WSOP Day 3...No Mercy by Texter

When you last heard from me at the WSOP...I had just stumbled to bed after winning a few hundred bucks in the craziest game of $1/$2 No-Limit Hold'em.

So last night I was a winner...but this morning I don't feel like a winner, after drinking all night trying to keep up with those college guys, I can really start feeling my age. I finally get out of bed at around 3:30 PM to get ready for our interview with Isabelle "No Mercy" Mercier, which is over at the Rio at 5 pm. I take a shower (I have to mention if you ever stay at the Gold Coast, bring your own soap, their soap smells terrible) and head over to the Rio.

I meet up with Smoothcaller at the Poker Lifestyle show (at least that's what it was called last year), which is basically a big tradeshow of poker rooms and poker products; and he cannot get a wireless link on any of the available networks which is a problem since we don't remember the room where we are supposed to meet Isabelle in about 5 minutes. We see our old friend Richard Sparks (noted author of Diary of a Mad Poker Player & Getting Lucky) and as fate would have it, he and his wife have a connection at their booth which the graciously let us use...they are selling photos and copies of his book. We get the room number and head on up.

We get to the room and we're both a little nervous since Isabelle is so good looking; however, she is so cool and laid back that the interview goes terrific (you can read it next month on pokerlizard.com). I think we could all learn a little bit about having a balanced life from Ms. Mercier. So we finish the interview and take a couple pictures for the website and head back down to the lifestyle show. We check out the Lifestyle show which is pretty nuts, there are booth babes galore and every poker product you can imagine. We head over to the Bodog booth to meet up with our affiliate manager, Laura, who gives us a bunch of Bodog schwag. The Bodog booth had a giant bed on top of it with models hitting goofy tourist guys with pillows while they got a souvenir picture...Laura couldn't convince us to do it but she did take our pic with some of the other models. One of the coolest booths belonged to PKR an online poker room that has really great graphics and gameplay, I don't know if they'll make it but they sure look good. Some other sites don't look quite as professional and I doubt we'll see them around next year. Gato finally tore herself away from the poker table and came to meet us.

The Ultimatebet party at the Voodoo lounge was coming up at 8 so we went to the All American Restaurant with Laura and Gato to eat dinner; after that we headed over to the Gold Coast to change - then it was back to the Rio for the party. Due to the prior night of drinking, I decided water was my drink of choice at the Voodoo lounge. The Voodoo lounge has an inside club and an outside lounge that looks over the city with a bar and couches, there was some terrible singer inside so we stayed outside. The party was pretty sweet with free booze and plenty of food, but like an idiot I had just eaten dinner and as you can see from the pic it was a total sausage fest...oh well, next year I'll know. We decide to leave the party because Smooth wants to play in the Rio's $215 at 11. On the way out we run into Steamboat (Ryan), Green Plastic (Taylor Caby), and one other friend of theirs. Steamboat tries to talk us into drinking some Jaeger Bombs, but my liver and kidneys protest so I head back to the Gold Coast while Smooth heads to the Rio.

I contemplate playing some poker at the Gold Coast...but am way to old and decide to call it a night at around 11:30. The main event starts tomorrow!