The flight to Las Vegas went well, at least. I upgraded to one of the exit aisles to get a window, met a potential business contact, then the fun began. Last time I’d rented a car, I’d had a wait in line that lasted as half as long as it took to get from Portland to here, so I made sure I got a different rental agency, only to realize that Thrifty and Dollar are the same company. So, fifty minutes in line, with all sort of extortion attempts to upsell.

Just made it to the Venetian for the start of the $400 buy-in. First hand I’m in BB ad I see AxAx. I 3-bet the original raiser, he calls and hits two pair on the flop, and while I play it semi-cautiously, I still loose a quarter of my stack in the first hand. My SB with 9x9x gets three over cards on the flop. A little while later–still in the first level, I have to lay down QxQx. It’s a huge tournament. The $30K guarantee ends up with about $30K for first place. I go out with just 2,400 of the 12K starting stack left, holding A♦8♦, with a re-shove from the slightly-less-short stack on my left with Ax7x, and the formerly short stack on my right holding K♣T♣. A Tx its on the river and it’s over for the short stacks.

Met up with DV and BP who are down here for the WSOP Colossus. DV had already busted the first flight. BP is playing Saturday, and invited us to meet up at Orleans for their Friday evening 7pm. Didn’t even make it out of level 2.

Media stuff at the Rio tomorrow, I think. Met up with some of the real names at PokerNews: Chad Holloway (I did not see a bracelet), Remko Rinkema, and Donnie Peters, among others. Hope to see you there!