Layla Kayleigh Makes WPT TV Debut this March, Travel Channel Says WPT Like Crack

Almost a year after it was announced that she was replacing one-season host Sabina Gadecki, Layla Kayleigh--who currently reigns as the number one searched girl on this site because she has a smoking hot body and a really pretty smile, and eyes too...they're really pretty--will finally make her World Poker Tour television debut on March 24, when the sixth season of the pioneering poker show premieres on its new network, GSN. A total of 23 two-hour episodes will air on Monday nights at 9 pm. This is the first season the WPT will be seen on the gaming-geared network after five seasons on the Travel Channel. "We couldn't be more thrilled to have GSN as our partner and the new home of WPT," said WPTE's Steve Lipscomb. You know who also couldn't be more thrilled? Pat Younge, the president of the Travel Channel, who apparently is pigs-on-shit happy to get rid of the WPT even though it was a ratings monster for the network. "We needed it like a junkie needs crack," Younge said recently about the WPT. "That was the downside of the World Poker Tour … it did bring us a rating number, but it so damaged the brand in the eyes of the traveling community that it impacted our ability to monetize it somewhere else,” said Younge. "We are a travel play." Which totally explains why the network seems to be dominated by foodie type shows now like No Reservations and Bizarre Foods. Anyway, Layla Kayleigh is fun to look at. Do some of that below and here, here here and here.

Jessica Alba Not Chosen to Replace Sabina Gadecki as WPT Hostess

With the first WPT final table of Season VI getting underway tomorrow, Steve Lipscomb, a man who we hear loves Wicked Chops Poker, has yet to announce Sabina Gadecki's replacement, let alone the fact that the cutey model/actress has left/been ousted from her role as the WPT hostess after just one season with the tour.

Our sources are telling us, however, that despite what the voices in our heads confirmed after we hashed up cactus juice and cough syrup at an aeropuerto de México this past fin de semana, Jessica Alba has not, we repeat has not been tapped as Gadecki's replacement. Yes, you can imagine our disappointment when we woke up from this past weekend's trip . . . about 25 minutos ago . . . in a prisona de Guatemala.

On the good news front, the prisona has a great wi-fi connection so we can tell you that Alba did do a smoking hot spread for GQ, a magazine chock full of photos of hot girls, except replace "hot girls" with "several too many photos of sharp-dressed gay men hawking duds, kicks and cologne."

You can check out the entire Alba GQ spread here. It's loads of fun.

WPT Season Six Starts Today; Where's Sabina's Replacement?

The sixth season of the World Poker Tour kicks off today with the Mirage Poker Showdown, and no hot blonde has yet been named as the new WPT hostess.

While at the WPT World Championship we overheard multiple people whose last name ryhmes with Fadecki mentioning that ultra-cute Sabini Gadecki would likely not be returning as hostess this season. She was as good as Friel'd. So we figured that Lipscomb & Co. would've had another tall, attractive blonde lined up any day now.

Instead, the only thing we've heard from the WPT lately is this open forum (read this exactly crafted letter from Matt Matros) about revising the final table blind structure. Here's an idea: make the blind structure less aggressive so the guys and occassional fluke woman participants can play more. Look, we just saved you hours of internal debate! Genius!

Now go on to naming your next hot host already.

For live blogging updates of the WPT Mirage Poker Showdown, click here.

WPT Doesn't Announce Sabina Gadecki's Replacement

But they did announce their Season VI tournament schedule, which will see the once-popular poker show heading to some first-time destinations, including Barcelona, Turks & Caicos and Biloxi, the last of which takes place September 6-9 along the Gulf Coast, during the height of what many expect to be an active hurricane season. Not predicting anything here. Just saying.

The schedule includes 19 regular-season WPT tour stops and the annual ladies-only event, which, to point out the obvious, is the only tournament a woman has ever won on the WPT.

The WPT also said that several themed invitation events will be announced at a later date. A long overdue "Midgets-Only" event we hope. Or maybe a "Narcissistic Tramps of Poker" event or "Men Who Shagged Rhowena" night would spice things up, although the WPT usually limits its TV tables to just six players.

With the first final table of Season VI just days away, the WPT still opted not to announce any word on the Friel-ing of Sabina Gadecki, who, if the forums are any indication, won't be missed, which actually makes us feel bad for Sabina and want to reach out and give her a hug and ask her to make us dinner. We did get word from a few sources and our inner voices that the WPT has already picked a replacement for Gadecki. We're not saying who the new host is yet except that it isn't her, her, her or her.

Unfortunately.

Sabina Gadecki Gets Friel'd, Not Coming Back for Season VI of the World Poker Tour

All right. We speculated wrongly.

In a post last week, we stated that someone was going to get whacked from Season VI of the World Poker Tour. It caused quite a stir around the Fontana Poker Room, with most of the players and media types we spoke with thinking Mike Sexton would be the one to go, as he simply doesn't need the WPT. He's set financially. Or maybe he wants to play more poker and high stakes golf matches. Who knows. 

We, on the other hand, assumed it was Vince Van Patten who wouldn't be coming back, sex appeal and really good hair be damned!

But over the course of the week we have heard from multiple, well-placed sources that it is actually the show's shamefully cute hostess, Sabina Gadecki, who after one season is departing just like her predecessor Courtney Friel did after hosting Season IV of the tour (Friel is now roving it as a part-time reporter for the Fox News Channel).

Gadecki's departure comes as a surprise to many who thought the aspiring actress/model and former Miss Polonii Świata and Miss Polonia World 2002 might just be able to fill the shoes (leopard print dresses, bikinis, etc.) of everyone's favorite poker hostess, Shana Hiatt (seen at left from her spectacularly splendid Stuff Magazine spread).

Shana charmed us the first three seasons of the WPT, abruptly left due to some behind-closed-doors conflicts, then sued the WPT after they tried to Peacock-block her. Now she hosts NBC's poker line-up, including its late night ratings winner "Poker After Dark."

Shana Hiatt and Sabina Gadecki Must Have the Same Stylist

We're no fashionistas here at Wicked Chops Poker, seriously we don't have a clue about the "world of fashion" and its peculiar manner of describing clothing, but one of us did notice that the leopard print dress seems to be the le style du jour for poker TV show hostesses these days (and apparently young British girls as well, but that's another story). First, over at the "Poker After Dark" website you have a series of photos with Shana Hiatt donning an alluringly classic, leopard print, knee-length dress featuring a sweetheart neckline with a slight A-line shape and what looks like empire seaming, and then over at Sabina Gadecki's MySpace page we noticed the new WPT hostess wearing a stunningly sexy, leopard print, tea-length dress with a very fitted shape that accentuates a sweetheart neckline with seductive lace. We mean, yeh, both broads are in leopard dresses and look smoking hot, man. So who do we think looks hotter in leopard? Well, what's the meaning of life would be an easier question to answer than that but if we had to choose we'd pick the girl who hosts a poker show and whose name starts with an "S." Yes, a cop out but screw you for asking such tough questions. After the jump, two other leopard dress photos of Sabina as well as the above photo of Sabina, but larger. And better. Because it's larger. Also be sure to check out Sabina Gadecki's new official website, www.sabinagadeckionline.com, which is loaded with photos, a blog, downloads and video clips of her doing the WPT thing.

Joe Hachem Triumphantly Returns to WPT Play and Wins Their Tournament with the Long Name

Dare we say that the 2005 WSOP ME champ and the WPT are ready to bury the "hachem" now? Damn we're fucking clever.

Joe Hachem, who in July filed a lawsuit against the WPT alleging they "unlawfully conspired to eliminate competition, and violated the intellectual property rights of [poker] players" but has allegedly dropped out of said suit since, now has over $2.1M reasons to be cool with the WPT using his likeness however the hell they please after winning the Five-Diamond Something Something Doyle Brunson Something Something Classic.

Hachem, who has consistently proven his wicked poker chops since winning the WSOP ME in 2005, manuevered through a mongolodian tough field to capture his first WPT title.

Final table play started with Daniel Negreanu as the chip leader. Negreanu built his stack to over 9M early, but eventually bowed out in third overall, banking $592,000.

Sabina Gadecki Is Not 12

Earlier in the week we did some background work on Miss Polonii Świata 2002 and World Poker Tour Season 5 host, Sabina Gadecki. Generally, our conclusion was that she looked cute...if you were still in middle school or are addicted to My Space. 

She looked young, folks. 

The first event of WPT Season 5 wrapped this week (the Mirage Poker Showdown won by Stan Weiss), and Gadecki made her debutcki.  Looks like the WPT gave her the old Hollywood makeover, or she aged well the past few years since starring in Stone Street. She still looks young, but heck, she is young, and at least now your employer won't arrest you or wonder about your taste in females if you make her your wallpaper.  Below are some pics from the WPT Web site and from Las Vegas Vegas, as the Prof snapped one as well.  Word on the street from those who have viewed some early Season 5 footage of Sabina is that she comes across as a "baby Shana," and should connect better with TV viewers than WPT Season 4 host, Courtney Friel, who apparently, like, didn't. 

UPDATE: Also check out BJ Nemeth's site for the first interview of Gadecki and more pics...

    

More On the New WPT Hostess Sabina Gadecki

Yesterday when we introduced you to Sabina Gadecki, the new World Poker Tour hostess for season 5, we told you about how she was turned down for a part in Mean Girls because, as she explained, "I looked too innocent."

Well, if innocent means looking like you're 12, which we're pretty sure it does, she's right.

The screen capture you see to the right, as well as the ones after the jump, are from a short film called Pillow Fighters Go!, which Gadecki "starred" in back in 2003, a year after being crowned Miss Polonii Świata 2002 and Miss Polonia World 2002.

The film was a production for Stone Street, an acting workshop Gadecki apparently attended, and doing the math, we're guessing Gadecki, who appears to be a cross between Shana Hiatt and a small child in the film, was 19 at the time.

After the jump are a couple more screen captures, and you can view the entire short film here. Gadecki first appears about 5 minutes in, or in Quicktime parlance, slide the ball about "-------" far. When you see a girl who looks like a cross between Shana Hiatt and a small child, that's her.

Miss Polonii Świata 2002 Named New WPT Hostess

For being the subject of an endless number of tasteless jokes, Polaks rule.

Take for example, Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Pope John Paul II. Perhaps one of the most significant men of the 20th Century, the Wadowice-born Wojtyła won over millions of people's hearts as the Pilgrim Pope from Poland, spreading charity, love and peace wherever he globetrotted.

Then there's Maciek Gracz, aka Michael Gracz, who moved to the U.S. from Poland. Perhaps one of the best young poker players today, the Warsaw-born Gracz has won over millions of dollars from other players, eclipsing more than $3 million in tournament winnings in 2005 after capturing his first WSOP bracelet and winning the WPT PartyPoker.com Million IV.

And of course there's Joanna Krupa.

Ahhhhh Joanna Krupa.....

What? Unh? Where were we? (Certainly not in the bathroom of a Greyhound bus or the parking lot of a Bed, Bath, & Beyond, sickos)

Oh yeh, Joanna Krupa, she's frickin' hot. And Polish.

And now there is Miss Polonii Świata 2002 and Miss Polonia World 2002 Sabina Gadecki (seen above when she was about 18 years old, or as some prefer to say, "legal"). According to poker news dot com PokerNews.com, a site that covers "poker news" better than Chris Shilts' Cards, Chips and More sold cards, chips and more, Sabina Gadecki has just been named the new hostess for the World Poker Tour, replacing what's her name who replaced that other girl just a year ago, or so.

By the way, we have no idea what the titles Miss Polonii and Miss Polonia are all about. All we know is that Miss Polonii Ameryki 1998 Annetta Nowosielska (seen to the right) doesn't look very happy being crowned Miss Polonii Ameryki 1998 and that, considering the competition, Sabina Gabecki is the hottest Miss Polonii or Polonia in some time, which means Joanna Krupa never ran for the title.

Anyway, WPT CEO Steve Lipscomb told PokerNews.com, and us personally, through reading PokerNews.com, the following:

"Sabina Gadecki joins us as an exciting, fresh, new face for the all-new World Poker Tour to debut with a new set, look and feel in Season Five. We chose Sabina from hundreds of applicants. She emerged as the right fit because of the star qualities she naturally exhibits."

According to PokerNews.com, the Just Brakes of poker news, Gadecki was discovered five years ago during a trip to New York when she was plucked out of the audience of MTV's 'Total Request Live,' which unbeknownst to PokerNews.com has since been given the TRL-esque moniker "TRL."

According to an article on MSNBC's Current Magazine site, Gadecki is/was an international business major at Fordham University, loves to act and dance and came to New York to pursue acting. She's been in commercials for such products as Axe, Coca-Cola, and Chili's and has come close to landing some big movie roles.

“I was up for a part in Mean Girls, but was turned down because I looked too innocent," Gadecki told Current

Too innocent? We'll wait for the inevitable Maxim, Stuff and FHM spreads before judging that. Until then, Wicked Chops Poker still thinks FOWCP Jen Graham would have been the better choice. Of course, we're biased.

One more photo of Sabina Gadecki after the jump...