I have a feeling the inaugural WSOP million-dollar freeroll might feature some of the best poker we’ll see throughout the WSOP. The unofficial kick-off for the 2011 WSOP activities — and perhaps opening testament to the dramatically reduced relevance of typical patch players this year — gets underway this Friday.

Below is the official list of who gets to play — final save for point and money totals on the nine players who locked up seats yesterday and played (or are still playing) the Southern regional championship at Harrah’s New Orleans today.

NOTABLE:

Plenty of interesting names qualified for 1 of 100 seats over the course of the ever-expansive WSOP-circuit 2010/11 season. And I’m sure some of the best stories come from winners we’ve never heard of … but regardless, several well-known players and a few special-to-Pokerati players will be fighting for 10 payouts ranging from $27,500 to $300,000, including …

La Sengphet (one of only two women who qualified)
David Clark
Josh Evans
Charles “Woody” Moore
Dwight Pilgrim
Allie Prescott
Allen Kessler
Tim West
Bernard Lee
Ali Eslami
Traci Brown (the other female qualifier, also from Texas)
Brandon Adams
Shannon Shorr
Andy Frankenberger

More…

This week’s online gambling news included several poker pros as the latest victims of “Black Friday”. Plus, some of the stupidest stories we could find… with a Chuck E. Cheese lawsuit and the end of life on this planet!

The signs of Rapture are all around us. No, I’m not talking about the idiot who spent his life savings putting up billboards around the country to tell everyone the world was going to end on May 21st. I’m talking about the world in which I exist, the poker world, where we’re clearly in a time loop, as the same things happen over and over again and nobody seems to notice. Déjà vu was certainly the theme for this week’s winners in poker.

Scott Seiver Breaks Through On WPT; Seidel Wins Another High Rzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
WPT Championship & Super High Roller, Bellagio, Las Vegas, Nevada

C/O WPT

There are times in the poker world in which a situation goes beyond explanation. Sometimes players, for no better reason than running bad or random chance, a player will go an extended period of time without a big score. Michael Mizrachi’s previous results at the WSOP leading up to last year’s explosion comes to mind. A player of the caliber of Scott Seiver doing no better 19th place in 5 years of WPT tournaments defies explanation. Unless the explanation was that he was saving up all his rungood for this past week’s $25,000 WPT Championship.

Seiver beat an impressive collection of players in the final six, including 2011 PCA Champion Galen Hall, Justin Young, and Farzad Bonyadi. For his breakthrough WPT performance, Seiver raked in an impressive $1,618,344.

In news that can’t possibly surprise anyone who knows anything about poker, Erik Seidel took down the inaugural WPT Super High Roller Event. 28 of the sickest gamblers of the world decided to put up $100,000 to vie for second place to Seidel. The lucky second place finisher was fellow Team Full Tilt member Erick Lindgren, but the human cybernetic organism that is Erik Seidel walked away with another score of over $1 million, bringing his total for the year to over $5.4 million. Nice life.

Freitez Wins EPT Season 7 Finale; Mercier Wins PokerStars Sponsored zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
EPT Grand Final, Madrid, Spain

C/O PokerStars

The EPT Grand Final, a €10,000 event to conclude an interesting season for the crown jewel of the PokerStars tours featured a “live” broadcast with hole cards on a two-hour delay, sequestering players until their eliminations had “happened” on TV. It’s interesting to see the lengths that they had to go to to broadcast this table on a delay, while the WSOP was able to negotiate just a 30 minute delay between play and broadcast, with no sequestering, but that’s another story for another day.

Two members of Team PokerStars made the EPT Grand Final final table, with Brazilian Alex Gomes chasing a triple crown and Juan Maceiras trying to become the first Spanish-born EPT champion. Both players found the rail early on in Final Table play. Venezuelan player Ivan Freitez was the last man standing, claiming €1,500,000 (about $2.2 million) in the swan song for the EPT’s seventh (!) season.

The following day’s action saw winners from the EPT’s first seven seasons compete for a first place prize of €50,000 in buy-ins to the next season of the EPT. In what should come as a surprise to absolutely no one, Jason Mercier was the champion.

Chris Porter Tops Station Event With for $60K
Sunset Station Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada

C/O Station Casinos

The Station Casinos have created an interesting series of poker tournaments at their various Las Vegas properties. They’re running four separate $1,100 events at four different casinos, each with a $200,000 guarantee, and the top 25 finishers at each casino will compete in a championship event with a $200,000 guarantee of its own, to create a prizepool totaling $1 million for the five events. The most recent event, taking place at Sunset Station, brought in over 200 players, with FullTilt player representative Chris Porter taking down the top prize of $60,000, and a chance at some more in the championship event.

Matt Legard “Positions” Himself For Big Win in New Game at Bellagio
Bellagio Prelim Event, Las Vegas, Nevada

C/O Position Poker

As much as the popularity of poker continues to flourish, there are some innovative minds thinking of “the next step” in the evolution of the game. Most of the time it’s an innovation in bringing in more players or changing the pace of the game, but certain developments, including Rush Poker, have completely changed the way poker can be played. An exciting new version of live poker made its debut during the preliminary events at Bellagio a few weeks ago, and this one is called Position Poker. The key variation of the game is that the player winning a pot gets to act after the button on the following hand. There are a few other intricacies, which you can check out at their website here. The winner of the first ever event was Matt Legard, who won $18,000 for his efforts.

NOLA Wraps the WSOPC With Scramble For Points(+2 rings +Team Pokerati Update +National Championship update)
WSOPC Harrahs New Orleans, Louisiana

C/O WSOP

With the conclusion of the WPT Championship, all eyes in the poker world have turned towards New Orleans, where the last few entries to the $1 million WSOPC National Championship have been grinded out over the last week and a half. There are three methods by which players earned their seats in this event; the grinders who have followed the circuit around all year tried to accumulate enough points for one of the at large spots (including Team Pokerati member Dave Clark, who seems to have squeezed his way in with a few key points at this final stop).

Another option was to be the “Casino Champion” by accumulating the most points at this stop. That spot was snatched up by an impressive performance by Brian Walsingham, who locked up two rings inside of a week. In Event 4, a $355 No Limit Hold’em event was the first ring he won, and in Event #8 he really cashed in. The $1,085 tournament generated a prize pool of over $340,000 and Walsingham took the lion’s share of over $78,000. He also gave himself a chance at $300,000, the top prize in a field of less than 100 that will take place in Las Vegas in the coming week.

The third method? Outlasting 75 players and make the final table of the $10,000 Southern Regional Championship, ensuring yourself of one of the last nine seats in a $1 million freeroll. At the time of publication, there are 12 players left, including Allen Kessler, Allie Prescott and Shannon Shorr. Once the final nine is finalized, we’ll throw a quick update your way.

UPDATE: The Final Nine was just set. The unlucky bubble boy was Shannon Shorr, who ran pocket kings into the pocket aces of Allie Prescott to go out in tenth. Prescott punches his ticket to the National Championship, as do Harry Cullen, Allen Kessler, Jeremy Gaubert, Gary Friedlander, Kunal Patel, Matt Waxman, AJ Jejelowo and Scott Lipshutz. The overall field for the freeroll is unofficially set, but you can look here to see who has “officially” qualified and here to check out how the National leaderboard for at-large qualifiers shook out.

We thought it was a big deal when PokerStars got T-pain for a night, and then a bigger deal when they brought in @SnoopDogg for a party that certainly won’t be one-upped at this year’s WSOP … but what’s the point with Lady Gaga becoming a farmer?

In many ways it’s a disheartening reminder of what Phil Hellmuth can never be … and possibly indicative of poker’s future direction. Say what you will about the struggling American family farm, clearly there’s more money in virtual harvesting than poker, and hence the biggest name in poker (as far as Google is concerned) — and the most powerful celebrity in the world thanks in part to a song talking about poker — has moved beyond Texas Hold’em to sign with Farmville — and the parent company of the biggest online poker site.

Implications are clear … Zynga is planning to take over American agriculture by introducing poker players to the concept that money can indeed grow on trees. It should play great with the kids (who love Lady Gaga).

At a minimum you can see how Zynga’s at least thinking along the similar lines as Caesars:

UPDATE: It’s official, both La n DC qualified! For the inaugural minor-league Champions League NIT 2011 WSOP-Freeroll World Championship. Whatever it turns out that people end up calling it … we can only hope here at Pokerati for a high-stakes poker lovers’ quarrel at the final table.

La N Dc
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!! Finally heading HOME! After 3wks of grinding I am happy and proud to say my Baby has successfully crawled his way into the 10k seat freeroll. Great job Baby, so proud of you!! We now have 2shots at 300k

For at least a few players, today is a day kinda like when high-school kids wait to get their college acceptance/rejection letters … waiting to see the final points tally to be official, so they know whether or not they qualified for the WSOP-Circuit National Championship — the $1 million freeroll that will kick off the 2011 WSOP.

Click here for the national leaderboard to see who’s got a seat for sure, and who looks likely as we wait for WSOP officials to turn orange squares into red

Team Pokerati’s La Sengphet is a lock (8th among non automatic qualifiers with 155 points, 2 rings, 7 cashes, $67k) … yay La! You go girl! … and, of course, she also won a non-points pendant for her 1st place finish in the WSOP-Caesars ladies event. And it looks like her other half, David Clark, also will make the cut but just barely (112.5 pts – 1 ring, 9 cashes, $59.5k) … DC made a final table in a non-ring PLO/8 event at WSOP-NOLA for good measure without the points … and he finishes just ahead of Steve Zolotow, who qualifies with the same point total, no rings, just 3 cashes, and $43k in earnings to give you an idea who got in at the bottom of the field.

At the very bottom, interestingly enough, with 100 points, is John Riordan, who won a ring and $210k in Florida. But he will not get a seat this year because he is not yet 21. Will be curious to see how the WSOP handles this case … will he simply get a rain check for when he comes of age? Because if so, when will we see bona fide WSOP-Teen events?!? You know, of course, that I am in the minority willing to admit that I think poker is good for kids.

Another late qualifier is longtime friend of Pokerati’s Josh Evans … who finished 3rd in the WSOP Southern Regional championship last week at Harrah’s New Orleans. Thrilled about that, as it gives us another excuse to re-run that highly acclaimed but not quite award-winning film we created about Josh as he got 6-figure deep in the ’07 main event:

[CORRECTION: Josh got 3rd in the WSOP-NOLA $1,600 main event ... which still gives him enough to qualify (140ish pts, 7 cashes $81k) but did not give him the guaranteed seat as just making a Regional Championship final table does.]

Remember how awesome SNL and the Onion were when they finally re-emerged after September 11th? Kinda the same thing, but with less death to navigate in the punchlines. Possibly the best episode yet, imho. (And a reminder for all that while we may take our poker seriously, we prolly shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously unless you want to end up like Durrrr and his flamingo.)

I won’t even list the humorous nuggets embedded in the Chase vs. ROFLs matchup … just watch and occasionally press pause when you see small print for refreshingly funny stuff.

Continuing the trend of poker players signing with brick-and-mortar (and in the case of WinStar tent) casinos … Maria Ho joins Greg Raymer as a celebrity endorser of WinStar Casino in Far Far North Dallas, Oklahoma. Just in time, btw, to begin pimpin their upcoming big River Tourney. Apparently the satellites are about ready to open … and this year they are guaranteeing a $3 million prize pool.

This tournament has grown and grown into one of the biggest of the year in the country … and not that it would be all Ho and Fossilman’s doing … but I have a feeling this year people outside of Texas and Oklahoma will start to take note.

Here’s a little behind-the-scenes vid of Maria’s commercial shoot with the Chickasaw … who by the way, just officially bought Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie, presumably changing the dynamic of Texas gambling legislation, but that’s a story for another time … right now it’s all about the value of Asian poker hotties playing the role of high-stakes cash game player. That and/or being a WSOP main event champion still seem to play well in the poker endorsement world.

In the Summer of 2009, the Federation Internationale de Poker Association (FIDPA) announced that the Bellagio Cup was the first tournament played under their International Poker Rules. The tournament players and media in attendance were unfamiliar with the FIDPA’s International Poker rules and requested copies, yet none were available.

Several years have since past and the FIDPA almost drifted from memory. However, earlier this week Luske and Lau announced the launch of their new FIDPA website, www.fidpa.com and the publication of  The International Poker Rules (The IP Rules). More…

I am not the sort of person that would ever turn a blind eye to information. More importantly, it would be unfair to my readers to suggest that they form an opinion without first providing them with all the information that I have available to me. More…

Errrr. um, anybody know this was coming?? I feel like a idiot for asking, but I had not heard of it until May 11th.

A friend of mine sent me a text message the other day, asking me if I was excited about the launch of The Poker Player Academy. I had zero idea what she was talking about but found @PPAcademy following me on Twitter and a Facebook Poker Player Academy fan page with over 78 “Likes.” How the heck did these guys sneak under my radar?

The first thing that struck me was Bruce Buffer’s screaming mugshot! After I got past that, I was able to read: More…

The World Series of Panel-discussions continues with what I like to think of as a circuit event on Wednesday. The Focus group has invited me and three others for a moderated roundtable that you could call Meet the Poker if David Gregory’s show were relegated to ESPN3.

But it should make for vigorous discourse providing valuable information … kinda like a think-tank for couch-based researchers and analysts. Details on the academic equivalent to a call-in show:

Toll-free Dial-In Number: (866) 951-1151

International Dial-In Number: (201) 590-2255

United Kingdom +44 08003581576

Conference # : 4999006

Join us for this roundtable teleconference on Wednesday May 18, 2011 at 10:00am PT/1:00pm ET to learn more about the economics of the multi-billion online gambling market and recent US government gaming legislation.

Topics include:

1. The history of today’s online gaming market
2. How Las Vegas feels about online gaming
3. “Black Friday” and its meaning for the online gaming business
4. What the online gaming business will look like in 2012

Moderator:

Michael Damphousse, CEO/CMO, Green Leads

Panelists:

David G. Schwartz, Director of Center for Gambling Research-UNLV
Dan Michalski, Founder/Editor, Pokerati.com
John Pappas, Executive Director, PPA (Poker Players Alliance)
Greg Raymer, 2004 WSOP Champion and Lawyer

Raids at the Absolute Poker offices in Costa Rica, and big Las Vegas casinos are now in favor of regulating online gambling? Also, J Todd interviews Betfair about the future of online gambling!

Former UB pro Hollywood Dave is our special in-studio guest.  We interview Raymond Davis and Bryan “Devo” Devonshire. The status of players getting paid on Full Tilt and UB is discussed. Hollywood Dave debates Druff about whether UB ever looked legit enough post-scandal to represent.  We talk about the Pokerstars FPP cashout controversy — is Pokerstars stealing upwards of $10 million from players?  We introduce new sponsor Hero Poker and organize a $300 freeroll during the show.  Some more technical fail kills about 20 minutes of the show from the archives (at about the 2:20 mark), but Druff stops that fail before it gets worse.

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Gary Wise from ESPN fame joins the The Rabbit Hunt as their guest panelist of the week on an all-UB news cycle. We discuss the state of the company, the raids that occurred over the weekend, their recent deal with the DOJ, and the continued fallout their recently laid off pros might feel going forward. True to the subject matter, we had a lot to talk about, so we hope you enjoy!

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As you’ll see somewhere further down the page, I was a bit busy on the other side of the poker industry last week, thus delaying this column. Other things delaying this column include the NBA Playoffs, a little league baseball game, and finally a wasp sting on my left pointer finger. But I digress. Unfortunately I didn’t make enough of a score or lock up enough points to necessitate a trip down to New Orleans for the next few weeks. Such is life. There’s been plenty of poker around the world in the meantime, and here are some of the biggest scores.

Von Kriegenbergh Wins Inaugural WPT in Florida, Longest Name Contest
WPT Seminole Hard Rock Showdown, Hollywood, Florida

C/O WPT

Florida has been a new frontier for poker over the last year, and the final “first” in a long series was the first ever televised $10K event, the WPT’s Seminole Hard Rock Showdown. The first event of its kind got quite the turnout, with 433 players in total generating a prize pool north of $4.1 million. With the exception of Curt Kohlberg, the final six was a young group, with notables such as Tommy Vedes and Allen Bari.

After a rollercoaster ride of a final table, where Taylor Von Kriegenbergh started with the chip lead, then lost it, he fought his way back to the top to capture the crown. For his efforts, Von Kriegenburgh won over $1.1 million.

Heinzlemann Plays Bridesmaid For Second Consecutive Week in San Remo
EPT San Remo, Italy

C/O PokerStars Blog

Almost anyone has the capability of being lucky enough to final table any single event, but some of the most memorable and impressive feats in the poker world are easily recognizable when they occur back to back. For the second time in this season of the EPT, a player has finished second in two consecutive Main Events, a feat that takes a bit of the sting out of not closing it out.

Max Heinzelmann once again got down to heads up play in a massive field, and this time it was Rupert Elder getting the best of him. Elder’s performance netted him €930,000, but Heinzelmann accumulated over €1,000,000 in less than two weeks, so it’s not all bad.

Crane Hooks Spring Borgata Championship
Borgata Spring Poker Championship, Atlantic City, New Jersey

C/O Borgata

Most of the tournament action in the United States is driven by tournament series’ that travel around the country. A few casinos have been able to harness a strong local population to run their own tournaments, with Commerce, Foxwoods and the Borgata coming to mind. The Borgata’s most recent series, the Spring Poker Open, culminated in a $2,500 event with 447 runners.

Among the notables in the field were Kathy Liebert, Maria Ho, Josh Brikis, Jason Young, Lee Childs and “Hollywood” Dave Stann. Matt Matros made the final table and finished ninth, but it was Russel Crane, a tournament grinder that travels the country, who took this tournament down. Crane’s payday was a sizable one, coming in at $276,949.

Chris Johnson Runs Away With WSOPC Las Vegas Title
Caesers, Las Vegas, Nevada

C/O WSOP

Without openly rooting, members of the poker media generally pull for the player who has the most chips, in order to facilitate the fastest trip to post-action drinks and other festivities. The $1,600 WSOPC Main Event at Caesers Las Vegas may go down in the record books as one of the fastest of all time, and you need look no further than a tweet by F-Train, who was covering the event, to see the pure joy that a short final table can bring.

The short version of the story is that nine of ten all-ins that were called led to eliminations, leading to about two and a half hours from cards in the air to trophy in the air. 24-year-old Las Vegas local Chris Johnson was the beneficiary, to the tune of $153,559 and a lucrative spot in the upcoming WSOPC Championship coming up in a few weeks.

First Pokerbot ElkY Wins EPT Madrid High Roller
EPT Madrid, Spain

C/O PokerStars Blog

When Phil Laak beat the poker playing robot up in Canada a few years back, little did the world know that they were already perfecting a personified version of the bot and training it through thousands of hours of StarCraft. Okay, perhaps that’s a bit unfair, but Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier has done nothing but impress in the live and online poker scene for quite some time, and he hit again this past week.

The EPT Madrid €25,000 High Roller event brought together 57 of the best players in the world, and a final eight that included Vanessa Rousso, David “Doc” Sands, Peter Jetten, Juha Helppi and Galen Hall, but none were a match for ElkY. He picked up €525,000 for his win.

“Super Tuan” Wins Main Event, Keller Hits Trifecta While Idiot Finishes Seventh in PA
WSOPC Harrah’s Chester, Pennsylvania

With just a few weeks remaining in this season of the World Series of Poker Circuit, players are hopping around the country and hitting every remaining stop trying to rack up enough points to qualify for the $1 million freeroll. The stop that just wrapped up was in Chester, Pennsylvania, the next-to-last series with only New Orleans remaining. The $1,600 Main Event, with a seat on the line for the winner (as well as a six figure score) drew some big names, and the final nine included “Bodog” Ari Engel and WSOPC Choctaw Main Event winner Huy Nguyen. But another player would punch his ticket to Las Vegas, as Kenny “Super Tuan” Nguyen took home just under $95,000 and the gold ring as well.

In other news from Chester, There was a $345 Omaha 8/b ring event that was won by Pennsylvania native Brent Keller, which is his third Omaha ring on the circuit. The biggest news from that tournament certainly had to be the seventh place finisher, who oddly has the same name as the guy who is currently writing this column. It’s his first Hendon Mob entry and he’s very proud of how he played. He also can’t stop talking in the third person.

Team Pokerati Couple Makes Strong Charge Towards WSOPC National Championship

La Sengphet and David Clark have been traveling the country the whole year following the WSOP Circuit. The official poker playing couple of Team Pokerati are down in New Orleans in an attempt to accumulate enough points to qualify for the $1 million freeroll. La currently sits in 5th place for an at large qualification, and is pretty much locked in, but DC is currently 10 points outside of the current cutline. It could, however, take just one more preliminary final table appearance to put him into the tournament. To take a look at the current standings, head over here (with thanks to Kevmath for the link).