Left St. Louis around 5:30pm Sunday evening with the plan to arrive Tuesday evening (driving so I can move all my stuff out to San Diego after the WSOP). I decided to take the Northern route that goes through Colorado mostly to see the Rocky Mountains and based on a few recommendations. There was also the Colorado National Monument Park that I was planning on spending some time at but unfortunately when I was in that area it was raining so I had to pass. I didn't really feel like I had missed much though just because of all the scenery I was seeing from the road. I felt good Sunday night and ended up putting in 9 hours on the road before staying in a hotel somewhere in West Kansas. It worked out well that I drove through most of Kansas at night, because it wasn't as obvious how depressing/boring most of Kansas is.



9 hours was more than I was expecting to do on Sunday and I knew I had around 14 left. I knew I could easily do 10-12 on Monday but would I really want to stop somewhere for the night when so close to Vegas? I figured I would be too excited to get out here so I figured I'd give the whole trip a shot. Left around 9:30am and basically drove straight to Vegas with a few short breaks.

Monday was weird because I saw so many different things. Starting with the boring Kansas plains, then the beautiful Rocky Mountains, then the deserts/canyons in Utah, and finally the lights of Las Vegas. I obviously had a lot of time to do some thinking which was therapeutic. Somewhere in Colorado there was a moment of clarity when I realized I was moving on to the next stage of my life. It didn't really hit me at graduation or when saying goodbye to friends that I may not see for quite some time, but it hit me as I saw the geographical changes because I felt increasingly distant from family/friends/college life. Having finished college and by not getting the "real job" I had hoped for, I was officially a poker pro (although still planning on going into Finance in roughly a year) and had all of my belongings in my car with a lot of uncertainty ahead. My mindset going into this WSOP is so different from last year, much more focused and motivated. My confidence level is high and I'm hoping things go well.



Monday morning in Eastern Colorado I was pulled over by a policeman (he wasn't using his radar so my detector didn't go off). I was only going around 85 in a 75 and I hit the brakes when I saw him. Plus since he wasn't using his radar I was upset to see him pulling me over since it was obviously a marginal judgment call he was making. Fortunately he turned out to be the nicest cop ever and we talked a little bit about how I was moving out West (he could tell because my car was packed) having just graduated. He acknowledged that I was only going a "little" fast and that we were in the middle of nowhere but let me go with a warning which was cool. I was hoping that it was a sign that luck was on my side for the trip and that turned out to be further evidenced by my trip through the desert.

In Western Colorado (around Grand Junction) along Highway 70 headed West you eventually reach a point where you start going through desert and there are literally zero exits/restaurants/gas stations for a 3 or 4 hour period. I saw zero signs warning me of this long stretch of nothing (although I would later be told that there was one small sign that was hidden behind trees, wtf?). Needless to say, there need to be like 20 signs in good view because it's fairly dangerous. I didn't know long stretches like that even existed, seemed like something out of a movie. When I got to Grand Junction (just before starting the desert trip) I grabbed a coffee at Starbucks and decided not to get gas because I figured I'd be hungry in a couple hours and could just get gas then (I had about 2/3 of a tank left so it wasn't an issue). About 2 hours into the desert it starting becoming frighteningly obvious that there were no gas stations there. I guess that makes sense since nobody lives nearby and it has to be difficult to get gas in such hard to reach locations but clearly there will be a lot of demand for gas there and lots of people run out of gas (as was later confirmed by a gas station attendant when I finally reached civilization). I had around a quarter of a tank and no idea how much longer until I reached a gas station but I figured surely one had to be coming up soon and I had enough gas to get me there. As I got lower and lower I couldn't help but worry about running out of gas and being stuck in the middle of the desert. On top of this, there was no cell reception so I couldn't even call for help! I had visions of vultures eating me and/or mutants from The Hills Have Eyes (a terrible movie) coming to attack me.



As my gas got lower I was checking my meter on my car which estimates how many more miles I could go before running out of gas. At one point it said 40 more miles but I saw an exit approaching and was thankful. When I got off at the exit, the sign pointing to the gas station was 25 miles off of the highway in the opposite direction that I wanted to travel. I didn't want to gamble but also didn't want to lose like 45 minutes going there and back. So I looked on my GPS to find nearby stations and saw that there was a different exit ~30 miles away off of the highway in the direction I needed to go. So I crossed my fingers and got back on the highway. What I didn't realize was that my car's estimates are heavily dependent on if you're traveling up/down hill since your car uses more/less gas to travel a given distance than it was expecting. Given that I was going through canyons and such I was going up and down a lot and I started driving up for a long period of time and saw my mileage estimate drop very fast to the point that I had about 25 miles left on my tank with about 25 miles to this gas station that I was now basically stuck having to go for. Fortunately I got downhill for most of the way to this exit and made it to the station but with literally like 10 miles left on my tank. I'm so lucky that I didn't leave Grand Junction with even a little less gas.

I never in my life would have expected to be so happy to see a sketchy Utah town in the middle of nowhere inhabited with crazy polygamist Mormons. I was relieved but still furious that somehow there weren't multiple clear warning signs of the lack of gas that almost left me stranded. Also, here's a business idea for those crazy Mormons... open a gas station in the middle of the desert along this highway and charge a ton. I promise you it will be profitable. Even if it's too hard to have a major gas station out there, open up a shack on the side of the road and sell emergency gas gallons for $20/gallon. You can have one of your 10 wives or 40 kids driving back and forth from town filling them up and bringing them back to the shack to sell. I apologize if this somehow offends readers, but if you're a polygamist Momon in a cult in the middle of a desert in Utah you probably shouldn't be reading a blog about poker anyways. I promise you the obscenities I was yelling while driving through the desert were much more offensive.

Anyways the ending to the story is a happy one as I arrived in Vegas around 11pm after driving 24 of my last 30 hours. I was obviously really fatigued but the second I got out of my car I was hit by the excitement that surrounds Vegas. I ended up meeting my Uncle who was in town for a few days and drinking/gambling until like 5:30am before heading back to my room at the Rio. I ended up sleeping only like 5 hours which is something that's really weird about Vegas. I think there's too much excitement to sleep a long time. Even while out here for a month last year I don't really remember sleeping more than 6 hours and it was usually around 5 and I wouldn't feel tired the next day. At home/school 7-8 hours per night was pretty standard if I was able to sleep in which I am usually able to in Vegas.

All the Rio rooms are suites and are large and pretty nice. I have a really nice view of the desert/mountains and like half of the strip. I moved in a lot of my stuff and am pretty comfortable which is nice since I will be here for just over 2 weeks before moving to the house we rented. It will be convenient to be at the same hotel as the WSOP is played and I think will be great for the focused/grind mentality I have going into this year's series.

The plan for now is to play a lot of the 1k-3k events and some of the $500-1k events at Caesar's when I don't have a WSOP that I'm interested in playing that day. I'll play a few of the $5k tournaments and certainly the Main Event and I'm still selling some action in those if you're interested in buying pieces with markup.

Yesterday I did some work and got my stuff unpacked and then went out for a bit with my Aunt/Uncle and we gambled a little but not for too long. Today I spent some time at the hotel pool which was awesome and something for some reason I never did last year (although you do need to be a guest at the Rio at least). I looked into a few of the hotel pools around and some of them are incredible. I was talking to someone last night who told me on Sundays Hard Rock has a pool party called Rehab that gets like 7,000 people paying $60 for guys and $40 for girls. That's sooo many people and if they're all willing to pay a fairly high price the party has got to be amazing. I'll have to check that out at some point this summer.

No plans for tonight yet, most of my friends come in this weekend or mid-June when we get the house but I'll try to get in touch with some poker/Leggo people that are around. If you're around and want to get dinner or something hit me up.

Tomorrow is the first WSOP event (the $40,000 NL) which should be a tough field. A little rich for my blood but I'll be playing the first Caesar's event which is a $1k tourney at noon tomorrow. I'll try to keep you updated all series on my Twitter page which you should follow if you're not already: www.twitter.com/craigthedeac

Craig