Tao of Poker

Random WSOP Thoughts


The dealers
I had another article published at Fox Sports. This one is called Dark Horse: Chip Reese Wins $50K HORSE. In the last two weeks, I've had two other articles published titled: First Impressions and 2006 WSOP Preview.

Here's why Lacey Jones is cool. I had just walked out of the bathroom and I was picking my nose. She saw me in mid-pick and still said hello.

Harry Demetriou posted about his meeting with WSOP officials over at the Hendon Mob.

Flipchip took photos of the press conference where several professional poker players announced that they just filed a lawsuit against the WPT.

Congrats to CC for his one year blog anniversary. If there was an award to best new blog, Quest of a Closet Poker Player would get my vote.

Storms told me about the $1200 bet that Gavin Smith had with John Juanda regarding throwing an empty canister of Airborne (equivalent to the size of a roll of quarters) into a trash can in the Full Tilt Suite. Gavin said Juanda could not nail it. Juanda took him up on the bet and took several minutes calculating the distance and even rehearsed a throwing motion several times before he made his attempt. Juanda nailed the shot and picked up 12 bills.

Andy Black discussed a hand with me that he played in the $5K Stud event. He wandered over to me at the rail as three tourists whipped out their cell phone cameras to grab a shot of the Irish pro.

"Worst fuckin' move I've seen in poker," Black said shaking his head. "I should know, I've made plenty of bad ones. I told the guy, 'You played that absolutely terrible.'"

Black was caught in the middle of a raising war against two guys with two pair. They kept re-raising each other. One guy had Queens and 10s and the other guy had 10s and 2s. Andy had an ace high flush draw with four clubs in his hand. He bricked up on sixth and seventh street and missed a chance to scoop a monster pot.

Andy has been playing cash games, specifically he can often be found playing the $50 big blind, $25 ante NL ring game with guys like Johnny Chan, Antonio Esfandiari, Danny Alaei, and Carmel Petresco. Andy cashed in two events this year, but has dragged pots in the cash game that were worth more than all of this year's WSOP tournament winnings.

There's a French film crew here recording a reality show or some sort of documentary. They sit around and talk in French in the room, mostly about technical stuff. While they were engrossed in conversation, I blurted out, "English only at the tables please."

Otis did a spit take and shot sugar free Sierra Mist all over his laptop screen.

By the way, Otis compiled a handy list of FAQs for the main event if you have never played at the WSOP before. It's helpful information and a must read if you are an online qualifier playing at the Rio for the first time.

Otis also posted hot picture of Vanessa Rousso's tongue.

He also published the WCOOP schedule which features Razz and HORSE! Yes, it's true PokerStars will be running a Razz and Horse event during the WCOOP.

September 16: Razz ($200+$15) $100,000 guaranteed
September 17: NL Hold 'em ($500+$30) $1,500,000 guaranteed
September 18: PL Omaha (rebuys) ($300+$20) $400,000 guaranteed
September 19: NL Hold 'em Match Play ($200+$15) $300,000 guaranteed
September 20: Limit Omaha High/Low ($500+$30) $300,000 guaranteed
September 21: NL Hold 'em (rebuys) ($200+$15) $1,000,000 guaranteed
September 22: Limit Hold 'em ($200+$15) $200,000 guaranteed
September 23: HORSE ($200+$15) $100,000 guaranteed
September 23: PL Hold 'em ($500+$30) $400,000 guaranteed
September 24: NL Hold 'em ($1,000+ $50) $1,000,000 guaranteed
September 25: Seven Card Stud ($300+$20) $100,000 guaranteed
September 26: PL Omaha8 ($300+$20) $200,000 guaranteed
September 27: PL Hold'em ($300+$20) $400,000 guaranteed
September 28: Seven Card Stud High/Low ($500+$30) $200,000 guaranteed
September 29: PL Omaha ($500+$30) $300,000 guaranteed
September 30: HORSE ($5,000+$200) $100,000 guaranteed
September 30: Limit Hold'em ($1,000+$50) $400,000 guaranteed
October 1: NL Hold 'em ($2,500+$100) $3,000,000 guaranteed

Here's some hilarious fan mail:

Belfast UDA would like to make you a Drug Mule

pauly,

hopefully the fucked up subject got your attention,big fan etc etc all that jazz, but turly sincerely its a blank cheque in terms of praise man. I'm from Belfast in Northern Ireland and really appreciate your writing and fuckin honesty about poker these days, I've only caught it one year now, and in Hicksonian parlance "it is suckin the jism of satan", but you are one of the few respected(yeah get use to it lol) writers(hell thats what you do, whats with this blogger shit, its words, writing for fucks sack, an entire new medium none the less, but who want s to call themselves video artists) who is actually giving a real account of the big satanic jism wave of poker.$.com. I love poker mate, and especially the characters/stories/opinions that comes with it, these fuckers have to understand, NO ONE OWNS POKER, thats the fuckin beauty of the game, its the players moneys that should be on the line, then you get correct/creative play that makes the legends.

"I was'nt in too much trouble but I had a bigger event comin up so I stuck it in with a runner runner draw, actually in the long run it was a profitable bust out, a +EV loss" poker.$.com

Thanks for the email and the kind words. Great to hear that I have friends in Northern Ireland.

Before I go, thanks to the kind souls who sent me the most traffic over the last month.

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