House of Cards: Day Nine July 23, 2006

Big day yesterday!

House of Cards hero Carl Olson was the first of our lot to make a final table here at the WSOP. He finished 5th in chips late last night in the $2,000 NL Hold'em event. I've been blogging about him at Breakfast Club (So Proud of Carl Olson!), and also on PokerBlog.com (The Blonde Ivey). The final table begins today at 2:30pm. The chipleader as 1.5 mil and the 2nd placer has 832k. After that it's all 300kand below. We're going to go sweat him today after having lunch with one of John's old music friends.

A Night at the Tilted Kilt. There was a pokerblog.com meeting last night that got crashed by Pauly, Otis, Wil Wheaton, and John Caldwell. The first three named bought us shots of Southern Comfort and then made a prop bet as to how many of eight seated at the table would refuse it. Wil initially won the bet as three people left their shot mostly full, but Amy nursed hers giving someone else the title. The best part was Dan returning the favor and sending their table three glasses of white zin. Pauly and Brad downed theirs and then the parties merged.

Ring Talk. We've been talking about this a bit more lately. It started a few weeks ago when our friend Dave gave his fiance Cotie a 6.5 carat ring. But it came to the front burner last night. Pauly told us this great story about how he and his mom came across his grandmother's engagement ring. Afterwards he asked how much they cost today and I informed him of the two rules. Don't go under a carat, and suggested guidelines say to spend two months salary. John told Pauly he'd have to quit his job or restructure his salary to be all bonus before he got me one. I let him know one month's salary would be fine in his case, with a wink. Even though I don't wink.

In my state of tipsy, it was all I could talk about, "John, we were in no rush at all to move things forward, but now I just might need a ring before the Main Event."
"As of five minutes ago?" he asked.
"As of yesterday," I answered.
"That's some funny xxxx," he said. And we laughed all the way home.

This, of course is exactly a week after we had dinner with some wealthy Australians and I asked them if they had any friends in the mining business. I announced (perfectly sober) that I wanted to go mining for my own diamond. Preferably for the rare Australian pink diamond. They talked to me like I was an idiot and that you can't really go mining. John, like usual, replied with a practical answer.
"That's fine, but you do realize that you're going to have to take whatever you come up with, even if it's a chip."
"It's all about the story," I replied.

But we're not the only ones talking about it. Tim Levalli told us that someone asked Nolan Dalla (media director at the WSOP) if he could propose on Day Two of the Main Event. No doubt this is because he wants his woman to know he loved her before he got rich, or before he went and gambled off the down payment to the house they want to buy. Ah love. Ah the crazy world of poker. We'll be here for 2-3 more weeks.

Don't forget to tape or Tivo the Poker Dome Show tonight on Fox Sports Net. I think it's 11pm (PST) but please check your local listings. I have no idea what time it is on Central or Eastern time.

Current: Las Vegas
Next: Carol Olson's final table!!!!