Compare for yourself … Layne Flack starting his night on the red carpet at Pure, and finishing it on the cold concrete floors of LV city jail:
One pairing at the NHUPC drawing party at Pure that might deserve a little attention: WSOP Commish Jeffrey Pollack, who was in attendance to draw a few pairing balls out of the keno hopper, showed up with (and left with) Jon Miller, Executive VP of NBC Sports, and apparently the network’s top acquisitions dealmaker guy.
Pollack and Miller are supposedly longtime pals … and with the WSOP’s contract with ESPN expiring next year, the two sure did seem extra-chummy. And though I’m not sure who would be courting whom, at least one well-informed, scotch-drinking little birdie tells me there’s more going on between the two of them than just a casual one-night hook-up at a Vegas club.
Here they are on the red carpet with what some might say look like bedroom eyes for each other as the two discuss what makes for good poker on TV:
And here (starting at 2:04):
The 64-player field competing for $500,000 (on a $20k buy-in) this weekend has been set (up) — with pairings drawn last night at a kick-off party at Pure.
Click here to see the full bracket and make your picks. (This bracket-maker is kinda new to me, so not sure whether or not you can see my predictions here.)
Some of the more interesting pairings to me:
Tom Schneider vs. Gavin Smith
Clonie Gowen vs. Jennifer Tilly
Sammy Farha vs. Doyle Brunson
Hooman Nikzad vs. Greg Raymer
Chris Ferguson vs. John Juanda
Chris Moneymaker vs. Jerry Yang
Jean Robert Bellande vs. Sam Grizzle
Norm Clarke — kinda like the Alan Peppard of Las Vegas, with an eyepatch — has the inside poop on the IRS shakedown of Pure. Does this sound familiar … an industry making ridiculous amounts of money, tons of it going untaxed … so the Feds rough up one of the big ones to get the model of how things really work? What happens from there I’m not so sure. But it’s kinda like Neteller, right? Either that or a mid-level agent got turned away at the door and was pissed! Evidentiary text messages between door guys and unthankful bottle-whales included … can’t wait ’til a little Paris Hilton-sex-and-drugs emerges somewhere in the records.
Meanwhile, this week, Pure will be the site of the “drawing party” for the NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship. I wonder what a doorman would say to anyone who slips him a twenty and asks for a receipt.
I used to do business with the underground poker rooms in Dallas. I use the phrase “do business” lightly, as it generally meant these guys were willing to front me a couple hundred bucks whenever I needed a rebuy, which may have just been good poker. Regardless, I decided to leave all those red chips behind to work for PartyPoker — one of the biggest companies in the UK until Uncle Sam threatened to imprison my new bosses if they didn’t get out of Dodge by sundown. Bummer.
So now I have moved to Vegas — follow, the legal money, baby! — and find myself writing about bars, shops, restaurants, nightlife, etc. (among other things – sign up if you already haven’t). Good times, right? Maybe … but PURE — the swanky, Batface-friendly nightclub immediately next door to the Caesar’s Palace poker room — just got raided last night by the IRS.
More from the LV Review-Journal here.
Wha? The Feds also hit the Pure offices … seizing computers, paperwork, and presumably DNA samples. Perhaps coincidentally — or not — all this comes less than 48 hours after Dubai World, the Middle Eastern company that invested $5 billion into MGM/Mirage, reportedly bought a 50 percent stake in the Light Group, the biggest nightclub confecture in the world.
Yeow. This apparent shakedown has to be about way more than drunken chicks from Nebraska pretending they are Paris Hilton and slutting it up for guys who can thumb their noses at $350 bottles of Red Bull-and-vodka. But then again, maybe not.
