Poker champions Jennifer Tilly, Phil “Unabomber” Laak and Antonio “The Magician” Esfandiari hosted at Tao nightclub in The Venetian for Bluff Magazine’s World Series of Poker kick-off party. Antonio surprised the media by bringing out his playing cards and doing card tricks on the red carpet. Jennifer arrived, wearing a fitted animal print dress, with boyfriend Phil Laak. The three players all hit the nightclub dancing to the sounds of DJ Five.

The WSOP is underway now at the Rio with 60 winning bracelets at stake. It will run through mid July when we’ll find out the final table of nine for the ultimate poker jackpot payoff and title of “worlds best.” However, to build the excitement and anticipation that showdown won’t actually take place until November! Our pal Michael Craig ,who writes the FullTilt poker blog starts his play today and he’s promised in-between matches to write a Luxe Life column for us about this year’s WSOP from the inside and we’ll run that early next week. Meantime, read his daily progress at FullTilt.

Incidentally for the third consecutive year, Harrah’s has designated Nevada Cancer Institute (NVCI) as the official charity for the World Series of Poker. “Nevada Cancer Institute is a wonderful community partner for the World Series of Poker,” said Jeffrey Pollack, WSOP commissioner. All participants will have the opportunity to relax in the VIP Lounge, dubbed the “Ace’s Club” throughout the entire tournament for food, beverage, a masseuse and even a separated game room with all the latest games and gadgets. All the funds raised from the cost of admission will go directly towards cancer research, education and treatment at NVCI.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 9:14 am and is filed under Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.