The World Series of Poker starts today for many players. For them the WSOP is all about the main event and nothing else.
The players started arriving at our fantastic Mike Sexton suite in the Rio Hotel and Casino at about 11am ready for the 12 o’clock start. Our suite is an oasis of calm in a very busy and congested arena of excitement. All credit should go to Sinead and Mike Sebour & his team for setting up a very comfortable room featuring a relaxing chill out area with comfortable sofas, massage chairs and a full time masseuse if players want to de-stressed. We also have a video games area with a Wii, large screen TV and selection of films to keep players and their guests.
Day 1A is being played out in a couple of different rooms here at the Rio and our players are scattered far and wide. About 20 players have started their tournament today and trying to find all of them proved tricky to start with but we got there. Walking around the main Amazon room I spotted players like Miika from Finland and Rory from Ireland who were both picking up small pots where they could.
When the players had their first break after two hours of play, they came back to the suite to get something to eat and drink and a game on the fuseball table. I think that there will be a lot of competition and possibly some fast betting action around that fuseball table this week. The guys love it.
Because the suite is called The Mike Sexton Suite rather than the PartyPoker Suite, we are getting a lot of interest from Americans passing by who want to see or meet Mike. These guys have been inventing lots of good and imaginative reasons (“I’m Mike’s best friend….but I haven’t seen him in 10 years” was one of our favourites) why they should come in and say hi to Mike or why they should be allowed to simply come in and help themselves to our food and drinks.
It is the’ Mike Sexton Suite’ not the ‘Mike Sexton Walk in Buffet’ but some don’t seem to get that so we have told Mario and Andreas to act as bouncers and politely explain that the suite is for PartyPoker players only. Mario is too nice for this job and has to harden up a bit.
Standing outside the suite we got to see plenty of well known players walk by including the great Doyle Brunsen, former WSOP main event winner Joe Hachem and the popular Daniel Negreanu. I’ll get some pictures next time – promise.
We left the Rio once the players had their evening break. I had a quick look around the tournament rooms before I left and all our Day 1A players seemed to be doing alright. This year there are only four 2 hour levels being played each day which means play will be over by about 10.30 every night in the early stages. I’ll be back soon with some chip updates.
