Boys will be boys, and those of us in poker’s minority know this. The Wicked Chops entities made “hot girls” the norm for poker media, and the PokerListings guys have jumped on board with this gem, including comments about how their telephoto lenses are always “extended and ready.” Seriously, guys? Argh! But I’ve gotta be honest… The other side of that coin is that girls will be girls.

Believe it or not, there are some hot boys in poker who, with just a glance across the table, can make us drop our, ummm, chips. It is true that many of them, while looking good with their rock-hard abs and chiseled upper arms, do have poker “performance issues” (most of my hot boy picks didn’t exactly show positive results at the WSOP), but sometimes poker is hard! Even without final tables or gold bracelets, they still to stand out from the masses – at least 6 to 8 inches, I assume. Here are a few:

Chad Brown
Now that is what the gym is for. Not only is he in shape but he shows it off with his tight-fitting shirts. And he’s well-spoken and intelligent. Go on witcha bad self. Turn-ons: playing poker and traveling the world with wife Vanessa Rousso, donating to various charities, and working out.

Erick Lindgren
Not sure if he has rock-hard abs because his shirts aren’t tight enough, but he is athletic and good-looking. Best of all, he’s got a fantastic dry sense of humor. Turn-ons: playing poker tournaments, engaging in a little one-on-one on his home (basketball) court, and remembering reporters’ names (hi, Erick!).

Patrik Antonius
A list of hot boys would not be complete without Patrik, who likely was just born looking so amazing. His model good looks make everyone’s heads turn when he enters a room. Turn-ons: playing the highest stakes poker games in the world, living in Monte Carlo with wife Maya, and being a hot dad to his baby.

More…

They’ve been playing all day weekend, and are down to two at the NHUPC. And regardless of how it turns out Vanessa Rousso has arguably earned her keep as the Danicka Patrick of Poker.

(I’m keeping up with results on my own time at PokerNews, btw.)

I ranked her 55th. Overall, the ESPN panel put her 49th. But hey, just goes to show you, anyone can get an easy draw. The laughable field the newest GoDaddy spokesmodel had to beat, in order: Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivey, 2007 NHUPC champ Paul Wasicka, Daniel Negreanu, and online wunderkind Bertrand Grospellier, aka ‘Elky’. Hmm. Wow.

Meanwhile, my bracket’s turned to shit. Of the 96 players in on PokerRoad/Pokerati’s fun, eight people picked Vanessa Selbst to win it all, yet no one … as in ZERO! … picked Vanessa Rousso.

Of the final four, here’s how many people picked them to win it all:

Vanessa Rousso – 0
Sammy Farha – 0
Huck Seed – 5
Elky – 9

CORRECTION: Technically Mike Matusow is GoDaddy’s newest spokesboy. He went out in Round 1.

Happenings at the WSOP while the 2008-08 WSOP Circuit schedule was announced:

As the Day 2a field is on their dinner break, about 700 remain to play a couple more 2 hour levels before the survivors get the day off and return on Thursday. The current chip leader appears to be Brian Schaedlich, with about 500,000 in chips. With such a large field, exact chip counts are hard to come by, but notable players towards the top include David “Chino” Rheem, Brandon Adams, Keith “The Camel” Hawkins, John Hennigan, Mark Vos, Hasan Habib and Kido Pham. Notables who don’t need to worry about coming back in November: Paul Wasicka, Robert Varkonyi, 2007 ME final tablist Philip Hilm, Greg Mueller and Scotty Nguyen.

More updates later…

The Fontana Room Race for the gold continues as the field of 639 players has now been reduced to 27 lucky little devils skilled men.

David Levi ended the first day without increasing his starting stack while Scott Fischman was in worse condition ending with only 17k in chips. Yet, Scott and David stepped up to bat on day two and hit several home runs placing them currently in 8th and 9th.

But they better not slack tomorrow because Phil Hellmuth, Carlos Mortensen, Paul Wasicka, Roland De Wolfe & Paul Lee are apparently wanting to win this little tournament.

Today’s notable eliminations were Lyle Berman (WPT Chairman of the board), Justin Bonomo and Dan’s crush.

“Yukon Brad” Booth makes an impromptu appearance on tonight’s live broadcast of Beyond The Table // Dan gets called out for not reading his own Blog // Brad tells us why he would have lost money on the HUC results // Brad gives acclamations and predictions for HUC Champion, Paul Wasicka.

(Download (4:10, 3.82mb))

Just to be clear, I did not intend to throw Paul Wasicka under the bus, but rather wanted to point out how it’s interesting that a clear violation of the poker rules in live action (Rule #12) is by almost all accounts “permissible” in the online world. (Even if, at least overtly,the online sites like Full Tilt (Rule #3) “outlaw” such behavior.) Heck, even a WSOP champion has written about doing tag-teams, which I suppose is technically not a violation of the rule.