full of the bags
with the intention of sneaking them into players' rooms during the 7:30
cocktail party.
It's the kind of perk that one just might not expect and it's pretty nice.
Not bad, really. A week in paradise, a multi-million dollar tournament, and one heckuva nice bag.
Bag this, indeed.
***
Cocktailed and ready
They call it The Dig and it's not a place for the
claustrophobic. Or the fish-ophobic. It's an underground tunnel, through
which you walk, facing everything from colorful sea fish, to mean
looking eels, to glowing jellyfish. It's inspiring and spooky enough
to give a tired blogger the willies.
But tonight, anyone who walked through it emerged to the sound of
music and PokerStars winners' cocktail reception.
It was a fine afair, with fried pot stickers, crab cakes, jumbo shrimp,
and some sort of gooey lambchop that I may never be able to fully
erase from my memory. Bless the epicures of the world.
More than that though, it was a chance for the old online friends
to finally see each other face to face, and for the old school pros
to josh with each other before the big event starts tomorrow.
Rather than over-romanticize the event and the lamby-lamby-lambchops,
I thought it might just be better to throw a few pictures up. We're
just a few minutes from the beginning of the first tournament action
of the week. I should probably concern myself with that and not lambchops
and the prettier of the pro players.
***
One thing I'd like to do as much as possible this week is introduce
you to the people who won their way in and are taking a shot at the
big time.
This is B.J. (aka bjbad1) from Alamogordo, NM on the left. He won
his entry earlier in the year and was pretty happy about that. Then,
on Christmas, he won another entry and promptly transfered it over
to his uncle (pictured right), the man who taught him to play poker.
That's a pretty good holiday gift. Not to mention a pretty good nephew.
The Super-Sat starts soon. No telling how many Main Entry events we'll
pay out tonight, but 3am should be pretty interesting.
