Thanks To Everyone In Las Vegas

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 4:57 am

You know, it's great to see so many people compliment Mike Sheets and his staff in St. Louis, and Tom and Charlie in Atlantic City, but enough times we don't thank all of you participants for making the live drafts such a success. I've heard nothing but great things from Mike and Tom about how everyone was on time, ready to draft, and respectful of others. Kudos TO YOU all for a great first weekend of drafts and auctions.

I especially want to thank all of the participants in Las Vegas this weekend. This was by far the most prepared group I've ever had in Las Vegas. The Bellagio is a new host hotel and our ballroom is all the way at the end from the hotel lobby, so I was concerned that we'd have to wait for participants to find the location. But it never happened. In fact, people came early each day to talk with other members, have some coffee while mulling the room and each draft could have started early because everyone was there and ready to go.

We had absolutely no hiccups in Las Vegas with a new staff, a new hotel group to work with and of course some new NFBC members. The DaVinci rooms were very nice for the private auctions on Friday and Saturday's layout worked very well. We actually will be in that space this Saturday for the main event but we have more than twice the allotted space this time around for the leagues.

As for space, I actually make the U's slightly bigger in Las Vegas this year because we did have so much space here. At first some folks said the U's were too big for auctions, but it just made Brady jog a little more!!

But in the end I think it was the right call because everyone was able to spread out a little more. I'd love to hear from folks who drafted this weekend if they thought it was too much space or just right. I can tighten things up for this weekend if you'd like.

On Sunday, we had some real good fun with the NFBC Super and Live Double Play. We hosted both drafts up in Ryan's suite, which worked out great. We may do that again this weekend if the numbers work out that way!!

So THANK YOU again for making the first weekend a big success. We had fun by the time we got together on Thursday in the Bellagio sportsbook and watched as every game went down to the buzzer on spreads and continued the fun with three days of drafts and auctions. Now we have more work to do, filling up the final leagues, growing the Online Double Play and getting all of the leagues inputted. But we'll get it done.

Have safe travels this weekend and I'll see many of you in Las Vegas in a couple of days.

NorCalAtlFan · Post by **NorCalAtlFan** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 5:13 am

Kudos to Greg and Ryan and the rest of the Fanball staff. I was more than skeptical when they changed the venue. I thought it was becoming more about glitz and glamor than the actual game itself. I was proved wrong.

The draft rooms were comfortable, especially for the main/double play drafts. We had a problem with our sticker guy during the Main, but that problem was handled swiftly and the rest of the draft went without a hiccup. Everyone was hospitable. It was good to see.

For those coming weekend 2 that weren't there weekend one, you will be happy and hopefully have the same experience that we had weekend one.

Bama · Post by **Bama** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 5:21 am

Ill have to second what Greg said as everything seemed to run smoothly and Greg and Ryan keeping everthing organized and Brady and Rex doing a great job running the drafts/auctions. These guys dont always get the credit for the hard work they do and i know its not nearly as easy as some people think it is. As for the extra space at the table i thought it was great being able to spread out more than we have had in the past and not getting to know the person next to on more personal basis than you might want to

[ March 22, 2010, 11:27 AM: Message edited by: Bama ]

NorCalAtlFan · Post by **NorCalAtlFan** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 5:29 am

hope you weren't referring to the double play bama. if so, that hurts

lol

Bama · Post by **Bama** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 5:45 am

Originally posted by NorCalAtlFan:

hope you weren't referring to the double play bama. if so, that hurts

lol No was'nt referring to anyone in particular but the extra space was welcomed as in the past in some drafts being able to move about in your seat or getting up and and getting a drink without disturbing your neighbor was not easy.

KJ Duke · Post by **KJ Duke** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 5:52 am

I thought the U was way too big for the auction, much preferred previous years. It seemed like a poker tournament where I was playing guys from another table. Even Bryan looked like an ant across the great divide.

NorCalAtlFan · Post by **NorCalAtlFan** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 5:58 am

well played kj, well played.

swampass · Post by **swampass** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 6:05 am

"We had absolutely no hiccups in Las Vegas with a new staff, a new hotel group to work with and of course some new NFBC members. "

how dare you..my room was cancelled at the flamingo and you were aware of this and you didnt warn anyone. i received an email from a fellow manager who swears he warned you of the situation and you garunteed to take care of it. clearly you did not.

expect an email in a day while im able to catch up here at work. my co-manager and i have some words for you. we did not attempt to contact you at the draft because we wanted focus on drafting our main event team and actually having fun. we did consider calling you at 2am to see if you had any extra space in your room. but we decided that we had to let it slide for at least the weekend because of just how upset we were and we feared what we might say. i cant believe just how lucky we were that the Mingo had a room left available, but sharing a one bed room was a bummer. so, lets leave it as a big F-ing joke of a F-up. no less.

while we signed up we did inform ray flowers, i believe, of the situation. so i find it odd that nothing was mentioned. i also found it funny that my last post regarding this had no response and ended up killing the thread.

Chris Dalzell - I'm Keith Voight's co-manager.

KJ Duke · Post by **KJ Duke** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 6:18 am

Swampass - too bad about the hotel mixup, but it didn't seem to affect your draft. You are 1 of 3 teams that look best positioned to contend in our league.

[ March 22, 2010, 12:21 PM: Message edited by: KJ Duke ]

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 6:53 am

Originally posted by swampass:

"We had absolutely no hiccups in Las Vegas with a new staff, a new hotel group to work with and of course some new NFBC members. "

how dare you..my room was cancelled at the flamingo and you were aware of this and you didnt warn anyone. i received an email from a fellow manager who swears he warned you of the situation and you garunteed to take care of it. clearly you did not.

expect an email in a day while im able to catch up here at work. my co-manager and i have some words for you. we did not attempt to contact you at the draft because we wanted focus on drafting our main event team and actually having fun. we did consider calling you at 2am to see if you had any extra space in your room. but we decided that we had to let it slide for at least the weekend because of just how upset we were and we feared what we might say. i cant believe just how lucky we were that the Mingo had a room left available, but sharing a one bed room was a bummer. so, lets leave it as a big F-ing joke of a F-up. no less.

while we signed up we did inform ray flowers, i believe, of the situation. so i find it odd that nothing was mentioned. i also found it funny that my last post regarding this had no response and ended up killing the thread.

Chris Dalzell - I'm Keith Voight's co-manager. Chris, you can blame me for the Flamingo cancelling your room, but I had nothing to do with that nor did I know they were doing this to folks. Let's tell it like it is: The Flamingo agreed and suggested the buyout of our contract for the event last weekend. They had absolutely no reason to treat our customers the way they did and at no time did they tell us that they were just going to cancel rooms of people who reserved rooms under our original room block.

I heard from Elias Constantine and another owner last week that they only found out they didn't have a place to stay when they found the charge reserved on their credit card. The Flamingo didn't even have the courtesy to tell him or others that they were cancelling their rooms. Gregg Janoff also found out his room was cancalled when he checked in on Friday night and did everything he could to get a room. The treatment from the Flamingo was horrible to our customers and we are disgusted by what they did to you and others. But we did not have anything to do about this and had we stepped in and said something they obviously wouldn't have listened to us.

I did not know this was going on until I first heard from Elias and it didn't happen to everyone. Shawn is staying there now and I know of others who were even comped there and had a good stay through the weekend. I have no idea why they did this to you and Elias and Fred and Gregg and some others. I heard a few more stories on Friday and just felt terrible, but that was totally a decision done by the Flamingo management team that we were dealing with and again we had no knowledge this was being done.

I totally apologize and I'll gladly call you on the phone and discuss this situation with you. I'm at 715-254-5553 if you want to call me. If there's anything we can say to the Flamingo about this we will because again, it was an agreed upon decision to part ways and they suggested it. Why in these tough times when everyone is looking for customers out here they decided to take their wrath out on you, I have no idea. But it's another example of why we will never return to the Flamingo again. EVER.

Doug Atkins · Post by **Doug Atkins** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 7:04 am

Greg, let me say that I LOVED the Vegas drafts this past weekend. The room was great, and I really liked the fact that we had more room to spread out this year. The pace of our drafts was just about right (4 hours for the main event, and 3 hours, 10 minutes for the double play). I don't think anyone should complain about the walk to the room. Just budget yourself for a nice, relaxing 5 minute walk from the casino down a wide hallway....no big deal.......bathrooms are nice and close, and there's a gift shop right beside the draft room.....GREAT JOB! Now if you can get our Friday double play sold out, I'll look forward to getting draft slots for that one......so far, I've entered three leagues, and received draft slots 12,11, and 10......I think I'm due for a top 3 pick......what do you say?

low talkers · Post by **low talkers** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 9:39 am

I thought everything was great this weekend at the Bellagio. I am a big fan of the larger tables, it is very nice to have the extra space to spread out.

DoctorK · Post by **DoctorK** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 10:54 am

The Bellagio room was great with plenty of room to spread out . Brady's auctioneering was fantastice and kept things moving along quickly and smoothly. Great job to everyone involved!

Fourslot40 · Post by **Fourslot40** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 1:43 pm

The setup was perfect in my opinion.

[ March 23, 2010, 06:32 AM: Message edited by: Fourslot40 ]