Wednesday, July 25, 2007

WOMEN’S WSOP POKER ACADEMY AND TOURNAMENT


After doing so well at Binion’s Women’s Ultimate Poker Challenge I decided to attend the Women’s WSOP Poker Academy, June 8-9 in Las Vegas. The Academy was going to have a tournament that would send ten women to the WSOP women’s tournament. I took enough money to play in the WSOP women’s tournament even if I didn’t win my seat. I really wanted to play. In the time between trips I read many poker articles, watched poker on TV and played in my poker league to help keep me focused for the tournament.

Our plane was scheduled to leave early Thursday morning, June 7th. On Wednesday my husband and I dropped our son, Justin, off at the respite home he would be staying at. Our son was injured in an auto accident many years ago and we have to have specialized care for him when we go on vacation. Usually we only go on vacation once every 12 to 18 months. Because of medical problems we did not go last year. I was leery of leaving him again for a week but I really wanted to attend the academy and play in the WSOP. Everything turned out just fine for my son. He was well taken care of and very happy.

After getting the boys settled in, my youngest Aaron was staying with friends; we finished packing up our stuff and headed for the hotel. We decided to stay closer to the airport since our flight was leaving before 7:00 am the next day. It is so awesome to realize that we can do what ever we want from now until next Wednesday. No kids to worry about, no house to worry about, no bills, no pets, no nothing for six whole days.

We had reservations to eat with friends at Zingermens’ Road House Restaurant in Ann Arbor. The food was great and the company even better. We headed back to our hotel around 9:30 pm and relaxed until bedtime. It was a great start to our vacation. At 5:00 am we got up, got ready and headed out the door for the airport. Check-in went fast, we reserved Spirit Plus seats for the long flight out and regular seats for the ride back since it is usually not as crowded coming home. It was a good move since the regular line was loooooong when we got to the airport. Zipped through security pretty quickly, it would have been faster if two women hadn’t tried to bring make up cases on board full of large containers of shampoo etc. When will people learn to check everything except the bare necessities? Flight was uneventful except for some turbulence over Denver. Arrived in Las Vegas after four-hour flight at 8:00 am Vegas time. Woo hoo we gained three hours back.

We rode the white buses to the new rental terminal. Zipped out of there in ten minutes, register on line it will save you lots of time. Loaded up the luggage in the trunk of the car and headed to the South Point Casino, our home for the next six nights. It was too early for a room so we left our luggage with the bellhop and headed out for breakfast. It was already hot by my standards. I am half Canadian and do not like the heat. I knew it was going to be very hot but we must make sacrifices if we want to play in the big girl tournaments. I know it is a “dry” heat but it was still f****** hot!

We have developed a tradition of having an authentic Mexican meal for our first day. We used to eat at a dive near the Stratosphere, this time we ate at a place near the Orleans that my husband found. We did eat there in February and it was very good. We will eat there four times by the end of our trip and one time at the old place by the Stratosphere. We had steak tacos every time; they are very tasty and not too filling. The restaurant is open 24 hours a day so we ate there late at night a couple of times.

After breakfast, we headed back to the South Point Casino to play some slots. We had agreed before hand that we would not play any poker other than Video Poker so that we could enjoy our first day together. We had dinner plans at Pearl and tickets to see Wayne Brady in the evening. We put in a few dollars here and there with no big hits. I was playing slots here and there when I saw this one: It’s called “Hot Flashes”. I laughed so hard that people started staring. I had to play it. I played for a while when I hit the bonus which asks you to chose jobs for your man. I chose the ones I don’t like to do, laundry and cleaning toilets and won the most points or pennies for the bonus. I would play this slot on and off through out our trip. I didn’t make huge amounts of money on it but I did make twenty here and there. It was lots of fun. The men would whine and the girl friends would bitch!

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