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Cgar61: Adventures at ‘The Night of 100 Stars'! The Gear-up
It's 6 a.m. central time and the wife doesn't want to get up. Par for the course. We get to the airport in plenty of time and find out the luck held up. We have the whole row to ourselves. It's a 4 hour flight to LAX. We get to LAX and go to get our bags and find our limo driver waiting for us. On our drive to the hotel, we find out he plays poker. Needless to say that's what the conversation is about all the way there. We pull up to The Beverly Hills Hilton and go to check in. The lady at the desk asks if there's anything she can do for us to make us happy. Nothing. She asks where we flew in from and I told her Wisconsin . Poolside cabana room for us! She also tells me I have a message. No wait - a surprise; a bottle of Champagne . Our room is right next to the pool with our own little seating area outside our door. Oh - and the room is great: Mini bar, snack bar, bathrobes. We settle in and unpack.
Cameron - relaxing poolside
We head out to Griff's Restaurant for some brunch. The food is fantastic. Back to the room to go outside and relax with a nice cigar - outside of course. I see we have a message waiting. I pick it up and find out it's the winners from the NPPL, Lee and Kaye. They want to know if we would like to go to the Bike to play some poker. Wife says nope, we're going to Rodeo Drive . So I'm talking to Lee and he tells me they've never played a live poker game. I warn them there's a big tourney that night. I know I saved them from the sharks. We go to Rodeo Drive in the limo and start window shopping. Lisa {BellaDonna60} says she knows Harry Winston isn't lending her any jewelry for the big party. We go into an art gallery, and buy a painting by Michael Godard from his Don't Drink and Draw series. Go check his art out at Michaelgodard.com. Lisa gets her Louis Vuitton handbag and we walk all over Rodeo and Wilshire looking at all the sights. While wandering I had my best friend call me from Vegas where he lives, he was partying on Fremont , while we were partying on Rodeo.
Finally we head back to the hotel fro dinner. The famous Trader Vic's. Steak was great and the atmosphere you just have to go there yourself. We decide to stay in so we can be rested for the big day.
Cameron, James and LisaOscar Day :
Back to Griff's for brunch; again, fantastic. We go back to the room to start getting ready. Phone rings it's Allen, the rep from Hollywood Poker. He tells me about the arrangements for this evening. I call Lee and Kay so they know what time to meet us in the lobby. We meet them at 4p.m. right before we get in the limo. By the way it's a Brand New Stretch Limo, as in our butts were the first ones in it. Tony our driver is wonderful; he tells we have the limo all night long. WOOHOO!!!
We arrive at The Beverly Hills Hotel for the party and as we're pulling in the driveway, we see there are hundreds of photographers. Now it's getting really exciting. I get out and the cameras start flashing, lucky I have my shades on. I help Lisa out of the limo and the cameras start going off again, all the way up the Red Carpet into the hotel. We know how the other half lives. And we like it. AND WE WANT MORE, MORE I SAY!!!! We find Allen, sharp dressed man, and his lovely girlfriend Ally. We miss you two. Call us dammit. The first person we meet is Vince Van Patten and his wife Eillen Davidson. 45 minutes later were still talking to them. They are such great down to earth people. He was so happy that a "Real Poker” player won the big tourney. Vince is the spokesperson for our local casino, Potowatomi Casino. So he said he's going to try and put me in an ad for them with him. My 15 minutes of fame continues... We finally get to head down to the lounge to mingle with the stars. Allen tells us we have a table change to Table 1. That's right - up in front, everyone behind us, including all the stars.
As this is a big Oscar event, there were lots of stars. Here we go on the ones Lisa and I can remember: James Woods (we'll get to him later), Vince Van Patten (him too), Robert Loggia, Sally Kirkland, Burt Young, Jimmy Van Patten, Larenzo Lamas, Shirley Jones, Gary Bussey, Dick Van Patten, Eileen Davidson,
Michael Madsen, Martin Landau, Lou Diamond Phillips, Meatloaf, Alan Thicke, and many more. We recognized them but can't remember their names offhand. Allen send the guest list please. So we head in to be seated, it's hard to describe the feeling you have when you walk into a room and know your a part of history. And imagine sitting at the table right in front, with James Woods across from you and Vince Van Patten sitting next to you. Vince kept bringing out AK suited and 
Cameron, Vince and Lisaasking what is this. Sunglasses on his head. Finally Jimmy shows up with his lovely girlfriend Dawn Noonan. What great people they all are. The first thing Jimmy does is congratulate me on my win and tells me his Milwaukee address when he lived here. We start talking about poker of course, how he busted me out of his brother's tourney on Thursday night. Lisa tells him he looked great in that pink dress. He says to me at least he's not wearing one, playing poker and sitting in a guy avatar spot. And Jimmy I'm not telling what you took me out with. Then the awards start and everything gets quiet.
We realize they know these people, not like us - we only see these people in movies. This is their big night.
So everyone's getting hungry and Jimmy's asking, “What no hor de'voures?” All I can say is dinner was great but the company was even greater. To be able to tell people this is an unbelievable opportunity. After the Oscar show was over we collected our goody bags. Ally had this great idea to get into the VIP Goody Bag Room. So the ladies go off on their adventure. Vince and I are talking about me turning pro and wishes me all the luck and says he expects to see me on the WPT soon.
Meanwhile... the ladies made it in.
And didn't get thrown out. TrimSpa gave out duffle bags with a bottle of product, no Anna Nicole Smith. Inside the main room, shoes, handbags, jewelry, makeup, energy drinks, clothes, Lisa said earlier they had Top of the line Red Devil Vacuums. They were out when she went in. Hollywood Poker had a table set up with polo shirts and baseball caps, eat your hearts out: I've got the gear to wear. While Lisa's in the VIP room she loses the camera, comes out crying “I lost the camera! The money shots are on it”. I tell her it's okay. Allen sees how upset she is and asks where she may have left it in the VIP room. Thanks Allen for finding it. 
HP players Lee, Kay and JamesSo now it's off to party .
The Vanity Fair Party had a 3 hour wait, Elton John had a 2 hour wait .So Allen calls Jimmy , he sends us to The Standard. Great place. We sit for a few hours and talk about (what else) Poker. Oh, and Allen shows us some magic tricks. Yes Allen you're good at it. Finally the night is over and we head back to the limo. We drop off Allen and Ally back at The Beverly Hills Hotel, hugs all around. We head back to our hotel and I talk to Tony for 45 minutes about poker and his brother who's a pro poker player in Europe .
When I get Back to the room, we order pizza at 4am. It was hard leaving our new friends, Jimmy, Dawn, Vince, Eileen, Jimmy Van Patten, Allen, Ally Kim, and John. We'll be back soon and we miss you.
-Cameron Cgar61 and Lisa BellaDonna60 Hollywood Poker was proud to sponsor ‘The Night of 100 Stars' and equally proud to have our very own Cgar61 and BellaDonna60 there to represent our wonderful players!
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