Blog Moved

Browse by Tag - Joe Schepis

• PokerStars Players Party

  July 09, 2008

  With the freeroll over and having a healthy $400 in pocket (as Heath and Guzzardi both had 10%) we were off to the PokerStars Players Party at Rain nightclub at the Palms. With Eric and Don ditching me as I was having a piss in the Rio carpark, I swung a lift via Garry along with Boncek and Schipis. On arrival we met up with some of the fellow PokerNews employees, grabbed our armbands for VIP access and headed inside.

  

   

  The main bar and dancefloor

  As me and Heath were asked for ID's, all the PokerStars pros were being snapped by the many cameras and intervied by our own Melissa Castello. Once into Rain we were greated with a burlesque-themed party and by a mass of people taking up all the dancefloor space on the bottom level. Losing Heath as I wondered past the main bar and up the stairs, I spotted Slippers and Dane high on the third level and headed straight there. As we headed down to the second level, directly above the main bar, we joined a booth filled with predominately Aussies. Joe Hachem and family, Tony Hachem and Shane Warne, Emad Tahtooh, Grant Levy, Billy the Croc, Gary Benson and many more filled the couch and standing space as a longed for a drink.

  

   

  Grant Levy, myself and Tony Hachem

  Heading up to the bar I bumped into Joy and her entourage which included Maria Ho , who everyone seems to be obsessed with apart from me. As the girls bought me a drink I found Donnie and we negotiated our way back into the 'Hachem' area as our VIP status of grey wristbands weren't as good as the black ones needed to have full VIP access. After Joe did his speech about how PokerStars are going in this years main event Emad let me have his black wristband and I tucked it under my black hair tie that was around my wrist from earlier.

  

   

  Dita Von Teese in her second show of the night

  As the night progressed everyone was downing the free drinks as more and more fun was being had. With burlesque dancers on platforms and suspended above the air, a Dita Von Teese show on the front stage, a fight between PokerNews employees Eric Ramsey and Joe Schepis as well as a full on pash-fest put on by Dario Minieri and Isabelle Mercier it was definately a night not to miss!

  

   

  Dario Minieri and Isabelle Mercier going at it on the bar

  

   

  One of the burlesque dancers

  We all headed to Maccas after the night was out, and just when you thought the night couldn't get any better, who do we see having maccas . . . Joe Hachem and his family. I always thought that Joe was so down to earth, but to see him taking a chunk out of a quarter pounder just proves it more. After eating our burgers I decided to crash with Don and Slippers as Christian was playing $1-2 and who knows how long he would be there!! Another night on a couch . . . its something I'm definately getting use to . . . ha ha ha.

  P.S - I'm going to post some photos in this blog, but for the rest head to my facebook.

  1192 views, 0 comments

  Read more: PokerStars, Rain Nightclub, The Palms, Chris Boncek, Garry Gates, Joe Schepis, Heath Chick, Melissa Castello, Anthony Molinaro, Dane Jensen, Emad Tahtooh, Joe Ha

• A Palm Tree and a Desperate Boy

  June 19, 2008

  So yesterday I had to cover the 7-card stud championship with Don, Eric, Joe and some of the other reporters. With a very strong field, it was a pro-heavy field that finished the day with a long way until they would reach the money.

  As the day wound up, computers were bagged and pens were capped, Garry headed over and invited us all out to this place for some drinks. With only the Venetian on the cards for me and Joe we decided to join everyone else to steam off a little and neck a few cold ones along with Christian, Chris and Donald.

  As we approached Tommy Rocker's we found out that it wasn't just a bar, but it was 'Tommy Rocker's Mojave Beach - a rock 'n' roll topless bar'! Once through the doors and past the 11 people crowding the bar we all took a booth for ourselves. As the first round of drinks came out, out came the deck of cards and we were all doing omaha flips.

  Once Eric was stuck $200 to Garry doing $50 double flop omaha flips, I taught everyone how me and Shane do the 9-card omaha flips - discard 2 preflop, 2 on the flop and 1 on the turn. With everyone loving the idea that got going until the real action started to occur.

  With a strip pole in front of us, and a reporter desperate for some extra cash we dared Joe 'Alf' Schepis to get up on stage, dance for 2 songs with his feet leaving the ground every 10 seconds for longer then 2 seconds or so; and if he could get a girl up there with him we would chuck in an extra $20 on top of the $85 he was already getting. However the boss didn't like the idea of a guy 'stripping' for the crowd as it might scare his 11 customers off. So we came up with another idea.

  In the corner near the stripper stage there was a palm tree; for 80 bucks all Joe had to do was pretend to hump the tree for 2 songs and he would get paid. As he humped and grinded the tree for a the first 20 seconds of the next song a shout of, "WHAT THE HELL!!" came from the bar and Joe immediately deserted the tree. "You know I was thinking. I gotta do that for like 8 more minutes. Fuck that!! That ain't worth 80 bucks" said Joe as he sat back down to finish off his Budd light.

  With Garry being up a billion in prop bets and flips for the night he shouted a lap dance for Joe with the 'stripper' - thats if you can call her that - no idea how to dance, pregnancy marks that represented 3 kids and not the best looking shiela either! With everything said and done, we were out of there after 3 rounds of drinks, some food, enough laughs to last us the rest of the trip and all it cost was $96 - and thanks to Garry; on him.

  455 views, 0 comments

  Read more: Christian Vaughn, Eric Ramsey, Garry Gates, Joe Schepis, Chris Boncek, Donald Peters