Tilt-a-Otis

Otis was on tilt from the second I saw him. He dropped a decent amount at the tables last night. He wouldn't tell me the specific details because it was a bad beat. Then he went on super-mega-tilt when I told him about my hallway encounter with Isabelle Mercier.

It was the start of the dinner break and I started walking down the corridor. One of the doors to the tournament room opened up and the captivating Isabelle Mercier appeared before me. That was one of those cool moments that makes this job kick ass. She was in a disguise of sorts and wore a hat and I almost didn't recognize her.

Without hesitation I said hello and went in for a double kiss. And I got it. Pauly 1, Otis 0.

She told me she had 9K in chips at the break. Her hat said "Deal" on it which is a new poker flick coming out that she appeared in. She also wore a sexy "material girl" shirt. Stop by and check out the picture Otis took of Isabelle earlier today.

I walked back into the media room with a shit-eating grin on my face. I gloated to Otis about the double kiss.

"I hate you," he said without looking up from his laptop.

"I've been getting that a lot today," I muttered rubbing my cheek in the spot where Isabelle had just kissed me.

At dinner break, Otis and I wandered off to the Hooker Bar and we ran into Grubby. He followed along with us to the bar. The bartender remembered us from last year. Grubby went Lebowski on us and ordered a White Russian. Otis had his standard Corona and I got a Red Stripe.

We bullshited for the rest of dinner break. On our way back to the media room which takes about six minutes to walk from the Hooker Bar to the actual WSOP tournament area, Lacey Jones and Lynette Chan walked towards us. The last time I saw both of them was at the Playboy Mansion a couple of months ago. They told me that they both busted. Lacey pushed with a straight and a nut flush draw and caught blanks.

Lynette pointed at my Red Stripe.

"I see that you are working hard," she joked.

"Hey I wrote 2,500 words today," I blurted out.

They both decided that number was high enough to allow me to drink on the job.

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I was talking to Friedman in the hallway when Andy Black sauntered past us. He wore a backwards red Full Tilt cap and smoked a cigarette.

"You boys gettin' on all right?" he said in his Irish accent as a couple of tourists stopped and got excited about their random poker pro sighting.

Andy explained to us how he was disappointed with his performance over the first couple of days. He wanted to get off to a hot start at this year's WSOP but faltered.

"Tell me how the fuck I pissed away 900,000 in chips last night?" he asked.

He started the final table of the Tournament of Champions as the chipleader and made a bad move with K-9s against Mike Matusow's K-K.

Andy pulled out a fistful of $1,000 chips out of his pocket inquired about the cash games. I summed it up in one word, "Juicy."

"Well then, I got some work to do," he answered and wandered off.

By the way, here's my first Liz Lieu update. She's no longer is sporting blonde hair. She's back to the dark hair look. She said she prepped for this year's event by relaxing the past week and resting up. She worked on her tan and went shopping. She suggested that I cut down the length my blog entries.

"You write too much. You're posts are so long!!!"

Liz also told me how bummed out she was that she would not be participating as a member of the Elle Team where she would donate her winnings in the Ladies Event to the American Heart Association. She was going to be a part of the Queen of Hearts Team but Elle negotiated a sponsor from a different site that Liz is affiliated with. She's a part of Martin's Poker and said that's where her loyalty lies.

I ran into a fellow blogger Zeem Jr. who was playing in Event #2. I snapped a few photos and this one is the best one because you can see Phil Hellmuth sitting right behind him. Zeem was shortstacked after dinner break and ran his 2900 up to over 9K then lost it all when he missed a big draw.


Zeem at the WSOP
I spoke to Spaceman briefly. He was working on the Bluff radio show. I also met some of the hotties that they have working.

I had a long talk with Earl Burton from Poker News. He just completed a nine part series on the WSOP. Take a peek. He introduced me to their intern, Stephen, who happens to read my blog.

As I write this, the players in Event #2 just made the money. More than 2700 players entered the event which is a record for a non-main event WSOP tournament. They took alternates for this event and even had some tables 11 handed. Well, the top 270 players made the money and the money bubble just broke according to Otis.

Carl Olson, who is friends with Brandon Schaefer, eliminated Texas Dolly. And Phil Hellmuth busted Clonie Gowen. Hellmuth is still alive and will cash in this event. Hellmuth now has 49 cashes and is tied with Men the Master for the overall lead.

Event #1 finally concluded today. 18 players who are employed by a casino in one way or another returned for day two of their $500 buy-in NL event. One of the players was Marsha Wagonner, who happens to be the wife of Kenna James. Chris Gros from Henderson, NV beat out Bryan Devonshire from Minneapolis, Minnesota for the victory in Event #1. Gros won $127,616 and the first bracelet of the 2006 WSOP after his 3-4o cracked Devonshire's Big Slick.

Here are some random pics from today:


The railbirds flocked to Texas Dolly's table


Nice hat, Andy


Paul Darden


Phil's back

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You should be reading... CC's Quest of a Closet Poker Player and Otis at Poker Stars Blog.