The all-important TV Poker Pit.

Day 1a of the World Series of Poker Main Event is going on right now and, compared to the last Series we covered, in 2007 when it was like a kegger at Delta house, this one was a tea party full of little old ladies.

As we were coming in, Jamie Gold was marching out, but it doesn’t look like the 2006 champ was playing today. There was a big crowd around Gus Hansen, complete with boom mic and video camera, but the overall atmosphere didn’t seem anything like the circus of a couple years ago. Humberto Brenes was looking admiringly at a huge house of cards in the rotunda at the edge of the convention center though, so that’s something. You can’t get within 15 feet of the thing because it’s roped off, but that’s probably a good idea. We’re not sure we wouldn’t have been able to stop ourselves from tipping it over, either.

They also had something there called the Pokerpalooza, which is basically just where all the exhibitors go. Two things: 1) Really? We’re still doing whatever-palooza? OK. And 2) It was about three guys buying poker junk away from being a shantytown. Two years ago, Sapphire had a booth there with girls dancing, there was a poker ninja running around and it was like its own little slice of the carnival. This year? We saw two booth girls. One for the Aussie Millions and one standing next to a bunch of motorcycles. Yeah, we don’t get it either.

By Jason Scavone

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