Oddsmakers

Well, there are a lot of things to write about, so rather than divide them up, I'll go for a semi-uber post instead.

The BBT4 came to a close Sunday night, after 56 tournaments and a combined prize pool over $46,000 in those events. There were 43 winners of these tournaments (including yours truly) who will battle it out Sunday night for a shot at one of two WSOP Main Event seats.

Of the 56 tournaments, I only played in 19, but finished 61st of 333 runners overall. I was unavailable for most of March and April, playing 3 times with one cash in March and 4 times for zero points or cashes in April since I was busy every single night of the week and could only play the Sunday events.

May was a different story, however, as I had some more free time after graduation. Of the 17 tournaments in May, I played ten, cashed in three (one each of Mookie, Riverchasers, and BritBloggerment), and won one, finishing 14th on the leaderboard. I skipped the last three events after getting knocked out by Jordan in back-to-back events, making it impossible to top the leaderboard for the month and win a $2K package.

So, now we have a freeroll for Main Event seats Sunday (kudos again to Al) at 8 PM.

My plans, now booked, have involved going to Las Vegas on June 25 and trying to play in Event #51 on June 27.

Should I somehow defy the odds and take down one of the seats, I am not entirely sure what I will do with it. I'm probably somewhere between the 10-1 and 28-1 odds these two decided to toss up for me, but I don't know if I can pull off two trips to Las Vegas given family matters and the lack of vacation time from work. Going to Disneyworld with the family sapped a big bunch of my time off, and I really didn't have any plans to play in such a big event.

I did talk with my boss and boss' boss yesterday over lunch, though, and perhaps it might be more possible than I had previously imagined to pull it all off. Of course, I'll only have the time off problem if I can make it to Day 3. The four Day 1's are from July 3 to 6, with two Day 2's on July 7 and 8. July 9 is a media event, and July 10 is Day 3, where all the players are combined and the money should be reached.

Unfortunately, I only have time off to last until July 8 if taken consecutively, so to make it work I would have to try to play Day 1C (on Sunday, 7/5) which would give me days away from the table on the 6th and 7th to work remotely, if necessary.

Thank God for VPN and wireless networks.

I could then take my remaining days for the 8th, 9th, and 10th, if I survived Day 1 and made it further - not bloody likely, but you never know.

Based on plane tickets for us and available rooms, we *could* pull it off money-wise. However, given the current economic state of affairs, we would be hard pressed to take the seat, compared to cashing most of it out in order to try and get by further n household expenses. With unemployment here approaching eight months, we have managed to hold on so far, but it will begin getting very tight very soon and having that sort of money would provide a very big buffer against further storms coming our way.

It would be a very difficult decision to make. As much as I would LOVE to play in the event, we have to consider the possibility of NOT playing, should it arise.

Of course, if I somehow made it to July 13th, well I'd be handing in my two weeks notice anyway because I'd be at the final two or three tables of the whole damn thing and thinking about an early retirement along with what to wear on TV :)

----------

I do have to keep another promise at some point to the kids, though. Around Christmas, we got passes to head to Sesame Place in Pennsylvania, and we'd been talking about taking advantage of the Fourth of July to head up north to Pennsylvania and, if time permitted, Coney Island and New York to see familiar faces. It's coming up soon, so we'd have to break some of those plans should I win.

On the bright side, the kids would still get to see fireworks in Las Vegas. But it's something that I've talked about doing with the kids sometime this summer, and I've always made it a priority not to break any promises to them, so I might have to become more adept with my juggling skills.

They are still open around Labor Day, so you never know...it would have to be better than being chased by a hurricane like last Labor Day.
----------

As for the already planned Vegas trip, I'm looking forward to meeting up with some of you other bloggers for some good times. I'm also going to be seeing my father, as he'll be there with some friends of his from Phoenix. Lucky bastard got a free suite, at the Rio, on a weekend, in the middle of the World Series. He did better than me in getting a room!

He'll be seeing his chemo therapist today regarding his latest batch of tests, hopefully everything is still functioning OK. I still can't believe they could not find anything in December after diagnosing him as stage 4 lung cancer last summer, so hopefully these tests prove to also be OK.

The one thing I am looking forward to more than anything else, while in Vegas? Not the cash games, or bowling, or drinking, or shows, or seeing people, or other shenanigans.

Nope, I can finally satisfy my craving for In-N-Out Burger.

----------

It's been different having time available. I don't mean just to play poker, though I have been playing better. Some of the things that I never had time to do and hated doing before don't seem as bad now. For example, I actually don't mind mowing the lawn right now as I haven't had time to do it myself in ages.

---------

I have never before seen a graduation ceremony from a really young class, so seeing Alex's pre-K "graduation" was ridiculously cute. As a present (which we were overdue on anyway from his birthday) he got surprised with a bicycle. He was a bit trepid at first but now absolutely loves it. We also found a smaller bicycle for Sammie, so once again I'm the only one who does not own a bike. I might need it soon, if gas prices continue going up, but I actually never learned how to ride a bike. I never needed or wanted to learn how while growing up, and enjoyed rollerblading more than bikes as a teenager, so it just never happened. You can go ahead and mock me now.

---------


Rambling done, for now. Hopefully, I will have to consider alternate travel scenarios for the Fourth of July.