One Week in Photos

Here's a few of the photos I snapped during our weekend in NYC and on the way home from Vegas:

Pauly and the Polar Bears, Central Park, NYC

Alice in Wonderland Statue, Central Park, NYC

Basil Pesto Chicken Sandwich, Riverdale Diner, NYC

View from Our Hotel, Upper West Side, NYC

Mao, MoMA, NYC

Matisse's Fish, MoMA, NYC

Lee Krasner Painting, The Met, NYC

Map by Jasper Johns, MoMA, NYC

Monet's Water Lilies, MoMA, NYC

My natural state of being

Last stop on our way home, Las Vegas, NV

Anniversary Waltz

I started writing Pot Committed two years ago this month. I had returned to work after taking a week off to play in the 2005 World Series and after some excruiciatingly long staff meeting, I closed my office door, pulled up blogger.com, and started pecking out a post during my lunch hour. Out of boredom, out of creative suffocation, out of wanting to find someone, anyone who related to what I felt about the game of poker and the roller-coaster ride of emotions that comes with learning it. And over the next six months, I got to know the men and women of the poker blogging community, many of whom have become cherished friends.

I had no idea when I wrote that first post that the Hollywood D-Girl stage of my career was about to come to a crashing halt. Or that this tiny little space on the interwebs could open up an entirely new path for me as a working writer. Or that I'd meet a wonderful man at a homegame called "Murderer's Row" six months later and still be with him today.

The easiest part of my decision to start a blog, actually was naming it. As you all well know, Pot Committed has two very different meanings. And until a few months ago, it represented the two halves of my life. In January, I decided to take my poker content over to PokerWorks because, frankly, it was a paying gig and I needed the money. Though I wrote a lot of stuff I'm proud of over there, I started to feel like a kid with divorced parents shuttling from house to house. I had two houses and two rooms, but there was so much moving around that neither place felt like home anymore. I'm so thankful to Linda for the opportunity and wish her and all the other bloggers (many of them those cherished friends I was talking about) continued success, but I must say, it feels so good to be sleeping in my own bed again.

Welcome back to Pot Committed. Did you miss me?

Jerry Yang, Faith, and the World Series of Poker

"Oh baby I reconsider my foolish notion / Well I need someone to hold me but I'll wait for something more/Yes I've gotta have faith" -George Michael

The once-red carpet that would greet me every morning on my way into the WSOP had faded to a grayish rose from six weeks under the searing Nevada sun. The parking lot, once packed to the edges with the sunburnt vehicles of poker hopefuls was nearly empty on the morning of the final table. The portraits of WSOP winners past came down, one by one and the 230 tables that once filled the Amazon Room have all been broken down and carried away. On Tuesday morning, the Rio was almost business as usual. A retail employees' convention had taken over most of the space in the building and the legions of twentysomething iPodded donkeys that once crowded the hallways were replaced by a few hundred polo-and-khakis weaking conventioneers, all sporting name tags and lugging black computer bags. It's up to them now to get drunk at the Tilted Kilt and donk off money at Pai Gow and keep the hookers in business. Because the WSOP is over, at least for another year.

The final card was burned and turned at about ten minutes to four in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. Jerry Yang took his pocket eights up against Tuan Lam's A-Q. A queen flopped and the media let out a collective groan-- if Lam won this pot, we might be here another three or four hours. And then the seven of diamonds came down on the turn. Four more outs for Yang. An eight or a six... an eight or a six. I think the media was praying just as hard as Yang at that moment. Laurie the dealer burned and turned the river. And it was a six! The crowd went nuts, chanting "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" as Yang embraced his family. In one of the most international final tables ever seen in the WSOP Main Event (Russia, Denmark, Canada, South Africa, and the U.S.) Laos-born, Southern California-dwelling Jerry Yang, who had run over this final nine with sheer aggression had emerged victorious.

"It's over?" said Jonno with a shocked look on his face as he flipped off his headphones. He'd been logging data into the PokerNews hand simulator for 13+ hours and couldn't believe this seven-week orgy of cards had finally reached its conclusion. Mean Gene and I took off for the edge of the stage to get a better look at the victory celebration. The handful of passed-out spectators that were curled up on the floor or sprawled across chairs at the back of the Amazon Room stirred and awoke, asking "so what happened on the last hand?"

Jerry Yang gave a thoughtful and soft-spoken victory speech. He thanked God and his family and pledged to donate 10% of his winnings to three different charities-- The Make-A-Wish Foundation, Save the Children, and the Ronald McDonald House. He spoke about how blessed he was to be able to raise his family in America after escaping war-torn Laos as a child with his parents and siblings. Yang told us that he'd use his winnings to provide his kids with a quality education and to give back to the people in his community. And he'd let his wife quit her job.

This display was an incredible contrast from one year ago when Jamie Gold strapped on his bracelet. Yes, he made that cell phone call to his sick father, but at that moment in time, most of us were so flabbergasted at the seemingly unstoppable bout of luck that led to his victory, and had been uncovering stories about Gold's Hollywood agent past over the last several days. A guy who sucked out hand after hand and was producing a reality show called "America's Hottest Mom" was taking $12 million home to Malibu. And a young man named Crispin Leyser was watching this all unfold from the bleachers and would go on to sue Gold for half his winnings less than two weeks later.

In Jerry Yang, poker has possibly the best ambassador we could ask for right now. In a time when our ability to safely and legally play this game is being struck down left and right, we've crowned an educated, religious family man as our new World Champion. To hear Yang tell it, God was watching over him during that final table and it was his faith that paved his way to victory.

Hear that, religious right?

Yang's a small, quiet guy. "He's like Yoda" said Pauly this morning as we watched his victory interview on PokerNews. He was barely on the media radar when we got down to four tables on Day 6 and I couldn't tell you the name of one person inside the Amazon Room that picked him to win it all. Most (myself included) were banking on Lee Watkinson, or Alex Kravchenko or Philip Hilm. Yang's not the guy you'll see making an ass out himself at the tables or tilting off his winnings in the pits or slipping into the elevator with a hooker at 4 A.M. He's a psychologist from Temecula with 6 kids who got into this whole thing on a $225 satellite at Pechanga. He's just a regular guy who took a shot.

* * * * *

I've learned a lot about this game since coming here. I've learned that I'll probably never be a great player, or even a very good one. While I tend to make many more correct decisions than incorrect ones at the table, I will never have the mental and psychological fortitude to truly succeed at it. I'm too emotional, and it's something I cannot change about myself. I get enraged when I get bad beated. And frankly, I don't like feeling that way. When I make poor decisions, I beat myself up about it for hours, even days. And I don't like feeling that way either. I also (and it's embarrassing to admit this) sometimes feel like I deserve to win more than other people. I've put in more time, more months, more years, more dollars, more thought than that ass hat across the table that just hit his five-outer on me. I need the money more. I need the respect more. I need something emotional from succeeding at poker and this is not a game that pays positive emotional dividends. I might be a winning player if I had a different emotional makeup. But unfortunately, I'm stuck with the one I've got. I can continue to work on how I handle my emotional responses to the turn of a card, but I'll never have the blank stare of a Phil Ivey, the icy calm of a Katja Thater, or the cerebral indifference of a Howard Lederer.

Additionally, I do not have the necessary detachment from the value of money that is required to be a winning poker player. Until I have a steady income and am completely out of debt, a bet will never just be a bet. It will be the cable bill, or a pair of shoes, or a roundtrip ticket to New York. I never approach a big money situation thinking it'll yield me a bigger bankroll. I think, "well, I can pay off X or Y." It's a recipe for disaster. It's little wonder that I continually lose. It's little wonder I've never had a decent bankroll. And I'm pretty sure it's just dumb luck that I've ever won a tournament. Even the donkeys get lucky once in a while.

Despite all of this, I still play. I still write about the game for a living. I still think about it, and read books about it and cover major tournaments. All of us in the poker media are in the media for a reason-- primarily that we're not good enough to make a living at the game. This WSOP is the beginning of me accepting that. That I'm not good. And that most of the time I feel like shit after playing.

There are parts of me that are a little bit sick. Like the tourists that stuff quarters into the slot machines weekend after weekend, I'm constantly looking for that big score to solve my financial problems. I worked my ass off for 8 years in Hollywood and never saw any money for it. I worked 80 hours a week to earn barely enough to get by. And in the end, it all amounted to absolutely nothing. I know that bitterness leaks over into my poker game. There's definitely two poker players within me-- the player I was before I lost my job and the player I became in the aftermath of that. Deep within myself I know the only way I'll ever crawl out of debt is to write my way out. That needs to be my first thought when I sit down at the tables. Fuck, it needs to be my first thought when I get up in the morning.

These are the things I have to get over to become a winning player. Not playing K-J offsuit out of position or learning how to make more effective re-steals in late-stage tournament situations.
I have to learn to have faith.

I have 72 hours left in Las Vegas before getting back on the road to Los Angeles. I've never wanted to leave this city more. I miss the cool breezes and the moisture in the air. I miss Showcase and my sister, and the bacon at John O'Groats. I miss the ocean and I miss the cool comfort of my own bed. It'll be a long time before the flashing lights and ding ding dings of the slot machines put a smile on my face.

It's been a helluva ride my friends. But it's time I went home.

CBS= Bitter, Much?

This article from CBS Sportsline trashing the World Series of Poker as a "celebration of the sad and stupid" is such a trainwreck you have to read it yourself to believe it. It is unbelievably misguided, wrong-headed, poorly researched and full of vitrol from a writer that no doubt, has some piece of unfortunate personal or family history when it comes to wagering. Or maybe he just got his aces cracked one too many times on Poker Stars.

Of course, at no point does this writer address or delineate the difference between playing poker, a game of skill, and pissing away pensions and social security checks on pure gambles like slot machines. Nor does he dicsuss the concept of personal accountability, preferring instead to blithely insult the 50 million Americans who play poker, most of them responsibly. Instead he elects to compare poker players to heroin or crack addicts.

Of course there are poker players that are problem gamblers, just like there are poker players who are serious drug addicts (coughvinnyvinhcough). And there are doctors that are drug addicts and lawyers that are alcoholics, and young heiresses like Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie who are out there driving luxury vehicles under the influence of a cocktail of champagne and pharmaceuticals while America's youth continues to idolize them and voraciously read every detail of their personal lives in publications like Star and US Weekly. And I think there are plenty of us out in the poker media that give ample coverage to poker's dark side-- and do so responsibly.

I'm also almost entirely sure that Gregg Doyel, the author of this uninformed drivel, is blissfully unaware that Jon Moonves, brother of CBS CEO Les Moonves, (a.k.a. his boss) is one of the chip leaders at the "abomination called the World Series of Poker." Over/under on when he gets his pink slip, anyone?

Or maybe, CBS is just bitter that NBC's poker coverage has totally kicked their ass, while they're achieving dismal ratings for the Ultimate Blackjack Tour.

Some choice excerpts:

"High-stakes gambling is for addicts and idiots, which makes the World Series of Poker a celebration of the sad and the stupid. Watch this train wreck for yourself. It's available live on the Internet and will come to free television later this year thanks to ESPN, which can next build on this viewer experience by televising a DUI checkpoint or maybe a crack house."


"But still we tolerate and even celebrate this abomination called the World Series of Poker, this 10-day advertisement for addiction and loss. Now listen. Normally, I'm not one to rail on about the evils of this sport or the dangers of that one. Let boxers box. Let race-car drivers race. Let football players bang helmets. Let UFC fighters fight. This is a free country, and those are legal, noble pursuits even with their inherent risk. Freedom is cool."


Gambling is not. Freedom to gamble is like freedom to inhale crack or inject heroin. You may enjoy it once or twice or a hundred times. You may be that one unlikely person impervious to its evil lure. But in most cases the addiction will eventually win."


"This is the world today. We'd rather not work hard for our fortune. We'd prefer to win it in the lottery or on a game show or at a felt-covered table. This is why U.S. college students are flunking out at an alarming rate as they spend their time hooked to a computer, trying to beat an endless supply of anonymous losers on the Internet."

You got that boys and girls? Freedom is cool, gambling is not. Bare-knuckled fighting is a "legal, noble pursuit" but you're no better than a crackhead if you enjoy playing cards. I'd also like to know his sources on the "alarming rate" at which college kids are flunking out of school due to online poker. Has a study been done? Has he met these kids? Is one of them his? Inquiring minds want to know.

If you'd like to let Mr. Doyel know how you feel about his piece, you can email him. Hurry, before he's unemployed.

The Tinseltown Invasion

Yesterday was Hollywood Day at the WSOP Main Event, or at least it seemed like it in the section I was covering. Todd Phillips, director of Old School, Road Trip, Starsky & Hutch, and Bittersweet Motel (the Phish movie) had a helluva Day 2 and jumped out to the chip lead by mid-afternoon. On one of my trips past his table, I stopped to count his stack and he leaned over and asked me "So, what's the biggest stack in the room?"

"About 300-320K right now."

"Well I've got 342" he boasted, with a smile.

"Then I guess it's you."

Tobey Maguire was also moved into my section, right before the dinner break. He took a seat next to Pot Committed reader and online poker whiz Mandy Baker, who had steadily been building her stack all day. I had a similar experience myself when I played in my first WSOP event in '05. When my first table broke, I got moved two to Tobey's right. I was wearing a baseball cap from one of the Big Man's recent flicks and Tobey asked, "Hey, you work for those guys?" I nodded like a geek and just prayed I wouldn't make a donkey move in front of him.

Montel Williams also played his Day 2 today, but busted out early. I also noticed Nick Cassavetes on the roster and wondered if it was the same dude who directed "The Notebook."

A little-known actress called Deanna Dozier also made it to Day 2. She played today under the glare of cameras and constant media scrutiny despite the fact that no one has ever heard of her. I looked Deanna up on IMDB and she has credits from one episode of MadTV, a bit part in the 2005 Robert Downey Jr. flick Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, and a starring role in the film Girls Gone Psycho, which thus far, has only had a theatrical release in Vietnam.

So, basically, Showcase has more film and television credits than this girl. That's not saying much. And still, every lens was trained on her face. Sabyl Cohen had to make the final 7 tables last year for anyone to sit up and take notice of her. Oh waiiiit.... that's right. Sabyl isn't a petite twentysomething blonde girl. What was I thinking?

I got off work at dinner break and when I got home,I found that I actually had the energy to play a couple of tournaments. I played an $11 6-max NLHE one on Full Tilt. 251 runners, 30 paid, change100 finishes... 37th. Is that just like me or what? You know, if I didn't, I don't know, lose every single coinflip, run queens into kings and get rivered out of 3 pots where I was better than 4-1 on the turn, I might have made twenty whole dollars. I was crushing those fucking donks. Seriously, I don't know anyone with poker luck as foul as mine... except maybe grubby.

At the same time I bought into a $5.50 H.O.R.S.E. MTT. I've been donking around at the very low limits in H.O.R.S.E. cash games for a few minutes a night since coming to the Series. Covering so many mixed game events sort of gave me the appetite for it. 109 runners, 16 paid, change100 finishes... 24th. There goes another 2 1/2 hours of my life I'll never get back.

I've been dead tired for a month now, but I have very rarely wanted to put my fist through a wall. Oh right, that's because I WASN'T PLAYING ONLINE POKER. Or, really any poker for that matter. And when I was playing live? I wanted to put my fist through a variety of clueless old people dribbling off their pensions at the Station Casinos. In the words of my boss, Tony G, I want to "rip them apahht so hahhhd."

Maybe I should talk to my psychiatrist about increasing my dosage when I get back to L.A. Or perhaps it's because I've been smoking maybe 25% of my typical weed intake since the WSOP began. Though I must say, for a girl completely spoiled on California medicinal bud, the product I've enjoyed here in Vegas is pretty damned good. Blueberry, Trainwreck, Hindu Kush, Bubble Berry... excellent stuff.

Day 2B starts in just under ten minutes. 1305 runners will whittle down to about 400 by night's end. Vinny Vinh's stack, blinded down to 3,300 when he took off on his Day 1 dinner break and never returned is sitting on Table 225. There are rumors abound that his backers hired bodyguards to ensure that he shows up. We'll have the skinny on PokerNews, that's for sure.

If you survive today, you have a great shot at cashing. It's time to pump up or go home.

Meeting Mama McGrupp

"So, how should I introduce you?" Pauly asked, as I drove down Flamingo toward Caesar's Palace. "As my friend? My girlfriend? My roommate?" His mother was in Las Vegas for the Fourth of July weekend and we were meeting her for dinner at Trevi in the Forum Shops.

"At this point, do whatever you want, Pauly. Whatevvvvver is easiest for you" was my reply.

Look, there are no questions as to the status of our relationship. We're together. We have been for well over a year. Pauly has met my family a number of times. He's eaten my father's BBQ, watched the Yankees with my mom, treated Mandy to beers and Mexican food. But that's mainly because he's spent a helluva lot more time in Los Angeles than I have in New York.

Well, that and my parents are "normal" (his words).

Over a year in and I had yet to meet Mama McGrupp. Pauly assured me it was for a good reason. All I knew about this woman was that she was five feet tall, chain-smoked, had a wicked New York accent, was overly fond of Amaretto, and never had anything nice to say about anyone.

"Whatever you say, don't tell her you're Irish. Even a little bit. Just stick with German. She hates Irish people because of my father. She could also blatantly insult you at any moment, so be prepared" Pauly warned.

By this point I was terrified. I almost hoped he introduced me as his roommate or colleague. I'd be more likely to avoid a barrage of potentially loaded questions.

"Mama's on the warpath" Derek said as we walked up. Pauly mumbled a response laced in a sort of shorthand only brothers bound by over three decades of struggles with this force of a woman could understand. My stomach had been on the floor since we'd parked the car at Bellagio and walked over the bridge to Caesar's Palace. I could see her staring at me from ten feet away. I turned on my Hollywood smile.

"Mom, this is my friend Nicky," said Pauly (ohthankGod).

"It's a pleasure to meet you Mrs. McGrupp" I said as I extended my hand. I got a limp, cold handshake in return. Pauly's aunt and two of his cousins were with her and they seemed far friendlier. We adjourned to a large round table indoors.

I sat between Derek and Pauly, figuring that was the safest seat at the table. I ordered a glass of Shiraz and Mama McG got a whisky sour-- the first of several.

As I glanced over the menu, Pauly's cousin Meg asked me about working at the World Series. I gave some short, happy answers that didn't give away a lot while Mama stared at us from across the table, sipping her drink. After that, I buried myself in conversation with Derek, trying to avoid eye contact with Mama. She looked suspicious and annoyed.

I ordered a nice Chicken Marsala. Pauly and Derek both got the Veal Parmesan and Mama had the lasagna, deciding that she couldn't order the veal too since both the boys had.

"I'll give you a taste of mine when it arrives, OK Mom?" said Derek, attempting to placate her. She mumbled something unintelligible.

"I met your boss today" Mama said to Pauly. "He said you were a good writer."

"He's a great writer!" I piped up.

Mama looked at me like I had stood up, climbed atop the table, and urinated into the bread basket. My face flushed scarlet and I took a long sip of my Shiraz as I looked around for a hole to fall into.

"The Rio was nice. I thought it would be really seedy where you worked. But it's nice. Not as nice as the Wynn, but it's OK."

"You're thinking of Binions, where the World Series used to be. That's downtown where it's really sketchy" Pauly explained.

"I couldn't find a matchbook there-- I looked all over for a matchbook and tried all the bars but they didn't have any. I want to get one from every casino."

"Well I'll make sure to pick one up for you."

"We went in that, that Poker Expo thing ? And they were spraying this cologne I liked, but he wanted to get out of there so I couldn't get any" she said, glaring at Derek.

"Do you want me to get you some of the cologne?" Pauly said, his patience fraying.

"No. Forget it" she spat.

Thank God the food arrived. The chicken was tasty and it came with some lovely fresh green beans-- at least $200 worth if we're talking in Pauly veggie prop bet terms.

Derek, as promised, sliced off a nice piece of his veal parm and reached over to place it on Mama's plate.

"No! I don't want it! Don't do that! You hate it when I mess with things on your plate, so don't you do it to me!" she barked, out of nowhere. Derek put the veal back on his plate with a sigh.

I must have looked a little shocked at this outburst so Derek leaned over and whispered "Dude... this like, isn't even a 1 on the Richter Scale." Wow.

Mama and I didn't really say anything to each other after that. I finished my meal and she downed three more whisky sours. She didn't touch her lasagna, claiming that she had "lost her appetite" after the veal incident with Derek.

"Here, you eat it" Mama said, passing her plate to Cousin Meg. Meg accepted the lasagna with a smile.

"I'll share some with John too" she said, with a nod to Pauly's other cousin at the table. She sliced the lasagna in half and picked it up with a fork and knife, ready to set it on his plate.

Only it never made it to his plate. Almost in slow motion, the lasagna slipped from the fork-and-knife hold and fell... straight into her purse. Meg buried her head in her hands.

It looked like she might cry, until she started to laugh. Hard. The entire table, even Mama, cracked up as she pulled bit of ground beef and marinara-sauce-stained papers out of her bag.

"So, does anyone want dessert?" inquired the waiter.

"Nojusthebillpleasewhenyougetachance" said Pauly before anyone could interject.

65 minutes after arriving at Trevi, we made our escape. Mama bid us goodbye with little interest and left with Derek and the cousins to go get show tickets.

Pauly charged out of the Forum Shops in his New Yorker walk that requires me to nearly jog to keep up with him. He blasted past the Caesar's poker room.

"No poker?" I asked.

"No. I need to get off tilt."

We headed back across the bridge to Bellagio. We passed their poker room, the gaming pits, and at least two bars before I realized where we were going.

Gelato is the cure for Mama-tilt. I got Oreo, he got Mint Chip.

"So, now you get it, right? The hell I have gone through with this woman for over thirty years?"

"Pretty much."

"And she wasn't even that bad tonight."

"That's what Derek said."

"So you've met her, you happy now?"

"Yes. And we don't have to do it again, I hope for a very long time. But there is one thing though."

"What?"

"You do look a lot like her."

"Oh God..."

Tilt Me and Die Hard

Know what's worse than flopping two sets in a row in the $4-8 game at Red Rock and having them cracked both times by the same clueless old man's runner-runner flushes?

Getting bad beat out of your bonus.

PokerNews was cool enough to organize a $10K freeroll for the 30 or so of us that busted our asses for the last 5 weeks at the WSOP. Ten spots were paid, with $2,500 for first.

I played exactly one hand.

Three limpers to me in the 25-50 level. I raise to 300 from SB, Tony G calls from EP, two other limpers call. Flop J-T-blank with two hearts. I lead for 700, Tony G folds, 2nd limper moves in, 3rd limper folds. I insta-call with A-A. He has Q-J offsuit. Turn 9, river 8. IGHN and double up some Dutch dude I've seen like twice the entire time I've been here. He has me covered by 50.

I can't win at this game. Doesn't matter how well I play. Four years at it now. It just never seems to work out for me.

I was on such tilt afterwards I had to pound a Corona and go see LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD just to get off tilt.

And then, as I walked out of the theatre into the rancid heat, I was still on tilt.

Now I'm just waiting to go have dinner with Pauly's mom. Whom I am terrified of, yet have never met.

If I survive tonight without sticking a needle in my arm or jumping off a freeway overpass, well I just might make it out of this town alive.

And now I owe all you fuckers a dollar...

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!

Escape from L.A.

When I was a kid, my father had season tickets to the Dodgers every summer. Four tickets to twelve games that usually fell on weekend afternoons where the temperature would climb into the 90s. Our seats on the field level got progressively better as the years passed, inching from the foul pole over toward the first base line, but in my eyes, we paid dearly for our excellent view since the seats were never, ever in the shade. Mandy got my father's bronzed skin in the gene pool lottery, while I would be slathered in SPF 50 and buried under hats and long sleeves so I wouldn't be carted back to West L.A. the color of a lobster. Most of the time, the sun would beat on me so badly that by the fourth inning, my mother would need to walk me upstairs to the shady area behind the seats and put wet towels on my head. By the sixth inning I'd be ready to pass out and thus began the terse negotiations with my father as to when to leave the ballpark. We rarely made it to the seventh inning stretch.

Further complicating matters was the fact that my mother, an east coast transplant, was a die-hard Yankee fan and my father, a native Angeleno, was through and through Dodger Blue. Each managed to get one daughter to root for their team. I was brainwashed early, during the 1981 World Series when my mom bought me a Yankee doll. My father came home from work one evening and saw me carrying it around the house, saying "Go Yankees! Booo Dodgers!" He was naturally horrified and tried, in vain as the years went on, to get me to root for my hometown team. But it never stuck. So he worked on Mandy in earnest, and she's been a Dodger fan ever since.

Needless to say, my sensitive alabaster skin and I still prefer night games and Pauly took me to my first one in years on Friday night. The Dodgers played the Cubs and we had awesome seats on the loge level right above third base. Dodger games were and still are for me, primarily about food, and I got to enjoy a tasty Super Dodger Dog and down a few brewskis while peppering Pauly with stupid questions about baseball. Like why they watered the dirt on the field and how did they know where exactly to put the bases (little holes in the ground... who knew?) Unfortunately, the Dodgers eeked out a win in the ninth inning. Booooooo.

Sunday night, Pauly took me to the Palm for an early 30th birthday dinner. Yes, dear readers, I turn 30 on June 26th, smack in the middle of the WSOP. Since we'll more than likely be unable to celebrate on the actual day he thought ahead (sweet, thoughtful man that he is) and got us reservations. I ate a heavenly 14 oz. filet with a little bearnaise sauce on the side and had a glass of Shiraz. Pauly had the same, and (shock!) ordered a Caesar salad as an appetizer and even manager to finish half of it. Dessert was a sublime slice of key lime pie.

On Monday, my final day in SoCal for the next two months, we headed over to my parents' house for a BBQ. Mandy was going off to a location shoot in Mexico and would be out of town at the same time as me, so it would be the last time we could all get together before maybe August. Pauly had requested my father's signature burgers, and with good reason. They're thick, spicy, juicy, and never overcooked. As he took his first bite, a whole lot of that juice squirted out, all over his shirt, his jeans, and the tablecloth. Funny shit. I so wish I had it on camera.

A couple of weeks back, Pauly had sent me some photos of him from back in the day-- back in the frat day, back in the Phish-touring day, back in the long-hair day. It was my turn to compensate with some of my own humiliating photos. I took him on the photo tour of my parents' living room including a couple of baby pictures, my first communion photo, my high school graduation photo, and various shots of Mandy and I as little kids.

Finally it was time to pack. Make careful wardrobe selections for the summer and stuff it all into three small bags. Make sure all computer equipment was in working order and that all cords and chargers and drives and accessories were accounted for. Make sure I paid all my bills and left rent checks for Showcase and did the dishes in the sink. Because once we got on the 10 East the next morning, there was no turning back, at least until a new WSOP Champion had been crowned.

Shoes and Such

Dear Otis,

Thank you for recommending ECCO shoes. I found a pair of black leather flats that at least somewhat resemble the trendy ballerina slippers I'm so fond of wearing. These ones, though, feel like walking on blissfully squishy little pillows and should serve me well during the WSOP. Though I'd be even happier if they came in pewter... or maybe bronze. Anyway, those Danes sure know how to make a shoe! My feet owe you an Arrogant Bastard at the Rio.

Love, Change


Dear Drizz,

I recently threated to disown my own mother in public because she showed up to lunch wearing pink Crocs. Crocs are everything that's wrong about America. They are loud and oddly shaped and will find their place in fashion history alongside horror-show footwear like Jellies and Tevas with socks. I cannot in any way condone the purchase or wearing of Crocs. If you buy Crocs, the terrorists win.

It's OK though. There's still plenty of time to reform.

Love, Change


Dear StB,

I will wear jeans and white sneakers at the WSOP for $200 per day... the same rate I offered Pauly for me to wear purple Crocs at the Langerado Music Festival.

Love, Change


Dear Carmen,

Believe me, I would never cave into bad WSOP fashion. In fact, my biggest worry about the Series is not the pressure or the long hours or doing my best to write well... it's that I'm going to have to wear some sort of black polo shirt that says "WSOP Official Media" or something to that effect every single day. It's virtually guaranteed it won't fit well. I've been having nightmares about the polo for three weeks straight. Pauly tunes me out when I talk about the polo. And when I do finally get my hands on it, I'm seriously considering getting it tailored. That, and changing clothes on dinner breaks.

Can't wait to see you. I still have to find some strappy heels for pre-Main Event parties. Might the Forum Shops be on our agenda at some point?

Love, Change

American Idol Wednesdays: Sparks Burn Beat-Box

I'm not sure Blake wanted to win. The first indicator for me was when he won the coin toss, yet elected to sing first in the finals. Singing first puts a contestant at a huge disadvantage on Idol, and with the exception of Ruben Studdard (who won by the slimmest of margins in Season 2), every Idol winner has sung last on finals week. For me, the show was a Jordin Sparks blowout victory and I could only wonder what might have transpired had Jordin faced off with Melinda, the seasoned pro instead of America's crowned price of beat-box gimmickry. Here's how they did:

Blake Lewis: "You Give Love a Bad Name"

The Showcase verdict: "He's confident, he commands the audience, and he's MUCH better than Justin Guarini."

Blake trots out a repeat of his best-received cover for his first song. Though in terms of sheer performance value, it was among his best efforts he was BARELY in tune throughout the song.
Randy (outfitted in one of the most hideous jackets ever photographed on Idol) agreed with me, saying "the singin' for me was just ai'ght."I will say...Blake wore a great outfit for this song. Loved the charcoal blazer-- very sharp.

Jordin Sparks: "Fighter"

Jordin countered Blake with a Christina Aguilera cover. It's about time she went for a Christina tune. On this song, Jordin could certainly handle the melody, but for me it's a hard song to separate from it's original artist. And Christina so oversings everything that it's become a hallmark of her style. It's hard to pull back a little on the Aguilera melodies because everyone's used to hearing them at an 11, and when Jordin comes in and delivers one at a 9? It comes off a little lacking.

I think Jordin chose this song for a reason. While all of her power ballads have gone over well with both the judges and the audience, I think Jordin felt the need to prove that she can handle the Kelly Clarkson-esque "strong angry vengeful woman songs" along with them.

Blake Lewis: "She Will Be Loved"

Awwww... it's Beat-Box's soft side, complete with argyle sweater. There really isn't a lot of difficult melody to this song and his delivery of it shined a big ol' spotlight on the weakness of his vocals and range when compared to Jordin. 80% of those falsetto notes were flat. Randy liked that he sang "naturally and pure." I disagree... as much as I think the beat-boxing is fucking retarded, I'd rather hear that than another crappy Maroon 5 song delivered by a completely average vocalist. Simon deemed the performance "safe" and wouldn't have chosen this song "because it doesn't make much of an impact." And he's right.

Jordin Sparks: "Broken Wing"

For her repeat-of-the-night, this was a great choice. It was squarely in her wheelhouse in terms of style and genre and she seriously laid the boom on Blake vocally with this performance. And it's not like she was going to bust out "You'll Never Walk Alone" again after all of Simon's "old-fashioned" comments. Randy said it was better than the original and Simon had nothing more to offer along with his trademark smirk other than a simple "now THAT was good." Now here's a case where, like Blake's affair with Maroon 5, I'm not a fan of the song. But Jordin's soaring vocals made me forget it was a cheesy Martina McBride ballad.

Blake Lewis: "This is My Now"

The Showcase Verdict: "America loves the obvious."

Onto the winner's single, which this year was selected via a nationwide songwriting contest. The winning tune was OK, I guess, for a milquetoast pop song and was a little more listenable than some of the atrocities forced upon the finalists in years past (shit-cakes like "Before Your Love," "Inside Your Heaven" and "Do I Make You Proud?") In his final performance, we got our second dose of the night of soft side Beat Box... and this time he wore an argyle VEST. Encrusted in SEQUINS. Blake's performance was pretty much a disaster. His voice is just not big enough for the song. It was perhaps his worst effort of the season. Of course, this style is not suited to him at all. I mean, you could practically see him cringing at the lyrics coming out of his mouth. Not exactly the final impression one wants to leave with the voting public. And the bouncy-dancing in the middle was the WORST.

Jordin Sparks: "This is My Now"

Well, she oversung it a little, but who doesn't oversing the winner's single? Simon said it all when he commented that Jordin had "wiped the floor with Blake on that song." Jordin Sparks, all of 17 years old, standing onstage at the Kodak Theatre singing about how her dreams are all coming true while wiping away tears from her eyes--well, that's American Idol in a nutshell, isn't it?

(Potential spoilers ahead! This is your warning!)

I think Jordin will win this by a sizeable margin and the geeks over at Dial Idol agree, showing Jordin ahead of Blake by over 15 points.

My only question left-- just how much Sanjaya will there be on tonight's finale? The 2-hour Idol extravaganza kicks off tonight at 8 with a half-hour red carpet pre-show at 7:30, wherein idiot entertainment reporters will ask all the arriving celebs "so who do you think is going to win?"

Jordin Sparks will. Bank on it. Good luck to all of you with action on tonight's results.

Poker Posts, Sneaker Shopping and Hollywood Kickball

I played a couple of sessions of live poker this week at the Commerce Casino and Hollywood Park. You can read all the gory details in these pieces I wrote for my PokerWorks blog:

The Jack of Nothing
The Slowroll

On my list of roughly three dozen things I have to accomplish before leaving L.A. for two months in Vegas is "buy shoes for WSOP." If I've learned one thing covering tournaments for the last year, it's that a pair of cute pointy-toe flats won't cut it when you're running around a casino 16 hours a day. I have to buy some sneakers. And I am not a sneaker person. At all. When I wear sneakers with jeans, I feel frumpy and unfashionable. And I'm not prepared to feel frumpy and unfashionable for two straight months.

I went to the Beverly Center yesterday to see if I could find a pair that didn't offend me. I looked at a few pairs of Converse tennies, but they never seem to fit me correctly. Everything at Sketchers was bulky and busy. And forget about Lady Foot Locker. You will never, and I mean never, catch me wearing white trainers with my dark jeans. I refuse to become bad WSOP fashion! One of the salesgirls could sense my growing frustration and told me to check out a couple of places on Melrose. So a trip up there will likely find it's place on my list of late afternoon errands, which include getting all my summer clothes dry cleaned, unclogging the bathroom sink that Showcase has left standing water in for three days now, and making a second attempt to screw my newly arrived license plates onto my car. This is one of those simple tasks I mentioned in #7 that I tend to fail at spectacularly.

I made some good karma with my weed dealer yesterday. When he paid me a visit, he was so stoned himself that he left an extra bag of product on my coffee table. I called him up to let him know what happened, knowing that there was a significant possibility that he'd be too lazy to drive back across town to fetch it. Sure enough, he said "it's your lucky day, I guess" and I scored a freebie bag of Juicy Fruit. He was also completely shocked that I'd told him about his mistake.

"You're an honest woman, Change. I appreciate that in a client." he quipped in his lazy surfer-speak.

Showcase is playing on a kickball team in Hollywood. His second game is tonight and I just may show up with a sign and some pom-poms. Last week, in the first out of the first inning of the first game of the kickball season, Showcase was standing out in left field when the ball was kicked high and long. It was coming straight at him. And he thought, "am I really going to fuck this up? On the first out of the first inning of the first game of the kickball season?" Is that my destiny?"

He caught the ball. And the crowd went wild. Well, not really but you know what I mean.

Showcase described it as the proudest moment of his athletic career. "It was the first time in over 10 years that I voluntalily participated in athletic activities and I didn't walk away wanting to cry. Which I usually do."

Unfortunately, the team lost anyway. But Showcase looked good in the process, which is really all that matters when the whole team is comprised of narcissistic Hollywood actors, D-people, and hangers-on. A certain sometimes-poker-playing C-list celebrity is on Showcase's team, but he didn't show up to the game. I wonder if they'll kick him off if he flakes again tonight or if quasi-celebrity status waives that rule?

Darfur Charity Tournaments

Cross-posted from my PokerWorks blog:

There are two major poker events on the horizon that will benefit the war-torn region of Darfur in the Sudan. Nearly half a million people have been killed there over the last three years including thousands upon thousands of children.

For those with smaller bankrolls, Poker Stars is hosting the Ocean’s Thirteen Darfur Charity Tournament next Sunday, May 27th, at 12:30 PM PDT/3:30 PM EDT. Details below from the PokerStars Blog:

Buy-in: $10 plus rebuys

Prizes: Top 4 receive tickets to June 5th premiere in Los Angeles plus 2 night’s hotel and $2k for travel/spending.
Top 18 receive autographed copy of “Oceans 13” DVD.

These tournaments are special re-buy tournaments - the entire prize pool will be matched by PokerStars and donated to the Darfur relief efforts. At the conclusion of the event the prize pool, which will be temporarily awarded to the 1st place finisher, will be removed from the 1st place finisher’s account.

The amount will then be matched by PokerStars and sent forward to the Darfur charity. Thank you for participating - go re-buy crazy! – it’s for a good cause. Good luck!

Proceeds from the PokerStars Darfur Tournament benefit Not on Our Watch.

If you can’t make the tournament, it’s still possible to donate funds. Simply make a player-to-player transfer to the PokerStars account “NOOW,” which is set up to take additional donations.

For players with larger bankrolls, Ocean’s Thirteen star Don Cheadle and WSOP bracelet winner Annie Duke have collaborated to raise public awareness of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur with the Ante Up for Africa Charity Tournament to be held at the Rio on July 5 at 4 PM, on the eve of the WSOP Main Event.

The tournament has a $5,000 buy-in and will benefit the International Rescue Committee and The Enough Project. In addition to pro poker players like Duke, Erik Seidel, Clonie Gowen, Howard Lederer, Phil Gordon, Joe Hachem, and Andy Bloch, actors and sports stars including Ben Affleck, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Jennifer Tilly, Matt Damon, and Charles Barkley are expected to play. A star-studded after-party will follow at the Voodoo Lounge at 10 PM for all tournament participants.

Please do your best to support these events and spread the word.

Sweet Dreams, Melinda

Boooooooooooooooooooo!!

I say booooo to you, America. Booooo because the beat-box will be record-scratching his way through the American Idol finals. While part of me shakes my fist at the sky asking "is this the best you can give us, America? Beat-Box Blake?" the rest of me begrudgingly understands that Beat-Box Blake is unfortunately what America likes and America wants and Idol's young, female fan base is much more likely to buy a Blake Lewis album than a Melinda Doolittle album. It's the young, female fanbase's moms and aunts and older sisters that will be lining up for Doolittle's (inevitable) disc and concert tour.

My own mother wrote me this morning so furious about the results that the email practically burst into flames. "If that beat-box idiot wins next week I am done with the show." she seethed.

There is one major upside to Doolittle's ouster. It means Jordin Sparks will win.

I've long thought that Jordin was the most "marketable" choice among the three diva girls, all of whom possess incredible vocal gifts. Jordin, though is the one that has the whole package-- talent, charisma, relatability, and style. And at only 17 years old, that core audience of young girls? They're her peers. She's both a contemporary and a role model to them. She's proof that someone just like them can go out there and make it. She'll inspire thousands upon thousands of tone-deaf auditions for seasons to come.

Enter the Hollywood machine. Showcase wants to make me a prop bet that if Jordin wins, she will lose at least 25 pounds within her first year off the show. I'm having a hard time picking a side, because I'm certain her dozens of new handlers will all but insist on it. So it's a numbers game, really. A sad certainty, because I think she's gorgeous the way she is.

Melinda will certainly cut an album and have a slew of doors opening for her in the music industry in the months to come. I just hope she's smart enough to hook up with some good producers who will encourage her to stay true to her Gladys Knight-inspired soul sound instead of forcing a more commercial pop aesthetic on her. I mean, has anyone heard Katharine McPhee's atrocious album that came out a few months back? Those achy-bluesy vocals I so loved from her on Idol have been replaced with slick harmonies and overdubs on dime-a-dozen pop tracks.

So we have only one week left of Idol before I'll have to get some new television obsession to fill the void until next January. And just in time for the World Series of Poker. I leave L.A. for a two month sojurn in Las Vegas in 12 days time. Showcase is already showing signs of serious anxiety over having no one to entertain but himself over the summer. I hope he figures out a way to take a few days off and get out there because it's been far too long since we got hammered and played blackjack all night at O'Shea's.

American Idol Wednesdays: The Semi-Finals

I look forward to the penultimate episode of American Idol each season perhaps even more than the finale. Gone are the celebrity mentors and the "theme of the week" and we're left with three popstar hopefuls that are all likely on their way to record deals, regardless of whether they win or lose the competition's final vote. Last season's final three-- Taylor Hicks, Katharine McPhee, and Elliot Yamin-- all currently have discs on the charts, and I don't think this season will be any different, with a final three that each can claim a strong, rabid teenage fan base.

The semi-finals can also be an excellent showcase of each contestant's range, with each Idol performing three songs: one chosen by the judges, one by the producers, and one of their own choice. This is IT, people! If there ever was a time to pull out all the stops, it's now.

So, what became of our final three?

JUDGE'S CHOICE

Jordin Sparks: "Wishing on a Star"

Simon Cowell chose Jordin's song and I was temporarily excited about his choice... until she turned out a totally boring verse. Sure she can sing it, but we all know by now that she can sing anything. She sang Gloria Estefan and Bon Jovi for Christ's sake! Jordin redeemed herself on the bridge, but it wasn't enough for me. This was a very "safe" performance... and baby, we're done with "safe." Not to mention that for all the chirping Simon does about Jordin being "old-fashioned," well, this wasn't exactly a contemporary song choice, was it?

Blake Lewis: "Roxanne"

For me it was on the more bearable end of the continuum of Beat-Box Blake performances (and thankfully no Ro-o-o-o-o-x-a-a-a-a-anne beat-boxing) but still unspectactular. Paula made a pretty good song choice for him in terms of it being a recognizable, crowd-pleasing piece, but on the flip side, the challenging vocal only drew attention to the fact that he's by far, the weakest remaining singer. And that godawful vest he was wearing looked like one of those heavy bibs they put over you at the dentist's office when they take the x-rays.

Melinda Doolittle: "I Believe in You and Me"

The Showcase Verdict: " well, that was boring as hell."

I have to disagree. I mean, can anyone else in this competition build a song emotionally like Melinda does every single time she steps onstage? I love that Randy threw it at her for the extreme difficulty, just to see if she could handle it. While most girls would try to sing that song and end up looking like total impostors, for her it was simply effortless. It was moving, affecting, and a great way for her to start out the night.

PRODUCER'S CHOICE

Jordin Sparks: "She Works Hard for the Money"

I didn't like this song choice nearly as much as I liked her blue silk halter top. Yeah, Jordin put it out there with her always-spectacular vocals, but the aesthetic felt very karaoke to me. Perhaps that was just a product of the arrangement? Dammit I wanted Jordin to WOW me tonight. And I'm not wowed... when am I gonna be wowed?

Blake Lewis: "This Love"

Do I ever hate this song. It's pure schlock pop. One of the many reasons why I'm never going to be a Blake Lewis fan is that crap like this is squaIrely in his wheelhouse. I just can't stand that kind of music, and whatever the outcome of Idol, Blake's gonna make that kind of record. I hate the slip 'n slide wannabe Moonwalk dance moves too. And that white hoodie blazer thing goes on my don't list along with the x-ray bib vest.

Melinda Doolittle: "Nutbush City Limits"

The Showcase Verdict: "She literally needs to whip out her titty right now."

Shit like this is what Melinda needed to be doing for WEEKS to escape the whole "consistency curse." I thought it was the performance of the season for her. This is exactly her aesthetic. Positioning herself as a contemporary Tina Turner is what could make her a huge pop star and seriously separate her from the R&B pack. I mean, two bars in I knew this one was going to kick ass. Gave me chills. And, like we saw in Bon Jovi week-- it is far easier to put a pernsonal stamp on a song that is not an instantly recognizable classic. Melinda struck gold with this and I think it was her ticket to the finals.

CONTESTANT'S CHOICE

Jordin Sparks: "I Who Have Nothing"

It's actually not that uncommon that contestants trot out a repeat on semi-final night. Katharine McPhee certainly did it successfully last season with "Over the Rainbow." This song was perhaps Jordin's season highlight. And just like the first time I heard it, I was completely rapt. So was Showcase. I don't think we said a single snarky word to each other during the song. And it takes a lot to shut us up! After two solid but unspectacular performances to start the show, I think Jordin knocked this one just far enough out of the park to earn herself a spot in the final two.

Then there was that weird banter about a Rolls-Royce and the 1970's at the end? Oh snap, that was Jordin giving Cowell some shit about his "old-fashioned" song choice for her!

Blake Lewis: "When I Get You Alone"

You know what? When all is said and done... at least Blake got to beat-box with Sir Mix- a -Lot. Am I completely tone deaf or did this song have NO melodic line? I don't know much about Robin Thicke's music, but if it's all like this... I'll pass. I lost a prop bet to Showcase on this one-- he said Blake would beat box again, I said no... and then he pulled it out in the final 16 bars. Bastard! Yeah, yeah everyone loved it and I didn't what else is new... more Melinda please!

Melinda Doolittle: "I'm a Woman"

Aiyah... badddd outfit. Haaaaate the vest and matching pants. But does it really matter? Like Jordin, Melinda went with a season-highlight repeat and she brought the house down with this Lieber & Stoller classic. We really got the whole "spectrum of Melinda" tonight-- balladeer, funk-soul goddess, R&B master. She took her game to a whole new level, and I think she's the only one who can sleep tonight knowing she's in the finals.

This week's Performance Rankings (week of 5/15):

1. Melinda Doolittle
2. Jordin Sparks
3. Beat-Box Blake

Overall Rankings:

1. Jordin Sparks (it's tough, but she juuuust edges Melinda overall for me)
2. Melinda Doolittle
3. Beat Box Blake

In trouble: Beat-Box Blake

Safe: Melinda Doolittle

Will be voted off: Blake will beat-box into the sunset and an inevitable record deal

Current Bodog odds on the remaining contestants:

Jordin Sparks: 5-6
Melinda Doolittle: 3-2 (a small edge, but a great line for all you degenerates)
Blake Lewis: 7-2

**UPDATES**

(Potential Idol spoilers below... consider yourself warned!)

10:38 AM - Dial Idol has our final three in a statistical tie with Melinda leading the pack. Jordin is second, but only separated from Beat-Box by 0.6%. It's gonna be a squeaker... but it looks like Beat-Box is on his way home.

7:12 PM - Just spoiled myself for the broadcast and all I have to say is this: you should always fade my picks. This is a dark day for American Idol...