Speaking of Thrillist … my other, non-poker gig … one thing we’ve learned over there is that Thrillist readers care way more about night clubs, booze, restaurants, race cars, and tiddy bars than they ever do about poker.

So I was a little surprised to get the numbers back from last week’s edition, where an item about Phil Hellmuth’s new website for his clothing line was the highest performer. Really? Yep … A decidedly non-pokery readership found the PokerBrat’s T-shirts and Pep Pills more intriguing than an MGM bar, a new gambling-themed wine, casino decor, and a corner of P-Ho where blackjack dealers wear lingerie:

From Thrillist:

Wear: PokerBrat Clothing
These surprisingly subtle tees come from the John McEnroe of poker, 11-time WSOP champ Phil Hellmuth, with highlights including “Poker Tree” (”grow that chip pile from a toothpick to a lumberyard”), and “Poker Skater”, harkening back to his U of Wisconsin transpo from barroom games back to his dorm. Less tastefully, Hellmuth also hawks books, DVDs, and “Go Heads-Up” energy pills, guaranteed to keep you at the table long enough to lose your subtle tee.
Check out shirts and more at PokerBrat.com

They really are some pretty cool shirts. But perhaps the scary thing is clicking through the site, where Hellmuth tries his hand at pokery grocery-store romance. Click below to read about a poker-bratty encounter with the woman who would later become his wife:

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In a move that may or may not say anything about the state of poker on TV (or even just the state of TV for that matter), the show Stargate Atlantis is doing a little filming in Vegas today … at Planet Hollywood. Something about looking for a serial killer at a high-stakes poker game visited by aliens who hold the fate of the planet security in their hands. The Las Vegas pros at the table — Todd Brunson and Roy Winston(?).

Airs January 2 on the Sci-Fi Channel.

ALT HED: Extra, Extra!

Click below for the episode descrip:
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There are 50 poker rooms in Las Vegas, so we thought you might appreciate the assistance of fellow degenerates in narrowing down the possibilities of where to play when you come to town. The votes have been tallied … and four places stood out above the rest … In what may or may not become a recurring tradition around these parts, Pokeratizens say the Best Poker Rooms in Vegas are:

Gold Medal
The Venetian

Great regular tourneys, Deep Stack Extravaganzas, plenty of all-but-the-highest-stakes action, bottled Fiji water, and maybe the escalator that dumps off drunkenly clad party girls coming out of Tao right in front of The V’s poker room make it far and away the favorite of this website’s readers/players/dealers.

official site / TPA

The separate tournament room really is cool, if not the best in town, and the comfortable multi-tiered cash game area never seems short of action appealing to the masses of big little-stakes players. Great freerolls for regular cash players, too.

official site / TPA

Still home to the biggest games in Vegas (in terms of buy-ins), thereby drawing the most pros and the players who want to challenge/sit near them. Everything Bellagio is always luxe, of course, and their regular $500 and $1k tourneys makes the chance to play for baller money an in-town constant.

official site / TPA

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SCOTTSDALE, AZ–As I make my way back to Texas, I heard there was a big Chinese Poker game taking place in the Valley of the Sun, on a table made of suede no less, so I had to go check it out. Donkey Bomber was at the table — fresh off a plane from North Carolina, and frankly, a little shocked to see me there having not applied for media credentials through him — as was two-time bracelet winner Pat Poels, a dude named Rocky, Pokerati’s newest sexy blogger Big Robert, and Jesse McGinty … a Chinese Poker champion who apparently gets no love from CardPlayer, journalistic or otherwise. He won the inaugural $5,000 “Grinder” Chinese Poker Championship at Planet Hollywood (taking home about $50k) … but try to find mention of him in the magazine and it’s near impossible, even though CP was all over this event. (Was I the only one who went to a J-School that gave us an automatic F if we misspelled a name?) Also find it curious that Bluff didn’t include this Chinese Poker tournament in their rankings — even though it was a $5k event, which is the line they use — and vehemently defend — to determine which tourneys matter.

Anyhow, it’s starting to become clear to me … the Arizona Posse gets no respect. No wonder they are all so angry all the time.

The Chinese contingent of the Arizona Posse: (L to R) Robert Goldfarb, Jesse McGinty, Pat Poels, Nekpal Singh, and Tom Schneider.

They were playing $25-a-point (with royalties), which would grow to $50-a-point and then $100-a-point and then betting on drawing seven cards at random from the deck and making the best five-card hand. (I almost bought into that action. In fact, now that I think about it, getting 4:1 on $50 with no skill disadvantage … probably a mistake not to.) Learned a lot about playing Chinese from these guys. For example, I had no idea you could play five-handed with two decks, but you can! And when I questioned their use of non-Kem/Copag cards — they went with the more papery Bicycles — it was not because they were cheap, but because 100-percent plastic cards are a little too slick for optimal Chinese splays. Who knew!?!

(The AZ-Posse, that’s who.)

The Bellagio-like spread health-conscious buffet at Casa de Goldfarb.

Though I left before the game broke, McGinty seemed to be the guy to beat, as he was up a couple thousand dollars by 2 am.

CardPlayer’s non-embeddable video coverage of the event won by the Irish Italian guy above. Click to watch.

LAS VEGAS–Ooh, meant to tell you about Michael “the Grinder” Mizrachi’s new deal as the face of Planet Hollywood’s poker room. Good fun to be had, particularly at the special Chinese Poker table, you can only imagine. Then again … though you gotta like the concept of pros-turned-hosts at brick-and-mortar poker rooms, I’m not really a fan of P-Ho, as Pauly calls it.

Click here to read the review I submitted to The Poker Atlas, in which I call this locale “my least favorite room in Vegas, if not anywhere.”

Click here to see the CardPlayerTV interview with Mizrachi that ignores the regular presence of horrible music/jackhammers in the background.

P.S. Wonder if my opinion would be different had two $60 tournaments (with re-entry permitted) and two 1/2 NLH sessions resulted in better than nearly $700 in losses.