With only 51 players left after three days of play here at the Seminole Hard Rock in Hollywood Florida only two players are left wearing patches.

Mike Sexton and Zachary Clark will be the only two players returning for Day Four wearing Party Poker and Doyle’s Room patches. Sexton returns with 192,000 while Clark is close to the bottom of the standings with 119,000.

It appears that if one of these two players do not reach the final table that the final six will be completely patchless since the representative for Full Tilt that usually ensures the two of the final six are patched is leaving on a flight on Saturday.

At the top of the leader board is Taylor VonKriegenbergh with 1,080,500. He is closely followed by the only female left in the field Abbey Daniels who has 1,016,500.

The players return to play down to the final 18 or for six levels on Saturday at noon.

Not everyone is calling it “Black Friday”. For Euros who opted out of the US in ’06 and mighta started believing that coulda been a wrong decision, it was “White Friday”.

The DOJ’s virtual handcuffing of Full Tilt and PokerStars two weeks ago not only neutered two industry giants (who made billions in North America while others sat on the sidelines), but also supposedly leveled the playing field worldwide for US-abstainers who supposedly found it harder to compete in Europe or anywhere against companies benefitting from the vast liquidity American players provided.

Thus the inaugural iGaming North America conference in Las Vegas next week is kicking off their new-era industry confab with a special session called Assessing ‘Grey Friday’ and the Expected Fallout … get it? Black + White = Gray Grey.

Should be interesting to hear from gaming industry insiders who’ve never appeared on Poker After Dark or in Day 1 chip counts speaking about “the road to regulation”, as per the theme of @iGamNA‘s shindig.

Check out the lineup here. You’ll see both Stu and I are serving on panels. @GamingCounsel‘s gonna be schoolin’ about Canada …

… while I’m a panelist for the closing session:

There’s no live-stream as far as I know, but I’ll be sure to report back as influential industry experts (and a token blogger) assess the important questions moving forward … for me probably starting with, do I need to get a tie?

Many questions were still left after yesterdays patch watch. We learned that PokerStars informed their players to not wear a patch for this event, but we were left wondering why a couple sites sponsored players were not wearing a patch even though their fellow team members were wearing theirs.

One of those pairs that sent conflicting messages were Maria Ho and Adam Levy. Levy was wearing a UB patch during Day 1 play while Ho was not. Catching up with Ho as play was getting started for Day 2 she stated that the site gave them the choice as to if they wanted to wear a patch or not and she decided that she would not. It appears that Levy may have been influenced by Ho and changed his mind on wearing a UB patch coming into Day 2, as he was spotted wearing a Deep Stacks Live patch but no UB patch.

Along with the UB confusion Jonathan Little and Antonio Esfandiari, both Victory Poker pros, were wearing and not wearing their patches. Esfandiari was the player in this duo who was not wearing his normal patch, although Dan Fleyshman stated via twitter that “The boys will wear them at final table” and that Esfandiari occasionally does not wear his patch on Day 1s and 2s when theres no TV cameras.

With Day 2 in the books Todd Terry sits at the top of the leader board with 296,400. Players will return tomorrow at noon local time with or without their patches for Day 3.

You may or may not have seen the report Barclay’s put out assessing the impact of American DOJ actions vs. Online Poker on the European online gambling sector. Now Moody’s, the venerable global credit rater, has put out their own assessment of how the shutdown of Full Tilt and PokerStars in the US affects high finance and various state economies.

At least I think that’s what they’re saying … but a few things that stood out to me had more to do with what this report reveals about the perception of poker, both as a game and a needle-moving industry, including:

• “Online gambling is no real threat to U.S. land-based casinos.”

So it’s official now. The rest of the world gets what poker people knew in 2006.

More…

The first major live poker tournament since Black Friday in the United States kicked off today with the World Poker Tour at the Seminole Hard Rock in Hollywood Florida. One of the unknowns coming into the tournament was wether or not sponsored pros would show up wearing their patches.

With 406 players in the field today only 13 players were found wearing either a Full Tilt Poker or a Ultimate Bet patch. The one “big three” site that did not have a single patched up player was PokerStars, even though WPT regular and PokerStar Pro Jason Mercier was in the field.

Also in the field today not wearing their normal patch were Maria Ho (UB) and Antonio Esfandiari (Victory). The fact that these two are not wearing a patch for their respected site while Adam “roothlus” Levy (UB) and Jonathan Little (Victory) are patched up definitely creates more questions.

Here is a rundown of the players found in todays field that were wearing patches:

Since we are on the discussion of who is wearing what Tony Dunst, who is known for always being well dressed was not wearing his normal suit today due to a delay in dry cleaning. Instead he was wearing a V-Neck shirt and a pair of jeans. Dunst will be returning tomorrow, hopefully in his freshly cleaned suit, to grind out his short stack.

After 5 levels of play only 290 players remain with registration open until the start of play with Randy Dorfman at the top of the leaderboard with 160,000. Other players returning for day two are Vivek Rajkumar, Shannon Shorr, Annette Obstread, Mike Sexton, Kathy, Leibert, and Lauren Kling.

The players will return at 12 noon local time tomorrow for the start of day two of this six-day event to play another 5 levels.

The United States Government. Check back next week to see if anything changes.

In all seriousness, the last week and a half has been a dark one for the industry, and last week didn’t necessarily feel like the appropriate time to recognize the few people who were fortunate enough to make a few dollars in poker. We must, however, realize that no matter how bleak the situation is with online poker, the live game will continue to go on. The numbers will change, how yet we don’t know, but as long as there are people playing cards, there will be winners and losers. And some version of this column.

Mercier and Selbst Succesfully Defend Titles at Final NAPT Stop
Mohegan Sun, Uncasville, Connecticut

It was big news for all of about 14 hours, but there’s no disputing the incredibly impressive accomplishments of Vanessa Selbst and Jason Mercier at NAPT Mohegan Sun.

C/O PokerStars Blog

Selbst won the inaugural NAPT Mohegan Sun Main Event in 2010 in a dominant performance. She lead the tournament from wire-to-wire and earned $750,000, putting her on the path that would lead to her becoming a member of Team PokerStars Pro. The logo on her shirt was different, the final seven standing in her way were different, but the ending was the same. Instead of huge chip advantage, she entered heads-up play with Dan Shak in an unusual spot for her, a three-to-one deficit. Shak was no match for fate, as Selbst quickly closed the gap and captured the title for a second straight year, this time for $450,000

C/O PokerStars Blog

The next day was Jason Mercier’s opportunity to repeat history. His 2010 effort was a $25,000 event that drew 35 players, and paid him a juicy $475,000. This year’s high roller lowered the buy-in to $10,000 but drew more than twice as many players (78 to be exact), and again Mercier won his first table to put himself in contention. He reached heads-up play against fellow Team PokerStars Pro member Eugene Katchalov at a slight disadvantage, but quickly erased it. When the final river hit the felt, Mercier had completed the highly unlikely exacta with Selbst and accumulated $246,600 between bounties and his first place prize. For their sake, lets just hope they didn’t get paid out via their PokerStars accounts.

Erik Seidel is Proven to be Human, Finishes 2nd at WPT Hollywood
Hollywood Casino, Lawrenceburg, Indiana

Erik Seidel’s accomplishments thus far in 2011 can be put up against any individual year by any player in the history of the game, and the year’s less than 1/3rd of the way done. To put things in perspective, 4 of the top 5 top money accumulators are the top four finishers in the 2010 WSOP Main Event, the only anomaly on the list being Seidel. So when the final table was set at WPT Hollywood, Seidel was a prohibitive favorite, and by the time he got down to heads-up play with a part time player from Cincinnati, most of the media already had their reports typed up with their finger hovering over their mouse, ready to click send.

Perhaps we should have taken the events that took place in Indiana in to account when trying to make sense of the pokerpocalypse. Just 97 players showed up for a WPT event, the most famous ginger in poker quite literally abandoned her roots, and in the end, the stranglehold that Erik Seidel has held on poker was loosened, if only slightly. Mike Scarborough played an impressive tournament, and succeeded in overcoming a tough final table on his way to a $273,664 payday.

Everyone I Mentioned At WSOPC St. Louis Won a Lot of Money
WSOP Circuit, Harrah’s St. Louis, Missouri

In my last tournament recap, I mentioned La Sengphet had made her second final table at WSOPC St. Louis, and right after I posted she won the tournament for over $17,000, giving her her second ring of the season. I added a bit at the end to recognize it, and Dan put up a post congratulating her. In it, I mentioned Kyle Cartwright as one of only two players to win two rings at the same stop this season, both of his coming in Tunica. He won a final table that was going on concurrently to La’s, which just happened to be the Main Event in St. Louis.

449 players showed up for the $1,600 tournament, generating a sizable prize pool that would award over $142,000 to the eventual champion. On this day, Cartwright was indeed that man, adding a third ring and an automatic seat in the $1 million championship to what is likely the most impressive resume on this year’s WSOP Circuit.

Local Man Makes Good at LAPT Peru for Over $200K
Atlantic City Casino, Lima, Peru

C/O PokerStars Blog

Amidst the chaos that enveloped the poker world on Friday, a couple of the best that the American poker media has to offer (Shamus and Pauly) soldiered on with their reporting duties. As usual, their updates were top notch and captured the compelling action well, and it was some exciting play to be sure. Local Peruvian player Kemal Ferri went on a rampage when play got down to four-handed, eliminating all three of his opponents on the way to his first LAPT title and $207,400.

Michael Kanaan Makes Dozens of Media Friends After Quick Win in Sydney
ANZPT Sydney, Australia

C/O PokerStars Blog

The unofficial rule amongst the poker media is not to openly root for any one player at a final table. That rule is usurped by the fact that all media subconsciously roots for the big stacks to win during the big confrontations in order to facilitate an early exit from the casino. It is by this that we can judge Michael Kanaan the most popular player of every member of the media present for his win at ANZPT Sydney. The prohibitive chip leader entering play, Kanaan triumphed over his final eight opponents in less than four-and-a-half hours of play, sending people home at just after 5 pm after collecting his $195,714 first place prize, of course.

Luckily For the Pokerati Game, 2-Time WSOPC Omaha Ring Winner Plays Tournaments… For Now
WSOP Circuit, Caesers Las Vegas, Nevada

C/O WSOP

So much for sharing the wealth. Yet another player added his second WSOP Circuit ring of the season this past week as action moved to Caesers in Las Vegas. Army veteran Jessie Bryant’s job while he was enlisted was similar to the soldiers who were featured in “The Hurt Locker”, but these days his focus has been directed more towards the game of Omaha. Bryant won an Omaha-8/b event a few months ago in Tunica, and to show off the versatility in his skills he decided to change it up a bit in Las Vegas, adding a PLO championship to his poker resume. He is the early leader in the player of the series race in Las Vegas thanks to his score of just under $10,000.

Online Poker? Chip Jett Doesn’t Need No Stinkin’ Online Poker
Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza, Las Vegas, Nevada

Also well underway in Las Vegas over the past couple of weeks has been the latest incarnation of the Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza. Well-known pros have been scattered amongst the lists of those who have cashed in the events held so far, but have began to pop up more and more since the madness of Friday. The most well-known of those players is Chip Jett, who for a long time has been one of the red-named players on Full Tilt. Not content to sit and stare at a blank computer screen, Jett decided to enter Event 20, a $340 No Limit Hold’em event, and promptly won the whole thing for just under $14,000.

Everything’s been so serious of late … we don’t know about you, but feelin’ the need over here to lighten things up a bit. And what better way to find some levity — while still maintaining our commitment to “fairly accurate quasijournalism” — than with pictures of license plates …

Like this one on a Trailblazer making a (non-legally binding?) statement in the VIP Poker area of the Venetian parking lot:

Some people around Las Vegas, of course, are keeping lower profiles than others:

Poker media asking the tough questions:

It should be no surprise what the focus of this weeks Roundup will be with all that happened last Friday. Since the indictments were unsealed a week ago today everyone is hitting the airwaves to give their take on what has transpired with the DonkDown guys being the first group to hit the airwaves shortly followed by Marco on Quad Jacks.

Pregame.com

The team over at Pregame.com not only addressed how poker players have been affected by the indictments but also got some insight of how other people in the poker industry are being affected thanks to their guest Kristen Bihr. Bihr, who is a writer for PokerStarsBlog.com as well as being the PCA Ladies Event Champion, discusses how the poker media industry is being affected along with her current predicament of having the majority of her Ladies Event winnings tied up online. You can listen to the show in its entirety on the Pregame.com site

Quad Jacks Interviews

Already running 6 days consecutively with numerous host the show is going to come to an end shortly after reaching the 7 day mark for some rest. Numerous guest have joined over the past week, including Shaun Deeb, Katy Leibert, Daniel Negreanu, Gary Wise, BJ Nemeth, Kevin “KevMath” Mathers, and our very own Dan Michalski to break down what the indictments mean to not only the poker community but also personally to themselves.

Along with being a part of the show this past week KevMath also took a few of the interviews from the past 6 days and made them available for download. These are not in iTunes but they are indeed safe files.

Chuck Kidd Interview
Shaun Deeb Interview
Daniel Negrenu Surprise call into the show

On a side note a few of our favorite podcast have different host this week due to the regular host choosing to step aside either due to honoring the request to not speak or out of fear of causing problems due to their affiliation. This week ESPN’s The Poker Edge went on without Phil Gordon, though he did provide a short message to listeners that was played at the beginning of the show. The other pro to step aside this week is Dennis Phillips, who also spoke briefly at the beginning of the show to give a brief statement before stepping aside for the rest of the show to go on.

You can LOL all you want because nobody got shot … but as things usually go with poker robberies, attempted or otherwise, someone in the Stratosphere poker room probably has more than a sneaking suspicion of who attempted to rob a single table Wednesday night of its low-stakes casino chips. Or maybe not … because from the sounds of it there might not have been any players around … which makes sense, because as far as I know no one tweeted from the actual scene … so did it really happen?

Hear for yourself about the man police are seeking:

download

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Sound like anyone you know?

Dude … I’m actually pretty sure I’ve seen him at the tables somewhere.

On April 15th, 2011, the US Department of Justice seized the domains and bank accounts of Pokerstars, Full Tilt, and Absolute Poker. One week later we know how they did it, who helped them, and if players will be getting their money back!

This document really doesn’t need much in the way of explanation from me right now, but it’s now available on PACER and continues to fill out the documentary record around the indictments and related proceedings. Happy reading.

Pokerati Morlock here. I hope I’m not stepping on any editorial toes here, and I’m certainly informing you of something that a well-informed bunch of readers like Pokerati already know, but…

The bad Word-doc-as-GIF is gone from fulltiltpoker.com, and it redirects to fulltiltpoker.co.uk. I was able to download a new client, and install it, and connect. Unfortunately, that got me this pop-up:

...this includes deposits or withdrawals. (sob)

What I have there might be LOL-able, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t use it. There are many Americans with non-LOL amounts who could probably use it worse than me, too.

Over and out…

We talk about the most recent news involving the DOJ indictments of online poker sites.  Kathy Liebert is our special guest. Jenny Micon, the little sister of Bryan Micon, joins us through most of the show.  Pokerati Dan talks poker legality stuff with Druff.  We talk with one of the partners of icemannitelife.com.  A “snake in the grass” — someone sabotaging our show — is uncovered but not revealed.

All have heard by now about the constantly streaming broadcast by the Quadjacks crew … but before they existed, and perhaps giving them credibility from the get-go, the crew at Donkdown were the originators of raw poker radio. We used to never give much credence to anything live … if I couldn’t listen at my own convenience in podcast form, what was the point?

I’ll have to reassess my internet radio philosophy after the Pokerpacolypse dust settles … but in the meantime, I’m waiting in the wings now to go on the show where no one is supposed to be able to get away with any BS, but in exchange, anyone can get a say.

Should be a fun episode as some semblance of sensibility is starting to emerge. I suspect to be called out rather harshly for running an op-ed from a former UB lawyer telling people their money is presumably gone forever the day before the DOJ said they could get it back. (Clearly they’ve been reading and listening and didn’t want me to make any wagers, so thanks guys, for putting out such a statement before it was too late!)

Donkdown Radio Live. Listen here.