Welcome to the Rio
I’m standing in the long line at the Rio to verify my vaccination status and a man walks right up to me. Masks are required in the hallways, but his is crumpled up in his hand. He practically yells, “What’s this line for?!”
“To verify your vaccination status.”
“You have to be verified to play in this?!”
“Yeah.”
He looks up and down the line, a couple hundred people in total. “All y’all are vaccinated?!”
“Presumably,” I shrug.
“I’m worried about taking that shit. People have died from that.”
“Well, a lot more people have died from COVID.”
He shakes his head at me and slowly walks away.
Today’s tournament started at 10am but I need to drop of my luggage and grab a quick meal, so I don’t get to the Rio until 11am. With lines, more lines, a missing wire transfer, and registration problems, it’s not until 3.5 hours later that I’m finally sitting down in the tournament.
I’m still getting settled, and a little flustered from the chaos when it folds to me in the HJ1 and I look down to see QJ of spades. I raise, and the big stack at the table calls.
The flop comes QT8, two hearts, one spade. It’s checked to me and I bet 6k into the 9k pot. He tanks before raising to 18k. I go all in for my remaining 40k. He tanks again before calling with KJ of hearts. A heart hits the turn to give him a flush and I’m out of the tournament.
3.5 hours to get registered and I’m out on the first hand.
My rebuy goes a lot better. By 1am we’ve played down from 2,649 entries to 129, and I’m happy to have built my 50k starting stack into almost 1M. We’re in the money, and I’ll be back to the Rio on Monday to play Day 2.
I’ve been up for almost 24 hours, ready to get some sleep and get back to the felt again tomorrow.
Steps Tracked: 11,120
Scroll down toward the bottom of the about page if none of these abbreviations make sense.
Glad the rebuy was better than the first hand! Cheap flights from Denver to Vegas, might have to come in for a couple days for support!