Pics below from his first night in town:

The caption on the second one, of course, is probably more accurate than any coulda imagined at the time!

The daily briefing from Pokerati’s always reliable Vegas nightlife informant:

photo: Shane O’Neal/N9NE Group

Rain Nightclub inside Palms Casino Resort hosted the 40th Annual World Series of Poker Event Thursday night (7.9.09), a private event which featured a special performance by Grammy award-winning artist, Nelly. The evening consisted of poker stars and celebrities who joined as one with PokerStars.net to celebrate poker at its finest. Dressed in a white polo shirt and jeans, Nelly arrived with an entourage of 15 people. Shortly after midnight, he hit the stage and rocked a 40-minute live performance in front of a packed house. In addition to singing top hits, “Hot In Herrre,” “Dilemma” and “Country Grammar” he also treated the crowd with two songs from his new album expected to hit stores in the fall.

Others in attendance included: actor and poker player Chad Brown; professional poker players Daniel Negreanu, Gregory Raymer and Barry Greenstein; actor and comedian best known for his role in Seinfeld, Jason Alexander; and actor who was recently crowned the winner of reality TV series, I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here, Lou Phillips.

English rock band Duran Duran partied at Playboy Club at a VIP table. They arrived with a couple friends and were seen drinking beer, leaving shortly after midnight.

ALT HED: Chad Brown’s an Actor?

Watch Jean-Robert Bellande and the Amazing Bowling Bodog Girls on RawVegas.tv

Special pass-bys by Charles Barkley, Mike Tyson, and Oliver Tse … plus the Insider and the Tight Laydown. Dr. Pauly sits in with the crew … and gotta say, as the first episode I’ve ever heard just as a listener, this Poker Beat thing is a pretty good show!

on PokerRoad

The Poker Beat
Caldwell, McGwire, Wise, Nemeth, Stapleton
7/2/09

So much sayable about this, lol … and we can use the phrase “lol” because twitter comes into play. More Phil Hellmuth making a mockery of a few orbits before being pulled from the 2-7 Triple Draw … Tiffany Michelle talking about experimenting with UB and her breasts … Layne Flack being Layne Flack … Shawn Rice and Debo sitting … and just about everything else you might expect from a celebration of, by, and for “anyone who is anyone” in the UB poker world:

AlCantHang fills in for yours truly to record the first ever Tao of Pokerati episode mid-lapdance — an “event” joined by DrizzTDJ and (briefly) Calfornia Jen. Change100 gives the (awesome) play-by-play. Plus Kathy Liebert … and is that Tom McEvoy?

Tao of Pokerati at the 40th WSOP
Las Vegas, NV

Episode 11.27: The Best Party of the Year (feat. AlCantHang)
1:27

Episode 11.28: Grindcore Poker (feat. Change100)
2:51

(Interlude …)
0:05

@Phil_Hellmuth

UB party starting at Studio 54 at MGM! On my way, i am making my entrance on a trapeze!! also i signed up for 2-7 tourney, c em a 11 pm
about 13 hours ago from txt

Sunday July 5 i show up to WSOP as ‘Caesar: with 100 models, 11 muses w body paint, a chariot w 2 horses, and a drummer dropping rose petals
about 8 hours ago from txt

15,200 extra chips are in play going into Day 2 of the $2,500 2-7 Triple Draw — roughly a third of which belonged to no-show Phil Hellmuth before tournament officials removed his remaining stack (in level 5) and refunded his late buy-in.

Plenty of grumblings about this situation from the rail …

Hellmuth bought into WSOP Event #55 by proxy — presumably near the last possible minute — with his 7,500 starting stack brought to the felt shortly before the end of the break between levels 2 and 3. His seat in the Brasilia Room remained empty for hours as he attended a much-ballyhooed Ultimate Bet party at Studio 54 in the MGM.

Hellmuth’s stack had been blinded down to about 2,500 when the event TD approached Chris Ferguson, who was playing, and asked if he had Hellmuth’s phone number. Ferguson did, and the TD called but got no answer. So he then called his supervisor, who apparently instructed him to remove Hellmuth’s chips from play.

Shortly thereafter — in Level 5 still — the number of entrants on the screen was reduced from 258 to 257, and prize payouts were downgraded accordingly.

At the end of Day 1, the 73 remaining players bagged a total 1,942,700 chips, even though the appropriate number for 257 players in a $2,500 event would be 1,927,500. No word yet on where the 10,000 chips that didn’t belong to Phil Hellmuth came from.

Click here to follow the action in $2,500 2-7 Triple-Draw when play resumes at 2 pm pacific. Plenty of interesting big-name pros and 2009 bracelet winners still in the hunt — Negreanu, Ankenman, Sung, Mueller, among them — along with a few dozen lesser known mixed-games grinders … all competing for a $166k $165k bracelet.

Tom Schneider is long gone (of course), but Team Pokerati’s more successful Schneider, Julie, is still alive and in the middle of the pack with 25,700 chips. Pat Poels is hanging at the middle-bottom with 21,900. And Pokerati pal/TP-rushee Rick Fuller is near the chip lead.

Thanks @haribo22 for the twitpic of Phil from Studio 54.

Big tourney for me tomorrow, of course. Half a million bucks at stake in what seems sure to be an organizational fustercluck.

In the meantime, as of a few days ago, none other than PokerStars is all over (literally) the Palms. Get the sense that with hundreds of main event online qualifiers shacked up across the street from the Rio the low-stakes cash games will be extra-juicy there?