Hey Virgil Blog, it’s been a while. Like two and a half years give or take a pandemic.  

Anyway, great to see you again. 

Las Vegas, Nevada. World Series of Poker Seniors Tournament, 2022. That’s what we’re here for, right? 

$1000.00 entry fee.  Orange section, table 532, seat 3 (my least favorite seat, but whatever…) 

Over 7000 entries for a prize pool of almost 7 million dollars at stake with almost $700,000 to the winner.

I don’t mind telling you, I’m a little excited. First time playing live poker since March 2020. Anywhere. And here we are in the brand spanking Bally’s-Paris Convention Center, the new home of The WSOP.  

10 AM and cards are in the air! 

In seat 1 is Mitt Romney’s better looking, younger brother. No, not really, but he could be. Fancy gold watch. Very pressed, very white dress shirt, sharp black dress pants. Who dresses like that to play in The WSOP?!

He talks a lot, and plays boldly and badly. After one particular bonehead move, he actually leans over to the complete shlub in seat 2 and says – and I’m quoting directly here – “It doesn’t matter. I own a billion-dollar company. The money doesn’t matter to me. I just do this because I’m bored. I like to watch other people struggle.” Seriously, dude? This guy is straight out of Central Casting, and I’m not buyin’ one word of this story.

A few hands later… 

“I used to live in Beverly Hills, but I started tripping over bums in the street, so I moved here.” Are you fucking kidding me?!

A few hands later… 

He was out of the tournament. Thankfully, his A9 was no match for a pair of cowboys. Good riddance, Dickhead. 

In seat 5 is a blind guy. No kidding. Legally blind anyway, he says. He’s got a magnifying apparatus that he slides his cards into so he can read them. And the dealer clearly and loudly announces every card on the flop, turn, and river, and every bet for him. I’ve never seen that before. If this were a movie, he’d have gone on to win the tournament. But it’s not. He was out within an hour. Credit to him, though for playing. And credit the entire table for not cracking even one joke when he was in the big blind. 

Other than that, the tournament for me was pretty uneventful. Card dead all day. An endlessly persistent stream of J2, 93, T5, Q4, 82. It’s really hard to generate any action. I stole some blinds, ran a few successful bluffs, but seriously, relentlessly, really, really card dead all day, all night. If my objective was to last the entire day and not have to rebuy, I guess it was mission accomplished, but that is seriously all I accomplished. I went out at about 11:00 PM with a whimper, I can’t even remember the hand. Yes, I can. I shoved a piddly stack with AJ and ran into AK. Yawn. 

My friend Domenic Scalamogna made it it through to day 2 as did my friend Jim Hess. And of course I’m happy for both of them. More on that later.

I’m staying at Paris, right in the heart of The Strip because that’s where the tournament is, so why not. And it’s fun there. The casino is lively, there’s a fake Eiffel Tower, and everything has a quaintly simplistic Frenchness to it. “La Pizza” “Cafe Americaine” “La Creperie” and the convenience store “La Presse” which interestingly sells overpriced sun block and nail clippers but not newspapers. 

Having now crapped out of The WSOP, my back-up plan is to play in the Seniors tournament starting the next day at The Venetian. Similar entry fee of $1000 but the field will only be about 1000 people. Still, a million dollars in the prize pool and approximately $150,000 to the winner. Nothing to sneeze at. Especially these days, where sneezing can get you quarantined.

There was a much more exciting finish for yours truly in that one I’ll tell you about that in the next installment.