Celebrity Gossip From Las Vegas With Robin Leach | Luxe Life Digest

I'm lucky if I get an Ace and a King to understand blackjack! So, top pairs and royal flushes send me right down the river when it comes to poker. I simply can't do math and I simply can't get a hand(le) on the sport. A bluff to me is trying to fool a waiter into thinking I'd actually drink a cheap sparkling wine instead of champagne! I don't have a poker face, but up to 8,000 players who do are right in the thick of the World Series of Poker at the Rio. This year's Main Event of the Series is bigger and wealthier than ever -- 8,000 players will buy-in with $80-million for the richest competition ever staged, anywhere on earth! Among the celebrities on hand are actors James Woods, James Garner, Fred Savage and actresses Jennifer Tilley, Shannon Elizabeth and Victoria Pratt, who will be battling it out with such pros as foxy Annie Duke and her big brother, Howard "The Professor" Lederer.

 
LEFT: Actress Jennifer Tilly became a poker champion in '05. RIGHT: Actor James Woods, also an avid poker player.

Rather than make a mistake, or commit the sin of omission with Luxe Life's coverage, I turned to good friend Michael Craig for the heads-up action. He is the leading chronicler of the world of high-stakes poker, and the author of 'The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time', (now available in paperback). He has written of his adventures with the world's best poker players for numerous magazines and web sites. His own blog, Michael Craig's Journal, now appears on Pokerworks.com. He contributes American poker features and his 'Mr. Inside' poker column to worldwide magazines. Here's the extraordinary tale of…

Midnight in the Amazon Room by MICHAEL CRAIG

LEFT: Michael Craig with poker player Howard Lederer. RIGHT: Michael with poker player Annie Duke.

It is after midnight when I pull my car into the lot behind the Rio All Suite Hotel & Casino. Walking up the darkened steps to the Convention Center, I ignore the man complaining into his cell phone (" … so he called with a pair of sixes. Naturally, the donkey makes a set on the flop ...") and step inside. I listen to the sound of my own footsteps in the empty hallway until I nearly run into the most famous poker player alive: Doyle "Texas Dolly" Brunson, the king of the Texas road gamblers, winner of a record 10 World Series of Poker bracelets (first prize in any World Series event, in addition of bricks of cash, is a gold bracelet) and untold millions in the biggest cash games in the world for four decades.

I interviewed Doyle for my book and we have been in touch from time to time. In fact, when Andy Beal, "the banker" in the book, told me last fall that he thought the pros were ducking him, my contact with Doyle restarted their historic matches at Wynn Las Vegas in February. (The pros ended up winning $10 million in that encounter, so Doyle always takes my calls!) Brunson, who will turn 73 on August 10 (Final Table Day of the Championship Event), walks with a crutch and uses a motorized cart for longer treks. He passes me in a blur and the grimace on his face tells me thisis not the time to catch up. Further up the hallway, I see David Singer leaning against a wall. Over the past year, Singer has established himself as a dangerous tournament poker player, making three World Poker Tour final tables and winning a heads-up (one-on-one) tournament at The Mirage. Like Brunson, Singer looks beat-up, drained, unhappy.

At the far end of this hallway is the cavernous Amazon Room, home to the 37th Annual World Series of Poker. The World Series, the largest and richest sporting event the world has ever known, consists of 47 separate poker tournaments running until August 10. Players pay to play, usually $1,000-$10,000 per event, and the prize pool consists of that money (minus 4-10% taken by Harrah's for running the show). Other than limited field events for casino employees, ladies, and seniors, every event is open to anyone with the buy-in and an interest in playing that day's event: Limit or No-Limit Texas Hold 'Em, Seven Card Stud, Stud Eight-or-Better, Pot Limit Omaha, Omaha Hi-Lo, Deuce-to-Seven Lowball, or Razz. With the Series now more than half finished, players have won (and lost) over $50 million. The defending World Champion, Joseph Hachem, has proven his victory over 5,618 players in 2005 was no fluke, making two final tables. Phil Hellmuth, on a quest to win his tenth bracelet, has also made two. Jennifer Tilly (winner of the ladies event in 2005) and James Woods have been the most visible of the large contingent of Hollywood poker players. Both have gone deep in at least one event, finishing in the money but short of the final table.


LEFT: Legend Doyle Brunson at home away from home. RIGHT: Feared poker pro Phil Ivey flashes pocket pockets.

But, I am about to walk in on the biggest event so far of this World Series: H.O.R.S.E.. As a concession to the professional poker players, who complained the Series had been dominated by massive-field, no-limit hold 'em events, Harrah's inserted this event for the best and most expert practitioners of the poker arts. H.O.R.S.E. is an acronym for five forms of poker, played in one-hour rotations: Hold 'Em -- The staple of Las Vegas casino poker; OmahaHi-Lo -- The actiongame; Razz -- A form of Seven Card Stud in which the worst hand wins, Seven Card Stud -- Traditionally the most popular game on the East Coast and [Stud] Eight-or-Better -- The hi-lo game millions plays at their kitchen-table home games. Once the field narrowed to nine players, they settledit Texas style -- No-Limit Texas Hold 'Em. The other unique feature of this H.O.R.S.E. was the entry fee: $50,000. Undaunted, 143 of the world's most talented, most versatile, and most successful poker players ponied up.

The final table spanned forty years of poker history though, somehow, baby boomers opted out. There were two players in their twenties (Phil Ivey and Patrik Antonius), two in their thirties (David Singer and Andy Bloch), and five with AARP cards (Doyle Brunson, T.J. Cloutier, Jim Bechtel, Dewey Tomko, and David "Chip" Reese). Brunson and Bechtel are past world champions. Cloutier and Tomko each finished second in the championship event twice. These four combine for more than twenty bracelets. Phil Ivey is the youngest player to win five. Chip Reese was the youngest to win three, though his last came twenty-four years ago. Why the gap? Reese, along with Brunson and now Phil Ivey, consider tournament poker a secondary pursuit, focusing their energy on cash games where weekly (and even nightly) wins and losses can total six or seven figures. Reese, Brunson, and Ivey were all pivotal characters in my book and articles about the richest poker games of all time.

The H.O.R.S.E. event was in its final stages when I saw the broken images of Doyle Brunson (eighth place) and David Singer (sixth) in the empty hallway. The Amazon Room, in contrast, crackled with energy despite the late hour. Even though the room could seat 2,200 poker players, it could barely contain all the activity within. The sound of riffling chips in scores of cash games reverberated like an army of chirping crickets. The final table for the next day, the $2,500 No-Limit Hold 'Em Short-Handed event, had already been set, but the tournament starting thirteen hours earlier, the $2,000 No-Limit Hold 'Em event, was still running. Out of 1,579 starters, they would shortly finish with 101 players remaining. At one end of the room, away from these tournaments and cash games, two lower-wattage tournaments were playing out -- a $225 Last Chance event and a satellite tournament that rewarded winners with entries to the championship event. More than 300 players had entered these events tonight and many were still in action, focused on their own fortunesand not the history been made at the north end. A large crowd formed around one table at the north end of the Amazon Room. ESPN was filming this event as part of its World Series coverage, so ropes and security guards surrounded the standing-room only crowd, the cameras, and the final table. Just before 2AM, Andy Bloch eliminated Jim Bechtel in fourth place and Phil Ivey in third to take over the chip lead and force a showdown with Chip Reese for the bracelet and the $1.7 million first prize. (Both first and second place – which paid $1 million – were larger than any prize outside the Championship in Series' history.) Though the last and best known of the old road gamblers were abundantly represented at the final table in Doyle Brunson, Dewey Tomko, and T.J. Cloutier, Chip Reese and Andy Bloch ably represented the new breed of poker pro, albeit in different ways.


The Amazon Poker Room at the Rio, where the World Series of Poker runs through Aug. 10.

Reese graduated from Dartmouth in the early Seventies and had been accepted at Harvard Law School. A summer at the poker tables in Las Vegas, however, changed all that. He has amassed several fortunes, taking on all comers in every form of poker as well as gin rummy and backgammon for thirty years. He is also supposed to be one of the world's most successful sports bettors. Andy Bloch, more than a decade-and-a-half younger at 37, has a pair of engineering degrees from MIT and a law degree from Harvard. He managed the now-famous MIT Blackjack Team while attending law school and recently produced and starred in Beating Blackjack, a DVD in which he teaches blackjack play and reveals card-counting strategies and techniques. The program concludes with a re-enactment of the drama of his MIT days, featuring hot babes, angry casino bosses, a chase scene, and Bloch holding his own as an actor while playing blackjack disguised as rocker Bono. (At the final table, he wears the cowboy hat from that scene.) After less than two hours, Bloch takes a large chip lead and Reese is all-in. With just two community cards to come, there are only seven cards in the deck that can keep Reese from losing. Hislucky card arrives and he survives. Another two hours later, after Andy regains the big lead, Reese wins two more all-in showdowns to draw even. Finally, after eight grueling hours -- the longest mano-a-mano finish in the history of the World Series -- Reese finally prevails.

For nearly everyone in poker, it was a joyous moment, the official recognition that Chip Reese, long poker's uncrowned king, was its greatest champion. For me, the moment was bittersweet. Reese is one of the true gentlemen of the game and could be the greatest card player of all time. Despite losing $9 million one morning to Andy Beal, he was friendly and cooperative when I interviewed him for Suicide King. But Andy Bloch also deserved to win. I had just written an article about him. (See "Bad-Ass Andy: How Andy Bloch Became the Most Dangerous Man in Las Vegas," in the August issue of BLUFF Magazine.) Andy is a friend of mine. Ten days before, I almost got him to loan me the cowboy hat for my own World Series efforts. (No chance of that now!) He played brilliant poker against a legend. There were tears in my eyes when I hugged him after it was over and I told him, "You played like a champion." Despite three consecutive marathon sessions and a heart-breaking defeat, Andy was clear-eyed. He acknowledged Reese's achievement, and then asked, "What time does the Omaha Hi-Lo event start?"

 
Michael Craig takes a break from writing about poker and gets into the action.

All these players, and as many as 8,000 more -- myself included -- will pay $10,000 to take a shot at winning the World Championship. This year's first prize may exceed $10,000,000, by far the largest in the history of human competition. The Amazon Room will fill to capacity Friday thru next Tuesday (July 28-31) as each player competes in one of four initial sessions. The Rio Pavilion will also host the Gaming Life Expo, this Thursday (July 27) thru next Monday (July 31) featuring everything related to poker. (Michael will be signing copies of his book at the PokerPainter.com booth on July 29.) If you can't make it, he'll pen another Luxe Life column at the beginning of the Main Event. You can also read his daily adventures with the world's best poker players in Michael Craig's Journal, where he'll take you on a visit to the Clark County Detention Center, where a famous player was incarcerated before last year's Series, and everywhere else poker takes him. You can also read his book, 'The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King', now in paperback. Now back to my part of the regular Luxe Life journal:

HOLY HOOTERS! THE ANNNUAL SWIMSUIT PAGEANT TAKES CENTER-STAGE


The 10th Annual Hooters International Swimsuit Pageant  gets underway tonight with more than $150,000 in prizes. My friend Brooke Burke will host and my pal Vince Neil of Motley Crue will join Dale Earnhardt Jr. , sports stars John Salley and Jalen Rose plus LeeAnn Tweedy as celebrity judges. This year, more than 120 orange-clad Hooters girls from as far away as Australia, Taiwan, Peru and of course America and Canada representing the 430 restaurants who submitted 15,000 girls in the original competitions. The telecast starts here at 5PM tonight for the 8PM east coast transmission to all Hooters restaurants across America on a closed-circuit hookup.


Yours truly with Brooke Burke, who will host the Hooters Beauty Pageant tonight.

The first-place contestant, Miss Hooters International, will be featured in the famous calendar and appear in the company's national TV commercials. She'll be crowned by last year's winner, Anna Burns, who told me: "the judges will look for the personality to shine through and yet still be the girl next door. It's the largest pageant of its kind and pays the biggest cash prize of any pageant. Plus, you have 123 beautiful girls from all around the world competing. I came from tiny Fayetteville, North Carolina, so I firmly believe the girl next door can make it." I'll be rooting for local Vegas beauties, Michelle Nunes, Amy Chuhaloff and Nicole Del Belle, who I got to meet at rehearsals on Sunday. They all work at the newly opened Hooters Resort Casino. You'll see the winning Hooters beauty right here tomorrow on Luxe Life!!


Yours truly with Hooters' girls Nicole(top), Michelle (center) and Aimee (bottom).

STRIP SCRIBBLES
While poker players bet thebank at the Rio, movie cameras are busy here too, bringing the sport to the big screen. Drew Barrymore and Robert Duvall returned for last-minute re-shooting of 'Lucky You' which will be released on September 8. … Ray Romano, Woody Harrelson, Jason Alexander, Michael Mckean and Dennis Farina are just a few of the all-star cast shooting 'The Grand' at the Plaza and Golden Nugget downtown. The improv-comedy (that means no real script folks) is described as a mockumentary about a fictional big-money tournament, similar to the World Series of Poker, which Michael told you about, and is actually getting a real documentary treatment in 'That's Poker,' being filmed with the big-star players themselves. More on all the TV and movie shoots in our town tomorrow!

TONIGHT'S TIP
My pal, ghostbar head-honcho Marko Greisen, celebrates his birthday with a 7PM-7AM lavish luau, poolside at the Palms, followed by another bash inside his rooftop ultra-lounge, followed by the big sleepover bash throughout the hotel's new Fantasy Suites. … 'Entourage' actor Jeremy Piven celebrates his birthday at the PURE nightclub in Caesars Palace. … Rockers 311 add Pepper and the Wailers to the lineup for their Hard Rock concert.

TOMORROW'S TEASE
TV cameras are shooting shows allover town and Luxe Life has the full rundown. Plus, our congrats to 'Mamma Mia!' as it welcomes its 1.5 millionth guest and a sneak peek at a unique new hotel opening inside MGM that says "business as unusual!"


CONTACT US
You can pick a top-pair or send us down the river with an email to robinsvegas@aol.com To ensure you don't miss one drumbeat of the next edition, click here or at the 'Alert Me' up top so we can let you know the split second we publish the brand new Luxe Life.

Go to AOL Vegas for much more on hotels, casinos, restaurants, nightlife, and everything Las Vegas! Check our travel section for great deals on hotels, airfare and much more! And when visiting Vegas, be sure to see Las Vegas Magazine in your hotel suite featuring a print edition of AOL Vegas Luxe Life, and an incredible directory of attractions, shows and restaurants.

|  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this