Thursday, July 10, 2008

Hot Chips Gets Heated, Goes on a Heater

I've been following the World Series of Poker online very closely but decided this year I would offer no spoilers, except for this:

Heading into Day 3 (after 4 Day 1s and 2 Day 2s) my favorite female poker player, Tiffany "Hot Chips" Michelle is still alive, and doing quite well.

Tiffany Hot Chips Michelle playing in the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event

She had a nice sized stack at the beginning of Day 2, but ran into some bad luck. Here's how PokerNews.com (for which she is an on-camera hostess) described the action:

"That Ain't Right
Tiffany Michelle just suffered a big beat. After an opponent raised to 2,000 preflop and Tony Antonious called, Michelle reraised to 10,000. The original raiser folded, but Antonious, who has already been given an "excessive celebration" warning, made the call.

The flop came down 2h, 7h, 10h. Antonious led out for 16,000, prompting Michelle to quickly push all in. Antonious called for less, a total of 65,000.

Antonious: Qc 10h
Michelle: Ad As

Antonious didn't have to sweat long -- the turn was the 10d and the river fell Qc to make a full house, tens full of queens, for Antonious. Michelle was described as "fuming," asking Antonious questions like, "How could you call?" When Antonious pointed out his flush draw, Michelle responded that she made it 10,000 preflop. Antonious responded by showing a photo of his house in Florida and suggesting they should both go fishing after the tournament was over.

We doubt that will happen. Michelle is still in the tournament with 24,000 chips, while Antonious now has 190,000."

Shortly after that beat Michelle slipped to a low of 8,800 and apparently stayed mad. She reported said "justice!" when Antonius took a bad beat a few hours later. She stayed between 20,000 (the starting stack size) and 40,000 for most of the day. But late in the evening she caught a couple big hands and is taking 120,000 chips (a slightly above average stack) into Day 3.

I'd love to see her make an even deeper run and get a lot of ESPN camera time. And it would be even cooler to see her at the final table which is in November.

I hope she wears that t-shirt at the final table

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