Amazing Race

Two years ago I fell in love with Tiffany Michelle during her coverage of the World Series of Poker for pokernews.com.
Then I sent her an e-mail and she actually wrote me back.

And just a year later despite some early bad luck she had one of the best runs a female ever had at the Main Event.

Now Tiffany is hoping to set another standard for female achievement. Tiffany and her best friend Maria Ho (last woman standing in the 2007 Main Event) are hoping to be the first female team to win the Amazing Race.

When she sent out a cryptic tweet saying she would miss the Main Event for something very important, I didn't realize it would be something this cool.



Btw, Jems hates her because she called the clock on someone and gave her tablemates a lot of attitude, but that type of feistiness usually plays well in these high-intensity reality shows.

Tiffany Michelle's Parade Rained On

Her cards hadn't even hit the muck before Tiffany "Hot Chips" Michelle's great Main Event run was ruined by a disagreement with her employer pokernews.com.
Here's the simplest explanation of what went on as best as I understand it.
Tiffany had an agreement to work for PokerNews, but not an exclusive deal with them. Her buy-in was paid for by Tony G (part-owner of PokerNews) and Jeff Lisandro. When Tiffany made it through several days of the Main Event Ultimate bet (the site that sponsors her boyfriend, Hollywood Dave) approached her with a sponsorship deal (this is not uncommon in the poker world, sites slap their logos on players all the time). PokerNews was furious about this, saying they felt betrayed by her because she didn't consult them in her sponsorship negotations. Even though she wore both logos during the Main Event, PokerNews released this statement, and Tiffany fired back with a statement of her own which she has since taken off her MySpace page. Basically Tiffany said she appreciated what PokerNews did for her but she never signed an exclusivity agreement and was hoping to still work for PokerNews while playing in tournaments sponsored by UltimateBet.

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.



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.

Hot Chips and a Bunch of Other Hot Things

While following the World Series of Poker online I fell in love with Tiffany Michelle. She is the On-Camera Hostess for PokerNews.com and the one you can see chatting with Daniel Negreanu (here and here).

In every interview she conducted she displayed class, beauty, quick-thinking, beauty, poker knowledge and did I mention she's hot.



Tiffany Michelle (Graham is her real last name, Michelle is her middle name) grew up in LA and spent her childhood acting, singing, dancing and playing poker. She played poker for the first time with her two brothers (one is a twin, I bet he's handsome) and her grandfather when she was 9. She went to UCLA and pursued acting and that's when she started playing in Hollywood home games with some actor friends.
She turned 21 in 2005 and won the first tournament that she played at Harrah's in Las Vegas.
Since then, in addition to playing (best finish at a major tournament, 21st at a WPT event), she's become a poker reporter and now she's the On-Camera Hostess for PokerNews.com.



She also appeared on Game Show Network's World Series of Blackjack.



Tiffany is still trying to work on her acting and thinks her poker career will help her acting by giving her exposure. And I am all for more exposure for her.

Tiffany appeared in an episode of CSI with a gaping chest wound.



Tiffany says she is not dating double bracelet winner Jeff Madsen, but she gets that question all the time. She says they're just friends, there's no romance there and she feels like his older sister.

I'd like to think Jeff feels the same way about her but I have the feeling that he's dying to date her and everytime she dates some older, smarter, better looking guy who treats her like shit he dies inside. And when she gets drunk and says she loves him he wants to think it means that type of love he feels for her. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they have the world's only friendship between average looking guy and hot girl where the guy doesn't want to fuck her either. But I doubt it.



She loves skittles but she likes to shove them in her mouth all at once. I am very against this method of eating Skittles, I believe Skittles should be savored one at a time, by color, from worst to best. If she had to eat them that way, she would save the grape ones for last.

She has one dog, a Jack Russell Terrier named Brooklyn. I guess a Jack Russell is a good breed for a hot chick to own. Of course I prefer that all hot chicks have labs, or other big dogs, but a Jack Russell is much better than a bichon or a 2 lb. chihuahua that fits in a Marc Jacobs handbag.

If you're ever at the poker table with Tiffany you can expect her to play some junk hands, especially those with a 6 in them. She didn't specifically say her favorite hand was 6-9 but I like to think it is.








Tiffany was so gracious, that when I e-mailed her a bunch of questions, some serious and some stupid, she answered almost all of them. She didn't say whether she had a boyfriend and she thought my question about palindromes was a trick to prove she's stupid. I'm sorry she felt that way, but I guess she had no way of knowing how much I love palindromes.

Why I Love Daniel Negreanu

This interview with Tiffany "Hot Chips" Michelle from pokernews.com typifies everything I enjoy about watching Daniel play. He always looks like he's having fun. This interview was done on Day 2 of the Main Event, right before he got knocked out.