World Series of Fast Food
- Puddnhead
- 17 minutes ago
- 7 min read
For $10 you can get a bowl of teriyaki chicken with noodles or rice at Panda Express. The chicken is fresh and not too sweet. The noodles and rice are nothing special.
This was my dinner break stop for my first bracelet event of the summer - the $500 Mini Mystery Millions. I took it to go and ate in my hotel room at Harrah's. In the last flight of that one I was able to bag a small stack.
Before Day 2 I picked up a Double-Smoked Bacon Cheddar and Egg sandwich from Starbucks. The egg in this sandwich is both cage-free and microwaved. There are better breakfast options but this one was right next to my hotel elevator.
Nothing doing for me Day 2 in the Mini Mystery Millions. I busted early then hopped in the $600 Deep Stack bracelet event, which I also min-cashed. Very soft tables in these, but they were also huge fields in which deep runs are rare.
I was excited for the $1500 6-Max at WSOP. 6-Max is more action than a 9-handed tourney because you cut out the early positions at the table where you play the least hands.
For breakfast I got a build your own slam at Denny's with scrambled eggs, pancakes, english muffin, and fruit. A reasonably healthy option that's pretty hard to botch.
I thought the 6-Max might be my tournament. I built up a big stack on Day 1 going into the end of the night. Then I got coolered super hard and made an elite fold:
Early on Day 2 in the 6-Max I got in my 11bb stack with JJ vs 99 and A4 and instead of tripling up I busted.
After busting I immediately hopped in the $1700 Circuit Championship at WSOP. For dinner in this one I stuck around the Horseshoe. My plan A was the Subway downstairs but it had a line so I went with a slice of pepperoni and a breadstick from Sbarro instead. This is pretty mediocre pizza - sauce is whatever and the cheese is subpar. Cheap toppings.
After dinner I ran pretty hot. I won a couple huge pots with full houses and ended up bagging the 2nd biggest Day 1 stack.
Breakfast the next day I went back to an old favorite - Moons Over My Hammy at Denny's.
This is just a ham egg and swiss sandwich. I've often eaten these in the middle of the night after celebrating a big poker score. I was underwhelmed with this particular edition. Too greasy in the light of day perhaps.
I played all day in the Circuit Championship Day 2 and my stack didn't budge. As the blinds increased I went from one of the big stacks to an average stack to a short stack. I ended up busting in 39th out of 2,148 for $12.6k. If I had made it to 36th I would have picked up a fantasy field bonus and justified my inclusion as a bonus player in the ODB fantasy contest. That stung a bit.
Still it was a deep run and decent result. 2 weeks into the summer I was up $30k and had cashed my first 5 bracelet events.
That night on my way home I got a cup of butter pecan ice cream from the Ben and Jerry's next to the elevator in my hotel. As an alternative to beer and cigarettes, ice cream is pretty decent.
Back home I never eat Chipotle because there are so many superior Mexican options available. But as an alternative to a Panda Express dinner break, a veggie burrito with no beans no queso is solid. My biggest complaint is that they don't have good spicy salsa. This was my dinner during Monster Stack week at the WSOP
The Monster Stack is a $1500 tournament I used to love at the WSOP because it plays deep stacked and has a super slow structure. I'm starting to sour on it though. It's just too slow. You can play for days and break even or lose money. Or you can run like MN legend Richie Alsup and bink the whole damn thing!
I didn't even make the money in the Monster Stack. I did run a sick bluff though:
Sadly I also didn't cash the $500 Freeezout. Nor the $600 NLH/PLO mix. Nor the $1500 PLO nor $800 Deep Stack. My streak of cashing bracelet events was over.
In a rush one morning I tried out a breakfast bagel from McDonalds and nearly gagged. The "breakfast sauce" is a sweet mayo concoction that does not go well with microwaved egg.
I ventured out to other casinos and bricked more low stakes tournaments. A couple $500 multi-days at MGM. An 8-Game mix at Golden Nugget. A couple mixed tourneys at the Orleans.
The Orleans has a food court inside the poker room. If you're looking for edible, Subway is always an option. I get mine with white bread, American cheese, lettuce, onions, pickles, jalapenos, easy mayo, and salt and pepper.
I also returned to the Wynn where I had started my summer and fired several bullets in a $1600 multi-day tourney and one in their big $3500 multi-day. For dinner breaks at Wynn I often walk across the street to the Fashion Show food court. My favorite there is the spicy ramen at Master Gan's.
I didn't cash any of these tournaments. By the time I returned to the WSOP I was on a legit downswing.
Between Harrah's and the Venetian there's a Best Western with a smoky casino and buried in the back of it is a mini Pizza Hut. As a veteran of the pizza industry I'm usually a pizza snob but for whatever reason Pizza Hut is the one trash pizza I can abide. If there's one cure for a downswing, surely it's trash pizza:
I wasn't planning to sell any action over the summer but people had been asking me so I decided I would play one $10k and sell action for it. I settled on the $10k Mystery Bounty at the WSOP. My biggest claim to poker fame is winning a mystery bounty tournament, so it seemed appropriate.
My first table was not too bad. I chipped up a bit then gave some back on a pretty interesting hand where I think I missed a turn barrel but luckily saved chips in doing so:
I hung around a starting stack early in the day then got moved to a much tougher table with crushers Adam Hendrix and Joe Cheong. Before dinner Joe was complaining about how there was no Panda Express accessible from Paris where we were playing. I completely agree!
Adam tried convincing him that there was a tunnel in the parking garage basement that led to a Panda Express. He had Joe going a bit and we all got a laugh out of that.
On my dinner break I walked back to my hotel and picked up a Quarter Pounder With Cheese from McDonalds. Classic A+ stuff as far as fast food goes. I would caution against upgrading to a deluxe which adds creamy mayo and tomato and overpowers the salty goodness with too much sweet.
I battled a lot with these guys and after dinner I had built up to 2.5 starting stacks. Then just before our table broke I got a big double:
That gave me a big stack that I was able to ride through a long bubble. I ended up bagging a little below avg for Day 2. My first cash in a $10k!
Before Day 2 I was texting with Krissy Foxen who had bagged the same tourney and is one of my coaches at Chip Leader Coaching. I joked that I had a good table draw because there were no Foxens. Then shortly into Day 2 I got moved to her table. 😅
Krissy is all class at the poker table - super friendly and talkative. Also an absolute killer who had just recently won a $25k bracelet event at this World Series for $1.7m.
I was a short stack most of the day but ran good in all ins to double up a couple times. Then just before dinner facing 2 jams in front of me I woke up with JJ in the BB and scooped for the double KO!
Josh Reichard and I pulled our bounties before leaving for dinner. We flipped to see who would pull first and it landed on him. He pulled a $25k.
I had 3 bounties to pull. The first one was a $5k. The second one $10k. And the last one... $100k! Well that would make my investors happy. Also put me back on track for a winning summer.
I was taking this tournament seriously so I didn't want to eat a heavy dinner that would make me tired. Instead I opted for a Chicken Caesar Salad at Flavortown where I could watch the World Cup.
This was a plate of lettuce and croutons with some dry chicken breast. And it was $40! Paris needs a Panda Express. 🤬
After dinner the field started dwindling and it looked like I had a great chance to make the final table. Then on the final table bubble I lost 2 big flips in a row to bust in 10th and end my run.
Pretty brutal to just miss the final table. That 66 vs AK flip was probably worth about $200k. But it was still a fantastic result for me cashing $154k total prize + bounties. I was only keeping 40% of that but it righted the ship for my summer.
What's the best way celebrate and mope over a devastating victory? Well since I was in the heart of Sin City I went with - you guessed it - ice cream!
Halfway through the summer now and back on track. More to come!