Trip Report....

[SweetDaddyFreak 0]

I actually wanted to jet over to the Bahamas for the WPT, but instead decided to settle for the Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Florida. I live on the West Coast of Florida and its about a two hour drive over, the first time I've been there since turning 18 last month. The first night was pretty fun, but Friday night was a blastI left Thursday night and got to the Hard Rock around 9:00 and was in awe. For a person who has only played at the local indian casino and dog track, this place blew the pants off them. 50 poker tables with $140, $250, $520 and $1050 Sit-n-go's running 24 hours a day. I can be quite an insomniac, as we will see later, so having a poker roon open to me at all times in heaven. I wasn't here to player 2/2 has I could play that anywhere, I just wanted to play the S-N-G's for a couple daysAfter a little confusion on signing up I jumped onto a $140 table. I was pretty nervous not knowing the level of play to expect but after about 15 minutes I realized the $140 are filled with basically a bunch of idiots. I chopped the first one heads up for a little over $400 and jumped into a $250. The play in these was pretty good, I mean there was still a couple people who didn't know what they were doing but generally there were good players. I didn't cash in the $250 and bricked a couple more before taking one down for about $1000. The poker room, even on a Thursday night was pretty busy up till 3AM. There was one table in particular that was full of quite a few characters, including both a UF Alum and UF dropout. There was a crazy, black guy to my right raising every pot and laughing his *** off the whole time. At one point someone refered to living "the good life" and he replied with "if living the good life means being a womanizer, alcoholic and compulsive gambler, then brother, sign me up!" As for poker goes I played one nice hand as I laid down AQs to a raise and he turned over 2 Aces. I chopped that 3 ways.I played until about 4AM after running pretty bad in the $250's and decided to get some food and call it a night. I found a 24 hour place called the Blue Plate and got buffalo wings at 430AM and then fell asleep. I woke up at 1030AM to play the $150 MTT at 1100. There were over 200 players in it generating a good prize pool. The prize pool didn't really matter though as I played pretty poorly due to my lack of sleep and was out in about an hour. I headed back to the room and got some sleep before a massage at 400PM. Now I've had massages before and was going to get a Swedish massage and was pumped for it, but in all honestly it sucked pretty bad, like no pressure or anything. I guess I should've go the deep tissue one or something else that would **** me up. On Friday night I headed into the poker room at 8PM preparded to play for a little bit and get some sleep before tomorrow's 11AM check out. I played in a $140 first because I decided thats where the weakest players were (I know, smart thinking) as and wanted to build up some cash for the $250's later. I got heads up with another guy when I suddenly heard shouting and yelling. I turned around to see two guys screaming at each other about 20 feet from me. I'm not sure what they were yelling about but one guy spit on the other, who then had to be held back. The poker room stopped as these two guys tried to fight each other. Eventually one guy slapped the other before bookin it out of there. He eventually got arrested. Always being quick minded, when I first saw the fight I whipped out my cell phone and took a video of them spitting and getting slapped, so now I have a sweet video to show my friends. By 3AM the poker room was slowly losing people, but and I was doing well and have a sleeping problem and decided just to play through the night. I jumped onto a $250 table that was still waiting on a few players across from two guys and a girl. The girl is a regular there that plays the $520's and $1050's and was a pretty good player. The guys were joking about going all-in blind first hand. The girl, apparentley in a gambling mood at 3am, said if anyone moved all in preflop without looking she would call. Now by this age I know myself pretty well and know what kind of gambler I am. I like to have some fun and take risks and when she suggested it I wasn't going to take it seriously but knew subconsciously that I couldn't pass it up. The cards were dealt and she stated again that as long as no one looked she would do it. The two guys pussed out and looked at their cards. I sat there without looking and when it was my turn pushed all my chips to the middle. She called and the rest of the table folded and I was basically flipping a coin for $250. She turned over K9s while I first flipped a Queen....and then another King! I had her dominated. Thankfully it held up and I doubled up on chips the first hand. She shook my hand and said I was the only one not to wimp out on her like the other guys. I went on to finish 2nd to one of the guys who didn't go all in early and left with some money and a funny *** story. I kept playing on past 6am and 8am and jumped into my last two $250 around 10AM. After a night of playing, lets just say my "A" game was gone and I tried to play well but didn't get the cards to give me some help against guys who had a full night's sleep. At 11AM the Hard Rock was having a $1100 buy-in, which I obviously wasn't going to play after a 14 hour session. After checking out I waited in the poker room to say hello to my best friend's dad who is not only mega-rich, but also a very good live player. I met my up with my friend's dad who had driven over for the event and told me I should probably get some sleep. We talked for a little bit till he went to play. After he left I saw a guy in a wheelchair roll up to the line wearing a backwards Full Tilt hat. Now I've never met a pro player in person before and recognized him as Stuart Patterson who plays online as "TheDonator" and made a WPT final table. I said hello and told him how I watched him play on Full Tilt and Stars and he was really nice, asking my name and was wondering if I was playing in the event. I told him no since I had been in the poker room for over 12 hours and was about to crash. I wished him good luck in the tournment. This was the first time I've meet a "pro" and it was kinda cool. Even though I only wrote a couple that I won or chopped, I ended up being down a few hundred for the trip. I shouldn't have played when I was extremly tired on both nights, but I had good time and now know what to expect the next time I go over. I got back to my house at 1PM today and slept until about 6. Hoped you enjoyed it as much as I did

[IQCrash 1]

Woulda been better if you gave the "pro" a quick tug before saying goodbye or glory holed the degenerate gambler chick, but overall, you get a a thumbs up. Good story.

[no not baxter 0]

very good read...should have PMed me..would have stopped bythats really neat that you got to meat the donator. I have been a few times but never have seen stuey, but i guess i have never been on saturday. I have actually seen eddie jones and gary payton there. I remember my first time. It was amazing. I bet you had a ****in blast even tho u lost.E

[king1305 0]

Good read, good story. Whenever you said that the girl came over and shook your hand, I was waiting for, "and then she stayed and watched, asked me to come up to her room, and we had the best 'degenerate-gamblers sex' ever." I guess the way your story works too, as long as you had a good trip and enjoyed your experience. Any idea what the guys were fighting about?

[TB17 0]

Video. Youtube. Do it.

[GrinderMJ 0]

very good read...should have PMed me..would have stopped bythats really neat that you got to meat the donator. I have been a few times but never have seen stuey, but i guess i have never been on saturday. I have actually seen eddie jones and gary payton there. I remember my first time. It was amazing. I bet you had a ****in blast even tho u lost.E

[Ron_Mexico 4,219]

the structure in those tourneys suck, I know, I've played a bunch of em. They just recently dropped the $250 buy in from 2500 in chips to 2000. I used to like the $250. Basically, I really have nothing to say.

[no not baxter 0]

very good read...should have PMed me..would have stopped bythats really neat that you got to meat the donator. I have been a few times but never have seen stuey, but i guess i have never been on saturday. I have actually seen eddie jones and gary payton there. I remember my first time. It was amazing. I bet you had a ****in blast even tho u lost.E

hmmm, i wonder what "E" signifies?

[showstopper24 0]

Stuart Patterson who plays online as "TheDonator" and made a WPT final table.

Good story but doesn't stuart patterson play under the name stuart patterson? I have played with him once before and that was his name on full tilt.

[Flack_attack 0]

Good story but doesn't stuart patterson play under the name stuart patterson? I have played with him once before and that was his name on full tilt.

He plays on Tilt as his real name because he's a "pro" but on stars, etc., he is TheDonator.

[alanstats 0]

You should have called me. I was there Tuesday and Wednesday. I'm playing there a bunch next week. The 1000 dollar event they hold every month is a good tournament. The structure is fine in their Mtts until the 3rd hour, when blinds get outrageous. The Big Slick Tournament has a better structure, and I may play it there at the end of January or February if I'm running well enough online to play without it being too big a part of my BR. I'll be at the SHR all next week if you come back to our side of the state.

[SweetDaddyFreak 0]

Dude I'll come back next week, its only a little less than two hours. If I come i'll probably be playing all night again. I'll message you or something