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I walked into the office on Tuesday and was immediately instructed to follow my boss into the boardroom...gulp. Only recently we had had a big row about the fact I had tried to sneak through an image of a semi-clad woman on an email, in order to generate more interest from our Sportsbook customers on a promotion we were running.
We had a disagreement, it was emotional, case closed. Or so I thought. I walked into the boardroom expecting bad news, so when he said you're off to Vegas on Thursday, I was somewhat surprised...or to be honest, absolutely friggin' stunned.
Two days later and I'm on a plane heading to Las Vegas. If you thought life couldn't get any better you'd be wrong. Marty Smyth our sponsored professional poker decided to add to the mix by winning the $10k pot limit Omaha event, a Wsop bracelet and a tidy $868,000. All I needed now was Samantha Mumba to phone me up and ask me out on a date and I think that would have completed the perfect week. (She didn't, my luck ran out when Vanessa Feltz started making dirty phone calls to me).
I landed in Sin City yesterday, headed straight to the hotel and after a quick freshen up, I was off to the Rio Hotel to meet Marty. He was playing day one of the $10,000 No limit Hold-Em main event. After a quick handshake and a hello, Marty asked if I could look after something for him and handed me a wedge of dollars; he than ran off saying he would see me tomorrow, leaving me unguarded in Las Vegas with $30,000 in my pocket. The fact that I'm writing this blog proves things didn't turn out as most people would have expected. This is mainly due to the fact I called a few friends quickly, explained the situation and 20 minutes later I was trussed up like Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs, complete with straight jacket and hockey mask.
After meeting Marty, I took a wander round the poker room at the Rio and was greeted by the familiar sound of poker chips being rifled. The noise is very reminiscent to me of crickets humming of a Spanish evening. A constant low rumbling briefly interrupted with cries of "All in on table 46" and "How the feck did you call me with that hand you moron".
Other than the noise, the other most apparent thing when you walk around the poker room is the total lack of imagination by the marketing men for 99% of the poker rooms. I could imagine them all in a meeting discussing ideas for how best to promote their brand at the WSOP and all coming up with the same idea, "I know, what about sticking a beautiful young model in a bikini and getting her to hand out flyers with our name on!". I didn't say it was a bad idea. In the name of research I found myself accepting gifts from the said scantily clad young ladies and asking (for research purposes) if I shouldn't perhaps spend some more time later discussing their promotions. Wisely none accepted my offer.
Next up, I had to meet a few journalists to discuss Marty's win and then begin the difficult task of trying to arrange Marty's celebration party. Being in Las Vegas with $30,000 in my pocket has made this task easier than expected.
I met up later with a few of the Irish players that had led the cheering section during Marty's victory and Noel, my opposite number, from one of our competitors in Ireland. I thanked him for putting out a press release two hours after we had, detailing Marty's victory and reminding him that we sponsor him in case he had a sudden dose of Alzheimers. I also reminded him Noel Furlong had won the main event 10 years ago and he might want to claim the credit in a press release about that.
Whilst Marty was busy adding more chips to his stack, I took the opportunity to go to dinner with some dear friends before finally making it to bed some 30 odd hours after I had last left it. The plan today is to spend more time with Marty doing PR interviews and meetings. Then round up the good, bad and the ugly of the Irish poker community for Marty's July 4th/bracelet winning party; the $30,000 is in real danger tonight. Stay tuned for all the gory details
Latest update: Marty has ended the day of a very healthy 60,175 chips.
Comments (6)
wd marty thats got 2b one of the toughest events 2 win ..and paul have a great time and put the 30k on red or black ; )