Normally when one reads about strategy and position, it refers to poker. But Harrahs has it all figured out and none of it applies to poker. The strategy is to get all of the money they can, the position is what they put you in while they are doing it. Figure that Hershey is the official candy of the WSOP, Milwaukee’s Best is the official beer of the WSOP, Hertz is the official rental car of the WSOP, and I’m starting to believe Sapphire’s will be the official strip club of the WSOP.

We have now arrived at the trade show that the Rio forces all of us to walk through to gain entrance to the actual games – the room that hosts all the tournaments and live action (thought that’s why we were there but we aren’t, we are there because Harrahs has to pull every dime out of our pocket that we might have thought about keeping for a rainy day). Imagine what it costs the vendors to set up a booth in that section, even knowing that they will have quadzillion visitors passing by their office space, it still has to be a bit intimidating to someone that doesn’t have a lot of advertising capital. But that aside, let’s take a look at some of the vendors along the forced walk.

This one, of course, caught my eye – but amazingly there was no one in front of it when I stopped to take a few pictures. Say hello to the dollies from Sapphire’s.

Is this really pole dancing at its best? I can’t help but wonder…

A lot of the theme is along the lines of Bodog’s theme last year, the bed upstairs with the chicks in their near nudeness doing pillow fights with any guy that wanted to try to grope them.

There were other booths with other attractions, the ‘bobble heads’ for one.

Major belt buckle city, get a custom one if you like.

No party or trade show is quite right unless it has an Elvis. And if you zoom the picture, the open can setting in front of ‘pink shirt’ reads, “Who*s your daddy?”

This little beauty was sitting over the tank, waiting to be dunked (a couple of others were sitting on the sidelines wearing robes – shivering – waiting to return to the same spot our beauty is in.

This is one of the dunkers – they were in line.

Guitar Land USA was alive and well at this trade show – I didn’t see any cowboy boots this year, this was kind of disappointing as I thought they were very unique.

Johnny Chan and Layne Flack were at a booth – I think it’s called All In but not sure. I stopped to chat Layne for a moment as he was busy signing a cover sheet for the All In Energy Drink and dancing to a rap video that he, Johnny, and Phil Hellmuth made.

I had a great picture of Layne and someone managed to walk between him and the camera just as I snapped – so the sober, reflecting version.

People, people every where and yet the trade show seemed a little blah and creepy in comparison to last year. I still hate the thought that we are forced to walk through it to gain access to poker – which leads to the fact that most of this really isn’t related to poker so it’s turned into a carnival of sorts. Oh well…

More random WSOP photos up soon and look for the continuation of ‘Tipping is Not a City in China’.