I leave Texas and the Batfaces (so 2007) are clearly going to pot … except for all the good stuff they have to say, of course. While catching up on some of the not-so-relevant blogs out there, I came across this post from one of my best friends whom I don’t even know. All I can say is I would’ve expected as much from Shane, but with far better links:

PokerNOTi
I don’t know about you guys, but has Dan’s lack of content on Pokerati been somewhat disappointing? I’m not talking about Pokerati’s content, just what Dan has posted. My roommate in college first told me about Pokerati about 5 years ago, when most posts were about yall’s home games and the Dallas poker scene in general, and I have been a loyal reader ever since. When Dan started adding contributors like Karridy, and that Michele Lewis chick, I was excited because it seemed like he was getting “more serious.” Then Tom Schnieder came along, Cali Jen started posting, and Dan moved to Vegas and I thought, Wow, pokerati is going to be competing with Pauley’s website, taopoker.com as THE place to follow the WSOP. Man, what a let down. If it wasn’t for Cali Jen (who maybe the best poker writer in the business), and some dude named Kevin Mathews, there wouldn’t be any content. Sure, Dan has the Country Leaderboard, and the occasional 2 minute podcast with Pauley but that’s about it. Where is the live blog, the behind the scene’s stories, the Dallas player profiles, the inside scoop as to what is REALLY going on at the Rio???? Instead, we get pictures of a dumpster fire and talk about All-In Energy drink. Oh well, maybe next year.

Was just going through some old, buried emails, and I came across one dated May 13, 2008, that I sent myself to remind me of all the good, unique-content posts I had building up that needed to get written before the WSOP. Obviously most of them didn’t make it … and while the time of relevance has passed for some, others still might make for good reads, and maybe someday I’ll have lots of free time and get around to crafting/completing thoughtful narratives. As for the rest, I figure their patent-time has expired, so here they are for anyone else to run with if you’re looking for fresh stories to explore. As for now, I really just wanna be able to delete the email.

[Note: Links and strikethroughs are contemporary add-ons, not part of the original email.]

• What’s Going on with the Poker Bowl?
• Will the WPT see 2009?
• Is High Stakes Poker in Trouble? (They haven’t filmed yet this year)
• My time at the table with a colluder-turned-killer (now in jail)
• Rock, Paper, Kenna: Roshambo with Kenna James
• Tiffany Michelle’s Inner Stripper
• Poker Politics out the Ying Yang
• Dance AJ Dance! (AJ Benza on Celebrity Fit Club)
• Chris Ferguson’s Tip for the Heads-Up Championship
• The Arizona Judge challenging the system with a legally questionable card room
• World Series of Beer Pong
• All sorts of readers writing in with questions about poker lawyers
• Multiple restaurant reviews
• Various social party things attached to playing poker afterwards
• Skill-based slot machines
• Etiquette: Why It’s Bad to Slowroll
• How My Friend Created a Law in Texas that Challenged the Amateur Tournament i created (Lodge tourney becomes $0+5 with state taking the rake - I call my friend out for doing sloppy work, and the courts agree by declaring his law unconstitutional)
• Pauly vs. Pauly (dumb kid’s comic strip “Poker Pauly)

Yeow, if someone actually wrote about all that stuff, it would probably make for a pretty good blog, no?

Poker archaeologists recently unearthed this episode of Tao of Pokerati, an ancient recording that carbon-dates back to Day 3 of the main event of the 2008 WSOP. In it, Dr. Pauly and I survey the tournament remains after the slaughter of 6,111 players and speculate on what human life is like so close to the money bubble. Ah, yes, it was a fascinating era — one that witnessed the death of Eric Morris and the survival of Ignacious Rex; a time where players Pauly identifies as “Average Joes” heavily outnumbered “unknown” pros like Pat Poels who knew all too well that further bloodshed and eventual extinction was all but inevitable.

Episode 29: Almost in the Money

The poker shark just can’t seem to be jumped. While I don’t expect to see All In: The Musical on broadway any time soon, apparently some people believe that poker players actually go see shows, or at least that they are more likely to if the show is about poker. The Real Deal is gonna be part poker theatre, part poker tourney, part poker game show, with audience members interacting with various pros on stage via wi-fi at The Venetian. Poker thespians will include Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Jr., Antonio Esfandiari, Gavin Smith, Eli Elezra, Jennifer Harman, Phil Laak, Scotty Nguyen, and Todd Brunson — guess they’ve got nothing better to do with High Stakes Poker gone — and surely it is only a matter of time before Hellmuth wins a Tony and/or The Producers will be brought to you by FullTiltPoker.net. No word on whether or not they plan to add hypnosis to the mix (”I will find inner peace and fold these pocket 10s”), but just to let the poker entertainmentpreneurs out there know, poker still has yet to be translated into any of the following:

Poker: the Topless Revue
Poker: the Pool
Poker: the Mechanical Bull Ride
Poker: the Buffet
Poker: the Surgery

Who says there still isn’t room for growth in this industry? Click below to read the full press release, and for more info about a show that will be sure to dazzle us in frightening ways before the end of the year:

More…

Was just watching a little early Fox News, and the weekend hosts got visibly excited about the World Series of Poker. Their hedline: “Average Joes Taking Over.” Wha? Apparently the Fox reporters/interns aren’t reading Wicked Chops. Idiots But regardless, dead money is dead money, right?

“That’s why we like it so much, because the underdog can win!” cooed Ainsley Earhardt. Coming up is one of those Average Joes, Dennis Phillips. From there the Fox-branded morning sunshine went on to a story about cadaver dogs being called in to search for a two-year-old girl, and then the weather. My personal chills subsided.

Go delayed final table!

UPDATES/LIVE-BLOG

Interview starts with “This is wonderful stuff, the World Series of Poker”

Dennis appears, wearing STL ballcap and Pokerstars.net logo on his shirt. (Boo, St. Louis!)

He refused sponsor money for his cap.

“I’m a 53-year-old truck salesman, I’m not going to go around wearing a hat backwards. It’s just not going to happen.”

Headline under random, low-quality footage from the WSOP (as if the lighting situation in the Amazon room were new to them or something) — Poker-Palooza: Average Poker Guy Takes Vegas

The key to his success at the WSOP was having fun the whole way.

Dennis is not married and has no kids.

The Fox News staff is rooting for him.

After a break, the extended crew comes back and has a discussion about how amazing his poker face is. They all give impressions, then asks who plays — I’m shocked that the two dudes who are so excited about poker say they don’t — and then they turn to Courtney Friel. She says that while he was hostess of the World Poker Tour, she herself wasn’t very good because she gave away her excitement over big hands.

They end the show with: “Go All-in with Fox & Friends!”

Photo: Flipchip/LasVegasVegas

This seems as good a time as any to share with you another leftover bonus! episode of Tao of Pokerati … where Dr. Pauly chats with Change100 (his personal fashion yogini) about Tiffany Michelle’s attire before her Ultimate Bet patchwork became such a major wardrobe malfunction. It’s sickeningly cute as this pokerblogging duo draws the fine line between rocker-chick chic and Tijuana hooker — and further fashion analysis tries to differentiate between the new-money stylings of Alexander Kostritsin, typical “online douchebag” and Mean Gene, and the poker-prep ways of Shronk and Brandon Adams.

Tao of Pokerati
Episode 28.5: Fashion Report (feat. Change100)

Posted this link in a comment down below, but really it deserves a little more pimpage … as this write-up by Change100 provides one of the best factual recounts and opinionated analyses of the whole Tiffany Michelle final table sponsorship saga. She tells a compelling story of girl-power gone awry, and the deeper Tiffany got, the more in over her head her agent may have gotten … all while having to make decisions affected by the emerging corruption of Ultimate Bet and escalating high-pressure tactics from frothing sponsorship-brokering wolves trying to mount her in the midst of her WSOP heater.

Jeffrey Lisandro, one of Tiffany’s backers, had been hovering around the Amazon Room all day on Day 6. The other, PokerNews owner Tony G., had already left Las Vegas several days prior. The UB scandal was blowing up, and so was Tiffany’s chip count. Personally, I was concentrated on the task at hand– reporting the tournament– but couldn’t help but notice all the little side conversations that were taking place in the empty back quadrant of the room, which, until only 48 hours prior, had been a sea of poker tables. PokerNews people and Tiffany’s agent, Katie Lindsay. PokerNews people and other agents. And Lisandro himself, putting his arm around Lindsay and walking off with her to have a private discussion. The war over Tiffany Michelle was in full swing as she sat 100 yards away, propped up on her knees, playing in the biggest game of her life.

I spent 8 years in the Hollywood machine and dealt with a lot of agents in my time. They are some of the most ruthless, yet sickeningly hardworking people you will ever meet. The client’s interest is your interest, and it is the only interest. Everyone else can go fuck themselves. Agents can piss people off and get away with it because they hold the keys to the castle by controlling the talent. Talent is the only real currency in Hollywood. Producers, financiers, studio executives, marketing divisions, publicists? Without the talent what do they have?

While I’m not so sure I agree with pinning so much blame on Katie Lindsay from Suited Connections — full disclosure: she’s a personal friend of California Jen’s, and I always saw her as one of the “nice ones” — Change has a little more understanding of how a cutthroat television world can work (a world that is new to poker even though we’ve been on TV for 5+ years) and has me wondering if Tiffany Michelle weren’t, at least indirectly, an unforeseen casualty of a delayed final table that noticeably upped the television stakes as we got closer and closer to The November Nine.

Oh, one other interesting thing … check out Change’s post right before this one. You’ll notice on that picture of Tiffany Michelle, posted before anyone knew of the brewing UB/PokerNews friction … the PokerNews logo is the most prominently displayed, even after she did her deal with Ultimate Bet.

Pauly’s got up a great recount up of our whole Tao of Pokerati experience at the WSOP. But guess what, we’re not done yet … still have a few more episodes to share with you, and Brian Balsbaugh and Oliver Tse our agents are in negotiations with French authorities over possible continuation of the show.

Meanwhile, one leftover episode — actually it’s a 6-minute double-episode — that seems particularly timely with the benefit of hindsight was recorded from the dead-center of an emptied out Amazon room, shortly after Tiffany Michelle busted out in 17th place. Here Dr. Pauly and I survey the atmospheric damage as “the last hope” of the main event exits the building … and I argue that she was the only one of the final 27 players with true Chris Moneymaker potential — meaning her performance wasn’t so much about her own abilities to win big cash as it was about the future of poker. Comparisons to Scotty Nguyen and college basketball as well, before one of your not-so-gracious hosts goes through severe WSOP separation anxiety.

Episode 28: Exit, Stage Tiffany

Some numbers coming in over the Batpod … about deals surrounding the November Nine as they made their way to the main event final table:

According to super-duper-secret well-connected, highly reliable inside sources some guy in Colorado, Peter Eastgate, the 22-year-old from Odense, Denmark, currently sitting 4th in chips was originally a Ladbrokes qualifier. Upon his making the final 72, Ladbrokes offered him $1 million to patch up. Full Tilt then came over the top with $1.75 million, and in the end, PokerStars took it down for $2 million.

(NOTE: What I’m not sure of are any “contingencies” in these deals — whether that’s $X million up front even if you finish 71st, or $Ythousand right now, and $Z million if you make the final table.)

It’s been fun keeping track of the 2008 WSOP by city-nation-state … taught me a lot about something — what exactly, I’m not yet sure. But I did get a clearer picture of just how significant the main event really is compared to all other poker tourneys. Just a little more than a week ago, I wrote:

Unless something really funky happens in the main event, it looks like Nevada has the edge on California when it comes to home base for the best poker players in the world.

Well I guess something funky did happen, because even with the biggest prize-pool distributions TBD, California poker players absolutely dominated in the 2008 main event (93 cashes, 2 final tableists)… while the Nevadans (mostly Las Vegas-based, of course) seemed to be napping, or perhaps just resting on their laurels (49 cashes, 0 final tableists). Regardless, looking at the 55 events that comprised the 2008 WSOP, I think it’s clear that the visitors can stake their claim: California is the Poker Capitol of the World … at least for now.

GREAT DANES: Another big surprise (to me) — apparently the Scandis aren’t so overrated after all. Denmark in particular showed up at the main event ready to play, and not only did they get one of their own on the final table, but also they performed so well in the latter events that they scooched past a bunch of other supposed Europoker powerhouses in the money won. The best non-American players, according to these results, in order: Canadians, Brits, and then the Danes … who actually could move past the Brits come November … and if you add the Danish in with the rest of the Scandis, it’s clear that Scandinavia and the UK are like the California and Nevada of European poker.

More…

Some of us may have gotten a bit sloppy with the development of the final table yesterday — look, I was going on about 5 hours of sleep over the previous three days, and was so hopped up on caffeine and energy drinks that my urethra had constricted to near the size of a coffee stir. Peeing wasn’t painful, but it did take some extra time … and you readers were already in bed on that final day of 2008 WSOP Summer Camp, and I may have been in a rush to the Hooker Bar farewell when deducing that almost all the final tableists were in their 20s and from California, so … not making excuses, just sayin’ … the process of gathering news on the fly can be a bit messy sometimes.

So here is a more accurate recount of who’s really left in the 2008 WSOP main event:

Interestingly enough, Pokerati readers picked a “middle aged white American male” as most likely to win the main event (we discounted a last-minute surge of Jerry Yang votes after he had been eliminated) — and yet 40somethings were completely shut out of the November Nine. (Ask Tom, Pokerati’s resident 40something, I tell him all the time: it’s a lot easier to win when you make the final table.) New era, it seems.

No one’s got a better collection of WSOP factoids than Nolan Dalla (no offense, KevMath, you’re also a fact gathering machine) … and here are the WSOP media director’s notes about Day 6 (money, players, storylines, countries, stats, etc.) with potentially relevant info about the field moving forward:

[Hmm, maybe it is still the Year of the Pro, even though most of these pros are relatively unknown outside their home casinos?]

More…

This weekend wasn’t about life-changing money so much as it was about life-easing money for those who went super-deep (top 1 percent), but not deep-deep-deep in the main event: Margo Outhred reading David Sedaris’ latest (When You Are Engulfed in Flames) while awaiting important updates via text from her husband Alex. Though supposedly tournament poker is all about going for the win, there were points when he got short-stacked that she became very interested in the payout levels, and would rush back into the Amazon Room to let him know what they stood to gain if he could hold on for X spots longer.

63rd-55th place paid $115,800

WSOP Academy instructor Alex Outhred finished in 54th(-46th) for $135,100 — a small but noticeable victory on his way out of the 2008 WSOP main event.

Oh shit, while contemplating the significance of Tiffany Michelle in a Matusow-less field, I almost completely overlooked Craig Marquis — an online player from Arlington (craigmarq) who Raj Kattamuri introduced to me just the other day. And lo and behold, he’s frickin’ second in chips! 11.5 million! Go craigmarq!

He says he doesn’t really play in Dallas underground games — just sticks to online — but he’s exactly the kinda player who I thought would do well this main event … a relative unknown who ain’t dancin’ at his first WSOP rodeo.

Big pre-emptive congrats, dude, and damn all you longtime Pokerati readers for not giving me the heads-up that a Dallas guy was still alive!!! thanks for giving us another person to cheer on as we work our way towards the November Nine.

Ouch … on a baddish beat where his trip aces with a jack kicker lost to a trip aces with a nine.

That means with 27 players left, there are only two I had heard of before the event started: Brandon Cantu and Tiffany Michelle. I gotta say, though our interaction has been limited to accepting MySpace friend requests and sharing a power outlet in the press box, I’m so ready to jump on the Tiffany Michelle bandwagon. If I’m gonna cheer lead for anyone right now, it’s gonna be her.

I’m almost afraid to comment too much on what her current chip position and status as Last Woman Standing means for fear of the jinx factor. And really, the relevance of anything anyone might have to say about her still depends on the fall of fuckin’ cards. But one thing is for sure, right now, going into the penultimate day of WSOP poker, there is no more valuable commodity player still alive in the main event than 24-year-old Tiffany Michelle — and based on the way agents and backers and Hollywood Daves are all up in her bidness, you can tell I’m not the only one to realize how much is really riding on her action.

I continue to work the hallways and set up executive-journo shop this time outside the payouts cage — where Pauly teaches me how to figure out who’s really backing whom … but not before we get distracted by a player sponsorship deal taking shape right before our very eyes, as a PartyPoker representative exchanges pleasantries with guys who clearly love the show Entourage agents from Poker Royalty. (Nothing would become of these pre-negotiations, however, as the lone remaining PartyPoker player would go from chip leader to out in 71st place in less than a day — falling just 62 spots short of the ever-valuable final table that various poker bizzers are jockeying for a piece of.)

Episode 27: Payouts and Payoffs

No, Hoyt, don’t do it! Hoyt Corkins sherpas Tuscaloosa Johnny to Red Rock Canyon for some fresh perspective and 2008 WSOP recovery.

Nearly driven mad from the land of poker, I had the opportunity on Sunday to get out of town. Since Hoyt Corkins busted out of the main event on Saturday he now had time to go for a hike.

I went to his house and we hopped in his jeep, fully equipped with four-wheel drive, roll bars and a winch with five-ton capacity that would surely get you out of a sticky situation. Starting too late to tackle Mt. Charleston, we instead headed to Red Rock Canyon to take the jeep trails into the Rainbow Wilderness area there.

It was no easy go up the rocky trails and I was surprised to see some drivers of Grand Cherokees try the climb. From the point in which we exited the main scenic drive through the canyon until we arrived at the trail to the North Peak probably took nearly an hour over the short, but rough terrain.

More…

Supposedly the 2008 WSOP has been the “Year of the Pro”. Arguably so … but that puts a lot of pressure on Mike Matusow to make the final table. Otherwise, might we be looking at something in November that ain’t too different from a deep-stack donkament? Think about it … take a typical 1500 WSOP tourney and multiply by … yikes! 6.66 — ooh, there’s that number again! Evil-creepy!

But hey, numbers are numbers, and investigative math leads us to some pretty damning evidence:

$1,500 NLH x 1% of Satan = $10k main event.

Now factor in all the skulls seen in 2008 poker apparel … uh-huh, exactly. So it’s all on Matusow now, obviously, to be the Charlie Daniels of Poker.

Meanwhile, hallway rumors are that Poker Royalty is trying to negotiate a deal to represent the Antichrist as we get closer to the final table.

Finalist:

Best Mullet
Best Mullet-to-Chipstack Ratio

Though unspoken blogger code prevents me from telling you whether or not this is a picture of Iggy, I can tell you that this player was seen at Iggy’s table well into the main event money.

He finished in 45th place, paying $154,400. It’s all probably Jen’s fault. I suspect the 10-4suited will now be wielded like The Hammer against Hellmuth only, and will become his kryptonite, impeding his effort to dodge bullets baby.

The people remaining that you may or may not care about:

Tiffany Michelle (Go MySpace friends!)
Mike Matusow (Go MySpace friends!)
Brandon Cantu (Go Jen’s MySpace friend!)
Gert Andersen
Kido Pham (Go Dallas Poker/MySpace friends!)

UPDATE: Kido rode a tournament roller coaster extremely deep, but in the end he got flung in 41st place, also for $154,400 — about the size of a big-ass pot in the 25/50 PLO game at the old Red Man’s in Dallas.

Recorded a couple days ago, as we were nearing the bubble … Benjo dropped by Tao of Pokerati studios to give his opinion on poker agents (they suck the blood out of the poker economy), France’s best WSOP hopes (they’re all gonna make the money), and how bad at poker Polacks are (can’t even win their own tourneys … zee eediotes).

Episode 26: Agents, Frenchies, and Polacks (feat. Benjo)

Just outside the Amazon Room … seriously, this one makes little sense to me.  I suppose it’s a reminder that while you can take the World Series out of the trailer park, you can’t take the trailer park out of the World Series?

With 92 players remaining, Phil Hellmuth is in about dead-middle of the pack, with 1.28 million chips. He had climbed up from near the bottom of the pack some two hours earlier, where he had to fight off some major steam after some bad beats/21st century plays. On break, Hellmuth asked if he could stay in the Amazon Room just to pace, but tournament staff said sorry, they couldn’t make any special exceptions (even for him), which conceivably added to his steam factor … so he went outside into the hot Vegas sun (actually, it was a relatively cool, humid 94 degrees) and paced back and forth along a straight line for the full 20 minutes.

For some reason that’s really kinda hard to figure out, everyone likes Mike Matusow … maybe its because he encompasses the issues of every emotionally disturbed pre-adolescent boy any of us knew or were. So when you can be entertained by his downswings, how can you not celebrate his successes and root for more? After all, if this guy who clearly got in lots of trouble in elementary/Hebrew school can do it, why can’t we, right?

That’s just a guess, really, on my part. But Pauly tries to get down to the brass tacks of it all by talking with the Poker Shrink, who happens to be working on Mike’s autobiography with Amy Calistri. And in doing so, we learn not only about Mike’s strategy that brought him to Day 5 and what he’s looking to do moving forward, but also the Shrink tells us about Mike’s performance enhancing drug use — and the mutual benefits of Adderall, a drug that keeps certain people sane and happens to help them focus on the poker at hand.

Episode 25: Mike Madderall

A little leftover T-o-P audio, recorded late-night on Day 2B, as I throw the entire observant media for a loop by setting up shop outside the standard media home bases for the biggest Day 2 in the history of poker. People are baffled, and some want to know who’s winning … when all we really know is that about 200-an-hour aren’t. Special appearances by a tournament floor supervisor and some Euro-friends from PokerListings, PokerStars, etc. devolves into prop-betting over the gender and race of people emerging from a set of doors.

Episode 24: Kids in the Hall

Tuscaloosa Hollywood Johnny is playing in a blackjack tourney at Binion’s, or maybe it’s the four queens … somewhere that isn’t the Rio. His first report:

“Won my first table! Now only have to win 3 more and I will be $25k richer!

Ah, yes, the end of Vegas desperation rituals kick in. But go TJ! Gamble-gamble!

Dave in Fairview writes in:

Dan … read on Pokerati about “the cheater” caught on tape. Has he been banned from Las Vegas - or, at least from the WSOP Tournament?

Dad, it’s not really cheating … it’s up to the player to protect their own cards. But it’s not gentlemanly. He’s attempting to do something he shouldn’t … and it’s a close call whether or not that constitutes cheating. But if a floor supervisor were to see it, they wouldn’t penalize the guy looking at the cards — they would simply warn the guy who is exposing his cards to be more careful.

Grumble grumble … things looked to be going so well for Pat Poels. for the past two days, his stacks hardly appeared to be changing, even though he was consistently staying just ahead of average. And he did this all while getting no cards. (Day 1 he got good cards, Day 2 and 3 not so much, which seemed to bode well for Day 4 and/or 5.)

Though I’m sure he’s not happy about it, he finished in a commendable 310th place, for $32,166.

Change 100 reports (via PokerNews):

25,000 Chips Introduced

“Hey, what are those green chips in your stack?” asked a surprised Maya Antonius. A small stack of forest green chips sat atop her tablemate’s stack of yellows and oranges.

He showed the chips to a curious Antonius– at the last color-up dark green 25,000-denomination checks were introduced into play.

Ms. Antonius looked a bit disappointed that she didn’t have any… yet.

The arrival of these chips have been highly anticipated — not just because they are big — but because of the color troubles last year with orange, off-orange, and pinkish-orange all on the table at the same time.

All the denominations higher than 5,000 have changed this year, and even the floor staff doesn’t now what they will be until they come out for color-up.

Was wondering why I couldn’t find proud Pokerati patch-wearer Whit Blanton … he’s on the feature table with an uber-tiny stack in a bad position against Jean-Robert Bellande and Phil Hellmuth. Whit starts the day with 50,500 chips, making him one of the shortest stacks to start on Day 4.

Jean-Robert ain’t too far behind with 124,500, and Hellmuth has 475,000. The chip leader at this table is Sarkis Akopyan with 858,000.

UPDATE: From Mean Gene, who is covering the ESPN table for PokerNews:

Jean-Robert Bellande Eliminated

And they’ll be showing this hand on TV, I think. Playing on the ESPN TV table Jean-Robert Bellande moved all in for his last 66,000 and was called by Sarkis Akopyan. Bellande’s led Akopyan’s and when the flop came it seemed certain that Bellande would double up.

The fell on the turn and Bellande slapped his hands together and said “Yes”, perhaps thinking that he had the hand locked up. But there was some murmuring in the crowd as everyone realized that Akopyan now had a gutshot straight draw.

The was the usual dramatic pause before the river was dealt…and when the dealer placed the on the felt there was a combined roar and moan from the crowd as Bellande fell to a brutal runner-runner straight and saw his Main Event come to an sudden end.

The 2008 main event gets into the money, and 666 players in the World Series of Satan Poker experience $20,000+ of pleasure. It’s an exciting time as a bunch of people take pleasure in one man’s demise (who then get’s called up on stage to see if he can resist screaming “Fuck You!” to the whole crowd. Before all is said and done, Juan from PokerNews-España informs us of one player — Fernando Gordo — who didn’t show up for Day 3 and survives with two chips and a chair. Can you imagine how fast his table must’ve wanted to play while the others were wanting to go slow? Regardless, forget imagining … listen for yourself, and experience the only “sport” where 667th place comes with such intense agony and ecstasy.

Episode 23: Bubblicious

Phil Gordon is still alive and well in the main event — and because he clearly doesn’t have his podcast priorities straight, I got to sit in for him on ESPN’s The Poker Edge. This was new poker podcast territory for me, as co-host Andrew Feldman made me talk about actual poker players and chips — as if we were tracking some sort of athletic competition or something. But in doing so, we actually get down to the brass tax of it all, and break down what this field size, blind structure, and remaining-player make-up means for various stack sizes going into Day 3.

Click here to have a download/listen.
36:40

Oh, by the way, ESPN also honors Raj Kattamuri as the 2008 WSOP Main Event-Day 2B Player of the Day. Go Dallas poker!

Sorry for the brief delay in getting new episodes of Tao of Pokerati to you. Our production crew was being held hostage by our fellow podcast colleague/competitors at Poker Road and ESPN! They apparently went to all lengths possible to keep the T-O-P down, but we knew it was only a matter of time before the military arrived, freed the T-O-P crew, and deprogrammed the secret mental suggestion they implanted in the hosts’ brains to drink more and podcast less.

This special double-album episode starts out with an update from my undercover investigative reporting on the trials and travails of branding players with sticky fabrics, and from there, Dr. Pauly and I dig in to what’s at stake in some of the cutthroat agent wa