Parker casts spell over Negreanu

Brock Parker, a former Magic the Gathering player, knocked off Daniel Negreanu heads-up to take down his first bracelet in the $2,500 Limit Holdem 6-max event last night.

“Stamdogg” Top Dog in $2,500 NL

Keven “Stamdogg” Stammen bested Angel Guillen to collect over $500,000 and his first bracelet in the $2,500 NL Holdem event.

WSOP, Where Final Tables Actually Happen on Time, Sometimes

The $1,500 7 Card Stud event reached their final table earlier this morning, with action starting at 2pm today. The participants are:

Seat 1: Jeff Lisandro (334,000)
Seat 2: Eric Pardey (217,000)
Seat 3: Nick Frangos (84,000)
Seat 4: John Juanda (287,000)
Seat 5: Mitch Schock (83,000)
Seat 6: Steven Stencil (323,000)
Seat 7: Rod Pardey (245,000)
Seat 8: Daniel Studer (43,000)

Our Pokerati cohort Robert Goldfarb finished 29th for $2,945.

Monday’s other final table will take place later this afternoon in the $5,000 NL Holdem event. Faraz Jaka was the last player eliminated when the clock struck 3am, and with 17 players remaining, Isaac Baron is the chip leader (1,101,000). Other notables remaining: David Pham (880,000), Mike Sowers (583,000), Liya Gerasmova (527,000), Lars Bonding (365,000), Thomas Keller (314,000) and David Benefield (239,000). The players will be returning at 12 noon tomorrow, which didn’t make Bonding or Keller too happy about hearing that news, as this will be streamed on ESPN360 and PKR later this afternoon.

Ladies and Omaha Returnees

The $1,000 Ladles NL Holdem World Championship returns with 146 remaining, of which 117 get paid. The reported chip leader is Tammy Tibbles, with 129,700 in chips. Defending champion Svetlana Gromenkova is in 2nd (62,200). Other notable ladies returning at 2pm today include: Lisa Parsons (46,300), JJ Liu (38,300), Susie Isaacs (32,600), and Maria Ho (24,800).

The $10,000 Omaha 8 or Better World Championship returns with 129 players remaining, 111 of which will leave with nothing. Chris Bjorin is the day 1 chip leader at (134,400) with Scott Clements (130,800), defending champion David Benyamine (94,800) and Phil Hellmuth (83,700) in the top 10. Selected notables include: Phil Ivey, (80,000) Thang Luu (63,400), and Matt Savage (60,100) among the returnees at 2pm today.

Monday: Only One Today

Only one tournament today, the $2,500 NL Holdem 6-max event. Last year, it was won by Dario Minieri in a field of 1,012 for over $528,000. The WSOP Staff Guide projection for this event was set at 1,113. With the recent downward trend in tournament entries, take the under expecting just over 1,000 to take to the felt.

That’s all for me, but more stuff can be found at Pokerati during the day.

Recapping some of the afternoon action on Sunday:

Negreanu looking for bracelet #5

The $2,500 Limit Holdem 6-max is down to the final three players, with Daniel Negreanu having a dominant chip lead. Brock Parker and Tommi Horkko are the other two left in the field. Finland now has its third top-3 finish in less than a week. You can still watch this final table at the Bluff website or for the international reader the PKR site.

Stammen Stampeding His Foes

The $2,500 NL Holdemevent just got to heads-up with Keven Stammen holding a 2-1 chip lead over Angel Gullen. This looks to be a very fast final table as it took just 70 hands to go from ten players down to two.

Ladies Event Attendance Showing Its Slip

The $1,000 Ladies NL Holdem World Championship drew a field of 1,088 this afternoon. That figure is down from last year’s 1,190, which was lower than 2007′s 1,286 total. 370 ladies remain in the field when they return from dinner break, with Ulrika Tangstrom the reported chip leader at 30,000. Defending champion Svetlana Gromenkova is third in chips (22,200), other notables include Maria Ho (22,100) Anna Wroblewski (14,100) and and Pam Brunson (8,200).

Seven Card Studs Wheeze into the Money

The Ladies’ field had at least one regular not in the field, as Barbara Enright ended a 23-year tradition of playing, as she was still in the field for the $1,500 Seven Card Stud event. The players made it into the money just before their dinner break, with 34 players currently remaining. Fabrice Soulier is the current leader with 120,000 in chips followed close behind by Dutch Boyd at 116,000. Defending champion Michael Rocco is 6th in chips at 75,000, with Enright listed in 7th in with 60,000. Other notables remaining include Thor Hansen (56,000), John Cernuto (40,000) and Pokerati blogger Robert Goldfarb (20,000. The players will now try to beat the 3am deadline to reach a final table, which does look like a possibility for this event.

5k Bubble Play

The $5,000 NL Holdem event has 65 players remaining, just two away from the money. Billy Kopp is the current chip leader at 350,000. Faraz Jaka is in 3rd place (334,000), with online phenoms Isaac Baron (326,000) and Mike Sowers (320,000) close behind. More experienced professionals Kathy Liebert (238,000) and Erik Seidel (225,000) are also in the chase. While Ivan Demidov hasn’t cashed at this year’s WSOP, his girlfriend Liya Gerasimova is on the cusp of doing just that with 215,000 in chips.

Omaha Will Get You Farha

The $10,000 Omaha 8 or Better World Championship brought a field of 179, including Sammy Farha, down 56 from last year. 30,000 in chips and a slow structure means low eliminations so far, but there’s bound to be a few when play ends today at the end of level 8.

To catch the updates for all of these events, head to www.worldseriesofpoker.com to follow all the exciting tournament action.

The implementation of this year’s WSOP bracelet ceremonies have been a hit thus far, as play is stopped in the Amazon Room for Jack Effel and Jeffrey Pollack to announce the previous day’s bracelet winners, award them the bracelets and Harrah’s Diamond Rewards cards, and play the national anthem(s) of the newest WSOP winners. In general, it seems to go over well each day with players, fans, and media alike. Today? Not so much.

Ville Wahlbeck is a Finnish player, and his ceremony culminated in the playing of the Finnish anthem. Not sure what the song actually was, but Benjo reported that Finnish players seemed perplexed. And according to Benjo‘s conversation with Wahlbeck, it was NOT the Finnish anthem. Whoops.

Yesterday, media row received a visit from Dan Frank, owner of a relatively new player representation company called Top Set. He announced that there would be a “can’t miss” formal introduction of the company just after the start of today’s ladies event.

We watched from media row as a line of people marched into the Amazon Room with a bright-lighted camera filmed the entrance. Led by a petite woman, Frank followed, as did a string of rented ladies in Top Set logo’ed skimpy-ish t-shirts and tight pants, and they all paraded around the room. After taking the long route and finally ending up at a table, the lead woman sat down to play in the event, and the rest of the crew took places on the rail to cheer her on. Who was this woman? No one knows. And the Top Set website said nothing whatsoever about her, as there is no woman even listed as one of their clients. None of the media recognized her. And, she was out of the tournament by the end of the first level. Serious flop.

Live streaming web-vid coverage of the final table, starting shortly.

None of this is super-confirmed — government officials don’t work “on the record” over the weekend — but here’s what we are hearing from presumably reliable sources regarding payment troubles at PokerStars and elsewhere:

(Again, this is all subject to factual revision — the news-gathering process can be messy business — but it’s definitely not a joke like our “news” of the Russ Hamilton/Full Tilt banner endorsement. Question marks added on stuff we’re less clear about; grain of salt knowing some sources may have a “message” they want out there.)

• The DOJ is spearheading the effort to shake down up PokerStars payment processors, with authority from New York’s Southern District federal court.
• $14 million has been frozen (in a Sacramento bank?) in either one or two accounts — the account(s) of a third-party payment processor — affecting 5,500 PokerStars players.
• These people have supposedly been notified not to cash any checks they’ve been issued, and their online accounts have been credited.
• No need for a panic or a run on online banks — $14 million may or may not be being covered by a friendly non-PokerStars-ish entity, which should be made available in a matter of days.
• Online poker indy big-wigs planning aggressive counterattack in court tomorrow. New York DA (?) Somebody will be seeking injunctions on the federal action(?), suggesting rogue overzealous Dept. of Justice prosecutors are overstepping their bounds, similar to the way they did going after Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens.

It was two years ago that I wrote my first opinion piece about the WSOP ladies-only tournament. After I received a sufficient amount of hate mail, I wrote a follow-up piece. I skipped the subject at the 2008 WSOP except for a few snarky comments, and now it slaps me in the face yet again as I sit on media row in front of a sea of women. In lieu of a rant or reiteration of my previously-stated feelings on the issue, I’ll just relay a few notes.

• When your practice game isn’t at a casino but in a home game with your husband and your dad, you might be in trouble at the WSOP.

• When your first instinct at the table is to introduce yourself to everyone and ask where they’re from instead of sizing them up and concentrating on your own strategy, you’re giving off a big tell.

• If you have to apologize for knocking another player out of the tournament, you’re not cut out for tournament poker.

• When the floor staff is openly yawning while observing the tables, the play is not exactly top-notch.

• When tables full of women squeal at every mention of finishing a level or moving to a new table, this is clearly not a room full of pros.

• When the tournament announcer says that another event’s restart will be in the other room to “make room for all these beautiful ladies,” they’re talking to you like you’re “special people” and you shouldn’t smile about that.

Media row is half empty today and will be until the 5pm start of the World Championship O8 tournament. And those of us who are here are praying for the men to arrive for other events so it evens out a bit. For me, add some women-tilt that came from a phone call attempting to convince me not to write anything negative about the Women in Poker Hall of Fame, and I’m simply trying not to write something that will get me bitch-slapped I may regret later. I’ll be staying out of the hallways on breaks, that’s for sure.

I’ve got a horse in the ladies event … Gabriela Hill, whom you can follow at @GabrielaHill. She’s not a Pokerati patch-wearer (yet) or anything, but I was the lone media representative to accept the very odd offer from her disgruntled former agent, @OliverTse.

Seriously, it was a strange prop bet offer … one deemed “unprofessional” by some, and made one other refer to Oliver as the Kim Jong Il of Poker. Though Oliver is Chinese, not Korean, the metaphor kinda sorta holds … because by all means he is sometimes an ostracized “player” in the industry, left to his own devices … and let’s face it: the guy would presumably love to get his hands on some nuclear weapons and wreak havoc on all who ever have tormented him since high school.

I’ll share with you more details of the wager itself as I learn to understand them. But basically – and these are the odds that just seemed too good to pass up on my end — if she’s still alive by the time I show up at the Rio, I’ll get my $10 back. If she makes it to the final table, I get $1,000. There are all sorts of other increased payment tiers along the way.

Though she probably doesn’t remember it, Gabriela Hill and I actually met last year — Oliver introduced us. At the time he told me (with extra emphasis on the rolled R’s) that she was a hot Latin American player. Good enough for me! This is her first ever WSOP bracelet event, apparently. Go Gabi Hill! You the girl!

(FYI, she has only like three followers on twitter, so click on over and become an “early adopter”.)

Meanwhile, as Gabriela’s working on building her stack in a way that makes Dan money! justifies her trip to another continent, we’ll also be following Gregg Merkow closely, as this longtime Pokerati fan — wielding a bankroll fueled at least in part by the high-roller contingent of Batfaces — has his best chance for a bracelet in as long as we can remember.

He’s the chip leader with 18 players left in $2,500 NLH. The short stack going in there, btw, is Phil Ivey … who hasn’t even showed up yet, but has already outlasted three players who started the day.

Click here to follow that action.

UPDATE: Merkow went out 9th. We swear his donning a Pokerati patch and the subsequent cooler effect was purely coincidental.

UPDATE: Supposedly Gabi is out, too. I hope you’re happy, Oliver!

It appears so. From an official WSOP report:

· The Event #11 winner Anthony Harb is to be classified as a pro player. He plays poker full-time (online). Accordingly, the “Pro-Am” gold bracelet scoreboard (excluding Event #1 – Casino Employees) currently reads:

Professionals — 6 wins
(Thang Luu, Steven Sung, Jason Mercier, Phil Ivey, Rami Boukai, Anthony Harb)

Amateurs — 3 wins
(Freddie Ellis, Ken Aldridge, Travis Johnson)

Semi-Pros — 1 win
(Vitaly Lunkin)

A recap of the events from earlier this morning, trying something new to avoid the wall of text my morning reports have become:

Harb-oring a bracelet

Congratulations go out to Anthony Harb who took down the $2,000 NL Holdem event for $569,254 earlier this morning, outlasting Peter Rho and Jim Geary. All three players had cashed in earlier events in the WSOP as Harb and Rho cashed in the $1k NL Stimulus Special), while Geary finished 7th in the $1,500 OHL event.

Off to a Flying Finn-ish start

Onnittelu to the first Finn to win a WSOP bracelet, as Ville Wahlbeck, who had an earlier 3rd place finish in the $10,000 7 Card Stud World Championship bested David Chiu in heads-up play to take home the bracelet that eluded him earlier in the week, collecting nearly $500,000. He also moves into the lead in the WSOP Player of the Year race with 160 points, ahead of Phil Ivey and Vitaly Lunkin’s 110 points.

Another Finn looking for some glory of his own will be Tommi Horkko, who is the chip leader (509,000) with 11 left when the $2,500 Limit Holdem 6-max event gets underway at 1pm today. Daniel Negreanu (470,000) is close behind in 2nd place. Barry Shulman, Brock Parker, Shawn Buchanan and Nikolay Losev are the more notable names remaining in the compact field.

NAFTA: $2,500 NL version

The $2,500 NL Holdem event will also return at 1pm today with 20 players returning to play down to a winner. It”ll be like the Ross Perot v Al Gore debate all over again as Texan Gregg Merkow starts play as the chip leader (932,000), with Mexico’s Angel Guillen (860,000) and Canada’s Bahador Ahmadi (800,000) are the top three stacks fighting it out in the name of free trade and poker supremacy. Other international invaders who’ll be trying to take the bracelet to their own trade zone includes the UK’s Roland de Wolfe (400,000) and Russia’s Kirill Gerasimov (390,000).

Brazilian waxing 5k NL holdem

Brazilian Clemencau Calixto, not to be confused with the New Mexico band Calexico, is the chip leader (186,300) at the end of day 1, as 164 players will return at 2pm. Frere Jacques Faraz Jaka is 3rd in chips at 172,200. Other notables who are in the top half of the field: defending champion Scott Seiver (118,600), Jimmy “Gobbo” Fricke (112,200), Isaac Baron (101,300), David Benefield (85,200), Gavin Griffin (69,100), Erik Seidel (65,900), and Dan Heimiller (56,200).

$1,500 7 Card Studs

From a field of 359, only 97 will make their way back into the Rio at 2pm to attempt to reach a final table. The day 1 chip leader is David Levi (49,600). Among those in the top 10: Dutch Boyd (47,700), Jeff Lisandro (40,700), Jason Mercier (35,000), and Eli Elezra (31,100). Other notables include: Sam Grizzle, Nick Frangos, Pokerati’s own Robert Goldfarb, and Barbara Enright.

Hey Ladies!

Today’s event at 12 noon is the $1,000 NL Holdem Ladies’ World Championship, which was won last year by professional Svetlana Gromenskova in a field of 1,190 to collect just over $220,000 in cash. It remains to be seen if any guys will attempt to enter the field like last year, but it’ll surely make a great photo op for someone bold enough to give it a try.

Omaha, 8? You better!

The 5pm event today will be the $10,000 Omaha 8 or Better World Championship which was won last year by David Benyamine in a field of 235 to add over $535,000 to his tournament stats.

Projections

$1,000 Ladies World Championship – 1,190 (take the over, saying 1,254)
$10,000 OHL World Championship – 247 (take the under, guessing 231)

Follow the updates at www.worldseriesofpoker.com and Pokerati for the other stuff.

Through 11 events, there’s only one battle that seems particularly ferocious: California vs. Nevada.

Californians, of course, are pissed, because last year they had the Pre-eminent Poker Powerhouse title — and claims to being the Poker Capitol of the World — all wrapped up until the Nevadans made a strong showing at WSOP Europe and the Californians choked in the November Nine. This year, it’s shaping up to be as tight a battle as ever, with Cali holding a slight but at this point meaningless edge.

The Euros finally arrived once PLO came into play. So far it’s been a disappointing series for the EU, at least compared to last year, when they won 19 of 59 WSOP bracelet events. This year, a Russian took down the big prize in event #2, but since then … very little from the Europeans.

NOTE: A Finnish player won Event #12 (the $10k Mix event) though this event has not yet been added to the standings.

Pauly insists this will be the Year of the Russians. I’m not so sure … it’s clear they are the only country right now that can come close challenging the likes of Caifornia and Nevada, but take away Vitaly Lunkin’s $2million bracelet, and what have they done for me lately, yo?

Some interesting newcomers to the cash-out leaderboard:

Lichtenstein*
Dominican Republic
South Korea
Cayman Islands
Turkey
Virgin Islands

* Is that a country? I thought it was a beer.

You’ll also notice that we’ve added non-American continental regions …

Europe    1    13    118    $3,820,049
Asia-Pacific    0    0    11    $213,967
Latin America    0    0    7    $59,577
Africa / Mideast    0    0    3    $17,428

Click here for complete WSOP World Standings.

Here’s tonight’s action in brief:

Four left in $2k NL on ESPN360: 4 left, currently on dinner break until 9:40pm Anthony Harb and Peter Rho chip leaders.
Nine left in $10k Mixed Event: Doyle out 13th, Scott Dorin leader, Huck Seed 2nd, Todd Brunson 9th

81 left in $2.5k NL holdem, Alex Keating chip leader.
39 left in $2.5k Limit holdem 6-max, 36 get paid. Shawn Buchanan chip leader.

366 return from dinner break in $5k NL, starting field was 655, down about 80 from last year.
359 entries in 1.5k 7 Card Stud, Mark Seif and Tom Schneider among very early chip leaders.

More updates at www.worldseriesofpoker.com and Pokerati (maybe) during the evening.

I officially dropped Men the Master in exchange for Yevgeniy Timoshenko today. (Thanks, readers, for the tip!)

KevMath, how’s your scab team doing?

Here are the current standings, through 8 events:

Negreanu
77

Feldman
67

Lee
66

Seif
54

Chops
24

Pokerati
17

Smith
16

Lederer
16

Phillips
1

Wise
1

Bradley
0

Meanwhile, Lance Bradley has dropped Matt Brady for Jason Mercier, and Bernard Lee has dropped David Williams to pick up Matt Brady.

Normally we wouldn’t think much of a thread on 2+2 about some withdrawal problems at a major American-friendly online site. Usually these problems get resolved in a matter of days or maybe weeks, but this time something’s different.

Developing …

We’ll hold off on saying too much until we get more solid information, but basically, checks from PokerStars are “bouncing”, particularly with New York banks. Instant E-checks seems to be the payment processor most notably affected at present. However, it’s not just e-checks … paper checks are proving uncashable, too. Reliable sources tell us that this is not just a little snafu, but that it’s the direct result of DOJ enforcement actions somehow connected to the Federal Court in New York’s Southern District.

This is the same court, of course, that handled Neteller way back when, and more recently came to non-prosecution agreements guilty plea settlements with Anurag Dikshit et al. While the Party Poker dudes are officially in the clear,* is it possible the Feds are now saying, hey, that was fun, and we got a lot of money … let’s try it again with those PokerStars guys!?!

The FBI offers more clarity on who’s agreed to what between Party Poker peeps and the Feds here.

The best I can tell, right now Stars seems to be the target. No confirmation on the fates of Full Tilt and UB payment processing.

UPDATE: Problems at Full Tilt, too. (Thanks, Ken, for the info/link!) And Ultimate Bet.

Regardless, whatever shakes down (pun intended), it raises a lot of questions at an interesting time, considering how much big money gets transfered passed between poker players — particularly in the summer — often on an online site in exchange for casino chips and/or bricks of cash.

Might the value of the Euro have just gone up, at least in the poker economy? Seems plausible if they’re the only ones able to convert online bankrolls into real American WSOP buy-in dollars.

* Cases against (with?) two other Party principals, Ruth Parasol and Russ DeLeon, are still pending in the same court.

Another day, another two final tables delayed at the WSOP yesterday. Starting with the $2,000 No Limit Holdem event, 25 players return at noon on Saturday to play down to the winner. The reason for the early start is in the hopes that a final table will be reached around the scheduled 2pm time that the final table would air on ESPN360 (http://wsop.pkr.com for those outside the US). The chip leader when play resumes will be Mike Carlson with 858,000 in chips. Others people may have heard of include Jim Geary (511,000), and Jose Rosenkrantz (187,000).

The other event will definitely have a more intriguing final table, as the $10,000 Mixed Event World Championship is down to its final 20 players, all of whom are in the money. Huck Seed will be the chip leader at 645,500. In a father-son battle, it’s Todd Brunson (374,500) with a slight chip lead over Doyle Brunson (335,000). Other notables remaining include Mark Gregorich (266,000), Mike Wattel (210,000), Michael Binger (132,000), Eric Froehlich (102,000) and a mystery person who name and chip count wasn’t reported. They’ll get to return at 1pm, and with the average stack having just 10 big bets, a final table may not be that long in the offing.

In the two final tables that concluded earlier this morning, Ken “Teach” Aldridge schooled the final table to win the $1,500 NL Holdem 6-max event for $428,259, and Rami Boukai took down the $2,500 PLO/PLH (HA) event, which was worth $244,862.

More tournament news after the jump:

More…

Forget Jeff Madsen … Kristy Gazes is a dirty girl wet and naked:

She’s getting ready for the High Heels Poker Tour ladies boot camp at the Hard Rock, and then the Women in Poker Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the Golden Nugget … and as she points out, this is a very Ladies-y weekend. So not a bad way to start.