Cory Albertson

I haven’t made an entry since getting back to Houston because I haven’t had much to say. I played online last Sunday and, save for a couple mini-cashes, washed out of everything. That coupled with the Magic failing to win the NBA Finals all but cemented the fact that I won’t be returning to Vegas until the Main Event.

I’ve been following the WSOP action pretty closely since returning home. A couple friends have enjoyed some deep runs that ended in final table bubbles. Leif Force finished 10th in the $2,500 pot-limit Omaha event that had 430 players. He professes to be a very good Omaha player and his live results seem to back that up. I’m hoping he’ll let me buy a little of his action in the $10k coming up!

Sebastien Sabic just busted out of the $1,500 H.O.R.S.E. event that drew a field of 770 players in 11th place. I know he had to be disappointed with coming so short of the final table, but he has a lot to be proud of with that result. It’s not easy having to make decisions in five different games while navigating through a field of donkeys.

——-

Today, I raided Costco for about $300 worth of bulk merchandise. They have a really interesting business model. Basically, you have to be a member in order to shop there. How do you become a member? By filling out a registration form and paying an annual due of $50. This is a smart business model in a few ways.

First, it caters to people’s vanity. Even though anyone with a Ulysses Grant in their pocket can be a member, there’s still some magic vanity overlay that a lot of people find in being able to say they’re a member of something. Second, it prices people in to feeling like they have to shop there a lot. If you don’t know what Costco is, it’s basically WalMart on crack. Everything is packaged in bulk and sold at a nice discount. For example, I got a 52 pound bag of dog food today for the cost of about a 24 pound bag from a “regular” store. I got a three-pack of mouthwash for just 150% of the cost that I usually pay for a single bottle. The whole store basically works like this. Items packaged in bulk and sold at a cheap price.

What makes the $50 membership smart is that it probably wouldn’t be worth it if you only shopped there once or twice a year. However, it’s definitely worth it if you go there once a month (or more). So by getting people to commit to a $50 membership in order to have access to the discounted bulk merchandise, they feel obligated to recoup that upfront expense by shopping there as much as possible. Pretty smart.

Another good business model I saw recently was at Lucky Brand Jeans. I visited them while in Vegas and was informed you get a $25 gift card for every $100 you spend. At first, I assumed this basically equated to $25 off my purchase for every $100 I spend. It was only when I got to the counter with a little over $200 worth of clothes that I learned the $25 gift cards would not become active until a couple of weeks after my purchase. Touche, Lucky Brand.

I visited a Houston-based Lucky Brand today so I could redeem my two $25 gift cards. Of course, I made it to the register with about $70 in merchandise meaning they got another $20 out of me. I thought this was a very smart promotion on their part. In addition to the extra money they got from me, there was some intangible value of getting me to come to their store on a second occasion. This builds familiarity with their product line and a sense of loyalty. They’ll probably make even more money off of me in the future just from having priced me in to visiting them more than once and thinking about them on a semi-regular basis as their gift cards sat on my desk serving as a reminder to redeem their value.

The thing that each of these business models have in common is that they “price in” the consumer to making repeat visits. In other words, they make shopping there on multiple occasions a sensible thing to do. Any promotional model that can do this is smart regardless of the current economic state, but it’s especially smart during a severe recession when people are looking out for “sensible” shopping options more than they otherwise might.

——-

Between now and the Main Event, I have a friends’ wedding to attend and a family function in Illinois to attend. The family function, my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary, actually came at a terrible time. They’re having an open house the Wednesday before the Main Event and then the whole family is going to the Ozarks for a weekend on the lake. I told my family that if the lake plans were on literally any other weekend of the year, I’d be there, but I simply can’t skip the Main Event just to lay around on a pontoon for three days no matter the occasion. To their credit, most in my family seem to understand this and are appreciative I’m coming up for the open house at the very least.

I played in the $2,500 six-handed event at the WSOP today. Harrah’s has corrected a lot of their screw-ups as operators of the WSOP, but one screw-up they are yet to correct is the late registration conundrum. I registered this morning around 11:00 a.m. and was put in the Miranda Room with a couple hundred other players, most of whom also registered with not much time to spare prior to the start of the tournament. The problem with this set up is that, in general, the best players all wait to register until the last second. This means the competition in the Miranda Room is much tougher than average.

I sat down at my first table to find Matt ‘ch0ppy’ Kay on my immediate right and Alex Jacob on my immediate left. Surviving that draw mostly unscathed, our table broke and I was relocated directly in between Shaun Deeb (who has probably played more multi-table tournaments than anyone in history) and Erick Lindgren.

The other players at these tables were no slouches either. There was, at most, maybe one weak player at each table.

Okay, back to how Harrah’s screws this up. When players bust out of the tournament in the Amazon Room, they break tables to clear the way for Miranda Room tables to be moved in. So when you move from the Miranda Room to the Amazon Room, you aren’t assigned to an empty seat at a random table, your entire table is moved intact. Basically your sick table draw from Miranda remains a problem to deal with even once you’ve been moved to the Amazon Room.

So Harrah’s makes it a point to break these late registration tables first once they’ve been moved to Amazon, right? Wrong! Tables that are moved from Miranda to Amazon are placed at the very end of the table-breaking queue. What does this mean? It basically means that if you register late for tournaments, you are encased in a bubble of players that are significantly better than average for the duration of the day. This is pretty inexcusable on the part of Harrah’s. It definitely forces players to question whether or not they should play an event, especially six-handeded events where the table draw is of increased importance, if they are unable to register for it well in advance.

Despite being at stacked tables all day, I more than held my own for the most part. I wouldn’t say great players are particularly dreadful to play against. I mostly know what they’re doing and how they think, and plus you already know they’re good as soon as they sit down (whereas with players you do not recognize, you have to spend perhaps several orbits trying to figure them out).

In level five, I check-raised all-in on the turn with top two pair. My opponent made some calculations out loud and concluded, “I don’t quite have the pot odds to call, but I’ll call anyway.” He turned over a flush draw and binked it on the river for a 100 big blind pot.

That was likely the last World Series event I’ll play this year before the Main Event. I’m flying back to Houston tomorrow and think it’s pretty unlikely that I’ll come back to Vegas prior to the weekend during which the Main Event commences.

Yesterday, I went golfing with Dave and Leif Force on the par three course at Angel Park. I was giving both of those guys strokes, which was unfortunate for me because we were all pretty evenly matched. I’m normally a clear-cut favorite over Dave, but yesterday he golfed out of his mind and beat me straight up. Leif also edged out victories against me with the half a stroke I was giving him on each hole. I’ve ran terrible against that guy in prop bets the past few days.

To illustrate how hot Leif runs, check this out. We we teed off some hole and Leif hit a terrible shot into the bushes and desert. Normally when you hit it onto this part of the course, you’re an underdog to find your ball, and even if you do, you typically have to take a drop anyway since it’s stuck in some bush. So we drive the cart up to where we think Leif’s ball went into the shit, and this is what we find:

Surrounded by nothing but desert and bushes was this completely out of place little patch of grass on which Leif’s ball came to rest. He was needling so hard when we discovered this. I just stood there shaking my head in disbelief and had to take a picture so I have something to look at when I want to feel depressed.

One more fun prop-betting anecdote: a couple nights ago I was hanging out with Sebastien and his friend Steven. Sebastien bet me that I couldn’t write down all 50 states (abbreviations accepted) within two minutes. I didn’t waste much time taking him up on the bet. I don’t know that crappy little song that they teach kids to help them memorize all the states alphabetically, so I just had to visually go through my head writing down all the states. I went from West to East zig-zagging from North to South. With like four seconds left, I knew I was forgetting something from the Northeast. I got down ‘Ver’ for Vermont like right at the buzzer to ship the bet. It was a pretty sick win in a bet that turned out to be much more difficult than you might think. I’m actually going to challenge people to this prop in the future, because I think it’s the type of prop where people will naturally be way too overconfident about their chances.

Alright, one last totally random anecdote: I went to this awesome Thai restaurant last night called Lotus of Siam. Apparently it’s pretty popular among a lot of poker players. I saw Chad Brown and Vanessa Rousso sitting at a big table with others I didn’t recognize. And the table next to mine had three guys I didn’t recognize who perturbed me (up until they left) with standard poker-talk that was impossible not to overhear like, “okay get this… I’ve got Ace-Jack in the cutoff, right..?”

Ugh, so annoying.

Anyway, the meal was really awesome and anyone really into eating good food should check it out next time they’re in Vegas.

I’m taking a day off of poker to go golfing instead. In yesterday’s Venetian $550, an event that I got a 35 big blind stack all-in in level 8 drawing dead, I was seated next to an old acquaintance, Leif Force. I have an interesting history with Leif and I think we get along pretty well since we’re both pretty much willing to bet on anything. For example, he was telling me that he and his friend have bets on how long it will take their buddy’s girlfriend to cheat on him… with one of them! Yea. Total degenerates.

No doubt part of the reason why I bluffed off my whole stack, which is something I rarely do, was a result of being distracted with betting on random crap with Leif, such as how many players at our table some random guy thinks would self identify as being a “pro”. I took under three in a flash, but the guy’s answer was seven! Another sick bet was when Detroit went up 3-0 in game five of the NHL Finals, Leif said he’d lay 100:1 against Pittsburgh coming back to win the game. I don’t follow hockey enough to know for sure, but I’m pretty positive that’s a sick bet. Sure enough, as soon as I handed Leif $20 for it, Detroit scored goals 4 and 5 in rapid fashion.

When I told Leif that a friend and I were going to a par three golf course today, he was all ears. With his presence, I suspect Dave and I’s standard prop-betting action at Angel Park will be taken up a few notches.

Tomorrow I’m playing the $2,500 six-handed WSOP event. I finished 18th in the same event last year. This will be my last tournament on this particular stay in Vegas.

I cashed in the $2k, but shortly after we were in the money, got Ace-Queen all-in against Ace-Ten for a 45k pot. The Ten was in the door. That left me with 13k. A couple hands later, I shoved Ace-Four suited and the same guy who spiked the Ten on me woke up with Aces.

Fun game.

I just picked up a plane ticket to head home on Tuesday. I’m not sure if I’ll come back out between then and the Main Event, but I’d say odds are I won’t at this point. It will be sorta painful sitting at home for three weeks missing out on a lot of action, but I gotta feel pretty good about having come out here and taken a shot in 5-6 events even if it doesn’t work out. Whether or not I come back before the Main Event could change if I hit a nice score in my last few days here.

Right now the only tournament I’m fairly certain to play is the $2,500 six-handed event on Monday. Everything between now and then is up in the air. I might try to get in tomorrow’s $5k if I can sell off enough pieces of myself, but I’d say that’s pretty unlikely meaning I’ll play the Caesars or Venetian $550. Sunday I’ll either play online, the Caesars or Venetian $1k, or quite possibly nothing.

As for tonight, I’m going to take it easy, catch up on a little work, and maybe meet up with Seb from our poker forums later for something social.

Thanks for reading.

Today was a $2k buy-in at the WSOP. I’m going to bed with 40,400 chips (which is almost exactly average). There are about 240 players left down from a starting field of ~1,650. Due to this year’s improved structure, we’re not quite in the money yet. Only 171 places pay in this event which means something like 70 people are going to play two days of poker and have nothing to show for it.

On dinner break, I joined shaniac, Cory Carrol and Owen Crowe for a pretty decent meal at this Italian place. Our waiter had an interesting way of running up the bill on us. He basically hustled us a little bit and brought a couple of appetizers we didn’t technically order. He sort of just said, “I’ll bring you some calamari and some prosciutto,” and when we failed to object to this, another $40 or so had been tacked onto our bill. He also kept pushing this dish, I forget exactly what it was called, that Cory pulled the trigger on without realizing it was $40 (when most things on the menu were like $13). The bill for the four of us at this little shopping plaza Italian place was $180 and we didn’t even order wine! Alas, a $180 dinner bill isn’t something four poker players with spending problems are going to get their panties in a knot about.

They were enjoyable dinner company. Aside from the fact that it was nice to sit down for a real meal with other like minded people, which was only the second time on this trip I had been able to do that, I’ve never really spent any time around any of those guys, so there was a novelty factor in play that made their already-interesting personalities especially entertaining.

There’s nothing too spectacular to talk about regarding my assent from the 6k starting stack. The only time I was all-in was with Ace-King against pocket Jacks for a 23k pot after dinner. A few minutes before, I spent the rest of the break watching Phil Ivey win his sixth bracelet after man-handling the poor guy he was playing heads up in the no-limit 2-7 single draw event. Ivey certainly won more than the ~$95,000 for first based on prop bets he had on himself to win a bracelet.

Near the end of the day, I was at a pretty tough table. I was laughing with the guy on my immediate left that I think might have been Nam Le, but maybe not. Basically every pot was opened for a raise and many of those were three-bet. Just as soon as I was making fun of how hard it is to win a pot at this table, I raised with pocket Kings only to watch the six players behind me snap-fold.

Hopefully tomorrow’s table draw is a little easier. Looking around the room, there definitely had to be softer spots to be at. My table consisted almost entirely of young, aggressive players.

I wish I had more interesting details to share regarding today’s play, but there’s just not much to say. You mostly fold. Sometimes you raise. Sometimes they let you have it. Sometimes they don’t. Whatever. Somehow I had 40,400 to bag up at the end of the night which allowed me to take my first stroll to the Rio taxi stand on this trip sans-frustration.

Tomorrow, my run of mooching off of Palazzo comes to an end. Unfortunately, I haven’t had much time to play blackjack while I’ve been here, so I doubt they’re going to be able to help me continue my streak of staying in Vegas hotels without paying for it which currently rests at seven nights. In the morning, I’ll check out what kind of offers the Wynn can throw at me. My hunch is that it won’t be much thus forcing me to be a little less ambitious and hope that MGM can comp me at one of their reasonable properties like T.I. or Mirage.

It’s 2:00 a.m. here and I have to wake up around 10:00 or so to check out, so that’s all for now.

In the second level of the $1,500 six-handed event today, I re-raised to 1,200 with Jacks after there was a raise to 325 and a call. One came along and I shoved all-in for 2,400 on a Queen-Nine-Three flop. He had Queen-Ten.

Nice hand, sir.

I’m getting pretty proficient at busting out in the second level of WSOP tournaments. Three for three now.

During the first level, a good poker friend of mine, Ray “Exitonly” Coburn, texted me asking if I wanted to do a swap. At that point, I was down to 3,500 in chips and didn’t feel like trying to have some complicated conversation about a swap via text, so I told him let’s just address a potential swap in the hallway during first break.

When I busted, I walked over to his table and said, “hey man… still interested in swapping 5%?” He laughed knowing there was only one reason I would be standing next to him while cards were still in the air.

I just received a text from him saying he has 26k. I feel like he’s probably 30% or so to take this tournament down right in my face. But I won’t cry over my lost thousands for too long; Ray is an incredibly nice young guy who has helped me out a lot with my game and deserves (not that anyone ever truly “deserves”) a big score about as much as anyone I know.

One of the upsides (or is it a downside?) to busting out so early is that you can still catch the daily Venetian tournament where registration closes at two. Today, I did just that. One player at the table, a kid who fits all the stereotypes of a young online player, not that I’m one to talk, insisted on berating a young lady at the table who won two big showdowns against him despite making a questionable call or two at some point during the hand. “How can she ever call on that flop? That’s fucking unreal!” This went on and on for a while making me very uncomfortable. Eventually I suggested to him that he let it go. He replied that he can complain about it as much as he wants. “True, and I can have the floor come over and ask you to stop berating this other player if I want.”

Sure enough, he made me do it. “It’s unreal to me that you ever think fucking calling there is okay!” To his credit, he shut up once asked politely by a floorman. However, there’s just really no excuse for that type of childish behavior. The reasons should be obvious why one shouldn’t behave in such a manner at the table. Aside from the fact that it makes you look like an annoying bitch incapable of swallowing his beats like the rest of us, it also creates an atmosphere that is not conducive to keeping people interested in the game. He seemed like a capable enough player to know better than to condition a young lady against making questionable calls on multiple streets in multiple hands.

But even all of that aside, this is another person you’re talking to. I don’t care if you disagree with their play to the very core of your existence and have ran worse than anyone in the history of the world leading up to today’s tournament: letting that affect you to the point that you speak to a complete stranger as if they’ve just done you an injustice on par with slitting your tires is as low as it gets.

These barely-21 online players with bankrolls that vastly outmatch their maturity seem to flock in droves to the Venetian Deep Stack series. This has to account for a significant explanation as to why I don’t particularly care to play at the Venetian despite having moderate success there in the past. It just seems like the average participant in a $330 deep stacked event has a high chance of annoying me. If it’s not some bratty kid coaching players on how to play their hands, it’s some know-it-all degenerate that has been relegated to the small-time action after running out of people capable of being persuaded into backing them across town at the Rio. (Taxi drivers also annoy me a lot in this same vein). And no matter where I attempt to escape to during breaks, there is almost inevitably a group of three kids in Ed Hardy clothes within five feet of me blabbing to each other about some hand they just played.

God poker players can really be the worst sometimes. What scares me is that I’m not discernible from the rest of them to a distant observer. I need to figure out how to better answer the question “what do you do?” moving forward. That, or pick up some Ed Hardy gear and just embrace it already.

While I’m ranting about poker players, I’ve got one more angst to vent. What is up with poker players thinking that getting together to play Chinese poker counts as “doing something social”? Honestly, can we just put the fucking cards away for one hour? One aggravating aspect to me regarding the WSOP is that I seem to have a hard time organizing an enjoyable social outting. If the suggestion isn’t to play Chinese poker, than it’s to go to some over-hyped, overpriced club where the music is played too loud for there to be any chance at engaging in a rewarding conversation with someone. Does anyone ever just go play mini-golf or something anymore?

I should end this by clarifying that the tone of this post does not give an accurate picture of my complete mood. When not being exposed to the unsavory attitudes of some spoiled kid in his first live tournament, I’ve generally felt very refreshed, focused and content on this trip notwithstanding my shrinking bankroll.

Tomorrow, it will have a chance to shrink further in the $2,000 WSOP event.

It’s midnight, and I just got back to the Palazzo after a long day of poker. I IM’d shaniac, who is blogging on PokerTips for the summer and is also one of the best poker writers and my personal favorite (with the only significant competition being Pauly from Tao of Poker):

Me: man…
Me: after i busted today a friend texted me telling me to come play the $200 at binion’s
Me: i went, despite my better judgment
Me: and just now finished…
Me: …. 11th…
Me: for $500….
Me: fml
Shaniac: sounds uplifting, don’t see the reason for “fml”

Of course, I don’t mean “FML” in a literal sense here. It’s more of an expression, like how sometimes (most of the time?) when you say “lol” you didn’t actually laugh out loud. I guess the reason I can’t quite jive with his upbeat spirit is that, for the day, I was a $1,200 loser. I’m two for two now on busting out of WSOP events before the first break. Today, I got Ten-Nine of diamonds all in against Ace-Queen on a Queen-Eight-Seven two diamond flop and airballed it.

Not too upset about this, after all, it’s a long summer and there’s no sense in wasting a bunch of energy feeling frustrated about losing a 52-48, I made my way to the Rio taxi stand and instructed the driver to take me to Palazzo. En route, I texted Dave Irish informing him I had busted (he had 5% of me). He told me it wasn’t too late to join him in the $200 tournament at Binion’s.

I had planned on coming back to Palazzo, hydrating up, and paying what would have likely been an arm and a leg for a taxi to the nearest Bikram Yoga center. But what the hell, I thought. Might as well dust off another $200 real quick first and go to yoga in the evening.

“Let’s go to Binion’s instead,” I told to the driver. On the way, I quipped with him that the taxi to and from downtown Vegas might erase whatever edge I could expect to have in a $200 tournament. That’s not really a joke, either. About $40 in cab fares take a big slice out of the value I’d expect to gain from playing a $200 at Binion’s. This is something that failed to occur to me before we were already north of the Stratosphere.

Still, it had to be +EV. Tournaments at Binion’s are probably about as soft as online poker circa 2003. I made it to the dinner break with about 10 big blinds in a spot where two-thirds of the field would make the money. The twenty minutes after I polished off my cheeseburger and before the tournament resumed tested my patience. “I’d better at least cash,” I kept thinking as I stood on the stinking sidewalk outside Binion’s uninspired on what to do other than pace back and forth feeling marginally sorry for the predicament I had put myself in.

Dave had long since made his way home after busting from the tournament and the thought of striking up a conversation with someone else only to be asked “what I had on that one hand” made standing on the sidewalk and refreshing my email every two minutes seem palatable.

I did manage to remain at Binion’s for another few hours and make it into the money. With 11 players left, I realized that 11th actually meant more to me than 10th as a result of a complicated and insignificant swap I had made with Dave. And yes, I remembered to factor in the value of the free ‘Binion’s Final Table Participant’ hat I would have received for outlasting one more person. But the hat couldn’t quite dissuade me from shoving 13 big blinds with Jack-Eight from the small blind while we played five handed. I think I would have made this play regardless of Dave and I’s goofy arrangement and my free hat equity anyway. And I would have ran into Ace-Jack just the same.

So I traded yoga and an evening that could have been used to catch up on a little work for a min-cash that I suppose was accompanied by a little confidence in knowing that I can still navigate through a live tournament field. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get to find out what it’s like to make it past the first break in this year’s WSOP. The $1,500 6-Max event will be my third try. If I fail, I suppose there’s always the 3:00 Bikram class.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

——

Okay, I’m kidding. But seriously, I busted out in the second level of the $1k today. Standard stuff. Built up to 4.5k (3k starting) then lost a flip for a 7k pot with AK vs. QQ and re-raised all-in a few hands later with 99 and ran into JJ. Nothing you can do and I walked out of the Rio not the least bit upset about washing out in rapid fashion as opposed to playing all day only to take some bad beat near the money.

Before the tournament started, Dave, my Uncle, TwoGun and I were standing out in the hallway. I suggested that the over/under on the number of us that will make the dinner break is 1. Dave disagreed thinking it was 1.5. I don’t see any value betting over 1.5 there. He offered to put $100 on over 1 and I booked his bet. I did my part by busting in the second level. My Uncle and TwoGun went down in the fourth. Dave sabotaged his chance at pushing on the bet and busted out in the fifth level (I believe). Ship it!

I did a little shopping after I got knocked out at the Forum Shops in Caesars. Later, Dave and I went to T.I. to play the $125 ‘Head Hunters’ tournament again. I started off well but went out 10th after getting KK all-in against 33 on an 883 board. I picked up three bounties in the early going though to make it a marginally profitable venture. For fun, I bought 25% of Dave in a cash game he played after busting the tournament and made another $100 through that, so no complaints.

While I was in the tournament, ‘kid hustlr’ and ‘brendo’ from our poker forums stopped by to say hello. I’ve hung out with kid hustlr in Phoenix before, but had never met brendo before tonight. I forgot to ask them if they’ve been doing any chip dumping at the OnGame tables lately. ZING!!

This is my last night at Bellagio. I visited the host desk and gave them an opportunity to retain my action. The host looked at my play for this trip: 5 hours at an average of $80 a hand so far. What was their offer? Nothing.

I realize 5 hours of $80 a hand doesn’t make me a whale or anything, but you’d think they’d offer me at least a little something being that it’s the middle of the week during the summer in Vegas. They can’t claim to be occupied either. Hotels.com has a rate of $150 for the next four nights at Bellagio, which is definitely on the low-end of their typical range. Another hotel with a rate of $150 was the Venetian, so I called them up to see what they’d offer me. The lady on the phone said, “we can give you 2-4 free nights.” Ship it!

If I thought it would have any impact on anything other than my temporary happiness, I’d go visit the Bellagio host again and tell him I’m taking my $80 a hand over to Venetian and to have fun going bankrupt, but that would just be in vein. Those guys don’t really give a damn and are also probably stupid enough to think the economy will magically recover later this year since “recessions only last an average of 14 months.” News flash: there are no rules that state the economy can’t remain in a state of turmoil for years. End rant.

One final note: I registered for the $1,500 6-Max event on Tuesday. At least I thought I did. I asked the Asian lady behind the counter a couple times, “the $1,500 event on Tuesday is 6-Max, right?” She kind of acted like she didn’t understand me and gave me very vague responses. I decided it wasn’t worth shouting my question very slowly to her since I was 95% certain Tuesday is 6-Max. Turns out I should have shouted. Wednesday’s $1,500 event is the 6-Max event. Oops. Oh well… worse case scenario is that I can’t play it because I made day two of Tuesday’s event. There could be bigger problems to have.

That’s all for tonight. Taking a day off of poker tomorrow and playing golf at this awesome par 3 course at Angel Park with my Uncle and Dave. The holes are modeled after famous par 3s from around the world. Of course, we’ll have some prop betting action going which should make for a fun afternoon baking in the desert heat.