ITH Convention Trip Report

(DISCLAIMER: To the best of my ability, the following post is true and correct. Keeping in mind that the ITH Convention did take place well over 3 1/2 weeks ago and that I was drunk the entire time while I was there. Nevertheless, I have decided to go ahead and "ATTEMPT" to reconstruct that weekend and all that it entailed.)

Wednesday 8/9/06:

I arrived in Vegas, at the Imperial Palace, in time to hear that Matthew Hilger (ITH's god) was at the final table of a $1500 NLHE WSOP event (you know, the ones they hold AFTER the main event starts). This was his first final table so it was great to be able to go down there and sweat him along with about 10 other ITH'rs (give or take)

Matthew ended up busting out in 8th place, and then I hung out with him while he was being interviewed by Bluff Radio. Matthew's "Number One Fan" did call in though and she got great compliments on her voice and the fact that she was a female calling in and that most callers are male. Don't know WHO the hell she was though. Wink. Wink. (Gave Matthew a plug, what more can a friend do??)

Afterwards, they (Matthew, Ryan, Nside, Angel, and some others) invited me to join them for a very nice meal at the steak house at The Venetian. I complied and then left around midnight in order to go dancing at the Carnival Court, my favorite dancing spot in Vegas. Barely remember getting there (Taxi!!..no wait, I walked. I think) and then crashed around 2am if memory serves.

Thursday 8/10/06:

I decided to play in the Harrah's 11am event, since nothing really happened with ITH until the cocktail reception later that night. Didn't do anything worth mentioning, just couldn't get any cards working for me and busted out after the first break.

At this point I just hung around at Harrah's in the Diamond Lounge (Can you say free food, free drinks, and free internet??) before heading over to IP for the reception.

The food was great, the people were awesome, I got to see Torch and Ammbo again (My hero's from last year's entry titled "The $1,500 Meltdown". Seriously, read it if you haven't in order to get a good laugh or a nice cringe...pick one. : ) AND I got to finally meet the infamous Bulljami in person. VERY nice guy, I loved him, Of COURSE...I knew I would. However, he was a little bit more shy in person then he is on the internet. No need to hide the true personality dear, bring it out!!! A hilarious guy for sure.

After the reception it was time to head downstairs to play some drunken double flop hold em. Man, I LOVED that game. Had a great time, it was full of ITH'rs, we're all laughing, drinking, having a great time, what more can you ask for??

Friday 8/11/06:

The LHE Event was scheduled to start after the seminar, which was scheduled to start at 10am. Seriously. Who PLANNED this shit?? I was there on time, thus winning a $5 sidebet with Torch, and was actually pleased to find quite a few other ITH'rs there as well.

I think we should move it to AFTER the first event next year. 10 am?? In Vegas?? Please.

So we had a little trivia contest, it was fun. I think we missed them all but 1. LOL, I was in a dorky group who kept telling each other, "Well, I think it's "this" but you have a good answer too, let's go with that." Such polite people!!

The LHE event had me coming in 4th place after I kept hitting suck out after suck out. Seriously, I can't even remember some hands but I was catching 2 outers, 1 outers, rivering str8s, flushes, etc. etc. It was sick.

One major cool item of the day was getting to sit and chat with Dr. Alan Schoonmaker (Matthew asked him to grace us with his presence for the event and he did!!) who I thought was a nice, gracious, and humerous guy. He told me about the Wednesday lunch group (Which I had already heard about from Felicia, but told him that Wednesdays are hard for non Vegas residents) and then he told me about another group that meets on Monday nights, at a bar. How can I NOT go to one of those? So the next Monday that I'm in Vegas, I will be there, check it out, and if I like it then I will try to attend as often as I can, making it my last stop on my Vegas weekend trips on the way home.

Had a lovely meal in a wonderful restaurant that I cannot name located in the IP, then went back upstairs for our 2nd tourney, NLHE. I didn't do too bad, but was busted out in about 9th or 10th place, IIRC, and so then decided to go downstairs and play a little drunken $2/$4 poker with the other busted ITH'rs.

I was, at one point, completely past exhaustion and of course liquored up, so I decided to take little, what I like to call "Breaks" at the poker table. This involves my placing the head upon the hands in a resting like manner, on top of the stacks of poker chips in front of me. Every so often, I raise the head, see if I have a hand, if the action is on me, etc. then lay the head back down. Many have confused this with "Sleeping at the poker table" However, let the record show they are merely poker "Breaks".

About an hour after my continuous breaks, Torch looks at me sternly and states, "Tanya, go to bed, NOW!" So I left, but not before making a $5 sidebet that I could get an In 'N Out Double Double delivered to me at the table. It took them a little bit longer then planned, but an hour and 1/2 later, and while I was on my way to my room, I ran into my delivery guys (Nside? Ammbo?? Can't remember) and had the most delicious Double Double in my life, in my pajamas, in bed.

Saturday 8/12/06:

The 1st tourney of the day was LHE and nothing memorable happened in this event. No good for me, can't really remember any hands or anything, except for the one I busted out on. I thought I was SO slick with A, 4 os. Until Suited Pair showed A, A. Then kept apologizing to me for knocking me out! What a sweety!

We had a pizza party before the Main Event. IIRC, I simply hung out in the Diamond's Lounge at Harrah's in between the 1st tourney and the pizza party, so I was pretty blitzed by the time the pizza came around and it was DE - licious!

Then we had the Main Event, it was fun, but everything's fun when you're drunk. By this time we had a little clique going called "Shooter's Unite!!" and we would do shots throughout the tournaments. I won't say who all got into it because, of course, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but I will say I was surprised at a few people that did them with the "known" drunks. (You KNOW who you are!!)

I did nothing remarkable (yet again, notice a trend here?) at the Main Event but the highlight was getting to see Matthew and Albert heads up at the final table of the Main Event. I mean how RIGGED is THAT??? After the event was over, I was able to get about 11 others to go out dancing at the Carnival Court and had a BLAST. This was the night I got to know NutJob the best and that boy is one AWESOME guy. Any girl would be lucky/happy to have him. Yet another new ITH best friend!!

Sunday 8/13/06:

Sunday found me simply laying in bed ordering room service and watching movie after movie from their pay per view until it was time to meet Bad Rob and Good Rob at RIO for the Penn and Teller show that they invited me too. After the show I simply went back to the room, ordered more room service, another movie and fell asleep around 2:30am, woke up around 9am and headed home.

I actually left again for Vegas ONE day later tomorrow for BARGE (That TR is one of my next entries, followed by the WPS Costa Rica TR) and even though I had a great time and got to meet a lot of really great people, some whom I've been chatting with online for over a year, I will never FEEL the way I do about RGP'rs the way I feel about ITH'rs.

To be an ITH'r is to love ITH, and I do.