Decades

I turned 10 in Belmar, New Jersey. My grandfather had fallen ill and my mother decided to move my sister and I out there with her for most of the summer of 1987 so she could take care of him. The three of us squeezed into the pullout couch at night in the living room of my grandparents' doublewide trailer on Route 71, which was certainly not designed to accomodate five. Mandy and I spent most of our afternoons wandering around town, taking bike rides around Lake Como and hitting the dime stores with Nana, where she'd buy scores of useless trinkets for the already crowded shelves in the trailer.

On my birthday, she came home from her morning jaunt to Shop-Rite with a value-pack of M&Ms and a bag of chicken wings to cook for dinner. Nana's chicken wings were my favorite thing that she cooked... well, really the only thing I would eat that she cooked. And since it was my birthday, I got my meal of choice for dinner. We ate a light breakfast to "save" ourselves for the dinner. The only problem was... Mandy, my mother and I were already starving by about 1 PM. As the three of us zoned out in front of an episode of "Three's Company" with my grandfather, we began to pick at the M&Ms, which had been poured into one of Nana's tacky candy dishes that sat on the coffee table.

"What the hell are you eating those for?! You're going to spoil your dinner! Why am I slaving in this kitchen if you're not going to eat it!" shrieked Nana as she brushed the wings with marinade.

This was always the Catch-22 with Nana and her dishes of candy. Eat the candy, you'll spoil your meal. Don't eat it and why the hell did she bother to go out and buy the candy for us?

So my mom and Nana got into it over the M&Ms, which ended in her storming out of the trailer with the two of us in tow. We piled into Nana's white Ford Escort and took off down Route 71.

My mom pulled up to "The Sundae Times" aka the best ice cream parlor in town. They served their famous ice cream concoctions in plastic mini-baseball caps and you could pick the team of your choice. Mandy got strawberry ice cream in an Angels cap while I opted for mint chocolate chip in a Yankee hat. We were in sweet air-conditioned heaven and the lines across my mother's forehead finally began to relax.

"You're gonna have to hide the hats when we get home" she warned. "DON'T tell Nana I took you here-- this is our secret trip for Nicky's birthday."

Just as we'd rinsed out the hats and stashed them in my mom's purse, we ran into Nana's neighbor walking through the front door. My mom completely froze and tried to look for another way out of there, but we'd been made.

"Jo! What are you all doing here?"

"Patsy... do me a favor and don't tell my Ma you saw us here. It's so bloody hot the kids were gonna pass out if I didn't get them some ice cream."

"No worries, Jo. I get ya" she said with a wink.

Nana still made her chicken wings that night and I savored every one. Though I still got shit for not eating more than I did.

* * * * *

I turned 20 in New York City. College in the frozen midwest didn't agree with me and I'd defied my parents' wishes and moved to Manhattan for the summer of 1997 instead of coming home to L.A. They thought it was just to work a theatre internship, but I was more interested in converting that temporary gig to a full-time job I could take in lieu of finishing my last two years of school. My birthday was my eleventh day in my sparsely furnished studio apartment in Chelsea. I had a futon I'd borrowed for the summer, one end table, a twin bed I'd purchased for $10 from a sorority that was getting rid of old furniture, and a 13-inch television. I'd arrived in New York with $55 in cash in my pocket and only about $4-- all of it in change-- remained. I'd been eating most of my meals at the Seventh Avenue Papaya on the corner of 23rd Street where they sold 50 cent hot dogs. I could eat about three a day along with a 32 ounce Diet Coke and get by without any serious hunger.

Two days before I'd auditioned to be a singing waitress on a cruise ship. Showcase and a number of our theatre major friends had done it before as a summer job and it paid well. It was one of those touristy boats that took brunch and dinner cruises around the lower tip of Manhattan, passing the Twin Towers along its way to the Statue of Liberty, turning back north to the South Street Seaport, and ducking under the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges before making a wide U-turn and heading back to Chelsea Piers. All the waitstaff took one solo turn a night along with performing a hideous group disco number. I thought I'd had a good audition, but not having heard from them for 48 hours, panic had set in. I needed a paycheck in the worst way.

At about 7:00 that evening, my phone rang. It was them. I got the job! And could I start tomorrow? Visions of cash tips and food other than hot dogs danced in my head.

I called up Sarah, my best friend from high school who was also living in the city for the summer with the good news. She zipped over to my apartment and took me out for happy hour at a bar on 16th Street where she knew we wouldn't get carded. Elation and relief spread over me as I drank my glass of Merlot.

Because if I could make it there, well, I could make it anywhere.

* * * * *

I turned 30 in Las Vegas, Nevada at the World Series of Poker. I was covering a PLO8 event inside the Poker Pavillion Sauna Wind Tunnel Death Trap Freezer and was watching Chau Giang's teeth chatter as he tucked his arms inside his shirt to fend off the chill when Pauly instant-messaged me a Happy Birthday. I hadn't even noticed the time. Or the day it had suddenly become. Such was my focus on the task at hand. 30 had come quietly. Even unnoticed.

I worked on my 30th birthday. It was like any other day at this seven-week circus of gamblers. I didn't make a big deal out of celebrating it, nor did I have the time to. I've always had an odd relationship with this day and I've celebrated the occasion on every point of the spectrum. From my 13th birthday that I spent grounded and locked in my room to my 16th birthday when my closest friends threw me in the car blindfolded and surprised me with a trip to Disneyland, to my 25th birthday where my party took over a chic Hollywood club and boasted 150 guests, to my 27th birthday that I spent bent over the porcelain god ravaged with food poisoning.

I'm 30 now but I don't feel it. I don't look it. And I certainly don't live like it. I smoke weed, date a 34-year old homeless man, gamble every day, travel a lot and share an apartment with a borderline homosexual actor-slash-dog walker. When my parents were my age, they owned our house and I was spitting up applesauce in the crib. I'm still many years away from anything like that.

So like the many women who have gone before me, I think I'll remain 29 forever. I think it suits me well.

Like, Oh My God, Like, My Boyfriend Cashed in the WSOP

Please head over to the Tao of Poker today and congratulate Pauly on donking his way to his first money finish at the World Series of Poker! He has 27,300 going into day two of Event #38 ($1,500 NLHE), putting him at 124th of 175 players remaining and is seated at a stacked table with Men "The Master" Nguyen, "Action Bob" Hwang and Erica Schoenberg.

You can also follow along with live updates via PokerNews.

LOL donkaments... and congrats to the Doctor!

Screams and Reefer

I was taking a smoke break in my car, the A/C blasting while I caught up with Showcase over the phone when I heard a knock on the passenger side window. I stopped tapping out my bowl and looked up.

"Ha! Ha! Ha! Caught ya!" the toothy, sandy haired dealer howled as he pointed at me. He got into the car parked next to mine and related to his dealer friend what he had just seen me doing. His friend started howling and pointing along with him. They drove off in a red pickup truck.

The next day I was making the hot, steamy trek from the parking lot to the Amazon Room when I saw him again. Rather than hiking through the long, tourist-clogged hallways of the Rio Convention Center, I always take a shortcut in through the side door, next to the area where all the dealers congregate to suck down cigarettes on break.

"What, are you going camping?" he inquired with a snort. I do carry an unusually large backpack that probably could be used for such an excursion. Only I don't camp. Ever. The mega-pack serves only to house my 17 inch laptop.

I have no idea if he recognized me from the night before. He just sucked down the last half inch of his Camel Light and returned to the frigid indoors, off to deal another down of NLHE to some tourna-donks.

"Don't you smell the pot?" inquired my French friend Benjo. "Right there, by Phil Ivey." We were both covering the $5K NLHE event.

Well, this I had to investigate. I walked up to Ivey's table and stood right behind him. Nothing. Then I turned around and started sniffing the air around the table behind him. Sure enough... someone was holding.

Clonie Gowen saw me sniffing the air. "Do you smell that too? It's like a skunk!" she drawled in her sharp Dallas twang. I leaned over and whispered in her ear.

"I think someone at your table has pot in their pocket."

"Really?" she laughed. "That must be a lot of pot!"

Yes, someone was toking up on breaks at the $5K NLHE. And Dutch Boyd, Gank, and Shaniac were nowhere to be found. Everyone's favorite poker trainwreck Brandi Hawbaker was also in the $5K field wearing a ruffled green silk semi-formal dress. I thought it was a lovely outfit, but I can't imagine playing for 12 hours in silk. Save it for the Main Event pre-parties.

Two nights ago, I heard a woman's bloodcurdling scream coming from a couple of buildings over at the Del Bocca Vista.

"Remind you of your nights at the Redneck Riviera?" I said to Pauly.

"Not unless it's accompanied by gunshots. Or an exploding meth lab."

I heard similar screams while I was covering the $2,500 NLHE event last week at the Rio. There was some woman in the field who would let out a Jamie Lee Curtis-esque scream every time she won a pot. At first, every head in the room would turn to see what the ruckus was, but it got old really quick.

Wednesday and Thursday were supposedly the slowest days of the Series we'll see until the Main Event with only 3 or 4 events running as opposed to the typical 5 or 6. I got a little more time to wander the room than I usually do. I spooted Leif Force playing 25-25 PLO and Ana Galajian in the 100-200 LHE game with a castle of chips in front of her. Sabyl Cohen, CK Hua and Amnon Filippi were playing $100/point Chinese Poker, paying each other out of the stacks of $100 bills in front of them rather than chips. The scariest satellite lineup I've ever seen was gathered around two tables in the opposite corner of the room, playing a $2,200 mega-sat for the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event. There were 14 runners including Andy Bloch, Robert Williamson III, Mel Judah, David Bach, Eric "Rizen" Lynch, Mimi Tran, and a guy with the longest dreads I have ever seen on a human being outside a festival parking lot. Only one of them would win a seat. I went home for the evening before I could find out.

I'm sorry I had to miss 99% of the blogger festivities this past weekend. I had to work on Friday and Saturday and after I played the Ladies' Event on Sunday, I went home and just crashed from exhaustion. And when I finally woke up... the last place I wanted to be was the Rio.

To read about my experience at the WSOP Ladies Event, check out A Plea for a True Ladies' World Championship over on my PokerWorks blog.

Today, for me, it's the $3,000 stud 8 event. Hopefully my brain won't cave in on itself while I attempt to decipher interns' handwriting and determine who won which half of the pot...

Two Bracelets, Tony G., A Windstorm and the Return of Brandi

At around 2 P.M. today, I made the trek from the tournament floor to the ladies' room. This walk can be done by an able-bodied person in perhaps 90 seconds, but with the extreme human traffic in the aisles and hallways of the World Series of Poker, a roundtrip can take upwards of 8 minutes. I only had the luxury of that 8 minutes twice today and worked straight through for the rest of the time, never leaving the tournament floor.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror when I went to wash my hands. I looked like hell. I can't believe Pauly or Otis or someone didn't say something. Like, "did you sleep in a gutter last night?" or "did you get rolled in the parking lot?" It was Day 7 of the WSOP and the bags under my eyes were already reaching epic proportions. I'll have to go for the double layer of Laura Mercier concealer tomorrow morning.

Like poker itself, the WSOP is a long, intense grind interrupted by a few moments of sheer magic. Like when I saw a man win a bracelet and another man lose a bracelet within the same five minutes, all as I was coming back to the floor from my dinner break. First I passed the final table of the $2,500 Omaha 8/Stud 8 just as Tom "Donkey Bomber" Schneider won the final hand. Finally having reached his moment in the spotlight, he held his wife in an embrace, neither of them wanting the moment to end. There was a glaze over his eyes as he walked the rail, all of his friends and sweaters congratulating him.

Then, fifty feet away, I saw Gavin Smith heads-up in the $1,500 pot-limit hold'em, all in with a pair of fives vs. the ace-ten of spades. The flop had two spades and after a pause for TV dramatics, another came on the turn. His face fell twenty stories. Just moments ago in the media room, Shronk was telling me that Gavin, more than any other player he knows, values first so much more than second. Phil Hellmuth consoled him with a hug. Jeffrey Pollack gave him the customary "I'm sorry, that sucks" handshake. Gavin just sipped his beer and stared down at the cards still on the table. So. Fucking. Close.

"Did Gavin win?" a railbird asked me.

"Does that look like the face of a man who just won?" was my reply.

* * * * *

I met Tony G. this afternoon. He's a sweet, friendly guy-- nothing like the "I'm gonna rip youuuu apahhht sooo hahhhhrd" stuff you see on TV. Technically he's my boss since he's the one signing the checks. As you may or may not know, The G is a major shareholder in PokerNews. And as you've undoubtedly heard if you're following the WSOP, CardPlayer was caught red-handed stealing chip counts from PokerNews. We knew going into the WSOP that people would steal our work, and lo and behold, it ends up being CardPlayer, now flat on their ass after falling from the high horse they rode all last summer. Blissfully ironic, isn't it, especially after that fracas with their "video expose" of a Bluff reporter allegedly cutting and pasting their updates.

Tony posted his take on the situation on his blog at PokerWorks, where he repeatedly reminds us that he is from the streets, yo.

I am from the street and when you steal from me, you are playing with fire. This is no different than taking money out of my pocket when it was all I had, which wasn't that long ago. I'll bet the Shulmans never thought they would be stealing from me two years ago when they were on top and PokerNews had three employees and was just getting by. I urge the Shulmans to think about what they are doing to me now. They should think about how people feel when they are robbed.

I am from the boulevards of Beverly Hills, so I can't exactly relate on the robbing and beating level, but I did spend 8 years in the movie business. I am so used to being shit upon and taken advantage of by scumbags and hangers-on that the whole situation rolled off my back like water. How many times did I write a 10-page memo for a hungover V.P. only to have them slap their name on it and leave mine off when it went to the Big Man? How many times did I develop an idea with a writer only to have some other idiot steal the project right out from under me? Douchebaggery like that is a fact of daily life in Hollywood. If you let it get to you, you're dead. Mind you, I take pride in my work and have incredible loyalty to PokerNews, who took me on post-UIGEA when everyone was losing their freelance gigs, but I have to say I was wholly unsurprised.

How did we figure it out? Fake names. Though Derek McGuire was on a plane to Maine at the time, he somehow amassed a stack in the $1,500 pot-limit hold'em. I don't know how Jonno Pittock was able to manage the entire reporting staff, blog, AND play the $2,500 mixed 8 or better event but CardPlayer had him at 3,500 for most of the day... just like we did. And Professional Keno Player Neil Fontenot is on the European Keno Tour all summer so there's no way he could have bought in to a WSOP event.

* * * * *

Inside the Ropes, Week 1:

At one point, while covering the $1K rebuy, I turned around and found myself looking straight into Brett Jungblut's ass-crack. Maybe that's a new list of five I can start.

The Last Five Pros' Ass-Cracks I've Seen Exposed at the Tables:

1. Brett "Gank" Jungblut
2. Dutch Boyd
3. Cyndy Violette
4. Jeff Shulman
5. Dan Alspach

While we're on lists of five, I have finally pissed next to five pros! It takes a little longer with us ladies, since we're still so vastly outnumbered in the poker world.

The Last Five Pros I Took a Piss Next to:

1. Kristy Gazes
2. Jennifer Harman
3. Dee Luong
4. Lacey Jones
5. Sabyl Cohen

Daniel Negreanu came up to media row during the rebuy, took a seat next to me, and just started talking. One trait I inherited from my time in the biz is to never have a reaction when meeting or speaking with a celebrity. I told Negreanu I dug his t-shirt, which was emblazoned with a photo of Bob Marley-- made entirely of pot leaves.

Though that shirt was pretty cool, my favorite so far at the WSOP has been the one Joe Pelton wore in the $2K NLHE yesterday. It had a club on the front of it with the words "legalize it."

Andy Bloch seems so reserved when you see him play on TV, but once you get to know him, he's surprisingly animated and friendly. He was wearing a shirt the other day that said "Rent This Space," surrounded by Full Tilt, Pokerwire, and World Poker Association logos and I asked him how much it would cost to rent his chest.

"Finally, a woman asks you that!" teased Bloch's buddy.

There was a crazy wind storm over the past few days in Vegas and the brain trust at Harrah's decided to seat the $1,500 Omaha 8 or better field inside the Poker Tent Sauna Wind Tunnel Death Trap. Mean Gene described it best in a report for PokerNews:

"The situation in the Poker Pavilion is impossible. The wind is slamming the tent from the outside, and it's also rushing in through the doors and causing a strong draft inside the room. The entire structure, including the metal rafters and pillars, is shaking like some kind of funhouse attraction. Standing in the middle of the room you can't believe your eyes, it almost feels like the wind might fill the inside of the roof and lift it like a sail. The situation has deteriorated enough that Harrah's has sent the players on an early dinner break and they will try to break as many tables inside the Amazon Room as possible so they can seat the entire event indoors. If they can't do that, they've announced that they will postpone it until tomorrow. It's a decision that had to be made. Players were extremely vocal in their displeasure about the conditions and, frankly, it was starting to look dangerous in there. The wind is very powerful and it hasn't let up all day."

Later in the evening, the entire back wall of the tent collapsed. One player nearly had his arm sliced off when a metal pole came crashing down. Which sum of money do you think is larger, the $228K first prize for the event, or Harrahs' legal bills over this incident?

Pauly is always thoughtful enough to bring me food and drinks when I can't get away. He showed up with a Chicken Caesar Salad, a Diet Coke and a cup of ice just as my stomach began to rumble at around 2:30. I've been in Vegas less than two weeks and I think I've already lost five pounds from all the running around and not eating much. I brought three pairs of jeans with me and the snuggest pair is already beginning to loosen. Not that I'm complaining about that particular side effect of my work schedule...

Everyone's favorite trainwreck Brandi Hawbaker has made a number of appearances at the Rio. I first saw her playing satellites with David Sklansky on the rail sweating her, then saw her returning the favor to Sklansky when he made the final two tables of the $1,500 limit hold'em event on Tuesday. Brandi played the $2K NLHE yesterday and cashed in 55th place. She showed up in a brown mini-dress and fuck-me heels to play (so... you don't want everyone to think you're stripper yet you dress like one?) The media was constantly swarming her table and you could tell she was ablsolutely loving it. I saw her chatting with another player on her break about all the sponsorships she's allegedly being offered. I had no idea the Spearmint Rhino staked poker players...

Brandi is definitely no longer broke. Either that, or she's getting backed (not the P.O.B. kind of "backing" but hey, with her you never know). She had a $1,200 Louis Vuitton purse sitting under her chair and was displaying plenty of cleavage. The girl definitely enjoys being looked at. Jonno thought she was cute until I told him about Capt. Tom's Penis and the ensuing scandal.

"Nevermind then. She's kind of dirty" he quipped.

Finally, I have decided to play the WSOP Ladies' Event in lieu of the blogger tournament on Saturday. I can only get one of the two days off and the WSOP wins easily in that matchup. Sorry, guys I couldn't resist the lure of a bracelet. Hopefully I'll work the early shift on Saturday and will be able to come down to the Orleans and hang out afterwards. I bought in with the $500 lammer that I won in a satellite and sold off the other half of my action to various members of the media.

Back to the grind. I'm covering the $5,000 pot-limit hold'em World Championship today and it's a sick field. Negreanu, Brunson, Goehring, Violette and Harman are all within my field of vision from my perch on media row.

Organized Chaos

"They rolled out the red carpet just for you" I quipped to B.J. Nemeth as we trudged across the Rio parking lot, waves of heat already shimmering off the blacktop. Two red carpets ran parallel to each other, paving the way from the Convention Center's valet parking stand up the stairs, past two new cars that were likely the object of some sweepstakes giveaway, and through a cloud of "cool mist" spun by half a dozen fans lining the side wall. Thousands of poker professionals, degenerate gamblers, homegame heroes, and camera-toting tourists descended upon the Rio this morning, as the 38th World Series of Poker got underway.

As we pushed through the double doors and a blast of air conditioning enveloped us, a wave of familiarity came over me as for the third year in a row, I made that long walk toward the Amazon Room, taking in all those visual cues that have become hallmarks of the post-Binions WSOP. Inflatable Milwaukee's Beast cans every ten yards. ESPN cameras weaving through the crowds, shooting B-roll. Banners bearing the names of corporate sponsors. Scantily clad women. And a Day 1 registration line thousands deep. Seasoned pros that will net hundreds of thousands over the next six weeks stood shoulder to shoulder with total donkeys, willing to surrender their dead money just to say they played in the World Series. I had my own line to wait in along with the rest of the PokerNews crew-- the one for our media credentials. The hour we spent there would actually end up being one of the shorter waits of the day.

The first thing I noticed about the tournament area was the absence of any vending. Gone are the booths hawking heinous poker-themed clothing, novelty sunglasses or memberships to various poker associations. The same goes for all those swank suites sponsored by the likes of Full Tilt and Poker Stars. Bluff Magazine had a setup, as did some credit card company that was giving away free WSOP pint glasses for those who signed up to inevitably take on more consumer debt. There was a large massage area set up as well as an "oxygen bar" similar to the one up in the Excalibur's food court. You know what I'm talking about-- all of those tubes full of flourescent bubbling liquid along a narrow bar where idiots sit with a tube up their nose, allegedly relieving their headache or jet-lag or whatever. So bogus. The Poker Kitchen has moved inside, to where the Full Tilt suite used to be and an air-conditioned tent with 50+ overflow tables has been set up adjacent to the convention center. At one point, Pauly wandered behind it and smelled the wafting remains of what appeared to be some really dank weed. Was it a coincidence that shortly thereafter a floorman came up to me asking if I knew where Dutch Boyd was?

Inside the Amazon Room, the layout has been completely re-vamped from last year. The final table is housed in the back corner, surrounded by stadium seating. The cash game area and the satellite area have traded places and there is a new high-limit cash game subsection that is walled off for additional security. Giant photos of every Main Even Champion surround the room, reminding everyone inside of the WSOP's rich history and greatest ambassadors.

But let's get to the best news I heard all day. I don't have to wear the shirt! There will be no ugly shapeless tees or polos for this girl. My WSOP stress quotient was instantly cut in half. In the words of Johnny Drama, "VICTORRRRYYYYY!!!!"

The dominant story of the day surrounded the new "PokerPeek" cards that were introduced in Event #2, the $5,000 half limit/half no-limit hold'em World Championship. As Mike Matusow sat down and looked at his first pair of hole cards, he let out a roar.

"Did you see these cards? These are the worst cards I've ever seen! Where's Jeffrey Pollack?"

Matusow was certainly not alone in his complaints. Johnny Chan was seriously pissed and threatened not to play the WSOP. Some players were demanding refunds. Veteran pros were misreading the board and some started calling out the flop verbally for clarification. Daniel Negreanu called them "the shittiest cards I've ever seen." The suits were printed much smaller than usual making them difficult to differentiate, and the sixes and nines looked practically identical. The only way to tell them apart was literally to count the pips on the suits.

To Harrahs' credit, they listened to the players and went to work to solve the problem immediately (which allegedly involved running over to Caesar's Palace to get thousands of WSOP-branded decks out of their vault). Within two hours, the offending decks were changed out and replaced with regular cards.

Another major operations kink on Day 1 was the ridiculously long registration line. Well over a thousand people were lined up to register for events (including the first big-field $1,500 NLHE event that kicks off tomorrow), the line extending at times all the way down the hall to the valet parking entrance. People were waiting for four and five hours in this line and a riot nearly broke out when they were going to let people registering for that afternoon's Casino Employees event move ahead of people who had been waiting all afternoon. Thankfully, no punches were thrown.

The WSOP Fashion Report

With a $5K event kicking things off and a field of mainly pros, there weren't too many out-of-the-ordinary fashion offenses, save for the typical Greg Raymer socks and sandals violation and Dan Alspatch's affinity for garish printed shirts and matching visors. Erica Schoenberg didn't even play today's event, but still wins my best-dressed award. She sweated her fiance David Benyamine from the rail, outfitted in white Bermuda-length cutoffs, a sheer sleeveless turquoise tunic, bronze wedge sandals and a white quilted Chanel tote. Isabelle Mercier gets runner-up honors for melding fashion and comfort with her crystal-encrusted cargo pants and gold Jimmy Choo sandals. My little point and shoot digi-cam wasn't loving life today so I'll try and get some photos up in the days to come.

By the Numbers

Number of entrants to Event #2, $5,000 Half LHE/Half NLHE: 451

Number of dollars the winner will take home: 536,287

Number of pounds Liz Lieu appears to weigh: 90

Number of dollars a chicken sandwich, fries, a Red Bull, and a Snickers bar will cost you in the Poker Kitchen: 17

Number of times the credit card freaks in the hallway have already asked me to sign up: 4

Number of hours the average person in the registration line waited yesterday: 4.5

Over/under on when the two green chairs on our patio at the Del Bocca Vista will get jacked: 23 days/June 21

Number of women who complimented Pauly on his cleanly-shaven face and newly slender physique: 2

Number of hours it took before a junior reporter said "Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi Oi Oi!" to Jonno: 8

Number of hours the start of Event #1, $500 Casino Employees' NLHE was delayed due to the lengthy registration lines: 1.5

Number of dollars Pauly paid Tiffany Michelle to eat a bucket of cold, abandoned french fries: 50

Make sure to tune in to PokerNews.com for photos and live updates from the tournament floor!