Vegas Mission 2013: Good morning from Vegas

I was going to preface this blog by first describing how a small town rocker winds up in Las Vegas playing tournament poker, but I figured that back story would be as interesting as the latest Rob Ford press conference (oh wait , bad comparison) haha. ok what the hell, ill keep it short.

For those who don't know, I was introduced to the game in 2004 by my college roomie (hi big joe)
We had a comparable experience to most: deposit $20 online flip coins Lose $20 online. Neither of us really had any money so $20 was a lot to us a the time.

Both he and I looked at it as a fun way to spend an evening , as opposed to going outside and being contaminated by the "fresh" Hamilton air. We played for fun, had no expectation for profits and were content with that.

A few months later Joe introduced me to his friend who was a Online Pro based out of Toronto. When I heard that it was possible to earn 50k+ per year playing "games" (at the time I had no idea of game theory or the complexity/nuances of the game) A few month later Joe and I paid our rent with poker profits and I was instantly hooked.

Fast forward to 2013. Over the years I have played over 500,000 cash game hands (actually a small sample size for online cash games, but pretty good for a workin man), 4000 MTT's and a mix of sit and go's , all while keeping positive ROI. I have read every poker book imaginable, have had coaching from the best , been active on strategy forums and have studied the math/game theory of poker for as many hours as I've played.

After almost nine years, I figured it was time to take a shot and see how I stack up against the best in the world.

Some friends of mine told me one thing I have to do is to absorb this whole experience. They say that the first time a poker player walks into the Rio at the World Series is comparable to the first time you step into a NHL arena, or NFL stadium. The buzz of 1000's of people shuffling their chips may not be exactly the same as a sens pregame but you get the point.

The thing that sets poker apart from every other sport in the world is that ANYONE can participate. Imagine the reaction by Paul Maclean if I showed up at Sens practice and laced them up. It just isn't imaginable and at this point of the day (5am) the experience I am about to take in today isn't either

ok enough of the boring stuff

I had a great trip here yesterday. Everything went very smoothly and starting it off with a fajita lunch at work was perfect. I arrived around 8:30 last night, checked into the hotel, hit up PF Chang's for some spicy chicken take out (part of the reason i'm up at 5 haha) had a beverage, then hit they hay.

My first tournament today is at the Golden Nugget at 12pm. It is a smaller buy in event that is part of the Grand Poker Series. I thought I would start small and get a feel for the meta game of live poker before venturing over to the Rio (home of wsop) later in the week.

Wish me luck everyone and please pass this along to anyone who would be interested.

"Winning isn't everything, but the will to win is everything" Vince Lombardi