The poker shark just can’t seem to be jumped. While I don’t expect to see All In: The Musical on broadway any time soon, apparently some people believe that poker players actually go see shows, or at least that they are more likely to if the show is about poker. The Real Deal is gonna be part poker theatre, part poker tourney, part poker game show, with audience members interacting with various pros on stage via wi-fi at The Venetian. Poker thespians will include Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Jr., Antonio Esfandiari, Gavin Smith, Eli Elezra, Jennifer Harman, Phil Laak, Scotty Nguyen, and Todd Brunson — guess they’ve got nothing better to do with High Stakes Poker gone — and surely it is only a matter of time before Hellmuth wins a Tony and/or The Producers will be brought to you by FullTiltPoker.net. No word on whether or not they plan to add hypnosis to the mix (”I will find inner peace and fold these pocket 10s”), but just to let the poker entertainmentpreneurs out there know, poker still has yet to be translated into any of the following:

Poker: the Topless Revue
Poker: the Pool
Poker: the Mechanical Bull Ride
Poker: the Buffet
Poker: the Surgery

Who says there still isn’t room for growth in this industry? Click below to read the full press release, and for more info about a show that will be sure to dazzle us in frightening ways before the end of the year:

More…

The World Series brings all sorts to the Vegas Valley … including time travelers, apparently, as the kids from Vegetable Soup’s spaceship (circa 1975-79) have shown up behind the bathrooms outside the poker kitchen:

Seriously, weird no?

Benjo filling the Outerscope 1 with petrol.

Phil Laak and Jennifer Tilly arriving for the $1,500 Pot Limit Hold’em event.

Results are in from Event #1. For some reason I thought Medic was an Arizonan — but turns out he’s a Serb now living in Canada.

Regardless, who knew such amazing action was going on? I think ESPN gets a hit with their first episode … and I gotta say, even though it was apparently all going down a tequila-bottle’s throw from the press box, I am looking forward to seeing how Nenad beat such an impressive field:

Official Report
Event # 1
Pot-Limit Hold’em
Buy-In: $ 10,000
Number of Entries: 352
Total Net Prize Pool: $ 3,308,800
May 30-June 1, 2008

Final Results:

1 Nenad Medic $794,112.00 Niagara Falls Canada
2 Andy Bloch $488,048.00 Las Vegas Nevada
3 Kathy Liebert $306,064.00 Las Vegas Nevada
4 Mike Sexton $248,160.00 Las Vegas Nevada
5 Amit Makhija $198,528.00 Brookfield Wisconsin
6 Chris Bell $157,168.00 Raleigh North Carolina
7 Patrik Antonius $124,080.00 Helsinki Finland
8 Mike Sowers $99,264.00 Thomasville North Carolina
9 Phil Laak $74,448.00 Dublin Ireland

Nolan Dalla’s official report below:
More…

I can already tell one of the top-quality media sources during the WSOP will be RawVegas.TV.

Check out how their red-carpet vid of a Bluff Magazine pre-WSOP kickoff party at Tao (the nightclub, not “of Poker“) gets a better interview about poker and the fun side of poker lifestyles than anything you see shot in the Amazon room hallways, and even probably what will end up on ESPN:

In this vid not only will guys like Ed get to see a boppity, cleavacious Jennifer Tilly talk about how and why poker players talk about quitting but don’t really mean it, but also they get to hear about Phil Laak’s freak-of-naturely impressive sperm count and how that may or may not lead to strategy-based pillow talk with a cougar.

I’ll also be interested in following RV’s WSOP video blogs from Patrik Antonius, David Williams, Phil Hellmuth, and Daniel Negreanu. These sorts of things have been tried before with moderate success (Negreanu’s were always good), and now that there’s one place where you can find a handful of them regularly with a little party-hearty mixed in — in high-quality video that always seems to work — how could this channel not become Must-See Internet for any serious poker geek following the World Series every summer? [via Wicked Chops]

Another day, another 2,000 players will be expected to start play in the first $1,500 NL event of the 2008 WSOP. When play starts shortly after 12pm PT today, the record for the largest field in WSOP preliminary event history will have been set, all that’s left to be answered is if it can break the magical 4,000 figure. Today’s field will match the progress of day 1a, playing eight 60-minute levels plus the first 16 minutes, 13 seconds of level 9.

Today will also have the first final table, as the $10,000 PL Holdem event finished up just before 5:00am, setting up a fantastic final table under the ESPN cameras. This final table has something for every section of the poker community. You have the young Internet stars (Mike Sowers and Amit Makhija), players wel-known to the mainstream audience (Phil Laak and Mike Sexton), a female player (Kathy Liebert), a math genius (Andy Bloch), international stars (Patrik Antonius and Nenad Medic) and a good ole boy from North Carolina (Chris Bell).

Here’s how the final table will be seated:
More…

Rating: A-

This is one of the best comedies I’ve seen in a long time. I laughed myself to tears during several parts of the movie. I walked into the theater with low expectations and left thinking about seeing it again.

The casting was brilliant, as many of the actors are experienced improv comics and had no problem adding their own flavor and likely varying quite a bit from the original script. From Woody Harrelson to Ray Romano, from Richard Kind to Dennis Farina, and from David Cross to Chris Parnell, most everyone took their characters to the highest level. Even Cheryl Hines surprised me – only because I’m not terribly familiar with her work – in her deadpan scenes.

Numerous poker players were strewn throughout the film, like Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, Phil Laak, and Antonio Esfandiari. Gabe Kaplan had a main role, which wasn’t tremendously impressive but an integral and sometimes funny role nonetheless. Phil Gordon played a recurring role throughout the movie as the tournament commentator, and he was fantastic. Some of his lines were the best of the movie.

More…

Those who have HDTV might be familiar with a show that debuted this year on the MOJO network called “I Bet You.” It’s a 30-minute show featuring Antonio Esfandiari and Phil Laak as they travel around the country and bet on everything. Prop betting gone wild, if you will.

This is a clip from one of last season’s shows:

The show has been renewed for a second season that is currently filming and will be ready for air in early 2008. Antonio discusses many of the bets on his blog.

I talked to Antonio recently for an article to be published in the current issue of All In magazine, and he absolutely loves doing the show. “We bet on everything,” he told me. “I would say that on a daily basis, Phil and I make at least three or four bets in the course of our normal lives.”

There are some clips on the network’s website, and if you have HDTV, the show seems worth a TiVo or DVR setting.

On another note, I was also able to get him to confirm that he had no relations with Pamela Anderson, though we now know that it was indeed Rick Salomon that she did to get out of a poker debt fell in love with and married.

Recently stumbled across this video, where Phil Laak espouses the basics of bankroll management — i.e. 10 buy-ins and 100x the big blind. Personally, I think the 10 buy-ins needs to be increased for no-limit players … because otherwise, how does the “10 percent rule” apply when you lose your first four sessions of $1/$2 NLH? Are you still just waiting out the variance that you’ve accounted for, or is it already time to drop your stakes to a game that doesn’t exist?

Living and working in Los Angeles, just a few miles of nightmarish traffic away from Hollywood, it’s not difficult to keep up with tabloid journalism news of the rich and famous. And as they make poker news, this reporter is right there to help spread rumors and inconsequential news. You’re welcome.

Let’s start with MTV’s Video Music Awards that took place in Las Vegas last weekend. Sure, the important news was Brittany Spears and her, ummm, interesting performance at the show. But I’m here to give you the poker-related info.

Rolling Stone magazine took the opportunity of the celebrity mecca to Vegas to celebrate their 40th anniversary with parties and the obligatory charity poker tournament. Nowhere could it be determined what charity was benefiting from the event, nor what the buy-in was. It was confirmed that there were 15 tables that played out on Saturday, September 8, and some of the participants included Nelly, Kevin Smith, Joe Simpson, Brody Jenner, Cee-Lo, Ryan Cabrera, John Salley, and Vince Neil.

The winner? Rap superstar Nelly. At the WSOP, he played the $10k main event and donked off his chips in less than two hours. At this charity tournament, he outplayed a bunch of celebrities and won the thing. The best news was that he donated all of his prize money to charity.

How did Nelly go from donkey-status to semi-average poker player? Evidently, he’s been dropping in on home games with Phil Laak and Antonio Esfandiari. Homeboy seems to be serious about being a playa.

Other news at the VMA’s included the high school man-to-man fight between Kid Rock and Tommy Lee over Pamela Anderson, going forward to be referred to as Pammie. (Not that she and I are gal pals, but I like men to think so.) While the boys are fighting over her, she claims to be in love with a pro poker player. She refused to name the person to any source, even Ellen DeGeneres, but reportedly told one source that she was down several hundred thousand dollars in a poker game, and the player offered to take care of it in return for, ummm, take a guess. “I paid off a poker debt with sexual favors,” she said, “and fell in love. He took advantage of me… He’s a good guy.” And on the Ellen show, she confirmed that much and concluded with, “It’s so romantic. It’s romance.”

Awww.

The tabloids have put her statements together with some recent sightings of Pammie and Rick Salomon, infamous Paris Hilton sex tape entrepreneur, on a Malibu beach on Labor Day weekend, so rumors are running rampant that Rick is that poker player. Here’s a tip for Pammie and everyone else: Rick Salomon is not a professional poker player. Trust us.

But the Pammie rumor mill is not out of juice yet. According to the Las Vegas Magazine blog site, insiders are saying that Pammie’s new boyfriend is actually poker pro Antonio Esfandiari. Voila! That would be magical, wouldn’t you agree?

Speaking of Antonio, he’s made the tabloids lately with his recent Cristal-off. He was reportedly at the new nightclub Blush at the Wynn on the Vegas Strip, and he and NBA pro Kobe Bryant were each trying to buy more Cristal champagne than the other. Kobe ordered approximately 15 bottles – cheapskate! Not to be outdone, Antonio ended up ordering 26 bottles and spent nearly $35k for one night out. Then he told TMZ about it. Nice hand, sir.

A technologically significant poker match is going down right now in Canada — Phil Laak and Ali Eslami vs. Polaris, a supposedly bad-ass poker bot — for $50,000. Here’s an article with more specifics. (Thanks, Venita, for the link!)

This is a scientifically controlled experiment, being played in “duplicate poker” format. Further explanation of this concept here. To learn more and follow the action live, you can do so here.

That’s what Sommer the Batface is doing:

also, don’t imagine you’re following that bot-live-blog, but Ali is absolutely running over the computer in the first 75 hands, thanks to an insane run of cards. He’s up $350 (in limit). Will be fasincating to see if the bot can extract more or less money from Laak with the same cards Ali has gotten so far.

Very cool and interesting. I could see people lining up to try their luck/skill against Polaris. For example, while Laak and Eslami are clearly good players, I wonder how RaiNKhaN would do … you know, since he has been mistaken for a bot and all.

Has anyone seen this? For those of you who don’t have the INHD channel (which, sadly, doesn’t feature any Robert Wilsonky programming), Antonio Esfandiari and Phil Laak have a new show oh-so-cleverly called I Bet You.

The premise is exactly what you’d expect: They walk around betting thousands of dollars on completely inane bullshit. They bet on how much a shirt costs. They bet on whether a girl they meet on the street is wearing a thong or “regular panties.” They bet on who can be the best bartender and, later, who can get drunk and blow closest to .08 on a breathalyzer. All of which should provide for fun, rollicking scenes complete with plenty of spontaneous comedy. Instead, sitting through the half-hour show is like listening to Jamie Gold—it’s painful, and you don’t really want to do it, but you’re sure it’ll get better eventually so you stick it out. But it doesn’t get better. Trust me.

More…