Weekend At Daniel's Hockey Edition (leafs31 Trip Report, Part 1)

[leafs31 0]

It’s day one of the Hockey weekend at Daniel’s and I meet the rest of the winners at the entrance of Café Lago in Caesars palace. I see Ed, who I had met up with the night before for some pre-weekend drinks, and his wife Victoria. I also see a guy with an Oilers jersey on and instantly know that I am in the right place. We exchange names and handshakes with the other winners, and their guests, and I instantly forget all of their names. I will spend the next few days messing up their names and re-asking the same questions over and over. It takes me awhile to remember some of this stuff sometimes. Hey, it’s just the way I roll. I meet Brendan, one of the organizers and we talk about how he lives in Toronto and I quickly discover that he lives about 2 minutes away from the girl I am currently seeing. He seems like a really friendly guy and it is nice to talk to someone else from the Toronto area. We sit at our reserved table and head up for the first trip to the buffet. Once we are full of Omelets, seafood and prime rib we get into the details on the weekend. Brendan and Jeff tell us that our first challenge was bet $50 on sports and who ever makes the most money wins that challenge. I leave that task to my buddy and team member for the weekend, Jason, while I go check into the hotel.We head down to the poker room after getting our baggage delivered to the room and I am immediately impressed. I walk into the room and immediately see Shawn Sheikhan and “Eskimo” Clark sitting at the only table being used in the VIP area. They are playing a $400-$800 mixed game I am later told by one of the dealers.Daniel shows up and immediately ingratiates himself with all of the winners and their guests. He gets to me and I tell him my name and that I am from Guelph, which is a town quite near to Toronto.“What do you do Mitch?” He says looking in my direction.“It’s Rich actually.” I say correcting him. “But you can call me Mitch if you want.” I add with a smile.“I am a cartographer” I say.“A what?!” says Daniel. “A cartoon photographer?!” I try to correct him but it is too late he is already telling everyone within earshot that I take pictures of cartoons for a living. Is this happening? Is Daniel Negreanu needling me? I am not mad or offended at all, in face, I think it is kind of cool.I have my Corona in front of me, the cards fly, and it is time to see how I play against one of the best players in the world.I start off at the same table with Daniel who is in the 10 seat and I am in the 6 seat. I don’t see too much for many hands to start, but I want to play tight, just to try to feel out the table. Daniel however, picks up many pots early and actually shows some good cards…well…..some of the time at least. I finally get into a hand with Daniel when he limps, and I compete in the small blind with sixes in the hole. I flop a set of sixes and immediately check only to see Daniel bet at the pot.Oh ****. I think to myself. Not only am I playing in the Caesar’s palace VIP room with Daniel Negreanu, but now I am about to check raise him. I raise him and Daniel pushes me all-in. I look at the board and realize that even though I am almost positive that I am ahead right now, the cards that Daniel likes to play fit into this board. But I have to call, don’t I? Everything I know about poker is now longer in my brain, but I hear myself say:“Call”We flip our cards and I see that he has flopped an open ended straight draw.Oh ****I hold my breath at the dealer deals the turn and river quite fast. No help for Daniel and I double up and move into the chip lead.Did that just happen?. I ask my brain. Yes it did and it was as was sweet as I thought it would be.More laterRich(leafs31)

[FlyerFan9 0]

Thanks for leaving out the full house on the river that kicked me to the curb Rich. I'll have to relive that hand over and over again as I tell my buddies how I got knocked out........until the next bad beat story of course -Carlo

[EddieMoney22 0]

Nice first part of the report Rich (only becuase I was mentioned) for all that read this. there are plenty of Pics to see. I have everyone's e-mail address and will send out an e-mail tomorrow to you all to come up with the best Ideal of putting up the pics. Yoda already had a great Idea I think but I can't remember. I think it was during our two games of NBA Jam where we both got screwed into trying to play two players at once.

[powerpoker 0]

Nice first part of the report Rich (only becuase I was mentioned) for all that read this. there are plenty of Pics to see. I have everyone's e-mail address and will send out an e-mail tomorrow to you all to come up with the best Ideal of putting up the pics. Yoda already had a great Idea I think but I can't remember. I think it was during our two games of NBA Jam where we both got screwed into trying to play two players at once.

seems like you guys had a great time, which aint hard here in vegas. How did you guys like TAO?