By Pauly
New York City

Time flies, eh? Hard to believe that 2012 is around the corner, but I’m kinda glad that 2011 is over. This year was one of the roughest, saddest, and most excruciating that I experienced since I ventured into the poker world. I can only be optimistic about the future, because it can’t get any worse… right?

Without further ado, here’s the best of the Tao of Poker…

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January 2010

God’s Cell Phone Number – Things got a little crazy while betting on the NFL playoffs and I successfully pulled off a Band of Brothers reference…

Sometimes I refer to God as Gretzky. At least, that’s what I have him labeled on my cell phone. I’d hate for someone to steal my phone and than have a direct number to God. Hence, why He’s coded as GRETZKY. He doesn’t gives those out to anyone. It’s one of the perks of attending a Jesuit high school. You learn Latin, Greek, and get God’s cell phone number… MORE

Dispatches from the PCA: You Enjoy Myself – My lovely girlfriend won a satellite to the Ladies Event, so I flew down to Paradise Island in the Bahamas to attend the PCA as a civilian and professional railbird. I also drunk a shit-ton of rum and gambled at the sports book.

The cabbie pulled into Atlantis and I tipped him fairly decent, enough that he tried to sell me a bag of blow. I politely declined. Do you know the six words that aptly describes cocaine from the Caribbean? Clumps together, but only cut once… MORE

Dispatches from the PCA: Divided Sky – I spent a lot of time watching the Dead People Channel and then hung out on the rail to sweat Change100 during her victorious run in the Ladies Event.

It’s no secret that I feel uncomfortable and unwelcomed at any Ladies Only events because I’m getting thousands of daggers shot at me from evil glances from the players, many of whom on principle hate men, not to mention a slew of female players who think I’m an asshole because my writing glorifies misogyny and the poor treatment of women by condoning prostitution and promoting stripping… MORE

Tao of Pokerati Podcast: Bahama Mama – Change100 Scores Ladies PCA Title – Listen to a super quick podcast that I recorded with Change100 after she beat Lauren Kling heads-up to win the PCA Ladies event.

Looming Municipal Debt Crisis the Key to Online Poker Legislation? – The majority of the states in the union were faced with severe budgetary problems at the start of 2011. I hypothesized that some states will look to legalize online poker in order to make a dent into their ginormous debt obligations.

The future is grim no matter how you look at it. That’s why there’s very little chatter in the media about the looming municipal debt crisis. It’s sort of like an asteroid ready to crash into Earth — it’s much easier to be the ostrich with its head buried in the ground, and let everyone go about their daily lives, rather than clue them in on the reality of the situation and that the end of the world could be right around the corner…MORE

Dan Shak’s Hedge Fund Nearly Blows Up the Gold Market – Speaking of finance… did you hear the one about Dan Shak nearly causing a financial tsunami?

Talk about a trader who has a set of titanium balls! That’s what I love about Dan Shak — he made a ballsy trade, it went south, he cut his losses, shrugged it off, and wants to get back in the game… MORE

Eight Voices and a Sea of Trouble – I broke down the eight different voices inside my head that often get me into gambling trouble.

Accessing the future for my own financial gain is an unattainable pipe dream. I meet people all the time in Vegas and in poker circles who claim that have foolproof systems for blackjack, roulette, the horses, stock options, etc. I’ve met lots of shit-talkers, but I’ve never crossed paths with a legitimate psychic who can accurately predict the future. Believe me, I scoured the world for a seer and found lots of charlatans, but came up empty…MORE

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February 2010

Your Hands and Feet Are Mangos, Part 1 – For one week, I conducted an experiment — do nothing except drink rum and bet on sports.

In the last few years, what used to be a ravenous love affair with sports betting had become a coarse, listless, co-dependent relationship. Each bet used to be like riding a rollercoaster for two hours while jacked up on cocaine. But not anymore because watching each game was more like being prisoner on a cruise ship adrift in stormy seas that’s inducing you to puke your nads out….MORE

Your Hands and Feet Are Mangos, Part 2 – Here’s the second and final installment of my rum-inspired sports betting diaries, which started out as a social experiment but over a long weekend, I nearly lost my shirt on college hoops and had an accident that left our kitchen floor all… sticky.

“Good news and bad news,” I barked and then inspected my soaked jeans. “Bad news is that the kitchen floor is pink and sticky. Good news is that thanks to the supreme technological advances in developing plastics, the shatter-proof bottle prevented the rum from exploding.”…MORE

Syracuse Point-Shaving Rumors Debunked; Major College Basketball Betting Scandal Averted? – The Syracuse point-shaving rumors blew up overnight and what would have just been whispers among paranoid bettors, until it became a national scandal.

College athletes have become pawns for corporate entities. All of those annoying redundant commercials during March Madness made you nauseous, but it’s a clear indication at the significant money that is thrown around by major advertisers. Someone is making a buck on college athletes, everyone except the athletes themselves….MORE

Tao of Pokerati Podcast: Exotic Betting on the Super Bowl with Change100 – I recorded a quick podcast with my girlfriend, who was excited to bet on how long it was going to take Christina Aguilera to sing the National Anthem.

Live Sumo Is Rigged – If you didn’t know, the national sport of Japan has a shady past of rigging matches.

Taking a dive was a dishonor yourself, let alone a sincere dishonor to the entire Sumo community of wrestlers, trainers, promoters, fans, and even the guy who gets paid to wipe the arses of ginormous wrestlers…. MORE

The Bluff Power 20; Howard Lederer Has the Juice – Howard Lederer was named the most powerful person in poker.

Deadhead. Former bookie. Poker pro. Online poker visionary. Top dog. Top gun. King of the Hill. The Godfather… MORE

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March 2011

Closing the Sahara – I took a walk down memory lane when I found out that the Sahara Casino in Las Vegas was closing its doors.

Las Vegas rose up out of the nothingness of the sand. A former Mormon missionary outpost had transformed into a gambling Mecca by gangsters, real estate developers, and bankers. Mecca is actually an inappropriate word to describe Las Vegas because there’s nothing religious about a pilgrimage to modern day Sodom and Gomorrah — the epicenter for the orgy of consumption… MORE

Orphaned Cards – I cannot explain why, but sometimes I find random cards in the middle of the street.

Rolling Out the Magic – If I was a TV exec and I could rig a final table, I’d pick nine specific personality types.

Television executives in poker are faced with two rigorous obstacles: 1) inaction at the tables, and 2) lack of stimulating dialogue. Both are detrimental to ratings. Lackadaisical ratings gave poker a blemish, which is why the suits in charge of programming banished poker to uncoveted late night slots, where stoners and insomniacs alike watched with an indifferent glaze. The few remaining programs were lost in the shuffle at the farthest ends of the satellite spectrum, embroiled in fierce competition against 1,000 other stations…. MORE

Sweating Sachin Tendulkar – New low as a degen gambler… I bet on cricket.

Despite being plagued with a short attention span, an 8-hour sporting event like cricket is a definite commitment, both physically and mentally, but due to medical breakthrough and advances in technology, 8-hour long cricket matches are conductive if you have proclivities to specific time-released pharmaceuticals…. MORE

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April 2011

Down With Diseased Monkeys – I began the month betting on baseball and went on a horrid losing streak.

Sports betting is a huge life leak, but it’s also a life sweetener, or a bottle of hot sauce that spruces up mundane aspects of daily life, which is why it’s inherently dangerous. Finding the perfect balance between entertainment, merriment, stroking the ego is essential to healthy lifestyle. It’s when you cross over the proverbial demarcation line in the murky, cloudy grey area that you takes strides away from the light and rush toward the dark…. MORE

Black Friday, Vampire Squids, and 1,000 Masturbating Monkeys – I was in Lima, Peru when Black Friday hit and waited until after I finished climbing Machu Picchu before I wrote about my take on the worst day in the history of online poker.

What was the point of even sending the PPA to Washington? Instead, we should have sent a hundred masturbating chimpanzees to lobby for online poker — they would have accomplished the same fucking thing as the PPA, but at least we’d have some cool YouTube videos of monkeys jerking off on the steps of the Capitol…. MORE

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May 2011

Aunt Emma – Another installment of the infamous Pai Gow Diaries.

A disheveled woman sat down next to me. She wore a green terry cloth jacket. For a second I thought she walked into the casino wearing her bath robe. But she smelled like she had slept in her car, woke up, blew a snot rocket, smoked the ends of three week-old cigarette butts, then walked over to the Pai Gow table…. MORE

PokerStars Offices Raided in Costa Rica – I just happened to know a few friends in Costa Rica who were around when the federales raided the San Jose offices of online poker rooms.

Black Friday Fallout: Offshore Sportsbooks Fleeing U.S. Soil – The sportsbetting industry also took a hit when they experienced residual fallout from Black Friday.

14 Fun Moments from the 2010 WSOP and 14 More Fun Moments at the 2010 WSOP – I was reminiscing about some fun times I had in the summer of 2010.

Fading the Rapture – I love betting against Jesus Freaks, especially those predicting specific dates for Armageddon.

Glow in the Dark Dragons – And what’s the WSOP without kicking it off by going on dealer tilt at a Pai Gow table?

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…. MORE

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June 2011 and August 2011

Thanks to Alexander, I got to be on the cover of The Circuit. here’s my interview…

I covered my 7th World Series of Poker on Tao of Poker. Here’s the index of coverage…

Let’s start with a couple of posts that were published before cards went in the air on Day 1. Among those were a few tidbits about the Ivey/Full Tilt lawsuit.

2011 WSOP: Before the Madness Begins – A prelude to the seven-week fiesta of poker.

WTF? Phil Ivey Suing Full Tilt Poker – In one of the most peculiar news stories since Black Friday, Phil Ivey announced he was leaving Full Tilt, suing Tiltware, and sitting out of the WSOP. All of these important announcements were made on his Facebook fan page. Whaaaaa?

Full Tilt’s Angry Response to Phil Ivey’s Lawsuit – The drama-filled start to the WSOP continued with an angry response from Full Tilt’s HQs. That’s the fastest they ever responded to anything in the wake of Black Friday.

Finding Pil Ivey and the Doctor Is In – The video crew at Bluff Magazine did an awesome job with their videos this summer, especially the bit Finding Ivey. I got tapped to tape an interview and you can see a teaser in this video.

The Circuit Cover and Interview – I was fortunate that Alexander asked me to be a part of his amazing photo project — The Circuit. Check out what went down behind the scenes during the photo shoot, including a candid interview about what life is really like on the road following around the tournament circuit.

Okay, and now here are the daily recaps from the 2011 WSOP…

Day 1: Welcome to the Jungle and Phil Ivey’s Titanium Balls – The 2011 WSOP kicked off with lots of questions swirling around about which pros would toe the company line and support Full Tilt Poker, and which red pros would ditch the patches and other FT branding. Phil Ivey fired the first shot with his lawsuit (announced via Facebook), but did he incite a mutiny with other red pros following his lead?

Day 2: Ivey’s Hippodrome and Bare-Chested Scandis – Gus Hansen wandering around with his shirt undone and the ongoing saga between Phil Ivey and Full Tilt were among the more dramatic topics on the second day of action.

Day 3: Moneymaker and Johnny Fucking Chan Win Grudge Matches and Men the Master Cheating Accusations – A Made-for-TV event occupied the Mothership with Chris Moneymaker and Johnny Fucking Chan winning their Main Event “grudge matches”. Meanwhile, in the real WSOP, Men the Master was the center of hurricane of shadiness when he hypocritically accused Hollywood Dave of shorting a pot. A shouting match ensued and both were on the verge of being disqualified.

Day 4: Jake Cody’s Emos, Hooligans, and Hat Tricks – Jack Cody, the latest British wunderkind made history when he became only the third member of the Triple Crown club. His victory did not come without a little rail rowdiness along the way.

Day 5: Apocalypse Now (Guest Post by Change100) – Yes, I had the day off and Change100 stepped up to pen an atmospheric piece on the tension in the air at the start of the 2011 WSOP — the first series in the wake of Black Friday and “money getting stuck on Full Tilt” fiasco.

Day 6: Ho-most for Maria Ho – The lovely Maria Ho went deep in the 5K NL event and came within one spot of winning her first bracelet.

Day 7: British Invasion, Vampire Squids, and the Devil – After the first week of nonstop poker, the first zombie begin to appear at the Rio. The zombies in turn attract the Devil along with treacherous vampire squids.

Day 8: The Marked Cards Conspiracy and the Last 5 Pros I Pissed Next To – It’s not the WSOP unless there’s a controversy involving the cards. There’s always something wrong with the decks. At the 2011 WSOP, a couple of the decks had a printing error that was only visible underneath the groovy purple grow-lights inside the Mothership.

Day 9: Cocking Blocking the Brits – The Brits launched an all-out assault on Las Vegas once again as they threatened to win another bracelet but the bloody 10-level rule was the only thing that prevented them from shipping another bracelet.

Day 10: Banning Booze, World Series of Mormons, and Sweating the Mavs – Despite the financial woes bringing America to the brink of ruin, the WSOP continued to thrive in the face of external adversity on both the political and financial fronts. The influx of players always brought with it a wave of fervor on the rail during final tables. The powers to be did not anticipate a Mardi Gras-like atmosphere inside the Mothership that is a fragile TV set and not a country-western bar. As a result, booze was officially banned at the final table.

Day 11: Social Media in Poker and Tex Dolly Blows Chunks – The poker world has changed for the better (or worst) because of the heavy influence of social media. Oh, and we found out through Twitter that Texas Dolly got ill during the middle of a tournament because of something he ate.

Day 12: Hellmuth Chokes and Prohibition Ends at the Mothership – Phil Hellmuth was on a mission to win his 12h bracelet, yet his attempt was thwarted. Meanwhile, much to the delight of the alkies in Vegas, booze was permitted to be consumed inside the Mothership. Yes, the short-lived prohibition was over.

Day 13: Tweaker City, USA – I experienced a rather sketchy encounter in the parking lot at the Gold Coast while hanging out with Benjo.

Day 14: Subterranean Homesick Alien and Brits Snag Third Bracelet – By the end of the second week of the WSOP, everyone is ridden with homesickness. Despite the malaise, another Brit won a bracelet, meanwhile, we decided to pay homage to old school Vegas with a trip downtown to where it all began — Binion’s.

Day 15: Triple ElkY and The Mark is the 22nd Best PLO Player in the World – The French surged during the beginning of the third week of the series. They won three bracelets in a short period of time and ElkY became only the fourth player to win the Triple Crown. Meanwhile, a close friend of the Tao of Poker went deep in a PLO event. Yeah, The Mark fell short of his first WSOP final table.

Day 16: Le Deux; French Snag 2 Bracelets in 24 Hours – The French surge continued with their second bracelet within a 24-hour period.

Day 17: Mike Sexton Heads-Up for Bracelet and Liquidating the Sahara – The Ambassador of Poker, Mike Sexton, went deep in the Stud 8 event, only to have it suspended due to the 10-level rule. Sexton was heads-up when his tournament was halted. Meanwhile, the big liquidation sale at the Sahara kicked off. Jerome and Camille shot a stunning video of that dreary sale day.

Day 18: No Country For Old Men; Barry Greenstein and Mike Sexton Denied Bracelets – Two poker greats came very close to winning bracelets, yet they fell short of the mark. In addition, the Senior’s Event kicked off with everyone standing to attention when the Stars and Stripes were played.

Day 19: The Donkenator and Eating Death – Dominating a donkaments are never an easy task. Woever wins that bracelet damn well deserves it. I delve a bit into Milton’s Paradise Lost in this recap. Enter at your own risk.

Day 20: The Egregious Case of the $9 Pizza and Stein Shines – It was a matter of time before I went off on an old-fashioned anti-food rant because of the horrendous $9 pizza that the Poker Kitchen tries to pass off as a culinary delight.

Day 21: A Day in the Life; Hellmuth Denied 12th Bracelet (Again) – This is my favorite piece of the summer, mainly because most of the hijinks happened outside the Amazon Ballroom that eventually morphed into my first Memento moment of the WSOP. Anyway, I went on a classic bender at the Gold Coast while Phil Hellmuth went deep once again and tried to win bracelet #12.

Day 22: Slowdown, Rocky Mountain High, and Chau Giang Confirmed Alien – The WSOP caught its breath at the start of the fourth week of play, while I determined that Chau Giang is really an alien.

Day 23: Timex Flashback, Jason Mercier Wins PLO Bracelet, and More Sordid Tales About Chasing the Dragon – I squeezed in a little personal Pai Gow degeneracy in between a recap about Jason Mercier’s victory in the PLO event along with a flashback about the origins of Timex.

Day 24: Dwan Song, Revelry, and Hooligans – Whenever Tom “durrrr” Dwan makes a final table, the entire poker world stops to watch. With a few million in prop bets on the line, Dwan’s final tables always have an added element of excitement. Alas, it was the Brits who sucked up all of the attention in the Amazon Ballroom as they railed their boy Middy and even drank Jager bombs out of their shoes.

Day 25: Rubber Soul, Electric Daisies, and Two-Tabling Pai Gow – The Electric Daisy Carnival swept through Vegas and a quarter million ravers invaded Sin City. Fabrice Soulier shipped a bracelet and became the third Frenchie to win one in 2011. Ah, and I also engaged in a live session of Pai Gow again and two-tabled it. I’m lucky I didn’t get 86′d.

Day 26: The Sickness – If you’ve spent a significant amount of time in Las Vegas, then you’ve seen those afflicted with The Sickness. I spoke about some of my experiences with the dreaded disease.

Day 27: Shaking Down Ravers; November Niner Snags Bracelet – I had a situation when I should’ve rolled a couple of schwasted ravers in the elevator, but I couldn’t cross over to the dark side and take advantage of the party people on the last day of the Electric Daisy Carnival.

Day 28: The Glass Onion; Lamb Leads POY – Donkey slayers, Brazilians, and Ben Lamb seizing the top spot in Player of the Year race.

Day 29: Carnival at the Mothership; Akkari Wins Bracelet – I went to cover a final table and a Brazilian soccer match broke out. The Mothership was transformed into a World Cup final when Brazil’s native son Andre Akkari advanced to the final table and was heads-up for a bracelet.

“Vamooooooooooooooo!”
Days 30-33: OFF

Day 34: Happy Birthday, America – On the Fourth of July, America celebrated with its annual Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island. Only in America can we boast about binge eating to celebrate our creation and independence from British tyranny.

Day 35: Catching Up - After a brief holiday away from the Vegas grind, it was time to catch up on everything I missed.

Day 36: Don’t Stop Believen‘ – Hellmuth and the 50K hit a hard stop. Grumbles ensued.

Day 37: Another Runner-Up Finish for Hellmuth; Whiffs on Three Flush Draws to Lose Bracelet#12 – Hellmuth had another disappointing evening after he whiffed on three big flush draws only to lose to Brian Rast, who won his second bracelet in 2011.

* * *

2011 Main Event Coverage

Prelude to the Killing Fields – The 2011 Main Event
With a Little Help From My Friends: The Michael Stevens Story by Change100
Day 38- Main Event Day 1A: Dolly’s Abyss
Day 39 – Main Event Day 1B: Luck Rack of Lamb
Prope Bets with Remkos and Micros WSOP Episode
Day 40 – Main Event Day 1C: One More Saturday Nite
Day 41 – Main Event Day 1D: Spiderman Big Records, Perma-Bans, and 6,865
Day 42 – Main Event Day 2A: Torturing the One-Eyed Clown, Hellmuth Awakes, and the Euro Surge
Day 43 – Main Event Day 2B: Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
Day 44 – Main Event Day Off; Annie Duke Wins Media Tournament
Day 45 – Main Event Day 3: Poirier and Jace Are Million Men and Tilt-A-Scandi
Day 46 – Main Event Day 4: Soft Bubbles, Zombie Apocalypse, and the Reincarnation of JRB
Day 47 – Main Event Day 5: There Must Be Some Way Out of Here
The Skinny: Day 6
Day 48 – Main Event Day 6: House of the Rising Sun; NOLA’s Ryan Lenaghan Leads with 57 Remaining
The Skinny: Day 7
Day 49 – Main Event Day 7: Buy the Ticket, Survive the Ride
2011 November Nine Set

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And here’s the Best of Tao of Pokerati… which are some of my favorite episodes of the Tao of Pokerati podcast that Michalski and I recorded from the 2011 WSOP featuring special guests Benjo, Snoopy, KevMath, Remko, and AlCantHang.

Episode 6: Ivey’s Lawyer (4:17) – Dan and Pauly chat about the Ivey drama that transformed the opening days of the WSOP into the “World Series of Phil Ivey.” Dan also shares some inside info on Ivey’s lawyer, renown criminal attorney David Chesnoff.

Episode 7: Sahara Liquidation with Remko and Benjo (6:12) – Benjo and Pauly discussed the Sahara Casino liquidation sale/auction with one of the members of the Dutch press, Remko. Both Remko and Benjo expressed a keen interest in acquiring a slot machine for super cheap, while Pauly has his eyes set on a Pai Gow table. Meanwhile, Benjo and Remko try to figure out how to ship a slot machine from Vegas to France and Holland.

Episode 12: The Tweaker Edition with Benjo (4:02) – Benjo and Pauly hang out at the Gold Coast and watched a tweaker get 86d by security. They later encounter the tweaker in the parking lot, and Benjo asks Pauly for a quick tutorial about the seedy Las Vegas meth scene.

Episode 14: Old School Cheats with Johnny Hughes (6:02) – Pauly sat down and chatted with a special guest — the legendary Johnny Hughes — who has been in poker circles for 50+ years. Pauly asks Johnny to share some stories about old school poker cheats and the “fear” of getting caught, which kept a lot of shady characters in line.

Episode 16: Brickless Cash Games Reprise (3:22) – Dan and Pauly recorded a quick follow-up to their previous episode while they hang out on the rail of the high-stakes cash games. They spot Eskimo Clark, “Cowboy”, and other broke dicks lingering around seeking handouts from the high rollers.

Episode 17: WSOP Fashion Report with KevMath (5:10) – Pauly chats with KevMath, who is a self-described “fashion expert.” The two compare and contrast the different styles of clothing worn by members of the media. KevMath also reveals why he won’t wear shorts.

Episode 19: KevMath Keno System with KevMath (6:01) – Pauly and KevMath hang out at the dive bar in a bowling alley at the Gold Coast. KevMath was in the middle of crushing a video Keno game, when Pauly asked him to share a couple of his big secrets to beating the game.

Episode 20: Adieu, Benjo (8:40) with Benjo – After almost a week of speculation and rumors, Benjo confirms that he’s leaving Las Vegas and heading home to France. His brief stint at the WSOP is officially over. One chapter ends, and a new one begins. Dr. Pauly, Dan and Benjo hang out in the dive bar inside the bowling alley at Gold Coast to listen to Benjo bid his farewells.

Episode 21: New Dynamic Duo with Snoopy (5:59) – Pauly holds auditions for a new sidekick with only one requirement — a outrageous accent. Snoopy, a writer from London, nails the audition. In this episode, they discuss modeling their new dynamic duo on the Batman & Robin television series, in addition to re-locating the Bat Cave to England and installing bat poles in the press box.

Episode 23: Brazil’s Mothership Invasion with AlCantHang (2:50) – Pauly and AlCantHang are on the rail inside the Mothership watching the heads-up battle between American Nachman “The Landlord” Berlin and Brazil’s native son Andre Akkari. Al and Pauly record a quick episode moments after Akkari won a decisive pot to cripple Berlin, and the Brazilians went berserk.

Episode 26: Main Event Begins! (6:34) – The Main Event is upon us and before the cards went in the air, Pauly is hanging out and listening to TD Jack Effel’s long-winded introduction and a quick rundown of the rules to all Main Event players. Jack then introduces Texas Dolly to utter the famous phrase, “Shuffle up and deal!”

Episode 27: Almost Famous with Snoopy (3:32) – While players return to their seats after the dinner break, Pauly and Snoopy notice Jason Alexander posing for pictures with fans. Snoopy explains why Seinfeld wasn’t a big hit in England and Pauly discovers someone dressed as Snow White in the crowd. Pauly also wonders if Snoopy would ever dress up in a costume for the Main Event.

Episode 29: Media Mania and Golden Toilets with Change100 and AlCantHang (3:08) – Pauly is still in the media event, so Change100 takes the opportunity to chat with AlCantHang. They both busted rather early, especially AlCantHang, who won a dubious honor of being the first player to bust out. His reward? A Golden Toiler trophy for last place.

Episode 33: Two Brits, One Irishman with Snoopy (5:09) – Snoopy gives Pauly the latest British report with three tables remaining in the Main Event. Snoopy clues us in on the two Brits (Sam Holden and JP Kelly) still alive along with Eoghan O’Dea from Ireland. Even though O’Dea is Irish, Snoopy and Brits are still keeping an eye on their “adopted” player.

Episode 36: KevMath WSOP Exit Interview with KevMath (8:50) – Kevin “KevMath” Mathers is officially done with his WSOP assignment, but he stopped by the Rio to watch the action on Day 8. He bumped into Pauly, who sat him down to discuss his favorite moments (and least favorite) during his first ever WSOP. Pauly also quizzes him on any strange “fan” encounters along the way.

Episode 37: Pseudo-Final Table (6:02) – Dan and Pauly are on the rail of the Mothership as action resumes for the pseudo-final table of ten, otherwise known as the November Nine bubble. Plenty of tension in the air because the final table will be set with just one more elimination.

Episode 39: Bruno’s New Toy (4:20) – Fun Warren brought a batch of dolls to the WSOP. The dolls, resembling famous poker pros, were custom made in London . He left a couple behind for Pauly and Dan. Pauly got Phil Hellmuth, while Dan seems a little disappointed with Daniel Negreanu. Dan suggests that he’ll probably give the Negreanu’s doll to his dog Bruno, so Bruno will now have a new play toy.

If you want to listen to more episodes from the 2011 WSOP, visit Tao of Pokerati podcast archives.

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August, September, and October 2011

I took three months off and moved to San Francisco. I only posted 19 times in that stretch. Less is more, eh? Here’s a few gems from the hiatus months…

Hot Sauce
A Brief Letter to Full Tilt Poker: Fuck You, Pay Me
Full tilt Ponzi Poker
Rocketman and Welcome to the Ice Palace
The Degen Market
I Didn’t Know I Was That Far Gone
Superstitions, Jinxes, and River Rats

* * *
November 2011

I returned to semi-regular poker writing with the November Nine on the agenda and the conclusion of the 2011 WSOP Main Event Championship.

Betting guide to the 2011 November Nine
2011 November Nine – Sunday LIVE Blog
November Nine Down to Three; Germany’s Pius Heinz = Chip Leader
2011 WSOP November Nine – Tuesday Live Blog
Pius Heinz Wins 2011 WSOP Main Event

Michalski and I also recorded a few special Tao of Pokerati podcasts….

Tao of Pokerati Podcast – 2011 November Nine Edition
Episode 1: Evolution
Episode 2: Naming Names
Episode 3: Betting on Belize
Episode 4: Non-Silence of the Lambs
Episode 5: Giannetti Lives
Episode 6: Quad Lambs
Episode 7: Poker Hall of Fame Ceremony
Episode 8: First Hand Fireworks
Episode 9: Heads-Up Outfits
Episode 10: The Final Hand
Episode 11: Hooker Bar Farewell

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December 2011

The year ended with the annual blogger gathering to Vegas, which inspired a three-part trip report and as the year ended and I began to reflect on 2011, I sounded off on a few topics.

Four Haikus – Lost Vegas
Ocho – WPBT, Part 1
Ocho – WPBT, Part 2
Ocho – WPBT, Part 3
Zombie Poker Apocalypse
Puppeteers of America

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That’s it. The highlights from 2011. I hope you have a happy new year.

And if you like what you read, I encourage you to vote Tao of Poker for Best Poker Blog in Bluff’s Readers Choice Awards. Thanks for your support.

Tags: 2011 wsop | armageddon | deg | elky | gambling | gold | las vegas | On the Road | pius heinz | politics | rise poker | twitter

By Pauly
San Francisco, CA

Saturday morning. I sidestepped a German couple at the Aria and felt like the Joe Walsh song Life Is Good. On top of the world. Rested. Catching the first buzz of the day. Itching to gamble. In the previous years, I stayed up way too late raging hard on Friday night and staggered into the tournament on little to no sleep on Saturday at noon. This year I booked a room in the same casino where we played, so all I had to do was walk downstairs. Perfect scenario, especially if/when I busted early I could drop stuff off in my room, check the scores on a few games, then head back downstairs and sweat friends at the final table.

* * *
“I live in hotels, tear out the walls.”

I woke up with college basketball on my mind. I placed a few bets on the UK-UNC game, schedule to tip off at Noon EST or at the horrendous 9am hour in Vegas, so I set my alarm in order to get a bet in. The first business of the day featured a quick meeting in front of the sports book. I felt confident with a hot tip from G-Rob.

“I watched every minute of every Kentucky game,” explained G-Rob. “I watched every North Carolina game too. Seen every game both teams played. I’m telling you… Kentucky wins, covers, and the score will be low. Bet the under.”

G-Rob spoke with the sincerity of a Sunday preacher, yet his assessment on the game seemed like a well-crafted pitch from slick boiler room stockbroker. It’s hard to resist G-Rob because of his secret weapon — perfectly coiffed hair. My brother Derek always suspected he was a member of a CIA black-op mind control project to keep the sheeple under constant hypnosis. With disdainful ignorance, I heeded G-Rob’s advice and without hesitation I marched up to the window at the Aria’s sports book.

I also tailed a college football pick from the legendary Johnny Detroit and bet Southern Mississippi +13.5 against the Houston Cougars. All of the so-called experts on the boob tube were all over the #6 ranked Cougars. The public was also betting Houston heavily, but the “Wiseguys” syndicate were all over Southern Miss. I trusted their intel and tailed their pick, rather than bet on the same side as the schwill-drinking, booger-eating, “Jersey Shore”-loving dickwads bumping chests in the sports book. Sometimes,you gotta fade the public.

* * *
“They say I’m crazy, but I’m having a good time.”

The 8th Annual Winter Classic was hosted at the Aria’s poker room for a second year in a row. The staff liked the gang at the WPBT so much (and tolerated all of our peculiar quirks) that they invited us back. Phil Ivey’s high-roller’s room was idle while we played and he was nowhere to be seen. Otis spotted him in Maccau earlier in the week, but if Ivey is the Ivey I know, he’s been holed up in a nosebleed cash game with Chinese oligarchs. For the meantime, the only celebrity in the room was former L.A. Dodger pitcher Orel Hershiser. Ironically, he wouldn’t be the only former big leaguer that bloggers would play cash games with someone in our crew.

Jordan pulled a few strings at Pokerist.com and secured a fistful of cash to sweeten the team last longer side bet. Teams were comprised of three players and the best team finish wins the motherload of cash. Change100 and Derek were my teammates on Tao of Fear. I had special hats made for the occasion which incorporated Tao of Fear’s grey alien logo. The ETs live among us and have been assimilated for decades. They infiltrated the casino business as robotic-like Pai Gow dealers, surly doormen, and chefs manning omelet stations in the breakfast buffets.

WPBT OCHO – My Starting Table:
Seat 1. (EMPTY)
Seat 2. BrainMC
Seat 3. Lightning36
Seat 4. AGSweep
Seat 5. Mrs. Chako
Seat 6. Falstaff
Seat 7. Kat
Seat 8. Yestbay
Seat 9. YOUR HERO
Seat 10. Jess Welman

The first thing I noticed… the majority of the field was relatively sober. AlCantHang didn’t show up at the crack of dawn to force-feed Southern Comfort down the throats of a forty bloggers. In previous years, at least half the field was juiced up from pre-game cocktails or still drunk from a hell-raising bender from the night before trying to keep up with the AlCantHang Experience. Only one or two people had the zombie-like stare that you get when you stayed up all night gambling and lost all of your soul. One of them was Grubby. I was getting ready to crash around 4:30am when Grubby sent me a text wanting to degen it up. I politely declined in order to finish reading A Treatise on Money by John Maynard Keynes. In order to write a report for Tao of Fear, I plotted to crash a hedgefund mangers convention at the Venetian later that week, so I had to brush up on Keynesian economic theory in order to bullshit my way into the door.

Sorry for the tangent. Moving on…

Action progressed slowly for a blogger tournament. Aside from the lack of serious binge drinking, I suspected the field (save the few Cannucks who had access to online poker) was rusty in the wake of Black Friday. It had been almost 8 months since many of us played online poker on a regular basis. Fucking federales.

I had a copy of Gigli with me. I handed out the DVD as a joke during the first WPBT tournament at Sam’s Town in 2004. The “Bennifer” movie is so appalling that it’s a fitting departing gift for the first one out of the WPBT Winter Classic. Bill Rini took down the first Gigli, and it’s become a tradition ever since. Unlike the posh “Hammer” trophy that Iggy spends big bucks to present to the winner, I paid next to nothing for the Gigli DVD. It cost $0.01 on Amazon. Serious. A fucking penny. It cost $3 to ship, though. Therein lies the hustle.

No one busted out in the first two levels. Yestbay came close in the first orbit when his Aces were snapped off by Mrs. Chako’s set. He somehow managed not to go broke, but he found himself on life support. Mrs. Chako embarked on a heater and jumped out to an early lead in the opening level. She was a set monster and vacuumed up chips from everyone at my table. I evaded one of her traps when she flopped a set of 7s against my pocket 10s.

Once the third level began, I wondered when someone would bust. We had eight tables with only a couple of “shorties” including Shane Nickerson. That’s when PokerVixen wandered over to collect her boobie prize. Even though she was wearing a Micros’ “run good” t-shirt, she was jinxed because she had just given up her citizenship to that weird land to the north of us… “Canadia”… where its citizens interject the letter “u” into random words and also attempts to pass off “ham” as bacon.

I took out Yestbay and collected one of my favorite bounties to date — a YES greatest hits CD. I was always above average, but I misplayed a couple of hands. I blame Jess Welman’s radiance for my live “misclicks.” I exposed my hand twice when action was still going. One time it cost me a chance to double up against Jess. And the other? It didn’t matter because I ran into a cooler.

OhCaptain moved to my table after Yestbay busted. I only sat with him for a few hands before I got involved in a hand that marked my demise. Kat open-shoved. OhCaptain raised all-in. I had both him and Kat covered and I called with Kings. I think Kat held A-Q, but OhCaptain tabled Aces. Fuck me. Kings into Aces. Crippled. Two hands later I moved all in with 8d-7d. Jess Welman busted me and won my bounty — an autographed copy of Jack Tripper Stole My Dog.

The funniest moment of the tournament occurred after a Grubby moved to our table. He had pounded Kettle and cranberry drinks for a few levels and was a little tipsy when he got to our table. On his elimination hand, he got it all-in against Jess. She busted him and Grubby stumbled over to shake her hand.

“Where’s my bounty?” he blurted out.

A perplexed Jess smirked. “Wait, a second,” she hollered, “where the heck is MY bounty?”

It took a few seconds before Grubby noticed his error. He apologized and said he had forgotten his bounty in his hotel room that he hadn’t seen in days because he had been up for a couple of days chasing the progressive jackpot on Rockin’ Olives slots at the Bellagio.

I was the first member of Tao of Fear to bust, but Derek and Change100 were knocked out in the next level. Our team was dunzo. At that point, I went to the bar and grabbed some grub before returning to the final table to sweat the action. I had just missed AlCantHang and Otis’ elimination hands. With three to go, it was down to Timtern, Melissa Hayden, and quiet random guy that we later found out was Chilly’s friend from St. Louis who had never played a live poker tournament before. Figures. Murphy’s Law, right?

Timtern busted in third place and Melissa was heads-up against the random guy. She took him down to win the WPBT Winter Classic, and more importantly the trophy. She didn’t really care about the money; rather, she really really wanted the trophy. Congrats!

* * *
“I’m just looking for clues at the scene of the crime.”

After eight hours in the poker room followed up by an hour or so at the bar drinking overpriced beers, the time hath come to go slumming at the Imperial Palace. The IP used to be home base, but we opted to spend a few extra bucks and stay at the Aria this year and not worry about contracting Legionnaires Disease.

“It smells like socks and hairspray in there,” said Joe Speaker as he took a long drag off a cigarette. He stood outside getting some fresh air because the IP was its usual zoo for a Saturday night. Dealertainers that were bad dopplegangers for Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift belted out popular songs. Bloggers milled around the pits and rubbed elbows with Budweiser slurping cowboys, hipsters dressed like cowboys, and meth-addled hookers dressed like David Bowie. AlCantHang held court at the Geisha Bar and kept the tab running. I stood around for about an hour saying nothing but just watching people, mostly of the Whiskey Tang variety. You learn a lot about humanity on a Saturday night in Vegas. You don’t wander inside the IP unless you’re looking for a cheap thrill. Hunter said it… buy a ticket, take the ride.

The IP was as low-brow as you can go for the Strip. The simplicity of the cheap thrill irked me. Maybe it was the putrid odor? JoeSpeaker was right. The IP reeked of sweaty socks and hairspray.

I bailed as soon as came to my senses. Playing heads-up middle-stakes Pai Gow at the swanky Aria seemed a thousand times more appealing. I didn’t care if they the pit boss sent out a dealer who was a bot or alien. I just wanted to flee the IP before the rash on my forearm spread to other parts of my body.

“It’s hard to leave when you can’t find the door.”

I gazed out the window of our 34th floor hotel room. The Palms was visible in the near distance.

“That’s where Otis and Jose Canseco are,” muttered Derek. He referenced the insane cash game that a few of the G-Vegas boys found themselves playing against Jose Canseco. The word “worst player” was a popular phrase used to describe the former baseball player. I only wished I jumped in a cab to the Palms instead of trying to go slumming with cowboys and hookers at the IP. I missed my opportunity at free money and lost a shot at padding my bankroll with steroid-induced Canseco bucks.

Sunday morning. A new day. I had finally gotten back on track at the sports book after a profitable Saturday. Kentucky only won by one and failed to cover 6, but I won the rest of my bets, including So. Miss upsetting Houston to win outright and cover. After a dismal start to the trip, I finish Saturday with a decent profit. I was pumped to make some more bets and hit up the sports book first thing on Sunday morning. The lines were already wrapped around the wall. I got word that the Wiseguys were betting Carolina big all over town. Carolina, led by Cam Newtown, was originally a 2.5-point underdog but once word got out that Tampa Bay’s QB Josh Freeman was sitting out, the line jumped to Carolina -1.5. I bet Carolina along with New Orleans, the Jets, the Pats, and Atlanta. I had a few other teasers, but those were not as important as my monstrous bet on the Pats laying 20.5 against the winless Indianapolis Colts. When I showed F Train the ticket, he shook his head then pointed at his crotch and uttered, “Huevos.”

“Si. Mucho grande huevos.”

The rest of my friends thought I was crazy. Crazy? Maybe. Stupid? Definitely. Last year, I told Dawn Summers to bet her final table winnings on the Pats. She didn’t listen to me and missed a chance to turn $1,500 into $3,000. This year, I was riding the Pats again. My blind faith in Tom Brady and Bill Bellichek became my downfall. I’ll spare you the bad beat story, but New England had the game covered going into the 4th quarter before all hell broke loose and they blew a three touchdown lead. I lost my big bet and was scrambling the rest of the day to try to get unstuck. I whiffed on Atlanta and lost an impulse bet on the Cowboys. The Jets won and when I cashed that ticket, I let it ride on the Saints. I doubled down on the Sunday Night Football game hoping it would help cover the day’s losses.

We watched the game inside the Skybox sports bar adjacent to the sports book. The staff had no clue what to expect from our group which bum rushed them as soon as the doors opened. I greased the staff and the found us a nice spot in the corner. Jordan secured $1,000 from Pokerist to fund the Sunday debauchery. $1,000 lasted just under an hour before we had to start paying for stuff by ourselves.

The highlight of the day was the intricate cake that Pokerist surprised us with. The cake cost $500 and took up the entire table. Classy. The cake tasted good and it was the only thing I actually enjoyed on Sunday while sweating the games. Losing the big Pats bet put me in a bad mood and nearly killed my spirit. The cake helped me rally and I was ready for the next item on our agenda… the half-marathon.

* * *
“Lucky I’m sane after all I’ve been through.”

The plan was simple… sweat the first half of the SNF game at Mandalay Bay, then cheer on our friends at the finish line of the half-marathon. It didn’t occur to me the logistical nightmare of hosting a 44,000 person race. Mandalay Bay was packed but sort of looked like a refugee center. Friends and family of the runners were scattered throughout the casino as they tried to stay warm.

Heather and April found a spot in the middle of Las Vegas Blvd near the front of Mandalay Bay. About 15-20 of us stood and watched random runners jog by us. Derek hung over the rail and smoked a cigarette, while StB pounded a beer. It would have been a perfect spot to burn down a doobie, but there was an undercover police car nearby.

In order to keep warm, I blurted out random things to runners as they passed us. I can’t recall most of what I said, but all I know was that by that point of the night, I was roasted, faded, and drunk. Grange95 had a few pops in him and he kept the chatter lighthearted. The guy in the Borat costume passed us and all he wore was a green thong. Many other runners took the opportunity to don superhero costumes, wear pink tutus, and dress up like Elvis (or is it Elvi?).

Mrs. Otis posted Otis’ split times on facebook. We got word he was a couple of miles away. I told everyone it was a perfect time to practice our chant, so we belted out “O-tis! O-tis! O-tis!” We were loud and in tune. All we had to do was wait.

I spotted Poker Peaker whizzing by. At first I didn’t think it was him until I recognized the Colorado flag symbol on his running shirt. He posted the fastest time out of the group. Bad Blood flew by us not much longer and barely looked like he had broken a sweat. We wondered about Chako, Mattazuma, G-Rob, Curtis, and of course Otis.

We almost missed Otis. I knew he was wearing a green fluorescent shirt and we had an approximate time he’d be near us, but that was it. Luckily, he came to us when he spotted Grange or Drizz’s head on the rail. He snuck up on us with a flyby and we hesitated a few seconds before everyone belted out the chant.

“O-tis! O-tis! O-tis! Oooo-tis!”

He ran for a few seconds than thrust his arms in the air forming a fluorescent green V. It’s something I’ll never forget. The V. Otis had been through hell the previous week, yet that did not deter him from completing a task he set out to do. After 13 exhausting miles, he neared the finish line — something both tangible and personal. His resplendent V piercing through the dark, freezing night is one of the most inspiring symbols I had ever seen in Las Vegas.

“Life’s been good to me so far.”

To be continued…

Tags: 2010 main event | 2011 main event | action | black-friday | indianapolis | jack tripper | news | Podcast | Tao All Stars | TOC | venetian

By Pauly
San Francisco, CA

Editor’s Note: On the 5th anniversary of Bush 2.0 sealing online poker’s fate with the signing of the UIGEA, I want to share something I wrote five years ago. This appeared on Tao of Poker on 10/9/06.

* * *

“Just for grins I shoved a hot pepper up my ass while I was jerking off. Pretty hot, but not hot enough to not try it yourself.” – Daddy

I was 22 when Jerry Garcia died on August 9, 1995. I had the day off from work and went to see a rare weekday Yankees game with my buddy Jerry who was in town on summer vacation from law school. We got drunk, smoked a joint in stairwell in left field, and watched Cal Ripken smash two home runs as the Yankees lost.

After the game I stopped by the Metropolitan Museum of Art to meet up with my girlfriend at the time. That’s when I found out about the news of Jerry Garcia’s passing. Less then two months earlier, I met Jerry Garcia and shook his hand (which eleven years later still marks one of my Top 10 Moments of All Time along with getting a blowjob on the subway and finishing my first novel).

Some older hippies and Deadheads that I know said, “The 1960s officially ended when Jerry Garcia died.” For many fans the news was devastating. The music of the Grateful Dead was not just for teenagers. As they band evolved and got older, so too did the audience. The death of their icon and hero affected not just kids but former hippies who integrated into society. They had jobs, families, and mortgages and the day Jerry Garcia died marked a void for many of them.

The Grateful Dead were followed all around the world by it’s fervent fans. Some never left tour while others jumped on and off as the drove around the country checking out shows in different cities. When Jerry Garcia died, not only did the music stop but so did the essential purpose for many individuals. Their entire lives revolved around the Grateful Dead touring. That included not just fans, but also people who worked and earned a living in the Dead’s bubble such as roadies, management, and merchandise vendors. Most of the hippies following the Dead from city to city paid their way by vending in the parking lot. Most of them lived in their cars, vans, and VW buses and sold enough stuff to buy gas, food, and a ticket to the next show. When Jerry Garcia died, an entire subculture plunged into confusion. They never had conventional jobs and found themselves at a crossroads of uncertainty, confusion, and grief.

The immediate result for the passing of Jerry Garcia and the eventual break up of the Grateful Dead also meant that there was a void to be filled. Even Rolling Stone magazine printed up a list of bands that would take the torch from the Dead. In fact several of those bands benefited financially and commercially from Jerry Garcia’s death. Without the Dead to follow around, bands like Widespread Panic, Dave Matthews Band, and Phish eventually inherited the fans, the suits, and the hippie vendors hawking their wares in the parking lot of their concerts. Their careers were advanced by the death of Jerry Garica.

Even I took advantage of the nomadic lifestyle in the late 1990s. I spent most of 1999 following Phish all over North America seeing concerts in 19 different states and 26 different cities including two in Canada. I got by selling whatever I could in the parking lots to get by whether it was tickets, pharmies, or t-shirts. Even my girlfriend at the time sold hemp jewelry or veggie burritos in order to earn enough money to buy a ticket for that night’s show and have enough money left over to buy beer and gas so we can drive to the next city and repeat the process all over again.

In 2004 when Phish broke up, there was another void to be filled and several other bands benefited from the rabid subculture. Some hippies grew old and others cut their hair and got real jobs while a new crop of prep school kids or frat and sorority girls joined the mix to keep the monster going. They voraciously drink, ingest drugs, and will party to dawn. They love music and will travel thousands of miles to see a concert. Plus they’ll spend money… and money is what keeps the monster going.

Twenty years from now they’ll be some new band that kids will follow around religiously like I did with the Dead in college and Phish in my mid/late 20s. Why? Because that’s what some people are into. They want to escape from the bitter realities of the actual world and feel connected to something/someone even if it’s for a few hours.

I saw what happened to the hippie subculture in a post-death Jerry Garcia world and that’s the closest comparison that I can come up with the recent legislation that tweaks the legality of online poker. Within a few days of Party Poker announcing their pull out of the American market, other sites such as Full Tilt and Poker Stars said they’d stay. They’re filling the void and billions of dollars in rake and tournament fees will go into their bank accounts instead of Party Gaming.

Online poker is not dead. Yet. Even though the party got busted up, people still want a fix. Ever go to one of those huge suburban parties in high school and the entire place is jumping and you’re about to declare the festivities were epic enough to be awarded Party of the Year… and then the cops come and bust it up? Mostly everyone leaves and goes home, but a few diehards stay around and drink the rest of the keg. I’m gonna be one of those guys.

For the past week, I’ve read the collective narcissistic psychodramas on everyone’s blogs regarding the death of online poker and Black Monday or Black Friday. And depending on who your read, the future is dim and dark or bright and rosey. I think that the future falls somewhere in between. The news is not that bad, but it’s not good either.

The post-apocalyptic poker world will not have mutant kids with three eyes running around and Jesus Freaks jumping out of the bushes spraying Holy Water onto the faces of hedonists. I don’t think black helicopters will land in your cul de sac and the federales will whisk you away if they find you playing an SNG on Poker Stars and ship you in a secret CIA prison in Djibouti where they’ll fry your testicles with car batteries and rip out your fingernails with rusty pliers before they toss you into a 10 by 10 cell with a fingernailess zealot named Ahmed who has a tattoo of “Death to America” written in Farsi on his forehead.

Or maybe they will?

Poker players are gamblers at heart and some will take risks to maintain their fix. The world is filled with greedy people and they’ll be several ruthless companies who’ll flip the bird to the American courts and lawmakers that will take risks to gain access to the subculture of online poker players.

Then I look at a place like my hometown of New York City and try to figue out the future. Without online poker, the demand for new poker rooms and underground clubs will increase dramatically. Some daring entrepreneurs will open up new clubs and the players will come in droves. Whichever ethnic mafia running rooms is about to make a shitload of money in the Big Apple. Of course the police will have to get involved and spend time shutting down the rooms, just like cops in the 1920s busted up bathtub gins and speakeasies.

The right-wingers who were in favor of the anti-online poker legislation pulled out the terrorist card and said that online gambling sites can be a haven for terrorists to launder money. But by banning online poker, the NYPD will have to exhaust their already limited resources on busting up poker games rather than focusing on protecting our city from terrorists… which we’re severely under-prepared. Instead of cops breaking up terror cells, they’ll be wasting their time keeping my brother, F Train, and The Rooster out of poker clubs in Chinatown. By trying to make our nation safer… the suits in Washington made my city more vulnerable.

Politicians don’t care about the people. They only care about themselves. Same goes for corporations. If it comes down to a choice between you or them… they’ll cut the rope every time and let you fall to your death. That’s the way it is and that’s why I’ve lost my passion for politics. It’s not apathy but ultimately realizing that we don’t live in a true democracy and we don’t have freedom of choice but the illusion of freedom and choice. We can vote out the politicians currently in office, but they’ll be replaced with a new group of lying scumbags that will sell your kids to the highest bidder if it meant they’ll get another term in office.

That’s why I don’t see a revolutionary change happening in America. Not just with poker but with everything else surrounding the eroding civil liberties of Americans. Here’s my reasoning… my peers in Generation X and the kids born after me are spoiled, lazy, dumbass little shitheads. We’re overly selfish, hypersensitive, and too self-centered. We don’t have the vision or the passion to evoke a world wide change like the baby boomers did in the 1960s. The hippies were better educated and organized. They believed in a better way and a brighter future. They put themselves on the line and for a while, the people in power got spooked the fuck out.

Most of the Americans that I know are more concerned with watching TV and buying stuff rather than hitting the streets to protest en masse. Some might write up whiny diatribes on their blogs or write nasty letters to their congressman, but after their little rants they’ll never leave the couch or their cubicle to actually do something. We’re a nation of apathetic scared fatasses and we’re going to continue to let scrupulous politicians and multinational corporations dictate policy. Me included.

And the other reason I don’t think my generation can undertake a social change is because the hippies failed. Even John Lennon admitted, “Flower power did not work. We need to try something different.”

The 1960s saw the great minds, leaders, and visionaries trying to lead a charge against the political machines with millions of disgruntled citizens ready to make some changes. And in the end, it didn’t work. The Man won. Black and white images from the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago or Kent State in 1970 should be all the proof that you need to see that in the end The Man will do anything possible to stay in power, which includes beating and killing their own citizens.

After the hippies got their heads full of Owsley’s liquid sunshine bashed in a few times by the cops, they eventually stopped protesting. That’s when militant groups sprung up like the Blank Panthers. I’m waiting for a militant group of poker bloggers to form a united front and start fire bombing the campaign headquarters of major political figures but that will never happen. We can’t even get ten bloggers to agree on the same weekend to have a convention, let alone formulate any sort of social change and revolution.

I’ve traveled around the world enough and extensively throughout America to honestly say that this is an amazing country but our leaders are war mongering pimps selling our souls to suits in a boardroom somewhere. Sure there are places like Barcelona or Samui where I’d like to live for a while, but at some point I’d get homesick and want to return to America particularly New York City. Then again, I technically didn’t grow up in America as Spalding Gray explained, “New York City is a small island off the coast of America.”

As is, I’m an expatriate living in America. I finally understand the reference by The Rolling Stones… “exile on Main Street.”

Tags: 2011 | atom | day 5 | entertainment | food | online-poker | Pai Gow | politics | sports betting | tao of five | videos | wcoop

By Pauly
San Francisco, CA

PokerStars is looking a helluva lot like Wall Street giant JP Morgan, compared to Full Tilt Poker mirroring JT Marlin, the chop house investment firm in the film Boiler Room.

Unless you’ve been in a coma or trapped in a mine the last few weeks, the big news of the day — the DOJ called out Full Tilt Poker as a global Ponzi Scheme. Man, I know something really bad happened in the poker realm when non-poker friends are emailing me Wall Street Journal articles, such as…. U.S. Alleges Full Tilt Poker Was Ponzi Scheme.

Ponzi scheme? Full Tilt Poker? Full Tilt Ponzi Poker.

Shouldn’t the DOJ be knocking down doors of 200 West Street or 23 Wall Street and locking up the real career criminals responsible for the financial collapse of 2008 and bilking taxpayers for billions in bailouts?

While thousands of disgruntled Americans are protesting in the streets of the financial district in a movement called Occupy Wall Street, the DOJ is focusing their attention on Howard Lederer and Jesus Ferguson. It’s not JP Morgan head vampire, Jamie Dimon, that the federales are after, but rather, public enemy number one, two, and three were a former computer geek and bookie who teamed up with a semi-successful day trader, Ray Bitar, to pull off the greatest incident of fraud in the poker realm with the inception of Full Tilt Ponzi Poker.

I knew Rush Poker was too good to be true.

Yeah, by now we know that some of the guys running Full Tilt Ponzi Poker were crooked greedheads from the get go, but then again many of us in the insulated online poker world thought we were untouchable and assumed manna was going to rain out of the heavens for the next decade. Maybe some of the management at Full Tilt wanted to clean shit up once regulation occurred, or maybe they never intended on cleaning things up and instead were hoping to dump the company for a sack of cash and gold bullion, then let the new owners worry about cleaning up the books?

Then again maybe, just maybe, the shysters at Full Tilt Ponzi Poker were over their heads and the Full Tilt Ponzi Scheme got too big, too fast, and they couldn’t keep up with what was going on. The poker boom was a swift beast that swept through Las Vegas and sent shockwaves reverberating throughout the world. Even to this days, some places on the planet are experience aftershocks from the Moneymaker Effect — over eight years later.

I’ve seen what excessive sums of money generated overnight does to people — in Vegas, in Hollywood, on Wall Street — it drives some people crazy, and makes others do horrible things. What exactly happened at Full Tilt Ponzi Poker? We’ll never know. Maybe someday we’ll find out, like the other mysteries of the world like who shot Kennedy and did aliens really build the Pyramids?

If you haven’t read my initial thoughts on Black Friday, don’t forget to take a peek at Black Friday, Vampire Squids, and 100 Masturbating Monkeys in Washington .

* * *

* * *

By the way, I’m starting a hedge fund in San Francisco. Who wants in?

Tags: 2010 WSOP | 2011 november nine | boom | day 5 | entertainment | lists | liz lieu tuesdays | Music | phamily poker classic | politics | wcoop

By Pauly
Las Vegas, NV

I once befriended a hooker.

That didn’t come out right. I should say that… I once became chummy with a call girl.

OK, now I’m really starting to dig myself a hole and my girlfriend is ready to grill me with a thousand and one different questions. Let me clarify even more… I had become acquainted with a high end call girl from New York City. We never actually met officially. Just lots of emails back and forth. She was an avid reader of my personal blog, Tao of Pauly, and a sometime commenter on Coventry Music. She seemed rather ordinary with one exception… she had sex with men for money. She did make any excuses about it. She enjoyed sex and had no problems selling herself. And her cookies weren’t cheap.

Her philosophy was simple. Society was hypocritical and pointing fingers at prostitutes when they were all prostitutes themselves.

Look, we’re all whores at some time in life. Some of us less, others are more. Sure we might not be taking it in the ass in the literal sense, but who among us hasn’t been royally fucked over?

If you ain’t a pimp, then you’re a whore.

I didn’t say that. Neither did Shakespeare or Bob Dylan. It might have been Ice-T or Ice Cube, Pete Nice from 3rd Bass, or one of the crew from Wu Tang? I forget exactly who, but the source of the quote doesn’t matter as much of the simplicity of the underlying fact of the statement. It actually goes back to something I have written many times before… we live in a use and abuse society. If you ain’t using someone, then you’re getting abused by someone.

Pimps and hos. Royalty and peasants. The haves versus the have nots.

No matter what city I lived in, or what industry I worked in, I’ve always come across a section of people who will do nothing short of trying to exploit you. It’s the nature of the game of life. Politicians do it all the time — they use us to get into office and once that happens they will keep using us to stay in office. They’re not really looking out for our interests, rather, they’re concerned with their careers, their legacies, and paying back the juntas and companies who funded their campaigns to begin with. To the puppets in DC, we’re that cute piece of ass that they want to nail… and will do anything possible to get us in the sack. Once the deed is done… that’s it. They are going to fucking sleep. The worst thing is that they didn’t even pay you. You did it for free.

Big Business entities are the most ruthless pimps on the planet. Come on, you don’t actually think they care about your well being and compensating you for what you’re really worth? To them you’re just a number. If they could outsource your job or hire an illegal Mexican… they would. That’s why it’s important that you’re are the ideal employee in their eyes — to be blunt — a fuckin’ sheep. Otherwise, you have to be truly talented and indispensable. That’s the only way they will put up with your bullshit and demand for higher wages.

A couple of years before the drugs war exploded in towns along the US/Mexico border, I first heard about the feminicidios… horror stories about scores of missing young women who were later found raped, murdered, and missing body parts. During my first visit to Juarez, Mexico I noticed pink crosses at the side of the road. I asked my friend from El Paso about the origins of the pink crosses and she clued me in on the feminicidios. The crosses were memorials constructed at the sites where dismembered bodies were discovered.

The feminicidios began in the mid-90s and escalated through the millennium. Some religious feared that the missing women were part of ritual killings during fin de siecle. A few journalists were had a theory the murders were the evil doings of the worst serial killer of all time. Law enforcement types suggested the murders were a precursor to the drug wars. The exact number of feminicidios varied from 500 to 5,000. Who knows for sure how many women died?

Many of those murdered young women shared something in common — they worked at maquiladoras — or massive sweat shops and factories for international corporations seeking dirt cheap labor. I read one theory that bus drivers were the ones doing the killings. Most of these workers had to be bussed from Juarez city center to the factories. When the girls refused the sexual advances of the bus drivers, they were raped, killed, and tossed out like a piece of trash.

However, the most compelling theory is the most haunting. One journalist suggested that the young women were killed because they were getting out of line at the work place by demanding higher wages and better working conditions. When they attempted to unionize or stand up to their bosses, they were quickly “removed” from the factory and never seen again.

What really happened in Juarez in the 1990s and early 2000s? No one knows for sure. My grand hypothesis is that combination of all of the above, but specifically the theory about the factories killing off workers who showed any dissent. After all, when was the last time the mutilated corpse of a “Yes Man” was found on the side of the road?

Ruthless suits don’t resort to those gruesome tactics in the American workplace… yet. But more and more we’re learning every day what happens to good citizens who are fed up with the system, unplugging themselves from the Matrix, and demanding their true rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Unfortunately,it’s easy to upset the herd when you roam the other way. Anyone outside of the box who decides to march to the beat of a different drummer is an instant target for ridicule. Our fear mongering society is quick to point the dissenters out to authorities. Once the federales get involved, who knows what happens next.

Yes, we’re mostly a world of whores. Some of us grow up to be pimps, which is sort of like the lesser of two evils. Sadly, that’s the supreme goal in life… to be the one exploiting a stable of prostitutes… instead of being the whore, turning tricks for peanuts.

In the end getting paid is still better than doing it for free. Sure, I write plenty of stuff for free on my blogs — probably close to one million words — but that’s all part of a greater master scheme to get you to buy my books.

So kids, just remember that only sluts do it for free. Pro whores do it for the paycheck.

Please leave your cash on the dresser before you go.

* * *
Buddha preaches tolerance, compassion, and forgiveness. But the Big Bald B never had to deal with the infantile jerkoffs I’ve encountered in poker that tainted the WSOP.

I have a simple rule when I’m working — if I can hear you over the background music that is played at a reasonable volume, then you’re loud are therefore annoying me and eligible for an asshole fine.

God knows, well Buddha knows too, that when I start compiling lists of people I want to handout asshole fines to — then I’ve lost all grip on Buddhism, which in essence is losing all faith in humanity. I can only deal with people depending on my philosophical leanings of that day. When I’m an existentialist or nihilist, then I either don’t believe in or don’t care about humankind. Right now, I’m in between philosophies of life, so it’s a prickly stage. Ergo, why I have the sudden urge to impose asshole fines to nimrods and fucktards at the Rio.

When I go out partying on Phish tour, my friends came up with the concept of a “Wook Ticket” which is a fine you levy against someone who is doing incredibly stupid shit, committing party fouls, or acting shady in any other arena. Shit, we even give ourselves tickets as a joke, but also as a reminder we need to remember to have fun, but in a semi-responsible way.

I wish I had the balls (and the free time) at the WSOP to hand out asshole fines and “Tampon of the Day” awards. I know a few people who’d be racking up fines and tampons all summer. When I worked on Wall Street, if you complained about something too much you’d get “Tampon’d” or simply put, if you walked away from your desk to go to the bathroom or to a meeting, then you’d come back only to discover that someone taped a maxi-pad to your computer screen. I’m sure some of my readers find that offensive and sexist. And it is. But your daily goal was simple — get through the day without killing anyone (especially yourself) and make sure you don’t say anything that will warrant a barrage of tampons attached to your screens.

I’m at a rough spiritual point, something that always happens three weeks into the WSOP. Luckily, I’m my own boss and call the shots, so I’m counting the hours until embed myself with hippies for a three day music festival on July 4th weekend (a much need R&R before the Main Event). The festival experience is grounding in many ways and restores my faith in humanity and community. Spending the summers in Las Vegas dodging temptation around every corner and writing bullshit about the glorious pursuit of fame and power that is fueled by greed often warps my brain. It seems like every summer is like Dante’s Circles of Hell for me as I drop out of purgatory and lose complete sight of heaven.

And it’s when I get sucked out of purgatory and spit out into the hell’s furnace that I lose faith in people. Michalski used to give me guff that I was a “people hater.” He was half-joking, but noticed that I had an unyielding disdain for a significant amount of people. To clarify, I dislike a small group of certain people, but quickly write off anyone who happens to be a malicious parasite, or a black hole for negativity.

One of my biggest flaws is that I used to give people second and third and fourth chances. But after a while, I realized all of this Buddhist tolerance, compassion, and forgiveness malarkey is a load of horseshit. The act of forgiveness allows assholes to continue to act like assholes.

I would love it if assholes actually thought: “Shit, I fucked up, but I got a second chance, so I’m gonna try harder and be less of an asshole.”

But in reality, it’s more like, “Hahahah. I acted like an asshole and got away with it. Guess what? Now I can act more like an asshole because you’re a pussy and a pushover. You’re letting me take advantage of you, so I will continue to be an asshole.”

When I come to those realizations, man oh man, my blood boils. That’s when people I would normally shine on and turn the other cheek will evoke the wrath of my ire. Instead of letting them walk all over me, I will stand up and call then out for their douchebaggery.

One of the most important things I learned in life is that you have to stand up to bullies and assholes every once in a while. Because let’s face it — an asshole is not going to be less of an asshole because you call him/her out on it — but, they definitely will become a bigger asshole if you let them get away with it.

I try my best to avoid going on people tilt. When Buddha’s teachings couldn’t help me, I turned to generic Vicodin, Percosett and other painkillers. Man, of man, did those little white pills help out immensely. The biggest jerkoffs and tools that I knew all of a sudden became Mother Theresa. It’s funny how an opiated feeling makes you more tolerant of assholes.

I’ve often referred to Xanax as “crying baby repellent” during plane trips. Well, along those lines, painkillers is “asshole repellent” because when I gobble up fistfuls of pharmies, then and only then, I can be around the worst of the worst because I’m at eternal peace and can’t feel a fucking thing.

It took me over 30+ years before I figured out that family gatherings are a lot less hellacious when I’m faded to the tits on opiates. A few self-righteous readers will chastise me for my unconventional behavior because I’m relying on an unhealthy coping method in order to deal with these people, but my counter argument is this — I don’t have a substance abuse problem when these assholes are not around. Ergo, I don’t have a drug problem, rather I have a people problem.

Most of the year, I do what I can to avoid undesirable people. But sometimes, like family holidays and difficult working environments at the WSOP, I am unable to avoid contact with said undesirables. Asshole avoidance is impossible. So, you either have to be proactive and attack the assholes by reminding them that they are indeed assholes, or make the conscious decision to kick their ass. Alas, I’m a lover and not a fighter. The last time I threw a punch was during a bar fight in Argentina a few years ago. I don’t intend to use violence ever again — unless the assholes I’m railing against continuously fuck with my friends and loved ones.

I have been seeking out a peaceful resolution and want to coexist with the undesirable tilt monkeys, but when I’m unable to channel Buddha, I numb the pain with synthetic opiates.

No wonder the pharmaceutical companies, Big Tobacco, and the beer makers/booze producers are so fucking rich, because they sell three escapes that the masses turn to when they are overrun by assholes — which happens to be everyday.

I used to love poker, but I’ve let a few assmunchers ruin what used to be a perfectly good time. The world is getting weirder and weirder every fucking day. Life is too short to let those fuckers win. It’s time to start thinning the herd. Asshole fines will commence immediately.

It’s time to start having fun at the WSOP again.

Tags: amazon | black-friday | Degens | dresser | ept | greed | news | Pai Gow | phil ivey | Podcast | world-series

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

Photo courtesy of Benjo
The 2011 WSOP begins on Tuesday and for a 7th summer in a row, I’ll be live from the floor of the Rio providing coverage for Tao of Poker. I’ll also be tweeting (@taopauly) updates, recording podcasts, selling both copies of Lost Vegas and my newly released novel Jack Tripper Stole My Dog, and doing press for the French release of Lost Vegas. I’m also doing a little work for Rise Poker this summer, and of course I’ll be engaging in plenty of hijinks like beer bowling, Pai Gow, lime tossing, rum parties, and sharing new forms of silliness along the way.

Wow, hard to believe that in 2005 I moved out to Vegas to cover my first ever WSOP. To quote my favorite band, “What a long strange trip its been.”

Anyway, I’m in the process of moving to Vegas as we speak. So since it’s a holiday weekend, kick back and enjoy a recap of the 2010 WSOP by delving into last year’s coverage on Tao of Poker.

Enjoy…

Day 1: The Cold Open – Opening lines to several great novels inspired the opening post of the 2010 WSOP, but none more fitting than Charles Dickens. The 50K Players’ Championship also kicked off the WSOP, while many scribes and photographers were on alert just in case the federales were going to drag away a couple of the poker pro owners of Full Tilt Poker.

Day 2: Not So Easy Rider – The official WSOP live updates page crashed more times to count due to a crush of traffic. It turned out that a hamster and a drunk Lithuanian was to blame. Editor’s Note: This particular piece got me into a little bit of hot water with the humorless powers to be.

Day 3: Scandi Mafia and Donkulus’ Comet – The first potential headache of the WSOP arrived with the field in the $1,000 Donkulus event got decimated at a much faster pace than expected. Could the elusive donk get extinct at the 2010 WSOP? Meanwhile, as the 50K Players’ Championship progressed, the Scandi Mafia arrived on the rail to keep a keen eye on the outcome.

Day 4: Band of Brothers and Here Comes the Russians Reprise – The Brothers Mizrachi made waves when two of them (The Grinder and Robert) advanced to the final table of the 50K Players’ Championship. Also advancing to the final 8 was a mysterious wealthy Russian businessman named Vladimir Schmelev. I hopped on the phone, made contact with an old friend in Moscow, and got him to spill the vodka-infused beans about the unknown Russian.

Day 5: Redemption Song – The Grinder Wins Player’s Championship – The Grinder achieved redemption, something very few poker players have a shot at. Along the way, he had to knock out his brother and survive a heads-up battle against the mysterious Russian, Vladimir Schmelev, who proved to be a worthy adversary.

Day 6: Welcome to the Sausage Factory and the Return of Triple Draw Fargis – I arrived at the Rio in the middle of a massive dealers’ shift change. That got me wondering and thinking that the WSOP reminded me of a factory — a sausage factory — to be precise. Meanwhile, a blast from the past, Chris ‘Triple Draw’ Fargis, re-emerged after stepping away from the pro circuit to take a real job on a trading desk down on Wall Street.

Day 7: The Marvelous British Invasion – After a conversation with one of the British scribes, Snoopy, I was convinced that he was warning me that the Brits were going to make a waves at the WSOP and gobble up as many bracelets as they can while the Scandis were sitting out the preliminary events. Little did we know, that Snoopy was being overly conservative about the potential British dominance during the opening weeks of the WSOP.

Day 8: Darth Hellmuth – The Dark Lord returned to the WSOP. He’s the villain that everyone loves to hate. Hellmuth went deep in a donkament which got everyone inside the Rio buzzing during his hot pursuit of bracelet #12.

Day 9: God Save the Queen Reprise and Seven for Men – Less than a week after his prediction that a British player will win a bracelet, Snoopy looked like the oracle when his fellow countrymen, Praz Pansi and James ‘Flushy’ Dempsey shipped events. Oh, and much to the dismay of Men the Master haters (or I should say, people who despise cheaters), the slow-rolling controversial figure won his 7th bracelet.

Day 10: Most Likely You Go Durrrr’s Way (And I’ll Go Mine) – Tom ‘durrrr’ Dan had the entire high stakes poker community by the collective balls when he went deep in one of the donkaments. They all had to squirm on one side of the Amazon Ballroom, sweating millions of dollars in potential lost prop bets, as durrrr took center stage and played heads-up for a bracelet. Looking back, Day 10 was one of the most exciting nights at the WSOP that I ever experienced.

Day 11: Durrrr Hangover, Hooker Quota, and Orange Tossing – The night after the durrrr saga left many at the Rio walking around in a daze. Not much to report aside from everyone experiencing a durrrr hangover. I managed to squeeze in a bit of commentary on the decline of working girl sightings at the Rio and a witty story from Flipchip about pros betting on orange tossing during the olden days of the WSOP at the Horseshoe.

Day 12: The Kassela Chainsaw Massacre – The 10K Stud World Championship included a stacked final table featuring six known pros and two Russians: Jen Harman, Steve Zolotow, John Juanda, Frank Kassela, Chainsaw Kessler, Dario Mineri, Vladimir Schmelev and Kirill Rabtsov. After several hours of brawling, it came down to a heads-up battle between Frank Kassela and Chainsaw Kessler. The event went late into the night and was not settled until 4:20am as Kassela emerged victorious. That win would thrust him into competition for the Player of the Year race.

Day 13: The Carter Phillips Show – Going into the final table of NL six-handed, everyone assumed that Carter Phillips was going to win the bracelet at one of the youngest final tables ever assembled at the WSOP. It was essentially a race for second place as Carter joined an elite group of players who won an EPT event and a WSOP bracelet.

Day 14: No Soup for Yellowsub – I had fun writing this post which included a brief history lesson about the origins of the Beatles album Yellow Submarine. Meanwhile, Jeff ‘yellowsub86′ Williams made a deep run in the 5K NL event but got sunk in third-place, despite the echos of his friends chanting the chorus to Yellow Submarine.

Day 15: Dude Looks Like a Lady and Get Baked – Every year, the Ladies Only tournament stirs up controversy. How come most people are silent 364 days a ear (and 365 on leap years), and then only bring up the issue on the eve of the event? At any rate, even though at the root, I’m against Ladies events, I sounded off on the reasons why I would never play in a Ladies Only event (simply put — out of respect). As long as it’s on the schedule, let them play I say.

Day 16: God Save the Queen… Thrice – The third Brit, Richard Ashby, collected a bracelet in a two week period and by that point, the mainstream poker press caught onto the British Invasion, even though thanks to Snoopy, we were chatting about this story before it even happened. Oh, and all of this happened on the same day that the US tied the English’s squad in World Cup play.

Day 17: Durrrr’s Grandma, Dutch Boyd 2.0, and the French Win…a Ladies’ Bracelet – A little fun with captions after I saw a hysterical photo of an old woman sitting at the same table as Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan. Oh, and just in case you missed it… new bracelet were awarded to the (still) controversial Dutch Boyd and a French woman who won the Ladies Event.

Day 18: Sammy Farha Wins a Bracelet, Flushy Leading the POY Race, and Orphaned Notes – The ever cool Sammy Farha took down a bracelet, meanwhile one of the British bracelet winners jumped out into the POY lead. I also shared a bunch of orphaned lines from my notebook. I figured that even though they didn’t fit in anywhere specific, they were too good to flush down the toilet.

Day 19: Shorthanded Eels, the Russian Surge, and the Year of the Yang – I hoped that I bet on the right side of the fix as the NBA finals were coming down to the wire, and everyone’s favorite degen sports bettor, Phil Ivey, took center stage as more media were interested in what he was betting on, than the cards he was playing. Alas, I embedded myself on the rail and noticed some unusual things such as the run that former world champion Jerry Yang was making.

Day 20: Femme Fatales, Hallway Punches, and the Bubbling Eel – Another dull day inside the ropes, but lots of action outside the ropes. I caught a pro bringing a hooker back to his room and someone sucker punched David Levi in the hallway. Meanwhile, a friend from Madrid, Spanish pro Javier ‘anguila’ Etayo, had bubbled off the final table of a 6-handed event.

Day 21: Pappa Johnny Road – The official end of the third week mark of the WSOP was not without any side drama not to mention — drunken girls roaming around the Amazon Ballroom and the Rio’s hallways. I also breakdown the game plan that different pros have when deciding what events to play in the WSOP.

Days 22-24: OFF

Day 25: Phil Ivey Beats Supercomputer for Bracelet Ocho – Phil Ivey is the real fucking deal after he beat a supercoputer heads-up for his 8th bracelet. Ivey also collected an unknown sum (worth millions I’m told) in prop bets. One thing is for sure, humans prevailed over the machines in this battle as Ivey proved that he is truly superhuman.

Day 26: Dispatches from the Razz Event – Swollen Testicles, Ivey’s Hoodie, and Vigorous Confusion – Razz is never fun to watch, but one good story to come out of this event was the Phil Ivey hoodie story involving Mickey Doft.

Day 27: Kassela Wins Dos, Sinking Norwegian Queen, and Ivey’s Bracelet Ceremony – Frank Kassela distanced himself from the rest of the pack when he won his second bracelet inside of a month. And the pavilion was a buzz during Ivey’s bracelet ceremony, meanwhile, Annette Obrestad came up short in an attempt make a final table American WSOP debut.

Day 28: About My Very Tortured Friend, Phil Hellmuth – I couldn’t believe that I was going to write about Phil Hellmuth again, but I did trying to fully understand what it’s like to be the tortured soul.

Day 29: Redemption Songs, Part II: Gavin Smith and Dean Hamrick – Bracelets were won by two people seeking redemption. Las Vegas is a city where a lot of people are looking to exorcise past demons, but very few people get an actual shot at doing so.

Day 30: The Sun Wields Mercy; Gavin Smith Wins First Bracelet – Breakthrough day for Gavin Smith as he won his first bracelet.

Day 31: TOC Hoopla, Flashmob of Brazilians, and Erik Seidel Goes for Number Nine…. Number Nine… Number Nine… – It was TOC day at the Rio, and I sound off on all of the controversy surrounding the event from the voting to players trying to big-time the event thereby changing the schedule of the event. I also gave my suggestions for three different versions of the TOC.

Day 32: Le Boucherie, Ripple In Still Water, and TOC Day 2 – The donkanments have turned into something that would resemble a butcher shop, meanwhile, the TOC seems like it’s more of nuisance than a celebration as the middle of the fifth week of the WSOP becomes a dead zone.

Day 33: You Are What You Eat and Watch What You Tweet – Food and social media are among the topics of discussion. Ah, I also three everyone a bone and included an installment of Last 5 Pros I Pissed Next To…

Day 34-38: OFF

Day 39 – Main Event Day 1A: The Seekers – The Main Event is off and running and I pay homage to the courageous souls who said, “I don’t give a fuck!” and plopped down $10,000 in pursuit of a dream.

Day 40 – Main Event Day 1B: Great Expectations – Annette Obrestad’s first WSOP Main Event and all of the hoopla surrounding the 21-year old Norwegian wunderkind’s first appearance on US soil is the subject of my musings. I also wondered if she could ever live up to the hype and hysteria that we created for her in the media? It also made me question how much of an impact that we the media have in potentially setting up certain pros to fail?

Day 41 – Main Event Day 1C: The Odium of Hellmuthstein – Ah, the spectacle of the Phil Hellmuth Entrance. If you hate him you can skip this one. If you really hate him, you’ll end up reading it twice.

Day 42 – Main Event Day 1D: The Unluckiest Champion in the World – Robert Varkonyi took his seat in the Main Event, but without the pomp and circumstance of other former champions. I examine the story of the unluckiest champion in the world.

Day 43 – Day 2A: Moneymaker – The Shadow of a Dream – I love comparing Chris Moneymaker to Jay Gatsby. While Robert Varkonyi chases Moneymaker’s shadow, Moneymaker has to constantly chase his own shadow. Will he ever win a second bracelet or does it not even matter because after all, he’s Chris Moneymaker?

Day 44 – Day 2B: The Last of the Mohicans – I was wicked hungover after getting hustled in bowling the night before. I phoned it in for this piece. Don’t even bother reading it. My apologies.

Day 45: OFF – Media Day

Day 46 – Main Event Day 3: Johnny Fucking Chan, the Butcher Shop, and Here Come the Scandis – Johnny Fucking Chan made a run and I got to proudly write “fucking” instead of bleeping out his infamous nickname. The field continued to thin itself out on Day 3 while a couple of Scandi sleeper cells were activated and sprung into action.

Day 47 – Main Event Day 4: I Want to Take You Higher – Inspired by a Sly and the Family Stone song, I riff about the ghosts wandering around the Amazon Ballroom, brutal casualties of the killing fields.

Day 48 – Main Event Day 5: Fookin’ Bonkers, Scandi Ambush, and Disco Inferno – Tony Dunst began the day as the leader while most of the Amazon Ballroom began to empty out as the field was thinned to just 204. The Scandis continued their assault while a Dutch pro named Fokke Buekers became everyone’s darling. Meanwhile, California’s Breeze Zuckerman became the Last Woman Standing in the Main Event.

Day 49 – Main Event Day 6: Never Mind the Mizrachis, Here Come the Scandis – The Scandi sleeper cell was in full effect as everyone remaining in the Main Event was jockeying for a spot during the homestretch of the November Nine. Meanwhile, all four Mizrachi brothers cashed in the Main Event, but Robert and the Grinder could not replicate their 50K Players’ Championship feat with both of them advancing to the final table.

Day 50 – Main Event Day 7: Shine A Light – With 27 players remaining, the next superstar was sitting in front of me. I reflect on previous Main Events specifically on the first hand that I can recall watching from the rail that each former champion played leading up to the final table.

Day 51 – Main Event Day 8: Meet the November Nine – The Grinder advanced to the final table after a marathon November Nine bubble.

* * * *

FYI… 2010 Main Event Semi-Live Blog Links: Day 1A – Day 1B – Day 1C – Day 1D – Day 2A – Day 2B – Day 3 - Day 4 – Day 5 – Day 6 – Day 7 – Day 8

* * * *

FYI… here’s November Nine coverage:

Jonathan Duhamel Wins 2010 WSOP
Semi-Live Blog November Nine Heads-Up: Duhamel vs. Racener
Semi-Live Blog November Nine: 9 to 2
November Nine Episodes: Tao of Pokerati Podcast

That’s it for now. Thanks for following along last summer and all of those previous summers. And I’ll thank you in advance for following Tao of Poker this summer. I always say that this might be my last summer, but this year I’m more uncertain about my future than ever. That’s why you have to tune it, because if it’s gonna be my last WSOP, then I’m definitely going out with a bang.

BTW, after providing six summers of free entertainment, I think it’s only fair that you purchase a copy of Lost Vegas: The Redneck Riviera, Existentialist Conversations with Strippers, and the World Series of Poker, or help support independent writers and buy a copy of Jack Tripper Stole My Dog. Thanks and see ya Tuesday for comprehensive WSOP reporting.

Tags: business | day 5 | federales | game | night | phone | Podcast | rio | TOC | Vegas

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

I turn off my phone whenever I write to limit distractions. I had two phone calls this morning and both got sent to voicemail. One was from a broker, the other was from a bookie. One of my friends opined, “Is there a difference?”

“One is located in Costa Rica,” I answered. “The other is on 60 Wall Street. Both operating in a gray area. How gray? Charcoal.”

Funny how the U.S. government determined that one is illegal and the other is perfectly okay. Last time I checked, bookies never imploded the financial system or asked for bailouts when a huge underdog (e.g. NY Giants upsetting a 16-0 New England Patriots team) almost bankrupted them.

I essentially liquidated both “trading” accounts. The stock market is a Ponzi Scheme and I decided to trade commodity futures instead after getting out of equities last year. My broker was trying to churn what little I had left in my account. He wanted to tell me about their latest hot pick du jour. My bookie (actually a VIP manager) from Costa Rica has been calling me daily to inquire about re-funding my account after I pulled 90% of my bankroll offline in the wake of Black Friday.

It’s been almost a month since 4/15. I was in Lima, Peru at the time when Black Friday decimated the American online poker landscape. I made only one call that day — to Costa Rica. I initiated a withdraw. The VIP manager offered me assurances that my money was safe.

“Safe? Ha!” I told them. “That’s what Neteller told me back in 2007, what my stock broker said during the sub-prime mortgage crisis in 2007-08, and what the online poker rooms told me.”

“You’re money is safe here,” said a Costa Rican woman with a near perfect Southern California accent.

“Well, you can see the cyclical activity in my account. My high volume months are November thru January with a bump in March for March Madness. NBA playoffs are almost over and I’m moving to Vegas soon. If everything what you say is true about my money being safe, then I’ll be back in the fall for football season. You’re not going to lose any business if I withdraw. I never bet on baseball. Only degens bet on baseball.”

“But, you’re money is safe here.”

“Isn’t that what Bernie Madoff told his investors?”

“Which (book) does he own?” asked the VIP manager.

“He’s a Wall Street guy and stole billions from his clients.”

“Oh, one of those crooked gringos?”

I had Ben Affleck’s monologue from Boiler Room swirling in my head… “A sale is made on every call you make. Either you sell the client some stock, or he sells you on a reason he can’t. Either way… a sale is made. The only question is: Who is going to close? You or him?”

No offense to the tica on the phone servicing my account, but I wasn’t about to let her persuade me to keep all of my money in Costa Rica (in theory it was in Costa Rica, because I actually assumed it was sitting in an unspecified bank account somewhere in the Caribbean). After a few minutes of negotiating (I left 10% to dabble in the NBA playoffs), she agreed to let me withdraw 90%.

As one of my good friends from Costa Rica once said, “Getting money into a Costa Rican sportsbook is easy. Getting your money out is the tough part.”

He was talking about the variance of betting on sports and the degenerate nature of sports betting — and how it’s hard to walk away with a profit. At the same time, he worked for a few sportsbooks and knows the transfer of money from offshore to onshore is a complex process. Sure, the bookies will do everything possible to keep your money in their account, but the logistics behind getting money to their clients was difficult before Black Friday. You can imagine how much harder it will be now.

Hence, why I wanted to be one of the first players to withdraw funds before a mass exodus of frightened gamblers, or before the books fled the market.

I won’t go into details about how I got my money, but if I was writing the screenplay, I’d say that a guy in a jumpsuit (who could have been an extra from The Sopranos) met me at an undisclosed diner far away from The Strip in Las Vegas.

“Yous the doctah?” he said in a recognizable South Jersey accent.

“The doctor?” I said before a long pause, “Oh, yeah, I’m the doctor you’re looking for.”

That’s when he dropped an envelope on the table and flagged down the waitress for a cup of coffee. And yes, in case you were wondering, he made me buy lunch and told me to bet the Mavericks to sweep the Lakers.

* * *
I was listening to Betting Dork’s podcast on PreGame.com. His guest was Vegas Runner, one of my favorite wiseguys from Philly, who said that Black Friday was a wake up call for offshore sportsbooks. He also mentioned that the sportsbetting community got lucky because no one in either industry, poker or sportsbetting, saw Black Friday coming. Vegas Runner’s theory on why the DOJ went after online poker was because the government is broke and “they’re looking for the easiest way to get (money).” He also suggested if the feds wanted to, they could have ambushed BOTH industries and crippled the flow of gambling funds. As is, the sports betting community, all of the wiseguys and sharps got a huge warning that the federales might be gunning for them next.

You can listen to the podcast here. The segment I’m talking about appears at the 28 minute mark and lasts a few minutes.

I have a few theories on why the sportsbetting companies were not touched during Black Friday:

1) The sportsbooks have some sort of protection from authorities which allows them to operate (and thereby accept American players). Some land-based casinos might have greased the feds because their legal sportsbooks might need the assistance of offshore books to occasionally offset one-sided action. As a result, some of the land-based casinos made a wink-wink deal with the feds to stay away from their money movers.

2) The feds are using the intel that industry rat Daniel Tzvetkoff (former owner of a third party processing company) provided them to bring down online poker, which will help them build a case against sportsbooks. So, it’s a matter of time before they strike and the sportsbetting world will have to deal with their version of Black Friday.

3) Some sportbetting operations have had links to organized crime and a different federal investigation unit (e.g. the FBI) might have an ongoing investigation that they don’t want the DOJ to interfere with.

All of these are half-baked theories I came up with on the fly,however, since Black Friday, a couple of sportsbooks announced that they will no longer be accepting new players from America. The list includes Sportsbook.com and BetUS, which made their announcement last week. As of last night, you can add Sports Interaction to the list. In case you’re wondering, if you already have an account with those sites, consider yourself lucky to have gotten grandfathered in, because you can continue to bet, along with making withdrawals and deposits.

It seem as though many of the sportsbooks are spooked out and they’re taking a proactive approach to prevent the DOJ (through their proxy the OIJ) from indicting them and eventually raiding their Costa Rican offices.

I’m assuming that the future of sportsbooks in America will follow a similar path to what happened with the online poker market in 2006 after the UIGEA was introduced. A few operators will bail while a couple of others will remain and attempt to gobble up the American market share. Yes, Americans are not the only ones who bet on sports and like poker, there’s a thriving international player base, but American players were gravy. They generated such a massive amount of volume due to the popularity of NFL wagering (and to an extent, March Madness), that it’ll be impossible for a second-tiered or fledgling sportsbook to ignore the amount of “free money” available if they step in and accept sports bets from Americans.

If you’re a whale on American soil, then you’re action will be taken care of. Even though Pinnacle doesn’t accept Americans, every huge bettor I know has an account with Pinnacle, or at the least, an agent booking their wagers at Pinnacle for them.

At this point, the federales and corporate gaming entities win because they’ll get my action (and thereby have access to my money). As a result of Black Friday, I’m going to do all my gambling in land-based casinos. I have an account on Cake Poker but doubt I’ll play anytime soon. Live poker is in my future along with spending time at the sportsbook’s window on The Strip.

In the meantime, the next time the VIP manager from Costa Rica calls, I’ll be sure to send them to voice mail, along with my former stockbroker and any other cold caller from a boiler room on WallStreet.

Tags: black friday | business | crime | march-madness | news | Podcast | time | TOC

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

I wrote Exile on Main Street in October 2006 when the UEIGA was introduced by those fucking crooks and snake oil salesmen in D.C.

Flash forward to today: U.S. Federales Charge Pokerstars, Full Tilt, AbsolutePoker with Bank Fraud, Money Laundering, and Illegal Gambling.

So contemporary drug lords in Mexico and Colombian king pins from Cocaine Cowboys era of the 1980s laundered billions of dollars through U.S. banks and washing their cash via Wall Street investment houses. Shit, after the sub-prime mortgage crisis in 2008, the only people funneling cash into American banks were drug dealers!

When you click through Tao of Poker’s affiliate links, you get this awesome message from the fucking Nanny State…

Or click here for an enlarged version.

I’m listening to The Rolling Stones Exile on Main Street right now in Lima, Peru. My Costa Rican colleague offered to help me and my girlfriend to find a house in San Jose. Hmm… Costa Rica is a beach paradise.

Then again, maybe I’ll just walk away from Tao of Poker and write novels. Or I can focus on fear mongering and my music blog. Hey, if I skip the WSOP this summer, I can do all of Phish summer tour. Instead of pushing online poker onto the masses, maybe I’ll return to my roots by slinging pharmies in the lot?

I said this almost five years ago and I’ll say it again…

As is, I’m an expatriate living in America. I finally understand the reference by The Rolling Stones… “exile on Main Street.”

Tags: 2011 wsop | cocaine-cowboys | full tilt | gambling | money | Music | nanny | pauly | poker

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

I wrote Exile on Main Street in October 2006 when the UEIGA was introduced by those fucking crooks and snake oil salesmen in D.C.

Flash forward to today: U.S. Federales Charge Pokerstars, Full Tilt, AbsolutePoker with Bank Fraud, Money Laundering, and Illegal Gambling.

So contemporary drug lords in Mexico and Colombian king pins from Cocaine Cowboys era of the 1980s laundered billions of dollars through U.S. banks and washing their cash via Wall Street investment houses. Shit, after the sub-prime mortgage crisis in 2008, the only people funneling cash into American banks were drug dealers!

When you click through Tao of Poker’s affiliate links, you get this awesome message from the fucking Nanny State…

Or click here for an enlarged version.

I’m listening to The Rolling Stones Exile on Main Street right now in Lima, Peru. My Costa Rican colleague offered to help me and my girlfriend to find a house in San Jose. Hmm… Costa Rica is a beach paradise.

Then again, maybe I’ll just walk away from Tao of Poker and write novels. Or I can focus on fear mongering and my music blog. Hey, if I skip the WSOP this summer, I can do all of Phish summer tour. Instead of pushing online poker onto the masses, maybe I’ll return to my roots by slinging pharmies in the lot?

I said this almost five years ago and I’ll say it again…

As is, I’m an expatriate living in America. I finally understand the reference by The Rolling Stones… “exile on Main Street.”

Tags: armageddon | cocaine-cowboys | exile-on-main | federales | full tilt | girlfriend | lost vegas | Music | nanny | online-poker | onto-the-masses | pauly | phish | pokerstars | street