So action is about to get underway. Players are unbagging their chips now. A few thoughts on what we are seeing/hearing:
- Dennis Phillips has close to 200 fans — all of them are wearing the same shirt he is, with the same patch logos.
- He and all his friends are die-hard Ford supporters (as per their patchwork), though it is uncertain whether or not Ford paid for such a placement.
- Many of his friends and fans began drinking at 9 am.
- Dennis has a great URL pimped on his shirt — thechipleader.com. (I\’m sure Karridy is jealous.)
- Kelly Kim\’s fans are chanting out the letters of his name.
- Favorite Dallas transplant dealer Linda Tran will be dealing this final table. She was working with the felt yesterday to get her pitch right — because, after all, she has never dealt multimillion-dollar pots before.
- The Penn & Teller Theater is a pretty cool venue — very vertical. Jen and I are in the orchestra pit … but there\’s also a press box way up top that requires taking an elevator to get to.
- Personal opinion: the whole stage set-up should be flipped 180 degrees. The way they have it now, the Milwaukee\’s Best Light No Limit Lounge completely blocks the table view for all the fans in lower seating. They still can watch on 20-foot plasmas, but regardless, having the lounge against the back wall instead of blocking the stage would also allow ESPN to show 100s of fans in the background.
- They do have a hot-chick DJ spinning tunes, however, in front of the No-Limit No-View Lounge.
- Ivan Demidov\’s fans are all Russianed up — wearing funky hats (they\’re called Babushkas, I think?) and hammer-and-sickle garb.
- Ylon Schwartz is super quiet and subdued. He also looks like my old pot dealer, Booger.
- Gamma-O \”testosterone booster\” passed out those inflatable phallic thingies that people can bang together to make noise.
- Kelly Kim\’s crowd is the loudest, now screaming \”Double Up!\”
Go Craig Marquis! (Even though I think you\’re probably too young to pull off the victory. Prove me wrong!)
