Kitties in Diapers Aidan's blog

Vegas Trip and Meeting Negreanu

My business partner Jim has been in Vegas for the past month, and I decided to rip down there and meet him in person for the first time. It is quite weird that we have been in business for over two years and have still not officially met. I booked the trip two days in advance through West Jet using my Airmiles. I have so many of the racked up and figured I should start using them. Although, it was quite silly that it still cost me around $200 for taxes and other bs charges.

It also worked out very well that one of my best buddies Vikse was also in Vegas with his girl friends family, and they were all going to Nascar. Since it was Nascar weekend the entire city was packed with testosterone of Nascar fans... Those stupid race car jackets have to be the most ugly and tacky clothing, even more awkward than a towel on a head.

One of the only hotels that had rooms left was the Venetian, which was cool because the last time I was there I spent a couple of nights in the poker room and really enjoyed the atmosphere. The prices were  jacked up because of Nascar, although between Jim and I it wasn't too bad, ended up being $200 a night. We received a great room on the 9th floor, although it was completely ridiculous to get to. I'm not even being lazy here, everyone that was in nearby rooms bitched about it as well during their hike to the casino. It must have taken close to 20 minutes to get from the middle of the Venetian casino to our room, including two separate elevator rides. If I ever end up staying there again I will be making sure that I don't get stuck out in the boonies again.

I arrived in Vegas at 10:00 am and went straight to our hotel and met up with Jim. After some chit chat Mikeyv04 showed up, and we went and played some PaiGow at Harrahs. If you have never played PaiGow, I highly recommend it. It is a much slower paced game with a ton of pushes, so if you're not much of a gambler and want to chill at the table games drink for free that is the game to play. I ran quite well the entire trip playing PaiGow and a bit of Baccarat.

I didn't even play much poker at all, which is quite surprising for me. Played an hour of 4-8 Omaha hi/lo and only won a chopped pot, so took a small loss. Oh, Vikse and I also entered a $150 Harrahs Hold'em tournament, and we were definitely the loud guys at the table. We basically only played it to try and knock out one player to help Jim on the leaderboard. We ended up being pretty useless and both made exits early. Vikse got 3 outed and I put all my chips in with A10 of hears on a board with two hearts and was called by a guy holding pocket jacks.  Jim ended up winning that tournament and also won the Harrah's leaderboard which is quite cool.

The highlight of the trip came when Jim stumbled through the hotel room after being up many hours drinking and gambling at the Imperial. When he crashed through the door I woke up and he said, “We're going to Daniel Negreanu's house at 12:00, will you be awake?” I didn't know what the hell he was talking about and figured he was just talking jibberish. So I ended up sleeping for another 20 minutes and got ready just incase he actually knew what he was talking about. Jim told me to wake him up at 11:30 so he could shower and get ready to go. I ended up waking him up at 11:40 and said, “Jim it's 11:30 wake up.”
he replies, “It's 11:40”
“Well, hurry it up then.” I replied.

He got ready very fast and headed out the door and we gave Ann a call back to make sure it worked out. Sure enough, Jim wasn't that drunk and we were off to Negreanu's house via Ann. Ann is the mother of Negreanu's assisasnt and is quite close to Daniel herself. Jim met Ann at the Imperial Palace where she works and I was introduced to her, she is a super cool chick from Tailand who I called M, because Jim prounces Ann much different than I did. Then just before I was leaving I mentioned her and he was like dude, her name is Enn not M. We had some sort of accent barrier and realized her name was Ann. It was quite a hilarious conversation.

We had no idea if Daniel was expecting us or if he was even home, but after about a 20 minute drive from Harrahs and entering a gated community we were at his house. She walked in and said she brought company. Then I heard Negreanu's voice as he said, “They aren't going to steal anything are they?” We chuckled, “So should I show them where the money is?”

So we pounded it because I remembered watching one of his WSOP vlogs saying that he hates hand shakes and I can't agree more about hand shakes losing. I took a glance around his house and it was pretty sweet, huge billiards table, arcade games, nearly every Wii accessory, big pool, putting green in the back yard and a semi-fancy kitchen.

Sure enough Daniel was making a Veggie burger when we got there. I don't even eat meat myself and I still can't get down veggie 'meat'. We ended up talking for a bit and when he realized I was Canadian, he perked up a bit and Jim mentioned that I finally have someone to talk hockey with. Seriously, though it's unreal how little hockey gets covered in the states. They don't even bother showing any high lights, which is kind of disappointing for us Canadians.

I asked him if he was still a Leaf's fan, and it seemed that he jumped ship and is now cheering for Chicago and Washington. Whata bandwagon jumper lol, and he also said something about an even money bet he made on the Blackhawks and Ducks. This got him going off on a rant about how people never pay anymore when they make prop bets and that even though he made a huge +ev bet, he assumes he won't get paid. This rant came just after he did his gay impersionation for litterally 5 minutes, which he pulled off far to well. It was quite funny though.

If anyone else ends up visiting Negreanu at his house, whatever you do don't pick up his dog without asking. The little taco bell dogs were running all around me and being an animal dude I picked one up, and I got a slight glare from DN and he asked if I was going to drop him? Obviously, I didn't plan on it and gently lowered the dog back to the marble floor.

It ended up being a pretty cool visit with Daniel, and he is a very nice guy for taking his time to visit a couple of chumps. Especially, when he had no idea we were coming and just showed up with his assistants mother lol.

There really wasn't anything exciting after that point of the trip. Jim and I stayed pretty low playing some Paigow at a few casinos and left the following Tuesday evening after winning a nice sports bet and watching my Penguins win.