UPDATE: Preston and 9 other former main-event champs failed to survive Day 1 of the Champions Invitational. Please see the survivors’ list in the next posting.

“Amarillo Slim” Preston, arguably the first media-friendly “ambassador” of poker going back 30 years or so, returns to the felt Sunday, May 31, at the 2009 World Series of Poker for a special Champions Invitational tournament in Las Vegas.

As the following press release notes, most of the main-event champs from the past 40 years will be competing. Conspicuously missing, however, will be Russ Hamilton, who is the target of a massive online poker cheating scandal involving Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker.

I don’t give Slim much of a chance to win this event, but it’s a, hmmm, slim field and anything can happen in poker!

PRESS RELEASE:

“When it comes to poker players, there is a fine line between genius and insanity,” said Doyle Brunson in a recent blog. He may have been referring to long-time traveling and poker playing companion Thomas Austin Preston, Jr., better known in the industry as “Amarillo Slim.”

Once called “the worlds greatest gambler,” Amarillo Slim was one of the first to combine side action with gambling. He beat Minnesota Fats at pool with a broom, hit a golf ball a mile across a frozen lake, and won $300,000 from country music legend Willie Nelson playing dominoes. He has played poker with presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, drug lords Pablo Escobar and Jimmy Chagra, and played the highly publicized poker game with porn king Larry Flint, in which Mr. Flint lost a whopping $1,700,000.

As a poker player, Amarillo Slim rides on the edge of sheer brilliance, winning five WSOP bracelets, including the main event in 1972, forever leaving his mark in poker history. Much more than just a poker player, he’s is a Texas treasure, and folk hero known the world over as a man who will bet on just about anything.

His life story is not without controversy, though Texas Dolly stands tall for Amarillo Slim. “I spent 10 years traveling and playing poker with Slim, and I never saw one thing that I thought was wrong in that area,” Brunson stated in a recent blog. “Poker owes Slim a lot and he should be recognized for that. I don’t know how many years I’ve got left, but I would like to bet double or nothing Slim Preston is [… innocent].”

Amarillo Slim will be participating in this year’s WSOP Champions Invitational, also know as the Tournament of Champions, taking place on Sunday, 31 May, in the Amazon Room at the Rio All Suites Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.

Among the 33 invited legends, Slim will be joined by industry icons Phil Hellmuth, Johnny Chan, Huckleberry Seed, Greg Raymer, Chris Moneymaker, Jamie Gold, and last year’s champion and youngest main event winner Peter Eastgate. Not competing this year will be controversial figure Russ Hamilton.

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Got back last night from a golf/family vacation — in one piece, thankfully, after a right rear-tire blowout going 73 mph in the left lane on I-64 in heavy traffic just east of Louisville.

My thanks to the Jefferson County sheriff’s deputy who responded to my 9-1-1 call, kept 3 lanes of high-speed west-bound traffic away from my disabled and smoking (for a while, anyway) vehicle, and made several phone calls seeking help for me.

Also, a big thank-you to Toby Davidson of the Trimarc Freeway Service Patrol. The young man pulled up in a state-marked service van just before the deputy needed to leave on an emergency call. Toby took off the shredded Eagle RSA, put on the dink spare, and gave me directions to the nearest Goodyear store.

I don’t know how many states have such an operation, but TRIMARC is a completely free-of-charge service provided by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, the Indiana Department of Transportation, the Federal Highway Administration, and TRIMARC (www.trimarc.org.) — which stands for Traffic Response and Incident Management Assisting the River Cities. The vans patrol highways to assist motorists and public safety officers.

Toby was simply outstanding, yet he politely declined a tip because accepting it was against TRIMARC rules. All he asked was that I fill out a postage-paid comment card, sign it and mail it to TRIMARC.

How can you beat that?!

– LuckyDog Russ

p.s. — Sorry about the lack of updates on the site while I was gone. I only had an Internet signal for a brief time while on the trip, and just enough time to check e-mail once. It was kinda nice being off the machine for 10 days!

p.p.s. — I know Annie lost on Celebrity Apprentice, Huck got good air time winning the Heads-Up title, and Adam battles Kris on Idol tonight. Anything else cookin’?

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Yikes! We’re down to the Celebrity Apprentice finale already! Get set for some fireworks between poker pro Annie Duke and Hollywood celeb Joan Rivers!

(Click here for a great interview with Annie about the CA endgame against Rivers, compiled by Dan Cypra for Poker News Daily. And here for Cypra’s interview with Phil Hellmuth talking about Annie’s showing. And here to read what Joan Rivers had to say.)

On Sunday night’s show — which my DVR failed to record, probably due to operator error…lol — country music songwriter/singer Clint Black was booted by Donald Trump after failing as project manager in producing a new jingle for Chicken of the Sea tuna. Annie and Brande Roderick’s jingle was deemed better, even though the word is you could put their musical talents in a thimble.

Then Piers Morgan, last year’s winner on the show, interviewed the four remaining players — Annie, Joan, Brande and Jesse James. Next thing you know, Brande and Jesse are out and the final — a 3-hour special — is on for next Sunday night.

I think both players have a ton of fans, but in the end the decision will be all Trump’s.

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