As I said before so many parties at CES are the same. Most companies will have their party in a Suite and it usually is the same every year. Well to set themselves apart from other companies Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) has a poker tournament in the spirit of Las Vegas. Now originally I was not going to attend the party because I had a boat load of work to finish and after eating the huge steak at Envy I was really beat. Also the party was held at the Hard Rock Casino, which is off the strip so there was also the task of getting there. I told the whole group from Envy steakhouse that I was just going to go back to my room and get some work done and relax. Well that was not acceptable to them, so we all headed over to the Hard Rock. John got us a limo so we would show up in style.
The party was held inside the Joint in the Hard Rock. Upon entering we could tell there was a definite pirate theme. That is because SOE was promoting their new game Pirates of the Burning Sea. Besides the girls dressed up as pirates there was pirate themed food and a special pirate themed drink, which I had quite a few of. There was also fire dancers, Sushi from Nobu, seafood, and an open bar.
The Joint is quite a large place so there was a lot of room inside, even though there were probably 200+ people inside. Even though there was a poker tournament where you could win a Sony Playstation 3 or $500 gift card to the Sony Style store, I decided not to play. For one I really don’t know how to play poker, and since there was a lot of room to move around I wanted to get some work done. Ashley decided to play poker though, she is a beginner at the game just like me. Besides our group from Envy some other people who attended SOE party were, Fatal1ty, Stephen Fung, Michael Kwan, Greg Morgan, David Lin, Paul Marini, Ramsom Koay (Themaltake), and Karen Thomas. The poker tournament was setup in 3 rounds, with the top 3 people from each table making it to round 2, the top person from round 2 would go onto the finals. Surprisingly Ashley made it to the seconds round, but was knocked out after that. Fatal1ty and Greg Morgan did make it to the final round, but both lost. Fatal1ty ended up second with Greg third.
This party had to be at the top of my CES parties list with Lite-On and AOC’s night of festivities. Everyone had a great time and I can’t wait for this party next year. It was really cool running into Fatal1ty again. I first met him back in 2002 at Million Man Lan, and then saw him 2 years ago at my first CES. It is cool that both of us started doing what we like to do and we are able to make a living doing it. Anyways here is a video and pictures from the party.
