The boys from Norway in some new clothes. (the cases have still not arrived)

Andreas welcomes Katja from Norway and Pia from Denmark to the party.  

The Poker Italia Team make a very quiet entrance and pose for a team photo

Ian Frazer, His charming wife, Padraig Parkinson and Eddie Hearn seem pleased when I ask if they would like another drink.

The new PartyPoker Grassroots team of poker professionals,
Ian Frazer from England, Bodo from Germany, Remi Biechel from France, Mike Sexton, Felipe ‘Majave’ Ramos.

Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliott gets friendly with former Chelsea and France footballer Frank Leboeuf.

Our beautiful waitresses for the evening.

This afternoon more of the players have been arriving to check in and pick up their goodie bags. We had one couple from South Africa who were combining their trip with their wedding on the 9th of July. We certainly wish them the best of luck for the main event and also for their married life together.

We also met Norwegian player, Petter and his three friends, Kim Andre, Martin and Ove Andre who have been in Las Vegas for 4 days already. However their luggage is stuck somewhere on route and they arrived with nothing but the clothes they travelled in.

One of the guys was wearing a British Airways T-shirt which he was given by the airline in question as some kind of compensation for the fact they have lost all four cases. The guys seemed in remarkably good spirits despite their misfortune and happily posed for the following picture showing off the now famous (and slightly lived-in) British Airways T-shirt. I hope they have something clean for the pool party tonight at Wet Republic.

The players home for the next week – The Monte Carlo Hotel

Well, rather disappointingly, Andreas played for several hours and ended up breaking even. That’s good because at least the rest of us don’t have to lend him any cash. However it does mean that Mario will have to wait for the Ferrari he was looking at last night in the Ferrari Shop at The Wynn.

Today the PartyPoker players who will be taking part in the main event started arriving in the hotel and checking in with us to pick up their merchandise goodie bags (which included plenty of branded gear to wear and an iPod Touch for the Palladium Lounge players) and player information.

It was great to see so many familiar faces arrive. Many of the guys have qualified for the WSOP before or attended events like the APT in Manila recently and at times it got a bit like an old school reunion as memories and stories were exchanged with much laughter.

This is the thing with PartyPoker players, they all love coming to places like Las Vegas because they know they will be very well looked after and go home having had a fantastic time. It was very obvious they are all pleased to be in Las Vegas whether it was their first time here or they are an old timer.

For most of our players, today was all about getting here and trying to recover from the long flight, chilling out and maybe having a look around the hotel and the Las Vegas Strip. Some were keen to beat the jet lag by heading straight for the casino floor or the poker room. They will need to be ready for action tomorrow because that is when we will have our player party at not one but two of Las Vegas’ hottest venues, Wet Republic and Tabu in the MGM Grand.

By Ian Frazer

Today is a very good day for me I am off to Vegas and Party Poker announces that they have entered into a contract with me as their sponsored player and UK envoy. Wallop!

Well I am back in Vegas and can’t wait to start playing again!

A quick funny story flying out here, I am last getting on the plane as my phone is ringing like mad because of the poker news and I am making some last calls before take off.

I take my window seat in Virgin’s Premium class (luvvly jubbly) and as this guy stands up to let me in, he looks and says “Oh! Hiya mate how you doing?” (I don’t know him from Adam.) But I say “Yeah, I am good mate, thanks”, figuring he is obviously a poker player. He harps on about how we played together at the Sportsman and the Vic and this hand and that hand, (well I have probably been three times max to both casinos in the past year, so I defo wouldn‘t remember) but I go along with it as he seems a nice fella.

After about 2 hours we start talking about online poker, different tourneys etc and he tells me of his wins and that he generally only plays tourneys, so we swap tournament victory stories when he asks “what was your alias then? we must have played together” so I tell him and he says: “I thought that was Ian Frazer’s alias.” Then he goes bright red and says OMG! What a plonker!

Ha-ha we have a good laugh, he says “No wonder you didn’t remember me!” I dare not ask who he thought I was just in case I threw him off the plane. So, Jonathan Reynolds, you better practice on your memory skills, he was actually very good company and we had a good laugh I hope he has a touch here.

I am staying at the Mandalay Bay this time, so a bit apprehensive but it seems cool so far. After check in I figure I would chance my arm at the Bellagio tourney again. (It was good to me 2 weeks ago). The coup here on the first day is that you must stay awake as long as possible without boozing but drinking excessive amounts of water, this will ensure you get the time difference sorted in your system after one day. Proven many times by moi.

So I play the tourney. There are 87 runners and I go out 14th but it is now midnight and I am off for some Chinese room service, un-pack, e-mails and bed.

Night night.