Tao of Poker

Bad Beat Princess

"I cracked his (famous TV poker pro) pocket aces," she shouted into her cellphone as she rushed down the corridor sliding past the steady flow of other players on their break. She was well tanned with perfectly manicured nails. She wore a baseball cap and carried a purse that was worth twice as much as the blue book value of Grubby's 91' Geo Metro.

"I cracked fuckin' aces with my sixes too. It was so freakin' cool. Just like on TV!" she continued in a thick Long Island accent. I put her on somewhere near the Nassau/Suffolk County border as she hid her eyes behind oversized $400 designer sunglasses.

Right now there's a famous TV poker pro sitting around a NL cash game bitching with his other famous poker pro friends about that donkey of a tourist who called off all her chips with two overs on the flop and then rivered her two outer.

It's just another Wednesday at the Rio. Even Daddy's Little Princesses have been infected with the crack-like symptoms of tournament poker. They're jumping into the fight handing out bad beats to pros quicker than they can drop $2K on a shopping spree.

If one of them with a pretty face gets lucky and goes deep into one of these early events, they are going to get swallowed up by a major sponsor. The 2006 WSOP used to be tiny tournament in the smoke-filled back of The Horseshoe downtown. Now the WSOP is big time. Poker players and big business reps are roaming the hallways of the Rio like the pimps and the hookers on Tropicana Avenue.

The online poker room suites are opening up soon which means more free food and liquor for me. Last year, Full Tilt set the standard with their suite which had excellent food and a mini bar. They also had other stuff like chocolate bars and gave away tons of free schwag. Ultimate Bet, Poker Stars, and Doyle's Room had been setting up their spaces as the Roofers Convention finally left town. And Full Tilt is going to pull out all the stops this year.

* * * * *
Last night, Andy Black and Vince Van Patten were playing cash games. I think it was $25/50 NL. I haven't had the chance to sit down and play yet. The tables were packed last night. I'm making an effort to play at some point today.

Like rockstars banging groupies, poker pros are jumping in bed from one online site to the other. Victor Ramdin used to be a Full Tilter. Now he's a Poker Stars guy. Otis has a picture of Ramdin from earlier today sporting a Stars shirt. Last year, Poker Stars were baffled when two of their guys Marcel Luske and Noah Boeken wore FT shirts at the "featured TV table" during last year's main event.

I spotted Robert Mizrachi (the brother of the Grinder) in a FT jersey. He's one of their new "friends of FT" along with Carlos Mortensen, who ended the first day of Event #2 $1,500 NL as the chipleader. The former WSOP main event champion is seeking his third bracelet as he began day two with a mountain of chips.

2,776 players bought into Event #2. That's the second most number of players ever for any WSOP tournament. The final table will start on Thursday. Action will play down to nine tonight.

Here's Event #2 final table payouts:
1. $757,839
2. $416,816
3. $226,597
4. $176,579
5. $151,570
6. $126,940
7. $107,614
8. $88,668
9. $71,617

When Allen Cunningham won this event last year, he took home $725K which represented 22.81% of the total prize pool. This year's winner will take home about $758K or 18.2% of the total prize pool. In all fairness, Harrah's is paying out 270 places this year to 200 spots in 2005 for this event.

Oh now back by popular demand!

Last 5 Pros I Took a Piss Next To...
1. Freddy Deeb
2. Jean-Robert Bellande
3. C.K. Hua
4. Noah Boeken
5. David Williams

* * * * *

I heard a story about the father/son prop bet between Doyle and Todd Brunson against Joe Sebok and Barry Greenstien. I'm going to investigate more and get the full details. I heard it was somewhere between $100K and 500K and it's based on total combined earnings during this year's WSOP. Stay tuned for more details.

Before I go, I have to let you know that some good friends of mine Tom Murphy and Mike "Lucky Blind" Lacey are headed to Vegas shortly. They are some of the coolest guys I met through poker at the 2005 WSOP. And they can drink. Lots.

Here's part of an email I got from Tom today:

Subject: The Irish Are Coming

There are SOOOOOO many Irish coming this year, its going to look like Paddy's Day for a month!

Seriously, the local clubs are worried there wont be the attendance for the tournies while we're all out there. Easily 15 of my poker buddies are coming. So, there will be a lot of us to drink with this year!We're looking forward to it too.

Can't wait for those guys to show up. One of my favorite stories involving them happened at the WSOP final table. For most of the night they constantly bought me and Otis hotdogs and Coronas. Every poker fan in Ireland religiously followed Andy Black's progress through the coverage on their site Antes Up. After Andy Black was busted, they were pissed and took off to drink heavily and gamble. They packed up their laptops and hit the road since they only player of Irish significance was eliminated. Their last WSOP post that read, "For the rest of the final table, go read Pauly's blog."

* * * * *
You should be reading... Wicked Chops Poker and Joe Speaker's The Obituarium.