Prop Bet: Who's Taller... Amanda Leatherman or Annette_15?

By Pauly
Melbourne, Australia

I made a massive prop bet with Change100. She said that Annette_15 was taller than Amanda Leatherman. I picked Amanda. We finally settled the bet during a PokerNews interview. It's currently Day 1c at the main event of the Aussie Millions. We snagged Annette_15 during one of the breaks for an interview. At the end of it, Amanda and Annette_15 sqaure off. I make a cameo at the end to officially find out who's taller...


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Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.

Back to Australia and Week 1 at the Aussie Millions in 4,500 Words or Less

By Pauly
Melbourne, Australia

There are somethings about traveling frequently that gives you specific perspective on things. One of that is locale and the people who inhabit said locale.

I've been to some shittowns that had some of the most amazing people in my life, and there have been majestic places that had the worst kinds of people. Fortunate for me, Australia is one of those rare places with an stunning locale and amazing people.

Getting to Oz is not an easy task. It requires a 15 hour flight from the Left Coast of America as you cross the Pacific Ocean hurtling through the air in a metal tube and secretly praying that the pilot is having a good day and got some solid sleep the previous night.

Change100 and I both had aisle seats, as we had requested when we booked our passage on Quantas. I've flown United and Quantas to Oz and I prefer Quantas, although I flew business class at United on my way back to LAX and that was a divine experience. I hear that business class on Quantas is a step up. Friends of mine have flown Air Singapore or Cathay Pacific business class and say that's the best way to fly. It's too expensive for me to waste the cashola on that luxury. I've done enough flying over the last decade that I can suck up a 15 hour flight in regular seat. The problem is the unwashed mashes with you at the back of the plane.

I got issued a passenger bad beat right away. The guy next to me annoyed the fuck out of me. He took up the entire arm rest and kept invading my space... and that was before we even took off. I knew it was going to be a long 15 hours. Say hello to Mr. Xanax to ease the pain.

I read Sports Illustrated's year end issue and tried to ignore the guy spilling over into my personal space. I also read an entire Jack Kerouac novel, The Subterraneans, before we even reached Hawaii. Most folks overlook that minor piece of Kerouac's work, but the characters in the book are based on his friends including William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Larry O'Hara (the owner of the famous City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco).

I avoided the inflight movies and held out to the last minute since I had seen most of them before. However, after the meal service (a shoddy piece of rubber chicken whose taste was enhanced by the free red wine), I started The Bourne Ultimatum, which I had already seen three times. I passed out halfway and slept for almost three hours - which is almost the same amount of sleep I usually get.

I popped a second Xanax and passed out during the first few minutes of The Simpsons Movie. I woke up with about thirty minutes to go in the flick and was up for the rest of the flight.

The guy next to me kept spilling over into my seat. I'm repeating that same sentence from before, because it kept happening. I got up a lot and walked around when he put me on tilt or when I got totally bored. Change100 had slept most of the flight so we didn't talk much or get a chance to play Chinese Poker.

I listened to my iPod for the rest of the flight (I'm on a Sly and the Family Stone kick) and kept the guy next to me on his toes with an occasional elbow. I barely ate the crappy breakfast they served which included rubbery undercooked bacon and some sort of egg concoction that they also serve to malnourished children at inner city schools.

I got flagged at immigration because my visa didn't match my passport. I was told to sit off to the side while one guy snatched my passport and disappeared for about ten minutes. There was a slight error in the first initial of my middle name on my visa and I had to wait until everything was cleared up. When the immigration official returned, he grilled me about why I was in Australia and where I was going. He wanted to see my return ticket, so I showed him my e-ticket and a printout of my itinerary (which has me flying up to the Gold Coast and then to New Zealand). He eventually approved my visa and allowed me in the country.

As I told Andy Black when I saw him a couple of days ago, "I'm surprised they let you back in the country."

"I'm surprised too," he said.

Well, it was good to be back. Melbourne had become sort of a second work base for me outside of Las Vegas.

In my previous two trips, I spent my first meal with Jules and Graham, which has become a tradition. In January of last year, they took me out to an Italian place on Lygon Street then cooked me a BBQ the next day. In October, Change100 and I went to their house for dinner and wine. So it was fitting that we ate together at Rock Pool on our first night in town.

Rock Pool which is one of the best restaurants in all of Melbourne. They wanted to celebrate a few things... they both just got new jobs and had gotten married a few days earlier in Tasmania.

I posted pics of the meal on Tao of Pauly. And what a fantastic meal it was. I ordered a plate of San Daniele Prosciutto for my appetizer, while Change100 and I shared a "Dry Aged 36 Month Old Grass Fed Beef Rib-Eye on the Bone." Amazing.

We also drank three bottles of Shiraz (which Jules picked out) during dinner and had another after dinner. We had no idea... but the dinner lasted almost four hours long! When we left, it was almost 11:30pm. Time flew. We had so much fun hanging out and talking and catching up. Jules and Graham are tons of fun, and spending quality times with them are one of my favorite things about Melbourne.

We're staying at the Crown Towers, which is the swankiest hotel in all of Melbourne. The Crown Casino has two hotels and in my previous trips I stayed at the Promenade. It's nice, but the Towers is definitely a step up... sort of like the difference between the Mirage and the Bellagio. The Towers are almost on the same level as the Bellagio or Le Meridien in Monte Carlo or the Princess in Barcelona.

Our room has a fat ass Plasma screen and the beds are super comfy. If there's one thing I know about - it's different beds. Sometimes, I sleep in ten different beds a month. When I happen to discover a place on the road with a great bed, it's a blessing.

There's also a very comfortable reading chair by the window where I have been sitting and thumbing through my New Zealand guide book every morning. We also have an actual "changing room" with a big closest and space for multiple sets of luggage. That's also where the safe is located, just in case you wanna break into my room and steal my iPod and bankroll.

Ah, you can tell the opulence of a hotel by the size and detail of the bathroom. The Towers has an amazing bathroom set up. It's spacious and bigger than some bedrooms I've lived in during my life, with marble floors and a jacuzzi/bathtub. There's a TV in the bathroom and you can sit in the tub and watch the boob tube. There's a "private" shitter inside the bathroom with a glass door, along with a separate shower which is as big as some NYC studio apartments. I mean our entire bathroom from our apartment in Barcelona could fit inside the shower here.

We also have a scale. It lists weights in Stone and Kilos. It's slightly off, but according to the scale, I lost almost a 1/2 a stone since I arrived.

I always get confused when I'm in Australia. When I work on my laptop, it's set up for ET, so I always know what time it is in NYC since it's the center of the universe. Poker sites base their events on US ET, as do all sporting events (which I may or may not bet on).

I also rig the clock on my laptop so I know the time to make sure I meet specific deadlines. So I'm looking at it and it says 2:50pm on Sunday but it's 6:50am on Monday in Australia. I know. I know... just add 8 hours and subtract a day to figure out what time it is in NYC.

I preferred living/working in Europe because we're ahead of the US by five or six hours. I could actually make phone calls at 3am because friends were still up back in the States.

Alas, my new friend has been this site... World Clock.

Some of my clients are based out of Las Vegas. One is based out of Sweden another in the UK, and then I also do work for an Australian based company. My friends are scattered about the US in various time zones, my girlfriend lives on the West Coast, and my brother is in NYC. It helps me when I get lost. Some people turn to Jesus. Other turn to the bottle. I turn to the world clock to help soothe my lost soul.

Yes, life gets confusing for me sometimes when I'm rapidly jumping time zones and zig zag across international datelines, but the World Clock instantly tells me what time it is in that particular city, so I know if it's too late or too early to call someone. Without it I'm lost.

My vivid and bizarre dreams have returned. For some odd reason, I recall more of my dreams in Australia. This is my third trip inside of 13 months and that's been the one theme that has been common among all of the trips. Change100 experienced the vividness during her last trip and she's experiencing the same thing on this trip. Conversely, when my friend Ali from PokerStars (who's from Sydney) travels to America, she has extremely vivid dreams. I think it's some sort of dream exchange program with Aussies and Americans.

Schaubs and my buddy Jerry mentioned to me that it's marijuana withdrawal that makes you have vivid dreams. Perhaps that's the case? Who knows. But one of my dreams involved me losing a chunk of hashish in a mailbox and the hijinks that ensued while I tried to get it out. Another one had me backpacking in Germany and getting drunk with locals and taking photos on my cellphone with all my new friends.

* * * * *
On the night before the Aussie Millions kicked off, I had a staff meal at the pub where we got to know some of the Aussie members of the Poker News. Our crew is great with Amanda doing interviews with Tom as our multi-media guru. Garry, Heath, Change100 and myself are on blogging duties, with Damo, Shane, Brendan, Theo, and Dave as floor reporters. Dave (from The Bankroll Experience) was my right hand man during the WSOP this summer when we were assigned a slew of Day 2s. We have two photographers, Jamie and Kirsten, but both Garry and I have been taking photos as well. All in all it's a great crew.

Jonno, who had been head of tournament reporting at Poker News for almost a year, had returned to the Crown as the director of their tournament operations. I was sad to see him go, but it was cool to have him running the show. If we had any problems, we went right to Jonno, who understood what our job entailed, so he did his best to help us out with logistics.

Our staff dinner was short and followed by drinks in the Velvet Lounge. Jen Leo made the trip down under and tagged along with Schecky. In the past, Change100, Schecky, Jen Leo and I have played Chinese Poker in a sort of couples night out in Hollyweird. We resumed our roving game in Australia at the lounge.

My roommate from Amsterdam made a cameo. Johnny Mushrooms rented an apartment across the street from the Crown casino and was tanked when we finally met up. He's a poker pro and has a similar grueling traveling schedule like mine. He spent a total of 10 weeks at his home in Australia in 2007. He wanted to scale back the travel this year and I didn't blame him.

Anyway, after the Chinese Poker game broke up, we got smashed with Johnny Mushrooms and his buddy Luke as we recanted stories about our time in Amsterdam and how I almost shit my pants and took a dump in between two parked cars along the side of a canal or how our other roomie, Benjo (everyone's favorite French poker journalist), would fetch him fresh croissants every morning or we'd make fun of all the hookers who worked around the corner from our apartment.

I have woken up in Oz with a minor hangover most days. I had two wicked hangovers as well. I had only been in Oz for a couple of days, and almost drank a case of wine and a keg of beer. Alas, that's what I do down under... drink. A ton. I'd say that 75% of my total alcohol consumption in 2007 occurred in Australia.

I was excited for work because we had a good crew for PokerNews. I was also apprehensive because I was a bit rusty. That's why the early events in a "tournament series" like the Poker News Cup or Aussie Millions are usually like spring training for me. The first event was a $1K NL event which kicked off the entire Aussie Millions.

The big buzz of the day was that actor Michael Vartan (best known from Alias although I only saw one or two episodes of that show... but I know him better from flicks such as The Pallbearer and Never Been Kissed) was playing in the first event. Since his current show had halted production due to the writer's strike in Hollyweird, he flew down under to play some poker. He admitted that he developed an addiction to poker and said that he played a lot of online poker.

Of course, both Change100 and Amanda were swooning over his appearance at the poker tournament. They couldn't stop talking about how dreamy Michael Vartan was and we snagged him for an interview with Poker News. Too bad, but the pretty boy busted out early, yet Change100 and Amanda still kept talking about him.

Vartan read PokerNews' live reporting coverage and he liked the things that Change100 wrote about him. When she found out, she couldn't stop blushing.

Jules played in event #3 $500 Mixed Stud (Stud/Stud9/Razz). She busted out shortly before the dinner break, but it seemed like she had fun. I got to snap a cool pic of her. Sometimes you get lucky and can capture someone's personality with a picture. I managed to do that with Jules.

In the first three events in the Aussie Millions, Timex, an 18-year old kid from Canada who wore braces took second place in Event #1; Chris Cronis, a local famous fashion designer won event #2; and Jimmy "Gobboboy" Fricke, a 20-year old internet pro from Illinois won Event #3. I covered Gobboboy's run and his mixed game skills impressed me. He went deep at the WSOP-E HORSE event in London and cashed there. Gobboboy gets a lot of shit. He's an easy target because of how he looks, but most of the haters are jealous about his ability. I've had the opportunity to slowly get to know him and he's a great kid that loves playing poker. He turns 21 this spring, and I wouldn't be surprised if he makes at least one final table at the 2008 WSOP.

* * * * *
If you want a random celebrity sighting in Melbourne, just head on down to the Crown Casino.

I ran into Jen Tilly in the poker room. She had a casino host with her and I cut through a crowd of people and nearly smashed into her. She was in town with Phil Laak to play the Aussie Millions. I've spotted them a lot at the different Asian eateries in the food court.

Michael Vartan has been hanging out occasionally in media row. He's digging PokerNews since he never knew it existed before we told him. And yes, Amanda and Change100 are still swooning whenever he walks by.

There was a rumor that a knocked up Pam Anderson would be in town too to play, but she couldn't get sponsorship. Several Aussies have wandered up to the media desk and asked me if Shannon Elizabeth would be here. She attended the event last year and magically appeared one day as she played in a satellite. I heard that she's being sponsored by Mansion Poker.

Schecky said that he saw Andy Roddick. Of course, the tennis pros are in town for the Australian Open and a lot of them are staying in one of the two hotels here. Last year, I saw Roger Federer and rode in an elevator with Maria Sharapova.

My buddy Brandon Schaefer is in town to play in some events. He's being staked and admitted that he didn't have a hot 2007 and has a huge make-up. Too bad that we can't do some traveling this time around since he has to get back to the States for a wedding.

His good friend Carl Olson is here as well. Olson has mixed feeling about poker these days.

"Sometimes I love poker, and most days I'm thinking... what the hell am I doing? Poker is such a bad thing," he mentioned.

Olson doesn't travel as much as some pros on the circuit and only plays in events where he can win a package. We briefly talked about his future, which involves less poker and the possibility of opening up a business in Seattle with Schaefer. It felt good to be able to talk to some pros about how too much poker sucks the soul out of you.

It's kinda funny... but "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" totally applies to poker. Most cubicle monkeys and suits I know what to quit their jobs and become a professional poker player. While most pros that I know are trying to find a way out of poker and start a business or get a real job as they get back into a life of normalcy.

Johnny Mushrooms has been playing a lot of the tournaments and I'm pulling for him and Brandon and Olson to go deep and make at least one final table each. And if they win... maybe they'll throw a victory party at the Spearmint Rhino down the street!

I covered the $100,000 buy-in event, which I think is one of the coolest events in all of poker. I know that Gary Thompson (from Harrah's) reads my blog, so Gary, how about a $100K event at the WSOP? That would be cool and I betcha you'd get almost 100 players.

Last year, the Aussie Millions 100K event drew 18 runners. Erick Lindgren won it and took down $1 million AUD. This year, there were 25 runners. Here's the original seating assignments...

Table 29
Seat 1: Nickolaus Jedlicka
Seat 2: Joe Reina
Seat 3: Jeff "ActionJeff" Garza
Seat 4: Emanuel Seal
Seat 5: Jeff Lisandro
Seat 6: Erik Seidel
Seat 7: Sergey Rybachenko
Seat 8: John Juanda
Seat 9: Chris "Jesus" Ferguson

Table 31
Seat 1: Michael "Timex" McDonald
Seat 2: Howard Lederer
Seat 3: Michael Sampoerna
Seat 4: Tony Bloom
Seat 5: Allen Cunningham
Seat 6: Eli Elezra
Seat 7: Dan Shak
Seat 8: Phil Ivey

Table 32
Seat 1: Tony G
Seat 2: Tom "Durrr" Dwan
Seat 3: Masa Kagawa
Seat 4: Mark Teltscher
Seat 5: Andy Bloch
Seat 6: Sandor Demjan
Seat 7: Erick Lindgren
Seat 8: Gus Hansen

The top 5 would win prize money in the $2.5 million prize pool. First place would win $1.25 million, which at the time would be the second largest prize ever awarded at the Aussie Millions (Gus Hansen won $1.5M for winning last year's main event and this year's main event winner is expected to win more than $1.5M).

Timex drew a monster table. I was interested in seeing how the young internet pros would hold their mud against the established Las Vegas veteran sharks. ActionJeff, Timex, and Durrr took a shot, which was admirable. But their willingness to play big pots ended up being their downfall. Although ActionJeff doubled up early on and held the chiplead for the first couple of hours, the young guns failed to advance to the final table and make the money. Compare their style of play to Howard Lederer's patient and disciplined strategy... and in that instance, slow and steady won the race.

Lederer put on an impressive display of Zen patience and living in the now. He never faltered or panicked with a short stack... something he had for the majority of the tournament. At one point, he never had more that 250K (the starting stacks were 100K). When it was four-handed he had about 250K and that's when he shifted gears are started playing some pots.

Erick Lindgren did not repeat, and it was Lederer who took down the first place prize of $1.25 million after he beat Mark Teltscher heads up to win. Michael Sampoerna took third and Jeff Lisandro finished in 4th place. Nikolaus Jedlicka finished in 5th and got his money back minus the juice.

Teltscher was banned by PokerStars and cannot play on their site or at any of their events. Like JJProdigiy (who turned 18 recently), they were unable to play at the PCA in the Bahamas, since Stars banned them from all live events that they sponsor as well. Alas, Australia has become a refuge for shady online players. That's the only place they can get a game since the PokerStars sponsored APPT and EPT won't let them in the mix. Yeah JJProdigy had been playing in some of the events. When I asked him how come he didn't play in the 100K he said that he wanted to. However, he didn't have enough cash on hand to play. He called up his parents and asked them to wire him some money. When they found out he wanted $100K to play in a single tournament, they denied his request.

The main event of the Aussie Millions starts on Monday. There are three starting flights and the final table will be on Monday. Check out our live reporting coverage at Poker News.

I managed to bump into jeciimd, the fellow blogger who won the BBT2: Aussie Millions Challenge. We chatted for a bit and he's playing on Day 1a.

* * * * * *
I have been gambling a bit since my arrival in OZ. I'm up about 2K in combined poker and sports betting. I played 2/3 NL in the Crown poker room three times. The players are horrible at that level and it's a very profitable game. I won a bunch my first two sessions and donked off some of my winnings in the infamous Gavin Smith/Paul Wasicka donkfest.

I played at the same table as Change100 and flopped quad Kings on hand and didn't get paid off. I felted two guys who were bluffing into me when I had made hands. Sometimes poker can be fun and easy when you have bad players wanting to give their chips to you.

Most of the Aussies I know dig American culture include entertainment (music, books, movies, TV), sports (NBA + NFL, and even MLB), and especially politics. The politics buzz in Australia was about Obama. Everyone's been asking me if that's going to be our new President. Bush isn't the most popular guy in the world and they are hoping we can get a change in the White House and help improve our faltering image overseas. I thought it was interesting that the average Aussie knows more about our political process than most Americans. What a shame.

So, I'm betting on sports again. Albeit, small bets. I started betting on the NBA with Schecky. He picks a random game on the card to bet on. We'd look up the point spread and he'd let me pick a side. So far I'm 0-1 because Memphis fuckin' blew it against Golden State.

On the first weekend of the NFL playoffs, I went 2-2 betting with the local bookies. I had Jacksonville against Pittsburgh and they didn't cover by a half a point. I would have gone 3-1 if it weren't for that game. Regardless, I turned a small proft the first weekend.

Now, the real money came in this weekend after I went 4-0. San Diego, Jacksonville, Green Bay (in the snow), and the Giants. It was one of those rare times when every pick I made turned to gold. It's Murphy's Law... as soon as I starting betting small, I began to hit more of my picks. had I been betting two or three dimes a game, I would have lost all of them.

The biggest clutch bet was taking the money line in the NY Giants-Cowgirls game. Damo, one of our Aussies working at PokerNews, is a huge Giants fan and told me that the money like was +385 for the Giants. When I got my bet in, it had dropped to +325. I knew that was a longshot, but I had a gut feeling about the Giants. Who would have thunk that Eli would be the one Manning that went to the final four this year?

I dunno who I'll bet on next week's games... I might not bet at all. I'm up a bit and won enough to pay for my trip to New Zealand at the end of the month with Change100. I'm gonna use some of my winnings to go bungey jumping off a bridge.

Ah, I forgot to mention that at any given time, either cricket or The Simpsons is on the TV in my hotel room. There's was a controversial match the other day between Australia and India which seems to be making headlines down under. I'm still a cricket novice but I'm slowly learning how to gamble on it. I have a softer and milder approach to sports betting this year, in hopes to curtail my degenerate behavior.


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.

Aussie Millions Photo Essay

By Pauly
Melbourne, Australia

I'm too hungover to write after drinking until 6am. So how about a couple of my favorite pics? I took these for Poker News over the last eight days. Some of them appear on their site, so these images are courtesy of PN.




Gobbo's stack


Gobboboy's winning hand...


Gobboboy wins Mixed Stud...


"Timex"


James "Welcom Back" Potter


Jethro Horowtiz loathes Razz....


Michaela was the chipleader at one point with a big stack...




1.8 Million stack


One of my favorite poker writers... Jay Greenspan


PokerNews' Garry hard at work blogging a final table


Another PokerNews employee hard at work...

Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.

God Bless Flipchip

By Pauly
Melbourne, Australia

What are you doing reading me? When you should be heading over to LasVegasVegas to see Flipchip's 2008 AVN photos!

Oh. My. God.

Strippers + Pornstars = Chubbies

Flipchip was there with his camera in hand. And that was just his first batch. Unreal. Like the title says... God bless Flipchip. Great work, sir.

Here's a link to Flipchip's Day 1 at the AVN gallery. Feel free to pass it around. If you use any pics in your blogs, please give Flipchip proper credit and attribution.

Editor's Note: Here's some pics from Day 2 of the AVN.

And here's some pics from Day 3 of the AVN!

Lastly, here's the final day at the AVN... Day 4 AVN gallery.


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.

Drunk Poker at the Aussie Millions

By Pauly
Melbourne, Australia

I turned down a trip to the Rhino.

I got off work early and played some 2/3 NL with Change100. I was up $350 and cashed out after two hours after picking off two bluffs from a crazy Asian and an old mad Greek man.

I headed to the Vegas bar in the poker room and was drank with a couple of young Aussie pros, Emad Tahtouh and Jethro Horowitz. Jethro was buying me drinks and at some point, they made the command decision to head to the Rhino. Change100 was interested and we almost joined them. However, I got sidetracked thanks to Gavin Smith.

Gavin Smith, his fiancee Cindy, Hux, Paul Wasicka, Matt Savage, and Andy from ESPN/Fox were playing in a private 2/3 NL game with a $200 buy in. In true Gavin Smith fashion, he was three sheets to the wind (well, more like forty-three sheets) after getting smashed at the Full Tilt party. I wandered by and there was an open seat. They encouraged me to sit in. I had four $25 chips in my pocket and decided to sit down. I ended up staying for a couple of hours and got felted by Gavin Smith... twice.

Gavin Smith is kinda like AlCantHang in the fact that he's a walking party. He's always having a good time no matter where he goes. He was among the many FullTilt pros who arrived in Melbourne earlier today. Some of the pros headed down to the poker room to check out the action. I had spotted Jen Harman and Marco Traniello wandering around, along with Nordberg, Toto Leonidas, and Clonie Gowen (who was also shitfaced and wandered up to Gobboboy to tell him that she though Howard Lederer was an asshole for calling him a freak and a weirdo).

Gavin Smith wanted to play drunken 1/2 NL. The Crown only spreads that limit on the PokerPro tables. The lowest NL they spread at an actual table was 2/3. So Gaz ended up pulling some strings to get the private game going, which happened to be at a table on the rail. Gaz had spewed off at least a grand in the game (possibly more), all of which ended up at Gavin's fiancee's end of the table. When I sat down, she had over 3K sitting in front of her. This was at a 200 max buy-in table too. Gaz had quit and I took his place.

Seat 1: Matt Savage
Seat 2: Paul Wasicka
Seat 3: Hux
Seat 4: Pauly
Seat 5: Cindy aka Gavin's fiance
Seat 6: Gavin Smith
Seat 7: Andy

There were spectators on the rail several deep checking out the action. Gavin was super drunk and talking smack. At one point his fiancee caught a runner-runner flush against Paul Wasicka who had turned trips.

"Nice!" Gavin shouted. "Way to get some of that $4 million!"

Gavin was alluding to Wasicka's score at the 2006 WSOP main event when he took second to Jamie Gold. In reality, Wasicka took down $6.1 million, which is probably more than Gold ended up getting after he had to give Crispin Leyser a cut.

The game was super loose. If one person limped, it was a family pot. If one person raised $20, it was a family pot. The chips flew around the table and Gavin and Wasicka must have rebought a dozen times combined during the time I was there. They were having fun and everyone on the rail was eating it up.

The first time I got felted was when I opened shoved for $90 with 7-7. Gavin called with A-9 and rivered an Ace. Bastard.

Gavin was ribbing me pretty good, but kept shouting out my blog's URL to the railbirds.

"That's the best poker writer in the world right there!" he slurred. "He's totally ugly but he's the best damn writer in poker. Go to taopoker.com and see for yourself!"

At one point, Hux knocked over Wasicka's beer and it spilled all over his lap. Not to be outdone, Gavin knocked over simultaneously his drink (a rum and coke) and his fiancee's flute of champange. The glass flew off the table and nearly hit Change100 on the rail. She stepped out of the way at the last second as the table got soaked in booze.

I had a $200 rebuy when Jonno decided to deal a couple of hands. He used to be a dealer back in the day before he became one of the directors of tournament operations. He got in the box and he was my good luck charm because I tripled up in a three-way pot against Hux and Paul Wasicka. I turned two pair with J-10 against Hux's flopped smaller two pair and Wasicka's open-ended straight draw. My hand held up and I tripled up.

Sadly, I spewed off those chips to Gavin a couple of orbits later. My K-J lost to his Q-9 on a board of Q-J-7.

So I pretty much lost all of my profit from earlier in the evening, but I felt it was better spent at the tables that pissing it away in the VIP room at the Rhino. I've saved enough strippers in my life, so it was better to donate to astronomical Gavin Smith's bar tab.

So now, it's past 2am. I'm pissed drunk and have to go to work in a few hours. Last time I checked, the game was still running despite the fact that Gavin and Wasicka have to get up early to play golf in the morning.


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.

Art and Masturbation

By Pauly
Melbourne, Australia

Much like 2007, I begin the new year hung over down under while on assignment covering the Aussie Millions for Poker News. If you were to ask me about my game plan for 2007... exactly one year ago... what I wanted to achieve and accomplish didn't exactly match up to what really happened. Life is funny like that. You can make plans and goals and commence on a journey with an intended destination, yet you always seem to get blown off course. Like John Lennon said, "Life is what happens when you are busy making plans."

Sweden is the perfect example. A year ago, if you said that I'd go to Sweden in August and end up working for a Swedish client (and getting paid in the almighty Euro after the US Dollar sunk to the equivalent of a third world currency and got smoked like a bag of cheap ditch weed), I would have told you that you were fuckin' nuts. That was not in my plans for 2007. It wasn't even on the radar, yet that's exactly happened.

So if you told me right now, that by the end of the summer Tony G and I will open up three fast food chicken franchises in Moscow, I might believe you since that's the last thing I have on my list of things to do in 2008.

The last decade or so of my life has been filled with a lot of reactionary living. I have been reacting to the atmosphere around me and making decisions on the fly and adjusting accordingly. Five years ago in a galaxy far far away, I wore a dark Brooks Brothers suit with freshly shined shoes as I reluctantly rode the downtown subway to Wall Street six days a week. I was a miserable 30-year old barely holding onto the last threads of humanity. When I prayed, I used to pray to God to send a deranged homeless man to shove me onto the train tracks, so I would die because I was so fuckin' depressed and caught up in a rueful rut, yet too chicken-shit to kill myself because suicide is a very un-Catholic thing to do. Like the majority of the herd, I was too confused and scared to make the necessary changes in my life which would put me onto a path of self-fulfillment and happiness. However, when I left Wall Street behind in the Spring of 2003 (for the second time in less than a decade), I had no idea what would happen to me but deep inside I felt alive for the first time since before 9.11. I embraced the unknown, because I was content on choosing an artistic life of constant struggle than a safer and more comfortable path.

Some days, I reflect upon a decade ago when I was in my mid-20s and living on the fringe of society in Seattle. I was flat broke and worked four jobs just to pay rent and have enough herb for my pipe and enough beer for my belly. I achieved a semblance of happiness then even though I wasn't living what my family considered a productive and fruitful life. Alas, my thoughts often drift to those foggy days. I'm confident that they were 100% necessary because I never would have gotten to where I am today, if I didn't migrate to the West Coast and live among the hippies and embark upon the necessary steps to find my voice as a writer. In Seattle, I was exposed to alternative artistic pursuits and immersed myself in books, films, music, and philosophy that I never would have pursued if I continued to live with the hipsters in Brooklyn.

It's weird how I'm constantly looking back at my life around a decade ago. I can't explain it, but for some reason I have been writing a lot about my time living in Seattle or being on the road at the end of the 1990s following Phish all over North America. I guess that something clicked in my head and there's a flashlight scouring the darkest corners of my mind where those memories have been tucked away. I can finally understand what was going on with me then... which at the time which I couldn't comprehend. It's a perfect example of what Kierkegaard said that... "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."

In short, it's easier for me to write about stuff that happened ten years ago than it is for me to write about stuff ten days ago. I guess that's why I think I won't write a great book about the poker scene or Las Vegas until 2015... if I make it that far. By then I'll have a decade of life in between me and my first leap into the poker world. I'll be a little older and wiser then, and a more concise writer. Someday, I'll write that book although I dunno if I or anyone else can wait seven years for that to happen. Who knows if poker will fade away or be more popular than ever? I can't even tell you what poker will be like in America six months from now, let alone six years.

Like I stated earlier, I have ideas and goals for 2008, but I also know at this point that my hopes and expectations often dissolve into thin air. Fate often throws you a curveball when you least expect it. You actually have no control over how things transpire, and the illusion of control is one of the most dangerous things I have encountered in my short life.

It's important to have an intended destination in life and it's even more important to have the flexibility and patience in getting there. But the most vital aspect to living, is to allow yourself to leap into the unknown, because that's where the biggest mysteries of life are hidden.

There were days, weeks, and months in 2007 when I had almost every minute of my life mapped out, and then there were weeks where I refused to commit to anything and I lived life without any direction and boundaries. I seemed to have the most fun during my blocks of unstructured and unfettered time because my writing flourishes while the creative juices intoxicate and inspire me. What I'm really trying to say is that I thrive on chaos, while structure makes me despondent.

2007 was a banner year despite the ups and downs. My closest friends knew about the private struggles with accepting the mood swings that accompany a grumpy artist, or battling with addiction (pick any four), or overcoming multiple health issues which may or may have not been triggered by my addictions or the intense travel and unhealthy work schedule (like getting 15 hours of sleep per week during the WSOP). I would often say things to my friends like, "I'm burnt out and I'm so sick of poker."

Like the Kurgan mentioned in the Highlander movie, "It's better burn out, than to fade away!"

After a long and intense three years covering the poker scene, I am more than burnt out. The novelty of spanning the globe has worn out and I waste weeks of my life standing in airport security lines or waiting for another delayed flight or finding myself getting issued another bad beat by JetBlue when I get seated next to another crying baby on my flight from JFK to Burbank. I have been living the majority of the last 1,000 days of my life in hotels and hate having to worry if a horde of illegal immigrant maids with sticky fingers will steal my iPod or a wad of $100 bills that I have hidden somewhere in the room. Or worse, a maid will burst into my hotel room at 8am (even though I have the "Do Not Disturb" sign in full view) just so she can refold my toilet paper into that nifty little triangle.

My worst fears have become a reality. My immersion into poker is no longer cool and exciting. It has become a job instead of a lifestyle choice, and by definition, all jobs suck.

I knew it was a problem when I found myself being evasive when strangers ask, "What do you write about?"

I hate saying "poker" because it gets such an unusual reaction and then people (not in the industry) start asking me a million and one questions, or want to discuss poker strategy, or worse... they tell me a bad beat story. Poker is my job. It's not something I actively seek to discuss while bumping into old friends on cold street corners in New York City. That's why I respond, "I write freelance for a bunch of magazines and websites. Boring stuff. So how are your kids?"

It's time for a break. That's why I'm taking off several months in between the Aussie Millions and the 2008 WSOP. I had taken off the final two months of 2007 to write and relax, so in essence, I'm on the cusp of a hiatus where I would have only worked a 15 day assignment over a stretch of seven months. I figured that by the time I arrive at the 2008 WSOP, I will be refreshed and rejuvenated and ready to cover my fourth WSOP in a row. That time off will allow me to be in much better head space and I'll finally have that time to improve as a writer and hone my craft and then if I decide to choose to return to covering poker tournaments, I can easily do another year or so. I want to be prepared to be able to handle a couple of more years on the road... and I can't do that without taking some time off right now.

Of course, I have no idea what will happen in 2008. Opening up that chicken shack in Moscow with Tony G sounds pretty enticing the more that I think about it. But if I had any advice to give you... it's this... enjoy the Tao of Poker while you can. It might not be here in 2009.

Maybe I should walk away from poker right now? Cash out. Sell the Tao. I have a big stack in life thanks to my tremendous good luck in poker. I should quit while I'm ahead and use the money I earned to fund my personal projects. I have seen poker's ugly side and many of my friends have gotten their collective asses kicked by poker. They have left empty-handed.

Maybe I should just quit after the 2008 WSOP?

At the end of the 2008 WSOP, I'll make that tough decision. If I choose to walk away from poker entirely, well then that's what's going to happen.

I'm at a crossroads. I have grown bored with poker when there's so much other interesting and compelling stuff going on in the world right now. I could take an assignment to cover the Olympics in Beijing, or hit the campaign trail and follow the leading candidates on their run for the White House, or I could venture into one of the world's hot zones and become a combat correspondent, or most likely, I'll head for the plastic hills of Hollyweird and churn out mindless static for the motion picture industry (once the writer's strike is over).

As much as poker has given me more financial freedom (i.e. I'm out of debt), I have also found it suffocating me artistically. I have all these gestating ideas and my inability to follow through on them due to time or work constraints has been extremely frustrating to endure.

I have a personal writing project that I started in November. I'd like to finish that in the months leading up to the WSOP. That would require me to spend a lot more time in Hollyweird working out logistics and research. It also means more time in NYC because I seem to write my best stuff there. If I gave myself four months to write and create and have huge chunk of unstructured time, I know that I'll achieve a semblance of happiness that had been missing from my life in 2007. Sure, I made more money than I could have ever dreamed of in 2007, but money is not important to me. If it was, I'd still be the monkey with the grinder getting irrelevant chip counts on another young internet multi-accounting hot shot that will be broke in six months time.

As much as it's important for me to write, I also want to devote more time to the amazing people in my life. I have neglected a lot of older friendships and it is important to me to reconnect with a lot of people in my life that I respect and admire.

I also have a slew of other side projects like LasVegasVegas and Fantasy Sports Live. I'd like to get more involved in those sites and continue on with my other blogs like Tao of Pauly, Truckin', and my music blog. And you should keep your eye out on those sites over the next twelve months.

By eliminating the grueling travel schedule and scaling back on my freelance work (aside from my columns in Bluff and Poker Player Newspaper, but I can handle a mere three deadlines a month) and focusing more on living than working, I will have more time for my personal projects. I can finally rest up and get healthy and find more time to write on my blogs and sites, which means more stuff for you to read to distract and entertain you.

I guess to sum up...

I'm taking time off (around four months) after the Aussie Millions to regain control of my life. I'm back to my old self where I'm living life on my terms and ignoring what the brainwashed masses think. I have no idea if I can pull it off, but I'm gonna do my best to write a screenplay, travel for myself (like a trip to New Zealand with Change100 at the end of the month), listen to more live music, spend time with new friends and reconnect with old friends. I also have a pile a books that I want to read and I'll be constantly thinking about Johnny Hughes' advice about having just one girl, one drug, and one gambling vice.

In Stardust Memories, a 1980 film by Woody Allen, there's a quote from a character named Sandy Bates played by Allen. It goes something like, "You can't control life. It doesn't wind up perfectly. Only art you can control. Art and masturbation. Two areas in which I am an absolute expert."


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.

Truckin' - January 2008, Vol. 7, Issue 1

By Pauly
Melbourne, Australia

And we're back with the new issue of Truckin', which features three new writers in Garth Elliot, Andy Harbuck, and Kajagugu, who are all making their respective Truckin' debuts. The legendary Johnny Hughes makes another appearance in this issue. And lastly, I wrote another installment of Existentialist Conversations with Strippers.

1. The Squirter by Paul McGuire
Joey was the cream of the crop circa 1992. But now her looks have started to fade and she's slumming in the afternoon shift. The booze perked her up a bit and she told me the horror stories about the last few days. Cowboys in town for the rodeo didn't tip and took up all the seats. They liked to look but not pay... More

2. Blackouts by Garth Elliot
Once or twice a month I experience another blackout. Usually I wake to find myself lying on my bed, still in the clothes I went out in, shoes and all. Other times I've woken up curled up in some park somewhere. More than once I have come to on a beach, usually when I am on vacation. On the rare occasion I wake up in a stranger's bed... More

3. The Ring by Johnny Hughes
Cody was a hero in the fifties. A perfect bopper. Heavy greased ducktails. The Chevy. Sandy Kay. Football. Cody peroxided his hair for the Gold Team. Cody Slaton was a James Dean impersonator long before the hoard of Elvis impersonators sought to clone the King... More

4. Vaguely Moving by Andy Harbuck
I spent precious minutes of wakefulness in the dirty restroom, contemplating buying the studded condoms for added sensation. When I got to the car and mentioned the close call to my girlfriend, she looked relieved. I'm not sure if it's the studs that scare her, or just me wanting sex... More

5. Vegas Virgin by Kajagugu
I just picked up the dice and threw them to the other side of the table. One bounce. Hit the wall. Roll back and stop. That bead of sweat now rolled right into my eye and blurred my vision. I tried to wipe my eye clean but all I could hear was a huge burst of applause and screaming and before I knew it the Texan was lifting me up in the air in a huge bear hug... More

Please tell your friends and family about your favorite stories. It takes only a few seconds to pass along Truckin'. The writers certainly appreciate your support. Thanks again to everyone for wasting your precious time month after month with Truckin'.


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.