Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- A look back at Dr. Pauly and the poker boom.

- The real victims of the Long March.

- From the archives: 50 ways to unplug and feel human again.

- Groomers lose in Florida court.

Dutch Bucks

Great story by Pauly about his just past college poker game.

Those were the days.

WSOP - And We Have a Winner!

I won't spoil it for you if you are waiting to watch the final table action on ESPN but Pauly has the results and the play-by-play over at Tao of Poker.

As always - good stuff from Pauly.

WSOP - Then There Were Two

The final table is down to heads-up action.

It took 169 hands, but the heads up match is set. Play is over for the night and will resume tomorrow. The final two are Peter Eastgate and Ivan the Russian.

The Final Two:
Peter Eastgate (Denmark) - 79.5M
Ivan Demidov (Russia) - 57.725M

1st Place - $9,152,416
2nd Place - $5,809,595

As always - the Tao of Poker with Dr. Pauly is the only place to follow the action.

World Series of Poker - November 9

Pauly has an excellent rundown of the players at the final table of the WSOP Main Event. The link to the player profiles post isn't working but Pauly is doing a first day live blog - so it's all good.

For the record - I'm rooting for Dennis Phillips. I'm not close to being as old as he is but he's the player I can most identify with.

Better Late Than Never

A couple of links that should have been posted a couple of days ago.

- Dr. Pauly's engrossing story of the Las Vegas blogger poker get together.

- Chad Finn's fine take on the Mitchell Report

An Unbelieveable Story?

Bill Clinton and Shaq using the same Las Vegas prostitution ring? Man this story is almost too funny to be true.

There I was - reading my man Dr. Pauly for my WSOP updates when he drops this nugget:

And how about the three hookers getting busted at the Rio? They were a part of a bigger prostitution ring involving a cheerleading coach who moonlights as a Madame. She ran a high end hooker business that allegedly serviced high profile clients such as Bill Clinton and Shaq. I always knew Slick Willy liked high end pussy. The ladies for hire cost at least $10,000 and they only got a meager 15% cut. It pays to be a pimp.

My first thought was that Pauly has to be careful saying things like that. I mean bloggers like Neate Sager are getting sued for libel. Then I saw in the comments that the story about Clinton and the hookers was supposedly on Drudge. I checked Drudge but my search didn't come up with the story (it did unearth a great headline though - "BILL CLINTON COMES OUT TO CELEBRATE ELTON'S 60TH"). I did a Google search and found that the story was legit. Some points I'd like to make:

- The "Madame" who was arrested had a first name of Esperanza. I know that means "hope" in Spanish but I just found it amusing to see it as a first name. But it turns out that her first name is the least bizarre thing about the story.

- Supposedly Madame Brooks had never done anything like this before and she was only doing it because her husband was having trouble selling cars. Am I the only one who finds that claim really hysterical? "Sorry honey I didn't make my quota this month so you are going to have to go out and pimp out some of your cheerleaders."

- Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy?

- On one hand Madame Esperanza Brooks had never done anything like this but on the other hand she claims to have a stable of 40 girls and high end clients like Bill Clinton and Shaq. Maybe it was just beginners luck snagging some big name clients the first time out of the box?

- I actually find the claim that Shaq used a prostitution service more unbelievable than the claim that Bill Clinton did. Personally - I'm giving both Clinton and Shaq the benefit of the doubt. I wouldn't be shocked in the least if was true but I think we all have to take the word of a pimp named Esperanza who is married to a car salesman with more than a grain of salt.

WSOP, POB and John Edwards Getting Snaked By a Gay Man

I've been meaning to remind people that now that the World series of Poker has begun (I think they are on the 4th event) and that THE best place for WSOP info and stories is over at the Tao of Poker. Nobody does poker better than Dr. Pauly.

I was reminded to post my reminder by a post over at Steve Silver's blog. No Steve was not posting about poker - he was posting about John Edwards almost getting "snaked" by a gay man. Now I'm not up on my gay terms - so I just assumed the gay guy wanted to do something to Edwards with his "snake".

This in turn made me think of the term POB (penis on back) which is not a gay term but in fact a poker related term. This made me think of Dr. Pauly and that's what prompted my reminder to check the Tao of Poker for all your WSOP updates.

If you aren't familiar with the term "POB" - read this post about the infamous Captain Tom and his wayward penis.