At one point Scotty Nguyen popped out of his seat and said, “They get paid $5 million a year to hit a little white ball, and they can’t do it!” He was referring, of course, to the baseball game on the television across the room. He and Franklin were betting on the games, and Scotty’s team was losing. Someone asked Franklin how much he had riding on the game. “20,000,” he responded. Every time the Tigers got an out in the ninth inning Franklin gave a little cheer. As soon as the game ended Franklin hit Scotty up for his winnings. Scotty pulled out a thick bundle of hundreds, peeled off two, and handed them to Franklin. “I thought the bet was for 20,000?” someone said. “Yeah,” said Scotty, “20,000 Vietnamese.”

Scotty and Captain Tom got mixed up in a hand right before the dinner break. “I got third wheel, baby,” Scotty said. Franklin called him anyway and drew one card. Scotty bet enough to put him all in, and Franklin folded. Franklin would only last one more hand. On the last hand before the dinner break he shoved all in, and Freddy Deeb called and won with a 10-8 for low. After winning his baseball bet and paying for his entry fee, Franklin left the room, $4,800 poorer.

So instead I have been filling my poker jones observing Day One of the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em event. Whoever determined the seating assignments for this one is a genius as “Captain” Tom Franklin and his ex-protégé Brandi Hawbaker are seated back to back. They’re within spitting distance of each other, but so far they haven’t stooped that low. Yet. If you haven’t heard anything about this saga, you must have been living under a rock for the past six months. In the poker world Brandi is bigger than Paris Hilton and right now Franklin is her Nicole Ritchie. Once big-time buds, the two had a falling out when Franklin made the mistake of hitting on the poor lass. I would feel a little sorrier for her if she hadn’t posed for countless half-nude photos that are now splashed all over the internet.

Hawbaker seems too busy at the moment flirting with her entire table to bother with Franklin. Sitting on her left, Paul Wolfe seems particularly mesmerized. Meanwhile, Franklin is trying to keep afloat with a small stack and Phil Ivey sitting directly across the table from him.

Speaking of Ivey, he was the subject of my favorite Railbird Moment of the Series so far. Yesterday, a guy with a cop moustache and greasy 70s hair tapped me on the shoulder and asked if the man at the table in front of him was Phil Ivey. “That’s got to be Phil Ivey,” Cop Moustache assured me. “Look he’s got his blue Full Tilt hat tilted up. And look how he’s resting his chin on his fist. That’s Phil, right?”

“There’s only one problem with your logic,” I told him. “That guy’s white.”

The last time I spotted Cop Moustache he was outside the Poker Tent talking with “Dutch” Boyd. What a conversation that must be.