Yo, Scott, the super-secret package has arrived. Dude, thanks so much for sending being dead money in the eyes of Harrah’s. I feel handicapped in a good way. Go Batfaces.

I like to troll Craigslist every so often for some hot, anonymous NSA poker action. Not looking for games — there’s no shortage of ‘em here in LV — just wanting to take the pulse of what people are pushing related to poker. Look at the ads all together and you get some interesting tells on the state of the poker world and its semi-anonymous inhabitants:

There are a lot of chips , tables, fancy custom tables and chips and tables for sale, of course, and for $15 a made-for-TV WPT video game. WSOP: Tournament of Champions for the Playstation goes for $8

For $150k you can have documentary footage of the rise and fall of Jamie Gold.

A WSOP baby’s blanket.

More chips, from the Aladdin, and from the Atlantic City Playboy Club. “Omaha Table” from Sante Fe Station.

Perhaps frighteningly, there are even poker bots for sale. At least one suspicious reader is questioning whether or not this is legal.

More…

As I surveyed the room, it was about what I expected/hoped for. Mostly pros and several table with 5-6 well known players per. Sure, it would be tough as could be, but what a great experience nonetheless. At first glance, Ted Lawson was the only player I recognized at my table, sitting to me immediate right in the 2 seat and fresh off a win in one of the prelims. Then I saw that Mark Newhouse was in seat 6. Okay no biggie. Come to find later that Theo Tran was in the 1, John Racener the 7 and Michael Esposito in 5. There was also a very aggressive Asian kid in 10 who appeared to be a pretty good player at first blush.

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In the WSOP-Caesar’s main event:

Troy “Darling” Phillips has been sitting on a comfortable stack all day. He’s currently got about 20k in chips, which puts him well above average.

TBR has been playing short-stack poker all day, hardly getting above the starting 10k in chips. With blinds currently 100-200+25, he’s got about 4k in chips.

UPDATE: Pictures taken shortly before the dinner break …

TBR, currently running on less than fumes.

This chair got its aces cracked.

TBR and Darling are in town to play in the $5k WSOP Circuit main event at Caesar’s today. To prepare for it, the two of them and yours truly played in a $500+50 single-table satellite last night (go collusion! Troy’s money!).

With that lineup — and Troy’s playing really well of late, having chopped a satellite earlier in the day — what do you think the odds are that we would all play for nearly an hour-and-a-half and not one of us would finish in the Top 5?

Just to be clear, it was really TBR+vodka playing.

Remember these guys? They are blogging again, only different:

DALLAS–I happen to be on my old stomping grounds … to play a little Batface poker and try to do the work that police can’t and get to the bottom of the string of robberies here. (Pokerati’s conclusion, despite declarations to the opposite a few weeks ago: the Dallas Poker Bandits are a single group of three or four people hitting one room after another … not random coincidental robberies by different sets of two black guys in ski masks.)

Anyhow, this post isn’t about robberies in Dallas or police raids in Houston — everybody wants the poker money, don’t they? … it’s about the April ’08 issue of Bluff. Though these articles aren’t online yet, three of the four they highlight are about Texans:

One is about how to be like Houstonian Sammy Farha. Another is about poker politics and ledes with a certain group of Dallas players wooing Congressman Pete Sessions to get behind pending poker legislation. And a third is about Gavin Griffin, a former Dallas underground dealer who became poker’s first “triple crown” winner.

Not only do I think that is Texas neato, but also I think it says something about the state’s continued super-relevance in the game. But hey, maybe I’m biased.

After being snowed in at DFW for a night, a contingent of Batfaces is en route to Vegas — presenting the biggest threat to my bankroll since setting up camp in the Valley. A lot of these guys and other friends/sisters have wanted to know how I am doing out here in cards/women. Here is the answer, for Dec 30-Mar 7:

North Texas fireworks kingpin Ran Nelson brought his tight-aggressive Dallas game recently to the Mandalay Bay.

Though I haven’t been writing much about anything it, I have been hitting the tables here in Vegas. Have sampled a handful of rooms and action … spreading the lore of the Hammer and the Sang all along the way, of course, as I seek to replace the competitive camaraderie of the Batface home game perhaps with something akin to Jackie’s back in the (Dallas underground hey)day.

That came easier than usual this week, when TBR-bro-in-law Patrick came to town. He was staying at the Luxor, so we met up at Cathouse for a drink. (Cathouse is basically like the Lodge without the nipples, and Celeb-chef Kerry Simon in place of Jose Luis.) A couple Lagavulins later, we walked over to Mandalay Bay, where we took two seats together at a $2/$4 no-limit table. This was bigger stakes than either of us had been playing, but hey, we were feelin’ half-drinky good, and it seemed a better option than waiting, as the room was totally full and festive on a Thursday night. A familiar face was seated with us – Ran Nelson, a very good Dallas player whom I hadn’t seen since the days of Jackie’s – what a delight. He had a new cardmarker, a square block of acrylic with his little Stuey guy inside of it, surrounded by chips from the various important poker rooms to Ran, including WinStar in Oklahoma and the old Sixth Street in Dallas.

I was playing great – more-than-doubled up in about an hour by trapping a well-stacked opponent in classic Dan-style … but then was back to square 1 a few hands later when I got unlucky on the turn … and back to square 0 when I don’t remember what I did but I am pretty sure it was stupid, starting with playing the likes of [cards]qs 4s[/cards].

Mandalay Bay
$2/$4 NLH
Buy-in: $300
Cash out: $0
Food: starved
Drinks: $28
Net: -$328

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I used to do business with the underground poker rooms in Dallas. I use the phrase “do business” lightly, as it generally meant these guys were willing to front me a couple hundred bucks whenever I needed a rebuy, which may have just been good poker. Regardless, I decided to leave all those red chips behind to work for PartyPoker — one of the biggest companies in the UK until Uncle Sam threatened to imprison my new bosses if they didn’t get out of Dodge by sundown. Bummer.

So now I have moved to Vegas — follow, the legal money, baby! — and find myself writing about bars, shops, restaurants, nightlife, etc. (among other things – sign up if you already haven’t). Good times, right? Maybe … but PURE — the swanky, Batface-friendly nightclub immediately next door to the Caesar’s Palace poker room — just got raided last night by the IRS.

More from the LV Review-Journal here.

Wha? The Feds also hit the Pure offices … seizing computers, paperwork, and presumably DNA samples. Perhaps coincidentally — or not — all this comes less than 48 hours after Dubai World, the Middle Eastern company that invested $5 billion into MGM/Mirage, reportedly bought a 50 percent stake in the Light Group, the biggest nightclub confecture in the world.

Yeow. This apparent shakedown has to be about way more than drunken chicks from Nebraska pretending they are Paris Hilton and slutting it up for guys who can thumb their noses at $350 bottles of Red Bull-and-vodka. But then again, maybe not.

July 2007: Gavin Smith, partying like a rock star at Pure.

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I can’t make it, but Gentle Shane can’t wait to host the next one.

Come one, come all!

ED. NOTE: NSFW

From the Dept. of: They all look alike …

Players around Dallas/Danang may recognize this guy:

Kinda funny.

Legendary Batface, Darling Phillips, made a ridiculously poor snap decision and is playing in today’s WPT event at Beau Rivage in Biloxi. Heaven help us, and Heaven help those who try to push him off a flush draw.

UPDATE: He did not win.

THACKERVILLE, Okla.–North Texas player Abteen Vaziri just said now that I know his name I can delete it. He is out. He wins $2,500 for finishing in 55th place. Much of Abteen’s recent success has come from study of Joe Navarro’s book on tells. But he misread a pulsing neck vain for weakness when in reality it was pocket queens.

Sorry dude.

Looks like it’s up to Josh, Troy, and/or TJ to do the Dallas gamers (whose names Pokerati knows) proud.

UPDATE: Troy “Darling” Phillips is out. He got pocket jacks on the button and raised. The ever-aggressive big blind pushed all-in … Troy called … and would learn the sad news that he was up against aces. Ouch!

50th place. $3,000. Still, nice job by the Batfaces favorite sugar daddy curly haired representative. It’s only a matter of time before he runs out of money makes another final table.

UPDATE: Josh Evans also appears to be out. Turned away for a second and his table was gone … and he couldn’t be found elsewhere in the field.

Interestingly enough, while Kido Pham and Greg Raymer were brought out here (and presumably bought in) by WinStar … TJ Cloutier simply showed up on his own and plunked down $1,100. Definitely not a charity event for him. And to think, they don’t even have craps in Oklahoma. Can we say positive EV?

With 45 players left and blinds at 4k/8k+500, Cloutier has about 165,000 chips. Average stack is 111,000.

UPDATE: Just learned that Cloutier was bought into this event by a heretofore unnamed military-ish backer in Dallas … who has 50 percent of the poker hall-of-famer.