WPT Invitational and the Tonight Show with Jay Leno

Hey guys, it's Natalie here again. Hoyt made it through day 1 of the WPT Invitational with slightly below average chips - 21,700. There were over 300 people at the start and we are already down to 88, so surviving is an accomplishment in and of itself.
While in the tournament, Hoyt was followed by the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" crew. He played with one of Jay's correspondents, busting him out; and even gave a taped interview for the show. I hope everyone has the opportunity to watch. I'm really excited for Hoyt. He's a big Jay Leno fan, and would love the opportunity to come on the show as a guest.

Play for day 2 of the WPT Invitational begins at 6:30pm Pacific time. You can check out the updates from yesterday's play and tonights play at any one of the following sites: Cardplayer, PokerPages, Pokerwire, and the new WPT Updates. Best of luck to you, Hoyt as you play for top prize of $100,000, your 4th WPT final table, and your 2nd WPT Title!

2005 CardPlayer Awards

Natalie and I went to LA for the CardPlayer Awards Gala, and was it ever! Calvin Ayre, who owns Bodog put on a great show. We walked the red carpet, having our pictures taken. Then we went up to the roof of the Music Box Theatre for the pre-show cocktail party. We mingled with some celebrities and fellow poker players as well as lots of reprsentatives from various media outlets.

Natalie wore one of her infamous Valentino gowns, and if they had given an award for best dressed, I'm sure she would have won. Not only did I think she looked good, but everyone else did too. People were coming up to us, and I thought they would have wanted to talk to me, but they all wanted to find out about Natalie's dress! I guess I will have to step it up a notch next year with my wardrobe.

The awards show was great. It was more than I ever expected for the first time out. Congratulations to Barry and Jeff Shulman on such an accomplishment.

The after party was at the Geisha House on Hollywood Blvd. We went over there and Vince Van Patton bought us a drink, which was really nice of him. Thanks again, Vince. Upstairs, they had a private room for us all where we ran into Phil Hellmuth. He had made a bunch of money in the stock market and was very excited. Natalie told him that he should buy some Dom Perignon to celebrate on, and he bought us our own bottle. Needless to say, we weren't going to try and drink a whole bottle of Dom and then drive back to the hotel, so we shared with a few of our friends from the WPT.

Natalie and Daniel Negreanu's wife, Lori made quick friends; and I made a new friends in Rich Belsky whom you may recognize from CardPlayer's video updates at the WSOP last year. About 3:30am, we decided that we had had enough fun and headed back to the hotel.

The next day, Natalie was in the mood for a little shopping. Our hotel was three blocks away from Rodeo Drive, so you can't really expect a woman to not get in the shopping mood that close to some of the finest shopping in the world. We went to the Farmers' Market first, because I was in the mood for some coffee and Natalie had seen a Starbucks there before. We walked around the little booths of the Farmer's Market and the stores of The Grove nearby. A trolley ran down a cobblestone road that was closed off to car traffic. There were some fountains similar to the Bellagio's but not near a big in the small park surrounded by the shops. We stopped for lunch at a really nice Greek restaurant and then headed over to Rodeo Drive. I was real impressed with the charm of Rodeo Drive. The telvision shows and movies do not catch the true ambiance that you feel when you are there. It is a real peaceful and quite place in the middle of a tremendously busy metropolitan area.

In Valentino, we ran into Katherine jane Bryant, who is the Costume designer from the show on HBO, Deadwood. She's a Tennessee girl like Natalie, so they were having a blast talking and trying on clothes together. Janie is up for an award for her work next Saturday, and we are hoping for her to win it.

We're in Vegas now and will head back to LA on the 22nd for the WPT Invitational.

SuperBowl Weekend

Friday we started the event off with the Legends Celebrity Poker Tournament. John Elway, Roger Clemens, Britney Spears, and yours truly were in attendance. Many poker players came out to show their support for Jen Harman who was the host of the poker tournament. Natalie and I walked the red carpet, signed some autographs, and had some fun playing in the tournament. There was a silent auction with a Peyton Manning autographed football that Natalie made sure she won. I think she probably could have gotten one off ebay cheaper, but she's a huge Peyton fan and the proceeds were for charity - so it's all good. The football came today and she seemed very excited so it was all worth it. Maybe I'll be lucky enough for the ball to count as her Valentine's present. LOL

After the tournament, we went to the Playboy fashion show. We had a VIP booth complete with champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries, so Barry Greenstein and his girlfriend joined us. Todd Brunson, Erick Lindgren, Jen and Marco had the one next to us; and we all had a blast watching the show and going through our gift bags Playboy gave us.

After the fashion show, we went to the grand opening of the new high-limit gaming room at the Palms, called "The Mint." Jenny McCarthy was filming her show in there so the place was jam packed. We took a quick peek and decided to go back and see who won the tourney. We got there just in time to see the winner and have a chat with Mike Sexton about the future of poker and some recent events at the WPT.

Saturday, we spent in meetings with Wendy Meadley of Poker Resource Netwok and Chuck Chastain of the World Poker Store. The meetings were real positive. I hate going to them because I don't really understand all that is being said. Natalie listens to what they have to say and then puts it in layman's terms afterwards. We've got some good things in the works that I can't tell you about, but one thing that I can tell you about is that my bobblehead is in the works from www.pokerheads.net. It will make the series 3 line and be launch in July in time for the WSOP.

Sunday we went over to some friends' house. We didn't know many of the people there but had a good time making new friends and watching the game.

After all of the activities, I just pretty much rested yesterday, trying to get ready for my Cardplayer photo shoot that was scheduled for today. Unfortunately, the photographer's mother died and we had to reschedule. Since our day had suddenly been freed up, we decided to go over to the Bellagio and check out the action. They had started a 50-100 No-Limit game that I wanted to play in, but the last seat had just been taken. I may try going over there later tonight and see if I can beat up on the table a little bit.