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Yesterday morning, having watched the World Series of Poker for 17 hours and stayed up all night, I had a hallucination driving home. It was 6 a.m. and I had a seven-mile straight-shot to get there, but there was a man standing on a traffic island who stepped off it. That's all he did and I wasn't near him, but the nightmare scenario went through my mind that I was beyond exhausted and could have killed him if I had been in that lane.

It was very scary, so I just decided to do the right thing and book a room for tonight at the Rio. The final two -- lumberjack Darvin Moon and 21-y/o college dropout Joey Cada -- will play until one of them had all the chips. Could go quickly, could take all night. Who's to know?

So I did something I've not had to do for quite a long time, I just booked a Vegas hotel room. And the thing that stunned me about doing so was there was no competition or variation of price.

Here's the Rio, Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia.





Kayak was the same, as was Hotels.Com. I have $50 in credit at Hotwire from a crap hotel we had in Boston, but I couldn't pick the Rio specifically with them and having to drive anywhere defeats the point.

And all things being equal I, of course, went with Hotels.Com given that they sponsor TheStripPodcast.Com with the special links on this site. But I was kind of amazed that there was no variation whatsoever. $60 plus tax. Period.

How is that possible? Can someone explain that?

Gotta go check in now and nap before the action. Follow it all on Twitter @TheStripPodcast.com.