I arrived in Las Vegas late afternoon yesterday after a smooth flight with Mexicana and a swift check-in to the Gold Coast Hotel next to the Rio.

After settling in and packing out I went to the WSOP area at the convention center to check in for the main event - now I know I will be playing at table 41, seat 4, starting Saturday July 29th at noon (1 p.m. in CR). I wonder who my opponents will be - a bunch of acne plagued online qualifiers, one or two oldtimers from the Jesse Alto era or maybe one of the big guns - Ivey, Raymer, Reese, Hellmuth?

I am thinking poker constantly now, mostly strategy and attitude and not so much technical stuff (that is not my weakest side). I had some weird dreams last night, but it ended quite pleasantly with me celebrating the WSOP title - you know, one of those dreams you want never to stop! Finally I had to, though, went out to do some necessary shopping before I decided to check out the "Gaming Life Expo 2006" - this year´s version of the Poker Life Style show they put on last year.

I was prepared for it this time and thought I would be better off taking the bull by the horns at an early stage before it really got crazy and crowded. More than a hundred exhibitors are displaying their product, the majority being either poker sites, poker magazines or accessories producers. If you just walk through you can do the entire hall in a few minutes, but only if you avoid eye contact with any of the hundreds of drop dead gorgeous models promoting the latest design in poker shades or poker mouse pads. Should you actually have a genuine interest in what is going on in this weird industry, get ready for a heavy load of stuff and plastic bags. I practically ran through the area paying due attention to what would interest me, and I just unloaded on the hotel bed:
1 poker cap, 3 t-shirts (one XL for Fonseca!), 1 backpack, 6 card covers, 1 car sticker, 1 Full Tilt teddy bear, 1 frisbee, 1 Loctite superglue, 1 dealer button, 1 cutting card, 2 pens, 1 deck of cards, 8 different poker magazines, 1 swimsuit calendar (better leave it here) plus a bunch of promo materials and cd-roms. I dread the thought of wandering in there for hours and not being able to find my way out!


A snapshot from the expo - Phil Hellmuth signing autographs

Pamela Anderson is supposed to show up in company of Doyle Brunson (yes, surreal...) to promote her new poker site (indeed out of this galaxy madness), but I am NOT going back there!

One really nice thing happened, though: I found out Dan Harrington had published a third volume adding to his wildly popular (my poker bible) "Harrington on Hold'em" series. This one is called "The Workbook", I will dig into it right away while I melt at the poolside - it is HOT here.

More tomorrow.....