I stepped into the elevator here at the Rio the other night. It was packed--some, like a fire marshal, might say "dangerously over packed"--with Vegas revelers.

"Be Scottish!" said one of the tourists.

"I'm not exactly Scottish," I replied.

"Be Scottish!"

And then the entire elevator--some 14 people with too much of the drink in their system--screamed at once, "If it's not Scottish, it's crap!"

The callback to the old Saturday Night Live Mike Myers routine did not go unappreciated, but I ran from the elevator as fast as I could. Still, the ringing in my ears continues today as I look around the Rio and realize, there's a lot going on that's not HORSE. And it certainly, if you'll forgive my colloquialism, is not crap.

Perhaps the least appreciated event going on today is the Seniors Event. Open to folks 50 years old and older, the event drew a record crowd today. Despite being the butt of many jokes (among my favorites "The dinner break will be at 3:30" and "We've doubled the number of bathroom breaks"), the field is not a weak one and has a number of known pros among its players. One of them is Team PokerStars' Tom McEvoy.

One thing I like about McEvoy is that, in a normal crowd, I can spot McEvoy a mile away. His hair stands out in a room full of people with not-gray, not-white hair. In the Seniors Event, I walked around for fifteen minutes saying, "There's Tom! No, there's Tom! Wait, Tom's over there."

Fortunately, Tom is wearing a canary-yellow shirt today and finding the 1983 World Series Main Event champion turned out to be easier than I feared. His early big chip stack also made him a quick find.

Tom McEvoy in the 2007 World Series Seniors Event

Elsewhere at the World Series, Monday is playing host to a fun little event: $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo. In that field today are a number of Team PokerStars players, one of whom is Joe Hachem. Now, Hachem is a different story for me. Even though Hachem has an immediately recognizable face, he blends into a crowd well.

As I wandered the overflow playing area, I heard someone yell, "Pass the sugah!" I turned, only to find that it was someone imitating Hachem. It turned out to be a fortunate imitation. Hachem was sitting at the next table with a top-ten chip stack.


Hachem, incognito

Perhaps having the worst day of any member of Team PokerStars is Bill Chen. He was dismissed from the $50,000 HORSE event and went immediately to play in the PLO8 game. His seat put him right in a shaft of desert sunlight that was as annoying as it was hot.


Chen squints in the sunshine

Also in the PLO8 field today, Humberto Brenes and OmahaEd.


Humberto Brenes


OmahaEd

So, while the HORSE event takes its dinner break, the other players fight on. They aren't Scottish, and they're not HORSE, but they are all fighting for a bracelet, and that's the kind of thing that all of us wish we were doing.