The 2008 World Series has come and gone and will most likely, in a little less than three months, will come again. In the meantime, while cleaning out the computer(s) we’ve come across these “lost” episodes … recorded in the tail days of the main event. But this is everything … there’s no more, OK? At least not for now. So if you’d like to step back into the WSOP for just a few minutes at a time to the vocal stylings of yours truly and Dr. Pauly, by all means, have a listen/download. Some of it actually seems a little extra interesting with the benefit of a month-or-so of hindsight.

For the entire WSOP season click here.

The heretofore unheard old-new episodes, salvaged from the cut-and-pasting room floor:

Episode 30: The Cost of Donuts
Grubby joins the media to talk main event numbers and the price of trendy donuts in today’s oil economy. (3:19)

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Episode 31: Scotchy Poker
Dan+scotch early in the WSOP day=talk of Dario Minieri and Isabelle Mercier. (4:02)

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Episode 32: French Warfare
Benjo takes over the mic when Dan calls in drunk, and he and Pauly talk more about Isabelle Mercier live from the Day 2 killing fields. (5:14)

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Episode 33: New York & Texas
Michele Lewis joins in as Dan and Pauly break down the difference between Texas and New York humor, or at least the difference between Pauly and Dan. (2:40)

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Episode 34: Go Team!
Dallas’ Raj Kattamuri is going deep, and Pauly tracks down Dan in the poker kitchen to find out what it takes to be patched up on Team Pokerati. (2:37)

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Episode 35: No Wiener
Benjo is not his usual jovial self as the main event comes to a close and he bids farewell to his American friends in the penultimate WSOP episode of Tao of Pokerati. (4:41)

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Episode 36: Unhookered
The traditional late-late night poker-blogger farewell binge drinking at the Rio’s Hooker Bar, with guest appearances by Otis and Mean Gene. (3:29)

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

Today’s the final day of play in the Amazon Room, as the 27 players remaining will play down to the November Nine, as those players scatter around the world an the vultures agents that represent them in an attempt to maximize the profile and sponsorship potential of a relatively unknown group of players looking to win just over $9m early in the morning of November 11th.

To see those final 27, head to page 2:
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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?

After it was decided to play one more level after the dinner break, the tournament staff decided to suspend play with just over 38 minutes remaining in level 19. Two possibilities: Since play started an hour later on Friday, ending it at the same time as the other Main Event days would seem right. Also, there was 21 full tables of 9 players when play was suspended. so that there wasn’t a disadvantage to the other tables.

The leader at the end of day 4 is Jeremy Joseph with over 2.18m in chips, Nikolay Losev is 2nd with 2.11m in chips. 46 players start play today with over 1m in chips, among those players include Brandon Cantu, Shawn Sheikhan, Alex Outhred, Mark Vos, David Benefield, and Gus Hansen and Allen Cunningham. Phil Hellmuth is the final remaining Main Event winner with 581,000 in chips.

Tiffany Michelle, Kara Scott, Minna Ritakorpi, Karen Manfrede, and Lisa Parsons, make up the remaining female players. To see how everyone will be seated today, head to page 2:
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About 215 players head towards their 90 minute dinner break, knowing that they’re only playing one more level when they return around 9:45pm. At that point, they should be under the magical 175 figure tournament director Jack Effel had mentioned when play could possibly be stopped early. Saturday is scheduled for another 5 two-hour levels, while on Sunday they play down to the final 27.

The chip leader appears to be Jeremy Joseph, currently atr 2.8m in chips, 1m more than Brandon Cantu in 2nd. Today’s been a moving day for many pros (live and online), as Allen Cunningham, David “raptor” Benefield, APT winner David Saab, and Alex Outhred have moved into the top 10, More notable names left include Phil Hellmuth, Gus Hansen, Mike Matusow, Hoyt Corkins, Raja Kattamuri, Chip Jett, and Adam “roothlus” Levy. There’s less than 10 female players left (Alana Morin leads the ladies with 1m in chips), but two of them are more known for their work in front of the microphone, as Tiffany Michelle (Pokernews reporter) and Kara Scott (EPT hostess) survived the dinner break as well.

More updates later, as the Amazon room gets more deserted by the elimination…

474 players remain when play starts again at 1pm, some happy to have made the money, others hoping for a much bigger prize later this year. Brian Schaedlich, who started day 3 with over 800,000 in chips, ended up with a much smaller stack of 22,000. The leader at the start of play this afternoon appears to be Jeremy Joseph, who will have about 1,470,000 to start play today. Jeremiah Smith, the one time tournament reporter over at www.pokerwire.com, will be in 2nd with 1,300,000. Alan Jaffray, who tried to enter the ladies’ event earlier in the Series, is among the top 10. Other notables include 2008 Aussie Millions winner Alexander Kostritsyn, Dag Martin Mikkelsen, Shawn Sheikhan, Phil Hellmuth, Hoyt Corkins, Mike Matusow, Raja Kattamuri, Johnny Chan and Chad Layne looking to keep their head above water in the killing fields that make up the Amazon Room. Another 5 two-hour levels are scheduled for today, will play start slowing down now, or does the carnage continue unfettered? We’ll know more for certain later this afternoon.

To see where your favorite remaining player is starting, head to page 2:
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First, some belated congratulations to the winners of the tournaments that started on Monday. The media tournament was won by Brett Collson of pocketfiveslive.com (he donated his $5,000 prize to the Wounded Warrior Project. The casino employees winner was Jonathan Kotula, who works at the O’Sheas casino on the LV Strip.

Day 2b of the Main Event started with almost 2,400 players looking to play again tomorrow for day 3. The dinner break started a few minutes ago, and about 1,400 players are still in action today as they finally got everyone into the Amazon Room at the Rio. The current leader appears to be Steve Lade, who has about 380,000 in chips. Notables near the top: Day 1c leader Hennig Granstad, Victor Ramdin, David Singer, a much slimmer Thomas “Thunder” Keller, Nenad Medic, Evelyn Ng and Chip Jett. You can follow all the action when they return around 8:45pm Vegas time at the WSOP website here.

More updates later…

Another sign of the changing times?

Doyle Brunson busted out of the main event yesterday, and for the first time in as long as I can remember — at least all the way back to 2005 — he exited the Amazon without any announcement or applause. He just hobbled out the side door on his crutch, with a single ESPN camera and boom mike trailing behind.

Truth is, from what I understand, this had more to do with some recent changes to mid-tourney announcement duties. Regardless, unintended consequence or not, some will see it as a blasphemous shunning of poker’s anointed pope, while others might recognize (finally) that in this new poker era, the game is bigger than any single player.

That’s two cashes so far for Schneider. This one paid a net $1,743. Congratulations-ish, Tom.. Nice to book another win, and this one should cover two or three of the many dozens of blinds you’ve defended poorly in the cash games! Don’t call it a comeback!

I ran into Angry Julie in the poker kitchen late last night shortly after Tom had busted out, and she was unusually happy. Giddy, I’d even say. She was buying herself a Krispy Kreme donut and Tom an ice cream using the $15 food voucher you get for playing in a WSOP event. Informed that she wouldn’t get back any change, she looked at the guy behind her in line and said, “How much is what he’s having? ($8) Great, his too!”

The dude was super-thankful, but before he could walk away with a smile, she stood there and wouldn’t let him leave until he tipped the cashier. “Not until you put at least a dollar in there,” she said, pointing to the tip basket in front of the register. I know what Tom would think if he saw this: “Leak.”

Meanwhile, Tom thinks Pokerati should be all over the continuing saga of the Donkey Bomber POY Banner. “My picture the only one without a light - rodney dangerfield,” said a text he sent to me yesterday. I checked, and it’s true — everyone else has a big beam accenting their mugs. But considering that I have to sit right below his banner and I don’t want any additional glare, I think we’ll stick to keeping you posted about his feats busting out of a tournament with only nine tables to go.

With apologies … not even close to the Greatest Deadpan … but it’s getting late here in the Amazon room … (of course the night is just getting started everywhere else in Vegas). Has me wondering why the Amazon room isn’t the Amazon.com room? Poker players like books and other stuff. Or at least they used to.

There’s a lot of hootin’ and hollerin’ going on in the Amazon room … The cash-game quadrant is absolutely packed, and the feature-table stadium is going arbusto about something … what I have no clue (kinda weird how the media is prohibited from going places where the general public can; story for later perhaps) … but apparently there’re three righteous internet kids poppin’ for a bracelet in the $1k NLH+R … so lots of excitement and buzz as we kick into the graveyard shift. Only downside: the ATM in the hallway is out of cash.

Meanwhile, on Court 2, I just watched an exciting Razz hand … Tom had supposedly been hemorrhaging chips, and he was in a hand with a total Ginger, who had a very strong 3-5 in the hole, against Tom’s 6 then 4 showing. Robert Goldfarb and another Schneider sweater were going pop-out-of-their-chair nuts when there was all sorts of raising and calling and Tom didn’t even have a made hand yet! By the time he got a 3 on 6th street Goldfarb practically Panteragraphed Tom’s hand to everyone in the small $10,000 World Championship of Crazy Mixed Games quadrant — “RrrrII know he’s GOT an 8 higggghhhh!!!”

Sure enough, Tom check-raised on the river, and the little Ginger called … Tom’s stack was suddenly close to healthy again, and the table broke, as they were now down to 16 players.

UPDATE: They’re down to 14, and Tom’s pretty short-stacked … about 68,000 chips … avg. stack is 280k. He just put a brand-new black hoodie on — I suppose it’s time to get serious. I hope I’m wrong, but I’m feelin’ like 12th, maybe 11th place. Either that or 4th.

Dealers are taking their seats for the $2,000 NLH event that’s about to start — cards in the air in 20 minutes, supposedly … and suddenly, out of nowhere, we have “I Feel Good” blasting on the loudspeakers in the Amazon Room, which is semi-sealed off to keep the players from entering right now.

I wanna make fun, but I think the music thing is working. It’s hard to be grumpy with the tunes going. (I don’t know the name of the song they’re playing now, but it’s pretty uppity, too.

UPDATE: Snake and Charles have educated me … that song was “Jerk It Out” by The Caesars. Simultaneously appropriate and frightening. They also inform me that this musical start has been a daily thing ever since the marching band played.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4h9HBn8Q60

With that in mind, I have decided to open up my shared iTunes playlist for anyone who wants to pick up some Pokerati songs. Right now we’re listening to Trivium’s “The Deceived,” which is about the feeling you have after an opponent shows you a big, successful bluff:

IT’S A MIRACLE: Full Tilt wasn’t exactly a poker powerhouse in 2000, the year Chris Ferguson won the main event.

There are 35 big banners hanging up around the Amazon room — a pretty cool ring-of-honor thing going on — honoring 38 years of main event champions and four players of the year … and I couldn’t help but notice one of them doesn’t belong. [Insert Tom joke here.]

Chris Ferguson, whose banner lords over the 75/150 Omaha-8 game that has been going on all night and through the morning, commemorates his 2000 win over TJ Cloutier. But look a little closer and you’ll see this photo is hardly authentic — it bears a Full Tilt logo … branding op for a company that didn’t exist at that time. All the other banner mugs feature pics from the feat in question.

The real Chris Ferguson, circa 2000.

UPDATE: Actually there are two of them like this … The picture of Dan Harrington supposedly from 1995 shows him fully decked out in 888 and Pacific Poker gear.

Good morning. I hope you are having a wonderful day. I am here at the WSOP in the post-wee hours … pretty much just to show up Pauly. And to that extent, I’m gonna bounce around the room a bit, saving and posting as I go along …

Speaking of … funny coincidence. As I was writing this, I had my iTunes on random, and this dueling-recorders interview between me and Pauly in 2005 just happened to come up. Good stuff-ish:

Stupid interviewing

OK, so anyhow, yes … the early hours at the WSOP … things never stop here in the Amazon room, but they do slow down dramatically — no tourneys going on, just five tables of cash action, ranging from a 2/5 NL game where the tired players are mostly just trading chips for the benefit of the rake … to a $25 7-stud game where stacks are in the thousands.

As much as I generally don’t like mornings, the pace here during this time is much more my speed.

The media room at this time:

dscf1162

While just about every change at the WSOP this year has been an “improvement,” one terrible thing — no more free coffee for the media 24/7. Making matters more difficult pre-poker times: the kitchen is closed.

The added bathrooms for the WSOP are a reminder of poker’s trailer-park roots (and its outhouse present).

But poker players expect certain niceties, so where else but the WSOP can you expect to see a port-a-pot with hardwood floors?

UPDATE: The slow period must be over … a sixth table just opened up in the cash area — it’s either a 2/5 or 5/10 game. That’s kinda funny, btw, to think how slow five tables is here — and yet how thrilled any poker room I know would be to be spreading 5 tables of NL (ranging from 2/5 to 10/20), some Omaha, and a big game of 7-stud hi/lo?

Even in Vegas, there’s poker going on elsewhere from the WSOP. The Rio itself has left its Westside poker room open — really, I bet it’s more than a mile away from the Amazon room — offering $1/$3 NL, plenty of low-stakes limit, and $2/$5 NL games with a waitlist more than a dozen long. In previous years the Rio shut that room down during the WSOP. But this year it’s open … and it’s boomin’.

There’re also two other tournament series going down in town that coincide super-intentionally with the World Series to offer a high-thrill tournament experience for buy-ins in the hundreds as opposed to the thousands. Basically you’ve got the Minor League World Series at the Venetian (Deep Stack Extravaganza II) and Little League World Series at the Golden Nugget (Grand Series of Poker). I actually wrote about these two poker festivals over at Thrillist this week … along with some info about a kick-ass new steakhouse at the Monte Carlo, a cool near-daily free happy hour that moves around town, and an apparatus you can attach to your penis for greater comfort at the poker table and beyond.

Check it out, and of course sign up if you want a Vegas-minded weekly email of this important-service ilk …

I can already tell one of the top-quality media sources during the WSOP will be RawVegas.TV.

Check out how their red-carpet vid of a Bluff Magazine pre-WSOP kickoff party at Tao (the nightclub, not “of Poker“) gets a better interview about poker and the fun side of poker lifestyles than anything you see shot in the Amazon room hallways, and even probably what will end up on ESPN:

In this vid not only will guys like Ed get to see a boppity, cleavacious Jennifer Tilly talk about how and why poker players talk about quitting but don’t really mean it, but also they get to hear about Phil Laak’s freak-of-naturely impressive sperm count and how that may or may not lead to strategy-based pillow talk with a cougar.

I’ll also be interested in following RV’s WSOP video blogs from Patrik Antonius, David Williams, Phil Hellmuth, and Daniel Negreanu. These sorts of things have been tried before with moderate success (Negreanu’s were always good), and now that there’s one place where you can find a handful of them regularly with a little party-hearty mixed in — in high-quality video that always seems to work — how could this channel not become Must-See Internet for any serious poker geek following the World Series every summer? [via Wicked Chops]

Yesterday was an easy Day 1 of the 2008 WSOP. Well, in truth, it would’ve been easier had I not been hung over short-tempered out of sorts. But some solid sleep, quiet time at home last night to catch up on articles, and attitude adjustment have done wonders. I’m here with bells on for Day 2.

The empty Amazon Room had a more exciting vibe this morning than yesterday. Before players were allowed in, dealers settled in, and semi-funky tunes were blasted over the intercom system. Michele Lewis did a little running-man demonstration on the media perch, and I did a little chair boogie. Lighter mood to start the day…

And then the players were allowed into the Amazon Room for the first $1500 NLHE event. Yikes! The music kept going as everyone found their seats and got ready for the biggest tournament of the WSOP outside of the main event. Today is maxed out with players in the satellite room and two areas all the way inside the Rio casino. Though a little overwhelming, this is what the World Series is all about. Certainly more amateurs in this field than pros, but it makes for an anything-goes kind of day.

Even though the music stopped once the cards were dealt, there is still some excitement in the air. (Sorry, the poker geek in me is showing.)

The WSOP got underway with a bang and a band. The UNLV marching band entered the Amazon Room with a rendition of “Viva, Las Vegas,” followed by a bit of an uncomfortable silence that was broken by welcome announcements from Jeffrey Pollack and Jack Effel.

Pollack told the crowd of gathering players and media that bracelet winners from years past and going forward will be given Diamond status at all Harrah’s properties around the world. Not a bad perk for the players. A few other welcoming comments and new rule advisories from the duo, and the cards were in the air.

And we’re off. Or we’re on. The $10,000 Pot Limit Hold’em World Championship has begun, and though we still await the final numbers, it looks like about 350 players signed up for Event #1. The cash games are buzzing, media is getting settled in, and players are excited to be here, with the exception of those who have already busted.

More updates to come!

We’re still trying to figure out the best way to let you know what people are posting over on the Citizen Stack Reporter page … but in the meantime I’ll let you know that we just got word from Tom that his oversize head is now up, lording over the Amazon room, as if he’s actually somebody important. Visual confirmation TK.

UPDATE: Big picture of Tom=Yuck

From Tao:

There’s a new mural of the DOnkeyBomber right above my head.

“DonkeyBomber stinks,” said Lance.

I’m thinking… BO? Shitty poker player?

“Smell the banner. It’s brand new and has that chemically smell.”

I inspected the banner and took a huge whiff. Wow. talk about a buzz. My head is still spinning.

Took a little trip over to the Rio today to check out the set up. Good things so far.

The Amazon Room was empty except for the ESPN crew setting up the stage, Harrah’s employees finalizing the set-up of the room, and a few cash game players wandering in. The Rio seemed to be trying to get the cash game players to the Amazon Room before they close the casino poker room for the WSOP.

The satellites were getting going around noon in their separate room (where the poker kitchen and media room were in 2007), and a handful of players were sauntering in. Greg Raymer was roaming around the hallways, already being stopped by the few tourists who walked down to see if the WSOP had begun.

While the poker kitchen itself wasn’t open for business, I could see that it is in a building where the poker tent was in 2007. It seems like a much sturdier structure than that tent - more like a shed, a really large shed. Don’t know what’s on the menu, though, since it was closed. BUT, there are numerous other food options set up at different points in the hallways. Besides the full bar (yum!), there was a Pizza Hut stand that offered its signature pizzas, along with salads, sandwiches, and fruit bowls. Directly across was a Java Coast coffee stand with a Krispy Kreme donut oven ($2 per donut!).

Best of all, there was a huge sign for a sushi and noodle kitchen! Set-up is not complete, but the thought of having some great sushi available makes this Cali girl quite happy.

It seems that the Harrah’s/WSOP folks have listened to space and food complaints and made some very positive steps in the right direction. Good times and food ahead!

(On the way to the car, Eskimo Clark was on his way in - alive and kickin’ and presumably lookin’ for backers! Some things never change…)