Day 3 is done at the Doyle Brunson North American Poker Championship, and though there has been some great poker played on the felt, most of the attention being paid to this tournament has centered around things other than what cards are being dealt and what bets are being made. You can hear whispers around the outskirts of the Fontana Room, or on the balcony during breaks, or at tables in the buffet after play has concluded. You can read about these things in innumerable internet forums or you can watch damning video online. What you can't do, however, is escape. The gossip and rumors are everywhere, and it's becoming a distraction.

Brandi Hawbaker burst into the poker world during the Festa al Lago tournament in October, also at Bellagio. The presence of an attractive young woman in the predominantly male-dominated world of poker was cause for plenty of attention, particularly when the woman in question happened to have a predilection for wearing revealing evening gowns and holding the chip lead in a tournament full of pros.

The chip lead evaporated, but the pictures survived, and Hawbaker became the talk of the poker world. She disappeared for a while after the Festa, appearing in Niagara Falls, Indiana, and Foxwoods but not playing in the tournaments. This week, however, she reappeared in a big way.

First it was simply her choice of attire for the first day of competition during the Doyle Brunson North American Poker Championship. She arrived dressed as a sultry Mrs. Claus, clad in a revealing red dress and sporting scandalous black boots. Later, however, bloggers and forum-lurkers alike discovered a thread she'd posted on one of the dominant internet forums in the industry, making serious accusations against the character of "Captain" Tom Franklin.

I can think of nothing tackier than repeating those (uncorroborated) allegations here, but suffice it to say the thread quickly became one of the most read on the forum. Within hours the thread had swelled to more than 30 pages in length, with pros like Jean-Robert Bellande and Dustin Woolf voicing their opinions, and names like Mark Newhouse and Dutch Boyd being dragged into the fray.

Obviously this entire thread is still a work in progress, and it remains to be seen where Brandi's accusations take her. It will be interesting to see what happens when Tom Franklin next appears in a poker room, and if Brandi will dare show her face in this insular community again. One thing is for certain, though - if it's not Brandi it's something else, but there's something seriously up with Dutch Boyd.

Boyd, who won a WSOP bracelet in 2006, played on Day 1a of the tournament and seemed to be acting normal. On Day 1b he showed up wearing a fedora and a bathrobe, but did not seem to be anything beyond a little eccentric. On Day 2, however, things just stopped making sense.

At first, it seemed like a simple case of Dutch acting out of turn. It soon ballooned into a case of Dutch screaming insults across the poker room, urinating off the side of the balcony at Bellagio, and making an utter fool of himself on video with Daniel Negreanu and Mike Matusow.

It involved him racking up numerous penalties and time outs, making boneheaded all-in moves with 9-5 off-suit, stealing PokerListings.com's soft drinks and wandering through the poker room with a cigarette in his mouth and an empty pizza box in his hand, hollering about who ordered the pizza? Oh, and also repeatedly displaying a fascination with liquid human waste.

It could be a coincidence that Dutch Boyd is mixed up in this whole Brandi Hawbaker fiasco. If you believe the hype, either Dutch is Brandi's knight in shining armor, or he stole her passport. Either way, while it would be foolish to believe that she is the cause of his ridiculous behavior on Day 2, it might not be foolish to suggest that whatever was causing that behavior might also have driven him to get involved in the Hawbaker/Franklin debacle.

Either way, with rumors flying and gossip swirling, what's fact and what's fiction gets lost in the wash. Just like a high school cafeteria, the Fontana Room is a mess of conflicting accounts and mangled facts, with nobody's reputation coming out spotless.

Dutch Boyd's behavior is worrisome, and probably indicative of something much more serious than simply stress, or Brandi Hawbaker. One can only hope that he's able to right himself before he does any more damage to his reputation, or more importantly, his mental state.

Oh yeah - there was poker played on Day 3. Lee Markholt is the chip leader with $1.41 million, followed by Mads Andersen with a little over $1 million, and Justin "zeeJustin" Bonomo, with $987,000. Pros like Joseph Hachem, Michael Mizrachi, and Daniel Negreanu are still in the hunt, as is Chip Reese, Cliff Josephy and Cyndy Violette, so Day 4's countdown to the final six should be as thrilling as an evening spent perusing the Brandi Hawbaker threads on your favorite internet poker forum. See you tomorrow.