Phil Ivey Suing Full Tilt, Won't Play WSOP

A dramabomb did detonate on the first day of the 2011 World Series of Poker. It just wasn't the one anyone expected.

For weeks, the poker community has been speculating as to which members of Team Full Tilt would show up at the WSOP and whether or not they would don the red and white patches that have become synonymous with their public personae. Although former Full Tilt president Howard Lederer did return to the United States a few days ago to attend to a personal matter (his mother's memorial service), most folks in media row believe he wouldn't dare show his face inside the Rio until a plan was in place for Full Tilt's U.S. customers to be paid out. Other Team Full Tilters, however, weren't quite as concerned about potential face-to-face confrontations at the Rio with angry players. I spotted a patchless Phil Gordon early this afternoon at the Bad Beat on Cancer booth. A few hours later I saw John Juanda in the satellite area and he was wearing a patch. The $25,000 heads-up event that began at 5 p.m. today was littered with red pros, many of them logoed up including Erick Lindgren, Patrik Antonius, Brandon Adams, Huck Seed, David Benyamine and Juanda. Lederer didn't play, of course. Neither did Chris Ferguson or Andy Bloch. But the most glaring absence was Phil Ivey. This is a man with some serious bracelet bets, not to mention a solid favorite against the field.

As Dutch blogger Remko "happyfreaked" Rinkema wrote on his Twitter account earlier today, "Biggest upset of the first day is obviously Phil Ivey not showing up. Is he out for the summer?"

Turns out, he is.

As the first round of the $25k drew to a close, Ivey posted a statement on his official Facebook page that ignited a frenzy. Although the veracity of the statement was briefly in doubt, it was quickly confirmed by the Entities at Wicked Chops Poker via a conversation with Ivey's manager. Released in six parts, here is the complete text:

For many years, I have been proud to call myself a poker player. This great sport has taken me to places I only imagined going and I have been blessed with much success. It is therefore with deep regret that I believe I am compelled to release the following statement.

I am deeply disappointed and embarrassed that Full Tilt players have not been paid money they are owed. I am equally embarrassed that as a result many players cannot compete in tournaments and have suffered economic harm.

I am not playing in the World Series of Poker as I do not believe it is fair that I compete when others cannot. I am doing everything I can to seek a solution to the problem as quickly as possible.

My name and reputation have been dragged through the mud, through the inactivity and indecision of others and on behalf of all poker players I refuse to remain silent any longer. I have electronically filed a lawsuit against Tiltware related to the unsettled player accounts. As I am sure the public can imagine, this was not an easy decision for me.

I wholeheartedly refuse to accept non-action as to repayment of players funds and I am angered that people who have supported me throughout my career have been treated so poorly.

I sincerely hope this statement will ignite those capable of resolving the problems into immediate action and would like to clarify that until a solution is reached that cements the security of all players, both US and International, I will, as I have for the last six weeks, dedicate the entirety of my time and efforts to finding a solution for those who have been wronged by the painfully slow process of repayment.

In a word, (well, actually two,) holy shit.

Ivey's page was immediately flooded with supportive statements from players and fans. It's the first official word anyone's heard regarding the payout situation from a member Team Full Tilt, who have all supposedly been muzzled by lawyers. Ivey, no doubt, has a substantial sum of his own money tied up on the site. The seven-figure-per-month dividend checks have stopped coming. So why not file a lawsuit? Not only is it a good PR move to do Bill Clinton's "I feel your pain" routine and align himself with the disgruntled U.S. players, but he's also one of the (very) few Full Tilt Pros who can actually continue to support himself in the lifestyle he's grown accustomed to by playing poker. Ivey loves the game, he'll put in the hours, and he'll take on anyone. Did Howard Lederer cart his bags of money over to Bellagio and step up to the plate in high-stakes cash games over the last couple of years? Of course not. And why would he? Lederer is smart enough to understand that at this point, he lacks any sort of edge in those lineups.

Ivey's statement, however, was not the only drama circling Team Full Tilt today. After losing his Round 1 match to David "Bakes" Baker in the $25k, 2010 WSOP-Europe Main Event champ James Bord hung out on the rail and waited for John Juanda to finish his match before confronting him with a barrage of obscenities. I believe the words "thieving prick" and "disgusting human being" were tossed around before Bord threatened to attack Juanda in the parking lot. Security intervened, and the two were physically separated.

It will be interesting in the next few days to see if similar confrontations pop up. I'm never one to condone violence, but people are angry, quite a few are broke, and after 45 days without moving even a small step closer to returning player balances, they want answers. They're mad as hell, they're not going to take it anymore, and today, Phil Ivey was effectively canonized as their patron saint. Could other Full Tilters fall in step? Yeah... somehow I doubt that. The situation, however, is reaching UB proportions and will grow worse by the day inside this building until someone from Full Tilt other than a low-level PR monkey steps up and starts communicating.

Slow news day, huh?

**Update**

11:45pm: Pauly, Benjo and I recorded a Tao of Pokerati podcast on the Ivey/Juanda drama. Check out Episode 2: Ivey suing Full Tilt and Juanda harassed.

Darkness on the Edge of Town

I'm seated on a camping chair in the cement-and-gravel backyard of my seventh Las Vegas residence in six summers. It's so perfectly clear and pleasant outside I could almost weep. I hear a bird chirp and it reminds me of the dead one Pauly found next to the back wall only minutes after we arrived. I know that there's another bird carcass around the corner beyond the padlocked fence painted a shade on the lighter end of the cream-to-adobe spectrum that covers nearly every square inch of surface, man-made or not, in the Las Vegas Valley. Taking a look at our parched surroundings on the edge of town it's not difficult to figure out their cause of death.

The din of Los Angeles had been eating at my patience over the last six weeks I spent there-- the leaf blowers, circular saws, and car alarms, the bickering couple upstairs and their boundlessly energetic kitten, the can fairies pillaging the dumpster outside our bedroom window, and the relentless crush of traffic, whatever the hour. It's quiet out here, save for the goat that woke Pauly and Benjo early this morning. Apparently a few of them live in the rogue structure behind our subdivision in a fenced-off square of land. I'm enjoying the brief silence before turning my life over to the World Series of Poker for the sixth straight year less than 24 hours from now.

Although I know my frame of mind will undoubtedly change over the next few days, there's just something more zen about my outlook as I approach the Series. I'd say about 90% of that is due to the fact that I'm no longer a slave to live updates. What I will be doing at the WSOP in terms of media will reveal itself in the coming days and I will certainly be playing a lot more than I have been able to in past years. I look forward to being able to write within a different structure, one far more akin my first WSOP than the five that followed. And as usual, if you're snapped wearing a heinous outfit-- it's not slander if it's the truth!

I keep going back to a conversation I had in a bar back in Los Angeles earlier this year.

"Something big is going to happen at the WSOP this year, I can feel it," she said.

I didn't believe her at the time. The media veteran in me won out. But it was also two months before Black Friday.

I'll see you at the Rio.

Jack Tripper Stole My Dog: Available Now on Amazon

What does the title mean? Read it to find out.

Who publishes two books in a year?

Pauly, that's who! I'm all at once flabbergasted, inspired, and proud of my beloved.

While Lost Vegas covered his real-life experiences over four years at the World Series of Poker, Jack Tripper Stole My Dog is (thankfully) a work of fiction. You'll understand why I said "thankfully" when you hit Chapter 5. The tale of Russian cab driver Ivan, the women in his life and the passengers he ferries around Manhattan, JTSMD also paints a portrait of New York City one year post-9/11. It's funny, it's salacious, it's offensive, it's heartfelt, and it's available now in paperback on Amazon.com. A Kindle/e-pub version is forthcoming and expected in mid-June.

Pauly and I recorded a short podcast where I spoke to him about his creative process and the aforementioned Chapter 5. You can listen to it here.

Click here to buy a copy!

WSOP Flashback: Leaving Los Angeles, 2008

I was told on more than one occasion that the "jail sentence" metaphor I conjured up in this post led to my eventual sacking from a certain media outlet more than two years later (can you concieve of a more bullshit excuse?). Nevertheless, I believe it speaks honestly to what we all feel around this time each year as we prepare to bunker down for seven weeks in Las Vegas.

Desert Calling
originally posted 5/26/2008

In many ways, it's like preparing for a jail sentence. You get your affairs in order, leave sets of instructions, close up the house, give the keys to its caretaker. You say goodbye to your loved ones and warn them that you may not call a lot because the hours are messed up and one day tends to bleed into another as the sun rises and falls, rises and falls over the parched Nevada desert. You know that in a week's time words like Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday will cease to matter; only Day 1, Day 2, Day 3. You know that 2 a.m. will, at some point start to feel like 2 p.m., that meals will happen whenever there is time, and that little time at all will be spent in the scorching outdoors.

Your new home is a room the size of an airplane hangar cooled to the temperature of a refrigerator and you'll spend over 500 hours serving time in there over the next seven weeks. You've committed no crime, but you're a repeat offender. You know the consequences, you understand how punishing the grind will be. But you're still drawn there. Drawn to the lights in the desert. Drawn to the clatter of chips and the promise of fortune and the patches of darkness that lurk around every corner of the city. Year after year. Summer after summer. Three of them now.

The sun, unforgiving. The heat, persistent. Oppressive. Unfathomably dry. The valley, overflowing with identical tract houses in various states of construction or foreclosure. The roads, newer and wider the further you drive away from the highway. Mile upon mile of chain restaurants, discount superstores, anonymous office parks, and subdivision after subdivision after subdivision. The Strip, it's grimy sidewalks sizzling, overflowing with tourists from California, from St. Louis, from North Carolina, from Utah, from London from Stockholm from Melbourne. They come to escape. To gamble. To get married. To find Elvis. They come to see America. They come seeking a dream. They come seeking a quick fix. They leave and come back, leave and come back. But always come back. They always come back. I always come back.

We wonder how we got here, how any of us got here, and why, after all we know, we continue to return. On every drive through the desert I wonderwhat were those slings and arrows of fate that turned me off Wilshire Boulevard and onto this two-lane highway?

24 hours. To pack, to prepare. To plot. To brace. To sleep. To inhale those final lungfulls of ocean air and enjoy the comfort of a cool breeze.

The lights in the desert are calling. I have to answer.

A Hairy Situation

Dear Juniors,

It this were any other restaurant, I probably wouldn't be writing this letter. But the fact is, I grew up around the corner from here and have been a customer since I could walk. I blew out candles on birthday cakes from your bakery. My parents used to bring home your chicken soup where I was sick. I've never, ever sent a plate back at Junior's and as my boyfriend (and dinner companion) mentioned to me, he's never seen me send a plate back at any restaurant we've patronized in the five years we've been together. Yesterday, however, while grabbing an early dinner at your establishment, I had to send my turkey burger back not once, but twice. It's pretty easy to tell when a turkey burger has been undercooked. The inside shouldn't be pink at all. And two bites in to this half-pound monster, a swath of chewy, pink, uncooked meat greeted me.

So I sent it back. My waitress was quite gracious about it and returned about five minutes later with the same patty, re-grilled, on a fresh bun. Unfortunately, although the outside was nearly blackened by now, the center was still not cooked through. So I sent it back again, and with my boyfriend now finished with his meal, I asked for the burger to be wrapped up to go. The waitress presented me with a fresh one and asked if I wanted to check it before I left. I said I trusted her. Big mistake.

When I returned home twenty minutes later and sat down at my dining table to finally eat my dinner, I found not one, but several black hairs inside the burger, which I clearly wasn't eating now, but for which I'd still paid about $20 when tax and tip are figured in.

I don't wish anything in return except for the money my boyfriend paid for the meal I was never able to eat. You also might want to look into the gentleman operating your grill around 6:00 pm on Sunday, who was apparently so offended at my criticism of his culinary skills that he decided to cover my turkey burger with hair from some unspeakable orifice.

It really does sadden me that after more than 30 years, I may never eat here again. And after reading this, I think you can understand why I've lost my appetite for Juniors.

Sincerely,

change100

P.S.-- And to the man who put hair in my burger I say this-- don't you know that shit doesn't fly anymore in the age of social media?

Media Banned from Playing WSOP Bracelet Events

Via a tweet from Lee "@Chingster23" Davy it leaked out this morning that an "unwritten" WSOP rule forbids credentialed members of the media from playing WSOP bracelet events.

"Just been informed by WSOP that I cannot play in a WSOP event if I am also going to carry out Media work. Just saved myself a lot of money," he wrote.

I guess the year of the poker media is over, at least when it comes to World Series events.

I've spent the last five summers doing nothing but promote the WSOP. I've spent every June evening since 2006 grinding out live updates, and now the powers that be are telling me and everyone else who has worked their ass off on media row that their money is no longer welcome in the Amazon Room. And in such a circuitous way. When, exactly were we going to find out about this "unwritten rule" had Chingster23 not brought it to everyone's attention? Before or after we picked up our credentials three weeks from now?

Playing in a WSOP event is the highlight of the summer for many members of the poker media. It's a needed reprieve from the grind of reporting and a rare opportunity to live in the world we spend our days writing about from the sidelines. Sure, Harrah's will gladly take the media's money when they charge us $8 for a stale pizza at 1 AM, but should they want to plunk down a grand to take a shot at the dream they are really selling-- a bracelet-- that money is no longer welcome. Or, as Pauly said to me a few minutes ago, "Poker is a game of skill. They don't want you to play that. But they have no problem with you donking off your paycheck at craps or pai gow. Or in my case, they'll gladly take your sports bets."

A lot of us in the media rely on poker to supplement our income. We make barely enough to get by as it is. Even those lucky to have jobs or a few paying freelance clients have seen our paychecks shrink up significantly over the last year. Now, with online poker no longer an option for those of us living in the U.S. (as well as the foreign media working at the WSOP-- they can't play from Vegas either) we're left to make that money up in live games. I know I was planning on grinding a lot more this summer to cover my expenses. Now I'll just have to take my business across the street to the Venetian.

Oh, wait! But satellites and cash games are OK! Hold on... I can play a satellite for a WSOP event, but I can't play the event itself? What the fuck am I supposed to do with my lammers then, since selling them is technically illegal? There's another "unwritten rule" for you, or at least that's what I was told both times I was busted by security last year for doing just that-- a practice as old as WSOP satellites themselves. Why, then would I choose to give Harrah's my rake in the cash games when there are plenty of other options?

The WSOP knocked over a hornet's nest with this one. They broke the cardinal rule- don't upset people with pens or a platform. Just as I was getting excited about my annual sojurn to Vegas, that "pilgrimage" Ty Stewart so elegantly described on this morning's media conference call, I'm finding nothing but a bad taste in my mouth.

**Update**

2:42pm: Well that took only ninety minutes. See what happens when the poker media actually works together? I got a voicemail from WSOP pooh-bah Seth Palansky just a bit ago reassuring me that I'd be able to play bracelet events this summer. He followed it up with this two-part tweet from the @wsop account:

"Is it too late to say April Fools Poker Media? (j/k) I screwed up. I hear you. We'll come up with an alternative that lets u do both. Give me a day to vet, but I think there's a way to do this that is more fair. Will provide details as soon as we can, but please rest easy."

Thank you, WSOP for listening. And thank you, poker media for a quick, decisive response.

Follow the Money, Part 2: Where Online Sites Spend Lobbying Dollars

I had some more fun poking around Open Secrets last night, searching out where online poker dollars landed in Washington. Again, this isn't breaking news or intended to be any sort of dramabomb-- it's all publicly available information.

Over the last two years, PokerStars spent $1.26 million on lobbying. They were the seventh-largest donor in the casino/gambling sector in 2010. #1 was Caesar's/Harrah's with $3.9 million and surprisingly, The Poker Players Alliance was #2 with $1.8m. Coming in at #3 with $1.66m was the Interactive Gaming Council, a Vancouver-based trade group representing offshore online gaming entities including PokerStars and Full Tilt.

$900,000 of PokerStars' $1.26 million went to a lobbying outfit headed by former House Majority/Minority Leader and Democratic presidential candidate Dick Gephardt. Beginning in Q3 2009, the Gephardt Group was paid $150,000 per quarter to represent PokerStars on Capitol Hill. They were no small client either; Stars' lobbying dollars represented 9.1% of their $6.59 million take in 2010, tying them for first place with Peabody Energy among the Gephardt Group's clients when it came to reported billing dollars in 2010. Despite the hefty paychecks they received over the last six quarters, the Gephardt Group has never commented publicly on their work for PokerStars, nor do they explicitly list PokerStars as a client on their company website next to their other "stand-up" clients like Goldman Sachs, United Healthcare, and the Government of Turkey. Instead, Rational Entertainment Enterprises, the name of Stars' holding company, is listed. PokerStars is also referred to as "Rational Entertainment Enterprises (on behalf of PokerStars) in the Gephardt Group's lobbying disclosure paperwork filed with the House and the Senate.

So...although Dick Gephardt doesn't mind taking PokerStars' money, he sure seems ashamed to be in business with them. For $150,000 a quarter, he should be wearing a .net patch every time he does a stand-up on CNN.

The remaining $360,000 of Stars' lobbying dollars went to the St. Louis-based law firm of Stinson, Morrison & Hecker at the rate of $60,000 per quarter. Based on the information available on OpenSecrets, PokerStars appears to be their largest client when it comes to government affairs. Of the $1.21 million they reported from clients for lobbying in 2010, Stars represented almost 30% of their receipts. Second-largest was a New Zealand-based dairy company called Fonterra. The firm's other clients primarily lie in the energy, agriculture, and oil & gas sectors. The only lobbyist listed was Jane E. Duecker. Her bio on the firm's website reveals that she is a former assistant attorney general for the State of Missouri and served as the Chief of Staff to the Governor from April 2003 to December 2004. Although it lists her work in a variety of industries, gaming is not mentioned.

PokerStars wasn't the only major online site that engaged in lobbying activities. PartyGaming spent $2,155,000 on lobbying over the last four years: $1.65 million in 2007, $170,000 in 2008, $60,000 in 2009, and $240,000 in 2010. Here's where it really gets colorful-- $1.35 million of Party's 2007 lobbying dollars went to a company called Avatar Enterprises based in Collinsville, IL. Avatar was run by Gary Frears, a man who has been in trouble with various state, municipal, and federal agencies since the early 1980s. After a stint as a fixer for the Illinois Department of Transportation, Frears worked for the Democratic Party's national finance committee before moving into his own business deals. After securing a $13.4 million from the State of Illinois to build a Holiday Inn in the city of Collinsville in 1982, Fears defaulted on the loan and never repaid it, leaving the state hanging on $31 million in outstanding principal and interest by 1995. The state ultimately sold the property at a loss in 2007. Fears moved to Florida in the mid-1990s and began investing in Indian casinos. Almost every deal was fraught with drama and ended acrimoniously.

Frears turned to lobbying in the mid-2000s, acting as the registered foreign agent for the Moroccan government in addition to his work for PartyGaming. Avatar also received a payment of $606,048 from Russel DeLeon, husband of PartyGaming founder Ruth Parasol. The IRS is also after Frears, seeking over $300,000 in income taxes dating back to 2001 from international currency transactions he made with Deutsche Bank. More information on his tangled web can be found in this article: Fears and Lobbying in Collinsville.

So, to recap--along with the (completely toothless) PPA, two of the major forces repping online poker interests on Capitol Hill over the last few years were Dick "Don't tell anyone I'm working the pro-gaming lobby" Gephardt and a notoriously shady motherfucker in trouble with the IRS.

Still like our chances for legalization/regualtion?

Black Friday Fallout

It's lunchtime in Los Angeles and I'm ready to pour a cocktail since I was just able to cash out my life savings PokerStars account. Although perhaps I should put down the shaker until the check clears. Now that the reality of Black Friday has sunk in for me and future plans are being hastily assembled, one other stream of fallout is beginning to come to light.

I miss playing. I really do. Watching sporting events just isn't the same without six-tabling Super Turbos. I was just starting to get decent at Badugi. And opening up the Womens' Sunday tournament was really a mistake. I'd personally vowed to win that fucker at least once by the end of 2011.

Anyhow, here's a few of the things I've been reading and some info on how to get your money out of PokerStars.

PokerStars cashouts now available for Americans: We're obviously not out of the woods yet, but I let out a huge sigh of relief when I heard PokerStars was starting to process cashouts from U.S. players. I first heard about it from Kevmath, and a quick listen to the Two Plus Two podcast confirmed it. The cashout methods available to Yanks depends on the balance you have on the site. If it's $2,500 or less, you can get a paper check. $50,000 and over requires a wire transfer. With $2,500-$49,999 the only option available is something called a "direct bank transfer." You'll need to provide both your bank account number as well as the ABA routing number, which is typically found on the bottom left of your paper checks. Some folks have already reported that the DBT worked for them. Count me among them-- after a brief hiccup where I couldn't enter my entire account number the transfer finally went through. My remaining T$ and step tickets were also converted to cash at 100 cents on the dollar.

No 'mo rodeo: File this under inevitable. News started leaking today that former WSOP commissioner Jeffrey Pollack is stepping down from Professional Bull Riders, Inc. (PBR) to focus on his new role as Chairman of Annie Duke's Federated Sports & Gaming league. FS&G looks like it might be one of the few beneficiaries of the events of Black Friday, now that Full Tilt has done away with the competing Onyx Cup.

Forbes op-ed by Gary Loveman: Yup, he's the sad-faced suit telling you to seek help for your gambling problem in those commercials aka the CEO of Harrah's. He did, however, pen a pretty solid piece in Forbes today that put forth a far clearer argument for legalization and regulation than the PPA ever has. Say it with me-- tax revenue, job creation, game security, consumer protection. Sure there was a bit of underlying "Haha! We gotcha Stars and Tilt! Here we come!" bubbling beneath the surface, but did you expect anything less?

I also enjoyed Matt Matros' op-ed in the Washington Post. Looks like the two of us have similar plans for the immediate future.

dmoongirl sounds off: I'd just started reading dmoongirl's CardRunners blog a few weeks ago. She's a 26 year-old married mom of a toddler who has been an online pro for 6 years, playing $25/$50 6-max NLHE. A week ago she was comfortably supporting her family and filming interviews for the upcoming poker documentary Boom. Now she's out of a job.

Moving Forward, Not Starting Over: Shamus wrote about the Pregame.com podcast I did discussing Black Friday and mused on his own future plans.

And finally, Pauly checks in from Peru, where he penned this stunner about his spiritual journey at Machu Picchu. Check out Cusco - Ollantaytanbo - Aguas Calientes - Machu Picchu.

Follow the Money: Online Poker and Political Contributions

So much money...where did it get us?

Back when I worked in the film industry, a favorite pastime among junior D-people was to play around on OpenSecrets.org, running names of producers, directors, executives, and A-list actors to see where they were spending their political dollars. In the wake of Black Friday, I pulled up the site over my morning coffee and decided to check out how much lining-of-the-pockets the American members of Team Full Tilt did over the last four years (2006-2010). Although this is nothing close to breaking news (it's all publicly available information), the results are pretty interesting.

Howard and Susie Lederer (NV): $355,635

Andrew Bloch (NV and MD): $176,992

Chris Ferguson (NV): $109,100

Phil Ivey (NV): $92,470

Erik and Ruah Seidel (NV): $91,800

Phil Gordon (NV and WA): $49,900

Jennifer and Marco Traniello (NV): $40,800

John Juanda (CA): $17,200

Erick Lindgren (NV): $12,000

Allen Cunningham: $0

Mike Matusow: $0

Tom Dwan: $0

Couldn't find anything on those last three, at least on Open Secrets. But for the nine individuals listed above them, that's a grand total of $945,897 of dirty dirty Full Tilt money over three election cycles.

I expected as much from the FTP pros with percentages. But what about the other industry big-guns/sponsored pros/guys with deep pockets? Here's a few more names I looked up:

Leon Black, Founder, Apollo Management (NY): $296,250

Barry Greenstein (CA): $76,100

Joe Sebok (CA): $51,700

Rafe Furst (CA): $50,050

Daniel Negreanu (NV): $41,200*

Doyle Brunson (NV): $40,800

Dennis Phillips (IL): $30,700

John Pappas, Executive Director, Poker Players Alliance (DC): $25,250

Tom McEvoy (NV): $18,700

Ray Bitar (CA): $17,500**

Vanessa Rousso (FL): $17,450

Annie Duke (CA): $15,000

Joe Cada (MI): $13,500

Mori Eskandani, Producer, PokerPROductions (NV): $10,400

Phil Hellmuth and Katherine Sanborn Hellmuth (CA): $10,000***

Perry Friedman (NV): $10,000

Greg Raymer (NC): $7,300

Barry Shulman (NV): $4,000

Steve Wynn (NV): $3,000

*= although he's a Canadian citizen, he has permanent U.S. residency (aka a green card)

**= yup, THAT Ray Bitar

***= two checks @ $5,000/ea. to the PPA in July/August 2009

And here's a few Hollywood names for good measure from the same three election cycles:

Alan Horn, COO, Warner Bros. Pictures (CA): $312,296

Steven Spielberg (CA): $243,650

Tom Hanks (CA): $74,700

Jerry Bruckheimer (CA): $53,400

Jeff Bewkes, CEO, Time Warner (NY): $48,900

Sumner Redstone, CEO, Viacom (CA): $33,400

Les Moonves, CEO, CBS Corp. (CA): $17,400

Oprah Winfrey (IL): $2,300

Dr. Pauly, Internet Physician (NY): $420

Jack Tripper Stole My Dog: The Trailer

Pauly impresses and inspires me to no end. Less than a year after putting out his first book, he's back with another. Get ready for Jack Tripper Stole My Dog, hitting the shelves in May! Support independent writers!

Pregame.com Black Friday Podcast

Happy 4/20 America! Smoke 'em if you've got 'em!

Last night I recorded an episode of Pregame.com's Today in Sports Betting with RJ Bell discussing online poker's "Black Friday" from a media perspective. Lord knows poker players love themselves some sports betting (look who I live with)and the reverse is certainly true. RJ himself plays some $5/$10 NL at Bellagio and we discussed the impact Friday's events will have on the media, online grinders, sponsored pros, and live games.

Check it out here-- TiSB: Poker Journalist Recaps the Fallout

The End of the (Poker) World as We Know It

I boarded a plane in Hartford, Connecticut yesterday morning, wearing a PokerStars sweatshirt, carrying a PokerStars player bag, and having just completed a week of work at the PokerStars.net NAPT Mohegan Sun. I was looking forward to a few days off before beginning one of two weeks-long writing assignments for PokerStars and would have probably spend a significant chunk of that time off grinding up a little income on PokerStars (and Full Tilt). As I sat down in my cramped seat on the American Eagle CRJ that would fly me through a thunderstorm to Chicago, where I’d have less than half an hour to change planes due to our late departure, I checked my email and Twitter account one last time.

The world was ending. The online poker world at least.

The U.S. Department of Justice just put thousands of Americans out of work, myself included. I’ve grown accustomed to walking the razor’s edge of a freelancer’s life; I made it through the UIGEA, media downsizing, and budget cut after budget cut. Then, when my financial outlook was at its absolute bleakest, I managed to ship a live tournament and buoy myself through that particular rough patch. Now I’ll be mummified in red tape before I see a significant chunk of that money, not to mention the rest of my bankroll and everything I’ve earned since then. It’s more money than I’ve ever had in one place in my entire 33 years on this planet. And my government is not only withholding that money, but taking away the way I earn my living because they think it’s better that they make my decisions for me.

Where’s my unemployment check? Oh that’s right. I won’t get one, and neither will the thousands of people who just lost their only source of income thanks to my country’s ever-increasing nanny state. And it was so nice of them to wait for April 15, when most of us had already paid our taxes on all that dirtily procured income. As my friend Erica Schoenberg put it on Twitter in the aftermath of the announcement—“I should be able to smoke a blunt, abort a baby, marry a girl and play online poker if I want to. Quit telling me what to do with my $ or body. FU.”

Amen, sister.

Once I was on the ground in Chicago, a flurry of emails ensued between Pauly and I as I tried to see if he could transfer funds out of my Stars account from Peru, where he’s on assignment covering the LAPT Lima. No dice. Although I’m confident that Stars and Tilt will make it right for their players and we will see our account balances returned at some point, I see this taking months, if not longer. This isn’t just money I was going to live on. It's essentially my entire life savings.

After a sprint through O'Hare Airport, I made my connecting flight to Los Angeles. Strangely enough, for the first time in about six months my upgrade cleared at the gate. It seemed like a nod from the universe saying “Here you go sweetie, sorry your life is completely fucked at the moment.” I took my seat in 5A next to Joe Giron, the best photographer in poker, and we commiserated over a couple of Canadian Club and sodas. After a while, we both had to forget about it and temporarily tune out. Without in-flight wifi, we were completely cut off at 35,000 feet. We ate shrimp cocktails, chicken with pasta, and that ice cream sundae everyone envies from the economy seats. I was acutely aware that this might be the last time I'd do so on a flight paid for by PokerStars. Joe watched The Office, while I zoned out to an episode of Survivor.

The tribe has spoken.

I looked up and the Rocky Mountains were out my window. Grand, ancient, and snow-capped. Stunning. I'd been thrown off steep cliffs before and have always managed to climb back up. I couldn't see a way back up from this one, at least not toward poker and at least not in the foreseeable future. Anyway you slice it, I lose. Everyone in the industry loses, be it money, a livelihood, the freedom to do what you love or even your ability to live in the country you pledged allegiance to every morning of grammar school. Online pros are already talking about leaving for Europe, Canada, or anywhere else the Nanny States of America can’t reach them. Men and women who were able to spend more time with their families thanks to the freedom online poker provided will be dusting off resumes and entering the worst American job market in over 80 years.

But oddly enough, as those mountains turned to desert, I found a strange sense of peace. Every time I have been pushed off a cliff, I found something better. Hollywood shoved me off the seventh floor of a Wilshire Blvd. high-rise and I found the love of my life. The UIGEA cost me the job I'd barely begun with Party Poker and I ended up traveling the world several times over for other clients. One of those clients unceremoniously sacked me and it sent me down a path that led not only to my first major live score, but to me revisiting outside writing projects I'd long struggled with. I can only hope that my fall from this particular mountainside will see me finishing them.

I'm lucky enough to have a partner who saw this shitstorm coming a long time ago, and has prepared us well for it. A lot of people aren't as fortunate as we are. Life will go on, online poker will even go on someday when the industry finally figures out the right people to pay off. It doesn't matter to me anyway. I gave up on politics a long time ago. I understand who really pulls the strings in this country and it’s not the president, Congress, or anyone else who is elected to public office. It’s powerful corporate interests, and the online poker industry in the U.S. and everyone who earns a living in it is now collateral damage in the ongoing war between B&M casino entities, online operators, and the federal government.

It was winter when I left here two weeks ago. It's 88 degrees today. My boyfriend is still in Peru and I miss him terribly. And since I can't fire up a super-turbo SNG to blow off some steam, I may even go outside.

American Idol: the Good, the Bad, and the WTF?

Hollywood Week has come and gone and at last, we're left with our Top 24-- 12 guys and 12 girls who will be at the mercy of the American voting public next week. On the whole, I think it's a pretty impressive crop of talent this year and thankfully devoid of the over-population of white guys with guitars that were forced on us last season (now we get white guys on piano and bass!). There's a guy with Tourettes AND Asperger's, two former maids, a lot of dudes who love to screech out high E's and a menagerie of sickly precocious 15-year olds. Here's a look at who I'll be watching...and muting... over the next few episodes:

The Good: Casey Abrams

I am loving this quirky little w00k who crawled out of the San Bernadino Mountains and thankfully found his way to Hollywood. He's a gifted musician, a creative arranger, soulful without being over-the-top, and despite the unfortunate Taylor Hicks comparisons, has a sound that I welcome on Idol. Here's his Hollywood Week solo-- "Georgia on My Mind," self-accompanied on stand-up bass.



The Good: Pia Toscano

This chick was entirely off my radar until the latter stages of Hollywood Week, but as Randy would say, she "blew it out the box" with this solo performance:



The Good: Tim Halperin

Ladies, can we say adorable? Love the soft, lilting timbre in his voice that is sure to make teenage hearts melt across America. Here's his piano-duet version of "Something in the Way She Moves" with Julie Zorilla.



The Bad: Jacob Lusk
Please pass me some of whatever Randy Jackson was smoking when he declared this the best performance in ten seasons of American Idol... and a little of what Lusk injested before this utterly spastic rendition of "God Bless the Child." This year's motto appears to be "scream your face off if you want any attention from the judges" and this "spa concierge" from Compton (huh?) takes it right to heart:

The Bad: Clint Jun Gamboa
Can he please crawl back into the Long Beach karaoke bar he came out of? The guy has a decent voice, but you can barely hear its tone over all the runs and falsetto screeching. No subtlety here, folks. AND he kicked Child Tony G (aka Jaycee Badeaux) out of his group during Hollywood Week for a finishing touch of cutthroat cattiness. Watch him mangle "Georgia on My Mind" if you dare, or are simply an aural masochist:



The WTF?: Thia Megia
I wanted to projectile vomit when rocker Jessica Cunningham was cut and this creature was let in. This disgustingly precocious 15-year old already stunk up the small screen last year on America's Got Talent and rather than allowing her teenybopper vocals to marinate and mature for another year, the judges let her in on her first try rather than giving the nod to Cunningham, who, after making the Top 40 for a second consecutive year, instead had J.Lo ruin her 25th birthday by sending her home. I hereby declare Thia Megia this year's Jasmine Trias. Which means she'll probably stick around a lot longer than we want her to. Her screamy, high school talent show treatment of "You Raise Me Up" starts at the 1:16 mark.

American Idol Discussion on Wicked Chops Podcast

Grrrr. I'm a lil' tilty at the moment after having my wallet assaulted at the DFW currency exchange counter. I'm used to getting screwed when it comes to changing USD for foreign money, but this particular transaction cost me nearly 20% in juice. That's got to be a new record when it comes to my global travels for poker, and it's not exactly an expense that can be reimbursed. Vomit.

Anyhow, the Entities at Wicked Chops Poker were kind enough to invite me on this week's podcast. Along with Chops and WPT's Jeff Holsey, we delve deep into our collective favorite topic-- American Idol-- after discussing Peter Eastgate's "un-retirement" and Ashton Griffin's 70-mile prop bet. Give it a listen here.

If all goes as its supposed to, I should be touching down in Sao Paulo, Brazil in about twelve hours. It's a good thing that the PokerStars Blog team has the best local guide ever, our own Sergio Prado, a SP native who writes the Brazilian blog. Without Serge I'd be in trouble because the only words I know in Portuguese are "good morning," "beer," and "go fuck yourself."

For now I have three hours to kill in the Admirals Club, the first season of Community on my hard drive, and a free drink waiting for me at the bar.

Top 5 American Idol Season 10 Hollywood Week Hopefuls

It's been an excruciating four weeks of audition episodes on American Idol and thankfully, tonight the show moves in to Hollywood Week (and the ensuing cattiness, tears, mental breakdowns, and forgotten lyrics). Before the drama kicks off, I thought I'd take a look back and share with you who I'll be watching closely during the next round. All five (well, actually six with the Gutierrez Bros.) have serious raw vocal talent and also benefitted by having their "stories" (or at least some sort of schtick) featured on the broadcast. There is plenty still to see, but these are my favorites thus far. Feel free to add your own $0.02 in the comments.

Mark Gutierrez, 28 and Aaron Gutierrez, 27
Hometown: Redlands, CA
Audition city: Los Angeles
You'll remember them because: They're the Latin Jonas Brothers.



Lauren Alaina, 15
Hometown: Rossville, GA
Audition city: Nashville
You'll remember her because: Steven Tyler called her "beyondo cute" after she sang his song "Don't Want to Miss a Thing." That and the tragic rainbow tye-dye dress.



Chris Medina, 26
Hometown: Oak Park, IL
Audition city: Milw00kie
You'll remember him because: He wheeled in his brain-damaged fiance to meet the judges.



Casey Abrams,19
Hometown: Idyllwild, CA
Audition city: Austin
You'll remember him because: He carried around a mouth-powered keyboard at auditions called a melodica.



James Durbin, 21
Hometown: Santa Cruz, CA
Audition city: San Francisco
You'll remember him because: He's the dude with Tourette's and Asperger's.

Year of the Poker Media?

Our salaries may be falling and our jobs disappearing, but four of us donks-with-notebooks have managed to score life-changing money in tournament poker over the last couple of months. The latest member of the poker media to accomplish this feat is Remko "happyfreaked" Rinkema, a writer/reporter for PokerNews.nl. Early this morning, Remko finished in fourth place at the Estrellas Poker Tour-Madrid main event for a €26,100 score (about $35,500 USD). For the 99% of you who do not read Dutch, check out this hilarious Babelfish translation of PN.nl's writeup.

Remko is true to his nickname. Despite the hour or the circumstance, the guy almost always has a smile on his face and he has a few freaky tendencies (like his frequent $50 cab rides from the Rio to Naked Fish during dinner breaks at the WSOP, where he consumed copious amounts of Las Vegas' finest sushi). Consider this your invite for a victory baked lobster roll this summer, buddy!

So, to recap. In the last 51 days Kristy Arnett won a MiniFTOPS jersey, Rob "veeRob" Perelman shipped the Hearland Poker Tour-Red Rock, I won a crazy-tall trophy at the PCA Ladies Event and Remko made a televised final table and $35K. Of course we're not the first poker writers to win tournaments-- Ryan won an LAPC event in 2006, Pauly, Dan and Lana won Dream Team Poker in 2009, and Otis shipped a Ceasar's Megastack event last summer. But the confluence of events in such a short period of time does beg the question. Is it the year of the poker media?

A hearty mazel tov to Remko. Who's gonna be next?

New Tao of Pokerati - Super Bowl Wagers

As close to a lock as you're gonna get this Sunday

I taped a guest spot on the quickest gambling podcast on the internet, the Tao of Pokerati. Filling in for Michalski, I sat down with Pauly to discuss my one and only Super Bowl wager.

2011 Super Bowl: Exotic Betting on the Super Bowl with Change100 (4:19) - Pauly and Change100 chat about "exotic" proposition wagering for this year's Super Bowl. And if you're looking for some easy money, then you're in luck because Change100 also shares a tip on how long it will take Christina Aguilera to sing the national anthem.

For more on our week in sports betting, check out Your Hands and Feet Are Mangos, Part 2. My beloved has so corrupted me that I just put a 20-spot on Ivy League basketball. Go Yale?

American Idol, The Rum Diaries, and How I Lit $335 On Fire

I try to live my life with few regrets, but if I have one it's that Showcase and I never got our shit together and auditioned for American Idol while we were still eligible. It's not like I was a lock to make Hollywood Week or anything-- on my best day Simon Cowell would have labeled my musical theater-trained belt "too cabaret"-- but it still would have been a cool footnote in our personal histories. At the end of last season, when Crystal Bowersox lost to Lee DeWyze, I felt like I was done with the show after nine seasons as a faithful viewer, but the ensuing shake-up at the judges' table led me to come back for more. The jury is still out for me when it comes to Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez's contributions to the show since we're still in the cringingly awful audition stages of Season 10, but I will say this. Goddamn I miss Simon Cowell. These folks are just too damn soft.

I'm taping an episode of the Wicked Chops Poker podcast this afternoon where I will no doubt go into more detail about specific contestants with the Entities. So stay tuned for that.

While Pauly took last week to do nothing but drink and bet on basketball (as detailed in his epic post Your Hands and Feet are Mangos), I didn't do much else besides organize my finances (thanks to my PCA score I am now debt-free for the first time since I was 18), hack through red tape at the passport office so I can go on an assignment Brazil in two weeks, and play online poker. I stunk up the joint when it came to MTTs, but thankfully made most of those buy-ins back in cash games and SNGs. Full Tilt's Double Guarantees Week and their new Multi-Entry Tournament shtick was like handing a back of rock to a crackhead, and I hit the pipe hard over the weekend when it came to those suckers.

Yesterday, instead of firing up the laptop, I hit the road and drove out to the Commerce Casino to play in an L.A. Poker Classic prelim. I sang along to the Glee soundtrack all the way down the 10 and as Maridu messaged me yesterday, "I'm pretty sure that's a tell." The structure for the $335 Double Stack NLHE was downright amazing for a low buy-in SoCal tourney, with 10,000 in chips and blinds starting at 25/50. Unfortunately, I got caught up in a very weird hand in the second orbit that cost me a significant chunk.

The UTG player, who seemed like an online guy both in terms of his look and his bet sizing raised to 125. A guy in an Angels hat flat-called and two calling stations in middle position flatted before the action came around to me on the button. I looked down at two kings and three-bet to 700. All four players called. The flop was 9-J-Q rainbow. Ewww. UTG guy checked, Angels hat bet 2,000, and the two calling stations folded. I hated raising, I hated folding, I didn't have any sort of read on Angels hat yet, and I still had UTG guy behind me. I decided to call, and UTG guy called behind me. 9,500 in the pot now. The turn was the 9s, pairing the board and giving it a second spade. UTG guy looked like he might bet, but then decided to check, and Angels hat quickly bet 4,000. I got the hell out, UTG guy shoved and Angels hat snap-called, turning over pocket queens for the nut boat. UTG guy had K-T for the straight and busted out.

After that, I couldn't win a pot to save my life. The one time I did flop top pair with A-T, I got raised on the turn on by the tightest player at the table and let it go. Angels hat was running over the table with his massive stack and was getting smacked in the face with the deck-- he showed pocket aces, pocket kings, quads for fuck's sake. My stack steadily eroded and I ended up check-shoving a 5-3-3 flop with pocket eights only to run into Angels hat's Q-Q. With that, my $335 burst into flames and instead of heading downstairs to ignite a few more hundred dollar bills in the cash games, I decided to drive home before rush hour traffic rendered that task impossible.

Queens against eights again, how about that?

Everything All of the Time (Reprise)

Last July, only a few days before the start of the 2010 WSOP Main Event, I wrote these words for a piece on the Tao of Poker called Everything All of the Time:

"The World Series of Poker is in the midst of an identity crisis. The WSOP needs to decide what it is. Is it the most prestigious festival of poker in the world? Or is it a poker fantasy camp marketed to the masses?"

I was certainly not alone with this viewpoint. I can't tell you how many players I spoke with last summer who were frustrated with the polarized schedule of event buy-ins. If you're a NLHE tournament player you essentially have two choices-- play in one of more than a dozen $1,000 and $1,500 buy-in events with field sizes ranging from 2,500-3,000 players, or play in a $5,000 buy-in event against 800 of the world's top online wizards. Should you choose the $1,500 event and chip up a bit, only to lose one medium-sized pot in the early going, you'll be under 30 big blinds by the start of Level 3. Should you choose the $5k, you'll start with a comfortable 200 big blinds, but once you look around your starting table, you'll shit yourself and suddenly feel far less at ease.

By the end of last year's Series, I concluded that there were three major issues that needed to be addressed when it came to writing the WSOP schedule for 2011. With its release on Monday, it appears that TPTB made a concerted effort to fix one of those three, but completely left the other two alone.

1. Reduce the number of $1,000 and $1,500 NLHE events in favor of more tournaments at the $2,000, $2,500 and $3,000 buy-in level. This didn't happen at all. If you want to play a $2,000-$3,000 buy-in full ring NLHE event at this year's WSOP, you have exactly one opportunity to do so, in Event #36, $2,500 NLHE. There are zero NLHE events at the $2,000 and $3,000 levels, seven with a $1,500 buy-in and five open events with a $1,000 buy-in. The only increases when it came to mid-buy in WSOP events in 2011 will be in limit and mixed game tournaments.

2. Reduce the overall number of events. This didn't happen either, although I didn't expect it to. Try telling any corporation to make less money. 58 bracelets will be awarded in Las Vegas this year, up from 57 in 2010. Commence the "value of a bracelet" discussions in 3-2-1...

3. Figure out a way to give players more manageable tournament hours. This should have happened four years ago, but I'll give credit where credit is due. The plan to play no more than ten levels a day in any given event is going to turn a lot of frowns upside-down in the hallways of the Rio. No more coming back on Day 3 with 37 players and having to play down to a winner, even if the sun sets and rises again during the process. Of course, not knowing how many days each event will actually last means that whatever media outlet ends up getting the "official" tournament reporting contract is going to have a super-fun time scheduling their reporters. Glad I don't have to do that anymore.

It makes total financial sense that the WSOP would want to funnel as many players as possible into the weekend donkaments. Poker tourists are the ones who spend the most additional dollars on Harrahs' properties in the form of rooms, food, and pit gaming. Their sheer numbers also juice up the prize pool, which in turn gives the pros a good reason to show up at the Rio at noon to gamble it up in those fish-infested waters in the hopes of either gathering a big stack early or busting before registration for the 5 pm event closes. That's what those $1k and $1.5 events are. Far more of a gamble than anything else the WSOP offers. Double up quickly or you're toast. Not a whole lot of play for your $1,500 IMO.

If you're a limit or mixed games player, you'll be in hog heaven this summer. There are plenty of events at a variety of buyins to choose from, not to mention the new $2.5K 10-game tournament which will include Badugi for the first time at the WSOP. If you're looking for a deep-stacked NLHE structure at anything less than a $5,000 buy-in, you're kind of SOL at this year's series. If you have $1,500 to spend and are willing to take a big gamble in order to have a shot at a bracelet, then you have at least a dozen opportunities to do so. And if you're a sponsored pro, nosebleed cash gamer, or trustafarian, there are 18 events with buy-ins ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 that are calling your name.

If I play a WSOP event this summer, it will most likely be the Ladies' Event via a satellite. Nothing else on this schedule shows enough value for me and my budding bankroll unless I get my limit hold'em or O8 game in serious shape by June. Again, I don't think I'm alone here. Playing tournaments is all about picking your spots, and my spot is not in a shallow-stacked $1k with a 3,000-deep field. Were there more $2k or $3k events on the schedule, I might be planning a satellite budget. Instead, should I find myself wanting to sling cards for 12 hours, I'll probably be across the street at the Venetian, where I can play three $545 events with a 240 big blind starting stack for the price of one donkament. There won't be a bracelet at the end of that rainbow, but there might be another thirty grand. Which, as I can now tell you from experience, is pretty nice.

Bahama Pauly or Why Rum Is Evil, a semi-live blog

I feel responsible that my boyfriend is addicted to coconut rum and well on his way to becoming a raging alcoholic. After all, I was the one who took him to the islands and got him hooked on the sweet pink nectar that is a Bahama Mama. Pauly makes them just as well as any Atlantis bartender after practicing relentlessly in our kitchen this weekend as the NFL's "final four" played out. Pauly's friend Chicago Bob joined us for the games, watching in agony as his Bears fell to the Packers in the first half of the afternoon. As the Jets-Steelers game approached, Pauly's Bahama Mama consumption soared to new heights, coating his usual hair-pulling and pacing act in a thick layer of high fructose corn syrup and Malibu Rum.

Sunday's highlights:

11:31am: First Bahama Mama is mixed. Shaken, not stirred. Mine is half-strength since I'm grinding Sunday tourneys.

12:24pm: Pauly babbles about how he decided to bet Green Bay because he heard about some multi-million dollar bets on the Packers that were just placed at a Central American sportsbook.

12:30pm: Kickoff in the Bears-Packers game. Bob arrives bearing an entire french apple pie.

1:05pm: I'm already out of three tourneys after running into three sets. It was bound to happen. So I buy into two more.

1:35pm: Jay Cutler gets sacked. Pauly says it's because he has sand in his vag.

2:15 pm: Pauly is on his third B.M. "If we survive the apocalypse, I'll gladly start a sportsbook with you in Costa Rica," he says as Chicago Bob anguishes over the Bears offense.

2:45pm: Some dude none of us has ever heard of is now playing QB for the Bears. Chicago Bob says "We're done."

3:16pm: Out of the Stars $11 rebuy. KK falls to AA. The lesson here is that a four-betting Brazilian always has it. I was taught that lesson last week, but I obviously didn't learn.

3:40pm: Kickoff in the Jets-Steelers game. Pauly is on his sixth Bahama Mama.

4:00pm: Pauly is swaying.

4:20pm: Smoke break. Holy Grail OG. Was grown by a priest and that's no lie.

4:30pm: Jets lay an egg in the first quarter. Why did I become a Jets fan again?

5:07pm: @TexDolly tweets "yep, i've got the Jets…early bed time tonight."

5:15pm: Pauly decides to invade the Ivory Coast. Mumbles something about a power vacuum and needing a cop car to corner the cocoa market. "Once we have the military's cooperation, the cocoa fields are ours!"

5:17pm: Pauly tells Chicago Bob they are buying more cocoa futures in the morning. Surprisingly, Bob does not disagree.

5:20pm: Discussion of cocoa futures reverts back to their plan to manipulate the mortgage market.

5:39pm: Fuckin' A. Out of the $18K Super Stack and the Double Deuce just short of the money in both.

6:05pm: First incidence of Pauly walking outside because he can't handle the pressure.

6:08pm: Pauly walks back inside and immediately bangs into a chair.

6:15pm: With pineapple juice supplies running low, Pauly turn to Newman's lemonade and invents "The Cromartie."

6:29pm:More mortgage fraud discussion. Chicago Bob: "If you're a fruit picker making $14,000 a year and you're kicked out of your $700,000 house after putting no money down, you didn't lose ANYTHING!"

6:41pm: Pauly begins banging his head against a closet door.

6:50pm: The Jets lose. Rapelesberger & Co. advance to the Super Bowl. So this is what it's like to be a Jets fan. Pauly owes Mean Gene a 4x4 and a chocolate shake from In & Out Burger payable at the 2011 WSOP.

7:00 pm: Chicago Bob departs. He leaves behind the entire french apple pie which Pauly instantly dubs "breakfast."

7:21pm: Pauly and I begin discussing what to eat for dinner.

7:25pm: "I don't want to go to In-N-Out Burger. I don't want to sit in the car because the way you drive I might puke."

7:26pm: Pauly decides to speak in a British accent while giving me his order for the local pita joint.

7:40pm: "Oh, THAT'S why I'm wasted. I've only had rum, pineapple juice, and cheese sauce all day!"

7:41pm: Me: You only drink to kill your feelings. Him: Well, I'd better drink more then!

8:15pm: I return to the apartment with our food. Pauly inhales a garlic chicken panini but only makes it halfway through his chicken kebab wrap. We both note the exceptionally phallic shape of said wrap.

8:30pm: Pauly passes out sitting up on the couch while watching a documentary about Nazis narrated by Rob Lowe.

8:45pm: He suddenly wakes, demanding a glass of water, two Motrin, and the remainder of his "penis sandwich" before passing out 30 seconds later.

9:28pm: I conclude that Pauly is out for the night and store his leftover sandwich in the fridge before turning down the bed for him.

9:31pm: "I can't believe you're 86ing me from the living room!" he slurs, followed by "Get me Motrin!"

9:33pm: First snores emanate from bedroom. Awesome. Now I can watch Teen Mom 2.