I am so worn out but I need to get this up. I’ll have a uber post about the weekend and first days of the Main Event, but I just don’t have it in me right now. Or maybe I do have it in me, I don’t know. I just found out that the event ended for the day fifteen minutes ago, which means that there are 900 players looking for cabs. Which means I’m stuck.
Linda introduced me to Ben Roberts, and I had played phone tag with him for most of the day. He left me the following voice mail (paraphrased): “Why don’t we go to Johnny Chan’s party and we can have the interview?” I’m not really a party boy, but c’mon. Would you turn down an invite to that? So I found him in the stripper bar sans strippers, met three people whose names I forgot before the sound left Ben’s mouth (I told him later I had no short term memory), and we headed for a cab. Half the interview was in the cab, a quarter in line for Chan’s party (stood in line dutifully until Chan spotted Ben then grabbed him and took him in). Ben is known as Gentleman Ben, and if ever there was a moniker that understated something, this was it. Ben was the nicest person I have met in I can’t remember how long. I asked my questions, we talked about any and everything, I asked him things without my tape recorder like about backing people vs. loaning money. “You see more players being backed today, but loans are different. The only people who have good credit in poker are the ones who don’t ask.” He asked about my poker game, we talked about his interests, about how neither of us like parties but don’t mind going if we can talk to someone individually, on and on. He introduced me to people like I was somebody he’d known since childhood. Interview will be great, but it was just great. The public knows him from his WPT tourney at the Aviation Club, the event won by Surindar Sunar over Tony G. He said everyone knew Tony G forever, and no one really paid much attention to his antics. I met Tony G this week, and he gave me his cell number. I’m looking forward to an interview with him as well.
Scene from Chan’s party suite. The next photo is a bit to the right.
Pretty spectacular view for sure.
Part II of this post is about my work with the PokerStars Team. I’m contributing some coverage them in my spare time, and it’s been really great. Here are a few links that you should check out:
- Arnold Blenner: 5 Billionth Hand Freeroll winner (Part 1 and Part 2).
- Bobby Paine: Nashville Songwriter
- Chris Ellison
- Sitting with Phil Ivey
- Paul Azinger
- Chris Ferguson’s Table
- ESPN Feature Table (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)
I’ve got to spend some time with Pauly, and I’ll tell you more about that and getting to meet change100 (which was pretty amazing). She has a great video of a prop bet where he won’t eat a piece of celery. Otis leads the team working on the PokerStars blog, and along with Pauly others working on it are some other great people and writers: Wil Wheaton, CJ, Howard Swains, and Max Shapiro. I got to spend some time with two other really wonderful folks. Alison Lightman from Perth, Australia was really delightful to sit with at dinner. She is a former documentary producer, journalist for twenty years (child labor laws in Australia allowed her to work at the age of nine). The Buffalo wings were great, but sitting with her was even better. Her husband is here as well, so I hope to meet him.
Mad Harper is the other great person working with us. She is a Brit and loads of fun. We donked it up at a $2/4 LHE game at TI last night, where I’m staying. I bought in for $100, and the stack grew due to the high quality cards I played: 10-2o (called a re-raise pre-flop), pocket 4′s that I called down until my 4 hit the river (I told the guy I needed to suckout). His girlfriend said she hated me after one beat, which actually frightened me a bit. She repeated it, and didn’t really look like she was kidding. Mad and I were yucking it up, and I had all my witty one-liners that I can get into sometimes. We tried to get the game changed to a Mixed Game, which we’ll definitely do before long. Mad and Alison can write and stuff, but I’m blessed to be able to get to know them.
Sweetie sent me sweet nothings via email. Being away this long really takes a toll, not on our relationship per se but it does modify it a bit. Mostly, I’m so busy that I never stop from the time I get here until the time I leave (looking like 4:45 or so). Still haven’t figured out how to deal with Bloglines like sloejack told me I should, please email me or walk me through it.
Anne Chi from Cleveland (2nd pink girl from left) told me about what their shirt meant. Tracy DuPont has three children and has breast cancer which has mestasized into her lungs. I don’t know anything about it, but I’ll check it out. Tracy’s Angels
Brian Schroeder (r, with black cap) with brother Steve, Tammi, Nicole, and Alex. I asked him what he though so far, and he said it looked overwhelming. Nicole told me she thought her uncle was the best, and I invited Alex to play in our mixed game with us. Not sure if they’ll card him at TI, but we’ll see.
Who has the hottest ladies at the trade show?
Absolute Poker
HollywoodPoker
PartyPoker
Pkr
StinkyFishPoker
Bodog
I don’t think there is even a competition, but let me know.
Swag update: I’ll be giving away swag and stuff from the World Series, probably either today or tomorrow, batches of stuff like we did the books. OK, I’m about to pass out. Good morning from the World Series of Poker. If you want to be on distribution of data that I prepare through the day (mainly spreadsheet of chip counts), feel free to email me and tell me at csquard@gmail.com. See you again in a few hours.
Got to be the bodog girl.