WPT LA Poker Classic: Vinnie Vinh Still Alive, Glum Girl is Here, Benyamine Looking Slim(mer), Negreanu Backing Barack
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So we made it to the Commerce today after a night of relatively moderate bedlam that kicked off at the Library Alehouse in Santa Monica and somehow ended up with us at a Laurel Canyon mansion this morning with a group of Venice Beach trust fund hippies who graffiti'd are SUV rental with Obama stickers.
We'll save that story however for our forthcoming 4-part series entitled "How We Spent the Friday Night Before the WPT LA Poker Classic."
For now, the word from the Commerce is that the action got underway almost 3 5 7 plus hours ago and we're finally getting around to writing something and we don't have much to say besides that pretty much every poker player you know this side of the Atlantic is here including Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Jamie Gold, John Phan, Carlos Mortensen, Are You Really Reading this List?, Paul Wasicka, Vannessa "Went to Duke" Rousso, Grover Cleveland, Layne Flack, Phil Laak, Josh Arieh, Rhahaeid Skaoodo, David Plastik, Barry Greenstein, Dan Harrington, Erick Lindgren, Mother Teresa, Eric Mizrachi, Scott Clements, Haralabos Voulgaris, Still Reading This?, David Williams, Freddy Deeb, We Wonder What We Should Eat for Dinner, Gavin Smith, David Singer, Lee Watkinson, Perhaps We'll Go to Panchos Tonight, Tom Schneider, Mark Seif, This Is Getting Tiring, Chau Giang, Tim Phan and Erick Seidel.
In total, 665 players started today, down considerably from last year's 791, and the total prize pool is $6,374,400, with first place set to take home $1,596,100. In 2007, Eric Hershler walked away with $2,429,970.
Of note . . .
Jamie Gold says hello.
2007 WSOP Main Event champ Jerry Yang is pokering today.
In the trainwreck department Eskimo Clark and Vinnie Vinh are alive and ticking at the tables.
That Svetlana chick (above) from the USPC is here, still looking glum.
David Benyamine is seated, appearing a bit slimmer.
Evelyn Ng is looking especially hot.
Jean-Robert Bellande, that kind of obnoxious poker player with the French sounding name, is surviving, and donning BodogLife.net patches. That's new.
Men "The Master" Nguyen may have knocked out Joe Sebok just a second ago.
Daniel Negreanu is back from the city of hot Danish girls on bikes and is sporting an Obama 08 shirt. Join the crowd.
Vikki Blows isn't here but Kimberly Lansing is, looking pretty as usual.
David Williams is still rockin' the RawVegas.tv hat. Because he's cool like dat.
Finally, if we wrote about who we pissed next to we'd tell you that we pissed next to Laker's owner Jerry Buss and new WPT spokesperson Antonio Esfandiari, with the two chatting about hoops and Antonio admitting he wasn't much of a sports fan and something about a friend getting a DUI the last time he went to a Lakers game.
But that's someone else's schtick.
Ok, that's all we got right now. Time for Panchos.
hah... svetlana... i used to play regularly with her in NYC 8 years ago!
Posted by: Kid Dynamite | February 24, 2008 at 08:41 AM
What kind of shirt is Grover Cleveland wearing and is he hot?
Posted by: Jen Leo | February 24, 2008 at 07:41 AM