Pauly and I arrive at the Commerce to see more big-name degens than we do celebrities, but it’s still early …

Episode 2: Commerce She Bangs

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While you listen, be sure to check out some more detailed WPT Invitational tales on Tao.

Greg Raymer is still alive in the NAPT main event (with 128 of 872 remaining). He made it just in time for the tournament … via Washington DC, where he was at CPAC 2010, bringing “our issue” to the people who came to see the likes of Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, John Ashcroft, Glenn Beck, and Tucker Carlson.

It’s kinda a tough sell when you think about it … the buzzwords in influential conservative circles these days are all about less government, not more. So here we have poker’s Libertarian ambassador trying to persuade GOPers to: forget the moralists in favor of personal freedom (ok, probably doable), set up a new government bureaucracy to monitor our financial activity on the internet (what the …?), and tax him a lot more personally. (“OK, now we gotta hear this; hey Jeb get over here, I think the guy who showed up in your office this summer wearing shorts and sandals with socks is gonna tell a joke!)

Vanity Fair seemed to find it a little bit mockworthy. But according to Time magazine, what really matters is that poker players do know how to party:

But probably the coolest parties that first night at CPAC were secret ones — invite-only passes palmed to a select few. The first one was hosted by the Poker Player’s Alliance and included CPAC’s “It” kids, James O’Keefe of Acorn pimp fame and his three cohorts who were recently entangled with the law for messing with Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu’s phone lines; anti-tax champion Grover Norquist; conservative media personality Andrew Breitbart; and 2004 World Poker Champion Greg Raymer. The open bar at Medaterra got quite a workout with young conservatives ordering everything from beer to shots of Redheaded Sluts, a crimson concoction involving Jagermeister. (After some debate, no one was game enough to try a flaming Redheaded Slut.) Breitbart and the rest of the Louisiana Four — as they were fondly hailed by many at CPAC — then headed over to a party hosted by Mike Flynn, editor of the website Big Government, at Morton’s Steakhouse. Flynn not only had an open bar tab but stacks of fine cigars for guests to chuff on.

BTW, check out CPAC’s straw poll to see what issues matter most to people who consider themselves true conservatives in 2010. You’ll see on page 11 that the runaway favorite for president amongst these folks is Ron Paul (R-TX), who generally hates all things more-government, but as a co-sponsor to the Barney Frank bill, could prove a critical ally.

As Pauly and I are prone to do whenever we get together, we couldn’t help ourselves from kicking into 3-minute-podcast mode in Los Angeles this weekend as we both got ready to take on the Hollywooded up field at the WPT Celebrity Invitational for the LAPC … and explore How-TF we got into the field in the first place.

Episode 1: Slumming It in Not-So-Beverly Hills

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BTW, if you want to hear a different side of Dr. Pauly, be sure to check out his Lost Vegas podcast episodes. A lot more sex and drugs in those.

For those Pokerati readers who missed out on what’s going on, here’s some stuff that’s happened over the past few days:

The first PokerStars.net NAPT event in the US got off to a roaring start on Saturday, with 872 players putting up $5,000 at the Venetian as part of their Deep Stack Extravaganza. 149 players started day 3 a few minutes ago, with 128 making the money. Hand for hand play has just begun, and the tournament staff is hoping to play down to 24. You can follow the action over at PokerNews, PokerStarsblog.com, or PokerListings. The winner when play ends on Thursday will collect $827,648.

Reality show star Trishelle Canatella made the final table of the WPT Celebrity Invitational, part of the LA Poker Classic currently running at the Commerce Casino. The final table will resume on March 3rd with this lineup:

Seat 1: Steve Elliott – 1,520,000
Seat 2: Thor Hansen – 1,480,000
Seat 3: Trishelle Cannatella – 1,540,000
Seat 4: Sean Urban – 2,090,000
Seat 5: Neev Baram – 1,900,000
Seat 6: LeRon Washington – 1,790,000

In other LAPC news, Al “Sugar Bear” Barbieri took down his 3rd preliminary event of this year’s LAPC, winning the $2,100 Ironman event, a tournament with no scheduled breaks. Barbieri pocketed almost $60,000 for the win, plus a seat to the $10,000 Main Event, which starts February 26th.

The NBC National Heads-Up Championship is just a few days away, with the draw party on March 4th at Pure at Caesars’ Palace, followed by the tournament from March 5-7. The full list of 64 participants hasn’t been announced yet, but over 20 players already received their invite through a series of criteria, including last year’s winner, Huck Seed. Other automatic invites include: Phil Ivey, Joe Cada, Vanessa Rousso, Darvin Moon, Jason Mercier, Eric Baldwin, Sammy Farha, Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier, and Barry Shulman. One invitee who had to decline: Jeff Lisandro, who has a prior commitment in Australia which prevents him from attending.

The EPT Copenhagen event, which drew 423 entries, concluded Sunday evening with Sweden’s Anton Wigg outlasting Italy’s Francesco de Vivo in a four-hour heads-up duel to win 3,675,000 Danish kroner ($6782,918). Other notables who cashed: Roberto Romanello, Peter Eastgate, Juha Helppi, and Bertrand Grospellier.

Chet in Wisconsin writes in wanting to know why the slowdown recently from Pokerati …

Is there some reason the most recent article is dated the 17th, 5 days ago?

There is a reason for that, and we may or may not tell you eventually. My apologies to the poker world for not letting other media know what they should be writing about taking a break.

Kevin Mathers — super-moderator at 2+2, valued contributor who likes to call me out on errors here at Pokerati, and Poker News fact-checker extraordinaire — speaks with Shamus about the uber-glamorous life as a poker forum moderator and gives some insight into how 2+2 ticks. Click here for more on the process from one of the most mysterious men in poker this side of Isildur.

Valentine’s Day was the debut of season 6 of GSN’s most popular show, High Stakes Poker. AJ Benza is no longer on the show, replaced by Kara Scott to provide some player interviews, leaving Gabe Kaplan to provide commentary solo. This would have been up earlier if GSN decided to put the full episode on Youtube, but they decided to only put it up on their own site.

Boycotting may be too strong a word … “avoiding” could work, as could “snubbing”, as could “pissing off its own players by telling them they can’t go.”

Supposedly, highly reliable sources are saying, Full Tilt brass in Ireland are telling Full Tilt-branded American (and non-American) pros that they are not allowed to play in the Venetian Deep Stacks main event … as it is part of the newly launched NAPT, presented by PokerStars.net. What, are you guys not buying their claim that Stars-dot-net is different than Stars-dot-com? Interesting …

We hinted that something was coming on The Poker Beat a couple weeks ago. Kudos to ESPN’s @GaryWise1 for digging up the confirmation on the above. Listen below to a 5-minute excerpt of the bubbling under.
TPB2510-excerpt

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Apparently, Howard Lederer really has stepped away from calling the operational shots at Tilt, and it’s totally news to Bitar & Co. that Full Tilt pros were ever stepping foot in non-Tilt branded events, such as the PCA (PokerStars) and Aruba (UB). Sure enough, the Hollywood snub at the Sharon Osborne Trash Talk Championship of the World (at the Hard Rock) charity tournament was a sign of more serious fissures in the poker world to come.

Kinda funny … because these sites have been so worried how a new Harrah’s-branded online gaming presence would negatively affect other online sites branding opportunities at the World Series of Poker, and now their reaction to the threat seems on track to becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy.

UPDATE: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?entryID=4921898&name=poker

I left out all the political stuff you should be reading — trust me, lots of casino-y biz and law going on — and instead am emptying out my frivolous notebook (some of it) and giving you a good-ole-fashioned link dump … full of random timely poker buzz that, imo, is def click-worthy.

The LAPC and NAPT/Venetian Deep Stacks may be on-hype right now … but some of the most fearsome high-stakes competition going on in Vegas is shaking down at the M Resort. You can follow the quirky, made-for-TV Premier League on PokerNews.

From the Dept. of: That’s Different

The PokerNews hand reporters have been allowed to see the hole cards and whisper them in Tony G’s ear write about them. (Usually, if reporters are so privileged to see inside the security truck, they usually do so with a promise not to divulge hole-card info.) It didn’t take long for the players — who are stripped of their cell phones and PDAs upon entering the set — to check laptops for the revealing live updates while on breaks or out of a hand/scene.

PartyPoker is clearly trying to pump up Luke Schwartz’s badboy image — taunting him for his ineffectual come-ons of Kara Scott. Here he is on the tricycle Tony G brought for him to ride out on:

Also, btw, check out the PartyPoker blog … where Warren from Party is shedding some of his corporate stick-ness to share some real life-on-the-PartyPoker-trail shtick. AKA Warren “the” Lush and “Fun Warren“.

Pokerati Restaurant Review

M Resort Buffet

It’s not quite Wynn or Bellagio-level … but it’s pretty close. And for a $14.95 lunch/$22.95 dinner, the extra touches — beer and wine available buffet-style, too, and a cappuccino bar — make the pig-it-up-dude! offerings worth wading through the hordes of senior-citizen locals who show up en force to let clever packs of bikers know, hey, this is our joint!” They also do the Tina Martini live cooking show there, which makes the M Resort’s Studio B like the Steel Panther of Buffets.

Price: Freeroll
Food: A-Q
Atmosphere: set of 4s
Service: 9-9

Another new-to-me blog I’ve been enjoying of late: crAAKKer
I am become Death, destroyer of Aces, slayer of Kings, tilter of D-bags

PokerListings has a solid (and controversial amongst people who think they know such things) list of Top 10 Players to Watch in 2010. I don’t think the haters get it … That is who Matt Showell and his people will be watching — whether you like it or not, bitch.

Spoiler Alert:

1. Phil Ivey
2. Cole South
3. Yvgeniy Timoshenko
4. Annette Obrestad
5. Jason Mercier
6. Matt “ADZ124″ Marafioti
7. Isildur
8. Nanonoko
9. Jeff Madsen
10. Lex Veldhuis

Tao of Changerati

Start listening to Lost Vegas: The Podcast, with Pauly and Change100, around the premise of pimping his forthcoming Lost Vegas book. It’s about a blogger living with his blogger girlfriend while he endeavors to spread his poker genius worldwide. She has a way of laughing at him like no one else can, as if she’s seen his junk or something.

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ALT HED: The Sonny and Cher of Poker?

Rumorati

From our secret sources on the ground at the LAPC: “Amanda leatherman out at wpt. will be the new hosetess for napt on espn2. Wpt will have a temporary hostess at celeb invitational and is looking for a full time hostess”

If you want to follow the real, non-poker Premier League, you should be getting into Soccerati.com. Especially if you want to bet on soccer. UEFA Champions League getting underway.

We wouldn’t mind more followers @Soccerati on twitter, too. Might even start to send out some tweets as important games kick into high gear.

The Soccerati roster currently includes AlCantHang and JoeSpeaker … with The Rooster headed to South Africa for World Cup 2010 and thus still in negotiations over starting minutes with SangyFarha and DA Hasselbaink.

And, poker blogger creative success story …Chris Hanel — aka Pokergeek and one of some 30something bloggers who over the years have graced these not-so-hallowed Pokerati pages, btw, albeit briefly — is getting big internet kudos for his Hitler video of all Hitler videos, as featured on the ever-viral boing-boing:

via Mean Gene

TMZ is reporting that Jayde Nicole, 2008 Playmate of the Year (and hostess celerity opponent of PokerStars Million-Dollar Challenge to the rest of us) is taking on the Las Vegas porn slappers. Apparently, at least one of them is using her image to sell ass. She and her lawyers are not amused.

Rodrigo, our go-to source for Strip porn slapping, was unavailable for comment, and likewise PokerStars has not released a statement yet about whether or not they were negotiating a deal with the escort agency to cover her wares with a PokerStars.net logo in preparation for the NAPT. Insert “deposit bonus” joke here.

Woke up this morning talking a little Full Tilt with The Poker Beat crew … and looking back through some old archives …

I remember hearing about this “new site” from Clonie way back before they even existed (and the UIGEA was about as unimaginable as Barack Obama). Was looking to see if I happened to write anything that woulda implied a belief in ownership even before Pokerati’s traffic was borne from Google searches for “Clonie Gowan naked”.

I did not find anything resembling contractual evidence, but I did come across this site’s first-ever post … which seems a bit ironic in hindsight. For those wanting to join me in this self-indulgent quest for perspective:

APRIL 21, 2004
ON TILT?
It seems like everyone and their grandmother is opening up an online poker room these days. And why not? Each imaginary table that pops open in the cyberether forms a little vortex of constant pecuniary intake (no matter what’s happening in the game itself). But is the market at a saturation point?

Probably so, but that didn’t stop Full Tilt Poker from going online this week. Despite the competition, I suspect this site — a venture put together by a bunch of top pros (Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, Howard Lederer, Phil Gordon, et al.) — will fare well. Haven’t played it yet, but at first glance they’ve upped the graphical interface significantly. And the ability to give your avatar facial expressions … very cool. Could change the online game when you think about it.

Posted by Dan Michalski on April 21, 2004 09:20 AM

Click the links, which are archived.org … bias or not, honestly surprising that the judge wouldn’t give these sorts of old records a look, let alone her attorneys a chance to depose the other defendants about them.

LOL: Is the market at a saturation point?

ALT HED: Kicking myself for not using an affiliate code

The Cake Poker blog has an interesting post recounting the role of poker in the lives of those who’ve ascended to the American presidency.

It includes this interview with Richard Nixon, who supposedly funded his entrée into politics with poker winnings. (Starting at about 2 minutes.) He also talks about skipping a get-together with Charles Lindbergh because it was poker night, evaluates how the American love of poker lines up with the Russian predilection for chess, and recounts with detail about the time he got a royal flush in a game of 5/10 5-card Stud (at which point the interviewer seems to zone out):

[via Spaceman]

Speaking of Oklahoma .. Clonie officially lost her lawsuit against Full Tilt last week. Though attorneys tell me it’s very strange that this case couldn’t get at least to the discovery phase — I mean it was all out there very publicly … she clearly had some relationship with Full Tilt, so in most cases being able to dispute the contractual nature of said relationship would be perfunctory.

Anyhow, bummer for Clonie and selfish-bummer for those of us who were curious to hear what the likes of Chris Ferguson, Ray Bitar, and Howard Lederer had to say about the early formation of Full Tilt under oath in the heat of deposition.

But here’s the judge’s three-strikes and you’re out ruling, with some explanation of why she will not get her day in Federal court. Seems more a matter of legal strategy than the merits of the case to me … but maybe some others with more-than-none law-schooling will weigh in on that.

Her attorneys, Howard & Howard, btw, will have another go in Nevada state court moving forward representing Jason Newitt and that other guy, Hilton Warmback in their similar contract disputes with Full Tilt.

Mostly unrelated, but hey, there’s a video … the day before this ruling came down, Newitt won the PLO/8 tourney and about $17k at the LAPC. Not bad for a guy who may or may not own a piece of Full Tilt:

The US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling earlier this month that American plaintiffs are not entitled to get their day in American courts for discrepancies with offshore online poker sites.

This case specifically addressed two players in Ohio who sued PartyPoker claiming collusion. However, the court ruled, and the Appeals court upheld: Sorry, take your beefs against Party to Gibraltar. When they signed on and agreed to play, they did so accepting Terms and Conditions agreeing to handle all disputes in Gib, nowhere else, the court said.

Here’s the tale from poker-law expert I. Nelson Rose:
Trial in Gibraltar or Jail in Ohio

In it …

But the concurring opinion of Judge Merritt, quoted above, should give all Internet poker operators and players some nightmares. He ruled that the case had to be heard in Gibraltar, because to allow Ohio state law to apply would mean Wong, Gibson and everyone working for Party Poker would have to go to jail!

No one had raised the issue of whether Internet poker was illegal. “But sometimes courts have to raise embarrassing questions that both parties to litigation had rather we overlooked.”

Not so sure I agree that this decision “should give all Internet poker operators some nightmares.” I think it’s kinda the opposite. With Full Tilt juggling cases of varying frivolity out the ying-yang, I gotta think they’d be pretty happy with what could be precedent to force plaintiffs to take up matters outside (the US).

Party Gaming’s stock, btw, has been doing quite nicely of late:

PRTY.L

Even though I’ve gotten hooked on two-minute video interviews and have kinda taken a personal change-of-interest-pace and started paying attention to actual tournaments … big names are starting to win at the LAPC, WSOP-Circuit Tunica is kicking it old school, everyone wants to know how the Venetian Deep Stacks is gonna shape up with PokerStars heading to town, and I really gotta make it over to the M Resort to check out this whole PartyPoker Premier League thing … I still tune in almost-weekly to APCW Perspectives Weekly for a little catch-up on the international poker and online-gambling-related political scene for 10 minutes at a pop:

This week J Todd keeps us abreast of California and New Jersey’ desires to get in on the online gambling game from a state-size perspective, updates us on the online gambling fund-transfer cat-and-mouse game with MasterCard and Visa getting more serious (just three months before they are legally required to do exactly what they are trying to do), fingers the Eldorado Casino as a potentially shady site to avoid, and tease me with some affiliate business stuff that I don’t really care about but am interested to watch because of the hidden-camera + foreign-accent nature of the upcoming interview.

Here are a few other semi-related newsy links about how things are going elsewhere in the poker world:

The Mayor of Baltimore is pushing for poker+table games despite the governor of Maryland having less of an interest in making expanded gambling a priority.

Michael Barnier, the newly appointed EU Internal Markets Commissioner, promises to straighten out inconsistencies in European online gambling laws.

Police in suburban Alabama are cracking down on / raiding the real-money tournament scene there.