Harrah's, Heck Yeah!

Considering that I’m trying to write more while out at the World Series of Poker, I feel a little guilty about not actually writing about the WSOP itself. Unfortunately I don't do very well with real time in this blog. I didn't finish putting up my coverage of last year's WSOP until some time in the middle of January. So to keep you informed about this year's series, or more specifically what Harrah's is screwing up this year, I will simply direct you to 2 posts that other people have written. The problems covered run the gamut from simple "I remember going to class at the old school, it was so much cooler than this new school" issues, to the confusing level of incompetence and lack of consideration that Harrah's has shown to those people dumb enough to be in the middle of Nevada in July.

I guess I always understood the concept of an efficient corporation being a ruthlessly self serving entity. But the life I live tends not to put me in the corporate world very often. Watching the WSOP evolve over the last 3 years has been rather educational. Harrah’s leaves no stone unturned in the hopes that there might possibly be a penny under it. I am impressed.

The posts I'm linking come from Dr. Pauly (here) and Shane (here). I link them because they are both informative and well written but much more importantly because they save me from witting about this crap myself.

I also want to take this opportunity to give Shane temporary favorite person status. Shane has given me what is easily the best link I’ve gotten yet in describing me as "like the Terrence Malick of bloggers." Of course, I am going to make the assumption that this is a reference to the lush and awe inspiring vistas that my cinematographer and I create and not a reference to my being a lazy load that only produces something once every decade or so. Either way it made me smile.

The only thing I’ll add to the WSOP discussion is how amused I was by the double-plus-ungood rights that Harrah’s has granted us this year. Last year there were draconian cell phone rules and if you wanted to play an event you lost the right to use the F word (which I will not sully your eyes with here). This year however those loses of freedoms have been replaced with rights.

The second event I played opened with a rambling speech over the loudspeaker that told us about all these new rights. Apparently we now have the right not to have anyone at our table use offensive language and by offensive language I mean the word "fuck" and only the word "fuck." I checked and luckily this new right does not cover the words "ass-monkey," "cock-munch," or any racial slurs whatsoever.

And we have also been granted the right to not have someone at our table carry on a 20 minute conversation with a stock broker over his cell phone. Of course with this also comes the right to have your hand declared dead if you look at the screen on your phone to see what time it is (which I first thought was an urban legend until I actually saw it happen.)

This later proved a source of amusement for me as I watched a new dealer in a live 100-200 game tell the big blind, with an impressive level of indignation, that since he answered his cell phone his hand was dead. The other players tried to explain that this new right of ours only applied to tournament games. He was having none of it though and refused to continue the hand until the floor came over.

And after that I watched a security guard go to a 10-25 pot limit Omaha game and tell some European players with cell phones sitting on the table that they couldn’t have them out in plain sight. The amusing part was that the Europeans complied and just laughed it off with an I’ll-never ever-ever-ever-play-in-this-silly-place-again look on their faces. Apparently they’re not afforded the same rights in Europe that we have here.