Ok, here's today's recap. I'm sure I'll be forgetting stuff (it was a pretty full day), but here are some highlights:
I arrived at the Rio around 12:30 and picked up my press credentials. Nicole, the press girl, remembered me from last year (my name and everything). I guess I made a lasting impression - must be my crazy good looks. Uh huh. Anyhoo, I signed up for the Media/Celebrity event to be held later in the day and then went off and explored for a while.
I went all through the trade show / convention / lifestyle show (whatever they are calling it) and got all sorts of free loot (tshirts and hats mostly), and talked to a number of interesting people. I spoke with a couple of sites about hosting our Heads Up tourney next month, and I'm confident someone will take care of us
I talked to Lee Jones from Poker Stars for a little while, and he explained to me why Stars won't set up Private Heads Up matches (I won't go into it now). In other news, they are sending over 1100 players to the Main Event this year!!! That's just crazy.
At 3:30, there was a press conference that lasted about an hour. In addition to a couple of Poker Hall of Fame inductions and plenty of announcements, there was a Q & A period. Greg Raymer was there and I was impressed with all of his answers. He really seems like a down to earth, extremely intelligent guy. He estimates his chances of winning the WSOP this year to be around 1500:1, btw. Oh, they don't have an exact number but it looks like the final number of entrants will be around 6000, meaning Poker Stars players will be making up 20% of the field.
Hmmmm.... this post is getting awfully boring, isn't it? Maybe I should skip ahead to the good stuff.........
To Be Continued.