World Series of Poker shows Vegas at its best

Las Vegas has been beset by weird, bad news this year. There's the mortgage foreclosure crisis, plus a hepatitis outbreak. And you could drown away such troubles with a night on the town, but then you might deal with long lines at expensive, celebrity-owned nightclubs that are, alas, under investigation by the feds.

So it was a relief this weekend to see the focus of Vegas rooting into what it does best: poker. Specifically, taking people's money away from them for their own good, or at least Las Vegas' good.

The World Series of Poker was a magnet for many hundreds of action junkies from around the world. They chipped in up to $10,000 each to play the tables. A swarm of international media buzzed around them.

And some poker players and spectators did their part to help alleviate our housing crisis. Quite a few told me they just moved to Las Vegas within the past month, either to get closer to tournaments here, or to prey as poker pros on tourists in hotels.

The most prominent gaming duo was actress Jennifer Tilly and her poker champ boyfriend Phil Laak. They just moved here a few weeks ago. And they were hard to miss at the Rio, since he's known as "The Unabomber" for hiding his poker face behind dark glasses and a hoodie. And she's appropriately called "The Unabombshell."

Tilly thinks "Unabombshell" is a cute alias, but she prefers another nickname she hears: J-Tilla the Killa.

"I think that strikes fear in the hearts of men," she says. "'Unabombshell' sort of implies 'decorative:' someone you can have at the table so you can stare at her boobs."

J-Tilla the Killa has earned the right to rename herself, since she is the only celebrity to win a Series event: a $1,000 women-only, no-limit Texas hold 'em tourney in 2005.

Tilly dropped $10,000 Friday to play in the first of 55 Series events, which stretches into July and fetches $1,500 to $50,000 for various event buy-ins. But Tilly "busted out" in the first few hours.

"I really wanted to play the first game in the World Series of Poker, and here I am," she said. "Maybe the next time I won't play a $10,000 game when I'm starting out.

"I don't think I played that bad, but obviously the facts speak for themselves. I'm sitting here and I haven't even drunk my free coffee yet."

Tilly is an Oscar-nominated actress from "Bullets Over Broadway" and "Bound," but she's making poker her career "A."

"I haven't given up acting, it's just a reprioritization. You're not gonna see me on a sitcom chasing after some kid's dog," she says. "I know I'm addicted to poker. It's this mystery I'm trying to unravel. ... It's much more visceral (than acting). You're always in the trenches."

Tilly isn't a typical World Series player, since she's female. Tables remain dominated by men. Yet, unsurprisingly, the emerging sex symbol is Vanessa Rousso, a 25-year-old from France and New York who traded law school for poker. At 23, she earned $700,000 in tournaments. Last year: $800,000. She's doing better so far this year.

Rousso, who just moved here with poker-pro boyfriend Chad Brown, says many women may be intimidated by male players' heft, but she's not.

"I'm just like one of the guys," she says with a big smile, clipping a fast-paced and tough New York accent, and frankly, her tone points at you like a happy, confident killer.

Tilly, also a fast talker, sees Rousso and herself as kind of pioneers in the sport of poker.

"It's one of the few (sports) where a woman can compete on a level playing field with a man," Tilly says.

She played sports as a kid. Now poker amps up her testosterone, she says:

"It really makes you feel alive when you're involved in a hand, or when you bust out and you turn red all over, and you stumble toward the door in the room, and you're like, 'At least I'm living life!'"

Meanwhile, another player/spectator at this weekend's Series also just moved to town, though he's far from fame. Brian Fox, 29, and his girlfriend, Nikki Blackford, sold a house in Billings, Mont., to come here a few weeks ago.

Fox, a former stocks guy, has already been raking in chips against amateur tourists in poker rooms at Bellagio and Wynn Las Vegas. Blackford, who's looking for a concierge job, believes in her man.

"I like the passion he has for it. If he worked a 9-to-5 job, he wouldn't come home with stories," she says.

"It helps when you're winning," Fox says.

Fox's goal is to collect several hundred bucks a day, to close in on a six-figure salary. He claims he was one of the best players in Montana, but now he sees plenty of other guys who are as good as him. A strength is he doesn't get emotional at tables.

"I've had buddies who've seen the dark side of poker," he says. "They get emotionally lost. They never made an effort to get better. They just thought they had bad luck."

Since Fox went from stocks to poker, that makes him a stereotype. He weighs the similarities.

"It's risk and reward, like the stock market," he says. "You're making an educated guess based on the information you have. If you make an informed decision and don't play past your means, you can usually turn a profit."

Rousso, the poker powerhouse and sex symbol, advances the same stock market parallels, saying she has to adjust her game based on ever-changing dynamics of rivals.

"Just like in stocks, past performance isn't an indicator of future performance," said Rousso, who was fond of the expression, "If you go with your instincts, four out of five times you're correct. The problem with that is, you're wrong one out of five times."

With all the players and media growth, you can see the World Series becoming more of a spectacle than ever.

Ever since ESPN's "lipstick" cams began revealing players' cards to viewers, ESPN and "CSI" probably point more eyes Vegas' way than anything else in the mainstream.

Consequently, stars in alignment this weekend ranged from Shannon Elizabeth to Orel Hershiser, and, of course, poker superstars such as Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu, Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Helmuth and Phil Ivey.

Players all around looked sternly at one another in emotionless rooms of stony poker faces, sometimes hiding behind hoodies and hats, or blocking out rival chatter by listening to iPods on headphones the size of Princess Leia's hair buns.

The most noticeable trend at the start of the 39th World Series of Poker wasn't the smattering of women or celebrities amid the click-click sound of chips, but the huge numbers of amateurs and growing international media. Several years ago, the Series was dominated by pros, and only about 300 of them would invest big-money entry fees.

But as poker fans know, in 2003, an amateur named Chris Moneymaker turned a $40 long-shot entry from a qualifying game into a $2.5 million win at the final table.

Since then, amateurs have fulfilled fantasies to enter, and they're winning on ESPN, which turned poker into a pop-culture phenomenon.

So this year's World Series is expected to draw more than 7,000 people in 55 events.

"Without amateurs, we have no business," says Mike Paulle, a retired tournament media director.

On the other hand, Paulle complains that starting this year, although the World Series will take place through July, the last table's finalists must wait four more months to play in the finale for November TV ratings.

"It's now a made-for-television event," Paulle says. "What'll happen in 117 days is people will be different people. They'll all get coaching, and they'll all get deals. It's a complete corruption of everything we've been fighting for.

"I spent my entire career trying to make poker a sport ... and they ruined it."

Check this out. In the past two Series finales, there have been eight amateurs and only one pro at the last table. From now on, it will take some doing for a pro to draw a series of workable hands over and over throughout a contest stacked with thousands of amateurs.

"There's almost no skill involved in a field that large," Paulle says. "It may take 30 years to have another pro magically win another (final) table."

Making pros' jobs harder: Amateurs change their games to try to take them out. Don't cry for pros, though. They're winning bigger payouts in those 55 events. The event Tilly busted out in, pot limit hold 'em, ended Sunday with all pros, including her "Unabomber," as they gunned for a $794,000 payday. The event's buy-in of $10,000 proved prohibitive for many amateurs.

But even amateurs were treated to a red carpet entrance on Friday, while a 25-piece University of Nevada, Las Vegas marching band blared "Viva Las Vegas" through the Rio.

ESPN 360 reporter Jon Castagnino watched the band parade and, relying on his status as a Las Vegas native, observed later that there were still a few missing components from the usual Vegas pageantry.

"We could have used Mayor Oscar Goodman to kick it off," he said. "And showgirls."

Doug Elfman's column appears on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Contact him at 383-0391 or e-mail him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He also blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.