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One of our favorite on-going segments during this year’s WSOP was RawVegas. tv’s “How F’in Hot Is It?” The gist was that host Barrett Applegate would ask various poker pros – including Gavin Smith, Tony G, Dario Minieri, Kathy Liebert, as well as some unknowns and wannabes – how hot it was in Las Vegas. Pretty simple premise, very funny results.
Hopefully those results carry over into this month’s column, as we explore who the f’ is hot in the poker industry right now.
So in no particular order, here’s our offi cial 2008 F’in Hot List. Amazingly, this list isn’t 100% comprised of hot chicks. Although hot chicks will comprise 100% of the photos.
ERICK LINDGREN – This is shaping up to be Lindgren’s best year on the circuit. As of press time he’s leading the WSOP Player of the Year Race. He’s still killing it on prop bets among his peers. He even won a major online tournament he hosted on Full Tilt Poker. In fact, Erick’s turn in the “How F’in Hot Is It?” video series was the creative impetus for this article. To parwaphrase a girl we heard outside the Rio: “If Erick was any hotter right now, he’d have to put a cigarette out on his face just to cool off.”
LACEY JONES – She wasn’t named the Hottest Girl in Poker for nothing. While we’d like to take the credit for our good friend blowing up as much as she has in the past year, ultimately, it’s all on Lacey. From hosting gigs to columns to a photo spread she did in nothing but body paint, Lacey is quickly becoming the new Queen of Poker Media™.
DANIEL NEGREANU – Daniel predicted a big 2008 WSOP and he delivered, staying atop the Player of the Year list throughout the tournament. On top of that, he recently launched his very successful Poker VT website and came out with a new book, Power Hold’em Strategy. And if that’s not enough, he’s been killing it on the golf course, doing podcasts with The Sports Guy (Bill Simmons), and even got to eat dinner with Barack Obama. This got us thinking, Daniel has had a very good run in ’08. So at the end of the year, when BLUFF Magazine runs their “Reader’s Choice Awards” again, there’s really no reason to give Daniel the nod for “Best Blog” over us. It’d be overkill. Like fi nding out Tom Brady also has the world’s largest penis or something. One guy can’t have all the luck.
DENISE PERNULA – Sure we’re biased on this one, given that Pernula is the host of our internet show The TOKE. But nobody delivers hard-hitting poker news stories (like “Where has Vinnie Vinh’s chair been this year?”) with the wit, smarts, and ridiculously hot looks that Pernula does. Those characteristics let her get away with just about anything. From asking “Salty” Joe Hachem if he’s really Adnan Ghalib to questioning Don Cheadle if his role as “Ice Tray” on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air helped him with his poker game, nobody is as fearless and funny as Denise.
BLAIR HINKLE – First and foremost, we own SEO on this guy. Blair is kind of like a modern-day Shannon Shorr. Two or three years ago, Shorr was brilliantly tearing up the No Limit tourney scene, and nobody was really talking about it. It was almost like he was the poker-playing version of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Anyway, that’s what Hinkle is doing right now. Blair, the entities who comprise Wicked Chops Poker have noticed. And Blair, maybe you should date Britney Spears or fl ush out Osama bin Laden from wherever he’s hiding. Because Blair, if you do anything that big, our site traffi c with skyrocket, because we own SEO on you. Take one for the team, Blair Hinkle. Date Britney Spears. Wow, this article is quickly falling off the rails.
SHANNON ELIZABETH – Speaking of owning SEO on someone, for about six weeks we practically turned wickedchopspoker.com into a freaking Dancing with the Stars blog. Shannon’s run on the reality show was impressive. Almost as impressive as her gams. Seriously, Shannon’s legs are so hot she’d have to put a cigarette out on them just to cool off. Yeah, we’re recycling lines. We’ve got to reach our minimum length for this article, and since this isn’t college, we can’t do the old ‘increase line spacing’ trick.
THIS GIRL – All right, we have no idea who she is. But she gained fame railbirding some well-known pros during the 2008 WSOP. She’s perhaps one of our all-time favorite railbirds, and has defi nitely had people noticing her at the tables. While we don’t know the extent to which she knows poker, we have learned that her favorite hand is two pair. Nyuck nyuck nyuck.
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