Really it's your choice. The Internet's fun like that.
UPDATE: We missed the accompanying Jennicide video at FHMonline.com. Actually it's better than the photos. Check it out here, after you watch the cow clip.
The top-spot accolade Down Under is one spot better than how Keeley fared in FHM UK's Sexiest poll, where she finished second just behind Jessica Alba (<-- worth the click).
Just as Barney Frank introduced his blanket repeal of the UIGEA on Thursday, Senator Jon Kyl (Fascist-Ariz.) issued a statement saying that he will "strongly oppose any efforts to ease or remove" the anti online gambling bill he and his cronies trojan horsed into law last October.
Today Kyl was at it again, this time penning an article that appeared in the National Ledger, and specifically discussing efforts by the poker industry to carve out an exemption for online poker.
After a grueling heads-up match that saw the chip lead go back and forth multiple times, Carlos Mortenson defeated Kirk Morrison to win the WPT World Championship.
Mortenson, the 2001 WSOP Main Event champ, becomes the first person (i.e. "man") to win both the the World Series of Poker's championship event and the World Poker Tour's championship event.
For the win, Mortenson banks a WPT record $3,970,415, of which he will meticulously stack into some cool looking tower in his house. Maybe he'll make a castle out of it. Or maybe El Estadio Santiago Bernabeu.
Get full payouts here.
Most importantly, the money was of course presented by the Xyience Xenergy girls. One of them is Monica. She is below.
Carlos Mortenson has always been one of our favorite players to sweat. Cool, calculated, great table presence and intimidating as hell. Even if he's Rainman-esque in stacking his chips (as seen in the photo to the right courtesy of PokerWire.com.
But Spain's Mortenson provides one of the more interesting story lines for this year's WPT World Championship: Can he become of the first person to win both the WSOP ME and WPT World Championship? Can he? Seriously. Fucking can he?
In related news, in Card Player's Day 5 round-up, they expressed a potential belief in the heavens being occupied by pluralistic deities. Evidence below:
And on the fifth day of the 2007 WPT Championship, the poker gods said, “Let there be six.” While some argue that the deities do play a role, the fates of the 27 returning participants ultimately came down to those six with enough skill, and luck, to reach the World Poker Tour televised final table.
Listen, we're all for the Ancient Roman ways of orgies, debauchery, and manly rights to make women submit to your will, so we're totally with Card Player there. But multiple gods? Haven't we evolved past that?
What kind of sick, twilight zone, backwards ass world do we live in when our U.S. elected representatives tell us Americans, here in the land of the free, that we can't gamble online in our own homes but British citizens are able to play real money poker right off the home page of Yahoo!?
For more news on Yahoo! UK's new poker offering, surf the Internet.
For Google's move into the poker world, wait.
For info on how to be a part of poker's sickest poker posse, Team AOL, go here.
The ridiculously simple online audition process for "Calvin Ayre Wild Card Poker II" ends soon, or if calendars are to be believed, in 10 days.
Those who want to appear on the "Apprentice"-like, poker-themed reality TV show in which 12 amateur poker players (no pros or celebs like last year) live it up for a month and compete for a $2 Million Grand Prize package have until May 6 to either upload a recent photo of yourself (so they know you don't look like this) or submit a one-minute video making a case for why you'd be great for the show.
And if you are one of the 12 who make it on the show, you have a 1 in 12 chance, according to the team of expert statisticians we just consulted, to win $1,000,000 in cash and a $1,000,000 contract to join Bodog's poker team.
Wow, $1 Million in cash. Just what we need, another million dollars. Seriously, as entities who aren't so much into money as we are made of money, we often ask ourselves, "When is enough ever enough?" Do we really need another yacht for our Pacific fleet, or another white tiger for the Vegas condo, or another shipment of kalishnikovs and RPGs for the guerillas in Myanmar?
Actually we never ask ourselves this question. It's a stupid question.
Unfortunately though, we found out after making a video of ourselves to the tune of "Beautiful" by James Blunt that we can't compete on the show for reasons that have nothing to do with us being the half-brothers of Bodog's Calvin Ayre and more to do with the fact that we get shipped Bodog girls to our Vegas and Atlanta offices every month in exchange for that advertisement you see on the right.
Oh well, guess we'll settle for lovely Bodog Girl Samira, who you can see looking lovely after the jump . . .
U.S. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) introduced this morning the "Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act of 2007," a bill that would effectively repeal the UIGEA by creating an exemption to the ban on online gambling for properly licensed operators, thus allowing Americans to lawfully bet online.
As we reported two weeks ago, there is no carve out for poker, as Franks sees no need to "draw a distinction between poker and blackjack" in his efforts to undo the "preposterous" UIGEA.
According to Gambling911.com, the Financial Services Committee will hold a hearing entitled, “Can Internet gambling be regulated to protect consumers and the payments system?” at a date to be determined in June.
For a Q+A about the Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act of 2007, including info on consumer protections and license requirements, click here.
For a link to a link to a link of the scandalous solo-riffic sex tape erotic educational video of G911's Jenny Woo (seen in photo pledging allegiance to Wicked Chops Poker), go here and scroll down to the first comment.
UPDATE: Relevant links off the House Committee on Financial Services website (all PDFs):
We'd be lying if we told you we knew much about Paul Lee (not to be confused with Paul-y).
Coming into the Five Star this month, he had a slew of minor and medium cashes in tournaments over the past decade. But not much of anything that would get panties wet (or what we like to call "what happens to the ladies when we walk in the room").
1989 WSOP ME champ Phil Hellmuth was around the chip lead for the early part of the day, but took some hits and has fallen down to 18th overall, with 738,000. 2001 WSOP ME champ Carlos Mortenson was like Ice Cube, climbing to third overall with 2,429,000.
Earlier today, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) announced that he would hold a press conference tomorrow at 10am ET morning to discuss his proposed legislation to repeal the UIGEA, or what he refers to as "a great mistake."
"Why anyone thinks it is any of my business why some adult wants to gamble is absolutely beyond me," said the House Financial Services Committee Chairman. "I spend a lot of my time trying to protect people from other people who are going to treat them unfairly. I have no energy left for protecting people from themselves."
"This is about freedom," Frank said today. "I'm not just concerned with poker. What's next? Mahjong?"
While Mahjong-related crimes and the tile-eyed degenerates who perpetrate it are no laughing matter, we understand the sentiment and applaud his efforts.
According to Politico.com, Frank "does not plan to actively sell this bill on the Hill after he introduces it; instead, he will wait to see if outside groups can do that for him."
"I'm going to let the voters do this one," said Frank.
For a complete analysis of the "long odds" Frank, and all of us, face in repealing the UIGEA, head over to Politico.com.
For Kelly Brook's new spread in RALPH magazine, take your pants down here.
Thanks to our favorite poker dealer Jimmy J. for the tip earlier today, which we weren't able to get to until now because nappy time went extra long today.
With 54 remaining at the WPT World Championship, Phil Hellmuth has taken the chip lead and is now stacked at 1,827,000 going into Day 4. In second overall is Raymond Davis with 1,704,000.
Some things of note:
:: If Hellmuth were to hold on like that song from Wilson Phillips and win the event, he'd be the first WSOP ME champ to also win the WPT World Championship. Also in the running to accomplish that feat is Carlos Mortensen, who goes into Day 4 stacked eigth overall with 939,000. We saw C-Mort in his car in the parking garage during play just listening to some music at one stage, so we're glad he cleared his head or whatever he was doing to relax in there and came back strong.
:: In case anyone forgot, Justin Bonomo is a freaking good player even when he's not multi-tabling the same online event. He's managed to cash in yet another event and is very healthy with an above average stack of 625,000.
:: Paul Wasicka is about average stacked. If Wasicka can pull through with a big finish, he may be able to challenge the spectacularly breasted J.C. Tran (at right) for the Card Player POY award this year. You can read Wasicka's blogging on the WPT site here.
:: Segue! With the elimination of Daniel Negreanu, J.C. Tran locks up WPT POY honors. Whether or not someone challenges him for best breasts honors this year remains to be seen.
:: And finally, the short-stack going into Day 4 is Patrik Antonius with 38,000. We observed Patrik getting a one-hour massage during play. When the female masseuse finished, Lady Chops asked, "Now, will she pay him for letting her give the massage?"
After the jump, a video of Phil Hellmuth and Jamie Gold discussing their bluffing prop bet in which Jamie made off with six-grand of Phil's money.
Looks like lawmakers in Washington State, not the Capitol, are wising up a tad bit.
Although we're not so much into reading laws as breaking them, hiring lawyers and fleeing the country, a quick read of the bill that just passed in the state that gave us Grunge, 'Bucks and Gates suggests that playing online poker in the privacy of your own home (but maybe not a friend's home) is no longer a Class C felony charge, which according to the funky bunch over at PokerPages.com is the same penalty for possessing child pornography.
Described by the lawmakers as "AN ACT Relating to providing an affirmative defense to unlawful internet gambling if the defendant committed the offense in his or her primary residence," the pertinent provision in the amendment reads:
"In a prosecution for a violation of this section, it is an affirmative defense, which the defendant must prove by a preponderance of the evidence, that the defendant transmitted or received the gambling information over the internet, or that the defendant installed or maintained equipment for the transmission or receipt of gambling information over the internet, in his or her primary residence for recreational purposes. For purposes of this subsection, "recreational purposes" means for the defendant's own enjoyment and not as part of an enterprise that derives income from operating an internet web site that transmits or receives gambling information." (emphasis added) - PDF of the bill
For our post on the law that passed in Washington State last year making online poker a Class C felony and interview with pokerer Seattle John, go here.
For his win, El Blondie walks away with £88,000, which is approximately $176,000 US, because the dollar, like Rhowena when David is out of town, continues to get pounded abroad.
And you only have five days to act to be the proud owner of this "ultimate poker collectible" that, according to its auctioner "poker-kitty", was "used" by 2006 WSOP champion Jamie Gold "just prior to winning the biggest cash prize ($12 million) in all of sports history."
Poker-kitty, who has a 100% positive feedback rating on eBay and is a 100% douchebag, goes on to say: "The mint in question was acquired (via rubber gloves) from a hotel men's room attendant (close friend of the family; can't disclose his name for obvious reasons), immediately bagged and labeled and stored for safe keeping."
"While this item is DEFINITELY different, that peculiarity and rarity makes it the absolute ultimate piece of poker memorabilia of all time," says poker-kitty. "Heck, you could even use it as a dealer button if you really wanted to, although I'd strongly suggest washing it first!"
There's really nothing we can add to this, except that if this person nabs $5,000 for Gold's piss mint, which is about as likely as it is the real deal, Tao of Poker's Pauly, who loves to write about the pros he whizzes next to at tournaments, has a whole new income stream, so to speak, available to him to pad his bankroll.
Thanks to Michael T. for the heads-up on this one.
Is this the lamest Gavin Smith-Joe Sebok Prop Bet to date? Is "Prop Bets: The Stupid Show" finally living up to its name? Why are Gavin and Joe wearing jackets in Vegas? Is Lauren Boiros getting hotter? Is Britney Spears bang-able again? Are we going to ask another stupid ass question?
At least it seems that way in his chat with Tiffany Michelle of PokerNews.com as he talks diplomatically about the crap the Fristian fascists pulled off last October and how that has affected his passion for playing poker.
Richard Kind, the comedic actor and occasional poker player, unleashed "A Few Thoughts on Poker" as a guest blogger today at the HuffingtonPost.com, a site that is almost always painful to read and is run by that annoying boob of a woman Arianna Huffington.
In his post, Kind makes a case for making poker halls "more plentiful" and claims that "[t]elevision has ruined the home game."
"Everybody's dick is getting bigger, and the bloodlust to take someone down includes the hope of greatly increasing your fortune," remarks Kind.
To refresh your memory if you're too lazy to click the link above, the Zak Penn-produced/directed/penned Waiting for Guffman-like mockumentary on the poker world stars Woody Harrelson as One Eyed Jack Faro, a degenerate pokerer who attempts to save his dead dad's hotel-casino from a real estate developer by taking down the world's most famous high stakes tournament, the Grand Championship of Poker.
Joining Harrelson in the cast are enigmatic German director Werner Herzog, Gabe Kaplan, Shannon Elizabeth, Michael "David St. Hubbins" McKean, Dennis Farina and a bunch of past Celebrity Poker Showdown-ers including Cheryl Hines, David Cross, Ray Romano, and Mr. Kind.
The Grand premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival on Friday, April 27, and apparently is one of the festival's hottest tickets, having sold out advance tickets.
Rumor (aka "the truth") has it that someone won't be coming back for Season VI of the World Poker Tour, and when we say someone we mean, either Mike Sexton, Sabina Gadecki or Vince Van Patten, or put another way, we're pretty sure Vince Van Patten isn't coming back for Season VI since Mike Sexton is the face of the World Poker Tour and the show couldn't exist without him.
And Sabina, well everyone loves Sabina. Not that everyone doesn’t love Vince Van Patten, because he has maybe the best hair in Hollywood, but what he lacks is the sex appeal that Sabina has, not that Vince isn’t sexy in his own right, but he’s not someone that we’d be terribly interested in displaying our immense sexual prowess to (if we were still single), and we’ll just shut up now because this is getting weird.
* The use of the word "whacked" doesn't mean this person is getting fired rather than leaving of his or her own accord. It just means we watched the Sopranos last night.
2003 WSOP Main Event runner-up Sammy Farha must have been saying his trademark* phrase "raisy daisy" a lot during Day 1B of the WPT World Poker Championship. The logical next sentence here would be explaining how he ended up as Day 1B chip leader stacked at 210,700 and then make some snarky joke about how someone that people call the "Humphrey Bogart of Poker" shouldn't be allowed to say "raisy daisy" because could you imagine Bogart, or his modern day equivalent, Clooney, ever saying "raisy daisy" but it's early, we're tired, and we can't think of a creative, snarky way to put that put-down for you.
Other big stacks after Day 1B include, but are not limited to, the playing-much-better-of-late-which-is-good-since-he's-stuck-a-lot-of-money Mike "the Mouth" Matusow (162,575), Tim Phan (157,000), David Benyamine (135,900), Patrik Antonius (119,600), Paul Wasicka (116,725), Freddy Deeb (115,250), Carlos Mortensen (115,125), Isabelle Mercier, a woman (110,500), Gavin Griffin (102,900), John Phan (101,675), Kathy Liebert, a woman, (100,325), and Johnny Chan (95,600).
"How many Polaks does it take to crush the competition at the WPT World Championship at the Bellagio?"
Until this year, that question would just receive a laugh and a shrug. "Polaks...playing poker? Now that's high comedy..." you'd say. "They're soooo stupid!" you'd say, because you are racist.
Then we'd say something like, "Oh, we left out the best part. It's not only a Polak...but it's a Polak woman. Sort of. We think." At which time you'd have a heart-attack or jump out of a 10-story building window because you'd think the end was surely near.
While we have not yet confirmed the exact originals of her ethnicity, let's have some fun with this and say that Anna Wroblewski, the Asian woman (so she's smart) with a deceptively Polish sounding name (so she's not so smart...damn this is perplexing) who won a prelim Five-Star event last week and cashed in another, is the Day 1a chip leader at the WPT World Poker Championship.
Stacked at 235,000, she's trailed by WCP-fave Shannon Shorr (175,000).
Other notable big stacks (according to Card Player...the WPT counts are significantly different) include but are not limited to: Lyle Berman (140k), Isaac Haxton (135k), Jeff Cabanillas (121k), Daniel Alaei (115k), Marcel Luske (112k), Hoyt Corkins (107k), Jamie Gold (105k), Joe Sebok (105k), Josh Arieh (95k), Gavin Smith (87k...although he said he was at 67k), Phil Hellmuth (81k), and Phil Ivey (81k).
Get the full WPT counts here. For more Polish jokes, here.
The fifth season of the World Poker Tour wraps this week with the $25k buy-in WPT World Championship at the Bellagio. About 600 players are expected for what would be (...doing math) a shitload of money.
The championship event had its official kick-off Thursday night at Light with the WPT Player Appreciation Party (watch as Rich Belsky enthusiastically asks everyone if they're drunk here. He really wants to make sure people are drunk. Seriously, he's into it.) All the big players showed. Free booze flowed. We spent the first part of the night screaming at the top of our lungs over the ridiculously loud Light music talking with the lovely Michele Lewis from Pokerati and her husband. Great party by WPT. Expect a bedlam ensuing trip report in the coming days. It'll make the Bodog/TAO party from last year look like a four year-old girl's stuffed animal tea party.
Some things to look out for at the WPT World Championship:
:: WPT POY Race. Last year, Gavin Smith won. This year, it's all about the spectacularly breastedJ.C. Tran, who is currently in front with 2,000 points. Only two men can catch him. One is WCP fave Joe Pelton. He has 1,600 points and would need to finish fifth for a tie or fourth or better to win. Daniel Negreanu has 1,300 points and would need to finish second to tie or first to win POY honors.
:: Live blogging from WCP faves. The WPT has signed on the aforementioned Pelton, plus Isaac Haxton and Paul Wasicka to post before, during, and on breaks while playing the championship event. And if anything crazy happens at their table during play, they'll tell the WPT blogging team about it for an update. Check the blog regularly once the event starts here. One special request to the WPT...can you get Davidson Matthew involved in this?
:: The 100th Episode. Final note, the WPT World Championship will be the 100th broadcast episode (set to air for early August). For the top 100 WPT hands of all time, go here.
Ask the average person and they'll say Brazil produces the hottest girls in the world, but to well studied anthropologists like us, or whatever social science it is that studies hot girls, we know that claim actually goes to Argentina.
In fact, the land the proudly consumes more red meat than any other country in the world is the homeland to so many unbearably hot girls (Rocío Guirao Díaz, Luisana Lopilato, Luján Fernández, María Inés Rivero, Eliana Guercio, Karina Jelinek, Liz Solari, Lorena Giaquinto, Inés Rivero, Romina Lanaro and Daniela Urzi, to name more than a few) that we could solely feature Argentinian girls every week as our Friday Night Parting Shot Girl and never run out of perfectly perfect choices. And we just might to do this.
For now though we'll just go with Cecilia Bonelli, who you may have guessed is a model from Argentina, which is pretty much all you need to know, besides of course the photos (and video) of her after the jump . . .
Really there is too much good stuff in the video to break it down for you.
Kudos to the first person who can tell us what she says about white bread after she says: "He won't even buy you scrimp from Long John's Silver and what is that plate... $2.99...but he can give you a mouth full of sperm and rectum full of sperm."
Become Alexyss K. Tylor's MySpace friend here. You know you want to.
Joanna Krupa's ridiculous hotness (hopefully she's back), Jennifer Tilly's fantabulous cleavage and Anna Benson's supreme bitch-itude (she needs the publicity so she'll be there), along with thousands of poker schlubs screaming "That's what I'm talking about" after sucking someone out on the river (still gay sounding), will be seen for the first time in high definition on ESPN this summer when the sports network shoots the WSOP in HD.
While we welcome this news and anxiously await the day we get to see top notch athletes like Takeru Kobayashi devouring hot dogs and Krystal burgers in HD, ESPN viewers who don't watch or play poker have another reason to bitch about the game being broadcast on ESPN.
We suppose we don't need to use "alleged" murderer anymore when referencing Jill Rockcastle.
In a shocking, to say the least, 10 page letter (link below) emailed to friends and family and written sometime before she attempted to kill herself in California this week, Rockcastle admits to stabbing her husband, Bill Gustafik, to death in their Las Vegas condo last Friday night after a series of arguments involving, among other things, buy-ins into Vegas poker tournaments, including the Bellagio 5-Star World Poker Classic and the WPT World Championship.
But that is by far the least interesting thing she has to say in her lengthy account of Gustafik, their life together and the moments leading up to his death. Rockcastle presents a sordid tale (and completely unsubstantiated accounts) of drug abuse, gambling addiction, a custody dispute and corruption (and much worse); all which hints at the potential beginnings of a Sandy Murphy-like media circus when Rockcastle is brought back to Vegas on murder charges.
While this kind of story is right up the alley for any James McManus wannabes, or James McManus himself, we're thinking of leaving this story alone (or at least significant commentary on it) for principled reasons including, but not withstanding: (a) It doesn't involve Keeley Hazell, and the 49-year-old Jill Rockcastle isn't even Sandy Murphy-like doable; (b) We have a longstanding policy that we just came up with a minute ago about not perpetuating perceived negative societal stereotypes of poker players even if her account and the likely media maelstorm makes it inevitable; (c) we don't have time for this kind of crap and (d) there's no fun in talking about someone who was killed by his wife.
Of course, this is all subject to change on a whim.
LINK TO JILL ROCKCASTLE'S 10-PAGE LETTER (on another website because we don't want her wacko beans spilled on our site and think anyone who copies and pastes it onto their site, other than InsideBayArea.com who first published it, is a jackass for some reason or another)
Professional game show competitor Alex Outhred, who moonlights as a poker pro and instructor at the World Series of Poker Academy, became the biggest winner thus far on FOX TV's "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?" tonight, winning $500,000, which ironically would take the average 5th grade teacher about 124 years to earn.
Outhred, who we must say was a total class act on the show and rep'd poker players well, was just one question away from winning the show's ultimate prize of $1 million but opted not to go for the final question and instead walk safely away with the $500k.
Had he gone for it, host Jeff Foxworthy revealed that the million dollar question was: "Who was the first American Secretary of the Treasury?" which we would have guessed was a woman based on the profession alone but Outhred somehow knew was Alexander Hamilton.
Outhred's half a million game show cash is about 2.5 times more than his total winnings as a tournament poker player, which according to the fifth grader we just asked calculates to $200,000.
Outhred will be back on the small screen this May 16 when his final table appearance at the 2006 WPT Mandalay Bay Championship airs on the Travel Channel.
We'd tell you that David Williams only played the $1500 Stud event at the 2006 World Series of Poker and won his first-ever gold bracelet because he beat Street Fighter Alpha 3 without dying the morning of the tournament, but that would ruin the story he tells in his most recent "Raw Reality" vlog on RawVegas.tv.
According to a translation given to us by the hardworking illegal immigrant we just picked up at the Home Depot, Spain-based poker news site Poquer-Red is reporting that the World Poker Tour will host its first ever event in Spain this October at the Gran Casino de Barcelona.
The news follows the announcement earlier this week/month/whenever that the WPT will not shoot in France this year because, other than the insanely gorgeous Melissa Theuriau, everything pretty much blows in France, including its gambling laws.
The widow/alleged murderer of tournament poker pro William "Bill" Gustafik is now in a California jail after being discharged from a San Luis Obispo hospital. Jill Rockcastle (at right in the best pic we've found of her so far) now awaits transfer to Nevada on murder charges.
To recap, Las Vegas Police first got a call from an anonymous "male subject" at 7:31 pm last Friday that a deceased male was inside a condo unit (#2300) at the Panorama Towers, just off the Vegas strip. Police immediately suspected Rockcastle and wanted to speak with her but she fled to California where she checked into a B&B and was found unconscious in an apparent suicide attempt.
While we're being emailed rumors about the homicide that are undoubtedly 100% true, as all rumors are, we'll hold off on those right now and just say that Rockcastle was into body building like her husband, played poker, inherited some cash, seemed a bit off kilter to some and may or may not have been a Playboy bunny years ago (although we're hearing no on this now) and that from everyone we've talked to Bill Gustafik was pretty much liked by everyone who met or knew him, except his wacko wife last Friday night when she stabbed him to death, allegedly.
Gustafik, a regular on the WPT circuit and at the WSOP, can be seen on the Ultimate Poker Challenge "Cash Poker" TV series (in photo at left). He played the February 1 event, which aired recently and also featured Todd Brunson, Chad Brown, Hoyt Corkins and Layne Flack.
After the jump is another photo of Gustafik from his "Cash Poker" TV show appearance, which we know Rockcastle attended (that may or may is not be her seated behind him with the big hair...if you know for sure, let us know).
After the jump are ridiculously hot new photos of Keeley Hazell (some quasi-NSFW), along with links to the rest of the series that are sure to get you fired.
For her win, she banks $337,395 that she can now go spend at Target on useless crap.
By the way, we don't even need to look at her photo to know, by name alone, that Anna Wroblewski is a round Polish woman who likely eats double brat sandwiches for breakfast.
Find out this Thursday on FOX at 8:00-9:00 pm EST.
Alex Outhred, who currently is one of the star poker instructors at the WSOP Academy and was everyone's favorite to win the WPT Mandalay Bay event last June, but came in 4th, is the contestant this Thursday on FOX's new prime-time game show "Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?" with host Jeff Foxworthy.
With just over $200k in career poker winnings, Outhred competed for a maximum cash prize of $1 million on the TV quiz show that pits adults against smarty arse lil 10-year-olds who ridiculue and laugh at you when you don't know the answers to questions.
We're not sure how Alex did--he can't tell us so we'll have to wait until the show airs on Thursday to find out--but we're betting he did better than Larry the Redneck.
William "The Manipulator" Gustafik, a 44-year-old Las Vegas chiropractor and poker professional, was found stabbed to death this past Friday in his condo unit at the Panorama Towers, a luxury high-rise just off the Vegas strip that David Williams just moved into.
Of note, Gustafik speaks about his wife on several occasions in his PokerPages profile, saying he is a "devoted husband," and that "[w]ith my beautiful wife by my side and my 9 yr old daughter giving me tips, nothing can stop me." He also states that if "I could change anything in the world: My wife would play live and not just online even though she wins."
We assume he'd also like for her not to kill him.*
* Wicked Chops Poker strongly believes that people should be presumed innocent until proven guilty, unless they look really crazy.
UPDATE: Jill Rockinsale is facing murder charges for the fatal stabbing of her husband Bill Gustafik. She was immediately a suspect after the stabbing and the police were hoping to speak with her but she fled to California, checked herself into a B&B and it looked like she was preparing to check herself out of life when the police came upon her. Rockinsale is not the mother of Gustafik's 9-year-old daughter, thankfully. Read the most recent news story here.
Online poker reg TheWacoKidd, who his parents call Jared Hamby, is showing some wicked poker chops at the Bellagio Five Star World Poker Classic, taking down two of the preliminary events and banking over half a million bucks in a matter of five days.
University of Florida campus correspondent Ashley Furrow reports (while wearing jean shorts) that popular sites among a typical UF college student (typical UF college student at right) include Party Poker and Titan Poker. We did a quick double-check on the date of this story to really make sure that it was published today, as there was also no mention of a little thing called the UIGEA, and yeah, it was from today.
In other news, University of Florida students all have mullets and herpes.*
Team AOL, poker's newest and baddest poker team, is going to take the 2007 WSOP by storm this summer, and you, yes you, can win free entry into the 2007 WSOP through AOL starting April 16, which our calendars suggest is today. Don't miss out on your chance to hang out in the Team AOL Lounge with the AOL Girls and party like a rock star with the A-List at the AOL WSOP Kick-Off Party. Details after the jump . . .
But first check out this brilliantly reworked trailer for The Shining, making it seem like a fun little family film, which is probably a little closer to the truth than most of what we said above.
Harrah's just announced the schedule of events ESPN plans to cover at the 2007 World Series of Poker, tentatively.
All together, ESPN, who it's worth noting employs the nicest, most easy-going and professional cameramen, assistant producers, audio techs and grips you'll ever find in the business, plans to shoot 16 hours of coverage of the WSOP Main Event, as well as 10 one-hour programs covering other bracelet events. The $50,000 HORSE Championship will receive six hours of airtime and the format of the final table will include all five games of HORSE, unlike last year which only had NLHE, which isn't HORSE.
The press release, which you can read in its entirety after the jump, lists out all the "coverage" events so narcissistic bastards who want to get their smug mugs on ESPN to "make good TV" for 5 seconds of fame can plan which ones they'll play. The announcement doesn't say when ESPN plans to air their coverage but the word PokerNews.com has is that the first event will air on July 10th, a week before the Main Event wraps, and that the Main Event will broadcast August 21. The HORSE event, according to PokerNews.com, will air as a special event this fall in October.
In related news, the video below of Britney Spears makes the narcisisstic freaky ass Brandi Hawbaker seem kind of normal.
New kid on the poker news block, ThePokerBiz.com, launched a comprehensive listing and ranking of the poker industry's most influential personalities and organizations, not ironically called "ThePokerBiz 25."
Read ThePokerBiz.com's press release on its newest feature View a hilarious and brilliantly done mash-up movie trailer for Anchorman - the 300 recut after the jump.
Gabe Kaplan, the poker player most famous for captaining ABC's Battle of the Network Stars team throughout the late '70s, which included groovy hot ladies like Kristy McNichol, Suzanne Somers, Cheryl Tiegs and the Official Wicked Chops Poker Girl of 1978, Cheryl Ladd (at right), can be kind of a dick as co-host of GSN's "High Stakes Poker."
During last week's season finale, Kaplan's HSP sidekick A.J. Benza, a man who doesn't know crap about poker, was once again upset with Kaplan's constant ribbing of him, complaining on air to Kaplan, "You can't be nice? We're this close to being over for the season."
Kaplan replied, or maybe he retorted, we're not sure, "Let me say what I feel honestly, ... I don't think you know anything about poker. I don't think you belong on this show."
TVWeek.com reports however that "the hostility is somewhat disingenuous," quoting GSN prez Rich Cronin as saying, "Gabe brings his successful professional poker-playing experience and background as a comedian to 'High Stakes Poker.' Along with his co-host, A.J. Benza, they mirror the good-natured ribbing that occurs between the players on the telecasts."
As Gavin has put it, "Joe is younger than me. Smarter than me. In better shape than me. I don't stand a chance."
Now, as a constant reminder of the above, he's got Sebok's initials tattooed on him. Unfortunately, or actually, fortunately, the tat, which was inked on at Shawn Sheikhan's Diversity parlor, didn't make its way on Gavin's ass. No one would really have wanted to see that. Since the Five Star World Poker Classic is going on, Joe relented, instead opting to have the tattoo strategically placed on Gavin's shoulder. Gavin can now comfortably play in the 5 Star all week. Watch below.
Eric Bana (not seen in above pic) and new CoverGirl face Drew Barrymore (the girl above) will finally see their poker film Lucky You released on May 4, which happens to be the same day pokerer Tobey Maguire's Spiderman 3 hits screens. Tough competition for a film that was originally set for release almost two years ago and looks only marginally watchable as a poker movie (certainly not up to The 40-Year-Old Virgin standards as a poker movie).
We'll set the line for its opening weekend box office gross at $7,100,000 (if at around 2000+ screens), which is just a tad over half of what Music and Lyrics grossed on its kickoff weekend
Atlanta's Josh Arieh chatted it up with Phil Gordon on ESPN's The Poker Edge podcast yesterday and among the topics were the recent poker busts in his hometown. Arieh has played with some of the guys nabbed in the first raid and said that the reports have been blown out of proportion and that the game was a $1,000 max buy-in $5-10 NL game and not a $10k buy-in high stakes game. He also poignantly explained how the media is out to make these poker players, especially in the Roswell raid, seem like the "filth of the Earth," with erroneous accusations about drugs being found.
Also of note, the two talked about Gordon's wedding this weekend and Arieh candidly shared his views on a number of topics, including money management, living in a house full of women, golf hustling, the art of Pot Limit Omaha and how easy it is to win Gavin Smith's money, something Joe Sebok knows a little about.
Check out the MP3 of the podcast here or head over to The Poker Edge. The podcast starts with the illustrious Andrew Feldman reporting the news, followed by a bit on the World Series of Golf, then Josh.
For more pics of Josh and Joanna Krupa at last year's 2006 WSOP Main Event, go here. For interesting facts about ants, go here.
Very true that Rosenbloom left you some big shoes to fill but if anyone can fill them it's us, and if not us, then a few dozen other people we can think of, and if not them, then you. Seriously though, you'll be a great ass-et to Feldman and crew, and we look forward to your daily greetings of "I love Wicked Chops Poker" at the Rio.
We've been turning Japanese all week after discovering that our favorite gambling reporter, the dangerously hot and always entertaining Jenny Woo of Gambling911.com, has several ridiculously risqué videos on the Internet under another name, including one particularly salacious and beyond-NSFW video that continues to make us blush upon viewing, among other things.
We've actually been exercising restraint on reporting this as Jenny Woo is like a sister to us, if our sisters were hot-as-balls Asian-American girls with rock-hard bodies and did videos solo-ing in a submissive get up. But they're not. They're nice girls. Not that Jenny isn't, just a different kind of nice.
And sure Jenny should be fair game considering her numerous reports on a certain poker player's alleged and similarly porno-riffic video as well as the numerous pruriently-positioned photos of her on the Gambling911 site, including the infamous "Ant Table Affair" recently in Miami.
But we're just not up to the task right now, for one reason or another. So we'll let someone else fire up the Google engine, discover her alias and run with it as this story is now popping up here and there and soon, perhaps, everywhere.
What we will say though is that the official word we got from Jenny about the particularly scandalous video (you'll know it when you come across it) is that the original purpose of it was "educating couples to have better sex lives," although it now serves as a money maker for a particular site owner and a bishop floggin' aid for its audience.
While no official statement or ackowledgment has been posted by Gambling911.com on their site (although Woo herself did a telling story this week titled "Enough With the Sex Tapes"), Woo's counterpart Payton O'Brien had the following to say to us:
"Jenny Woo should be judged on her exceptional reporting skills and not by
some educational video she did many years ago. We support Jenny and all of her previous artistic and creative endeavors."
So we're not coming across as getting completely soft on you, after the jump are some of the more PG-rated photos of Jenny Woo you'll find on your Google search.
We're kind of digging the snorgtees girls. You should buy their shirts. Check 'em out.
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