The Main Event resumes shortly with 293 players remaining as they play three more hours, two hours at 6/12k/2k and one hour at 8/16/2k . The current leader is Saguhyon Cheong with 2,870,000 in chips. Some other notables returning from dinner break include:

Jesper Hougaard – 2,700,000
Alexander Kostritsyn – 1,990,000
Jean-Robert Bellande – 1,520,000
Phil Galfond – 1,345,000
Johnny Chan – 1,115,000
Michael Mizrachi – 735,000
Robert Mizrachi – 675,000

Notables eliminated during the day:

Hoyt Corkins
Danny Mizrachi
Adam Schoenfeld
Jason Mercier
Dwyte Pilgrim
Evelyn Ng
Mori Eskandani
Eric Morris

Full results so far can be found here and follow the updates over at wsop.com.

Official WSOP info made more publicly available and easily sortable via @Kevmath and @ProfShadow, a self-described motorcycling, tattooed, beer drinking, poker playing, dice throwing, libertarian college professor:

2010 WSOP Main Event Day 5 Starting Seat Assignments, Chip Counts

Episode 63: Day 4 Hypertension – With fewer than 1,000 players to go, Dan and Pauly wax on the tension inside the Amazon Ballroom along with the breakdown of the Pavilion. Pauly wonders if Team Pokerati’s last player standing, the Big Randy, in the Main Event is properly patched up as action approaches the money bubble.

Episode 64: Big Head Randy and the Min-Cashers – Dan and Pauly hang out at the Bad Beat bar and wonder if they are coolers? Or if the Big Randy had busted out because he was not wearing a Pokerati patch. Yes, the Big Randy busted before the money bubble. The discussion shifts to the bubble strategy for PokerStars qualifiers who also have a PCA package riding on the line along with the min-cash.

Episode 65: Boo Bubble – Dan was napping in his car as the bubble slowly approached. He woke up during the dinner break and wondered where everyone went. Pauly clued him in and Dan was bummed that he couldn’t record the players groaning in dissent. The Bubble is nigh.

Episode 66: Bubblicious – Pauly and Dan were hanging out in upper level of the Jack Links’ beef jerky lounge keep tabs on the entire Amazon Ballroom from the high ground when the bubble burst. They captured the announcement of Tim McDonald’s 748th place elimination thereby becoming this year’s Bubble Boy (and winning a consolation seat in the 2011 WSOP). They also recorded the jubilant celebration from the players who made the money in the 2010 Main Event.

Day 5 of the Main Event resumes at 12pm in the Amazon Room at the Rio with 574 players remaining as Tony “Bond18″ Dunst leading the field with 1,546,000 in chips.
After the bubble burst with the elimination of Tim McDonald in 748th place, a flurry of eliminations happened in the last hour of play. Some of the notables who made the early payout levels include Humberto Brenes, Gavin Smith, Eric Mizrachi, Patrik Antonius, Paul Magriel, Mel Judah, Chris Bjorin and the now-official WSOP Player of the Year – Frank Kassela. The list of results is now available here.

For those looking for some sortable results of the day 5 survivors, check out:

WSOP Main Event Day 5 Chip Counts and Seat Assignments

Had plans with Pauly to be ready to record an episode of Tao of Pokerati while the bubble was bursting … the text alerts came in … “8 left” … “we’re h4h now” … when he got to “5 left” I headed over, knowing we might lose the necessary players in a matter of a few long hands, or we could be waiting an hour or more.

Alas, I arrived to an empty Amazon room — WTF? Couldn’t believe we mighta had the fastest bubble-break ever, and I wasn’t there to see/hear/record it. But tuned in to the twitters to discover that what I really missed was a roomful of BOOOOs, balking at the decision of @WSOPTD to go on a 90-minute dinner break four away from the money.

That woulda been the sound to record — the collective groan from a Jack Effel decision that will likely be debated for years to come. Two of the more civil tweets about it:

RT @WSOPTD @wsop ME plyrs, need time to prepare 4 the money bubble. Paying 747 places requires precise coordination. thx for understanding.

@AlCantHang @WSOPTD I don’t disagree with decision but I don’t agree with the explanation. The entire world saw the bubble looming except WSOP staff?

In what some consider a controversial decision, tournament director Jack Effel decided to stop play with 1:15:44 left in level 16 (2,500/5,000 w/ 500 ante) to have the 751 players remaining (747 make the money) take their 90-minute dinner break. Effel’s explanation was that they needed time to prepare for paying the players who bust out immediately after the bubble bursts. The field had planned to start hand-for-hand play before the announcement. The current leader is Theo Jorgensen with 1,325,000 in chips. Other notables: Matt Affleck (1.26m), Tony Dunst (1.18m), Phil Galfond (1.05m), Adam Levy (840k), Johnny Chan (785k), Jean-Robert Bellande (753k), David Benyamine (630k), Scotty Nguyen (540k) and Eric Baldwin (500k). Also in the field are all 4 Mizrachi brothers: Robert 310k, Michael 118.5k, Donny 115k and Eric 60k.

Gavin Smith and Jason Somerville discuss the decision with Wicked Chops Poker.

Notables who were eliminated earlier today: Matt Savage, Annie Duke, JJ Liu, Hank Azaria, Robert Varkonyi, Dan Harrington, Erica Schoenberg and Barry Greenstein. Team Pokerati’s only remaining hope (?), The Big Randy, was eliminated in early action.
Follow the action on the money bubble with play resuming at 8:30pm at wsop.com.

Sorting through the list of remaining players, the surnames with the most players still in contention to win the main event hardly come as surprise, based pretty much on world population.

Mathematically, a Chan or Nguyen is still probably your best bet, and the Johnsons and Changs have kinda disappointed their global families. But one name stands out as being a bit different than all the rest, thus highlighting the uniqueness of four brothers going deep.

More…

Yesterday was the beginning of the real tournament, with all players converged into a single field, just with different starting stacks determining how hard a fight they might face, and how much bad-beat insurance they were carrying.

Today is the money bubble day, arguably the most intense day of big-field poker you can find. 7,319 started last week, 1,203 remain … 747 make the money. Tomorrow it will be about who gets to play for “real money”.

Here’s everyone who still has a dream, some more desperate than others, sortable by name, chip count, or table assignment:

2010 WSOP Main Event Day 4 Seat Assignments, Chip Counts

Lots of people worth watching … tons of big-name pros, plenty of rising stars, but the only not-so-pokery celeb being Hank Azaria, of The Simpsons and the voices of Chief Wiggum, Moe, and Apu. Follow the action throughout the day here.

Team Pokerati has just one remaining player, The Big Randy, who went out last year three hands into Day 4, before getting a chance to fight through the money bubble.

• The average chip count should be about 182,500
• Brown has 140,100
• That puts him at 632nd out of the 1,203 remaining players, and 4th out of 4 remaining Browns
• Blinds start tomorrow at 1200/2400 + 300
• That leaves our player with 58 big blinds and an M=22

TBR’s starting table tomorrow has a fellow Texan from Arlington and the shortest-stacked of all remaining Mizrachis. Next to the Grinder is Chris Bjorn … overall looks to be not a bad seat draw, with the biggest stack (5th overall in the tournament) two to TBR’s right:

Table 277, by seat

1. Brian Fite (Arlington, TX) — 151,600
2. John Brown (Dallas, TX) — 140,100
3. James Czarnecki (Edgewater, MD) – 88,400
4. Jan Boye (Harrow, GB) — 213,600
5. Chris Bjorin (London, GB) — 132,200
6. Michael Mizrachi (Miami, FL) — 91,700
7. Samuel Edwards (Las Vegas, NV) — 131,000
8. Jose Tavares (Commerce, CA) — 48,300
9. Max Casal (Burbank, CA) — 687,200

New article in the Las Vegas Sun, looking at the WSOP and the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s comfort level with online poker sites that do and do not accept American players. No one’s wagging any fingers at the WSOP specifically, but the article does take a closer look at Full Tilt’s and PokerStars’ presence at the Rio (and a little bit UB’s) as well as partnerships these sites have with other casinos.

You get a subtle clue of what the implication might be directly from the article’s URL, as well as quotes from GCB’s chief enforcer of dot-net-dot-com issues:

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/jul/13/guilt-association/

After the [UIGEA] passed Congress, some sites left the U.S. market, fearing prosecution by federal regulators. Some sites, including PokerStars.com and Full Tilt Poker.com — whose .net logos adorn the clothing of many World Series of Poker players — continue to allow action from Americans, however. Those sites are “purposefully putting that product in the United States in disregard of Department of Justice interpretations of federal law and also Nevada law,” [GCB member Randall] Sayre says.

This closer look stemmed from what would become the rapid rise-and-fall of NAPT-Venetian. The Venetian does confirm in the Sun article, btw, that they have no current or future relationship with PokerStars … you know, despite appearances one might get from PokerStars.net and NAPT logos on 119 felts throughout this summer’s Deep Stack Series.

GCB makes it clear that they don’t like to see its licensees in bed with American friendly online poker sites, but they’re still not being clear on where they draw the lines for what might constitute just messing around. Even the regulators contend they can’t begin to tell people what they can and cannot wear on their bodies.

That, of course, begs the question, then why not just let people wear hats and shirts logo’d up with dot-coms?

A few quicklinks, as I clean off my desktop while getting ready for the pseudo-final stage of the 2010 WSOP, which got started pretty much earlier today …

USA Today declares: WSOP is recession-proof.

Also from USA Today: Emmit Smith has an increasing love for poker, sparked by charity efforts backed by Full Tilt.

Timtern’s got a new Top Tweets column in Bluff. The follow-up editorial is what makes it better than most.

@Pokerati got props in Vegas Seven’s own top-tweets column, called Tweets of the Week.

Lacey Jones profiled in Vegas Seven magazine.

Lon McEachern wearing Tom’s Loudmouth jacket, via the WithLeather sports blog.

Do we have to fear the WSOP-Media event becoming the next ladies event? Technically it’s discriminatory and demeaning to media. But for some reason far fewer protested when Michael Craig’s assistant Shauna took his seat to play her first ever poker event.

Meanwhile, while there are plenty of signs of (Lost) Vegas refinding its economic way, the once luxurious Riviera has filed for bankruptcy.

BTW, just proof that Mathers can’t see everything Team Pokerati’s lone remaining player in the Main Event, The Big Randy, is alive at dinner break with 202k. He’s still trying to keep a low profile while chipping up quietly until money time.

UPDATE: LOL, maybe just semi-low … didn’t realize he had an active twitter account until reading it on WSOP.com. Go team!

Day 3 of the $10,000 Main Event is currently on their dinner break with about 1,600 players remaining, already having played six of their eight scheduled hours of play. Among the notables not returning to the Amazon and Pavilion rooms with chips:
Daniel Negreanu, Joe Cada, Vanessa Rousso, David Sklansky, Dan Heimiller, Maria Ho, Lacey Jones, Chris Moneymaker, Erik Seidel, Kara Scott, Jennifer Leigh, David Williams, Gabe Kaplan and Capt. Tom Franklin.

The reported leader is Sweden’s Paul Kristoffersson with 617,600 in chips. Notables with healthy stacks include Robert Mizrachi (420,000), Scott Clements (415,000), Johnny Chan (400,000), Eric Baldwin (380,000), Jean-Robert Bellande (315,000), Kido Pham (292,000), Phil Galfond (280,000), Barry Shulman (260,000), Robert Varkonyi (220,000) and Vince Van Patten (187,000). More chip counts and updates can be found at wsop.com.

Check it out, the blind structure for the $230 Pokerati No-Limit Hold’em/Pot-Limit Omaha with one $200 Rebuy tournament is here for your perusal, along with all the other blind structures for the Detox Poker Series, August 13-22.

BTW, turns out my event is one of the few that does not meet CardPlayer POY criteria … bummer, and oops on contending otherwise … but hey, kinda a rookie here on the Vegas real-money poker scene, ya know? Just look at the event title and try to say it out loud … sure, I agree it sounds kinda sexy, but you can tell I still might have a few things to learn about running tournaments in the land of Big Casino.

Still promise a fun, challenging event with great food and (re)invigorating action. Mark your calendars (Aug 18), book your flights, and send your kids to summer camp. Come (back) to Vegas to annoy the locals and/or abuse the tourists!

Matt Savage: What do you think of the jump in antes at level 6 in the Pokerati event?

Allen Kessler: I’m not sure the single rebuy offers enough equity without POY points in play even when you consider the implied free-food equity. I mean ha-ha, what good is that when you’re not guaranteeing a take-home box!

Keep up to date with what is sure to be the best late-summer, chill-stakes miniseries of the year on twitter @DetoxPoker.

WSOP Main Event Note: Matt Savage is still alive at the Day 3 dinner break with 155k. Current official scoreboard here.

The WSOP Circuit has had its share of ups and downs (mostly downs) in recent years as its relevance has waned a bit in the past few years with small fields in their $5,000 main events at various Harrah’s properties across the US.

The announcement of the 2010-11 WSOP Circuit schedule today brings about several major changes done to push the tournament series back into relevance. Changes include a drop in the buy-ins of the Circuit Main Events to $1,500, four $10,000 buy-in “regional championships” that will air on national television (ESPN?), and a $1,000,000 freeroll tournament at Caesars’ Palace in May 2011.

More information found in their press release on below:

More…

Day 3 of the Main Event gets underway at 12pm Monday, with over 2,500 players scheduled to play four levels as they get ever closer to the money bubble at 747 players. For those looking for the table draw, click here. Follow the action over at wsop.com. Also at wsop.com later today, expect the official announcement of the revamped WSOP Circuit, AP reporter Oskar Garcia has a preview of the changes.

The annual media tournament took place yesterday with Josh Zerkle of With Leather taking down the title. Other notables included Shamus at the Hard Boiled Poker blog in 3rd, defending champion of the WSOP Dream Team Poker event Lana from CardRunners finishing 6th, and Full Tilt Poker blogger AlCantHang in 9th.