Given The EconomyTM, an impressive showing of 201 pros forked over $40,000 for 2009 WSOP Event #2, creating a first place prize of $1,891,012.
By the end of the day, 88 remained.
Bruno Fitoussi closed out Day 1 play as chip leader, stacked at 812,500. Fitoussi is a high-stakes player who finished second to half-man, half-amazing Freddy Deeb at the 2007 WSOP $50k H.O.R.S.E. event.
Second overall is Chris Moneymaker with 805,000. Suffice to say, if Moneymaker can make a deep run (something we were a year off maybe on predicting, as we tabbed last year as his John Daly-esque resurgence), that would be good for poker. Justin Bonomo is third overall with 738,000. It's just like high school. Evy Ng's boyfriend Lex 'RaSZi' Veldhuis is fourth with 646,500. And Kyle 'krisqueen' Wilson is fifth, stacked at 611,500.
Other notable big stacks include Brian Townsend (609,000), Michael "Glambert" DeMichele (519,500), Andy Black (449,500), Phil "OMGClayAiken" Galfond (443,000), Sorel Mizzi (431,000), Mark Seif (411,500), Ted Forrest (401,500), and Isaac Haxton (392,500).
On a side note, Haxton gets an honorary mention into our Top 5 New Poker Pro looks post. Thanks to FOWCP BJ Nemeth for the at left pic and notice. That Haxton kid cleans up well.
Phil Ivey, Doyle Brunson, the spectacularly-breasted J.C. Tran, and Huck Seed are all still alive as well. Get full chip counts here.
Not a ton of big WSOP events or parties going on yet. There was a party at Blush featuring Huck Seed that didn't allow media, and that's about it. So fortunately the Sucking Out On The Rivers charity poker tournament, hosted by Annie Duke, stepped up and filled some of that void.
A bunch of top pros and 20 Joan Rivers impersonators showed up, all to the benefit of Refugees International. Above is the red carpet video. It's just like high school. Highlights include Annie Dukes' take on American Idol and Jeffrey Pollack on anticipated WSOP turn-out.
The 2009 World Series of Pokeris officially underway with the casino employees event. Commish Jeffrey Pollack and Phil Hellmuth kicked it off with the above shuffle up and deal.
Funny side story, but really only funny if you're an Entity or honorary Entity Eric Newby (our faithful producer of The TOKE). We had this following convo right before the vid went up:
Newby: "Not really much to edit. I'll probably just post as is, eh?" Entity: "Ok, I'll just make up to watch for 'something shocking' at the 2:12 mark." Newby: "Lemme check what's at 2:12 first just in case, eh?" Entity: "Actually, that's kind of shocking, what he says. It's just like high school." Newby: "Pretty sick call there, eh?"*
* Gratuitous use of "ehs" might not have happened.
We don't know much about Poker Battle. In fact, until today, we knew nothing about it at all. But apparently they are some sort of merch, social networking, soon-to-be online gaming site that sponsors some playerswhom they call "Warriors." There's a lot going on there. Sounds like they need to get Poochie as an endorser. It's just like high school.
Anyway, Bryan Micon is having some fun with it, as he wants to be your next Poker Battle Warrior. As he would say, vid below, obv. We'll say that if Poker Battle knows what they're doing, they snatch up that degen pronto.
UPDATE: Since the video autoplays, just watch it here.
Aside from some 2009 WSOP Guide updates and a few other stories, it'll be a slow week on WCP as we do some technical updates and site maintenance. For now though, here's a poker news update from around the so-called "Internet."
:: Hedge fund manager Bradley L. Ruderman, 46, is accused of stealing $44 MILLION from investors, of which $5.2M allegedly was used to cover losses at the poker table in a Beverly Hills home game. Any of our high stakes LA readers play against this guy? [link]
:: Poker pro Jody Garaventa (who? stats here) wins the World Series of Golf, banking $300,000, or about $200,000 more than he's won in live tourney play. [link]
:: Funny thread on whether Mike Matusow's taking of prescription drugs gives him an unfair edge. [link]
:: Tom "durrrr" Dwan continues takes another beating in Full Tilt cash games, erasing all the money he made back up. [link]
:: And finally, big thanks to Poker Listingsfor holding another Run Good tournament, with the winner earning a $1,500 WSOP seat. Entity Chops final tabled, but eventually lost out to Poker Grump. [link]
Arguably the biggest "free agent" name in poker has a new sponsor, as Expekt.com has signed Scotty Nguyen to be its new "global poker ambassador."
According to the press release, Scotty will do regular vlogs and strategy articles for Expekt and presumably play a little poker too. Watch his introductory video below or read more about it here.
Now this begs the question, who is the biggest name left in poker without a sponsorship? Is it one of the online superstars like Durrrr or Phil Galfond? An old-schooler like Johnny Chan? Former Main Event winner Jamie Gold? Thoughts?
The TOKE's Dave Farra hosts a morning radio show in Las Vegason X107.5. Yesterday he had Annie Duke on as a guest, where she gives her take on (what else?) the Celebrity Apprentice.
The timing of Barney Frank's bill to oust the UIGEA was well timed. The WSOP is just two weeks away (more on that in a bit), and over 10 million people watched Annie Duke finish second on the Celebrity Apprentice (more on that later today too), so there is way more mainstream attention paid to poker in general now than normal.
We've written ad naseum that having Scott Lazar involved in your film is never a good idea, and apparently that sentiment is now echoed by Gambling Times, Inc.
According to a L.A.-based lawsuit, for a $50,000 up-front investment, GT was promised prominent product placement (what, a URL?) in Lazar's movie, the epic "Deal." For those who forgot, Deal starred Shannon Elizabeth and Burt Reynolds and banked about $78,000 in box office receipts. Rewatch the premiere red carpet below.
As reported on tmz.com, GT is suing Lazar "for no less than $1,000,000 in damages."
Really? Didn't Lazar kind of do them a favor by (allegedly) cutting them out of the movie? If Meryl Streep had a cameo in Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever that made its way to the cutting room floor, do you think she'd complain? She probably would've paid them after the fact out of gratitude for keeping her out of that shitfest.
As you know, we typically don't report on online tournaments or live prelims unless something noteworthy happens.
So when FTP pro Gavin Smith, who is notably and admittedly not much of an online tourney player, wins a FTOPS event, it warrants mention.
Smith took down FTOPS Event #7 ($100 no-limit hold'em with rebuys), beating a field of 1,806 to bank $123,600.
Also warranting a mention is that this edition of the FTOPS is seriously missing its guaranteed marks. Whether it's The EconomyTM, poor marketing, over-saturation, or some other factor, it seems like the FTOPS has lost some of its luster.
Read a good breakdown of the FTOPS missing its mark at the Poker-King here.
There was somewhat of a running theme on the Celebrity Apprentice this season that Annie Duke was "just a poker player." Yeah, she may be pwning the competition every week, but look what she does for a living. It's a deceitful way to make a living so of course she's good. Plus she's nowhere near the "celebrity" of some of the other contestants. So would Donald Trump really make his final "hire" a poker player instead of arguably the biggest celebrity name he had on the show?
Nope. In the end, as expected, Trump awarded this season's Celebrity Apprentice (title? hire?) to Joan Rivers instead of Annie Duke.
Before watching the finale (having determined that Rivers was going to win no matter what), we were originally going to make the headline of this post, "Annie Duke Andy Blochs The Celebrity Apprentice, Finishes Second."And believe it or not, the headline wasn't going to be a shot at either them. At the inaugural $50k H.O.R.S.E. event, Bloch outplayed Chip Reese heads-up. Straight-up outplayed Chip and outplayed the field leading up to the heads-up showdown. It was similar to how Annie outplayed everyone on the Celebrity Apprentice. In the end though, it wasn't meant to be for Bloch. Chip consistently got his money in with the worst of it, but kept winning hand after hand. Fate just wasn't going to let Andy win that tournament. We figured the same thing was going to be true here, as "fate" (NBC/Donald Trump) wouldn't let Annie triumph.
However, that wasn't so much the case last night, because Joan won the final challenge by taking 3 of the 5 criteria being judged. She wisely picked Herschel Walker (DAWGS...everybody knows you've got to give Herschel Walker the ball) as the first person to join her team, leaving Melissa Rivers, who there was no way Annie was choosing, on the bench while Annie picked Brande Roderick first, who there was no way Joan was choosing. Ultimately that move left Joan with a better overall team, particularly because two of Herschel's ideas were critical to Joan's overall win.
It was a tactical error on Annie's part for sure. Bottomline is bottomline, and despite some controversy caused by Joan with the event planning firm, Joan won 3 of the 5 criteria in the final challenge. Surprisingly, little was made in the boardroom though of the fact that Joan's behavior was the cause for the event planning company to quit on both teams. It's fair to assume that, from the sounds of it, Annie's decor would've topped Joan's for the silent auction before the firm quit. Had that happened, Annie would've won 3 of the 5 criteria. And all the evidence was on TV for everyone to see that Joan was the cause of the firm quitting. However, she denied it (despite millions of people having just watched it unfold), and Trump didn't seem to really care. Joan once again acted like a spoiled 10 year-old brat when Annie very calmly tried pointing this all out, but again, Joan was never put in her place by Donald for her behavior. Annie very smartly told Trump that Joan's boardroom remarks throughout the season would have gotten her immediately fired in any other company (shown above(, and again, Trump just kind of brushed it off. The result just seemed predetermined.
Interestingly, with the exception of when she was skillfully pleading her case to win (the above clip again), Annie wore defeat on her face the entire final two boardrooms (the task one and the live one) as if she knew this as well. So it was surprising to see that, for a split second, she actually thought she won as Donald addressed her in the final seconds of the show. But Trump ultimately dropped the ax on her, and gave Joan Rivers (pictured here) the non-existent job.
Not sure how we feel about all of this. If judging on the strength of her play throughout the season, Annie definitely deserved to win. However, Joan did capture the final challenge, even though her bad behavior in causing the event planning group to quit might've swung that last project to her favor.
Amazingly in all of this, Joan somehow still seemed to have the overwhelming support of Internet posters, critics, casual fans, and the live audience. Her general behavior throughout the season was despicable. She was constantly condescending to Annie and to the poker community in general, telling Duke tonight repeatedly that she was "beneath" her. She got away with verbal murder all season, and Trump never had the balls to call her out on it and put a stop to it. Yeah, it was good for ratings. We get that. But to never make a mention of it is pretty pathetic, especially at the end when making his final decision.
It'll be hard for the Celebrity Apprentice to top this season in terms of drama and interest again. Unless, of course, they take Daniel Negreanu up on his offer to join the show. If they do, count us in on watching it again. If not, and we've said this before, but this time we're really done with the show.
UPDATE: The event planner, David Tutera, confirms Annie was telling the truth and that Rivers is "a monster." Read here.
Will Annie Duke win the Celebrity Apprentice on Sunday? Or will Donald Trump give it to Joan Rivers because she's the bigger celebrity and she'll bitch like a spoiled brat 5 year-old if she doesn't win?
Many in entertainment are calling this year's Celebrity Apprentice"the best worst reality television in history." And 99% of why it would be dubbed that [compliment] is due to the feud between Annie Duke and Joan Rivers (pictured here).
Sunday night, NBC airs its three-hour finale. Annie and Joan have been making the media rounds this week to promote it. Joan of course has been adding fuel to the fire by taking her shots at Annieand the poker community in general, telling Page Six:
"How can I hate poker players? Did you ever look at the cards? Everyone knows I love queens. Poker playing is a very noble profession. A little-known fact is Florence Nightingale had to choose between nursing and cards."
Joan also is taking her shots through Twitter, calling Annie "Ann-ME," and saying:
"If you really look closely, Ann-ME did a lot of sobbing when she won but not one tear came out...[Watch] how Annie Duke does EVERYTHING and lets us know every second how brilliant she is...."
Actually, looking at Rivers' Twitter page, her hatred of Annie Duke is bordering on maniacal and unhealthy, similar to the way we feel about Danny Gokey.
Doyle Brunson has jumped into the fray to poker's defense via Twitter as well, tweeting:
"Joan Rivers went to the doctor for a zit on her butt. He told her it was a brain tumor....[ouch]"
And:
"Why is Joan River's brain the size of a pea in the morning?.......It swells at night."
Doyle had about 10 more slams (read here) and said that, "I'll quit tweeting about Joan Rivers when she apologizes to the poker world."
Tune in NBC tomorrow at 8pm to watch how Donald Trump arbitrarily gives the title to Joan even though Annie out-played her the entire season, because let's face it, you know that's what's going to happen.
We're not necessarily in love with 21-year-old model Alanna Kolette. We save that word for the girls who do our laundry, make us dinner and give us back rubs while we watch the American Idol results show and hold our fists up to the heavens and say "why God? Why must Allison and not Danny Gokey go? Why God? Why?" But let's just we're really digging Alanna Kolette. The girl's freaking gorgeous and has a sick body and just might be the hottest girl we've seen in the past 5 minutes. So skip all the filler links below and just get to the photos of Alanna.
:: Poker players sue LA area card rooms over jackpot. [link]
:: Worm apparently can kick One Eyed Jack Faro's ass at poker but is scared of the Lemur (See, told you this was all just filler). [link]
:: Minnesota resorts to the 48 year old Wire Act that has nothing to do with online poker to ban online poker. [link]
:: PokerStars to be title sponsor of WPT Season 7 in the lands of igloos, porn with poo, hot brunettes and windmills. [link]
:: Clonie Gowen ain't doing so well in court. [link]
:: This has nothing to do with poker but Cassie, one of our past Friday Night Parting Shot Girls, had topless photos "leaked out" on the Internet and by "leaked out" we mean in support of her new album coming out in June. God bless new albums. [link]
:: And finally, Poker Listings publishes their Top 5 Least Popular Main Event Winners ever. See who we think should be on the list. Probably no surprise, nor who made number 1. [link]
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) introduced his only reason why we're still doing this site anti-UIGEA bill at a press conference this morning.
Frank's bill estimates over $63 billion in revenues for the government if it regulated online gaming over the next 10 years. Interestingly, Harrah's Entertainment is also backing the bill, which probably has everything nothing to do with the "maybe" hiring of ex-Party CEO Mitch Garber.
We'll post a video from the press conference if/when it becomes available (readers, please send link if you find it). In the meantime, read about Harrah's backing of the bill here and the press release on today's press conference here.
Dutch poker player Pieter de Korver captured the EPT Grand Final yesterday, defeating Matthew Woodward heads-up for the title.
Amazingly, de Korver won his way into the event via an online freeroll, and banked €2,300,000 for the win. While we're pretty sure de Korver's win won't have the same impact in...um...Dutch, er, country...as Chris Moneymaker's 2003-turning-a-$39-online-satellite-win-into-$2.5M did in U.S. America, it's still an impressive story.
Unless you live near a fjord, you probably don't know anybody else at the final table (outside of maybe fourth place finisher Dag Martin Mikkelsen). But if you want to know results and payouts, go here.
It appears as if all of Vanessa Rousso's prayers have come true in 2009.
Vanessa Rousso
is having a Tina Fey-esque year. She has the midas touch. She can do no wrong. She should just stop right now because it can't get any better than this.
Rousso, a woman, defeated a field of 79 of the top players in the world to capture the €25,000 buy-in EPT High Roller Championship.
The win banked Rousso € 720,000, or as we like to call it in U.S. America, about $1,071,388. It's easily her biggest (live) cash to date. Her previous big (live) take downs happened this year when she won $250,000 for finishing second at the NBC Heads Up Poker Championship, the $285,450 she banked for a Borgata victory in 2006, and $263,625 for a 7th at the WPT Championship (also in '06).
Add in the GoDaddy.com sponsorship, whatever that is worth, and Rousso is making a mockery of The EconomyTM.
The bigger storyline in all of this is the ramifications Rousso's win is having on the whole "women can't be successful at poker" thing. Between her year, Clonie Gowen's success last year, Annette Obrestad's WSOP-E win, and (we think) Amanda Baker final tabling the 7pm Caesar's nightly with us on Saturday, maybe girls really can compete in this crazy little game we call life poker.
Just maybe.
Get full final table payouts here. A list of more women who bucked the odds here. Pictures of Argentine model Jesica Cirio's absolutely flawless body and booty here.
Poker player Jamie-Lynn Sigler co-starred on The Sopranos with Face the Ace host Steve Schirripa.
This one could end up being interesting.
Poker Productions, the team responsible for bringing you Poker After Dark, is launching another Full Tilt underwritten TV show, Face the Ace.
Hosted by former Las Vegas VIP host and The Sopranos star Steve Schirripa, Face the Ace will pit amatuers against pros in a gameshow like format that's sort of like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire meets some other gameshow. From one of the many sites that picked up the story:
The game is set up with four professional poker players hidden behind smoky windows. The contestant chooses a window, the poker player is revealed, and then the two face off in a game of heads-up no limit Hold'Em. If the contestant wins, he or she can then walk away with his or her winnings, or choose another window to continue. Contestants can win a million by beating three consecutive pros, but if a game is lost then the prize money is zilch.
At post time this morning, Matthew Woodward has built on his overnight chip lead at the EPT Grand Final. He is currently stacked at 2,800,000.
Only 18 players remain. Unless you live near a fjord you probably don't know/don't care about the rest, except for perhaps Annette Obrestad, a woman, who is currently stackd at 1,400,000.
Vanessa Claudio, a woman, is not among the many female chip leaders at the EPT Grand Final. However, she IS among the hottest girls we've ever seen come out of Mexico. Granted, that list is like five girls deep, but still, we'd gladly self-inflict ourselves with the swine flu for a romp with Claudio...if we were single. Love you honeys! View more Vanessa Claudio in Max Magazine here.
Some big stories are developing in Monte Carlo at the EPT Grand Final: 1) Can Annette Obrestad, a woman, capture her second major live tournament title in two years? 2) Can Sandra Naujoks, a woman, capture her second EPT title? 3) Did Phil Laak really make it to Day 3 of a major event? How did that happen? Phil Laak? 4) Seriously though, Phil Laak?
Of the 935 starting field, 149 remain after Day 2 wrapped. Marc Naaldenis overall chip leader, stacked at 770,000. Among other chip leaders are the aforementioned Annette Obrestad, a woman (600,000), the aforementioned Naujoks, also a woman (280,000), Ilari "ziigmund" Sahamies (200,000), Sorel Mizzi (170,000), Alexander Kravchenko(157,000), seriously wtf Phil Laak (150,000), Dennis Phillips (135,000), J.J. Liu, a woman (130,000), and "Salty" Joe Hachem (130,000).
Also still alive going into Day 3 is Phil Laak. Wait, what?
Glad we didn't stop watching the Celebrity Apprentice because this show is delivering drama we haven't seen since middle school (it would be insulting to high schoolers everywhere by comparing the drama to high school, really, it would).
Yeah, these reality shows are pressure cookers and edited for max effect, but most of the remaining contestants looked criminally bad last night. Clint Black comes across as a douchebag of epic proportions at all times. Melissa Rivers is a 43 year-old spoiled brat with seemingly no redeeming qualities. Joan Rivers (pictured here) we'll get to in a minute. And even the previously great Jesse James now looks like a big baby.
Interestingly, the two people who conducted themselves with the most class, and yet, are getting the most shit from the general public, were Annie Duke and Brande Roderick.
Annie is kind of like the Richard Hatch of season 1 of Survivor. She's manipulating everyone, they all know she's manipulating everyone, but she's so good at it nobody really cares to stop it. It's actually quite impressive.
In last night's episode, Annie, Brande, and Melissa were teamed up together. Annie and Brande clicked, worked well together, and kind of (consciously) boxed Melissa out. It was a well-played strategy on their (or more likely, Annie's) part, and Melissa got fired. Melissa then went on throw a temper tantrum that the 2/3 of the Entities who have children have never seen their kids even come close to equaling, and that's if you combine both kid's worst ever tantrum, multiply it by 10, and then square it.
Joan caught wind of Melissa's firing and began spewing vile towards Annie (white trash, Hitler, etc.) and Brande (dumb blond) that only somebody who truly has no class is capable of doing. What's funny is how she repeatedly slams Annie (who went to two Ivy League schools) for being "white trash," but her tirades are something you'd see on any given episode of Jerry Springer.
What's not funny though is how, even after last night, the majority of people still seem to side with Joan Rivers over Annie (Melissa's tantrum killed her popularity). Read these commentson the EW message board. It's about 90% pro-Joan. Again, Annie is overtly manipulative, but she's never taken a personal, below the belt shot at anyone on the show. Joan looks like the undead and goes out of her way to say the worst possible thing you can say to someone when she gets mad. So how are the viewers siding with Joan? Damn people suck so bad.
Also, apparently Joan thinks that poker player money is "soaked in blood." What? What is this, 1880? However, her line about poker players not having any last names was pretty funny (see: Chops, Snake, Addict).
Anyway, if you watched it, or just watched the below clip, let us know what you think in the comments section.
Yevgeniy Timoshenko with a brown wig? Maybe? Or Ukrainian model Olga Kurylenko?
As expected, Yevgeniy Timoshenko ran away from the field and captured the WPT Championship at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.
Timoshenko caught our eye earlier in the tournament, although not necessarily for his poker skills. But the Russian Ukrainian a woman who now resides in Washington State has been killing it online for years. Now, he adds the WPT's top prize and another $2.1M+ to his bankroll.
Yevgeniy Timoshenko. Early on Day 2 of the event, we asked the WPT team if Yevgeniy Timoshenko, a woman, was a chick, because of this picture. Later we did a post on him. Come to find out the dude is SOLID. Most think he's the real deal. Plus, he's got the Russian thing going for him. After Slumdog Millionaire, Vivek Rajkumar's run, and Anoop Desai's early front-runner status on American Idol, we thought it was the Year of the IndianTM. But then Anoop flamed out, killing that theory. In poker, it's clearly the Year of the RussianTM, even if said Russian actually lives in Seattle. Whatever. Timoshenko is big stacked at 13,300,000. He's got the mojo. We've got him listed at 1:1.
Christian Harder. Who? What? Harder is second overall in chips with 7,425,000. He's played solid all week. Third place feels right. 6:1 odds.
ElkY Grospellier. ElkY could grab WPT Player of the Year honors with a fourth place finish, which we think he'll do, because he'll finish second. No non-Russian is hotter in poker right now. EklY is currently third overall with 5,955,000. Odds of winning: 3:1.
Scotty Nguyen. Nobody has more primetime poker experience at this final table than Nguyen. He's played great poker all week. He's been focused. It would be no shocker for him to make a run at this title, despite having a ways to go to catch up. A win would actually make Scotty tournament poker's all-time money winner, so there's some extra incentive if he cares about that kind of thing (like a Phil Hellmuth would, for example). Nguyen is fourth overall going into final table play with 3,275,000. Odds of winning: 5:1 just because he's Scotty Nguyen, baby.
Ran Azor: Who? What? Azor is fifth overall with 2,525,000. Odds of winning: 47:1.
Shannon Shorr: The common sentiment among most people upon hearing Shorr, the guy with the hot porn star sounding girl's name, made the final table has been, "Good for Shannon." The dude has been one of poker's most consistent performers and has been doing it the right way (except for this incident): building his bankroll on his own, no backers, still going to school, and just doing his thing. However, Shorr kind of has that "happy to be here" vibe. He's way short, with 1,130,000, although hopefully he'll cling on to a fifth place finish to milk just a little more TV time and maybe nab himself a deal with one of the online poker sites out there. Odds of winning: 10:1.
A total of 32 poker titles. Five WSOP bracelets. One WPT title. One $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. title. One WSOP Main Event title. And now, finally, Scotty Nguyen can add a Blue Diamond Almonds Bold Player of the Day to his long list of accomplishments.
With just 10 remaining, Nguyen holds the chip lead at the WPT Championship, stacked at 5,880,000. If Nguyen wins this tourney, he'll end up just a few hundred grand behind Jamie Gold as the all-time poker tournament money winner.
Nguyen is followed by Yevgeniy Timoshenko, a woman, with 5,105,000.
Also remaining is porn star Shannon Shorr with 3,155,000. Shorr has been one of the most consistent players on the circuit for the past few years, is always near the top of various Player of the Year standings, yet receives practically no pub. A WPT TV final table appearance at this championship would definitely change that...if people still watched the WPT on TV.
We keed. We keed.
Also still alive is ElkY Grospellier with 1,965,000. We get it ElkY, you're good. Enough already. Leave some tournament money for everyone else.
In case you missed it, before the whole Hitler and blowjob comments happened, on this past week's Celebrity Apprentice, Annie Duke just laid the fuck into somebody on the phone who was helping Natalie Gulbis get Phil Hellmuth to contribute to her charity. Instead of Annie's.
Lots of speculation on who it was (Hellmuth even addressed it on the Hardcore Poker Show today here). While there has been a lot of speculation as to what poker industry insider it was, we actually know.
It's one of these five below. Vote for who you think it is in our comments section. And by the way, the voice was altered on the phone in the episode, so no real clues there.
We will randomly select one of the correct answers for a Wicked Chops t-shirt.
Day 4 is in the books at the WPT Championship. The field is down to 24 and Eugene Katchalov of Russia Brooklyn leads them all, stacked at 4,294,000.
Close behind him and third overall in chips is Victor/VictoriaYevgeniy Timoshenko with 2,613,000. Some of the big names remaining include Scotty Nguyen (1,823,000), half-man, half-amazing Freddy Deeb (1,575,000), Jeff Madsen (1,265,000), damn-this-guy-is-good ElkY Grospellier (1,230,000), damn-this-guy-is-good-too-and-has-a-hot-porn-star-name Shannon Shorr (1,200,000), Jennifer Harman, a woman (821,000),and Joe SebokZach HymanHyman RothMatt Hyman (433,000).
Day 3 has wrapped at the WPT Championship with Steve Billirakis as the chip leader, stacked at 1,722,000. Billirakis you might remember as the youngest WSOP bracelet winner in history. Or you may not remember him. Either way, he's chip leader. Fuck off.
Billirakis is followed by Joe SebokZach HymanHyman RothMatt Hyman with 1,663,000. Mark Seif is third for now until he gets too aggressive and spews off his 1,315,000 in chips. Nenad Medic will probably final table as he's fourth overall with 1,306,000. And David Singer is fifth with 1,116,000.
Only 62 remain. Plenty of notables, including but not limited to Phil Ivey (1,036,000), Jennifer Harman (828,000), Jeff Madsen (712,000), Scotty Nguyen (557,000), ElkY (378,000), Chris "Jesus" Ferguson (338,000), and Mike Matusow (272,000).
In related news, for those of you in Vegas, you've noticed it's gotten really hot this week, which means the pools are kicking, which means hot girls in bikinis (see below).
The WPT Championship played down to 168 on Day 2, and when the dust cleared (<--kidding about that phrase), Jean Noel Thorel, who we know nothing about other than he looks like thisand he has a French-sounding name so he's probably a frog. Thorel is stacked at 743,500. He's followed by the still hot Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier with 678,300. ElkY is to 2008-2009 tournament poker what the spectacularly-breasted J.C. Tran (125,500) was to tournament poker from 2006-2008.
Among the top 10 big stacks are also Steve Billirakis (672,400), Dan Heimiller, a ginger (655,700), Jimmy "Gobboboy" Fricke (583,800), and Jeff Madsen (479,200) who is on his way towards getting a million dollars again (go about 2:45 in here).
Plenty of big names still remain. Some might say that the field is "littered" with big names. Some might say. Get full chip counts here.
Everyone in the WPT Championshipat the Bellagio is talking about last night's Celebrity Apprentice with Annie Duke and Joan Rivers (pictured here).
Amanda Leatherman nabbed Duke during one of the breaks for her take on Joan Rivers' comments and the never-going-to-live-it-down-blowjob remark, which her ex-husband apparently is willing to confirm. Duke makes a pretty salient (pretty sure that's the first time we've used that word in 4 years...BJ Nemeth can you confirm?) point about people reacting to the blowjob comment more than the Hitler one.
J.C. Tran's spectacular breasts are among the Day 1B chip leaders at the WPT Championship. View more of his latest photoshoot here.
Good turnout for Day 1B of the WPT Championship, as 211 entered. Today the fields combine, with 301 of the registered 337 remaining.
Daniel Fuhs closed out Day 1B as chip leader, stacked at 254,200. Other big named big stacks include Steve Billirakis (232,450), the spectacularly-breasted J.C. Tran (218,300), and half-man, half-amazing Freddy Deeb (210,425).
Notable eliminations include Clonie Gowen, a woman, and Allen Cunningham. Get full combined field chip counts here.
So we were flipping through the channels last night and since American Idol, Flight of the Conchords, Big Love, The Office, and South Park weren't on, we decided to give CelebrityApprentice one more try.
Glad we did. Tuned in a little late, but from what we gathered, Annie finally stepped up as project manager. The task was auctioning off some of Ivanka Trump's jewelry. Whichever team raised the most money won.
Annie was talking about all of the rich friends she has and delivered, including getting Scott Ian from Anthrax to show. Apparently the competing project manager (golfer NatalieGulbis, sexy time pics here) knew Phil Hellmuth and had called the Poker Brat to contribute as well. Annie caught wind of this and immediately kiboshed that from happening. Annie's team crushed, Natalie got the ax, but before that happened, there was a big board room blow up where Joan Rivers (pictured here) compared Annie to Hitler (clip below). Yes, Adolf Hitler. Whatever you think of Annie, pretty sure she ain't trying to exterminate the Jews. Annie later said she thought Joan was a "crazy bitch," which she probably is, although a different kind of crazy bitch than Tiffany Williamson.
Later in the episode on the second task, Annie was cooking and said something to the effect of her being the "total woman" because she cooks, raises four kids, works hard...and gives a great blowjob. Check out the blowjob clip (not an actual blowjob, but Annie discussing it) here.
UPDATE: From Annie Duke's twitter page: "Joan rivers just tweeted, " I just compared Annie to Hitler. I feel terrible. My apologies to Hitler." Look at her page. WTF?"
We're no math wizards, but somewhere around a week or so ago Vadim Trincherwon the WPT Foxwoods Poker Classic. He banked over $731,000 and won a seat into the WPT Championship, which began Saturday.
Trincher is still running good, as he ended Day 1A of the aforementioned WPT Championship as chip leader, stacked at 309,725.
This is a mega-deep-stack event, as everyone starts with 100,000 in chips. That makes it even more surprising that Phil Hellmuth showed up late (he twittered that he was at Antonio Esfandiari's VIP cabana) and then busted about 15 minutes after he arrived.
Other Day 1A big stacks include second overall in chips (seriously? really?) Johnny Chan (291,675), Burt Boutin (281,000), and Shaun Deeb (269,900).
Only 19 people from the starting 126 busted, with notables including Kevin Saul and Daniel Alaei.
With most of the poker world in town for the start of the WPT Championship, Jennifer Harman held her third annual charity tournament yesterday. Some of the better interviews from the red carpet are above.
Go herefor WPT Championship updates and check back on WCP for our take daily as well.
Model actress Kim Smith (above) shares the same last name as writer/director/producer Kevin Smith.
Since Clerks came out, Kevin Smith hadn't made a movie worth seeing for about 15 years (ok, fine, we'll listen to your Dogma arguments, but we won't listen to your Chasing Amy ones, a movie that fell apart in an epicly bad way in its final 30 minutes). Then Zack and Miri Make A Porno dropped last year, which while not spectacular, was solid and worthy of repeat viewings. So hey, Smith's back on the [Entity] radar. More Zack and Miri and less Jersey Girl, please.
Anyway, like Christian Vieri, Smith is also taking up poker, although not in a professional pursuit kind-of-way.
And like any true poker player, Smith is active on twitter.com, where he recently tweeted:
I feel like playing some poker. Full Tilt, anybody? I play the six-handed sit&go's. Name's askewsme. Please don't identity-theft me.
ThatKevinSmith * Apr 11 * 19:09
Apparently his stats aren't that good, but whose are on Tilt? Russ Hamilton could super-user on Tilt and still probably get two-outered enough that he'd be like, "You know what, fuck this shit. I'm going to go play slots."
Soccer players pull crazy mad ass. If you're a soccer player in Europe, you could look like Joan Rivers and still bang 10's. Take Christian Vieri. No Patrik Antonius in the looks department, Vieri is married to Italian model/actress Elisabetta Canalis (above). View more pics here.
Little known fact: one-third of the Entities had a soccer scholarship in college and all three Entities played on a rec soccer team in our 30's (named Bling Bling United, no less). So we kind of now a thing or two about soccer.
For example, no matter what you look like, if you're a soccer star in Europe, you're dating models. It's like a law over there.
Christian Vieri is a (currently teamless) Italian striker who is (currently homely and) married to a model and is planning on taking up poker when he retires from non-U.S.American-football:
"I enjoy cards a lot, but my future is still in football. I will stop when I'm fed up chasing after a ball and I am not bored yet. When I'm retired, who knows, I could become a professional poker player."
In related news, Poker Stars probably just jizzed in their pants and are probably already drafting a contract for him.
Read the full Vieri article here. Get more soccer news here.
If you watched the MastersTM at all last week, you definitely saw the AT&T commercial for TOMS with "Chief Shoe-Giver" Blake Mycoskie (video below).
Talk about a turn-around. Four years ago this same guy was a driving force behind GreenTiePoker.com (read more about it here), a site that gave "men what they really want: the green, the girls, the glory." Started in conjunction with UltimateBet, it eventually went the way of other poker DoDo bird sites like Poker Blue and Duplicate Poker.
Blake used to walk around in nice suits wearing a green bow-tie (which, much like having Scott Lazar involved in producing your film, is never a good idea). Now embracing his inner-tree-hugger, Blake is giving away shoes to needy kids.
Good stuff/good for him. Hopefully this means the unfortunately-named Anurag Dikshit will be curing cancer soon.
Spanish model Marisa Jara is probably unfamiliar with Mitch Garber.
Read in between the lines on this one, but Harrah's has hired ex-Party Poker CEO Mitch Garber to run it's wsop.com website.
Reports the Times Online:
"HARRAH’s, the Las Vegas gaming group that owns Caesars Palace is to install Mitch Garber, a former chief executive of Party Gaming, as the head of a new company formed to house its internet operations and the popular World Series of Poker.
The gaming giant is spinning these businesses out into a newly-created [non-Wicked Chops] entity. The move is likely to fuel speculation over the possibility of Harrah’s making acquisitions in the online-gaming sector."
One thing not in recession due to The EconomyTM right now are hot girls in bikinis at Las Vegas pools. The newest pool at the newest casino, Day Dream at M, opened this week. While we don't think that looking hot in a bikini should be your top professional goal if you're a girl, it's right up there jockeying for first position along with administrative assistant skills, flight attending, and sewing (hello 1909!).
:: The NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship begins airing on the aforementioned NBC this Sunday at noon (relive this year's excitement here). [link]
:: Apparently there was a rumor circulating that Clonie Gowen's lawsuit was being dismissed, but that's not so much "true" as it is "untrue." [link]
:: Apparently the Durrrr Challenge is still going on. After a number of short sessions, durrrr and Patrik Antonius logged their longest heads-up battle to date. Antonius banked a $110,000 lead when the dust cleared. [link]
:: For the first time in his life, Barney Frank plans to play it straight...with anti-UIGEA legislation, that is. [link]
:: Hey, buy Dr. Pauly's book, "Lost Vegas," when it comes out. It's got a 1000000% chance to be a better read than "Take Me to the River." [link]
:: The SCOOP is in full swing, with Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi taking a Seven-Card Stud title. [link]
:: Finally, meet MookNam, the latest to give "making the great poker song" the old college try. [link]
:: Finally finally, we're huge South Park fans, and this week's "Fish Sticks" episode is an insta-classic. While Kayne West may be a "gay fish," good to see that Ray J is not (zoom to the very end). [link]
Vadim Trincher a 48 year-old ex-commie from the Soviet Union Russia took down the WPT Foxwoods Poker Classic, defeating Amnon Fillipi heads-up for the title.
With the win (banking $731,079), the uber-aggressive Trincher, who now lives in NYC, pushes his career tournament earnings to over $1M.
A few days late getting to this, practically a week, but better later than never, so after giving the Celebrity Apprentice with Annie Duke (who is clearly pwning the show) a good month of run, we're done with it.
Until next week. Then we're officially done with it. More on that in a minute.
This past week's episode had Donald Trump making two inexplicable eliminations when there were way more deserving people (total douche Clint Black, either of the creepy as fuck Rivers's). While the two people he axed (Khloe Kardashian and T-Boz) we could care less about, his reasoning/rationale was totally arbitrary, and it kind of ruined the show for us.
So we're done.
Until next week.
In the preview, it showed Joan Rivers (pictured here) and Annie getting into some all out argument, which probably is the base cause for Joan (pictured here) to call Annie "a piece of garbage"a few weeks back. So we're gonna at least watch that one.
Then we're done. Unless Herschel Walker makes it to the final, because the fucking DAWGS rule.
PartyGaming Plc, the parent company to the much missed daily donkfest known as Party Poker, has agreed to pay the U.S. American government $105M "to settle charges that it illegally offered gambling to players in the United States," according to the Washington Post.
How PartyGaming the company got off with only having to pay $105M while one of its founders, the unfortunately named Anurag Dikshit, had to pay $300M, is beyond us. But this development does raise two important points: 1) with Dikshit having to pay $300M and with Anoop Desai's possibly elmination from American Idol either this week or one of the next two, it's maybe not the Year of the Indian after all, and 2) with the state of The EconomyTM today, we'll take a collective $405M any way we can get it.
The news sent online gaming stocks soaring internationally. Analysts believe PartyGaming's actions will lead to other settlements and industry consolidation (increasing profits for all). And the settlement could ease the way for Party Poker's reentry to the U.S. market when the murky laws sort of making online poker kind of illegal are eventually lifted.
Rumors are swirling on forums that Casey was battling drug issues and his death was related to that, and given that he was only 20 and presumably in good shape as he was a talented baseball, it could make sense, but we have no idea if that's true or not. Of course, a toxicology report is being conducted.
Regardless, more sad news for the Reese family. Well wishes to them for sure.
Apparently this weekend there was an International Pillow Fighting Day (awesome idea, whoever made that one up). So in honor, view pics of hot girls pillow fighting here and watch the below vid for more...
:: Big story the past few days is Nolan Dalla's excellent two part interview with Amarillo Slim. The poker legend makes a compelling case for his innocence against child molestation charges and explains why he plea bargained. Maybe that feature film about him(Nic Cage was once attached) will get kicking again. [link & link]
:: Heard about this but just got around to reading it (thanks Pauly); Jay Newnum writes about twitter's impact on poker. [link]
This means the event will only pay out $731,079 for first. Why does this matter? It doesn't, really. But Foxwoods was home to the first ever WPT million dollar top prize. And just last year, Erik Seidel won $992,890 for taking the title.
So why the decline? First, you gotta blame The EconomyTM. Second, pros freaking hate Foxwoods. And third, the Bellagio prelim events are going on, and a lot of West Coast based pros are hitting that instead (see previous sentence as to one of the main reasons why).
Anyway, at the beginning of Day 2 play, the aforementioned David Williams is chip leader, stacked at 195,000. Hoyt Corkins isn't far behind with 164,000. And overnight chip leader Ken Adams is stacked at 145,000.
Also among the big stacks are Allen "Chainsaw" Kessler (117,000), Jonathan Little (95,000), Steve Brecher (93,000), Mike Matusow (85,000), and Dan Heimiller, a ginger (84,000).
UPDATE:Ryan Fisler ended Day 2 as chip leader with 422,000. David Williams is stacked at 314,300. Also alive are Barry Greenstein 151,200, Hoyt Corkins (144,400), Mike Matusow (93,800), Steve Brecher, who if he wins we say gets to take the nickname "Back To Back" from Layne Flack (68,500), and Jonathan Little (64,600). Only 59 remain.
We're in transit mode the past 48 hours so we weren't able to make some lame April Fool's joke. Sorry. Plus we've got to wrap up our next Bluff article, so blame the lack of posts on Bluff Magazine. Go ahead. Blame them.
As filler until we get back to full-posting-mode, below is Lady GaGa's wtf performance on American Idol last night.
Like fellow Aussie Elle McPhereson, Nicky Whelan is nicknamed "the body." So having the nickname "the penis" is probably a good thing, right? View more pics here(Whelan's body, not Entity penis).
:: Patrik Antonius builds his lead in the Durrrr Challenge. [link]
:: Kim Kardashian "backs" her sis Khloe by taking a shot at Annie Duke(about 2:30 in), despite Khloe showing about as much personality on Celebrity Apprentice as Kim did on DWTS. Man we watch too much reality TV. [link]
:: The 10 best slip ups in TV anchor history. And let's just say you don't accidentally say "double penetration" unless you've done double penetration. [link] <-- link has been corrected.
:: And finally, who doesn't love a good flowchart? [link]
After a long lay-off, Eminem is ready to drop a new album, Relapse. Hopefully it's not a relapse into rhyming about how your mom is a bitch and wife is crazy, cause that shit gets old and kind of silly once you approach 40. But anyway, he was in Las Vegas recently taking promotional pics for the album with Dr. Dre and 50 Cent.
Quick tangent, but when the hell is Dre releasing a new album? Put The Chronic in right now and listen to how well it stands up. Also listen to it because if you think we're sexist, holy shit. And is any rapper more overrated than 50 Cent? If Dre hadn't produced "In Da Club" would anyone even know who he is? Dre even made Nate Dogg sound cool with his "smoke weed every day" line at the end of "The Next Episode." You try singing that line and sound cool. It's not easy. Dre is a miracle worker. Somebody needs to put him on The EconomyTM. U.S. America would be kicking it post-WWII style in about six months. Barack Obama needs to get on that, stat. They probably already know each other too, so it shouldn't be hard.
Anyway, the above photo is kind of confusing. Interscope released it saying that it's (obviously) a pic of the guys playing high stakes cards from Em's first video off Relapse.
However, they're clearly playing blackjack. So why does Em look like he's about to ship his chips all-in style to the center? Does that explain Dre and Fiddy's quizzical looks?
Read about the shoot here. And for old time's sake, watch "Dre Day" here.
The UFC appears to be turning its back on Full Tilt Poker.
For the MMA fans out there: if you follow the UFC, you've probably noticed Full Tilt Poker logos and patches increasingly taking over the octagon.
Looks like that's coming to an end, at least for a little while.
The UFC today informed some of its business associates (and fighter managers) that Full Tilt Poker is banned from appearing on fighter's trunks, corners, or in the octagon itself.
With the amount of money FTP was dumping into the UFC, some other company had to be taking its place, right? The UFC had to get some sort of a better offer, you'd think.
Liebert was chip leader with only three remaining. But after a grueling heads-up match (eventually breaking the record for most hands played all-time at a WPT final table), Liebert, one of the all-time greatest female players, succumbed to middle-of-the-road pro Steve Brecher. Draw your own conclusions about it all if you'd [ here ].
For the win, Brecher banked $1,025,500. Liebert took $550,000 for second.
Unless someone at the final table is blind and only got there through sympathy votes and we're not aware of it, the only real storyline we're following at the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star now is if Kathy Liebert, a woman, can win her first WPT title and become the first woman to ever capture a World Poker Tour title.*
She'll be third in chips entering play, stacked at 1,180,000. She trails overall big stack Tony Behari (2,046,000) and Steve Brecher (2,016,000) who is making his second WPT final table and we guess some people consider a "name" pro but let's face it, who gives a shit.
They're in the money at the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Stars, with a friends and familyTM leader board going into Day 3 play. Only four so-called "shooting stars" remain.
Michael Kamran has the chip lead, stacked at 570,500. He's followed by Tony Behari (553,000) and Chris Moore (539,500).
Notables still alive include Kathy Liebert (385,000), Paul Wasicka (297,000), Steve Brecher (151,500), Hoyt Corkins (124,500), the hotter than a really spicy dish of Indian food Vivek Rajkumar (124,000), and Joe Sebok (116,500).
We're kind of digging the snorgtees girls. You should buy their shirts. Check 'em out.
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