So where do I begin...lets back it up all the way to Halloween. I came back to L.A. for Halloween and had a great time wildin' out with the girls in Hollywood. We went to Opera/Crimson which was thrown by good friends of ours, and it was crazy packed. Not to mention the drive alone out to Hwood took an hour and forty-five minutes with all of that Halloween partying traffic.

Here is a synopsis of our night, by the end of the night sexy ladybug was throwing up out of the window of my mom's SUV, the bumblebee was running in and out of a 24 hour Subway on Highland getting water and napkins, Snow White was inside the Subway gettting food, and the sexy cop was passed out in the backseat and never awoke depsite all the commotion. Somehow we managed to clean up the absurd amount of upchuck, and checked into our hotel 2 miles away from the club and crashed out there. Needless to say the next morning everyone was hungover and nobody remembered taking half of the pictures that were in our cameras.

Later on the following week, what do you know, Maria heads to Vegas, for the umpteenth time. This time I had a super duper hectic crazy packed schedule, and luckily I made it to all of my events. I drove in and Thursday night had a really fun and relaxing dinner at Lavo inside the Palazzo with two of my favorite girls, TM and Lace. No Dos Caminos, you ask? Well, Antonio Esfandiari was one of the pros on the Real Deal Show that night, and was having dinner at Lavo with some friends after the show, so we decided to join. Of course no trip to the Palazzo would be complete without Dos Caminos, so TM, Lace and I promptly headed over there afterwards for some tequila, and yes we OBV saved room for some guac. It turned out to be trivia night put on by the great manager over there, Chris. And it was good times to be had by all. (Especially after excessive tequila consumption) All I have to say Lace is, "Atlanta, Georgia!!!!!!!" LMAO

On Friday TM and I just chilled in our room at Planet Hollywood, then later on in the night we headed over to the Dream Team Poker kickoff party in the Penthouse Suite at the Hard Rock. One of the reasons I was out there was because I was asked by Jean-Robert Bellande to play on his team for this invitational poker tournament. Dream Team Poker is a new format of tourney poker, where teams of three compete against other teams, and you get points according to what place you bust out, so essentially you can still win as a team even if you didn't perform that well in the tourney. There is also money awarded to the individual winner as well. But first, back to the party. The suite was pretty kickass, as you would imagine all penthouses to be. And the open bar wasn't bad either!

After that we stopped by Wasted Space, this cool chill lounge inside the Hard Rock that has live music, and met up with Cantu and some peeps for a really brief moment, and then ended the night with a quick stop at Prive inside Planet Hollywood. My good friend from San Diego, Sally, happened to be out there with a friend of hers and she met me, Christina Lindley, Joy Miller and Nicole Pettis for the clubbing portion of the evening. I wanted to crash early as I had my Dream Team Poker tourney early the next day, so for once, I was good and excused myself before the sun came up.

The next day I put on my matching team jersey, and headed over to the Hard Rock to meet my teammates J.R. and Paris, a really awesome chick from L.A. who plays cash games primarily but not professionally. I actually have known J.R. and Paris for years, and was really excited to be on a team with people I like and who are fun to be around. We walked the red carpet and did some interviews, then it was on to the competition. This being the first Dream Team event it was an invitational and brought together a nice mixture of pros and celebs. At my table was Sam Simon, the creator of the Simpsons, and Mekhi Pheifer. My friend and fellow pro Freddy Lavassani was at my table also, and he definetely made my table a ton tougher.

All I have to say about that tourney is that I turned out to be the epic dissapointment of my team, as I was first to bust. Paris made it through half of the field, and our good 'ol team captain, Bobby, finished a very respectable third. We didn't win as a team, but it was actually a lot of fun and brought an interesting and fresh dynamic to poker. I really hope this concept takes off! Afterwards I headed over to Hoyt Corkin's charity tourney for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation at the Red Rock Harley Davidson center, where TM was. I ended up being able to make it in time for the tourney, as that started at 3pm, and the Dream Team event started at noon. I played, donated to charity, and busted out just as quickly. YAY donkaments!

After that with TM, Christina, and Nicole in tow we headed back to the Hard Rock as I wanted to sweat both of my teammates who were still in at that point. We ended up killing some time before the party at the Bank that night by playing some 1-2 NL with Paul Wasicka and friends. It was def the most cutthroat 1-2 NL game I have ever seen, and it was a lot of fun and everyone was uber competitive. TM and I headed back to Planet Hollywood to get ready for the long evening ahead, and when I got back to the room my besty Helen was there, getting ready too, as she had flown in for the weekend!

Lace came by after the show and we all got ready together, and after two hours of rituals and routines, we were finally ready. We met up with Christina and Nicole at Bellagio, and first stopped by Caramel Lounge where we had a bottle waiting, and then finally walked the red carpet outside the Bank at around 11. Lots of poker players showed up for the evening, and a lot of people were in town seeing as the final table for the WSOP Main Event was the next day at the Rio. Some of our friends who were there were Liz Lieu, Jeff Madsen, Brandon Cantu, and Greg Mueller just to name a few. Don't ask how many bottles we drank, I stopped counting fairly early on.

The next day TM and I had awesome front row seats courtesy of Jeffrey Pollack for the final table, so we dragged our asses out of that comfy haven of a bed, and headed to the Penn and Teller theatre at the Rio. It was truly amazing to see the delay of the final table come to fruition. It was truly a sight to see, fans lining outside trying to be a part of the live audience, and all the supporters packed inside the theatre there to cheer on their favorite of the November Nine. I was definetely partial to Chino Rheem and Kelly Kim, since I know both of them personally. TM and I sat and watched for a bit, then I was asked to do the live audio broadcast commentary of the final table and I was happy to oblige. I did that for two hours, during which three people busted out and they didn't have Lacey who is the on camera reporter for wsop.com, because she was over at the show, and so they asked if I could do the honor.

The only time I have ever stood on the other side of the mic was to interview Tiff when she became the last woman standing, but I figured I could somehow manage and wing it. It was nice to be able to interview Chino and Kelly, although I wish they didn't bust out until the next day. Check those out on wsop.com if you wanna see how I did. ; ) Also, congrats to Peter Eastgate, the youngest Main Event Champion ever! He played great and ran just as well!

When it came time for dinner break for the players, TM and I decided that was a good time to make our exit, since we were both tired from the night before and planning to drive home Monday morning. We ended up having a quick dinner, and called it a night. We headed back to L.A. the next morning, and there came and went yet another Vegas trip of mine.

Yesterday Christina invited me to go to the launch of pro snowboarder Shaun White's, video game at Boulevard 3 in Hollywood. It sounded like a lot of fun, so with very little recuperation from Vegas, I trekked out to Hwood and did the damn thing.

Holiday season is just around the corner and time passes by so freakin fast its unreal, my plans are to try to stay put but honestly I never know these days where I am going to be, and its kinda fun that way.

Pokerwise aside from the Dream Team tourney, I have been playing in a few of the FTOPs events, and also getting in some cash games online. I have been running decent online, and considering my busy schedule I really haven't found the time to make the drive out to play live. But hopefully things will slow down for me and I will be able to get in some really good live sessions soon, or maybe I can just roll with the fast-paced punches until I get completely run down by it all! EIther way, things are great and it's nice to be busy. We wouldn't want this blog to get too boring, now would we?

Good luck and good times!!!