Shoot, I hadn’t even finished writing up my Amazing Race elim post yet … and already, Maria Ho is off to do a pretty major nationwide TV appearance … and it’s supposedly not even related to The Amazing Race.

She’ll be appearing on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360″ tonight at 10 pm ET/7 pm PT — as part of a panel about women in male-dominated professions. She is scheduled to appear alongside Suze Orman, Dee Dee Myers (the first female White House press secretary), and a neurosurgeon.

Here’s CNN’s teaser for the segment.

An update on a story from last month, but AJ Benza confirmed earlier this morning on 2+2 that he has been replaced on High Stakes Poker (taping for season 6 starts in November) by a woman cohost.

Unconfirmed reports name Vanessa Rousso as his replacement.

AJ has more on the decision at his blog.

High Stakes Poker will begin taping for season 6 on November 11th, possibly without co-host A.J. Benza. He appeared on the Sept. 20 episode of the Miserable Men show on Sirius/XM Radio channel 101. During an interview on the show, Benza mentions that there are rumors that his role on the show will be replaced by a female cohost, as discussed in the audio below:

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HT to sadler40 for the original post on 2+2.

Some strange happenings in poker this Sunday:

Abraham Korotki, a WSOP Circuit Main Event winner in 2006, beat formidable odds to take down the $300 Borgata Ladies’ event on Saturday for just under $21,000. The “last woman standing”, Nicole Rowe, who recently discovered she had breast cancer, finished 2nd, good for just under $12,000.

On the Left Coast, TMZ.com reports that Poker PROductions, the makers of the NBC show Face The Ace, is being sued for $85,000,000 by Brandon McSmith, who said the company “stole” his idea called “The All-Star Poker Challenge”. McSmith’s idea consisted of a player having to defeat five pros in a series of heads-up matches to win prize money and a $10,000 WSOP Main Event seat, with the contestant having the option to risk their winnings after conquering their opponent. This lawsuit appears to top Gambling Times’ lawsuit against Scott Lazar for $1,000,000 for lack of product placement in the poker movie “Deal”, which grossed under $100,000 in lawsuits that will go nowhere.

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…

101 players remain as the players return from their dinner break shortly. The current chip leader is Darvin Moon of Oakland, Maryland with 5,700,000 in chips. Some notables returning with chips: Eugene Katchalov (3,600,000), Fabrice Soulier (3,550,000), Jeff Shulman (3,200,000), Phil Ivey (2,680,000), James Akenhead (2,500,000), Antonio Esfandiari (2,300,000), Dennis Phillips (2,200,000), Tom Schneider (1,571,000), Prahlad Friedman (1,280,000), Peter Eastgate (940,000), Noah Boeken (481,000), Joe Sebok (300,000) and Kenny Tran (262,000). There are still two women left as well: Nichoel Peppe (1,300,000) and Leo Margets (1,195,000).

Notable eliminations: Joe Hachem, David Benyamine, J.C. Tran, Theo Tran, Bertrand Grospellier, Blair Hinkle and Joe Serock.

The Dream Team Poker event is down to Kenna James versus Judy Tejwani for the individual title. Congrats again goes to the Tao of Pokerati team for clinching the team title a few hours ago. Live updates now available for the Main Event at www.wsop.com and more stuff from the rest of the writing team during the evening.

The implementation of this year’s WSOP bracelet ceremonies have been a hit thus far, as play is stopped in the Amazon Room for Jack Effel and Jeffrey Pollack to announce the previous day’s bracelet winners, award them the bracelets and Harrah’s Diamond Rewards cards, and play the national anthem(s) of the newest WSOP winners. In general, it seems to go over well each day with players, fans, and media alike. Today? Not so much.

Ville Wahlbeck is a Finnish player, and his ceremony culminated in the playing of the Finnish anthem. Not sure what the song actually was, but Benjo reported that Finnish players seemed perplexed. And according to Benjo’s conversation with Wahlbeck, it was NOT the Finnish anthem. Whoops.

Yesterday, media row received a visit from Dan Frank, owner of a relatively new player representation company called Top Set. He announced that there would be a “can’t miss” formal introduction of the company just after the start of today’s ladies event.

We watched from media row as a line of people marched into the Amazon Room with a bright-lighted camera filmed the entrance. Led by a petite woman, Frank followed, as did a string of rented ladies in Top Set logo’ed skimpy-ish t-shirts and tight pants, and they all paraded around the room. After taking the long route and finally ending up at a table, the lead woman sat down to play in the event, and the rest of the crew took places on the rail to cheer her on. Who was this woman? No one knows. And the Top Set website said nothing whatsoever about her, as there is no woman even listed as one of their clients. None of the media recognized her. And, she was out of the tournament by the end of the first level. Serious flop.

It was two years ago that I wrote my first opinion piece about the WSOP ladies-only tournament. After I received a sufficient amount of hate mail, I wrote a follow-up piece. I skipped the subject at the 2008 WSOP except for a few snarky comments, and now it slaps me in the face yet again as I sit on media row in front of a sea of women. In lieu of a rant or reiteration of my previously-stated feelings on the issue, I’ll just relay a few notes.

• When your practice game isn’t at a casino but in a home game with your husband and your dad, you might be in trouble at the WSOP.

• When your first instinct at the table is to introduce yourself to everyone and ask where they’re from instead of sizing them up and concentrating on your own strategy, you’re giving off a big tell.

• If you have to apologize for knocking another player out of the tournament, you’re not cut out for tournament poker.

• When the floor staff is openly yawning while observing the tables, the play is not exactly top-notch.

• When tables full of women squeal at every mention of finishing a level or moving to a new table, this is clearly not a room full of pros.

• When the tournament announcer says that another event’s restart will be in the other room to “make room for all these beautiful ladies,” they’re talking to you like you’re “special people” and you shouldn’t smile about that.

Media row is half empty today and will be until the 5pm start of the World Championship O8 tournament. And those of us who are here are praying for the men to arrive for other events so it evens out a bit. For me, add some women-tilt that came from a phone call attempting to convince me not to write anything negative about the Women in Poker Hall of Fame, and I’m simply trying not to write something that will get me bitch-slapped I may regret later. I’ll be staying out of the hallways on breaks, that’s for sure.

I never woulda expected to find such a thoughtful commentary on the role and position of women in the pervy world of poker (as discovered via Google image searches) on a porn blog:

http://asses.fucking4utoo.com/?p=242

Believe it or not, the above link is pretty close to SFW … if you excuse the blog’s subtitle.

I know it’s been discussed before, but a recent California “ladies” event held at the Bicycle Casino brings back that discussion. I was looking at Pokerpages on Monday and decided had a look at the Legends of Poker series of tournaments to see the latest results. Barbara Enright took down the title, but if you looked at who finished in 7th place (which has been removed) you would have seen poker author John Vorhaus listed. Fortunately the tournament reporter mentioned that Vorhaus, the chip leader going into the final table, “dressed appropriately for the ladies event wearing a red-haired wig and a dress”. Is this how “Killer Poker” is supposed to be played?

I personally don’t understand why men would want to play in a ladies’ event unless they’re either looking for attention, or that they’re so bad at poker they feel their best chance at winning is to play the “weaker” sex. Maybe it was done for a more noble purpose, so I hope the $725 was worth it.

Update: Vorhaus talks about his experience in the event on his blog.

Back at the beginning of the WSOP, I called the male species out for their sometimes disgusting/rude behavior. And it’s been a long time coming, but I’m finally ready to call out the females. I know it’s near the end of the WSOP, but there are things that need to be said.

Ladies (I use that term loosely in some cases), let me first thank most of you for not spitting in public or blowing your noses over the trash cans. I’m happy not to have to go there with you. Also, thank you to most of you for being classy and polite.

Then there are the exceptions to the rules. Speaking of rules, here are the primary ones I’ve seen broken during the WSOP.

1. Toilets
For the love of femininity, how is it that so many of you can pee all over the toilet seat? Honestly, if you feel you must hover, improve your aim or wipe the seat when you’re done. And before leaving the stall, take one moment to hit the flush button. I know it’s easy to get lazy and expect that the new-fangled toilets will automatically flush, but a double-check takes two seconds. I’ve seen things left in toilets that I couldn’t shake for days.

2. Boobs
This is a touchy subject. *giggle* The first half of the rule has to do with adjustments. Similar to the “Junk” section of the “Unofficial WSOP Men’s Guide to Not Being Disgusting/Rude,” boob adjustments done in public should be quick and easy. Anything requiring serious snapping or unsnapping of bras or adjusting with both hands under shirts should be done in private. The second half of the boob rule has to do with what’s out there for the world to see. In general, if more of the boobs are exposed than not, you’ve crossed over into exhibitionist territory. Trust me, you can show more than enough cleavage without letting it all slip out.

3. Asses
It’s pretty easy to tell where the ass cheeks end and legs begin. That little extra bit of fabric that covers the entire ass cheek is not only proper but classy. However, if you are a hooker, or even a stripper looking to advertise the business, let it all hang out. Show what you’re sellin’, baby.

That’s all I’ve noticed up to this point. Additions or notes are always welcome!