The “haul” that Kathy and I took from our first convention experience goes way beyond the chips we brought home.

While adding 93 chips to my collection of Vegas table chips is definitely nice, the memories of the past few days with such a great group of people are much more meaningful.

Since we are new to the group and not knowing exactly what to expect, we were honestly awestruck the first time we stepped onto the show floor. The production of the convention exceeded our expectations, and when we think that all of it is the result of volunteers, it is beyond awesome. I cannot imagine the amount of time required to put on such a show, but everyone involved certainly delivered a first class experience!

We had an absolute cool experience and a simply fantastic time.

I don’t know which was our favorite experience, but there were a lot of great ones. From the Blackjack tournament (thanks to the dealer for hitting blackjack so I didn’t have to kick myself for betting my whole stack and getting Ace/Ace on the 1st hand of the final table!) to the opportunity to meet some founding fathers of the group at the banquet (learning a great deal about Florida illegals), listening to Steve Cyr (and getting to meet one of my Vegas idols in Anthony Curtis), picking up our awesome ‘Two Rocks’ personal chips (thanks for the great work Chipper Chuck), striking some great deals at the auction, going through the bins of $2 & $3 chips and then looking at chips selling for thousands of dollars, getting some free swag (mahalo to Quinten for the Macadamia gifts & thanks to Doug Saito for the nice bonus chip), making the final table in the poker tournament, learning a great deal about how to use the Chip Guide during an excellent seminar (Charles and the Administrators have no idea how helpful that tool has been to me as I get deeper and deeper into the hobby!), to the great people who stopped by the promotions table while we were volunteering, and on and on and on….

For those of you involved in putting the show together, please know that you delivered something great for newbies like us.
For those of you who have never attended a convention, I recommend that you start making plans to be at the Southpoint next June. Trust us, you will be glad you did.

Mike & Kathy Nawrocki