To catch you up to date … Phil Ivey dropped his lawsuit because (choose one or more):

a) He had a change of heart and realized he was wrong. Apologies accepted, hugs exchanged.
b) His attorney advised him that he was putting himself at risk by potentially taking the stand.
c) Sitting through a even just a deposition could prove less profitable than sitting in a cash game.
d) He settled, obv, meaning Ivey and Full Tilt somehow got square, even if you did not.

Meanwhile, French regulators ARJEL yanked Full Tilt’s gaming license in France, Ray Bitar says his feelings are hurt by Wicked Chops insinuations that he’s no longer CEO of Tilt (as if! scroll down to bottom) and everyone seems to have forgotten that the leaders of AP/UB are apparently on the run with however much player cash and T-shirt swag they can stuff on a southbound plane.

With all that, whether in a nick of time or too little too late, a group of New Yorkers is suing Tilt class-action style, with a complaint that looks like it was cut-and-paste together from DOJ press releases and 2+2 threads.

Can we expect a rash of lawsuits to come? Should they?

The PPA has put out a legal guide for anyone considering court-action as a way to get an everated online poker site pay up:

The PPA’s legal team has prepared a legal analysis of the options available to individual players who still have not been able to access their online poker funds held on account.  The document, “Legal Rights of Players with Unpaid Account Balances – A PPA Information Guide” seeks to provide our members with facts and information about how individuals can seek to claim their online poker account money.    We hope you find this document useful and informative.  Should you have further inquiries about players’ funds you can contact our Litigation Support Network at: legal@theppa.org.

The document attempts to explain the complexities of forfeiture law, as well as what the remedies are for someone who believes the government unjustly seized their property. I feel like I’ve seen this seizure list a dozen times … but what’s new to me is realizing the government asserts they flat out own the companies — Full Tilt, PokerStars, AP/UB, et al … regardless of whether or not players got their money back.

Maybe this is old news and the press release is buried somewhere in the slush pile … but it seems the WSOP has found a way to allow even more gambling, officially, on World Series tournaments. Last week the Nevada Gaming Control Board approved five separate, specific prop bets related to the WSOP. That means now any sports book in Nevada can set their own lines and take action on:

• Players from one of two groups of 13 to last longest
• Will at least one player from a box of 3 make the money
• Will a woman finish in the top 40
• Will at least one of a group of 7 men last longer than all women
• Age of the winner

Kinda a strange bunch of props imho … but hey, they do seem to support Rule #2 of Poker Life, which is, of course, “Never Stop Gambling.”

Should be interesting to see what kinda action Caesars wants to wrap around these newly approved fully legal prop bets … and what additional props show up in future lines.

All this became possible, btw, in January of this year, when Nevada Gaming approved and adopted amendments to Regulation 22, allowing the state’s casinos to offer wagers on events other than just horse races, greyhound races, and athletic events. So now, you can bet in Nevada on the outcome of non-sporting events such as The Academy Awards or American Idol … or whether or not one man out of a group of seven can outlast all women in a $1,500 no-limit hold’em tournament.

UPDATE: @OskarGarcia was all over this one last week, and noted that the Wynn became the first ever Nevada casino to offer non-sporting bets in their sports book with the above wager options on the WSOP. He also talks to a regulator who says this new practice should have big implications for betting on the November Nine.

Starting today, we are covering the remainder of the 42nd Annual WSOP Main Event, bringing you live updates & interviews right here on Pokerati. Click the link below to listen & check back throughout the day for more!

2011 WSOP Main Event: Day 2B Update by SYS Poker & Pokerati

2011 WSOP – Episode 28: Hellmuthian Entrance with Snoopy (6:26) – Phil Hellmuth arrived late to the Main Event in true Hellmuthian fashion as he showed up during the start of level 3. However, this year Hellmuth went for a much more low key entrance. Snoopy stalked out the hallway and waited for Hellmuth to arrive. He gave us the lowdown on this year’s entrance. Pauly and Snoopy discussed a couple of entrance concepts (like an astronaut or riding a donkey or a God theme) that they wished Hellmuth would’ve chosen.

For more episodes, visit the Tao of Pokerati archives.

This week, J Todd reviews the continuing troubles for Full Tilt Poker since “Black Friday”, including the loss of their licenses in Alderney and France, and a new class action lawsuit filed this week. We also get a status update on the launch of legal online gambling in Washington, DC

2011 WSOP – Episode 27: Almost Famous with Snoopy (3:32) – While players return to their seats after the dinner break, Pauly and Snoopy notice Jason Alexander posing for pictures with fans. Snoopy explains why Seinfeld wasn’t a big hit in England and Pauly discovers someone dressed as Snow White in the crowd. Pauly also wonders if Snoopy would ever dress up in a costume for the Main Event.

For more episodes, visit the Tao of Pokerati archives.

Annie Duke is one of two special guests on this episode, as we hear about her new poker league and hit her with the tough questions about UB and Russ Hamilton.  We talk about the situation with Johnathan Epstein final tabling the Ladies’ WSOP Event with veteran poker reporter Michele Lewis.  Brandon airs his beef with WSOP Tournament Director Jack Effel, who blocked him on Twitter!  We catch up with Dustin “neverwin” Woolf, one of the original founders of this site, and learn about his life in downtown Las Vegas.

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We have few rules here at Pokerati, just possible guidelines. But with that, the few that we do have tend to be important, and one I’ve told contributors before: Twitter is not a primary source. You’d think I woulda listened to my own advice and known better than to report something that came from a single source on Twitter, even if it was from a verified account. But it was Doyle! @TexDolly! Aren’t we supposed to believe everything most of what he says?

Well apparently the Grand Ole Man of Poker has had a change of heart. Not a medical transplant mind you, and frankly, based on his latest tweet, not even a change of heart about playing per se … but he does report his own change of mind, saying he’ll be there, in the 2011 WSOP main event … he just won’t be happy about it. And he did use the word “official”, too.

No tweets on who’s putting him in and what kinda “good for poker” guilt trip anybody or corporate entity may or may not have put on him.

That’s what I thought after playing in and being a witness to the 2011 World Series of Poker Ladies’ Event — the line from the 1992 film, A League of Their Own, where Jimmy Dugan (played by Tom Hanks) famously said, “THERE’S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL!“. Don’t people know, “There’s no crying in Poker!”

The tournament brought plenty of controversy as it always does, summed up into two divisions: (1) whether or not men should be allowed to enter the “ladies-only” tournament, and (2) should there even be “exclusive” tournaments within the WSOP schedule of events. More…

As much as we’d love to be at the Hotel Club Casino Loutraki right now (site of the Greek Poker Cup 2, beginning today) PokerStars, as a place of virtual felts, has kinda dropped off Pokerati’s radar the way PartyPoker did back in ’06.

However, one thing catching my attention — not because of the results, but simply because they’re playing the game — Isildur1′s high-stakes No-Limit Hold’em/Pot-Limit Omaha Mix. (Hey, I know that game … we play it at the Palms! “High-stakes action for low-stakes players” is the buzzphrase I like to throw around.) Pretty sure because it’s heads up they don’t have an “ultimate button straddle” the way we do at the Palms … and I’m not sure if they can run-it-twice … as the nature of the match suggests they’re not necessarily interested in reducing variance.

But still, sounds like Isildur1 is playing it pretty close to the right way.

SuperStar Showdown

Team PokerStars Pro Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom enjoyed another SuperStar Showdown win on Sunday, when he defeated Norwegian player Terje ‘Terken89’ Augdal.

The match, which was a mix of No Limit Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha, was over in slightly more than 1,500 of the scheduled 2,500 hands, as Blom blew his opponent away to rake in Augdal’s entire $150,000 Showdown bankroll.

Despite losing $10,000 in the opening hand, Blom quickly got on top and showed his dominance throughout, his win taking his total SuperStar Showdown profit to $651,941. It also means he now has an impressive 9-2 winning record (7-2 versus high stakes opponents) in the SuperStar Showdown matches.

For a full report, including replays of some of the key hands, check out the [report of the match at PokerStars Blog].

Barack Obama was taking questions from the masses today in 140 characters or less. It really is a rather unique evolution in political communication. It’s not too different from standing on a soapbox back in the day … except here the crowd is millions strong, and – bo has enabled his @replies.

The PPA rallied the troops to make sure that of the millions tens of thousands of people jumping up and raising their hands with a question, at least one that got heard was about online poker:

Don’t forget today at 2PM EDT, President Obama will be hosting a Twitter town hall and answering questions tweeted to him. Please take a moment to use Twitter to submit a question asking the President if he supports licensing and regulating online poker by clicking here. To follow the Town Hall as it happens, please click here.

Let’s make our voices heard. Tweet your question to President Obama now!

Proud to play,
Drew Lesofski
Director, Grassroots and External Affairs

I sent mine in. No answer … but we’ll see if @BarackObama maybe includes @Pokerati in his next #FollowFriday.

UPDATE: Follow this guy, New York Times politics blogger, to see what questions got asked and how they got answered.

More…

Jeff "pkrgssp" Walsh joins Mark and Matt for this week's news-packed Rabbit Hunt. We go over the week's WSOP winners (including CR Coach Matt "jacksup" Matros!), the obligatory Ladies Event controversies, and a long laundry list of news regarding Full Tilt. We also very briefly give our new predictions for the Main Event turnout, set to start July 7.

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A lot of people have been wondering where I’ve been this WSOP. I’m ready to admit it — I suffer from an addiction … one that snuck up on me when I least expected, but I can no longer deny. I’m addicted to Zynga Poker. I’m at level 43.

Seriously, not lying when I say I’ve played virtually EVERY DAY of this Series, probably not going longer than 36 hours without logging on — at least to redeem a gift that expires in 1 hour. I’m too embarrassed to be seen playing at the Rio, which is why I stay home … But still, when I am playing, I can’t help but think about the World Series of Poker going on just down the road, on Twitter, on Facebook, on iPhones, via livestream … not to mention the personal text messages and deluge of PR emails … pretty much anywhere with wifi there is Zynga — er, I mean WSOP. To play Zynga you only need 3G.

More…

He said it on Twitter so it’s gotta be true …

@TexDolly
No main event for me.maybe the DOJ will stake me.
1:10 AM Jul 4th via Twitter for iPhone

Less than a half hour earlier Brunson tweeted:

@TexDolly
Busted… Total nightmare… Goodbye WSOP
12:42 AM Jul 4th via Twitter for iPhone

… which seems about as long as it might take to come up with such a jab at the DOJ.

UPDATE: He changed his mind.

Still looking to get confirmation on how many main events Brunson has missed before. Many seem to recall his sitting out for a few years in the ’80s — as do I — but have yet to find any definitive source on where he stands in the record books for total number of WSOP main events, consecutive or otherwise.

Brunson joins a growing list of prominent big-money pros who have publicly declared their intent to sit out the 2011 WSOP, along with big-money Full Tilters who have gone silent amid severe legal and financial difficulties and thus are expected to be no-shows.

Doyle Brunson
Phil Ivey
Tony G
Howard Lederer
Chris Ferguson

Am I missing anyone? I mean other than Russ Hamilton …