There are no off days: Days 11-13
Thursday March 17th-Saturday March 19th: I spent Thursday helping Heika get acclimated to Las Vegas. We went out to pick up things we'd need for the room as after nearly a year of living at the Chewy manor I have yet to furnish my adobe. I told her a while ago that I realized I no longer had any interest in accumulating "things" as I assume they will just be left behind in storage boxes whose contents I cannot possibly keep count of. I imagine many people who live a lifestyle of near constant travel have adapted this mindset as well.
I did a 35 minute cardio work out in the morning on an empty stomach then practiced tennis by hitting around with Heika in the afternoon. No issues with the diet that day. In the evening I found that Mike Sexton was still in the Baby 101 Shooting Star event and if he final tabled I would be asked to fill in hosting for that episode alongside Vince. A little after 11pm I got the text that he'd made the final six after Ty Reiman busted to Mike Matusow and I would need to catch a 7:50am flight back to San Jose. The car would arrive at 6:30am. I set an alarm for 6:10, took a sleeping pill, and got my ass to bed.
I felt good enough for 6:30am Friday morning. The flight was on time and I was back in San Jose 90 minutes later. I'd made make up in what had previously been my hotel room at 9:00am and then reported to the set. I had to order a little food as I felt famished and depleted and the menu didn't have a lot of low carb options, so I ordered chicken pasta and picked around most of the pasta. Most anyway. Vince and Kimberly were there early as well and we began discussing what we'd be taping together that day before play began. Vince and I worked on our script together to make it more natural between us and he helped me get a sense of what kind of information they were looking to be presented. The three of us did some pre-game taping and then took pause for lunch.
The final table began a little past 4pm. It featured not only Mike Sexton Mike Matusow but also Vivek 'Psyduck' Rajkumar making his second WPT final table in a row after getting second in the LAPC. Despite coming in forth in chips he was my pick to take it down.
Vince and I developed a pretty natural flow together. He's a really easy guy to talk to and loves to joke around so it was pretty easy to just have fun with it all. As normal, I did what I could to be a combination of high content and strategy combined with a sarcastic and hopefully humorous approach to talking about poker. Even though Mike Sexton unfortunately busted in 6th in the second level of play it had been decided that I would be sitting in for the whole episode and so we talked on well into the night. Everyone on the set jams themselves full of coffee to push on into the night and there can be periods of hours where very little happens in live poker that doesn't leave you a ton to talk about. When it was all said and done it was 2:20am and Alan Sternberg had triumphed over Steven Kelly to win $1,039,000 plus a seat in the WPT Championship. My body felt shot but my brain was buzzing from all the caffeine and new experience. I didn't get to sleep until four.
Kristen at the WPT was nice enough to change my flight into the mid afternoon so I slept in well at the hotel. I got back home at 6pm this afternoon and immediately reached for the gym clothes. There had been no possible time to do it on Friday, the first that accidentally been off in the project. Shon had no times available on Saturday so I went in and did a toned down complete body workout that involved 15 varied large movement sets plus extensive ab work.
In the evening I watched UFC phenom Jon Jones absolutely shatter Shogun Rua with my roommates. I have never seen a more exciting and dynamic across any fighting sport in my whole life, that guy is absurd and finds a way to use every angle of every appendage on his body as a weapon then crushes people when he gets them on the ground. I can't remember the last time I was that enthralled watching a fight and there wasn't a scratch on him by the end of it.
Tomorrow is a very large Sunday, followed by the Wynn Classic $5000 main event on Monday, so plenty of chances to make something happen at work this week. Going to wake up nice and early tomorrow so I can play a huge session then hopefully I don't fucking botch it again over at the Wynn.