A reminder of what the main event really is all about — at least for more than thousand true online poker geeks in attendance last night at the PokerStars party — because really, when else would Gregory Raymer ever have a chance to be on the same page as Simon LeBon?
The daily briefing from Pokerati’s always reliable Vegas nightlife informant:
Rain Nightclub inside Palms Casino Resort hosted the 40th Annual World Series of Poker Event Thursday night (7.9.09), a private event which featured a special performance by Grammy award-winning artist, Nelly. The evening consisted of poker stars and celebrities who joined as one with PokerStars.net to celebrate poker at its finest. Dressed in a white polo shirt and jeans, Nelly arrived with an entourage of 15 people. Shortly after midnight, he hit the stage and rocked a 40-minute live performance in front of a packed house. In addition to singing top hits, “Hot In Herrre,†“Dilemma†and “Country Grammar†he also treated the crowd with two songs from his new album expected to hit stores in the fall.
Others in attendance included: actor and poker player Chad Brown; professional poker players Daniel Negreanu, Gregory Raymer and Barry Greenstein; actor and comedian best known for his role in Seinfeld, Jason Alexander; and actor who was recently crowned the winner of reality TV series, I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here, Lou Phillips.
English rock band Duran Duran partied at Playboy Club at a VIP table. They arrived with a couple friends and were seen drinking beer, leaving shortly after midnight.
The Main Event resumes today around noon today with the remaining 2,044 entrants expecting to play 5 two-hour levels today. If they follow the procedures in the Staff Resource Guide, hand for hand play should begin with about 670 players remaining, if the eliminations come fast enough. To see the entire list of players, check out the page below:
Follow the tournament updates here with more stuff from Pokerati during the day, hopefully.
Hundreds of people voted online at www.wsop.com to create the 2009 nominees for the Poker Hall of Fame, with the top 10 to be voted on by the living Poker Hall of Fame members and 15 members of the poker media. Here’s the list of the 10 nominees, in alphabetical order:
Tom Dwan
Barry Greenstein
Dan Harrington
Phil Ivey
Tom McEvoy
Men Nguyen
Scotty Nguyen
Daniel Negreanu
Erik Seidel
Mike Sexton
Daniel Negreanu knows her as “whackjob surprise” … and though we have a feeling that might be what the Schneiders call Tom’s annual birthday present, well-informed, loyal Pokeratizens know her as “Angry Julie” (from back in the Beyond the Table days) … and as the main event nears the money bubble, she’s the frontrunner amongst the women for WSOP Player of the Year.
(Woot! Congrats, Julie!)
According to Julie, men don’t know what it’s like to have to dodge tilt at a final table on a heavy-flow day … but she didn’t let that get in the way of her finding success. With just the main event left to play — making it still anybody’s game, but statistically unlikely that anyone passes her — here’s the breakdown of the top women in the WSOP POY standings:
In some ways, this has been the Year of the Not-Women … as the ladies, as a whole, have found less success than Mexico or Maryland. I suppose 90 percent of success is showing up … And in the main event, though this numbers isn’t official, it seems only somewhere around 100 — maybe 200? — of the 6,494 competitors are women.
Still trying to get an actual tally — but regardless, it’s certainly one of the lowest percentages of female main event entrants in as long as anyone can remember. We blame sexismRule #36 fiscal responsibility, because obviously Ellen fans for some reason or another did not rise to the WSOP occasion this year like they have before.
2,044 players remain when the World Series of Poker resumes Friday afternoon for Day 3, so today will mostly consist of the Commish’s media briefing and media tournament down at the Rio. The chip leader when play resumes appears to be Amir Lehavot with 610,500 in chips. An unofficial list of players for Day 3 is now up here. Five levels of play are now scheduled for the duration of the WSOP, with the money expected to be reached for Day 4 Saturday afternoon.
Page 2 consists of Nolan Dalla’s Tournament Report from the conclusion of play with further details:
Team Pokerati-er @TheBigRandy is doing well in the main event … he started the day in the top 9 percent in chips, and has been tracking his M moreso than his chip count.
TBR started the day with an M=73, dropped to M=55 after the first two levels, then down to M=46 after dinner break … but has since bounced back. With an hour-and-a-half left to play and blinds at 500/1000 + 100, his M is now back up to 63.
They were at 152 teams as of about five hours ago registered for the July 12-13 Dream Team Poker event. This makes it already the largest Dream Team event ever, already …granted it will be only their third, but still …
I think for the Caesar’s tourney a few months ago, they had about 95 pre-regs, and ended up with something like 144 teams total. By that math, it looks like it should be a pretty close call on the over/under of 300 … but I still like the over.
Working toward that side is that it’s such a fun, relatively inexpensive event that only takes one person to really want to play in it for them to get three players. Working against: a lot of folks want to get the hell out of Vegas (and specifically the Rio) as soon as they (or their home game loved ones) bust from the main event.
The remaining 1700 players are currently playing the fourth and final level of play today for day 2b, which will join the survivors from yesterday to return Friday at noon as the field will be together for the first time. Troy Weber remains the chip leader with 475,000 in chips. Other notables with chips: Brian Lemke (275,500), Phil Ivey (265,500), Kenny Tran (220,000), Hevad Khan (177,000), Antonio Esfandiari (173,000), Tony Hachem (155,000), Phil Hellmuth (139,000), Ville Wahlbeck (109,000), Kirill Gerasimov (105,000) and Tuan Le (102,000).
Notable eliminations: Bernard Lee, Robert Williamson III, Phil Tom, David Sklansky, Gavin Griffin, Howard Lederer, Scotty Nguyen, Todd “Dan Druff” Witteles (who was at the ESPN feature table with Hellmuth), Shannon Shorr and Erick Lindgren.
Check out the updates and chip counts at wsop.com here and more stuff from Pokerati during the late hours. WSOP Media tournament and media briefing tomorrow, I’ll be with Team Pokerati in spirit in the tournament. The Commish has quite a few announcements tomorrow, including the Poker Hall of Fame nominees so come back tomorrow.
Eric and I played in the first round of the limit holdem shootout. What a nice, funny guy in addition to being a great player.
I beat him at the first table, but before I did, we agreed to save 10 percent. After beating him, I failed to get his phone number in order to contact him to arrange for payment after I won the tournament. Oops. I didn’t win.
I should have paid him his $435 before he left and figured that he would come watch me if I made the final table. I couldn’t believe that I didn’t make the final table, but I ran into Greg Mueller heads up. He’s soooo lucky.
Anyway, I owe Eric some money and want to pay him. Please help! I don’t want to be lumped in with all the other nonpaying “pieces” that I have encountered during the WSOP — and I certainly don’t want to to be included in Pokerati’s gallery of villains.
Anybody know how to get in touch with him? Seriously. I just want to pay him.
It’s been a mixed week for European players at the WSOP. Things got off to a flying start in the $1,500 No Limit Hold’em tournament and the $3,000 No Limit Hold’em Triple Chance event. German players Joh Carsten ($1,500 NLHE) and Jörg Peisert ($3,000 NLHE Triple Chance) both took bracelets back to Germany with Deutschland über alles ringing in their ears. Carsten banked a $664,426 win whilst Peisert took a shade over $500,000 for his efforts.
The following events saw the Europeans go back into their shells somewhat. The $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo saw Jack Rosenfeldt finish the event as the highest European player in 11thplace. Rosenfeldt banked a little over $9,000 for his efforts. England’s Steve Jelinek was down in 19th in an event dominated by Americans.
The case was much the same as the next few side events concluded. Americans dominated while the Europeans picked up the scraps. The $1,500 No Limit Hold’em event saw France’s David Jaoui as the highest European player in 8th place for $87,855, as 2817 players made eventual winner Tony Veckey, from Illinois, $673,276 richer.
Mystery indeed … we’ll see what we discover today (as I finally make it back to the Rio) … but while Kevin is on top of the relevant seat assignments, at least one plausibly reliable source informs us:
Those tables mentioned on your site, green 146 and such, dont exist. The only tables in green all series were 150-155. Those other tables were ghost tables. Those players were given different seats, empty seats.
Ahh, see, this is why some people can’t handle seeing us dig in semi-real time … the business of gathering (and assembling) facts while reporting news can be messy. But hey, thanks for helping us understand.
Regardless of whether or not any shenanigans were in play, one thing for certain is that there will be a lot of hubbub and cries for asterisks should Joe Reitman, Kirk Morrison, Sully Erna, Tony Hachem, or Kevin O’Donnell go super-deep. That much we definitely know.
Actually, a picture of this ethically challenged poker player is available.
Despite Annie Duke’s assertion that “poker players are the most awesome people in the world!”, we all know the truth: you’ve got some bad apples in the mix. That became very apparent in one of the last $1,060 mega-sats for the main event — where 22 players agreed to a chop, but one of them reneged on the virtual handshake and ran off with more money than he was supposed to keep, effectively ganking $2,400 from the prize pool.
Hey, these are tough times. It’s been a long month+ on the poker frontlines … pressures are high, bankrolls tapped, and casualties have mounted. Character-testing times, to be sure … and save for a few multi-bracelet winners, we’ve all had to re-evaluate not just our play but also our purposes in life at some point during this Series. Thus it’s with little shame that Pokerati has decided to get into the business of morally righteous extortion poker collections.
So here’s the deal, dude: You have until the start of Day 3 — roughly 48 hours — to make good and pay up, or we’re going to out you as a shyster and do our best to make sure that anyone googling your name sees the post revealing you as a poker crook. Cool? It’s not libel when it’s true; and just because you told a few people, allegedly, “I’m going to screw you” prior to doing so, that hardly constitutes “fair” warning.
Click below for the breakdown of how this main event satellite finished up and a good chop went awry — leaving several players, including DonkeyBomber, coming up short when it came time for payouts: More…
First, an interview with the Commish from SkyPoker’s James Hartigan about Day 1d (Thanks to DesD on 2+2 for the link):
Day 2a concluded with 607 players remaining and Andrew Gaw the chip leader with 386,800 in chips. In an interesting story, Eric Cloutier, who was reported chip leader at the end of day 1a with 150,750 in chips, turned out to have 15,075 to start the day. He ends today in 2nd place with 383,500 in chips. Other notables: Greg Mueller (287,300), Andy Black (215,700), Mike Sexton (169,000), Kara Scott (139,500), Jimmy Fricke (138,300), Tom Schneider (123,700), Greg Raymer (95,900), Jason Alexander (73,700), Sam Farha (67,500), Erik Seidel (55,600) and Roland de Wolfe (21,200). To view the entire list of day 2a survivors, follow this link.
The Mystery of Amazon Green 156
The day 2 situation brings up this interesting case, especially since it’s the very last table in the Amazon Room. As I mentioned to Pauly, there were 4 players on the day 1d entrants list who were seated in the 10 seat, all of them in the Amazon Green section:
Jeppe Nielsen – Amazon Green 143/10
Joe Reitman – Amazon Green 144/10
Marco Bertaccini – Amazon Green 145/10
Dale Poynter – Amazon Green 146/10
To be fair, only Poynter’s table was actually 10-handed, although in Reitman’s case, that table only seated 7 players (according to the list). Another interesting table is Amazon Green 156, which is seated as follows:
LANDAU, MICHAEL
ERNA, SALVATORE
GASPARD, JEAN
HACHEM, TONY
MICHNIK, MICHAEL
HARRISON, AUDLEY
SEED, HUCK
MORRISON, KIRK
ODONNELL, KEVIN
Gaspard and Seed both had been guaranteed a seat, for winning WSOP-C New Orleans and the NBC Heads-Up event respectively, as noted by the Commish in the above video. Audley Harrison is a known British boxer who has played a few events this year at the WSOP. Some of the rumors that were flying around the Rio yesterday were about some players getting preferential treatment. I’ll leave it to the reader to guess which names on the above list fit that role. Another name worth mentioning is Kevin O’Donnell, who apparently was shut out, according to Gary Wise’s article on ESPN.com:
Frustration was boiling over among those who felt their dreams of championship glory moving beyond reach, many feeling betrayed by what they saw as insufficient warning of what might be going down.
“I think that Harrah’s communications was awful,” said Kevin O’Donnell, a professional circuit regular who’d gone home to Arizona for Independence Day. “If they’d warned us better about this possibility, we’d have made the needed adjustments. There are a lot of things they’re going to say that are true, but ultimately the communications broke down. As a business person, I understand you can only fit in so many people, but they should have done a better job of letting people know they were going to have these space issues.”
Meanwhile, Palansky was sending out a follow up e-mail at 12:08 p.m. entitled “WSOP Main Event – Flight 1D is a SELLOUT.”
Yet O’Donnell did get a seat — at Amazon Green 156 — and returns today with more than 72,000 in chips.
Day 2b gets underway at noon today, playing 4 two-hour levels. A not exact list of chip counts and where they’ll be sitting can be found here. If you’re in the Amazon Room and poker room, you’ll be playing 9-handed. Buzio’s and any of the other tournament rooms will mostly start 10-handed, although they’ll be breaking tables as fast as they can to get to 9-handed as quickly as possible. One of the tables not in use at the moment, Amazon Green 156.
Follow the live updates at www.wsop.com and other updates from Pokerati about other goings on at the WSOP.
Not to steal from Kevin’s more concise thunder … but I happened to miss Day 2a at the Rio, and for those who have more time, Nolan’s official report is loaded with filling details — along with plenty of fun (poker-geeky) factoids and historical perspective:
2009 World Series of Poker Presented by Jack Link’s Beef Jerky
Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino
Las Vegas, Nevada
Official Report
Event #57
World Championship
World Series of Poker Main Event
No-Limit Hold’em
Buy-In: $10,000
Number of Entries: 6,494
Total Players Remaining: 607 (+ 2,922 for Day 2-B) = 3,530
Total Net Prize Pool: $61,043,600
Number of Places Paid: 648
First Place Prize: $8,546,435
July 3–November 10, 2009
randompoker: RT @MeanPokerDealer: I think it's SO cool how you guys loop the earbuds around your ears so they're hanging there all not in your ears and stuff. I hate you. 46 minutes ago
photo: Shane O’Neal/N9NE Group
