It’s not just us: Teller looks scarier here than the guy from the horrorcore band, right? (Photos by Erik Kabik | Retna)

Slipknot lead singer Corey Taylor, who just got married here just a couple weeks after helping organize the Trinity of Terrors around the Slipknot show at The Pearl Halloween weekend, was in town last night to celebrate his 36th birthday. He hit up Penn & Teller at the Rio and went backstage before the show. He’s also doing New Year’s Eve at Dead Man’s Hand with his Junk Beer Kidnap Band.

Here’s the bad thing about being in a gimmick band like Slipknot: Eventually, you’re staring down the barrel of 40 and facing the prospect of having to wear a mask four times a week in your professional career. Guess that’s why he’s making with all the side projects — otherwise you just turn into Paul Stanley, and no one wants that.

By Jason Scavone

NPH + P&T 4EVA.

Everyone’s new best friend, Neil Patrick Harris, went to check out Penn & Teller at the Rio Monday night when he was invited backstage to hang out with the magicians. Harris is a big magic fan and sits on the board of directors of the Magic Castle in Los Angeles. We were all into the idea of a Magic Castle and all, but when we found out that it neither floats on a cloud nor is guarded by man-eating unicorns, we were pretty crushed.

He was in town to tape an appearance on Live with Regis & Kelly, which will feature a live open from the cast of The Lion King from Encore Friday at 9 a.m.

By Jason Scavone

Uh oh. He got mo’ money. You know what that means.

After 87 hands of heads-up play over two hours and 21 minutes, Michigan’s Joe Cada became the youngest World Series of Poker champion just before 2 a.m., toppling Maryland lumberjack Darvin Moon and in the process, dethroning last year’s champ, Peter Eastgate, for the “youngest winner” title. Eastgate had almost a year on Cada, which means next year someone is going to have to enter the tourney exactly on their 21st birthday.

Cada was down 49 million to 145 mil after two hours of play, but things started to turn around for the youg pro when Moon raised all in on a 10-10-9-5 board holding 7-8 and Cada called with J-9. The river bricked out with a three and Cada took the lead 108 to 86.

Just about 10 minutes later, Moon lost another big one to Cada’s two pair and was a 2.5-to-1 dog. Half an hour after that, Moon woke up with Q-J suited and Cada had pocket nines. Moon came back on Cada’s initial raise and they got all the money in. The board ran out 8-7-2-K-7. This, coming all the way back from being down to about 2.7 million on the first day of final table play when Moon was sitting on roughly 60 mil. Click for more words and pictures »

By Jason Scavone

One of these two men cuts down trees for a living. Try to guess which.

Joseph Cada and Darvin Moon go head to head tonight for the finale of the World Series of Poker at The Rio at 10 p.m. Both guys are guaranteed $5.18 million in prize money, with the winner taking a grand total of $8.54 mil. Cada has a massive chip lead at 135.9 million to 58.8 million, and could become the youngest ever to win the bracelet. Moon, though has on advantage Cada does not: The independent lumberjack is handy with a chainsaw. That’s a pretty adequate threat to have in your back pocket if you ever need to figure out if your opponent is bluffing. Click for more words and pictures »

By Jason Scavone

The master of shoving balls in his mouth.

Much like the Yankees majestically carving a swath through Major League Baseball’s postseason, there was only one man who ever really, truly stood a shot at taking down the Martorano’s Masters of Meatball Eating Championship yesterday afternoon at the Rio. Other than us, we mean, because we totally would have smoked that thing.

Joey Chestnut put away 50 meatballs in 10 minutes — clocking in at 6.25 pounds for a record-setting performance. For consuming the weight in meatballs of a smallish housecat, Chestnut picked up $1,500. Pat Bertoletti could only muster 49 meatballs, good for $750. Sonya Thomas took third at 42, and the 105-pounder got paid $500 for adding almost five percent to her body weight. In meatballs.

Rookie Ben Morrison finished 38 for fourth and $250 while Henderson native Rich LeFevre came out of retirement to put away 33. Angelica Bridges of Fantasy took a whack at it and got down 10. That’s a lousy pound and change. Looks like someone is going to have to spend the offseason practicing.

By Jason Scavone

Flopping sets on the wild side. (Photos by Scott Harrison | Retna)

It’s charity poker the way God intended: With members of Motley Crue. Vince Neil hosts his Fifth Annual Off the Strip Poker Tournamnet at 7 p.m. to benefit the Skylar Neil Foundation with a slew of pros including Johnny Chan, Phil Gordon, Jennifer Harman, Layne Flack, Gavin Smith, Andy Block, David Williams, Evelyn Ng, Todd Brunson, Chip and Karina Jett, Lee Watkinson, Liz Lieu, Marc Traniello, Hoyt Corkins, Tom McEvoy and Kathy Leibert. It’s limited to 200 people and $500 to play with rebuys benefiting the charity. It’s also 1,000 percent more likely you’ll hear “Shout at the Devil” during this tournament than during the World Series final table. Click for more words and pictures »

By Jason Scavone

The rich look to get richer.

Here we go. Someone’s winning $8 million and someone’s … settling for $1.2 million. We suppose that’s not a bad way to take a little of the pressure off. We’re not sure what’s more interesting, that the World Series of Poker’s November Nine have already collected $1.26 million at the end of the Main Event break, or that of the remaining $15.84 million, it’s only made $1,321 in interest since July 16.

This totally crushes our fantasies of scoring millions in a jewel heist and living off the interest from our Cayman Islands bank account.

Anyway, Darvin Moon, James Akenhead, Phil Ivey, Kevin Schaffel, Steven Begleiter, Eric Buchman, Joseph Cada, Antoine Saout, and Jeff Shulman get back to the felt tomorrow at noon at the Rio for the final table of the World Series of Poker. Ivey, the pro everyone expects to do some damage, starts the day with the third-shortest chip stack at 9.7 million, while leader leader Moon is at 58.9 million.

Seeing as how ninth-place money has already been paid to everyone, whoever busts out first walks out without any additional cash, which would be eminently aggravating after a 115-day layoff. First place is good for $8.5 million, on down to $1.3 mil for eighth.

Moon, who controls 30 percent of the chips in play, is a self-employed logger who doesn’t own a computer. How do you even get to be a self-employed logger? The last time we heard of a professional woodsman, he was cutting up the wolf who ate Little Red Riding Hood.

By Jason Scavone

We all can’t be at the height of Twilight popularity, kids. (Photos by Scott Harrison | Retna)

Corey Haim was at VooDoo atop the Rio to celebrate Halloween instead of helping Corey Feldman cope with his divorce. You know, if you want to dispel the idea the public already has that the Coreys went everywhere and did everything together, probably starring in that reality show, My Two Coreys or Corey and Corey Have Issues or The Patti Duke Show or whatever it was, wasn’t the greatest idea in the world.

Also, Corey Haim never hung upside-down from VooDoo. Not even once the whole night. Like everything else awful and disappointing in life, The Lost Boys is a lie.

By Jason Scavone

Yeah, you know me.

Pool season: Desperately hanging on by its fingertips. Pool concert season: Well, you don’t need a bikini to rock. (Although we strongly recommend it.)

Our Lady Peace heads things up at the Rio’s VooDoo Beach tonight with a free concert tied up in the SpyOnVegas.com Open Bar. Go score yourself a free ticket here.

Incidentally, shouldn’t these guys drag Third Eye Blind with them around on tour to play “Kryptonite” before they come on stage for their big “Superman’s Dead” finale? Also, are we the only ones who think lead singer Raine Maida sounds like a prepubescent Muppet? No? Just us? Fine. Be that way.

By Jason Scavone

It’s like Piet Mondrian threw up on prom tuxes. Art joke! (Via myspace.com)

If you want to understand why we won the Cold War, all you need to do is look at two bands. The Presidents of the United States of America named themselves after a collection of politicians whose office is routinely described as that of “Leader of the Free World.” Gorky Park named themselves after the Soviet version of Six Flags Over Texas. Plus, Gorky Park totally sucked.

The Presidents are at VooDoo Beach at the Rio tonight along with a band named for the second-greatest icon of American culture, The Ataris, and just for good measure the SpyOnVegas.com Open Bar is running concurrently from 6 to 9 p.m. Go ahead and get your free ticket here, confident in the knowledge that this is the reason the Berlin Wall fell.

By Jason Scavone