Glow in the Dark Dragons

By Pauly
Las Vegas, NV

I made a triumphant return to the Gold Coast after finishing a much-anticipated screening of The Hangover 2. With visions of the smoking, drug-dealing monkey on my mind, all I kept thinking was: "I want a monkey as a mascot in the press box for the WSOP."


But my better sense suggested that WSOP suits would never allow it. For one, there's health reasons. For another, my pet monkey might go ape shit when he passes the Poker Kitchen and realizes they serve kangaroo meat as the base of the burger mix.

Depending on which starchild you talk to, humans are made of mostly monkey DNA with just a sprinkling of alien DNA. Even if you don't believe in aliens, and ignore your inner Agent Mulder and take a more scientific like Agent Scully, it's impossible to ignore the fine line between man and monkey. Even if poker players have no clue about genetics, they've seen peculiar monkey business happening at the tables.

If you've got your ass kicked during a donkament by inferior players, then you'd wonder if the person across the table has more simian DNA than human DNA. Ergo, monkeys can play in the WSOP, they can't be mascots for the press, nor chip counters. Oh well, so much for my idea of hiring cheap labor to actually publish chip counts on Tao of Poker this year.

Besides, where the fuck are we going to get all those bananas to feed the monkey?

My apologies for the tangent...

I turned on my phone as I exited the theatre. Homer sent me a message -- Pai Gow. How could I not indulge in a few hands on my first night in Vegas? Homer had fastened himself to the far corner seat at a Pai Gow table in the gambling pits of the Gold Coast, our humble home away from home every summer. Homer was ensconced in a serious session lasting several hours before I arrived with Change100. He was saucy, which was a total shocker because when was the last time you saw a Brit binge drink in Las Vegas?

Also at Homer's table were Timtern and Landon. At first I thought Landon was shithoused drunk because he talked kinda funny, but that's when I noticed he was sipping coffee and recalled he was Australian. This is his first WSOP as a member of the press corp and he dove head first into the late night madness.

"Get used to this," I mentioned to Landon. "We're do gonna this every fucking night for the next seven weeks."

I sat down in seat 2. Two civilians were also at the table, but we chased one of them off rather quickly and Change100 took that seat. We had a rail when KevMath and Marie showed up. The waitress brought me rum drinks and that's when the carnage began.

The first dealer was the slowest Pai Gow dealer I've ever experienced. Holy shitballs, I expect slow service when I go to a Waffle House in Bumblefuck, Georgia, but when I'm jacked up on pure Vegas adrenaline and have a stack of greenbirds in front of me, I want to see as many Pai Gow hands as possible.

The slow dealer was giving me questionable hands and the ones that appeared to have value were brutally ravished by the dealer's seven cards. Slow dealer and a bad beat? Talk about getting both your testicles sliced and diced.

They finally sent in a new dealer, but as per usual, she was a bot from the Nagai Corporation in Japan. I might have caught a break this summer because after Japan suffered a devastating earthquake and tsunami (which cause a meltdown of multiple nuclear reactors), the country's industrial production shut down for many weeks and is slowly getting back online. The new line of Pai Gow bots will not arrive until late in 2011, which means I only have to deal with older version, which are prone to glitches and the occasional error. I guess that's the only good thing to come out of the Japan quake. Sure, Japan is drowning in radiation soup while traces of radioactive material flutter its way toward North American airspace, but at least I won't have to worry about an upgraded version of the Pai Gow bots.

Homer became my personal hero when he slowrolled a dealer. The dealer showed trip 4s. Homer had cheekily set his five-card hand. When the dealer turned it over, only four cards were exposed. Two of them were sixes, the other two were blanks. The dealer fished the covered card out of Homer's hand and flipped over the 6 of diamonds.

"Eat that you fucking bot," I muttered under my breath. "You just got slowrolled by a sschwated Brit who consumed his body weight in booze!"

Homer 1, Bots 0.

I lost a couple of $100 hands (yes I was betting 10 to 12 times the $10 minimum because I'm an action junkie), but I'll spare you the morose details. Bad beats, of course. I always get my money in good at a Pai Gow table.

It's gonna be a long summer.

WPBT Moving on Up, Part 1: The Dream, Moving the Line, and Stay Away from My Sister

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

This recap is at least a week late. I had other work going on last week and never found a large chunk of time to sit down and write about the 7th incarnation of the WPBT weekend in Las Vegas. My brother finally published his perennial Hemingway-inspired post about the WPBT, and as always, it's one of the best of the bunch. Check out Derek's Matrix-themed recap titled Holiday Classic Recap: Unplugged.

The volume and strength of my recaps seriously diminished over the years. The inaugural WPBT weekend in 2004 was the shortest trip since the inception, but that recap is the largest to date with a behemoth 10-part series, which spilled into January, and consisted of a 21,000+ word rambling screed about bloggers heading to Vegas with each other for the first time.

The natural progression of how I process new experiences negativity affected the volume of writing about the WPBT weekend in subsequent years. If you've attended several gatherings, then you understand that the newness of the trip (and Las Vegas itself) wears thin. What was once new and bizarre has now become expected and downright overlooked. For example, on the first trip when my brother and I selected the weekend that would become set in stone for the ensuing years, we did not have a clue that we stumbled upon Rodeo Week as a backdrop. Like the blogger gathering itself, the selection process was organic -- it just happened that way -- and sea of cowboys surrounded a group of 20 or so poker-addicted strangers meeting for the first time, which added a peculiar and surreal element to the original Vegas WPBT trip reports. Flash forward seven years and the cowboys who once stood out quickly faded into the background. They were muted like the invisible blue hairs chasing jackpots at the penny slots.

As a writer I often struggle with avoiding the pitfall of repeating myself. Sure, universal themes are revisited frequently as long as the principles and situations are different, but I often censor myself because I don't want to repeat myself and strive for originality. That's another main reason why I've written less and less about the WPBT over the years -- because I feel as though I already told the story and if I can't tell it better a second time around, then I'd rather let the original story stand alone. Besides, when you move to Las Vegas full time, it affects how you perceive things. One of the main backstories to Lost Vegas is how I chronicled my struggles from as an enthusiastic tourist to a jaded local. Even though I choose not to live in Las Vegas during my down time, I still have to live there every summer for two months. The Vegas myth for me has been shattered a hundred times over.

The third reason contributing to why my WPBT posts have lost their luster is simply that the people in my life are not as comfortable with detailing their daily minutiae as I am. Sure, some of my friends are utter whores and thrive on the attention, but others are outright shy. Although it's taken a few years and a couple of hairy incidents to come up with the current formula, my close friends are content with my definition of discretion. My built-in filter is set up for their protection; I rarely ask permission and they rarely have to remind me. In short, they want to have fun without worrying about it becoming fodder for the intertubes. For most of our salacious musings, you're going to have to wait until a sequel to Lost Vegas gets published in 2015 or the Phish book comes out in 2012.

So much for a quick disclaimer to start this recap. I guess what I was trying to say that my silence, or lack of verbiage on the WPBT weekend does not reflect the amount of fun I had on the trip. Most of the fun that I experienced has already been written up better in previous reports, or we're having too much fun that I don't have the time to stop and document it all.

One thing is for certain, it doesn't matter if it was the first trip or seventh -- it was a sincere pleasure to see old friends and make new ones, and those who could not make the journey for whatever reason were sorely missed.

* * * * *
"Dude, we moved the line," Derek said.

I had never moved a line in a Las Vegas casino before. Sure, it was the Imperial Palace's sports book, a haven for the down and out horse fegens that God often forgets about, which probably explained why the line on the Knicks game moved from -2.5 to -3 after our bet. I mean, if you're the sportsbook manager and two swarthy guys from New York put down a big bet on the Knicks less than ten minutes before tip off, wouldn't you be a bit curious?

Our bet was of ill-significance compared to bets that I've put down in the past, especially in 2007 at the apex of my sports betting degeneracy. Even when I was betting five and six dimes on a game back then, I never affected the line like we did at the IP for a bet on the Knicks game. I'm guessing that we were the only action on that game but it was big enough that they were suspicious. Hence the line move.

I wasn't 100% convinced of our persuasion until we walked into the sportsbook at the MGM later that night and noticed that the Knicks line was set at the original -2.5. The line also stayed the same at Caesar's Palace, which is a tentacle of IP's parent company. You would think that all of their sportsbooks had a universal line, but the IP's sportsbook manager used his own discretion and bumped up the spread a half a point.

The IP is old school Vegas and has yet to embrace the 21st century. I wouldn't be surprised if an eighty-year old myopic goomba named Tony was setting the lines with an abacus in the backroom. The point spread for the Knicks-Wizards game was written down in a black marker on a white dry board behind the cashier. After we put in our bet, the manager rubbed out "-2.5" and replaced it with a minus sign followed by a number three.

At the time we made the wager, the Knicks had won six in a row and were in the middle of a historical streak that was threatening to break Knicks team records from the halcyon days in the 1990s. Newly acquired Amare Stoudamire was playing like an MVP and easily dropping 30+ points a game. The Knicks surprised a lot of people, but we knew they were a tough team to beat on the road. They were taking on the lowly Washington Wizards and it seemed like a lock.

"The Knicks are a second half team," Derek matter-of-factly stated before he took a deep drag on his cigarette.

The Knicks were down by 5 at the half but my brother didn't blink. As they had been doing all season, the Knicks caught fire in the third quarter and seized the lead. They never looked back and won the game by six points. My brother looked calm and cool the second half, while I acted the opposite. I started pacing around the IP sportsbook with less than 4 minutes left in the 4th quarter. StB thought that was hilarious, because in the five or six years we've known each other, he had never seen my frantic behavior when sweating a bet on hoops.

"I can now cross that off my bucket list," StB quipped.

I do it all the time. When I used to work on Wall Street, I preferred phones with long extension chords so I could walk up and down my trench while trying to churn clients' accounts. On Sundays during the NFL season, my girlfriend is amused with the amount of frantic pacing that I'll undertake in an eight hour session while walking around in circles for a total of three miles inside our 800 sq. ft. apartment in the slums of Beverly Hills. The bigger the bets (or important fantasy league match-up), the more that I pace. I obviously have problems -- call it an inverse God complex -- where I can't stomach not having control over a situation. Hence that's why I get an amazing, yet nausea-inducing rush betting on sports.

* * * * *
The last two plus years have been a dream... because America elected a black President, I finally finished Lost Vegas, my favorite band got back together, and I discovered two new outlets to write about topics outside of poker (music on Coventry and fear/financial stuff on Tao of Fear). It is all a dream, right? I must have died in a car crash in the summer of 2008 and everything I experienced up until this point has been one of those "life flashes before your eyes" moments when two years of what could have been gets accelerated into a micro-second before my screen fades to black and I return to nothingness.

10:20pm. Wednesday. I sat on I-15 in Victorville, CA. The northbound traffic halted as I watched an upside down truck unleash a plume of smoke punctuated by orange flashes as firefighters struggled to put out the blaze. During the two-hour delay, I was confronted with my own mortality. Two and half years earlier, I walked away from an accident in Las Vegas. I firmly believe that I used up a lifetime of Vegas run good that day, and that if I never won a bet at Pai Gow or at the sportsbook ever again, then it didn't matter because the fact that I was alive and not dead trumped every thing else.

I got sucked into a black hole of an existential crisis on I-15 and couldn't help but think about the origins of the WPBT in 2004, and how I was in a rental car and driving solo (on the verge of reaching bat country) from Los Angeles to Las Vegas instead of flying out to Vegas from New York City like I did on the first trip with my brother. Little did I know in December 2004 that my life would take a majestic turn in the ensuing six months, and all because of this corner of the web.

Death often wakes you up from the doldrums of banality. If I had left Los Angeles only five minutes earlier, then I could have been road kill and caught up in the fatal accident on I-15. That was too heavy of a topic for me to endure while stuck in a traffic jam only a few feet from the carnage. It's no wonder that I questioned my own reality and wondered if I was already dead and that the last two years, heck, the last six years of my life were a dream.


* * * * *
Change100 and I have a driving routine to Vegas -- she navigates out out of the treacherous freeways of Los Angeles, and we switch drivers after a stop at In-N-Out in Barstow or during a piss break in Baker so I can drive the rest of the way into Vegas. Our plans fell apart because Change100 threw out her back right after Turkey Day. She was out of commission the week before the gathering and at the last minute had to make a tough decision to listen to her doctor and stay home. I threw out my back at the last gathering and it really sucked. I usually welcome the opportunity to be hopped up on pills -- but not in a public setting when I have to socialize and speak coherently -- so last year was tough because I was so faded and wasted that most of the events blended together in a blur.

Change100 and I were looking forward to the December Vegas trip because it was a rare non-work sojourn to Vegas. Most of the time I visit Vegas these days, it's because of a work assignment or some sort of meeting. I rarely have the opportunity to be a tourist in Las Vegas, because that when I pretend to ignore all of the plight for a few days and indulge myself in the carnal pleasures of Sin City without worry about the ensuing downfall of Western civilization and the murky future of the online poker industry.

I had to drive myself to/from Vegas and remained relatively sober all weekend. I barely drank save for Thursday night at the Geisha Bar with a few drafts of beer from Falstaff's perpetual pitcher, along with the customary singular shot of SoCo with Al (sort of similar to the Catholic tradition of taking communion at least once a year, and instead of drinking the blood of Christ, I sampled the nectar of the hedonist gods). In the past, the gatherings have been a non-stop cocktail party, but this year was vastly different and my liver thanked me for a rare break. I honestly can't remember a time when I didn't wake up hungover to play in Saturday's tournament. Too bad the lack of booze didn't help my outcome.

With Change100 sidelined with a back sprain (the official designation on the WPBT Injury Report), Derek and I needed a third teammate for the 420 All Stars. Thanks to the cold war between online poker sites competing for the hearts and minds of bloggers, PokerStars added money to a team last longer pool, which juiced up the action for the Holiday Classic tournament. Last year, my team (with Derek and Change100) finished in third place, so we were gunning for a top spot this year especially because Change100 had been running well at the tables in the last two months. With a reduced writing schedule, she had much more time to play online poker -- significantly more than my brother and myself combined. We really thought that Change100 was our X-factor, but with her absence we needed some last minute help. That's when we turned to our step-sister Mo.

I know that it came to a surprise when we introduced Mo to everyone mainly because it was a shocker that we had a younger sibling (and yes, there's a lot of family stuff that I don't discuss in a public forum because it way too personal and that's one of those things that got filtered out, however if you follow along with Coventry Music, you might have read about her and our other step-sister aka the Disco Sisters, whom I write about from time-to-time). Anyway, Mo recently graduated college and moved to Las Vegas to earn some money for medical school. I know that's what most strippers tell us at the Rhino, but with Mo it's a legit story. Her poker game has progressed over the last few months. Derek and I felt that she'd be an X-factor because no one knew how she played.


The 420 All Stars family affair was ready. We gathered for a pre-tourney meal at Hash House, and were amazed when Mo crushed the Chorizo breakfast special. We partook in pre-game festivities before heading over to the tournament at the Aria.

I stood in front of Ivey's Room and chatted with author/tax specialist Russ Fox. I couldn't help but think that the WPBT has come a long way from its origins as a three-table tournament at Sam's Town to only a few steps away from Ivey's Room at the swanky Aria.

Otis arrived with news of an added bounty for old school bloggers that PokerStars funded. Ten of us who played in the original Holiday Classic were designated as old school bounties. $100 each was up for grabs and we were given a package of band-aids to signify that were were bounty players.


Great... like I needed to give my opponents another reason for knocking me out. I know that Full Tilt threw in a few bounties of their own, so someone like AlCantHang had $200 on his head. Lucky for me, Al was seated at my table and I had a shot at $200 in free money.

WPBT 2010 Holiday Classic - My Starting Table:
Seat 1: Mattazuma
Seat 2: Joe Speaker
Seat 3: Random Canuck (Astin's friend)
Seat 4: AlCantHang
Seat 5: Your Hero
Seat 6: Bree
Seat 7: The Mark (late addition)
Seat 8: Venneno
Seat 9: Snuffy
Seat 10: Falstaff (late addition)

We had a total of 97 runners for this event. Some guy named Mike was the Gigli for the event. He busted out in the first fifteen minutes or so. The defending champ was Astin, who beat out AlCantHang last year. Astin didn't become the first repeat champion. He bowed out rather early.

I had a fun table. I constantly bet "420" and the dealers were cool with letting me toss out $425 but say it's 420. I know a lot of Nazi-centric dealers without a sense of humor who would have done otherwise, but we had a charming dealing crew. I always wondered if dealers were happy for a change of pace with the WPBT crew, or if they mortified at the level of inebriation, shit-talking, and poor poker etiquette?

I won a pot early on against Snuffy. I held K-K and rivered a set. I value bet the river and got paid off. I got lucky with A-K against AlCantHang who opened with Kings. An Ace flopped on an all-spade board. I had the King of spades and was free-rolling a nut flush draw, but didn't get paid off because Al got spooked and bailed.

I lost most of my stack on a bad call against Astin's buddy from Toronto. I held J-J with two 10s on the flop. I didn't believe he had a ten, when guess what? He held a ten. I was knocked down to 2K on a terrible call.

We had a break at the right time, because I might have donked off the rest of my chips right then. I took a smoke break out front with a friend who I had not seen in 18 months.

"The last time we saw each other," I reminded him, "was when we were tripping on mescaline in Tennessee and Bruce Springsteen sat in with Phish."

My buddy thought he was getting busted for smoking by a trio of teenaged girls, but one of the girls pulled out a camera and asked him to take a picture of them in front of the rushing wall of water.

After the break, I was about to shove with the first pushable hand. I found A-10, but folded when super-tight Mattazuma three-bet someone. He had Queens and I probably would have been toast. I waited a few hands and woke up with A-K and made a stand. The Mark called with any two cards from his big blind and I was up against K-2. I flopped trip Kings, which held up after I faded his baby kicker. I doubled up to a paltry 2.3K

An orbit passed and a wave of fortuitous luck came over me. I opened shoved with pocket deuces and Mattazuma called with pocket Tens.

"Two on the door," joked AlCantHang.

It wasn't the door card, but the dealer squeezed out a deuce as the second card on the flop. My table exploded. I won the hand with a set and doubled through Mattazuma. I improved to 4.4K and was still short.

That's when I got struck with lightning a second time. I open shoved with pocket fives from UTG. Falstaff moved all-in in late position, but AlCantHang called from the big blind.

Falstaff: A-A
AlCantHang: Q-Q
Pauly: 5-5

I flopped a gutshot, turned a double-belly buster, and got there on the river. I tripled up and I think Al busted out. I all of a sudden improved to 14K after catching running cards.

On the very next hand, I woke up with Jacks. Mark and his short stack shoved with A-9. My Jacks held up and I was closing in on 18K. We had a $20 last longer and it was awesome to ship any bet against the Mark.

And then, my run good hit a snag and fizzled out. Venneno, the only player who had more chips than me at my table, sent me packing. Falstaff was all-in with a short stack in a multi-way pot. I had pocket sevens and flopped middle set with two hearts on the board. I couldn't get Venneno to fold. I hoped that she had flopped top two, but she was on flush draw and the rest is history. She made a flush. I failed to boat up and hit the rail in 49th place. Venneno already owned an autographed copy of Lost Vegas (my personal bounty), but she was more than happy to collect the $100 band-aid old school bounty courtesy of PokerStars.

I actually outlasted Mo and Derek. Mo was the first to go from the 420 All Stars. Derek went out shortly before me. They hung out at the sportsbook bar with AlCantHang until I busted out. Derek made everyone know that they needed to keep their hands off our sister. With my exit, we had no chance at making the money for the team side event. Team ROACH went onto to win this year's team event. Congrats to those guys.

When it got down to the final six around 9pm at night (or roughly nine hours into the tournament), Miami Don was the overall chipleader. A deal was discussed and agreed upon. Iggy was initially miffed that they didn't play it down to the trophy because he had a specialized Hammer trophy created for the winner of event. However, when you took into consideration the size of stacks in relation to the blinds, after nine hours it made more sense to chop it up. A fair compromise would have been to make save for the money and then play down to an actual champion for sake of the trophy. As is, all parties agreed on the deal which actually gave more money to the smaller stacks. Chipleader Miami Don took home second place money and the trophy.

Congrats to Miami Don. It was a fitting victory considering he just moved back to Vegas to give it a second go around. Not a bad way to make a comeback, eh?

Thanks again to Stars and FT for juicing up the prize pool. Thanks to the Aria dealers for putting up with our antics. And lastly thanks to April/CK for arranging the tournament/weekend because it's a tough and thankless task which is why I appreciate your efforts.

* * * * *
My report is going long, so I'm cutting it into two parts. Stay tuned to Part II tomorrow. And before we move onto Part II tomorrow, I suggest you familiarize yourself with Buy the Fucking Dip, an inside joke that got out of control over the weekend. So when I start writing about it the Dip, you'll know what I'm talking about.

And don't forget to check out my brother's recap titled Holiday Classic Recap: Unplugged.

The Pai Gow Diaries: Lucky Cards

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

"These are lucky cards," Mai said. She winked simultaneously and pushed forward cards to Otis and myself.

Mai was my favorite Pai Gow dealer at the Gold Coast. It's no coincidence that I won the most money when she was in the box. The more that I win, the more I like a dealer. It's nothing personal, but if I get cold decked, it doesn't matter who is across the felt from me -- I hate them to eternal hell. That's the biggest difference between online casinos and real life -- the intimate relationship between the dealer and gambler which makes the gambling rush a more visceral experience than the repetitive nature of online gambling, which is just like more like a video game (and therein lies the danger).

I think Mai had a thing for Otis. I wasn't jealous. If anything, I encouraged it. The more she got smitten with Otis, the better hands she'd deal to us.

"I like lucky cards," I blurted out, one of a hundred words that rolled off my tongue in a short spurt. Machine gun bursts of speech and unfiltered thoughts are my downfall during the tail-end of Vegas benders. I had a little secret how I got ahead of the pack, but none of that mattered as dug in deep for one final binge before I called it a night. I had been in Vegas for three days and got around six hours of total sleep and squeezed in a 19-hour work day on Saturday that included doing a shit-ton of press for Lost Vegas. The rest of the time was spent catching up with friends and indulging in as many hands of Pai Gow as humanly possible.

Otis had been bribing the dealer with tips on the Fortune Bonus. Essentially, he was gambling on a tip for the dealer -- if he lost, then the house kept the potential tip, however if he won, then the dealer got paid out anywhere from $3 and upwards depending on the strength of his hand. At heart, Pai Gow dealers are some of the most degens on the planet. Those are the feisty middle-aged Asian women who make up the bulk of the Pai Gow revenue at off-the-Strip locals' casinos like the multiple Station properties.

Otis slid a stained $1 chip an inch above the Fortune Bonus that contained a single red chip, worn down and smooth from years of abuse. If Otis hit a big hand, both he and the dealer got paid a bonus. Otis was running good from the moment Mai relieved the previous dealer who had been treating us like we were new arrivals at Gitmo.


Even when things didn't work out at Mai's table, everyone was jovial about it. She made us feel better even when we lost. Most men have to pay a few hundred dollars in Vegas for that sort of intimacy.

For the most part, we were riding a wave of good cards. "Very lucky cards," as Mai explained.

Mr. Gold Coast must have realized how much he was paying out to our Sunday late afternoon crew at the Pai Gow tables, so he called in a cooler. I'm paranoid about the random bots that they send into the pits to decimate the morale of anyone on a hot streak. This bot was non-Asian, which through me off for a few minutes because she looked like someone I knew. That's when I figured it out -- my dealer was the 40-year old version of Kelly Osbourne. She was relentless. She was brutal. She was an incorrigible and continuously beat down any of my stellar hands. I got caught in that horrible bad trip where she constantly beat me out by the slimmest of margins. If I had a straight and a pair of sevens, well she had a bigger straight and a pair of eights. If she showed J-10 up top, I was behind with J-9. I couldn't win anything. Even when I tossed in a desperate chip to the Insurance circle, I came out a loser.

Otis had a rough time as well. He had lost a hand, but he hit a straight bonus to cushion the blow. He was also gambling the $1 toke for the dealer and Kelly Osbourne the Bot Cooler also got paid off for the bonus.

"I'm sorry I only won you $4," apologized Otis.

"That's OK," said the dealer. "You lost $25."

What a heartless twat.

Despite the hurricane, we were all fairly calm and just weathered the storm. We counted down the minutes until our rough dealer finished her shift and a new dealer took her place. The Asian guy in the first seat was on mega-tilt. He had been betting small -- no more than $25 a hand, and then all of a sudden, he jacked up his bets to $250 to $300. When an Ethiopian dealer took his turn in the box, the Asian guy lost his cool. He was a cook. I could tell by his checkered pants -- standard uniform for someone who toils away in a kitchen. He wore a green sweatshirt, but no one paid attention to his pants. I wondered if he worked in one of the kitchens at the Gold Coast. Maybe he was a Rio cook responsible for those awful kangaroo burgers in the Poker Kitchen? Just like my colleagues in the poker media looking to blow off steam, the cook also headed to the Pai Gow tables to have a little fun and excitement. Except this guy's patience had worn thin after the brutal mugging from Kelly Osbourne. The new dealer didn't help things. He kept fucking up Otis' hands. He scooped up his cards twice without properly paying Otis. He also forgot to pay Otis' bonus on more than one instance. One time when the Ethiopian didn't pay Otis, he unleashed a growl that sounded more like a wounded jaguar. The Ethiopian nervously apologized and paid Otis his bonus money. Even the most even keeled Otis was getting testy with the inept payout procedures from this dealer. We longed to have Mai back. She was sweet. She took care of us. She knew exactly what we were about and the purpose of our agenda -- to hang out and get free drinks and gamble as long as possible without losing much money. Mai joined in on the fun, but all of the other dealers didn't want anything to do with us, which created large gaps in my session when I was bitter about the silent and humorless bots dealing to us.

We held one table for over six hours hours. I started on the table around 4:30-5pm and didn't leave until close to 11:15 or so. My session had lots of twists and turns, but I ended up a bit because I maintained discipline with the size of my bets. I kept them small and didn't let the outcome of the previous hand (or hands) affected the amounts of my wagers. I maintained a limit and stuck to it. That's a difficult task in the land of indulgence.

The Gold Coast uses commission squares to indicate how much you owe in past due commission. Other casinos take out the juice when they pay you, but the Gold Coast waits every thirty minutes to collect from you. In one way, I prefer the delayed commission payment because you can see whether or not you're doing well for a particular dealer. If you have nothing in your square, it means you've been getting violated by the dealer. If you have any red chips, it's a sign that you've been running good.

Considering the maelstrom of non-sexual pain that Kelly Osbourne inflicted upon us, I stumbled upon a stunning realization -- for the first time in a long time, I had red chips in my commission square. Somehow, I caught a few lucky cards at the right time. I paid my juice, colored-up chips, slid the blackbirds into my pocket, and shuffled off to the cage.

Lucky cards.


Editor's Note: This is another edition for a series of posts on Pai Gow addiction. Other installments include Cult of the Dragon, Dilettante and Mr. Pai Gow.

The Pai Gow Diaries: The Cult of the Dragon

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

I can't explain what makes the no-frills vibe of the Gold Coast stand out from the rest of Las Vegas, but it's become one of my favorite haunts because of the way the muted yellow lights bounce off the faded green felt illuminating 20-month old stains from hundreds of spilled comped cocktails, beers, and tepid cups of coffee served by top-heavy past-their-prime cougars, who were once the cream of the crop in Vegas twenty years ago, but now they hump the swing shift serving hot tea to crazy Asian zombies gambling their waking life away at baccarat, and delivering endless rounds of booze to my ravenous and thirsty friends at the Pai Gow tables.

You can still smoke at the tables inside the Gold Coast, but the usual thick layer of second-hand smoke is nowhere to be seen, because the most overlooked element of Gold Coast is the fake balconies that hover over the gaming tables. I usually feel constricted and claustrophobic in casinos (especially downtown with those low-hanging ceilings and the wafting aroma of soiled adult diapers and menthol cigarettes), but the Gold Coast has an wide open area above the tables which allows excess cigarette smoke plenty of room to dance instead of festering in a space a few inches above my head.

The Pai Gow tables are not brushed as often as it should, and a thin layer of ash covers some of the farthest corners of the torn and frayed felt, as black bits of expired cigarette papers mix in with shades of grey and white that form miniature mountains of soot. Remnants from previous gamblers are warning signs to those who want to be warned, because the last person who sat in your space attempted to chain smoke their way out of their losing streaks, and in the end all they had to show for it were a couple of watered down cocktails, an empty pack of Reds, and a series of bad beats from a porcelain doll-like dealer from Vietnam named Hong.

The shade of beige making up the $1 chips at the Gold Coast resembles diarrhea. Fitting description considering that all you do is shit away $1 chips at the Pai Gow table by brazenly tossing them into the bonus circles (either the newly added Pai Gow insurance or the cagey Fortune Bonus). The $5 redbirds are no better. Many of them have that smooth-to-the-touch feel because they've been worn down for excessive usage. The color is supposed to be cherry red with a few snazzy white stripes, but most of the $5 chips attracted some sort of fungus and they are infected by random and unexplained black markings, sort of like aging spots on old people, except these are black splotches are comprised of who know's what -- probably a mixture of snot, saliva, semen, urine, feces, dirt, ash, dead flies, toe nail clippings, lint, fuzz from the felt, and a splash of the sweet and sour sauce from the Noodle Exchange.

The green $25 chips are outright pathetic. When betting in the pits, you want a chip of that denomination to feel like a marker of success, and not like food stamps, but that's what the decrepit green chips feel like. The black $100 chips are nothing to brag about and new black chips have not been issued since the casino opened. Each black chip represents a bullet that I load into the chamber for a game of Russian Roulette, but it's under the guise of Pai Gow. With every hand of Pai Gow, you are essentially taking a deep breath and pulling the trigger. If you're lucky, you shoot a blank. If you're unlucky, you shit yourself the moment that the bullet passes through your cranium and your brain explodes.


Dragons were mythical powerful creatures that once ruled the world according to integral part of folklore from both Western and Eastern cultures. Today's symbols of dragons represent prosperity and achievement. Hyper-successful people in China are considered dragon personalities, while less than powerful people are signified by less impressive animals and creatures. You get the gist. Only a select few in this world get to be dragons, while the rest of us are sheep, and you know how the saying goes -- sheep get slaughtered.

Enter the Pai Gow Dragon.

I used to think that the Dragon Hand was a savior, or one of the good spirits that manifest itself in the form of a Dragon Hand to present you with a ticket to prosperity. These days, I'm convinced that the Dragon Hand is nothing more than an agent of evil. Nothing good could come out of the temptation to double up or cut your loses.

The Dragon Hand is one of the most amazing and dangerous instruments ever invented in the world of gambling. The Dragon represents a second chance -- if you have a spectacular hand and want to press your luck, you buy the Dragon Hand for a shot at beating the dealer twice. If you've set an abysmal hand, then the Dragon Hand is an opportunity at redemption, and a rare chance to break even or even come out ahead. I don't know of too many games that give you a slight edge with a second chance bet. The edge you gain is the knowledge of your initial hand and the rest of the hands that are set at the table. The more players at the table who arrange their hands face up gives you a minor edge in determining what cards are left that can hurt you or help you. That's why playing with friends is an added bonus -- you get to hang out, have fun, and share critical information. In short, it's group angle shooting. Sometimes I wonder if the casinos permit that behavior on purpose to deceive you into thinking that have a greater edge.

Sometimes you notice that everyone at your table set atrocious hands, for example nothing but a slew of Pai Gows or baby pairs with ten-high and Jack-high up top. So, you know that there's the potential to snag a sensational Dragon, or you'll get a shitty Dragon and get royally fucked twice when the dealer reveals a monster.

The Dragon Hand can be your worst enemy when playing heads-up against the dealer. I found this out the hard way in my last few encounters with my Pai Gow demons. Raging solo is something that everyone has to do at some point during a Las Vegas sojourn, but I advise that you think twice about playing the dealer heads-up Pai Gow. For one, you lose the advantage of seeing several hands before making a decision about buying a Dragon. At the same time, you're essentially playing two hands every time because there's no one else at the table interferes with your ability to play a second hand. That bodes well if the dealer turns over a Pai Gow, but it could also be disastrous when the dealer goes on a rush and crushes any decent hands that you can throw together.

Maybe Pai Gow is a game that can't be beat? Sure, the house edge is much lower than other games such as craps, Roulette, black jack, slots, and video poker, but they have to be making some money otherwise they wouldn't offer it up. Besides, what other game charges you juice -- when you win?

At off-the-beaten-path joints like the Gold Coast, the Pai Gow tables are usually packed because of the affordable limits ($10 minimum bets) and the fact that the Pai Gow tables are lumped in with a section of Asian table games specifically designed for crazy Asian gamblers. To make sure that the Gold Coast retains all of those gamblers and keeps them inside the casino until they go busto, the Gold Coast is home to two popular Asian eateries in Las Vegas -- the Noodle Exchange and Ping Pang Pong, which is home to the best dim sum in the state.

The baccarat tables at the Gold Coast are never empty. Every time I visit the Gold Coast, I tell myself that I'm gonna sit down and engage in some serious degen gambling at baccarat, however, there's rarely an open spot because the wait list is a few Asians deep. Gold Coast offers up low limit baccarat and those tables are also in high demand.

Gold Coast spreads four Pai Gow tables and a high percentage of players are locals of Asian decent, many Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants and naturalized citizens who have jobs in the gaming industry -- including a Pai Gow dealer or two from other casinos. Two of the tables at the Gold Coast feature Pai Gow bonuses, simply put, those tables pay you off if you get kicked in the junk and dealt a Pai Gow. You have to buy Pai Gow insurance, of course, which is how the casino makes money in the long run. It's much harder to get dealt a Pai Gow than you think. I'm not positive on these numbers, but Grubby once told me that you're dealt at least an Ace-high or better 90% of the time and that you chop 4 out of 5 hands. Essentially, you're betting insurance that you'll get paid off if by chance you get dealt crapola. Nine-high Pai Gow, the worst possible hand, pays off the most, while Ace-high Pai Gow net you 3-1 on your insurance bet. Like most table games that offer customers a "bonus", the real odds are not what they pay out. Once again, the illusion of a bargain attracts the weak-minded. It sort of reminds me of an old Dennis Miller joke about anything that is billed as Buy 1, Get 1 Free is inherently a horrible deal.

"Folks, two of shit is shit. If they really wanted to fuck you, they'd give you three."

Double Dragon-assisted Pai Gow wins are like simultaneously banging red-headed twins because you're flirting with the Apocalypse. Gingers suck the soul out of humanity, and engaging in intercourse with two of them is like dropping your penis into a black hole and getting it chopped off. If you fall for the wrong Dragon, you'll lose every molecule of your life force. You're dunzo.

Much like the Pai Gow Fortune bonus, I'm in the group of gamblers who consider Pai Gow insurance a long-term sucker's bet. However, in the short term, I'm all about maximizing your streaks -- even if it's a bad one. If you know you're running bad and then Pai Gow insurance is auspicious goldmine.

Last Thursday night, I watched in astonishment as AlCantHang continuously got dealt Ace-high and King-high Pai Gows. He was collecting "commission-free money" in his words every time he got dealt a shitstain of a hand. That was one of the few instances when the player came out ahead by abusing the Pai Gow insurance. Most of the time, however, it's a futile bet. On Friday, AlCantHang ran too good for Pai Gow insurance, but not good enough to beat the dealer. Wanna talk about some bad beats? Ask him about the endless string of baby pairs -- deuces and treys -- that ruined his chances at commission free money.

Once in a while you slay the Dragon, but most of the time, the Dragon fries your ass.

On a few instances, I used the Pai Gow insurance circle as a hedge bet. Whenever, I bet $100 or more, I tossed a $5 chip into the circle that the majority of the time remained vacant. For example, if I got an Ace-high Pai Gow, the bonus lowers my overall net loss for the hand to $85. The shittier the Pai Gow, the more I got back -- like a casino's version of a welfare check.

The Gold Coast has been ground zero for more Pai Gow battles than I can count. The origins of the infamous Keno crayon incident of 2006 spawned from a horrible session at those Pai Gow tables. Every summer, we somehow lure more of our friends and colleagues to the dark side and they get hooked on the game. I feel like the Reverend Jim Jones standing in the People's Temple handing over a cup of killer Kool-Aid to the latest inductee into the cult of the Dragon.

Pai Gow is a deceptive game that seems so simple: you get seven cards and have to make two poker hands out of them -- a five card hand and a two card hand. If you win both then you get paid, but if you lose both then you lose your bet, however, if you split then it's a push. A wise man once said, "A push is as good as a win." I'm sure that was some derivative of the pearls of wisdom from your former little league baseball coach who constantly shouted from the dugout, "A walk is as good as a hit!"

Any team player will say that a walk gets the job done, and they'd be more than happy to accept a free pass to first base. But selfishly speaking, nothing beats connecting for a hit by crushing a baseball and nailing the shit out of it right in the sweet spot. The moment you make contact, you know it's a goner. If only the rest of life were that simple and absolute, but alas, life is a bitch and not as simple as hitting a baseball. Sadly, the reality of Pai Gow is that you keep fouling off a pitch after pitch after pitch until you get one right down the pipe. Sometimes you swing and miss, and on the rare occasion, you connect.

That's why you take a seat and play the game -- for a chance to hit the sweet spot one more time.

The exhilaration at winning a big Pai Gow bet is among the greatest highs I've experienced. I've dabbled with the entire encyclopedia of pharmacopoeia and know the difference between airborne and blasting off into Jupiter's orbit. Gambling wise, the amount of money won in other areas doesn't compare to even the smallest of Pai Gow bets. I've shipped a couple sizable pots in poker (back when I actually played PLO cash games on Party Poker) worth a few grand, and I've cashed sports betting slips that were probably worth more than the blue book value on your car, but nothing gives me more satisfaction than squeaking out a marginal win with my initial Pai Gow hand and then following that up with a clutch victory with a purchased Dragon Hand.

The speedball of Pai Gow.

I thrive on that burning sensation and sink down as that glorious feeling spreads throughout my body and pumps through my bloodstream and I grow more and more dizzy until the hit wears off and I'm jonesin' to maintain that high, but any addict will tell you that nothing beats the first high of the day.


Editor's Note: This is another edition for a series of posts on my Pai Gow addiction. Other installments include Dilettante Pai Gow and Mr. Pai Gow.

Tao of Five: The Las Vegas Cabbie Chronicles

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

It's time for a new installment of Tao of Five, which is an interview series I created specifically for Tao of Poker and I ask different subjects a series of five questions. In the past, this series focused on members of the poker industry, however, for this installment I wanted to change things up a bit, so I included an interview with an authentic Las Vegas taxi driver.

Mr. Funk is one of my favorite Las Vegas writers. I don't know exactly how we befriended each other, but I do know that it had origins in music because we both have similar tastes and listen to some of the same bands. He's an old school Deadhead and digs Phish, so much so, that I sent him a few bootlegs that he actually plays while driving his cab. Yes, Mr. Funk's day job is driving a cab. Actually, he works the night shift, and that's when he gathers tons of compelling material that he shares on his blog titled Las Vegas Cabbie Chronicles, which I have linked up on more than one occasion. LVCC has become one of my favorite Vegas-centric reads these days. My only critique is that I wished Mr. Funk wrote more. His most recent series of posts about fighting a ticket is an amazing lesson in bureaucracy and the social structure of Sin City.

Anyway, let's get down to this.


Photo by Wolynski

Pauly: Is it true that cabbies can take you to strip clubs for free?

Mr. Funk: Well most every strip club pays a bounty for every customer you bring them. It works on a per customer basis so if the club is paying, for example, $20 (which is the current take at most major clubs, full-nude clubs slightly more) a head and you drop off 4 people that will earn you $80 just like that. The free rides come into because if I find four guys who want to go, I can easily comp a ride to help influence the deal, knowing that it's only going to be a $10 fare or whatever it is, and I'm really only paying the companies share of that anyway. The smart customers who know the game will simply request a free ride but the free ride all depends on how many in your party and what the payout happens to be at that time for that specific club.

One cannot say who pays the most because these things change constantly. If one raises theirs to $50 rest assured in a matter of minutes the rest of the majors will follow suit. I've seen it as high as $100/head to as low as none of the clubs paying anything for almost a 6 month period. Generally speaking, the higher payouts will be found during the slower parts of the year.


Pauly: Have you ever let anyone have sex in the back of your cab?

Mr. Funk: Yes, three times. Once was a hooker and a John that netted me $100 fee collection for the cab rights for 30 minutes while I had breakfast at Peppermill. The second was a mysterious couple that humped in my backseat, without permission, circa Koval &Flamingo. And of course, I'll never forget the three lesbians. That shit counts.


Pauly: What is the biggest taxi scam to avoid as a tourist? Is the highway ever faster when getting picked up at the airport?

Mr. Funk: Longhauling is without question a tourists' chief concern when utilizing taxi service while in Las Vegas. If you end up on the freeway from the airport there is a 99% chance that you are being longhauled. If the cab fare from the airport reaches $20 or more you need to start asking questions. I've talked this topic extensively on my blog in a Q&A post.


Pauly: Once in a while, I usually come across a cabbie who tries the old "I don't have any change" trick. What's the best way to combat that?

Mr. Funk: The best way to combat that is to have exact change. I am only required to carry $5 in change. I don't need to be starting my day at risk with wads of my own cash in my pocket because you were too lazy to stop at the cage and break your hundred. That said, when a cabbie says this, there is always the chance that he's bullshitting you and in fact he probably is. Regardless. if you think ahead and break a $20 into 5's and singles beforehand than you can alleviate this problem altogether. Now in my brother's defense, the reason in all likelihood, that he is bullshitting you is because you are probably a bad tipper anyway.


Pauly: Where is the best place in Las Vegas to hide a dead hooker's body?

Mr Funk: I'm not sure, but I can tell you not at some of those big empty lots of property that you see all over the Southwest side of town. South of 215 there is some big empty spaces in between neighborhoods and such. Don't do it there. I know another cabbie that dumped a bunch of his trash on one of these lots. There are no dumping signs everywhere but this guy doesn't give a fuck. Apparently some of his personal items were in with the stuff that he dumped and at some point, I don't know if it was before or after he dumped his stuff, somebody dumped a body there. The cops seeing my friends info quickly dispatched units to his home and the cab yard in search of him. He was able to talk his way out of the murder but not the dumping fine.

Thanks to Mr. Funk a.k.a. the author of the Las Vegas Cabbie Chronicles for taking the time out to be a part of the Tao of Five. You can (and should) follow him on Twitter.

Previous installments of the Tao of Five included interviews with Matt Savage, Michael Craig, Otis (the infamous Otis vs. the Devil), Flipchip, Wicked Chops Poker, and Benjo.

Stay tuned for the next installment of the Tao of Five.

The Pai Gow Diaries: Mr. Pai Gow

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA


Everyone has their guilty pleasures.

Pai Gow is the core of my degeneracy. We have had a long abusive relationship along the lines of Ike and Tina Turner, except Pai Gow is Ike and he's beating the piss out of me with the heel of his boot. Self-destructive co-dependent relationships rue the Las Vegas valley, and neither of us is able to walk away. Well, I attempt to walk away more often than not toward the sunset in the dusty Nevada sky, but something always lulls me back and I succumb to the fleeting temptations.

It's harder than you think to describe how easy it is to cross the line. The struggle to stay away from Pai Gow is an entirely different story. I could write a book about it. Perhaps I can devote an entire section to Pai Gow in the follow-up to Lost Vegas.

The nightmare cliche is waking up in the middle of the night with the cold sweats after being terrorized by your deepest fears and insecurities. But for me, since I sleep so little, I experience waking nightmares which strike at random times -- walking through an aisle at Whole Foods, riding a subway, or waiting in taxi line at an airport. I feel the invisible ants marching on my skin, beads of sweat stream off my scalp, my heart rate accelerates and I'm suddenly ill with wretched pain.

The only thing that can help?

Pai Gow. Seven cards. Two hands. Me versus the dealer.

That's sort of the fight and visceral experience that I'm looking for... me versus The Man. The main reason that the casinos have a love-hate relationship with poker is a money issue. Generally speaking, poker rooms do not generate as much income as a section of slot machines. As one industry exec pointed out to me, "Ben and Jerry's stores located inside casinos pull in more money per day than poker rooms."

Now there's a novel idea... put a "toking" poker room inside of a Ben & Jerry's in order to cater to counter-culture gamblers; all of those pot-smoking Baby Boomers of yesteryear battling against the new wave of herb-friendly neo-hippies.

I apologize for sharing my pipe dream with you. Let's get back on track here... the suits, who only care about the bottom line, aren't keen on poker since players are playing against other players. Thereby the poker room only secures income in the form of raked pots and tournament fees.

Brick and mortar poker is a battle between myself and fellow humans. Online poker is not quite man versus the machines, even though at times I'm playing against cyborgs, part-humans and part-machines, especially with tracking software and other data mining programs being utilized.

But Pai Gow is a showdown between me versus The Man in an old school wild wild west showdown at high noon, except that I'm stoned to the tits and it's 3pm in the afternoon.

I don't want my peers' money; I want the corporate bucks. My goal is to take down Big Business one Pai Gow hand at a time. This is a momentous task considering that I often feel as though the powers to be are conspiring against me.

Yes, yes, yes... I know I'm sounding paranoid, but I'm not one to wear tin foil hats. If anything, I constantly deconstruct those half-baked conspiracy theories using Occam's Razor and my Dick Cheney Illuminati secret decoder ring. And, I don't have concrete evidence that The Man is using dirty tactics to remove ever single Benjamin out of my pocket. These matters are always so vague to prove, besides, The Man has clever agents at his disposal.

Casinos are crawling with operatives. The Imperial Palace is loaded with mostly robots that Harrahs' purchased from Nagai Systems in Tokyo. The Nagai Bots (NB) are cold and emotionless, similar in demeanor to the Scandis but wrapped in the body of a five foot Asian woman.

The Gold Coast is bot free, but those operatives were easy to spot during the mid-afternoon. The Gold Coast specifically caters to locals, budget gamblers, and crazy Asian gamblers. The north end of the pit is always packed because that's where the baccarat tables are located, and people stand three-deep sweating the action. I made a lap around the gambling pit at the Gold Coast. It's not very large compared to Strip casinos, but they have five or six Pai Gow tables running during peak hours. The Emperor Challenge Bonus Pai Gow tables happened to be filled, so I took the only available seat at a regular Pai Gow table with three Asian grandmothers and a middle-aged Asian guy. Two spots were open, both flanking the guy. I sat to his left so I could get a crack at the Dragon hand before he did. I bought for $500 and requested only green chips. He took one look at me and left the table. I guess he didn't like half-breeds.

Two of the old ladies on the right side of the table didn't say a peep. They conservatively bet the minimum bet of $10, however, they were pounding the fortune bonus with $5 bets. The third old lady sat to my left and admitted that she was still learning the game. It took her several minutes to set her hand, much to the dismay of the two other old ladies. I didn't mind the delay at all because it slowed down the game which worked in my favor. I tend to avoid tilt when I see less hands per hour. Usually you want to see as many as possible, but I discovered that I play optimally when the game slows to a turtle's pace. You see, the bots are the ones who deal super fast. The Man knows that in the long run the odds are in his favor (ahem, insert the "the house always wins" comment anywhere into this post) so if he can generate more hands per hour with the bots, then that means more potential revenue at the end of every shift.

It took me a while, but I figured out that I have spread out the Pai Gow buzz over an extended period of time. Part of the reason why I love sports betting is that games last at least 2+ hours (college hoops and the NBA), with many 3+ (NFL and MLB). That's a sustained high, sort of like eating time-released opiates. Craps, blackjack, and roulette are the crack cocaine of the pits. Online poker is the marijuana of the gaming world that makes you sit on the couch for hours of endless tedium coupled with unpredictable fits of psychosis and a tinge of paranoia. Ah, and how could I forget about the munchies. Do you ever see craps players chomping on a sandwich while rolling the bones?

The old lady to my left wondered if she should bet the Fortune Bonus.

"Look, here's the deal... you either do it all the time or don't do it at all," I said.

"You don't do it," she noted, then pointed at the other two ladies at the opposite end of the table, "But they do it all the time."

"It's up to you. If you're feeling lucky and think you're going to hit a couple of huge hands -- then go for it."

I'm not a bonus person, much to the protests of Grubby and Grubbette. I see some value betting the bonus as as a hedge with a flush or straight because more often than not, if you're setting one of those as your five-card hand, then you probably have a weak two-card hand which eventually ends up in a push. The bonus gives you a chance to get something back on a pushed hand. However, the bonus is only profitable over the long run if you hit a couple of big hands to cover the cost of the bet. I know some people who bet the bonus because they once hit a straight flush or quads, so they feel obligated to keep betting it. Yet, at this point I'm fairly certain that they have since pissed away all of those winnings.

I'm never one to tell someone how to behave in Las Vegas unless you're actually like a total douchebag and going to get me 86'd due to guilt by association. Vegas is one of the few places where you can go ape shit in the Nanny States of America. Vegas is one of the few bubbles that the Nanny State directives are not followed and aberrant behavior is encouraged. That's why I kept my mouth shut at the Pai Gow table.

The old lady thought about it for a few minutes then came to the ultimate decision to play the bonus. Within thirty minutes, she hit three full houses, two flushes, and quads... twice. That lucky bitch is going to play the bonus now and every fucking day until she dies.

The Man sent in two operatives to seize my bankroll. I had only two dealers during my first session, and kept my cool against both. They tried the good cop/bad cop routine and it didn't work. I only had a single instance when I began to tilt but caught myself. I accidentally set my hand wrong. I thought that I had a busted gutshot, even with a Joker, so I set a pair of treys with a weak-Ace up top. The dealer turned over my hand and shook her head. She was taunting me for setting my hand wrong.

Rookie mistake. I felt like a gimp.

I was seething in anger, but had to let it go. Mistakes happen. As George Harrison wrote many moons ago: "With every mistake we must surely be learning, still my guitar gently weeps." All I could do was make sure that it did not happen again during that session and in future sessions. Once I shook off that ugliness, I played even-tempered for the remainder of the session.

I bet $25 a hand and if I won I'd progressively increase my bet to $50, and if I won that, I'd bet $100. If I lost a hand, I'd reduce the wager to $25. I never got as high as a $200 a hand, because I never won more than two hands in a row (including pushes) without losing.

Back to the good cop/bad cops. The first operative was the good cop sent in to butter me up. The Man likes to use young woman as operatives. The Man thought that he could use sex to lure me over to the dark side. I'm sure if they had their way, The Man would have their operatives dressed up like Japanese schoolgirls from those erotic anime and manga comics.Although the dealers have to hide their sexuality behind casino uniforms, some of the operatives pull out all the stops with subtle glances and the constantly licking of their lips. This one was fresh off the boat and barely looked 21 years old. She laughed at my jokes, or rather, at anything I said. She couldn't tilt me. I refused to allow it to happen.

The second operative, the bad cop, was a silent assassin. I'm sure you have come across the type of cooler who does not say a word, nor respond to any of your banter. At first I thought she was a bot, but then I discovered she was dealing to slow to be a machine. Her silence was eerie and outright spooky. She purposely acted like that in order to induce tilt. However, the silent treatment failed to send me off the reservation. I was not digging deep into my pocket for multiple rebuys, instead, I was grinding away and beating them at their own game.

After a while, I deviated from my gameplan and mixed things up by betting $50 or $75 a hand. At that point, all of the old ladies let me have the dragon every time. They were kind in that way and didn't have to, but I appreciated the respect. I also noticed a trend -- they often asked me how to set their hands instead of looking to the dealer for help. In fact they wouldn't set a hand unless I nodded in approval. They must have assumed that I was a pro or a heavy roller, because why else would they seek my advice on how to set a hand?

I half-expected them to start showering me with gifts and bundles of food like that scene with Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino when all of the old Southeast Asian women on his block left food on his doorstep to pay homage to the local neighborhood hero/vigilante.

After I won a $150 hand, one of the old ladies referred to me as "Mr. Pai Gow" in broken Mandarin.

Yes, I am Mr. Pai Gow.

Graveyard

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

Two sides of Las Vegas exist. Before midnight and after midnight.

If you've gotten into any sort of trouble in Las Vegas, I can almost guarantee that those hijinks occurred during the midnight through 6am hours. Day time in Las Vegas is vanilla... for sheeple with straight jobs, unadventurous tourists, and elderly retirees waiting to die.

A semblance of order falls over the city during the daylight hours, but something happens once the devious darkness sets anchor and the fiends, ruffians, vampires, and wastrels roam the Strip and take over the city.

Night time in Las Vegas is for the freaks. They own the fuckin' city. As the saying goes... that's when the inmates take over the asylum. The zombies relish the moments when they can roam the streets and the gaming floors. The aliens assimilate easier during the late night hours, much more difficult to spot the shapeshifters after a few cocktails than you could during normal daylight hours.

You really have to engage in outlandishly outrageous behavior in Las Vegas before the local law enforcement types step in and cart you off in handcuffs. The long arm of the law seems to be more forgiving unless your belligerence tests the elasticity of Sin City's rules of conduct before you're greeted by thick-necked casino thugs. Peculiar expressions of civil disobedience are accepted, but once you stumble across the line and act sophomoricly stupid, that's when Big Brother loses patience and quickly sends in the muscle to end your sauced revelry.

I've always had a deep admiration and appreciation for the night shift in Las Vegas. Once your eyes can adjust to the darkness, you finally see the after Midnight hours for what it is... an orgy of opportunity. Poor defenseless Little Red Riding Hood traipsing through the forest is on the verge of being violated by a viciously starved rabid animal and she has not a clue of the impending attack. Don't believe what you read in the book. In real life, she loses her innocence and ends up as dinner.

Most of how you understand life is affects on how you view the difference between night versus day. And I'm not talking about the obvious differences, rather to deeply rooted psychological fuck ups inside of you, a sleeper cell of degeneracy and deviancy that rears its ugly head at 2am. That's the bewitching hour of suspicious activity... maxed-out ATM withdrawals, haggling with working girls, sitting down at a blackjack table when you should be taking a seat at GA meeting.

Any sordid behavior encouraged by the catchy "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" motto is scorned upon in most of the world... stoned to death in some Muslim countries, genitals mutilated in African tribes, shunned by the Mormons in Pennsylvania, tossed into lock up in most Southern states... yet outlandish douchebaggery is universally accepted within the state of Nevada.

Diabolical and crapulous antics are largely ignored by the casino employees who get paid an hourly wage (plus tips) to look the other way and withhold judgment. No one likes to clean up feces and regurgitated steak fajitas off the ceiling of your hotel room's bathroom.... yet some unlucky Guatemalan woman does that every fucking morning on a daily basis. Wonder what sort of hope she has every morning when she reads her horoscope? You think when she goes to Sunday morning mass that she prays to God that she'll have a few easy days of work and not encounter tough-to-remove semen stains on the remote control and alarm clock?

Most Vegas visitors cling to blind faith that "God will look after me" during those lapses in sanity, whether it's tilting at the poker tables and spewing seventeen buy-ins, or getting inebriated on too many Jager Bombs that you lose all control of bodily functions and sucking face with a plastic palm tree in the foyer of a rub and tug joint on Spring Mountain. Maybe you hit the lottery and it's your turn to get rolled by a strung out sex worker because you're too sozzled to get it up and too cocked to notice she lifted your credit cards and bankroll.

Nobody wants to openly admit on Facebook or Twitter that the very last thing you remember is yakking up your breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the walls of the elevator and twitching like a Parkinson's patient on the ground in a violent manner that you scared off the trio of Hells Angels who wanted nothing to do with you. When bad ass bikers with scars the size of yard sticks think you're possessed by a feral spirit... then you know you crossed the line. It's time for a stint in rehab or change in locale.

Perhaps a visit to the Alamo for your next vacation will be less detrimental to your health.


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.

2010 AVN AEE: Fetish Theatre

By Pauly
Las Vegas, NV

I snuck into the back of the seminar room and took a seat. The rather ordinary room was filled with a mixture of press and business types. The seminar cost over $135 which kept the riff raff out. The room looked like any other seminar room in Las Vegas with the exception that someone who once won an award for "Best Blowjob" would be giving the keynote address for the entire conference.

My chair was spammed with a free pad (courtesy of Sex Apps) and a menu of seminars that I thumbed through. Although Power & Influence - The Growing Force of Women in Adult Entertainment sounded like a throw-away sociology class at beatnik college in the Midwest.

Former star turned producer Tristan Taormino took the mic and gave a witty and saucy introduction to Sasha Grey.

"She is everything that the mainstream media says does not exist," explained Tristan. "Bright. Ambitious. Intellectual. Artistic. Savvy. Self-possessed. Porn Star. She is the anti-porn feminists' unicorn."

At the age of 21, Sasha Grey acted in over 80 adult films including a stunning crossover role in Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience. Very few actresses are able to make a smooth transition into Hollywood, yet Sasha became one of the few exceptions. The last time I saw Sasha Grey, she had a cock the size of a piano leg in her ass. I stumbled upon a captivating gangbang video. Actually, I did a search for it... Sasha Grey piano gangbang... and one of her scenes magically appeared.

Sasha took the stage ten minutes behind schedule and immediately apologized for her raspy voice -- a casualty of a rigorous travel schedule and several days of non-stop interviews. Sasha gave the audience a quick recap of how she broke into the business. She began her path when she was 17 years old and working full time at a restaurant in Northern California. She had also just started college and watched what she referred to "a lot of porn" because she was interested in the industry. She diligently studied the entire industry for seven months. In the meantime, she saved up $7,000 and as soon as she turned 18, she moved to Southern California. She derived the last part of her stage name from an Oscar Wilde book titled The Picture of Dorian Gray. Holy shit... a porn star who reads non-Oprah book club books? She made a name for herself during a scintillating scene in John Stagliano's Fashionistas 2.

"The adult industry was a way to safely to explore my sexuality," Sasha said. "It was a way to change what I was seeing. I was getting off physically, but not getting off intellectually. I wanted to get into the business to change how pornography is perceived."

Sasha expressed her disappointment in the lack of solidarity among her fellow actresses. Female/female relationships in the workplace are always difficult and volatile... especially in the porn world. Sasha explained that the industry and technology has grown so much that it's pushing the talent "more and more apart."

Sasha recently formed her own production company and remarked, "I want to make more erotic and more creative films. The key element missing from adult films today is tonality."

Her keynote speech was over in ten minutes and followed up by a brief Q&A conducted by Tristan Taormino who asked Sasha a couple of prepared questions about kinky sex, effective communication, and getting paid what you're worth as an artist. Once they finished up, I snuck out of the room while everyone gave Sasha a riveting ovation.

* * * * *
The AEE celebrates and showcases the industry which has come a long way since the first ever stag flicks were spliced together post-WWII and sold in the back of trunks from smut peddlers. People love porn. It's not just an American thing, but an international obsession. Adult entertainment transformed into multi-billion dollar industry (exact numbers are unknown) and the yearly revenue generated makes some online poker rooms look like a lemonade stand. The US is actually not the largest market for porn. That honor goes to the Asian countries (Japan, China, and South Korea) that derive revenue from pornography than the US, mainly because openness about all things pertaining to sex is not a culturally accepted norm in some Asian countries. In some twisted way, it's the porn industry (or rather, the easy accessibility to porn and freedom to create it) that drives fundamental Islamists bat shit crazy. One of the justifications behind their Jihad is a rigid view that all forms of porn are obscene, shameful, vulgar, and filthy. And yes, of course it is, but so is reality television -- you just see less flesh.

The serious-looking suits hung out off to the side or in the hallways with their potential clients... well-dressed European, Middle Eastern, and Asian businessmen. At first glance you might mistake them for CES geeks who wandered down the wrong hallway, but the CES geeks were always dragging around multiple laptops and other wheelie luggage through the crowd. The power brokers of the adult entertainment industry were the guys with composed and focused looks on their faces and without the cameras dangling around their necks. They weren't in Vegas to gawk. They were there to seek out investors and distributors. As someone succinctly explained to me, the Persians were funding the films. The Americans in LA were making the films and then distributing them to Asia. The Japanese market was flooded with regional bondage flicks, but their high-volume customers were seeking out films from Flesh Valley over the hills of Hollywood of the "big breasted" and "blonde" variety.

Conventions are always the collision of art and commerce. For every true artist, there are a dozen hustlers out there trying to make a buck and profit off of the exploited fools. I always knew that the porn industry was huge, but it wasn't until I saw the sheer enormity of the elaborate stages from Hustler, Vivid, and Wicked when I realized the amount of money the companies were pumping into the AEE to market their films and promote their stars.

It reminded me of the golden era of the Hollywood studio system in the 1930s and 1940s when the major studios cranked out films in two weeks. The big-named stars were in a dozen films a year, sometimes more. These days, it costs so much and takes too long to create a studio movie from scratch. However, in the porn universe films are being cranked out every day. Sasha Grey has been in an average of 20 films a year and she's just 21.

* * * * *
I returned to the AEE on Saturday morning to beat the rush and get a couple of hours in before the Jets/Bengals playoff game at 1:33pm. Flipchip and the random actresses I spoke to on Friday all agreed that Saturday is a zoo and the worst day of the convention. That's why I went as early as possible -- to avoid the masses. The floor was opened up an hour earlier for press and VIP members. That's the only time to get a chance at interviewing people because once they let the general public inside the room, the aisles quickly clogged up and the lengthy lines started to form. Reminded me of bread lines from old Communist Mother Russia, except guys drunk on vodka are not waiting for food but rather for an autograph and a picture with porn stars who they constantly fantasize about and regularly jerk off to.

At concerts inside the men's toilet, the guys using the stalls were usually snorting hard drugs. I always wondered if the guys in the stalls at the AEE were wanking off? It seemed to suspicious that that many dudes had to take a shit at the same time.

One girl in a jean mini skirt sat on a table and spread her legs. Blinding flashes went off as dozens of horny guys snapped photos. They elbowed each other for position while other guys filmed every second of the peep show with their hand-held video cameras. Most of the time the attendees appeared normal, but every once in a while you came across someone who wasn't altogether there... you know who I'm talking about... the nebbish looking guy with leering eyes of a pedophile.

A blonde in a Catholic school girl outfit tried to get me to buy porn beer coosies. A young guy in his 20s with an L.A. Dodgers hat dragged a blow up doll through the crowd. A Japanese film crew slowly navigated through the crowd while a tiny female presenter stopped people to ask questions. Another busty model offered me a pamphlet on flavored lube. I got caught up in a traffic jam in front of Diamond Foxx's booth as she signed autographs for a group of 60-year old Japanese guys. You could park a motorcycle in her cleavage.

I spent the most time in front of the Girlfriends Films booth across the way from the Beverly Hills plastic surgeons. Two plasma screens flanked the booth and aired the highlights from their high-selling girl-on-girl flicks. They specialize in lesbian porn and I was deeply interested in that genre. I became fond of someone named Prinzzess, who signed an autograph for me and happily answered questions on why she refused traditional porn and engaged exclusively in lesbian films. "I hate men," was her predictable answer.

I stumbled by the Vegasgirls.com booth across the way from the Fleshlights. Wait a sec. Outcall service? Right behind the working girls, were the sex robots and the Bad Girls in 3D. I wondered if Avatar was a bust, would everyone be buzzing about 3D? The future of the porn industry was huddle in that corner. That's when I saw the long white truck trailer with a "Grown and Tow" logo on the front. I investigated and discovered that those guys ran a business that created mobile marijuana grow operations and then they'd drop it off at your house or somewhere in the woods. Talk about one heady set up. We spoke for a while and I tried to see of the Grow and Tow guys wanted to work out some sort of marketing/ad deal with Coventry, my music and Phish blog, which falls under the "grown your own" crowd.

Some how, I made the wrong turn and got caught up in the narrowest aisle and it took ten minutes to squeeze trough the Mardi Gras size crowd that slowly pushed me down the aisle. I passed a couple of the Asian stars from Evil Angel showing off their cookies. Someone dressed up I Dream of Jeannie signed autographs.

A higher percentage of women were in attendance on Saturday, but they were still grossly outnumbered by the dudes. A gaggle of female attendees dressed in lingerie gathered in front of the Bucking Penis. They posed for photos for random guys with cameras. It was sort of their "I'm a porn star" moment because some folks thought they were part of the show. Nope. Just amateurs. I wondered how many women showed up with resumes at the AEE seeking work in this difficult economy?

I passed by a couple of guys in thick accents working out some sort of deal near the Sapphire stripper pole, while CES dorks wandered around in a daze with mouths agape, and stiff erections stifled by their Dockers.

Almost time for kick off, so I bailed as the floor hit an over-saturation point. I took a deep breath and fought the ravenous crowd heading onto the floor as I made my exit but not before a guy in fishnets and a bondage mask barreled by me. On most normal days, uptight citizens call the cops when they witness that sordid and aberrant behavior. But at the AVN AEE, that norm is accepted and customary. Heck, he was one of the more normal people I cam across that day. I surprised he was dragging along a drunk monkey and a Japanese film crew.

* * * * *
Raw Vegas interviewed Sasha Grey.

Check out my NSFW photos of the AVN AEE here.

And don't forget about Flipchip's pics... Day 1 & Day 2 & Day 3.


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.

2010 AVN AEE: The Carnival of Flesh

By Pauly
Las Vegas, NV

I plodded through a sea of slow-walking frustrated geeks tweeting that their iPhones were not getting coverage in the bowels of the Sands convention center. The tech-savvy folks were in town for the annual CES show, yet I was completely lost and unable to find the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo (AEE). I was about to stop for directions when I saw two top-heavy women in latex squeaking down an adjacent hallway. I ditched the geeks and followed the shiny duo.

The AEE is Mecca for porn enthusiasts, a candy store for sex toys practitioners, and heaven on Earth if you get off on being surrounded by your favorite porn stars. The annual event in January attracts people from all facets of the sex industry and from the darkest corners of the world. Fans, vendors, and media descended upon Sin City and soak up the carnival of sex over a three-day weekend and ending with the AVN awards ceremony -- the Oscars for the porn industry.

Fans waited several hours and paid $80 for an up close and personal interaction with the leading stars and starlets in the adult entertainment industry. Some fans paid an extra $20 for VIP access and the privilege to roam the floor an hour before the doors open to the general public. After witnessing the flood of fans and the claustrophobic nature of the convention, I understood why some people paid extra for VIP passes to avoid the masses.

As expected, a large portion of the fan base at the AEE were guys with beer guts and video cameras. The rest of the fans were a mixed bag of veterans, newcomers, casual observers (many of whom were from the CES), and hobbyists.

Female fans made up a tiny percentage of the attendees. A few guys brought along their girlfriends. Just observing their body language, you could tell which girlfriends were enthusiastic about the expo and the ones who were mortified. Some females fans dressed up like working girls and strippers in lace, leather, rubber, latex, and fishnets. They were wanna-be porn stars and attention whores. The AEE was sort of a fantasy camp for them. The rest of the females visiting the AEE were true fans and just like the guys, they wanted to meet their favorite stars and shop for the latest line of sex toys and gadgets.

The largest production companies were strategically camped out near the entrance to the floor. Hustler, Wicked, Vivid, Digital Playground, Evil Angel and Adam & Eve crafted elaborate sets, stages, and booths. Gigantic billboards plugged their hit films, plasma screens ran highlight reels, and images of the stable of stars graced banners and backdrops. Lines wrapped around the large setups as fans patiently waited for photo ops and autographs.

The secondary film companies appeared in the second and third rows. Porn people from Japan (an odd set up with a cute girl in a kimono and two sex dolls) and France had booths in this section. The sex toys were clustered together in the middle like the blowjob guard, Spingasm, Clitoraid, and True Companion dolls. I chatted up a couple of doctors from a well-known Beverly Hills plastic surgery factory. A couple of erotica publishers set up shop and sold books next to a BDSM film distributor. Nina Hartley (the Doyle Brunson of porn stars) recently penned a book and her fans were wrapped around their booth and down the aisle as they waited for Nina to sign her book.

The best independent booth was run by Popeye Wong, an artist from Mexico most known for his pinup artwork. His airbrush paintings looked like actual photographs. His stunning images included a series of fetish eroticartoons.

Popeye was set up near the huge penis which offered free penis rides (the AEE version of electronic bull rides). Sasha Grey held court in front of the penis with a dozen or so film crews following her around and capturing her every move. Of course, Flipchip was hard at work snapping photos of Sasha and the entire scene around the penis.

Booths sold lingerie, other seductive types of clothing (including liquid latex), and "porn make up". One booth specialized in extravagant shades of lipstick and eyeliner that Sephora found too distasteful to sell. Some shades of green are suited for only grandmothers and hookers.

The quality of booths diminished as you walked deeper into the convention floor space and that's where you could find the freak show - the scorpion tank with goth chicks, women with breasts the size of beach balls, and glassy-eyed spinsters deep into bondage. The last few booths were populated by law firms, over-the-hill stars, gay video distributors, and small-timers running webcams out of their garages. Oh, and how could I forget? Poon-Tang menswear and the congregation from XXX Church who were handing out stickers and books saying Jesus Loves Porn Stars.

The prostitution industry was also represented at the AEE. The Mustang Ranch had their own booth populated with real working girls. A few local escort agencies also set up booths, but those were not as elaborate nor appealing as the brightly lit monster-stages at the front. Local strip clubs used the AEE to advertise. Sapphire had a swanky set up with stripper poles but Deja Vu won the prize for most creative booth... they backed up a truck that was transformed into a strippermobile. The back end had see through walls and included a stripper pole, web cam, and benches for lap dances. Once the AEE is over, the Deja Vu strippermobile will hit the road and park in front on their other properties throughout America.

* * * * *
The AEE vets arrived with cameras, some had multiple ones dangling around their necks. The average attendee walked around with a shit-eating grin, a huge boner, and clutching a large shopping bag handed out by the Bang Bros. -- used to horde around the free schwag that vendors handed out for promotional reasons. Scantily clad women working the booths tossed DVD samplers, postcards, pens, and whatever into the bags.

I didn't collect too many things on the first day aside from an autograph for my brother by a starlet who spelled his name wrong. I was simply observing, taking notes, and snapping photos. I collected a couple of business cards from vendors and one guy gave me a sample of his "natural" form of Viagra. He dubbed it a sexual amplifier. I wondered how much I could sell those pills on Phish tour.


Two models dressed up like angels breezed by. They were promoting Bluebird films around the corner from the Fleshlights otherwise known as "pocket pussies" or "sex in a can" that were in the shape of large flashlights. You put your penis inside the cylinder through the semi-realistic replication of a woman's vagina. Some of them were modeled after real porn stars. You could also purchase replications of mouths and butts. Every time I walked past the booth, one of the models would stick out one of the Fleshlights.

"Would you like to try it out?"

"Right here? In front of everyone with my... um...."

"Not with your little pal," she said pointing below the belt, "Try it with your finger."

You don't want to offend a beautiful woman waving a pocket pussy in your face, so you have to show some sort of elated response as you slide your finger inside but at the same time you have to be careful and not look too aroused. That might disgust her and she'll beat you senseless the other sample fleshlights.

* * * * *
I turned the corner and bumped into Tom Byron. He was one of the few male adult stars at the convention with his own booth. He's also swinging a paint can between his legs that can also punch holes into drywall.

"Nice dick," I said, unable to come up with anything more creative.

"Thanks," said Byron.

"Bet you get that a lot. Huh?"

"Every... single... day."

I met a jaded vet and the best people to give you the straight dope because they don't care anymore. We made a bit more small talk. He went from being an actor grinding out scene after scene to the head of his own production company with a stable of nubile fillies. He's a self-made entrepreneur in the industry who worked his way up the voracious food chain.

"Don't trust anyone and believe in yourself," Byron said was part of his keys to success. Simple yet fundamentally astute advice for any enterprise whether it's the financial sector, poker, or pornography.

* * * * *
Timing is everything. A year ago, Lisa Ann was just one of thousands of other unknowns in the consortium of actresses in the world of porn. Enter Sarah Palin, the former Governor of Alaska, who got the unexpected nod as John McCain's running mate. Lisa Ann threw on a pair of glasses and all of a sudden she was the porn-doppelganger of Sarah Palin. And just like Palin, she became an instant star with her exquisite work in Nalin Palin. And who said porn and politics don't mix?

Nalin Palin star Lisa Ann

Look-a-likes are always a bonus in the adult entertainment industry. There's no coincidence that some of the more popular stars resembled Hollywood actresses. For some reason, Alexis Texas gave off a Reese Witherspoon vibe. That "girl next door" look caters to a proportion of porn viewers who are turned off by the watermelon sized boobs.

Alexis effectively worked the crowd. I suspected she was on something... good. Because she was feisty and bubbly and really have fun when she posed for pictures with guys. She gave a mini show every time a new fan stepped up on stage and unleashed a few pole dance moves and a booty dance as she proudly displayed her luscious assets.

Some of the actresses are noticeably not into the autograph sessions. They are exhausted and drained. Others don't mesh too well with the public and are fighting every bit of social anxiety. And some are handling such a high volume of requests that it's impossible to fool around with the fans. But Alexis? She enjoyed every second of the spotlight. Boundless energy. Always smiling. If she was my favorite star and I waited twenty minutes in line for a photo, I'd be super pumped because she was super excited to meet me. Then again, maybe it was the ecstasy pumping through her blood system?

It's no secret that many of the people involved in the adult entertainment industry dabble into recreational drugs. I was on the prowl for pharmies and I could easily tell which stars were on the sauce and which ones were sober. For the most part, all of the big named stars and the ones who worked for the big companies were in control -- meaning I couldn't tell. Either they were sober or were experts at hiding it. There were a few exceptions. The ones jumping up and down were obviously rolling their tits off on ecstasy. But as one actress mentioned, it allowed her to do her job, "I'm uncomfortable with the huge crowds. The E lets me to talk because I'm too shy. It's hard for me to met people. I'm too scared."

When you went to the back of the floor space, you would notice the bottom feeders of the industry. They tended to be stereotypically fucked up. Lots of running noses, sniffles, actresses scratching themselves. Those were the ones I asked if they were holding. None of them had what I wanted. Everyone had blow, yet I was in search of Adderall. One goth-looking chick with tattoo of a penis on her arm accused me of being a DEA agent. Heh. Far from it.

I finally thought I hit the motherload but it was a false alarm. One of the models working a sex toys booth thought that I was a dealer and called over her friend.

"This guy has Adderall! I'll buy everything you have!" she squealed.

I had to politely tell her that I was not a seller, rather a buyer. At that point, it was time for the keynote address with Sasha Grey. I left the convention floor and went in search of the seminar room. I didn't know if I needed to sign up or pay to attend Sasha's seminar, but I had a press badge and had no qualms about crashing or sneaking in if I had to.

To be continued...

* * * * *
Check out my NSFW photos of the AVN AEE here.

And don't forget about Flipchip's pics... Day 1 & Day 2 & Day 3.

If you like my writing, then I suggest you buy my book... Lost Vegas: The Redneck Riviera, Existentialist Conversations with Strippers, and the World Series of Poker


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.