Return to Paradise

Sorry I’ve been so self-promotional these last few days, it’s just that I’ve had a lot to promote and not much time to write about anything else. First I was showing Miklos, my Hungarian PCA roommate, around DC and Baltimore. Although he’s a few years older than I and grew up under communism, he embraces American-style consumerism far more whole-heartedly than I do. I’m pretty sure I spent more time in malls in the last week than I did in the rest of 2012 combined.

After that I was in New York for a few short but great days visiting two good friends who are also among my oldest poker friends from my first home game. It’s funny, Logan and his wife Jen were two of my best friends in college, and I used to stay at their apartment on the Upper West Side when I visited New York and just visit for an evening with Darren, whom I met through the aforementioned home game and knew much less well. Then Logan and Jen moved into a smaller apartment, while Darren bought a house in Westchester and had kids, so now I end up staying at Darren’s house when I go to New York and only get to visit with Logan for usually one day of my trip. It was nice that this time Logan and Jen spent a night at Darren’s house as well, so we had ourselves a little slumber party.

It was also nice that there was a direct flight from the Westchester County Airport to Nassau this morning, so although I had to wake up at 5AM I didn’t have to deal with any JFK craziness. Thankfully the flight was largely empty, because what passengers there were proved exactly what I expected from the Westchester Country Airport. This one family, whose members were straight out of central casting for The Sopranos and Jersey Shore, more or less turned the middle of the plane into their private lounge.

Other than that the flight was fine, and because Miklos was a supernova when he won his satellite, I got to take a PokerStars limo to the Atlantis, which was far nicer than the cabs bearing the scars of multiple collisions that I’ve taken in past years. I shared the limo with two Russians and a Venezualan, evidence of how international this game and especially this particular tournament have become.

Since checking in, I’ve already caught up with two of my favorite PokerStars employees and received a special emeritus invite to the Team Online social hour tonight. In a big improvement over past years, PokerStars is setting up its own wireless hotspots, which though not a lot better in quality than the hotel internet will save me about $100.

While sitting in the PokerStars lounge writing this very blog post, I told a German satellite qualifier that no, the seat next to me was not taken. A moment later he took his headphones off and told me that he thought he recognized me voice. Turned out he was listening to the latest Thinking Poker Podcast at that very moment!

He wondered off to watch the High Roller, and I’d just returned to writing when two drunk blokes sat down and asked what I was writing. I got to talking with them and they encouraged me to come drinking with them, but I had to turn them down so I can go eat and then catch up with my friends from Team Online. It was probably for the best, because even though they were a few drinks ahead of me, I still doubt I could have kept up with them!