Regular readers will have noticed that the style and design of the blog has changed very recently to incorporate some new features that we hope you will find useful, including.

•    List of all recent posts
•    Most popular posts section
•    ‘Tweet this post’ feature

That is just the start of our plans for the PartyPoker blog, there is much more planned for the coming days and weeks that will improve the users experience  and bring you the latest news and promotions from PartyPoker, as well as strategy tips and gossip from the wider poker world.

Here at PartyPoker we are always keen to hear your opinion on how we can improve our offerings. The blog redesign gives us the perfect opportunity to extend an invite to all you poker fans out there to have your say on what you would like to see included on the blog in the future.  How about guest posts from poker pros or news of big winners at our tables?

Please add your comments below or tweet your ideas to us at the official PartyPoker twitter feed www.twitter.com/partypokernews.

@Egamingfan has already been in touch with us via twitter to suggest, amongst other things, that we include more information about our latest promotions and product development.  Both are excellent ideas that we will be sure to implement soon.

So, it’s over to the rest of the PartyPoker community, all ideas, however crazy, are greatly appreciated – what do you think?

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.

By Ian Frazer

Feeling good today and up for the $1,500 PLO hi-lo split.

I want to get over to the Rio early as I have learned that the plums seem to be most eager players to take their seats and I don’t want to miss out on a valuable 10mins chat with them, this can save you 2 hours on the felt.

So I am there in seat 4 and already in their seats are 1, 2 and 3, so we get chatting and 2 of these guys have never played a tourney at the Rio yet, let alone hi-lo. The other guy has played a $1k buy in and tells me he tried to grind out a cash, so at face value I figure him to be a rock. Seat 7 sits down he has his bird with him and he is up and down in his seat, calling out to people he acts like he wants to be involved This is obviously going to be our action player.

We start and during the first level I realise seat 9 and the two guys to my right, although nice gents, haven’t got a blimmin’ clue. This tourney is like a triple chance – you get three lots of 1,500 chips or take them all. I prefer to change one at a time as the action player in seat 7 takes the lot and I don’t want to go out early at such a soft table. I decide that every time seat 2, 3 or 9 put a chip in the pot I am going to be in with them and sure enough it works, after 3 levels I have 5,200 – still with my 2 lots of 1500 behind which I have to take now. Luvvly jubbly!

So I have good chips and now want to take on action man in seat 7. I purposely go for him and win two nice pots and both times he doubles back through another player, I am thinking this is just so perfect. Then the dreaded happens, I get involved in a hand with matey boy to my right, and he does me bad, I manage to get him all in on the turn and he unknowingly hits a 2 outer… ouch!

I am now half average, but I double through in a blind on blind battle and think right, back to basics. The very next hand it all goes in pre-flop LOL, so much for the basics! Three-way action I have Ac 2c Ks 4s and yes, you have guessed, I am out.

This is now 6 and 0 for me at the Rio, its only 4.45pm I am going to catch the Bellagio tourney. I get there and in my seat by 5.20. This is just about as late as you want to leave it as the antes have just kicked in. The tourney has 97 runners with 1st place paying $31,900.

I get off to a good start and after 2 hours have 36k chips, then I get involved with a Vietnamese lady in a hand just before the break and I take up the full 20 minutes to make a bad call. She takes 25k from my stack. I lock up now and sit tight and sure enough I get gifted chips in a few spots and I’m off at the races again! I sort of breeze my way down to last 3 tables with just above average.

I meet the Vietnamese lady again and she has good chips and gets put in 2 to my left. We have some good banter, her game is very tight aggressive so I take advantage of my position on her blinds, even with the re-raise on previous raisers knowing full well she is only playing AA maybe KK in that spot. I manage to steal for a good couple of levels and I am getting close to chip lead.

Then comes the hand, I have the button and I re-raise the player to my right and the Vietnamese lady min raises me, the other guy passes and I have Kc Jc. I know she has AA but I have the chips and good price to see a flop, I am also prepared to try and out play her if it’s a scary board. Flop comes KJ6 rainbow (am I golden or what) she check raises me which is what I expected and I am on auto push, but then I suddenly think omg what if she has KK, but figure her pre-flop raise would have had to have been more to get rid of any ace so I shove. To her credit she passes showing AA and says you have set of jacks I know! I tell her yes for obvious reasons.

I never lose chip lead now and get 5 handed where they want to deal. I have 55% of chips. After the chip count goes into the computer it says I get $34k and there is lots of mumbling. I tell them I will take first place money $31.900 and they can split the rest, they all agree. Wallop! I love The Bellagio

Back to Mandalay Bay for some nice sleep.

Ian Frazer

31st June 2009

Thanks to the jet lag I only got about 4 hours sleep last night and so at 5am I was out of bed staring out of my window at the view of Las Vegas and the mountains beyond. I wasn’t just awake, I was so wired, I felt I was ready to conquer the world. If Mount Everest was across the street I would have climbed it without any trouble. This is in direct contrast to the usual me. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I break into a light sweat just thinking about exercise.

So I decided to see if there was any action downstairs in the casino. Even at 6am there was no shortage of people sat glaring almost zombie like at the slot machines as they gambled away their children’s inheritance.

Later in the day I went out for a look around the strip. Las Vegas gets very hot in the summer and it is easy to forget that if you spend a long time in a nice air conditioned building. When you step outside, it is like being attacked by a hair dryer on full blast.

I walked into the casino at the MGM Grand which is absolutely huge. I walked past probably the strangest sight I have ever seen in a casino. Sat in front of a slot machine was a very old man in a medical wheelchair. He was in his pyjamas and had a saline drip hanging from a hook going into his hand and clear tubes going into his nose and throat.

Never before have I seen such dedication from a man who looked like he had escaped from the operating theatre at the nearest hospital. Somewhere there was a surgeon running around the streets of Las Vegas looking for that man.

In the evening, our boss, Mike, took the whole team out to dinner in a great restaurant at The Wynn. One thing I like about America is that they do really great steaks and this place was no exception.

After a great meal – thanks Mike, we all went our separate ways as some stayed for a drink at the bar, some moved on to other places and Andreas wandered off to the poker room at the Wynn to try his luck on the cash tables. Tomorrow I’ll find out if he is broke or a millionaire.

The team have safely managed to arrive in Las Vegas but the trip was certainly not without incident. Flying from Malaga, Spain to New York and then onto Las Vegas, the journey sounded straightforward enough. After the million and 1 questions from security at Malaga, I found out that I would be sat apart from my 3 colleagues travelling with me – Mario, Naomi and Andreas.

Whilst they enjoyed the extra legroom that comes from sitting in the emergency row of seats, I was literally wedged up against a window seat next to a couple going on their honeymoon. They obviously thought they had already reached their hotel judging by the amount of XXX rated action (that I usually have to supply a credit card number for) that was going on. I wanted to say “Get a room” but they spent the entire 8 hour flight to New York behaving like they were already in one.

We arrived late in New York and with only an hour to get off the plane, go through immigration, pick up our cases, dump them again and go through security again I knew we would be lucky if we made it. The queue at immigration seemed like it stretched all the way back to Malaga so we had some fighting to do to get to the front. Naomi was excellent and badgered every official there to let us go to the front and at her 4th attempt found someone willing to do so.

We all sailed through with the exception of Andreas who was nowhere to be seen. The remaining three of us still had bag dumping and security to get through and our flight to Las Vegas was leaving in 10 minutes – we would never make it. I arrived at the gate with Mario and Naomi having sprinted all the way there to see the guy closing the plane door. We could see the plane from the window but did not know if we would be catching it.

After some bargaining he let us on but would not wait for Andreas despite our pleading. As we took our seats on the plane and wondered aloud what time the next flight was, we saw a hot and flustered Andreas walking up the aisle to a huge cheer from all of us. Someone behind me asked why we were cheering and I told them it was because Andreas was a famous Swedish poker celebrity. They believed me.

So we all made the plane but what about our bags? Did they make the flight? Well, yes and no. Upon arrival in Las Vegas Andreas realised his case was still sat in New York and would be put on the next flight.

But it didn’t matter because we were finally in Las Vegas.