Its Vegas Baby..... er, yeah.

Yesterday’s exuberances left me feeling a little tender for most of the day, which I slept off. Time is a malleable concept here as there are no windows or any natural light whatsoever. The casinos are typically pumped full of oxygen-rich air to keep punters awake and since the tournaments go on into the small (and sometimes big) hours of the morning, grabbing sleep when you can is a common tactic of the reporters here, myself included.

This morning I was up until 6am and watched the sun rise over the skyscraper hotels of Vegas. It’s a bizarre place but watching the sunrise was curiously fitting since Vegas imposes itself on nature rather then the other way around.

I've taken a week off from writing my blog as I not only had a metric fuckton of work to do and things to see but also I wanted to give Vegas a chance and not judge it on first impressions. I have to admit that I've seen less of it then I would like since my day consists of sleeping, reporting on poker or playing poker when I can. Vegas looks like one big cardroom to me!

I've had a week here now and observed it intently during that time. Its odd to watch it happen around you, its a slickly choreographed and marketed fun fair for adults. Have you ever been at a fair ground and wandered behind the Ferris wheel or big dipper and seen the oily machines that make it all go? Working here has been a little like that. The excess that is here is certainly abundant but not as overbearing as I had feared. The poker areas are generally pretty isolated from the numbing beeps of the slots and the occasional cheer from the craps tables. We have to walk through them to get to the card room and the striking thing is the age of the customers of such gambling. Almost exclusively they are 50 and over. I've seen several 70 or 80 year olds with oxygen masks. Many prefer to play alone and there seems little social interaction even when there are people playing together. Its a little depressing to experience it to be honest with you.

Vegas is far from a city of the dead. This place artificially pops with excitement but everything is powered by the gambling. Everything centres in one way or other around getting people to put their money down.

I'll blog my thoughts on the WSOP so far soon, for now I'm still soaking in whole experience, enjoying it thoroughly. And walking home through the first light to sleep until the next tournament.