My name is Kim Shannon, and I’m all up in everyone’s bidness… which is why Pokerati invited me to share with you the poker gossip and celebrity “news”. My initial response was “I’d rather drink a thumbtack-and-jalapeno smoothie”, but then Dan reminded me that I still owe him a beej from a prop bet I lost… so here I am.

Let’s skip the gristle and get right to the bone, shall we, with what’s buzzing in poker … or wait, is that coming from my purse?

Clock Blocked

Word from the felt is that Daniel Negreanu and Andrew Robl have kissed and made up in the wake of a spat over last week’s episode of “The Big Game”, in which Negreanu & Tony G were poster children for fucked up poker etiquette. Poker bitching about implied collusion aside, I hadn’t seen so much high-fiving and snickering since I last got “Eiffel Towered” in a drunken MFM.

After the broadcast, Tony G redeemed himself by posting a quasi-apology, but Daniel kept the drama going with a post of his own expounding on Robl’s nittiness. I was in the middle of reading Robl’s rebuttal when I realized that I had been punching myself in the face the whole time over the pettiness of it all. However, I do feel the need to give Daniel a special award for managing to refrain from calling Robl a “cunt”.  Then, just as I was about to start placing bets on who would blow a gasket and sprain their vagina first, Negreanu ruined my fun by saying he has since called Robl and smoothed things over.

A-Rod’s Poker

Alex Rodriguez was in the Ivey Room at Aria with Jean-Robert Bellande last week — supposedly playing 50-100 NL with a couple non-pro Aria regulars. Tweeting from Haze Nightclub, @BrokeLivingJRB reported that A-Rod “won 3k” in the game, which sounds to me more like 5-10 without steroids — hardly enough for new pair of Yankee-caliber starter tits. Dealers say A-Rod tipped adequately, btw, tossing “like $36 in gravel” before leaving the game. Not one to hit-and-run, he was back at the tables a couple days later, playing 10-20 NL at Bellagio. John Kim snapped a pic. Orel Hersheiser (great first name, terrible last) also joined the action somewhere along the way.

Put Your Mouth Where Your Money Is?

And speaking of blowjobs… Huh? Oh, we weren’t? Oopsies. Well, we’re all definitely on the subject NOW; rumor has it that Phil Ivey was promising fellatio in lieu of a Wynn boycott. The buzz at 2+2 is that Ivey flipped out over a ruling on a craps roll and publicly promised to suck a little floor-cock, and maybe the croupier, too, if he ever returns to their tables.

Ivey went a little less homo at Bellagio, where he was drinking cognac and whiskey while shooting dice with 25-year-old pro golfer Andrew Kim. Review-Journal columnist Norm Clarke reports that Kim got so rowdy management had to step in and request he stop screaming “fuck!” and “hard six!” at the top of his lungs … because hookers could get offended and verbal is binding?

Elsewhere in the Game …

Marco Traniello and Jennifer Harman got remarried a couple weeks ago by an Elvis impersonator for their 10th anniversary. At least some people have enough decency to muster up fake happiness in front of a fake celebrity with a fake 11-inch peen in his jumpsuit.

Johnny Chan is hoping to land a spot on the new season of “Survivor”. Never thought Chan would try to follow in the footsteps of Annie Duke and Tiffany Michelle. Over/Under on getting tossed off the island more quickly than Jean-Robert Bellande?

Royal Flush Girl Melanie Iglesias was chosen as a Top 10 finalist for Maxim Magazine’s Hometown Hottie contest. Congrats. But Maxim? Yawn. Impress me when you get a full spread in Hustler’s Beaver Hunt.

Justin Smith knows what I’m talking about. The online pro better known as Boosted J attended a wrap party in LA for the movie “Detention”, where he went heads-up with Ron Jeremy, better known as the Phil Ivey of overweight hairy middle-aged porn stars.

You be the judge … good poker face on Spencer Bachus (R-AL) as he and his wife congratulate Rafe and Phil for their good great work fighting cancer?

Perhaps one of poker’s staunchest political opponents is softening … Either that or it’s hard to oppose money for cancer, especially at an event sponsored by Pfizer.

Prevent Cancer’s Spring Gala, where they present this award, is one of the bigger annual DC fêtes. Some details on the event itself:

Our 2010 Spring Gala will be held March 12 at the National Building Museum, our theme is the Indelible Impressions of India.

The Prevent Cancer Foundation Annual Spring Gala is widely recognized as one of Washington’s premier events, attracting more than 800 guests from the business, diplomatic, government, medical, sports, media and social communities.

The 2010 gala will be held under the honorary patronage of Her Excellency the Ambassador of India, Meera Shankar.

BIZBASH Washington has recently recognized the Prevent Cancer Foundation’s Annual Spring Gala as one of the Top 100 “must attend” charity events in Washington, DC!

The folks behind PreventCancer.org specifically honored Rafe and Phil for their work with Bad Beat on Cancer, a charity well-known in poker circles, and one the foundation credits for helping the organization vastly expand its reach over the last several years while raising more than $3 million for cancer research.

Prevent Cancer takes no shame in loving on poker. The 6th Annual Bad Beat on Cancer charity tournament is May 4. It’s one of the organization’s biggest fundraisers, and thus one of the biggest poker-minded DC shindigs of the year.

Phil Gordon is the official host.

No word on whether or not Bachus intends to play in that event, nor how many rebuys he’d have on hand.

ALT HED: Play with the Politicos

Also, check out Rafe’s blog. Not exactly the kinda thing you’d expect Bachus to embrace.

photo: pokergossip

William Hung was the first “celebrity” I noticed, as he arrived as soon as the red carpet was ready for action. And the poor guy was the only one from the red carpet featured by Perez Hilton today, and not featured in a particularly good way.

Food was excellent as usual, with a random assortment of Asian and Greek set-ups, along with the yum-yum appetizers floating around the room on waiters’ trays.

No DJ in the outdoor area like last year’s event, but it actually made for a more conversation-friendly atmosphere on the patio.

Wicked Chops scored seats in the tournament. I spent way too much time trying to figure out how that happened.

photo: pokergossip

Reports of the demise of the Phil Laak/Jennifer Tilly relationship were evidently untrue, as the two looked typically couple-y as usual – Jennifer in a beautiful outfit, Phil in saggy jeans and a hoodie.

Some celebrities on the “confirmed” list were no-shows, such as Camryn Manheim, Montel Williams, and Nelly. (Yes, I was more than disappointed about one of those absences!)

CORRECTION: Manheim was there, and Jen was still disappointed. -DM

Shannon Elizabeth and Derek Hough are still a couple and just as adorable as ever, with Shannon checking on Derek and his amateur poker experiences throughout the evening.

Contrary to all reports from the tournament, Antonio Esfandiari was not the first person eliminated from the tournament, as Mike “SirWatts” Watson (former WPT champion) was out of the tournament and standing with us at the bar when that announcement was made. Ouch.

New to my social radar were Mike Watson and Shane Schleger, both of whom were introduced to me by Gavin Griffin and Kristin Roberts and very nice to chat with.

Also met Jamie Gold for the first time, who was extremely friendly and psyched about his Aced Poker affiliation, though my question about his possible ownership in the company was met with the standard “details of the contract cannot be disclosed” line. Good brief chat anyway. (His calling card gives him the title “Poker Philanthropist.”)

Mekhi Phifer took the reigns during the rebuy period, grabbing the mic and encouraging players to rebuy (or even just donate) to his charity, The Vine Group, to help educational efforts in Africa. He was a great spokesperson for the organization and raised $78,270 for it, while managing to maintain his usual humble but outrageously sexy demeanor.

In order to give poker players their own special place to waste time socialize with others in the industry and discuss poker happenings, a new site was launched a few weeks ago called Poker Players Social Network .

PPSN features the ability to upload and share photos and videos, connect with others in the community through friends’ lists and joining groups specific to each player’s interests. There are close to 500 members so far, including everyone from Joe Schmoe poker player to some pretty big names like Doyle, Annie, and Hoyt.

I’m not sure what the future holds for PPSN, but it seems to be taking off quite nicely.

So that left most of us doing what you were doing … following some rather exciting coverage of a relatively unexciting, straightforward final table on PokerNews while listening to play-by-play on Bluff Radio (which was being piped into the media room) while watching live-camera coverage on a flat-screen monitor.

The media room, anytime there was an all-in and a call. CardPlayer decides not to run with the hedline: ESPN blogger violates Rio chair-standing policy

Actually, large-scale LCD screens were sprinkled throughout the hallways and the Amazon itself, so we could watch the overhead cam pretty much anywhere we went. We just couldn’t camp out for more than a few minutes near the real action. But that was fine by me, because we’ll all get to see The Jerry Yang Show soon enough on TV, and the World Series really is about so much more than just poker. As it turned out, there was lots of fun stuff going on away from the table that provided a little insight into how the poker industry really works …

Removal of non-final tables and chairs, for example. Operational logistics can be a hefty load.

And the dismantling of the controversial “poker superstructure.”

I stumbled into these guys while wandering through a back hallway. Oops, sorry about that. Didn’t realize you were filming. Hey, no guns this year?!? Interesting. OK, right, shush, “Take 2!”

The WSOP gift shop was bumpin’ … Lots of merch to get rid of and a clearance sale to boot!

To help facilitate consumer demand, an extra storefront was set up inside the Amazon room. As seems to be WSOP tradition, it feels multiple degrees colder inside on the final day, and sales of hoodies go way up!

Oliver Tse was hard at work throughout the main event. Tom Schneider may have been the 2007 WSOP Player of the Year, but Oliver was clearly the 2007 WSOP Playa of the Year. In his first year as an agent, he had three clients at the final table. Here, two of them are heads-up: [Imagine Oliver voice] “Jerry Yang raises under the gun and Alexander Kravchenko moves all-in from the big blind with pocket threes. Yang calls with KING-QUEEN OFF-SUIT. Flop is eight-clubs, three-hearts, two-spades. Kravchenko flops a set with no straight or flush threats. Yang is drawing dead. Kravchenko doubles up through Yang to eighteen million four hundred thousand tournament chips.”

[display_podcast]
(recorded Dec. 2006)

Others were busy paying off prop bets. This guy would get about 50 feet inside the Amazon room before security chased him away.

Too bad he didn’t make it to the live webcast stage with Phil Gordon, Ali Nejad, and I’m not sure who the other guy is.

The action was down to four handed on dinner break ….

There was a special VIP shindig inside the Rio’s super-fancy Palazzo Suites.

Sitting around the coffee table with (left to right) Jamie Gold, Chris Ferguson, Devilfish date, Devilfish, and Marcel Luske.

Tom Schneider took advantage of the open bar (stocked with top-shelf liquors) and started pounding Milwaukee’s Best Light. “It’s really not bad,” he tells me. “I can drink this. I’d even say I like it.”

Ahh, so much more relaxed. Here Tom chats it up with Knych Keller, the communications director for Corum watches. “Do you like the bracelets,” she asks.

“I love them,” Tom says.

“How come you aren’t wearing them?”

“Uh, well, you know, I’m not really a jewelry kind of guy.”

“Ah-hah.”

Soon Jeffrey Pollack would join the conversation, at which point Tom, perhaps showing off his skills honed on Beyond the Table (?) would offer a rambly monologue about the greatness of the WSOP compared to the WPT.

The Commish then invites him to serve on the Players Advisory Committee.

“I’d be interested in that,” Tom says.

“Done!” says Pollack. “You’re going to make a fine Player of the Year.”

Then veteran sportscaster Howard David (left, with his wife, Phyllis) would invite Tom to sit in with Robert Williamson providing color commentary on the Bluff Radio broadcast of the final table.

“Done!” says Tom.

Gee, this poker business is easy, he thinks.

Important WSOP ladies Laura Hill, Angele Marshall, and Karen Williamson share a collective gasp: “Hey, who let that Pokerati guy in here?”

Meanwhile, around an outdoor bathtub, Michelle Lau discusses her and Marcel Luske’s new website endeavor with the man behind 3PiggsPoker, an online poker room exclusively for South Africans.

Raymond Rahme is still alive and trying to stay focussed on the task at hand as his friends wander around the private Palazzo Suite pool while draped in a South African flags.

After dinner, all head back to the table, where there is a special ceremony for Tom …

Robert Williamson and somebody really important from Miller Brewing (sorry, didn’t catch his name/title) presenting Tom with a cardboard representation of the $40,000 that goes with being the Milwaukee’s Best Light Player of the Year.

Cards get back in the air, and Donkey Bomber gets prepped for an interview for the live final table video webcast.

Um, Tom … eyes front. Too much glare when you’re looking down.

Apparently once you are on TV people want your autograph.

And Tom (wearing his Corum bracelets now) would begin hearing little voices in his head telling him to win more.

But as the night wore on and action heated up, spectators outside the “arena” were getting cold and tired.

Eventually the table would get to heads-up, featuring Tuan Lam, a short-stacked pro vs. Jerry Yang, chip-dominant amateur for $8.25 million.

By 4 am, Yang had won it all. An inspiration to many — proof that you too can become the World Champion of Poker with neither big-tournament experience nor an online poker account!

And with that, all the fun that was the 2007 WSOP comes to an end.

ALT HED: How I Spent My Summer Vocation

The WSJ’s unscientific poll is currently running 77-23 in favor of skill. Read the article and you’ll see this isn’t about rehashing old theories and debates … because really, what do you think the poll results would be if we asked: “Is life primarily a matter of skill or luck.” I am guessing 77-23 might be pretty close to the results here, too.

In the article, Lederer espouses a new talking-point argument that I hadn’t yet heard/thought of:

The “vast majority” of high-betting poker hands, he says, are decided after all players except the winner have folded. So if no one shows his cards, Mr. Lederer says, “can you legally argue that the outcome was determined by luck?”

Cool stuff — and good to see, in the ivory towers at least, a growing recognition of how some of what is currently shaking down in the poker world reaches into important future matters of internet law, international law, international business, and economics.

After his strategy session wrapped up, Prof. Nesson led the group to a bar for drinks. He was delighted, he said, at how the group “pushed game theory to the level of metaphor.” Sipping a scotch on the rocks, he tossed out the idea of creating a poker university, with himself as one of its teachers. Then, “we could infuse all levels of education with the skills that come from poker,” he said.

Like, ohmygosh, who, was, like thaaare?

I’m sure all you fellas would have been happy to take my seat next to Karina Jett (now with Full Tilt) and Evelyn Ng. Evelyn will be missing the Bellagio main event today to honor appearance commitments in North Carolina and Virginia this week. Karina left early with some guy named Chip (also now with Full Tilt), and were quickly replaced by cigar-toting Amir Vahedi and girlfriend Christy. Amir was kind enough to show us some dance moves, but was challenged by Devilfish (who often mistakes me for Mimi Rogers). David Ulliot not only played guitar on his leg, but also did some thrusting dance moves on the table. This is hard for any man (except for these or maybe these) to beat.

Ever polite and sweet Thor Hansen had brought along a group of young guys with stars in their eyes. Evelyn graciously went over to say hello after Thor suggested her appearance would make the young men’s evening.

CardPlayer was there with video on hand to catch all the action and I had to turn them down like 14 times for an interview. So, they reluctantly interviewed some other players named Gavin Smith, Layne Flack, Devilfish, Jeff Madsen, Mike Sexton, Evelyn and Clonie.

Thanks Choppy Poo and Chris. I had tons of fun.

UPDATE: Here’s the wild and crazy CardPlayer video report. Woo woo!