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Vegas. It's great and it grates....

I'm getting slightly sick of Vegas. Most of us are at this stage. But to be fair to the place, I'm getting sick of a convention room at the end of a long long walk that represents a place I work for up to 16 hours a day before getting drunk and sleeping for 5 hours before repeating the whole process. So I don't know if I'd be as ambivalent about Vegas if I was just holidaying here.

It’s definitely a city of contrasts and extremes. The lights and glamour are undeniable but it’s a chocolate coating on top of a darker centre. Hookers wander about in front of multi-million dollar displays. Three times this trip I've heard of people being robbed.

I fly in 4 hours so I'm sitting in a fairly run down hotel that has been home to me for 3 weeks now called The Gold Coast (or The Gold Kip as the Irish have named it) waiting for the time to pass. I've been sitting watching cigarette smoke twirl up from a butt drifting straight up for 6 inches before dancing and then dissipating. Part of my mind wonders what physics makes it do that in a perfectly still room. The other part of my mind yawns.

It strikes me that I've been waiting a lot this trip. Waiting for the WSOP to kick off in earnest. Waiting for the organisers to get their collective thumbs out. Waiting for the dealer to turn the river and for that sick feeling of losing to another 3-outer. Waiting for Godot it seems.

Mostly I've been waiting to go home. I miss home and the comfortable familiarity of things. I miss my pillow, can you believe that. A grown man missing his pillow. But it’s not like a comfort blankie, I just miss the fact that its mine and I am familiar with it! No one is going to knock on my door and ask if I’d like it changed…

Earlier tonight we played a 200 dollar tournament in Binions where I got to the final table, got the chip lead, threw it away and then got a huge stack again, only to get involved in a huge hand that I think I played badly. I've detailed it on our forums.

It was a rush playing on THE final table, I mean, this is Binions we're talking about... but did we bring a camera? With all the video, audio and digital gear we have with us, did we have so much as a camera phone? Did we fuck! :( I took 4th place in the end of the day for $500 profit but I could feel my fingers closing around 4 and a half large! And so it is that I leave the bright lights of Sin City. Rather fitting when I think about it, exciting yet somehow ultimately unsatisfying.

Despite the morose and introspective tone of most of my blogs I've enjoyed the whole experience from start to finish. I feel like I've witnessed something, that I have another story to tell from my life's adventures. It’s been a wild ride but now, now I'd like to get off please Mister Merry-go-round-man. I've had enough fun for one trip...