I don’t know what they said, but I heard the entities from Wicked Chops talking with @JessWelman about something involving the Isle of Man. I was very curious, particularly because I eventually plan to reveal the answer to that trivia question that no one — not even Mathers — answered correctly. (The answer was Isle of Man.)

The end of the Series is a time when poker media types often throw out much of the good stuff they’ve heard but haven’t yet shared, or exchange different bits of info to figure out what all adds up and what doesn’t. So I headed their way …

As a longtime, multi-show podcaster, there’s little I dislike more than when someone encroaches on an episode in progress … whether that be a solicitor at the door (when on skype) or an ignorant walker-upper during mobile recordings. That’s what I did here. Oops. My bad, but hey, Jess is plenty familiar with the concept of me botching up a show, so …

Their conversation seemed intelligent and intense for several minutes. That’s all I know. Thus, I plan to skip over the part with Jeff Madsen (sorry dude) to get right to the Jess part to hear what sort of industry dirt, informed or otherwise, they were batting around.

http://wickedchopspoker.com/wicked-chops-podcast-ep-11-with-jeff-madsen-jessica-welman/

We’re starting to get a glimpse of what the 2010 November Nine will look like. And as of now, it looks to be rather Euro-heavy. Of the 18 remaining players, four of them are non-Americans. And those four happen to be atop the leaderboard — 1st, 2nd, and 4th in chips all from Canada, and 5th from Italy. The top 2 are Quebecois … which adds a whole new element of fun/possible separatism.

Amongst the Americans, we’ve got:

California – 5
Florida – 3
Washington State – 2
Minnesota – 1
Kansas – 1
Texas – 1
Wisconsin – 1

Nevada – 0

That last number is particularly interesting to me. Though haven’t added up the total cash won in the main event, Nevadans got so shut out of the big money it’s almost weird. Only one player — Robert Pisano from Las Vegas — made the starting 27 today, but is already out having finished 23rd.

UPDATE: 17 left, as Scott Clements from Mt. Vernon, WA just went out.

For those of us who are currently NOT fighting to make the November Nine, we still need to be working on our games for when we are. Because our good pals at CardRunners understand that we currently might be a bit distracted, however, they’ve sent us just a quickie with JungleMan. (About the length of a Tao of Pokerati episode.) This lesson — available for free with CR’s ass-kicking Truly Free Poker Training — is one that skips ahead actually, to training for when it’s all on the line heads-up.

(My early call for November, btw, just because I’d like to see it and it’s still possible … will be Grinder vs. subiime.)

More like this available to you with Truly Free Poker Training
at TrulyFreePokerTraining.com

The final day of the Main Event gets underway shortly after 12pm today with 27 players remaining as they play down to the November Nine. Here’s how they’ll be seated, with about 1:20:00 remaining in level 30 (60,000/120,000/15,000):

Amazon 100:

Seat 1: Michael Mizrachi – 6,300,000
Seat 2: Scott Clements - 7,250,000
Seat 3: Michiel Sijpkens – 7,765,000
Seat 4: John Dolan - 2,175,000
Seat 5: John Racener - 10,470,000
Seat 6: Brandon Steven – 6,045,000
Seat 7: Redmond Lee - 3,315,000
Seat 8: William Thorson - 3,680,000
Seat 9: Mads Wissing - 3,070,000

Amazon 101:

Seat 1: Johnny Lodden - 1,560,000
Seat 2: Joseph Cheong - 24,490,000
Seat 3: Jason Senti – 13,550,000
Seat 4: Matt Affleck -12,515,000
Seat 5: Matthew Jarvis - 13,300,000
Seat 6: Matthew Bucaric – 2,270,000
Seat 7: David Baker – 6,825,000
Seat 8: Filippo Candio – 10,020,000
Seat 9: Ronnie Bardah – 2,525,000

Amazon 102:

Seat 1: Adam Levy – 4,745,000
Seat 2: Benjamin Statz - 9,885,000
Seat 3: Soi Nguyen – 23,100,000
Seat 4: Duy Le – 7,255,000
Seat 5: Jonathan Duhamel – 10,520,000
Seat 6: Robert Pisano – 8,060,000
Seat 7: Pascal LeFrancois – 15,780,000
Seat 8: Hasan Habib – 1,510,000
Seat 9: Patrick Eskandar – 1,655,000

See who makes the November Nine at WSOP.com.

Episode 69: Cutting Loose with Change100 – Dan and Pauly give Change100 a little guff for working “Michalski hours” after showing up at 9pm. Her WSOP assignment is official over, but she’s at the Rio to check out the last bits of Day 7 as a self-admitted scenster. A potential elimination hand occurs during the beginning of the episode and Pauly ditches the crew to cover the action inside the ropes. Meanwhile, Dan and Change100 have a leisurely chat about how much more enjoyable the WSOP is when you don’t have to be running around like a madman covering hands.

Episode 70: Emerging Narratives and November Nine No-Names with Benjo – The power trio returns for a rare episode featuring Dan, Benjo, and Pauly. While sweating the final four tables, Benjo quickly recaps some of the more interesting narratives from the Main Event. The discussions shifts towards whether or not we care if the final nine players are a bunch of unknowns.

Episode 71: Vampire Weekend with Benjo – During the last break of Day 7, the agents were slithering around the Amazon Ballroom and the hallways sucking the blood out of anyone in still alive in the Main Event without an endorsement deal. Benjo and Pauly discuss the sleazy side of poker and their plans to take over the live updates and become the biggest player management agency at the 2011 WSOP with BrokeDickPoker.com

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Complete Tao of Pokerati archives
Change100
Benjo (translated)

Supposedly, Barney Frank’s HR 2267 — the Internet Gambling, Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act — has a hearing this upcoming Wednesday in Barney Frank’s House Financial Services Committee. What its about is hard to say — we know it’s not the all-important “mark-up”, but beyond that, little else … It’s been put on the schedule with little fanfare and no witness list (which is kinda abnormal, but not totally).

The bill itself seems like it might be struggling, as might have been suspected in a contentious election year. But poker opponents are rallying their troops, with Focus on the Family getting their members to voice their staunch opposition:

The bills represent the most aggressive expansion of gambling in American history.

The instant accessibility and anonymity of Internet gambling sites will only accelerate addiction and increase the negative social and fiscal costs imposed on U.S. citizens, families and nonprofits.

Research shows gambling is already the fastest growing addiction among the Millennial generation.

Congress voted four years ago to pass the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) to combat, not encourage, these costs.

What we know and can prove about groups like FOF — they lie.

You can see they’re even trying to encourage their usual Congressional supporters to not risk losing the all-important Tea-Party vote by claiming our argument about the money online gambling generates as their own, simply flipping things around to contend these bills — despite a recent study about the 10s of thousands of jobs and 10s of billions in tax revenue that licensed and regulated online gambling would create — will “cost” America money.

More…

The Main Event will resume around 8:30pm with 42 players remaining, playing down to 27. The chip leader is Cuong Nguyen, who won the biggest pot of the tournament so far off of Theo Jorgensen on the last hand before the break when his Kh-Jc outflopped Jorgensen’s Ac-3c when it came down Kc-5h-9c to take the lead with 19,520,000 in chips. Joseph “subiime” Cheong is 2nd with 14,000,000 in chips. Play resumes at 8:30 with the start of level 29 with the blinds at 50/100/10k, follow the updates over at wsop.com

Notables:
William Thorson – 12,290,000
John Racener – 9,275,000
Bryn Kenney – 7,400,000
Matt Affleck – 5,535,000
Adam Levy – 5,180,000
Scott Clements – 4,200,000
Michael Mizrachi – 3,655,000
Johnny Lodden – 3,495,000
David Baker – 2,960,000
Theo Jorgensen 2,300,000
Hasan Habib – 520,000

Notable Eliminations:
Jacobo Fernandez
Tony Dunst
Alexander Kostritsyn
Peter Jetten
David Benyamine
Eric Baldwin
Jean-Robert Bellande

When players bag their chips for the night, they get a “pink slip” that serves as a claim ticket allowing them to re-take their seats the next day.

According to Rio security, on each of the Day 2s of the main event, with more than 2,000 players arriving, every one of them had their pink slips. Yesterday, however, with 205 players remaining and prize money not just within grasp but actively escalating, some 30 players forgot or lost that little piece of paper that helps guarantee re-entry into the tournament.

Day 7 Table Draw

Theo Jorgensen will lead the remaining 78 players of the WSOP Main Event when play resumes at the Amazon room shortly after 12pm today. Jorgensen starts the day with 9,300,000 in chips followed by Michael Mizrachi with 7,535,000 and John Racener with 7,200,000 with play starting today on level 26, 25,000/50,000 blinds with a 5,000 ante. Play will continue until 27 players remain, then return Saturday to play down to the November Nine.

Other notables returning today:

William Thorson – 6,525,000
Alexander Kostritsyn – 5,715,000
Matt Affleck – 5,315,000
Bryn Kenney – 3,830,000
Eric Baldwin – 2,135,000
Johnny Lodden – 2,105,000
Adam Levy – 1,685,000
David Baker – 1,635,000
Tony Dunst – 1,550,000
David Baker – 1,540,000
Hasan Habib – 1,165,000
Scott Clements – 1,085,000
Jean-Robert Bellande – 700,000
Peter Jetten – 675,000

Notable eliminations from last report:
Juha Helppi
Todd Witteles
Fokke Beukers
Christian Harder

Full results here, and follow the updates over at wsop.com.

Bellagio Cup VI results

Moritz Kranich, a previous winner on the European Poker Tour, added a WPT title by defeating Justin “Boosted J” Smith heads-up to win the Bellagio Cup VI Main Event for $875,150. Smith earned $594,755 for the runner-up finish, with Phil Ivey finishing third for $363,650. Full results can be found here.

The Poker Beat’s Huff-honcho was away crafting his life and future … so I somehow, as a third- or fourth-stringer, commandeered the hosting chair. Think I can now lay claim to being the Glen Carano of poker podcasting!

With @JessWelman, @BJNemeth, and new-to-twitter @GaryWise1 providing analysis and reality checks, we got into Israel’s sudden crackdown on online gambling, the WSOP-Circuit revamp, and of course, the latter stages of the 2010 WSOP Main Event … along with the WPT Season 9 overhaul, which happened to be getting underway across the highway at Bellagio, in rather star-powered fashion.

July 15, 2010

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Just 103 players remain as the field in the Main Event takes their dinner break, returning with the blinds at 15k/30k/4k. The plan is to play another two levels or down to 81 players, whichever comes first.

The chip leader is John Racener with 6,260,000 in chips. Other notables:

Michael Mizrachi 5,654,000
Alexander Kostritsyn 4,834,000
Bryn Kenney 4,300,000
Matt Affleck 3,750,000
Scott Clements 2,200,000
Adam “Roothlus” Levy 1,600,000

Notable eliminations:

Johnny Chan
Phil Galfond
Breeze Zuckerman
JP Kelly
Robert Mizrachi
Matt Keikoan

Full results so far here, chip counts and other updates at wsop.com.

When Danny Egelhoff was a “multimedia producer” for CardPlayer in 2007, he quickly realized, “we needed a way to make watching poker more interesting. Events were edited down to boring bare essentials, and viewers were force-fed what they had to watch.”

Fast-forward to the 2010 WSOP … Egelhoff, 31, and his partner, Rob Gusman, 34, are founders of All 360 Media, an upstart video company launching what some are saying could be the most significant technological advancement in poker since the hole-card cam.

For the past six weeks, these friends of 10+ years have camped out in a makeshift bunker across the hall from the Amazon room. In addition to powerful computers, video equipment and an all-in-one printer/copier/fax, there’s an air mattress, mini-fridge, and 4-cup coffee-maker — all of which have played a role in bringing their vision to fruition. This is Egelhoff’s fifth Series, Gusman’s first. Taped to the wall by one of their monitors is a letter from the Nevada Gaming Control Board, approving All 360 Media to record limited casino action with these strange cameras the GCB had never before seen.

The device looks something like a studio boom-mike outfitted with a Magic 8-ball at its end. It’s actually a special camera (they have two of them) with 11 different lenses all pointing in different directions, packed into a small black orb, and digitally stitched together to provide a seamless view of an entire poker area. The set-up is so new it doesn’t yet have a name. But it uses the same basic technology that Google Earth deployed to map out the planet … upgraded and customized for watching poker.

More…

This is an odd one … never before heard much out of Israel against online gambling, despite there being no brick and mortar casinos there (I’m pretty sure) … in fact, Israel is something of a haven — if not a headquarters — for all sorts of online gambling related businesses. Yet supposedly, Israeli police just ordered all its ISPs to block access to IP addresses associated with overseas online gambling websites.

Don’t know many details, other than that the ISPs were given a list of banned sites, supposedly including some biggies … but the only known name so far has been Victor Chandler.

Sounds taxy. Anyone have Isai Scheinberg’s number so I can give him a call and say, yo, Mr. Moneymaker, what’s up? Surely he’s gotta know, or maybe live down the street from someone who does …

The ISPs were given 48 hours to respond, and several reportedly have already asked for an extension to a week.

ALT HED: Israel is the New Kentucky?

Day 6 table draw

Day 6 of the Main Event resumes at 12pm with 205 players remaining with Canadian Evan Lamprea leading the field with 3,564,000 in chips. Other notables looking to overtake Lamprea:

Notable stacks

Bryn Kenney – 2,902,000
Johnny Chan – 2,559,000
Fokke Beukers – 2,273,000
John Racener – 2,270,000
Michael Mizrachi – 1,793,000
Johnny Lodden – 1,625,000
Scott Clements – 1,535,000
JP Kelly – 1,474,000
Christian Harder – 1,263,000
Adam “Roothlus” Levy – 1,147,000
Phil Galfond – 1,025,000
Jean-Robert Bellande – 946,000
Breeze Zuckerman (last woman standing) – 738,000

Late night eliminations

Scotty Nguyen
Shawn Rice
Zachary Clark
Praz Bansi
Dash Dudley

Full results so far here, follow the action at wsop.com.

Ivey at Bellagio Cup VI final table

While the WSOP is expected to have less than 100 players remaining today, the focus of the poker community may be more focused on Phil Ivey making a record 9th WPT final table, as the Bellagio Cup VI final table was finally established after a lengthy day 4. When play resumes Thursday afternoon, here’s how they’ll be seated:

Seat 1: Phil Ivey – 1,595,000
Seat 2: Justin Smith – 2,100,000
Seat 3: Rob Akery – 1,980,000
Seat 4: Eric Afriat – 620,000
Seat 5: Moritz Kranich – 2,715,000
Seat 6: John Caridad – 5,120,000

Follow live updates over at the WPT site here.

Episode 67: Tempers Rising with Benjo DiMeo – An incensed Benjo goes off on an ESPN cameraman who tried to pick a fight with one of his French colleagues. As a six-year vet, Pauly shares a few of his run ins with the same surly cameraman who once nailed Mad Harper in the head. Yes, tempers are rising on Day 5 of the Main Event as the action on the tables and in the aisles heat up.

Episode 68: Fun with Names: Fokkin Bonkers with Benjo – After realizing that Dutch pro Fokke Beukers has the best name left in the Main Event, Benjo and Pauly search the remaining players list and attempt to pronounce the truly obscure and difficult ones.

Holy fugk, didn’t realize how many episodes behind I left all you over on this side of the internet pond. If Pauly, Benjo and I are supposed to be running in tandem as in a three-legged race, clearly I am the burlap sack. (Essential, but scratchy!) Be sure to catch up with whatever isn’t in your iTunes via the Tao of Pokerati complete archives.

And below are additional excellent and important episodes from the 2010 main event:

Quick mini-archive

Episode 59: The Party of the Year with Benjo
Episode 60: Fumigation and Boners with Chip Bitch
Episode 61: Media Day and Angry Timtern
Episode 62: Media Daze
Episode 63: Day 4 Hypertension
Episode 64: Big Head Randy and the Min-Cashers