A review of this afternoon’s WSOP action:

Phillips builds chip lead in youngster $1,500 NL 6-max

The $1,500 No-Limit Holdem 6-max final table was reached this afternoon, and thanks to the research of Jess Welman and F-Train, the six who made up the final table was the youngest (or second-youngest) in WSOP history*, with an average age of 22.8.

Carter Phillips 3,175,000
Craig Bergeron 1,214,000
Russell Thomas 1,075,000
Samuel Gerber 1,057,000
David Diaz 490,000
Hugo Perez 485,000

Perez ($124,690) Thomas ($84,256) and Diaz ($58,483) were the first to leave the final table, while the remaining three playing down to a winner. Phillips (3,615,000) has maintained his chip lead, followed by Bergeron (2,200,000) and Gerber (1,700,000). Find out which young gun takes the tournament down at PokerNews.

Gee vs Vance for 1k NL bracelet

The final table of the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem final table is down to two players, with Steven Gee (7,450,000) holding a chip lead over Matt Vance (1,550,000) battling for over $470,000 and the prized WSOP bracelet. David Baker, the leader at the start of the final table, finished in 3rd, good for $206,813. Updates and the rest of the final table results are at wsop.com.

Williams leads 5k NL

Day 2 of the $5,000 No-Limit Holdem returns from their dinner break with under 85 players remaining, 72 making the money. The current chip leader is Jeff Williams with 367,000 in chips. Other notables remaining: Peter Jetten (350,000), Day 1 leader Steven Goosen (295,000), Antonio Esfandiari (250,000) and Vivek Rajkumar (170,000). The field will play six more levels or to the final table, whichever comes first. See who makes the money, who’s the unfortunate bubble boy, and who breaks out of the pack at PokerNews.

Matts 1-2 in Limit Holdem

The $2,000 Limit Holdem event got underway at noon today to eventually draw a field of 476 entrants. After six levels of play, the field is already under 300, with Matt Glantz (24,500) and Matt Matros (22,800) reported as the top two in chips. Other notables: Sorel Mizzi (18,000), Maria Ho (17,000), John Phan (13,000) and defending champion Marc Naalden (10,000). Follow the raise, 3-bet and 4-bet action over at wsop.com.

NL 2-7 Lowball Underway

A field of 101 started at 5pm for the $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball World Championship and only Dario Minieri has been eliminated in the first three hours. Among the dozens of notables in the field: Tom Dwan, Barry Greenstein, Phil Ivey, Tom Schneider, Yan Chen, Archie Karas and Doyle Brunson. Follow the pat wheels, drawing two, and breaking of good hands over at PokerNews.

* The 2009 $5,000 No-Limit Holdem Shootout final table had an average age of 22.2. However, that was a five-handed final table, and after consultation with BJ Nemeth, that was considered to not be a standard final table.

If they just added a little Omaha, this show might be awesome … but apparently American players can’t handle that many cards? Alas … the rest of the world thinks we are dumb. Atill seems like it will be a pretty good, well-received show … a little new-school High Stakes Poker meets old-school World Poker Tour maybe?

Here’s the first look at the latest new poker infomercial set to repeatedly hit the cable-wire broadcast television — the PokerStars.net Big Game. This clip features a pretty fun hand that you gotta think might have Phil Hellmuth on tilt at least until WSOP Event #30something. It’s a $200k pot, with Hellmuth an 85 percent favourite over the must-win amateur “loose cannon” … but running it four times isn’t even enough for Hellmuth to get half the pot. (He woulda been better off running it once.)

Yeow, with that much on the line and a bad beat x3, it’s almost as if some people might see this and not think of poker as a game of skill at all!

PSBG debuts Monday, June 14, “late night” daily on Fox (Sports, I presume?) regular Fox-not-Sports’ local network affiliates.

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OK, gonna try again at this link-dump thing … no writing, no context, not even any particular order or story arc here … just a random assortment of Safari tabs and windows over-cluttering my computer while I try to do Pokerati’s WSOP thang-luu …

“We all agree that one political party is stupid and the other is evil; all we are debating is which is which.” Something for certain poker media types to think about when we go twitter-crazy trying to spread political insight on current events, but really may be just contributing to negative stereotypes of tourney journos being little more than (poorly paid?) chip counters. [Poker Shrink]

Crap, guess that’s technically writing right there … before you know it, brevity with a single href= spins out of control into its own multi-link set of tangents, as happened when I tried to note, simply, that Harry Reid won a primary. [Pokerati]

Ask Brian Nadell what happens when poker players step into potentially hostile political territory. He may be an accomplished poker pro with 13 cashes and eight final tables at the WSOP, but that doesn’t necessarily make this online player at PokerStars suited for Washington DC.

At least he recognized as much before June 1, and dropped out of the Nevada senate race. One look at his campaign video and you’ll see why sometimes, no matter how badly you wanna win, it just makes sense to chop. [Hendon Mob, Nevada Appeal]

Good move?

Blowing off the primary homestretch did leave Brian Nadell with extra time (and presumably cash) to play early events at the WSOP. And on Monday this week, he appeared on Poker Road Radio, live from the Rio. [Poker Road]

One more Nadell link: an interview circa 2006 bemoaning the fate of a longtime player who never quite learned the meaning of FTW! [PokerStarsBlog]

Back to chip-counting, Daniel Negreanu calls out PokerNews for poor updates. [Daniel - Poker Journal]

PokerNews normally does a really good job with everything they do, but what in the world is up with the chip count coverage at the WSOP this year? They have a page for it, but clicking on it would be a complete waste of your time because not only is it rarely updated, it’s also nowhere near accurate.

Yeow. Can you imagine if Negreanu and @AllenKessler had children?

Similarly, a generally fine poker granny pundit has strong feelings about the quality of this year’s WSOP reporting, saying, “the live coverage has reached a new low.” [Poker Hag]

Looking forward, btw, to what looks to be the second coming of Poker2Nite … This Week in Poker. June 15, on the internet. [Wicked Chops]

Be sure to check out Change100′s Fashion Report where she looks into disturbing trends in douchebaggery. [Tao of Poker]

But does douching really matter if you’re buying tournament shorts from Tom? [Loudmouth Golf]

Now let’s take a momentary break from linking for …

Pokerati Trivia: Which international flag hung proudly in the Brasilia Room last year, but is not on display in the Pavilion Room this year — despite it’s strong connection to poker?

Ooh, I know!

An email yesterday from a poker media-y colleague: “today officially started my World Cup fever!!” I agree. Lots of jerseys showing up at the Rio, and peeps starting to make plans for where they’ll be watching the first matches. Just two days left to fill in your Wicked Chops FC brackets. [Soccerati]

Man-U midfielder Darren Fletcher’s Scottish national team didn’t qualify for the Cup, so instead came to the WSOP; he lasted about 90 minutes in the $1,500 donkament that The Other Guy (not-Durrrr) won. [PokerStarsBlog via CalvinAyre]

Annie LePage, one of Pokerati’s favorite Las Vegas small-tourney rounders, comes to the 2010 WSOP looking to cross the 5-figure line in cashes. While she would make fine Team Pokerati material, she instead is representing for PETA (and the Maven). Check her out as she expounds on the evils of meat + good poker health via Vegan living. [Hendon Mob, PETA.org]

OK, cool, but that’s not counting barbecue, right? On that note …

Extra-big ups to The Fat Guy, who used to write about poker, but now just writes about “Food, Music, Books, and Tractors”. TFG recently overhauled Pokerati’s technological infrastructure to better accommodate Tao of Pokerati. With bigger online media ops facing early-WSOP heartache and unconstructive criticism due to “faulty hamster wheels”, I’m pretty thankful Scott (and his trusty sidekick Ed), have kept Pokerati’s machinery running relatively smoothly for five years — pretty much 24/7 actually, ever since the Great Crash of 2007 when we ran out of duct tape. [Tao, The Fat Guy]

OK, good enough for now … More-better random links TK. OK, maybe one more …

Funny: the Bad Beat on Cancer banners seen around the Rio show a hand that isn’t actually a bad beat — the pocket Aces got there on the river! [Poker Grump]

Harry Reid won his Democratic Senate primary yesterday. Not a shock, but an essential hurdle for the powerful yet vulnerable Nevada senator to overcome in a race that will almost certainly play a role in how all poker politics progress.

He won handily — 75 percent — but for him the primary was more a matter of how deep he had to dig into general-election coffers to secure the nomination … as he’ll likely need all the cash he can get come November. (He’s spent $8 million so far, and has about $9 million left, according to the National Review.)

First Lady Michelle Obama came to Las Vegas on June 1, not to bemoan the UIGEA, but to rally support for Harry Reid. The two hiked in Red Rock Canyon, but didn’t even consider stopping by the WSOP, even though Jack Effel totally woulda let either one of them do the shuffle-up-and-deal.

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Time for a recap of the Tuesday night tournament action:

Kassela bests Kessler at Stud 8

Frank Kassela outlasted Allen Kessler and the rest of a stacked final table to win the $10,000 Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo 8 or better World Championship along with $447,446. Jennifer Harman, Steve Zolotow, and John Juanda finished third, fourth and fifth respectively. A full list of the results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report can be found at wsop.com or read what Pauly wrote about the final table here.

Baker leads 1k final table

Veteran pro David Baker leads the final table of the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem final table when play resumes at 2:30pm. Here’s how the rest of that table will be seated, with the winner pocketing $472,479:

Seat 1: Jared Hamby – 423,000
Seat 2: Daniel Thomas – 602,000
Seat 3: Matthew Vance – 1,731,000
Seat 4: Jeffrey Gross – 281,000
Seat 5: Mats Gavatin – 393,000
Seat 6: Nicholas Heather – 993,000
Seat 7: David Baker – 2,553,000
Seat 8: Kyung Han – 613,000
Seat 9: Steven Gee – 1,540,000

Phillips leads Day 3 of $1,500 6-max

Carter Phillips (922,000) leads the remaining 16 players who’ll return at 2:30pm to determine the winner of the $1,500 No-Limit Holdem 6-max event. Other notables returning include Mark Flowers (545,000), and Jimmy Tran (219,000). The full list of players remaining are at PokerNews.com.

Goosen Leads 5k NL Day 2

Steven Goosen (229,000) leads the 202 players who made it through the first ten levels of the $5,000 No-Limit Holdem who return at 2:30pm. Other notables also returning: Chino Rheem (185,800), James Dempsey (165,800), Michael Gracz (131,800), Tony G (98,500), Joe Sebok (88,100), Phil Hellmuth (82,100), and TJ Cloutier (77,200). The full list of chip counts is now online at PokerNews.

Wednesday’s Tournaments

The doubleheader returns to the WSOP this afternoon, first is the $2,000 Limit Holdem event starting at 12pm. Dutch pro Marc Naalden won this event last year in a field of 446 for $190,770. At 5pm is the $10,000No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Single Draw World Championship, last year won by Nick Schulman for $279,751 in a field of 96. This event starts you out with 7,500 in chips with three additional “rebuy” chips, each good for 7,500 in chips to be added to your stack anytime during the first four hours.

Follow along at home starting at high noon over at PokerNews or www.wsop.com

Check it out … I’m not sure they can sell these in the Rio because of the deal with Red Bull, but at least one gas-station mini-mart near Pokerati headquarters is getting in on the World Series action with a new rack display of WSOP-branded energy shots.

According to Danielle, a partially tattooed graveyard-shift clerk, they’ve actually been selling quite well. “Better than other ones we’ve had in that same spot,” she says. “They say they taste better or something. Without that bad stuff at the end.”

photo: Jeanine Deeb *

Paul Kitsos, 55, was enthusiastically headed to Las Vegas from his home in Long Island, New York, with $11,000 in cash on him, when he died of an apparent heart attack mid-flight. According to his wife he was going to the WSOP, where his record indicates he had plenty reason to believe he stood a good chance of making a big splash.

For a little more about Kitsos’ life, here’s his obituary (with a few minor poker inaccuracies) in the New York Post.

And here’re his Hendon Mob results, which show about $389k in winnings from 19 tournament cashes in a 5-year poker career. Most recently he took 2nd in a $300 US Poker Championships event — the “Rounder Girl Bounty” tournament — and 2nd in a $1,375 event at the World Poker Finals at Borgata.

His biggest scores, $97k and $103k, came from two 5th place finishes — in the $5k WSOP-Caesars circuit main event in 2007, and the $5k Borgata Summer Poker Open main event in 2008. He has two cashes in the WSOP main event, finishing 468th in 2006 and 320th in 2008. Kitsos died with one 1st place victory under his belt, having bested a field of 231 to win the 2007 USPC Seniors event.

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Going over what’s happened so far this Tuesday at the WSOP:

10k Stud 8 Final Table Set

The final table of the $10,000 Stud 8 or Better final table has been set, with plenty of big names looking to take down a bracelet this evening. Here’s how the final table will look when play resumed at 9pm:

Seat 1: Jennifer Harman – 861,000
Seat 2: Steve Zolotow – 684,000
Seat 3: Frank Kassela – 800,000
Seat 4: John Juanda – 787,000
Seat 5: Vladimir Schmelev – 304,000
Seat 6: Kirill Rabtsov – 882,000
Seat 7: Allen Kessler – 467,000
Seat 8: Dario Minieri – 316,000

Follow the split-pot action at PokerNews.

Vance Still Best in $1k NL

Matt Vance remains the chip leader (1,100,000) with 19 remaining on day 3 of the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem event. David Baker, no relation to 50k Player’s Championship final tablist David “Bakes” Baker, has 990,000. It was hoped that they would play down to a finish, but that looks unlikely at this time, so they’ll stop when they reach the final 9. See what does happen by following over at PokerNews.

$1,500 NL 6-max Day 2

The $1,500 No-Limit Holdem 6-max has under 50 players remaining, with Michael Myers the current chip leader with 385,000. Other notables include Ray Henson (329,000), Jordan Morgan (240,000), and Mark Seif (200,000). Follow the updates and results over at wsop.com.

$5,000 NL Day 1

The only tournament to start this afternoon, the $5,000 No-Limit Holdem event drew a field of 792 players, up over 100 from last year’s edition. Under 500 remain after the dinner break at the end of level 6 with Amit Makhija currently in front with 83,000 in chips. Other notables near the top: Chino Rheem (60,000), Perry Friedman (55,000), Scott Fischman (53,000) and defending champion Brian Lemke (48,900). More updates and chip counts are available at wsop.com.

Voting for the WSOP Tournament of Champions closes on June 15, and the final seat in the 27-player field will be determined in a nine-person tournament on June 10th. The nine players taking part in the tournament June 10, with the winner playing the $1,000,000 TOC June 27 are:

Tom Dwan
Andy Bloch
Michael Mizrachi
Sorel Mizzi
Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier
Liv Boeree
Paul Wasicka
Gus Hansen
Don Cheadle

The tournament will be filmed for the online version of WSOP Academy, with commentary provided by Ali Nejad and Phil Hellmuth. You can also follow the action as it happens on WSOP Academy’s Twitter. More information can be found at WSOP.com.

Recapping Monday’s WSOP, with another bracelet winner awarded:

Yan Chen Lowball Winner

The $1,500 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball, Single Draw champion was Yan Chen, a cash game veteran defeated Mike Wattel heads-up to earn his first bracelet, along with $92,817. The full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report are online at wsop.com. Check out a brief documentary on Chen, which I believe appeared on Pokerati a while ago, here.

18 Left for Day 3 of 10k Stud 8

Day 2 of the $10,000 Seven Card Stud 8 or Better World Championship concluded with 18 players returning at 3:30 this afternoon, but only 16 will make the money. The current chip leader is Frank Kassela (515,000), followed by Sergey Altbregin (497,000) and Kirill Rabtsov (388,000). Other notables returning include John Juanda (368,000), Allen Kessler (316,000), Steve Zolotow (301,000) and Vladimir Schmelev (275,000). Here’s the full list of the remaining field.

Vance leads day 3 of $1,000 NL

Matt Vance (547,000) will lead the day 3 field of $1,000 No-Limit Holdem event with 56 players remaining. Other notables returning at 2:30 to maybe play down to a winner: Mats Gavatin (453,000), Carl Olson (325,000), Jared Hamby (217,000) and Ylon Schwartz (183,000). See the full list of chip counts here.

Teska Tops for Day 2 of $1,500 NL 6-max

The $1,500 No-Limit Holdem 6-Max event drew a field of 1,663 players, with the field making the money near the end of play. When the 146 players return at 2:30 this afternoon, Roger Teska (221,000) will start with the chip lead, with familiar names David Sands (117,800), JP Kelly (92,900), Mark Seif (70,300), and Bryan Micon (65,500). Event 16 chip counts here.

Tuesday’s Tournament

The only tournament starting today is at noon, the $5,000 No-Limit Holdem event should bring out a strong field of pros, both live and online. Last year’s event was won by Brian Lemke, cousin of Justin Shronk, for nearly $700,000. Follow all the action this afternoon at WSOP.com or PokerNews.

I suppose the first big hubbub of the 2010 WSOP was Michael Mizrachi’s run in the $50k Mix. And the second, had to be Tom Dwan, who essentially did the equivalent of calling his shot when laying up to 3.5:1 odds on himself for a bracelet — resulting in 7 (or maybe 8 ) figures of high-stakes-gambler money on the line as he fought to take down donkament gold … not to mention the biggest payday of his 23-year-old life. For about half a day, he had a bunch of TV pros sweating turns and rivers unlike what they’ve grown used to on Poker After Dark.

To bring you breathtaking excitement (and palpable tension) from the Amazon floor last night, I’m gonna skip ahead in the Tao of Pokerati storyline … and catch up with Pauly and Benjo, who were of course right there as Durrrr’s chip-stack had a collection of prop-bet gamblers re-evaluating their futures.

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While the final table of Event #11 was being set up, Benjo spotted a group of the Big Game regulars who bet against durrrr having a quick meeting. The T.O.P. crew speculate on a potential bracelet bet buy-out if durrrr continues to dominate the donkament.

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Moments after the big donkament ended and durrrr took second, Benjo and Pauly headed over to the rail of the $10k Stud-8 event to watch the reactions of pros who bet against durrrr winning a bracelet and dodged a massive bullet.

Everyone in poker seems to really care about the French these days.

And for all you us pathetically unilingual Americans, here is an easy-to-bookmark tinyurl for Benjo’s “Las Vegas, off the record”, with his personal take on any and all WSOP action robo-translated from French to English: http://tinyurl.com/38r4wdd

Below is the PR announcement about the WSOP-Europe schedule. As many know, I’m not too hot these days on just posting press releases (without handsome pay) … but beyond the typically easy-to-cut-and-paste keywords these often contain, this mass-mailed announcement  has a bunch of stuff in it that I figure I might personally want to look at down the line.

Specifically, what jumped out was:

No Betfair. Nothing scandalous or controversial here. Harrah’s and Betfair simply finished out their three-year contract (’07-’09). Pokerati lost its deal with Betfair, too, around the same time. Bummer, but all good. The peeps we worked with at Betfair were some of the finest we’ve encountered in the industry … and we were happy to create the “WSOP World Standings” with them — a year before anyone else — even though it inevitably would get co-opted WSOP.com. (Just meant less work for me!) Harrah’s reports a similarly pleasant and positive relationship. Suppose all Betfair’s absence really means is that we might be seeing fewer emails about a Queen made of Legos or Buckingham Palaces of cards.

Online satellites / WSOP.com. Hmm, you’d think this might be the most important component — the first ever official online satellites for WSOP bracelet events on WSOP.com — but I almost missed it down in paragraf #10:

For the first time since WSOPE was formed, real money poker is available online to UK residents at WSOP.com.  Unique and exciting offers will be tied to WSOP Europe participation for UK residents including satellites.  If you are a UK resident, check out WSOP.com for the latest details on how to qualify for the 2010 WSOP Europe.

I guess it only makes sense now, why the new HIE wouldn’t try to extend a relationship with one of their most cooperative, non-litigious table-felt sponsors … at a time when any additional sponsorship money might seem extra-desirable. I suppose there’s only so much space around the final table with Harrah’s self-sponsoring this year — with WSOP-E officially presented by WSOP.com, CaesarsCasino.com, and CaesarsBingo.com.

Those are the real “sponsors” in London this year; Harrah’s officials told me as much  – even though we haven’t yet gotten press releases championing the landmark signage possibilities.

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This just came in over the transom, in much more difficult to cut-and-paste than before format:

The 2010 WSOP-Europe Schedule.

Five bracelet events this time, instead of four.

Recapping the rest of the Sunday night WSOP action, besides Durrrr finishing 2nd to Simon Watt in the $1,500 NL Holdem event:

Matros Wins Limit Holdem Bracelet

Matt Matros won the $1,500 Limit Holdem for $189,870, defeating Ahmad Abghari in heads-up play. The full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report is available at wsop.com.

Binger Highest at Lowball Final Table

The final table of the $1,500 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball, Single Draw final table resumes at 3pm with this lineup, you can follow all the tournament action over at PokerNews:

Seat 1: James Bord – 83,800
Seat 2: Alexander Kravchenko – 144,500
Seat 3: Mike Wattel – 146,000
Seat 4: Yan Chen – 182,500
Seat 5: Derric Haynie – 189,000
Seat 6: Nick Binger – 309,500
Seat 7: Todd Bui – 68,500

1k NL field combines for Day 2

Day 2 of the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem event drew a total field of 3,042 players, with 445 players remaining for a 2:30pm start. Andy Black is the current chip leader with 90,275 in chips. 324 players will make the money, with the winner pocketing $472,479. A full list of chip counts can be found at wsop.com.

Stud 8 World Championship

Marco Johnson will start day 2 of the $10,000 Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo World Championship as the chip leader (121,500) when play resumes at 3pm. Phil Ivey is currently in third place (109,800) with Jennifer Harman (93,500) and Barry Greenstein (88,700) towards the top of the leaderboard. The tournament drew a field of 170 entrants, with 112 remaining. 16 players make the money with a first place prize of $447,446. A full list of the remaining field is up at wsop.com.

First 6-max at this year’s WSOP

Monday’s only tournament is the $1,500 NL Holdem 6-Max event starting at noon. Last year’s winner was Ken “Teach” Aldridge, who defeated a field of 1,459 good for $428,259.

Part 2 is coming … and parts 3 and 4 … and maybe even a Part 5 addendum. But damn, writing semi-investigative narrative non-fiction ain’t exactly easy, especially when the story doesn’t convert well continues to develop in the present tense.

On May 28, the same day we ran the first part of NAPT, Venetian Part Ways over Row in Carson City, the Nevada Gaming Control Board officially responded to a formal inquiry about the Stars-sponsored event at the Venetian from attorneys representing one of its other licensees. They then posted this letter on Nevada Gaming’s website on June 2. Though this correspondence in and of itself doesn’t constitute enforceable policy, it does serve as effective notice to all Nevada casinos about how the GCB, the “prosecutors” of Gaming violations, will be seeing relationships with the likes of PokerStars … dot-com or dot-net.

Click here to read this important letter.

(In a nutshell, they say don’t mess with Stars … too much trouble from the Feds with these guys, not to mention the Czechs, and getting into bed with any site doing biz with American players could violate other GCB policies about working with international thugs. Oh, and dot-net doesn’t make it OK.)

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