THACKERVILLE, Okla.–I don’t usually blog from the bathroom, but that happens to be where I am sitting right now … so I figured I’d share with you what I am reading:
(from top to bottom)
Asians have tiny balls
Takes one to know one
KKK
[picture of tiny penis]
KKK
J.A.W. [hearts] O.V.M.
White people havebigsmall dicks
Hitler wuz here
KKK
Fuck yNiggzersCrackersPacific Islanders
NOT LAS VEGAS–News media is always on the lookout for the next Jessica-in-the-Well, and yesterday there looked to be a chance of something like it when three teenagers kids ages 8-10 supposedly were trapped on a ledge in Red Rock Canyon — the coolest bit of Nature just outside Vegas. Well it turns out those crafty children were pulling a hoax on the rescue cops.
Anyhow, I’m glad there are no dead kids, because when I first heard the news of the potential tragedy, I instantly thought … “Ooh, this will be a good way to segue into my leftover pictures of Red Rock!”
Click below to see a different side of Vegas … taken one night/morning after leaving the Rio around 6 am, and for whatever reason, instead of going home to bed, decided to keep driving into the mountains:
LAS VEGAS–There was a shooting last night at Caesar’s Palace (also known as the Batface Getaway Resort of choice). Apparently two gentlemen got in an argument over a girl, fisticuffs ensued, and one of them went to the parking lot, returned with a gun, and opened fire upon exiting the elevator. Two people were injured, but no word on whether those shot were the ones that inspired the gun-getting. More here.
This follows a shooting at New York, New York nearly a month ago.
Ahh, the Columbine generation is all grown up now. (Even if the Caesar’s Palace shooter was a Gen-Xer, he had to learn the behavior from somewhere.)
Gambling is obviously bad.
LAS VEGAS–The WSOP may be over, but I can’t seem to leave this town. (Only thing that has me thinking I should start heading back is that I miss my dog.) Anyhow, funky atmospheric conditions going on here. It’s cooler now than it was in June, and it’s even been raining during the hot desert summer days. Like almost real raining.
ALT HED: That’s Poker Weather
We sometimes forget that poker players are a collection of social misfits, sometimes with a lot of money, sometimes not. We also sometimes forget that fame in the poker world is only a speck of dust on the Hollywood radar — and the rest of the world hardly knows a thing about any of our heroes/villains.
Kathy Griffin’s blind date with Mike Matusow:
(via Iggy)
ALT HED: C-List meets P-List
LAS VEGAS–Nothing to do with the WSOP, save for a few off-duty dealers and players who may or may not have been there …
But a gunman tried to pull a mini-Columbine at New York, New York last night, opening fire apparently at random toward and around the “Central Park” area of the casino. No one was killed, five people were hurt. All chips were protected as the shooter popped off 16 caps. In fact, the casino never shut down during the violent remonstrance nor the subsequent pandemonium. They did, however, lock down the tables (does anyone know if they finish the hands in play?) for a few hours, but never stopped patrons from playing the slots. About three hours later, New York, New York was fully operational, as if nothing strange had happened.
From the AP:
“There were flip-flops just laying all over the place like people were running out of their shoes,” Ramos said. “Within a minute and a half there were 30 to 40 police there. The cops just swarmed the place with M-16s and their guns out.”
I knew that damn blackjack shoe had it coming!
LAS VEGAS–So wow, what a night it’s shaping up to be … with 49 players left, Jeff Lisandro is the chip leader, and Tom is second in chips.
I’m not at the Rio right now, am instead sitting solo on my rooftop at Mountains Edge. It’s supposedly 105 degrees right now, but I swear it doesn’t feel warmer than 90. The sky is perfectly clear and the stars are bright. And as I follow the WSOP’s $5,000 No Limit 2-7 Draw w/ Rebuys — Player of the Year on the line — I am encircled by the colorful snap, crackle, and boom of pyrotechnics. Anywhere I look — whether toward the Strip, over Green Valley, behind me in the mountains, North Las Vegas, and even eye-level from one house ever — there are fireworks going off. I can’t do the 360-degree panorama justice with my photographic skills and camera equipment, but I can tell you this is really cool. A second hasn’t passed in the last hour without a sparkle in the sky — some from big fireworks shows, some from big spenders at the roadside stands, and others just shooting off the small things out their windows.
Amazing to think of the thousands inside the Rio (and other casinos for that matter) who haven’t a clue about the brilliance going on all around them. What a celebration of all that is right in Poker America.
UPDATE: Huck Seed has been eliminated. So glad I dropped him from my fantasy team instead of Tom. Change100 is no longer the reporter on duty for PokerNews. That means I no longer have a Tom-pimping connection with the official information provider. Ooh, just saw a really cool blue sparkler, followed by crazy screamers! The sky is really pretty all across the Las Vegas Valley.
LAS VEGAS–We’re coming to the tail end of WSOP Part I. And seeing the opening salvo of WSOP Part II — the parties, the Expo, the main event, yadda yadda.
The biggest deal today is HOWARD AND SUZIE LEDERER’S barbecue (w/ STEPHEN Z) the final table of the $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha World Championship … with DOYLE BRUNSON looking to put the screws to Phil Hellmuth:
Seat 1 – Doyle Brunson – 510,000
Seat 2 – Patrik Antonius – 650,000
Seat 3 – Marco Traniello – 420,000
Seat 4 – Rene Mouritsen – 775,000
Seat 5 – Tommy Ly – 1,895,000
Seat 6 – Jonas Flug-Entin – 445,000
Seat 7 – Steve Sung – 175,000
Seat 8 – Stephen Ladowski – 360,000
Seat 9 – Robert Mizrachi – 1,090,000
Click here to follow the Best of Omaha, semi-live.
If you want to follow it closer-to-live, it’s being video broadcast today. Mean Gene tells me word is that the event won’t be sequestered … instead it will be broadcast without the hour delay, but no hole cards visible.
Meanwhile, at the secondary final table of $1,000 SHOE, PAT POELS (above) looks to reclaim the ARIZONA POSSE bracelet lead as he is gunning for his third. He was chip leader for most of the day yesterday, but took a big hit right at the end.
The Final Table:
Seat 1: Vladimir Shchemelev – 168,000
Seat 2: Chip Jett – 40,000
Seat 3: Dao Bac – 266,000
Seat 4: Imre Leibold – 250,000
Seat 5: Patrick Poels – 53,000
Seat 6: Raymond Davis – 235,000
Seat 7: Adam Geyer – 293,000
Seat 8: Michael Craig – 161,000
Click here to follow today’s most important mixed-games action.
Mad props to fellow Andy Beal stalker blogger MICHAEL CRAIG (left), who has made his second final table of the WSOP (and also has some ARIZONA roots apparently). CHIP JETT (right), who I believe hails from Arizona originally, is fighting to hang.
Tomorrow he and his wife KARINA are hosting an party at a Las Vegas strip club, by the way:
Another player to watch … RAYMOND DAVIS (left — not from Arizona) has also been kicking butt this year, and seems due for big score. LUCKY LIU (right) just missed the final table. He is STEVE WONG’S poker mentor. Shout out … nice go, LL!
Both TOM SCHNEIDER and MICHELE LEWIS are competing in the $1,500 Limit Hold’em Shootout today. Tom made the final table in this event last year, and Michele made a final table in Limit Hold’em, and cashed in a No-Limit shootout.
Since shootouts dictate that only one in 10 move on, Pokerati swears we don’t want to see them at the same table for the sake of PHOTOGRAPHIC CONVENIENCE.
DONKEY BOMBER wants to cash really bad in this — the deeper the better — to lock up Milwaukee’s Best Light Player of the Year. He’s trying to hold off JEFF LISANDRO, who is well-chipped going into Day 2 of the $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em w/ Rebuys event. Interestingly enough, these two have a pending $5,000 bet — not on who will finish higher in the POY standings, but over the NUMBER OF ENTRANTS into the main event. Tom has the under on 5,850.
If you have an opinion about the rightness of Ladies events, JENNIFER NEWELL has an interesting article — and new perspective on tournaments lacking a Y chromosome.
A different view of the POKER TENT you hear so much about:
Looks like something out of E.T., no?
This presumably has something to do with why a fourth Day 1 for the main event was added. Really would be unfair to any players who had to start in the “poker superstructure.”
Totally unrelated to poker but by a WSOP-conscious poker player … If you want to know what little things you can do in your everyday life without doing anything extra to preserve the environment, be sure to check out Lisa’s blog here.
As the WSOP rolls on, the cash games are getting bigger and bigger — but where are the pros? Follow coverage of the LIVE ACTION at PokerWorks.
Dallas Dealer BETH LAIRD, seen here with ALLEN CUNNINGHAM and STEVEN Z(olotow) in the $1,000 2-7 Triple Draw w/ Rebuys.
RAFI AMIT won that event in the early Monday a.m. As they tend to do in mixed games, the ARIZONA POSSE represented … with DANNY FUHS just missing the final table, but still scoring a POSITIVE EV cash.
LAS VEGAS–I’m Michele Lewis, reporting for PokerNews.com: OK, not really, but I play one on TV.
Check it out, the Fresh Princess talking to Thor Hansen about Omaha Hi Lo and $5k 7-stud and, briefly, the WPT’s single-dimensional approach to poker. But the best part is the second half, where they rehash the terror of the “Poker SuperStructure” (Jeff Pollack’s words, not mine) … which succumbed to a fierce Vegas windstorm.
It really was funny/scary. Early in the $1,500 Omaha Hi Lo, Jim Meehan (seated at Michele’s table) was setting an over-under on when the hardwall tent would fall. It was kinda sorta a joke at first, but as the windspeeds picked up and things began shaking almost violently, a few folks were starting to wonder if the WSOP didn’t have a Great White situation developing, not to mention a chip-counting nightmare. Shortly before dinner break, things began snapping, and power on the flat-panel tournament info boards went out. That’s when the highest level suits were called in. And to their credit, they relocated the overflow tables inside the brick-and-mortar poker room (the players and dealers, not the tables themselves).
Just in time … A gaggle of us were at the Masquerade bar at the other end of the Rio celebrating Tom’s bracelet when word came in via text message: One of the walls gave way. Wow. Serious disaster averted. Though Thor suggests maybe not so much.
By the way, these winds, which reached 65 mph in Las Vegas, happen to be fanning wildfires, including one just on the other side of the Red Rock Mountains, the range that marks the Western edge of the Las Vegas metropolitan area.
I think I’m flummoxed. I mean sure, SEO is so 2006 … but Pokerati’s traffic has been growing, our content has been improving, other blogs continue to find reason to link us up, and we’re ready to bust nuts at the super-big frickin’ WSOP! Yet in the eyes of almighty Google, we are less than we once were — as Pokerati’s “page rank” has dropped from 5 to 4.
This may not mean much to most of you, but it’s kind of a bummer to poker web geeks, especially those of us who just finished reading Search Engine Optimization For Dummies.
Big Brother Google must have recently recalibrated its algorithm or something, because their page ranks have dropped, too. Check it out:
Pauly dropped from 6 to 5
PokerProf — from 6 to 4 (LasVegasVegas dropped from 7 to 5)
Bill Rini — from 6 to 5
The Fat Guy — from 6 to 5
Iggy — from 7 to 5
PokerBlog (run by the SEO team at PartyPoker) — from 6 to 4
Wicked Chops — from 5 to 4
PokerWorks — from 6 to 5
CardPlayer — from 7 to 6
Bluff — from 6 to 5
worldseriesofpoker.com — from 7 to 6
PokerStars Blog — hanging tight at 6
Up for Poker — hanging tight at 5
The Poker Biz — from 4 to 3
For the past few months, Pauly (TaoPoker) and I have been discussing the possibility of a sweet WSOP prop bet. We haven’t ironed out the details yet but it would involve Dan dressing in drag to register for the Ladies Event at the WSOP. Known in the Amazon Room for his pink shirt and girly glasses, he should have no problem getting a seat, no?
Joe Sebok is fond of WSOP costumes maybe he will join in the action…
If you haven’t had enough of famous politicians running for President, now you can throw a playa into the mix.
Greg Raymer for (Vice) President!
Hmmm, I see campaign contributions flowing already.
OK, I am losing faith … I am thinking a few people need to die before poker becomes a priority.
Right now the debate on the Texas House floor is about some consulting fee to improve county jail standards — and it’s turning into a bitter fight about who’s got a worse lock-up, Dallas or Harris County. (Dallas has had major inspection failures four years in a row — and the Dept. of Justice is not happy.)
It’s all reminding me of the last time I followed a specific legislative push in Texas — looking to address dire circumstances faced by prison guards in 2000. The correctional officers had been getting stabbed and beaten at an alarming rate, Hepatitis was running wild, and the gangs were growing stronger with the violence seeping into the free world … and they never got anything heard on the floor. Why? Because too many pols (who weren’t specifically opposed to improving things for prison guards) were afraid of looking soft on crime.
The best EV in the eyes of the Legislature came from just not getting to the matter.
ALT HED: RE: Not-so-Super/System
UPDATE: Here’s the totally non-poker article on Texas’ prison woes, for those who happen to be interested in the potential for bad decision-making by elected officials.
Great post by the great Daddy. And I’m not just saying that because he espouses the TBR 2007 mantra, “Tight is right.” Read for yourself and decide. (And how does one apply for these sorts of credentials?) (Via Drizz.)
It’s always good to see the non-pokery people paying attention to the poker issues of the day.
