Ivey and Daniel and Jen Oh My!

We arrived at the Rio without too much difficulty although the taxi stand was ridiculously long. We checked in using the $20 trick and requesting a newly renovated room in the Ipanema Tower. Got to our room and its great. 16th floor...partial strip view, and mountain view. We unpacked and went to eat at the All American Bar & Grill.

The food was quite good. Merlotgirl had the BLT and I had a cheddar burger. he highlight for me was that they had Egg Cream Sodas. A New York delicacy it had been years since I've had one and it was excellent!!

Off to the Will Call area for tomorrow's Tournament. We had already sent our cashiers checks, and registered weeks ago. Today we picked up our Seat Assignments, and food voucher ($10). I'm at Table 168 in the Brasilia Room. Merlotgirl is a few tables away at Table 186. We decide to go to the Brasilia Room and check out the logistics. As soon as we walk in the room Merlotgirl spots Jeffrey Lisandro. We walk around the perimeter of Event 25 Omaha/7 card Stud 8 or better. There's Sean Sheikhan (Sheiky). And at that table is Gavin Smith....and holy crap going to sit at his table is Phil Ivey...30 feet from us. This is very exciting. Merlotgirl goes off to the ladies room and on her way back in she almost runs into Daniel Negreanu. This is really pretty cool!

My favorite poker blogger has a bit he does where he lists the last 5 poker pros he's peed next to. I don't want to steal that bit...so we're going to go with the last 5 pros we almost ran over(or at least were pretty close to).

1 -David Benyamine
2- John Juanda
3- Daniel Negraneau
4-Jennifer Harmon
5- Svetlana Gromenkova

I'm getting autographs on my One Outer Baseball Cap. So far:

• John Juanda
• Svetlana Gromenkova

We caught Juanda coming back from a quick break on his way to the final table of the Deuce to Seven (10K buy-in).

More to come...off to dinner now.