We’ve got a new poll up on the right — go ahead and start your ballot-stuffing as we try speculate wildly on who is most likely to win the WSOP main event. Should be fun, albeit different than our last one, which was actually useful.

For the past week we’ve been unscientifically asking Pokerati readers which site — other than Pokerati, of course — was most essential to their understanding of the summertime poker fun that gives them so much jolly. You can see the complete results here. Nearly 200 of you went through the effort of actually clicking an extra button, and to that extent, amongst the geekiest most intelligent of poker geeks, the sites that matter most, in order of their finish:

Tao of Poker
Pauly’s whole purpose in life is to make me look bad, and hey, it seems to be a worthy pursuit. He wins this poll by a landslide.

Hold’em Radio
I’m scratching my head, too, as I haven’t really seen the folks based at Binion’s paying much attention to the WSOP, but hey, they apparently know how to motivate a portion of the “pirate” web community to outvote PokerRoad, so we’ll give them the props.

PokerNews
They paid a hefty price for the privilege of hiring bloggers to slave away write up hands and keep official chip counts, and it’s clearly worth something to people who care about big-tourney action.

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They are so near the bubble in the $2k NL event — 102 players left. Tulsa is sitting comfortably below average with about 32k in chips (avg. is 50something). He’s playing so tight it’s sick. Little veins quietly pulsating on his bald dome.

I just got chased out of the playing area for the first time — something about that 13-table rule. Though I question its validity, I chose not to make a stink of it at this time and retreated. Will leave the shooting-your-face-to-spite-your-nose to Gonz.

Meanwhile Troy (Darling) is playing $10/$25 PLO at the Rio with Eskimo Clark. Batface is currently up more than $10k. Latest text: “quads again.”

UPDATE: The bubble has burst, and Eric Celeste (Tulsa) has survived. So has Brasilian media sweetheart Miradu … who was down to 1.5 big blinds.

UPDATE: They’re on break. Tulsa’s got 33k in chips … makes him pretty close to a short stack, but not terribly desperately so. We’ll try to keep you posted via Citizen Stack Reporter (beta), but are running into some Blackberry proper

Meanwhile, Darling has very few chips left on the 10/25 PLO cash table … not because he is losing, but because he has pretty much only stacks of 100s in front of him. 30ish k, it seems.

UPDATE: Tulsa has pooed and feels much better. He’s guaranteed a net +$3,381. Final table would be about $45k, and the winner will bank half a mil.

Wait, Dan has friends?

I kid. Evidently, he knows the Batfaces, and a group of them are in Vegas to drink heavily play in the World Series. I daydreamed about Mekhi Phifer listened intently as Dan told me about his friends and how their tournaments are going.

Here’s what I caught: Tim, Troy, and Randy are out. Eric (one of them, not sure which) and Todd are still in.

Dan is at the Rio today and walking the tournament floor to text CSR updates about the guys. Go Batfaces!

Funny ironic — went to say hi to some drunken Dallas friends in line for satellites. The post I was working on when I let my guard down long enough to be brick-and-mortar hacked:

Batfaces Have Arrived
It’s all downhill from here

Yo, Scott, the super-secret package has arrived. Dude, thanks so much for sending being dead money in the eyes of Harrah’s. I feel handicapped in a good way. Go Batfaces.

I like to troll Craigslist every so often for some hot, anonymous NSA poker action. Not looking for games — there’s no shortage of ‘em here in LV — just wanting to take the pulse of what people are pushing related to poker. Look at the ads all together and you get some interesting tells on the state of the poker world and its semi-anonymous inhabitants:

There are a lot of chips , tables, fancy custom tables and chips and tables for sale, of course, and for $15 a made-for-TV WPT video game. WSOP: Tournament of Champions for the Playstation goes for $8

For $150k you can have documentary footage of the rise and fall of Jamie Gold.

A WSOP baby’s blanket.

More chips, from the Aladdin, and from the Atlantic City Playboy Club. “Omaha Table” from Sante Fe Station.

Perhaps frighteningly, there are even poker bots for sale. At least one suspicious reader is questioning whether or not this is legal.

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As I surveyed the room, it was about what I expected/hoped for. Mostly pros and several table with 5-6 well known players per. Sure, it would be tough as could be, but what a great experience nonetheless. At first glance, Ted Lawson was the only player I recognized at my table, sitting to me immediate right in the 2 seat and fresh off a win in one of the prelims. Then I saw that Mark Newhouse was in seat 6. Okay no biggie. Come to find later that Theo Tran was in the 1, John Racener the 7 and Michael Esposito in 5. There was also a very aggressive Asian kid in 10 who appeared to be a pretty good player at first blush.

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In the WSOP-Caesar’s main event:

Troy “Darling” Phillips has been sitting on a comfortable stack all day. He’s currently got about 20k in chips, which puts him well above average.

TBR has been playing short-stack poker all day, hardly getting above the starting 10k in chips. With blinds currently 100-200+25, he’s got about 4k in chips.

UPDATE: Pictures taken shortly before the dinner break …

TBR, currently running on less than fumes.

This chair got its aces cracked.

TBR and Darling are in town to play in the $5k WSOP Circuit main event at Caesar’s today. To prepare for it, the two of them and yours truly played in a $500+50 single-table satellite last night (go collusion! Troy’s money!).

With that lineup — and Troy’s playing really well of late, having chopped a satellite earlier in the day — what do you think the odds are that we would all play for nearly an hour-and-a-half and not one of us would finish in the Top 5?

Just to be clear, it was really TBR+vodka playing.

Remember these guys? They are blogging again, only different:

DALLAS–I happen to be on my old stomping grounds … to play a little Batface poker and try to do the work that police can’t and get to the bottom of the string of robberies here. (Pokerati’s conclusion, despite declarations to the opposite a few weeks ago: the Dallas Poker Bandits are a single group of three or four people hitting one room after another … not random coincidental robberies by different sets of two black guys in ski masks.)

Anyhow, this post isn’t about robberies in Dallas or police raids in Houston — everybody wants the poker money, don’t they? … it’s about the April ‘08 issue of Bluff. Though these articles aren’t online yet, three of the four they highlight are about Texans:

One is about how to be like Houstonian Sammy Farha. Another is about poker politics and ledes with a certain group of Dallas players wooing Congressman Pete Sessions to get behind pending poker legislation. And a third is about Gavin Griffin, a former Dallas underground dealer who became poker’s first “triple crown” winner.

Not only do I think that is Texas neato, but also I think it says something about the state’s continued super-relevance in the game. But hey, maybe I’m biased.

After being snowed in at DFW for a night, a contingent of Batfaces is en route to Vegas — presenting the biggest threat to my bankroll since setting up camp in the Valley. A lot of these guys and other friends/sisters have wanted to know how I am doing out here in cards/women. Here is the answer, for Dec 30-Mar 7:

Though I haven’t been writing much about anything it, I have been hitting the tables here in Vegas. Have sampled a handful of rooms and action … spreading the lore of the Hammer and the Sang all along the way, of course, as I seek to replace the competitive camaraderie of the Batface home game perhaps with something akin to Jackie’s back in the (Dallas underground hey)day.

That came easier than usual this week, when TBR-bro-in-law Patrick came to town. He was staying at the Luxor, so we met up at Cathouse for a drink. (Cathouse is basically like the Lodge without the nipples, and Celeb-chef Kerry Simon in place of Jose Luis.) A couple Lagavulins later, we walked over to Mandalay Bay, where we took two seats together at a $2/$4 no-limit table. This was bigger stakes than either of us had been playing, but hey, we were feelin’ half-drinky good, and it seemed a better option than waiting, as the room was totally full and festive on a Thursday night. A familiar face was seated with us – Ran Nelson, a very good Dallas player whom I hadn’t seen since the days of Jackie’s – what a delight. He had a new cardmarker, a square block of acrylic with his little Stuey guy inside of it, surrounded by chips from the various important poker rooms to Ran, including WinStar in Oklahoma and the old Sixth Street in Dallas.

I was playing great – more-than-doubled up in about an hour by trapping a well-stacked opponent in classic Dan-style … but then was back to square 1 a few hands later when I got unlucky on the turn … and back to square 0 when I don’t remember what I did but I am pretty sure it was stupid, starting with playing the likes of .

Mandalay Bay
$2/$4 NLH
Buy-in: $300
Cash out: $0
Food: starved
Drinks: $28
Net: -$328

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I used to do business with the underground poker rooms in Dallas. I use the phrase “do business” lightly, as it generally meant these guys were willing to front me a couple hundred bucks whenever I needed a rebuy, which may have just been good poker. Regardless, I decided to leave all those red chips behind to work for PartyPoker — one of the biggest companies in the UK until Uncle Sam threatened to imprison my new bosses if they didn’t get out of Dodge by sundown. Bummer.

So now I have moved to Vegas — follow, the legal money, baby! — and find myself writing about bars, shops, restaurants, nightlife, etc. (among other things - sign up if you already haven’t). Good times, right? Maybe … but PURE — the swanky, Batface-friendly nightclub immediately next door to the Caesar’s Palace poker room — just got raided last night by the IRS.

More from the LV Review-Journal here.

Wha? The Feds also hit the Pure offices … seizing computers, paperwork, and presumably DNA samples. Perhaps coincidentally — or not — all this comes less than 48 hours after Dubai World, the Middle Eastern company that invested $5 billion into MGM/Mirage, reportedly bought a 50 percent stake in the Light Group, the biggest nightclub confecture in the world.

Yeow. This apparent shakedown has to be about way more than drunken chicks from Nebraska pretending they are Paris Hilton and slutting it up for guys who can thumb their noses at $350 bottles of Red Bull-and-vodka. But then again, maybe not.

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I can’t make it, but Gentle Shane can’t wait to host the next one.

Come one, come all!

ED. NOTE: NSFW

From the Dept. of: They all look alike …

Players around Dallas/Danang may recognize this guy:

Kinda funny.

Legendary Batface, Darling Phillips, made a ridiculously poor snap decision and is playing in today’s WPT event at Beau Rivage in Biloxi. Heaven help us, and Heaven help those who try to push him off a flush draw.

UPDATE: He did not win.

THACKERVILLE, Okla.–North Texas player Abteen Vaziri just said now that I know his name I can delete it. He is out. He wins $2,500 for finishing in 55th place. Much of Abteen’s recent success has come from study of Joe Navarro’s book on tells. But he misread a pulsing neck vain for weakness when in reality it was pocket queens.

Sorry dude.

Looks like it’s up to Josh, Troy, and/or TJ to do the Dallas gamers (whose names Pokerati knows) proud.

UPDATE: Troy “Darling” Phillips is out. He got pocket jacks on the button and raised. The ever-aggressive big blind pushed all-in … Troy called … and would learn the sad news that he was up against aces. Ouch!

50th place. $3,000. Still, nice job by the Batfaces favorite sugar daddy curly haired representative. It’s only a matter of time before he runs out of money makes another final table.

UPDATE: Josh Evans also appears to be out. Turned away for a second and his table was gone … and he couldn’t be found elsewhere in the field.

Interestingly enough, while Kido Pham and Greg Raymer were brought out here (and presumably bought in) by WinStar … TJ Cloutier simply showed up on his own and plunked down $1,100. Definitely not a charity event for him. And to think, they don’t even have craps in Oklahoma. Can we say positive EV?

With 45 players left and blinds at 4k/8k+500, Cloutier has about 165,000 chips. Average stack is 111,000.

UPDATE: Just learned that Cloutier was bought into this event by a heretofore unnamed military-ish backer in Dallas … who has 50 percent of the poker hall-of-famer.

THACKERVILLE, Okla.–Down to 61 players. Average stack is about 80k. Chip leader has about 300k. Blinds are 3000/6000+500. A few chip counts that Pokeratizens might care about:

Abteen Vaziri (the “dude” whose name I couldn’t remember on Friday) - 90k
Troy Phillips - 80ishk
Josh Evans - 60k
TJ Cloutier - 85k

Greg Raymer and Kido Pham are milling around. Raymer will be commentating as we move through the money.

UPDATE: TJ Cloutier just almost doubled up … got it all-in with QQ against AK. The lady with big slick would flop an ace, but by the river, TJ would make a spade flush. He is clearly becoming a stronger and stronger force.

THACKERVILLE, Okla.–No internet north of the Red River, or at least not at WinStar, where the first of three Day 1s in the $1 million NLH tourney concluded shortly before midnight yesterday. We’ll try to keep you posted from now through the final table, but can only promise so much with two-thumb typing.

Red River Roundup, Day 1 report:

- Event is sold out. 1,000 players. Double last year’s field.
- 333 played yesterday, of which 33 remain and will convene on the other side of the bubble on Sunday.
- Josh Evans and TJ Cloutier both advanced.
- So did Troy “Darling” Phillips. (Go Batfaces!)
- Marco Palacios went out near thw bubble.
- Avg. stack is 50k. Chip leader has about 150k.
- Media coverage is kinda new to WinStar. They haven’t figured out yet whether or not to allow photos.
- New poker room here is very nice.

Day 2-Day 1 has gotten underway. Favorites include Kido Pham and Randy “The Big Randy” Brown. Greg Raymer supposedly plays tomorrow.

SCOTTSDALE, AZ–Robert, one reason you should feel pretty good about your chances in the Arizona State Poker Championship next weekend … well, let’s just say the signs are there! Hanging inside the Casino Arizona poker room — pimping the tourney and its $250k first prize — is a big banner that looks all too familiar. Basically just take the crest-like thingy pictured below, swap out the Batface skull with a CA logo, change the word “Pokerati” to “Arizona,” and there you have it. Seriously, everything else is the same.

click to enlarge / use your imagination

Fascinating, I know … especially if you happen to be into poker clip-art non-copyrighted templates.

LAS VEGAS–Funny how being in Las Vegas has put me so out of touch with all the poker news. I think there are some big tournaments going on, online poker execs in the courts, business deals shaking down, but I’ve got little to report other than poker being played. Still, it’s been kinda interesting to see who you run into at the tables around this town:

The first notable I ran into was OREL HERSHEISER, who apparently just moved here to Las Vegas and sat to my left in a 1/2 NLH game at RED ROCK — fresh after being denied selection into the baseball HALL OF FAME. I tried to play the not-knowing-who-he-is thing — “You lost a vote? Were you running for city council or congress or something?” — but he would end up busting me out when I tried to run a little STOP-N-GO. As I pushed all-in, he asked, “How much money do you have?”

“Um, I’m all-in. About $140 more,” I said, pointing to my stacks.

“No, I mean other money. Because we can make a little side-bet away from the table,” he said, upon showing me THE NUTS.

Red Rock seems to be the OFF-STRIP place to be. On my second post-WSOP outing there, I ran into GARY THOMPSON — World Series of Poker media master and tournament overlord. He was wearing comfortable jeans, loafers, and a button-down shirt while playing 2/5 NLH. With about $800 in front of him, he said he was “down a couple hundred.” But it wouldn’t take long for him to grow his stacks, and a few hours later, he had moved up to the 5/10 game and had what looked to be about $2k.

On that same day, I saw A GUY I BUSTED at the Rio. He was a good player who went with the whole BLACK HOODIE and SUNGLASSES kinda thing, while saying almost nothing and acting with stoic (but angry) CHRIS FERGUSON-like motions. He was playing 1/2 NLH and nursing about $200.

Over at THE VENETIAN in the 2/5 game, I found myself up against a WSOP Dealer — SHAI the ISRAELI GUY. He was sick when I pushed all-in and convinced him to fold his top-pair-top-kicker that would turn into TOP BOAT … only to see the guy who took down the pot from me win with KING-HIGH. A couple hours later I was playing a goofy hand with K-6 offsuit in late position, the flop came K-7-K … he checks, I bet, he raises big, I call. Turn is a 6, he pushes all-in, I call … at which point he shows his POCKET 7s. The table cheers for a FOURTH SEVEN, but it doesn’t come and I send him to the ATM.

One table over, KARINA JETT’S MOTHER was playing — beyond her typical quiet game, she was practically falling asleep at the table (at 3 AM) while nursing about $400. She may not remember this, but she won a $15 PROP BET from me once over a RULES DISPUTE. (My bad … I thought I knew stuff.)

Back at RED ROCK a couple days later, I ran into ABRAHAM, and he really deserves his own post, because he tilted the table unlike anything I had ever seen — and even managed to invoke mockery from a cute young girl who wasn’t playing. Basically imagine the worst personality and poker characteristics of ME, TIM ROGERS and EON MARSHALL all wrapped up into an obnoxious kid who graduated from high school in 2003 and is well aware that he looks like STU UNGAR. Then give him a lot of chips. (His behavior and play was so table-altering it had me interrupting TOM SCHNEIDER’S vacation in ST. THOMAS for some emergency coaching … who advised me well until I played back without paying attention to a guy to my left who had pocket kings.)

I really wanted to KILL THIS KID, or at least make him cry. And so did everyone else — especially the old (presumably) gay man who he busted by calling a $260 raise pre-flop with 2-3 suited only to flop two threes. But he can’t be all that bad, because without provoking from me, he at one point shouted, “THE HAMMER!” with glee. Hey kid, if you are reading this, what I told you at the table after you “bluffed” me with pocket-5s and then taunted (it took me a good five minutes to lay down Ace-high) still applies: “I look forward to seeing you get your education.” Punk-ass. Like seriously, you had at least two of us at the table contemplating how one might go about rolling you in the parking lot.

One of the cool things about Red Rock is that when you need to shake off a bad beat or just step away from a dipshit the table to refocus, you can go BOWL A GAME 24 hours a day — for $3 +$3.50 for shoes. That seems like positive EV.

The picture above is from a day I didn’t actually play poker … but I did walk through the poker room just for funsies after bowling, and whom should I run into but NOLAN DALLA, longtime Dallas poker expat and WSOP media guru, legendary sports handicapper, and Stu Ungar biographer. He was wearing CARGO SHORTS, a frumpled shirt, and seemed pleasantly drinky while playing 5/10 NLH with a couple old friends from POKERSTARS.

“I’m stuck $800 but having a great time!” he screamed upon embracing me with a BEAR HUG. “Isn’t this a great casino!?! Hey everybody, it’s Dan from Pokerati!”

Murmur?

“Oh, right …” Nolan said. “Didn’t mean to blow your cover.”

I also ran into STEVE HALL one night at Red Rock, too. He was playing PENNY VIDEO SLOTS. He had a big hit of some sort of crazy picture combinations that won him about $60.

And then to top it all off, I went to CAESAR’S PALACE with DON JONES (of Rounder Club fame), LEIGH & BRIAN from the Poker Atlas , DOCTOR STEVE, and former Absolute Poker marketing chick JEN TIDWELL to play in their 50-player-max $65 tourney. We all had 10 percent of each other, which proved irrelevant as our top player would bubble.

I was the first to bust out (of the tournament) and would take a seat playing some 2/5. Of all the poker tables in Las Vegas … what are the chances that DAN BALLENGER (aka HONG KONG SUE, father of SON OF SUE) would get seated at my table? It would take more than a full orbit before he realized he was sitting with a fellow BATFACE. He bought in for $500 and cashed out a couple hours later for a little less than that. HKS got most of those chips from me … calling a $100 bluff with second-pair-no-kicker (what was I THINKING!?!) … and then bluffing me out of a $400+ pot on the river, getting me to lay down aces. He mucked at the time, but told me as he left that he pushed all-in for his remaining $135 with an underpair. Wish I hadn’t asked, because it had me semi-tilting for a good 30 minutes or more. I know he was just trying to be nice, but still …

Then JASON from JACKIE’S (in Dallas) and “RICKY ZILEM” showed up. They were just walking through checking out the action. Fancy running into these guys here. Chris/Ricky, said, “I did what nobody does when they first land in Vegas and took a nap.”

Ah, indeed.

Small world. Good times.

A technologically significant poker match is going down right now in Canada — Phil Laak and Ali Eslami vs. Polaris, a supposedly bad-ass poker bot — for $50,000. Here’s an article with more specifics. (Thanks, Venita, for the link!)

This is a scientifically controlled experiment, being played in “duplicate poker” format. Further explanation of this concept here. To learn more and follow the action live, you can do so here.

That’s what Sommer the Batface is doing:

also, don’t imagine you’re following that bot-live-blog, but Ali is absolutely running over the computer in the first 75 hands, thanks to an insane run of cards. He’s up $350 (in limit). Will be fasincating to see if the bot can extract more or less money from Laak with the same cards Ali has gotten so far.

Very cool and interesting. I could see people lining up to try their luck/skill against Polaris. For example, while Laak and Eslami are clearly good players, I wonder how RaiNKhaN would do … you know, since he has been mistaken for a bot and all.

UPDATE (4:39 pdt): JOSH EVANS still kicking ass. 300k in chips puts him near the top.

LAS VEGAS–Day 2b action is well underway about to get underway. In fact, it probably already will be so by the time this post is finished. It rained last night in Las Vegas — I knew it would!

Today, like yesterday, is all about the serious, “somber” poker. Most of the folks who got chips early by getting lucky will be getting knocked out. Short stacks will consistently be all-in. And serious players with a real chance of going deep will figure out if they’ll be nursing their chips into the money or making moves to put them in a position to really contend.

2007 WSOP Player of the Year TOM SCHNEIDER, by the way, is out. Happened a few hands after the dinner break, at which point he told me he was so beat down from the World Series that he didn’t really care if he got eliminated, because it would mean he could go home. Shocking with that attitude that he didn’t win.

Perhaps RANDY BROWN will do better. He starts today with 67,000 chips.

UPDATE: TBR is out. Lost every hand he played, he says. Got it all-in on the button, pushing with pocket 9s into a single-limped pot. The small blind woke up with Kings, the big blind with Aces. The BATFACES officially go 0-fer in the 2007 WSOP, but win the award for best hats.

Better luck next year, “The Big Randy.” You seem to have Day 1 figured out, but can’t make it through Day 2 with terrible cards unless you have a tiny, tiny stack.

TBR, by the way, was sitting virtually back-to-back with SHANNON ELIZABETH throughout Day 1. Nice! Go Poker!

Oops, zoom lens malfunction … Anyhow, yes, SHANNON ELIZABETH is out.

JOSH EVANS (below, left) will be a guy to really watch, as he carries 240,000 chips into Day 2 … with the money just a day-and-a-half only a day away.

And another North Texas pokerer fighting to make it to the pre-money bubble is JERRY RANDACK (right). Considering that he took 2nd place in the 2007 Pokerati Invitational, we like his chances.

Dallas big-game player PRIMO is also still alive. He’s seen here tearing up the $5/$10 NLH cash game (moments away from bluffing — oops! — away more than $1,300 in a hand).

We’re still looking for VANDY CROUCH — seen here, cashing in the 6-handed No-Limit event — who is rumored to be protecting some 240,000 chips.

UPDATE: I mean not like right now. He finished Day 2a with about that many. He makes it to Day 3 — where the fight for the money begins!

For those who may have missed it, ROUNDER CLUB representative CHRIS COMO did not move on to day 2. Despite building up his stacks and taking control of his table, he got beat down toward the end of the day, and, in the end, surrendered them to online powerhouse CARL OLSON.

LAS VEGAS–Randy Brown (who is this guy, not this guy of similar nomenclature in the various player databases, fyi) was climbing up the leaderboard when his name appeared on the TV screens, and one fan, unaware that he was standing so close to TBR’s table said:

What the hell is “The Big Randy”? What a douchebag.

LAS VEGAS–OK, this will probably be my last update of the night, because I have TWO parties I HAVE to get to. One is with my old-good-good-ole friends at PartyPoker, and the other is a bikini party at a pool. So I am sure you understand.

Clonie Gowen is out. Not happy.

Chris Como is holding together nicely, with about 33,000. UPDATE: Just took a hit and looks a little bummed. But now with about 24,000, he still has almost as many chips as Tom Schneider.

Randy Brown, whom you all know as “The Big Randy” is in the top 10 or 20 in chips for the day, with at least 115,000.

Um, Go Batfaces/Watch out Arizona Posse!?! Sorry folks … yes, I’ve got pictures, but they are going to have to wait. Enjoy what’s in the Pokerati Flickr files in the meantime.

LAS VEGAS–Everyone keeps texting me looking for results. Players are on break, and Como is just above where he started, with about 23,000. TBR is going strong, with something like 36 or 37ish k. And he looks quite stylish sporting his intriguing Batfaces lid.

UPDATE: The Big Randy is getting bigger. He’s at 63,500. I happen to be sitting next to some key PokerNews reporters and have informed them, and they have taken note of his progress but have also given me a polite, “let’s see how things stand after the dinner break before we start tracking someone we don’t know.” Fair enough, because you certainly can’t count on my sticking around any more than you can count on the running chip counters to recognize his Batfaces hat.

At that point his count would become “stale” — something PokerNews tries to avoid, I just learned.

LAS VEGAS–Text to Tom (who has been a gracious sounding board this WSOP on matters of game selection, bankroll management, and getting to know that leavin’ feelin’) late last night:

5:11 am — I am good at poker, bad at drinky blackjack. In for 800, cashed out for 2800.

This came after attending Z-Fest 2007 – a 4th of July barbecue hosted by the Lederer family at Steve Zolotow’s house. It also happened to be the site of the “World Series of Karaoke,” which meant getting to see Joe Reitman dance and scream while exposing/shaking/rubbing his belly, and a shitfaced Mike Matusow parading around like a drunken 7-year-old boy with balloons. Good fun. You gotta love a party that celebrates America’s birthday with great Middle Eastern food and an open bar.

From there, I was supposed to meet up with some Dallas friends to chase a few skirts engage in frotteurism at Carnaval Court. But while waiting around I played a little tiny-stakes outdoor blackjack and somehow managed to lose $497 in less than an hour. Dammit! So I went to make it back playing poker across the street at Caesar’s …

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RE: HammerWear

LAS VEGAS–There’s a sale at the Rio! That’s right, get your non-freebie swag! Last year so many T-shirts were being given away, I’m sure it was hard for the official joint to hawk its merch. This year no one’s here to give away the goods gratis … so apparel is being sold on the corner (like literally — prime location at the Amazon room crossroads) for $25 a pop. Or shall we say $17.50 a pop?

A few featured selections:

Wow. Kinda hard to believe that these shirts have the officially licensed WSOP logo, no? Oooh, Dead Man’s Hand! Pizz-izz-zashhaw! Don’t Hate the Playa, Foo! Booh-yah! Perhaps the worst shirt for sale — one commemorating Phil Hellmuth’s historic 2007 WSOP victory:

click to enlarge

These shirts have been on sale for about two weeks now … guess how many they have sold.

More…

LAS VEGAS–TBR in Dallas calls in seeking information about the logistics of buying into the main event. He missed the pre-registration deadline and wants to know if he can still get his money to the WSOP before he gets back to Vegas … and if he can still secure a specific starting day:

[display_podcast]

Randy, I spoke with some higher authorities … and you are shit-outta-luck. Kinda. The only way you can buy in is to show up and buy in. You can, of course, wire money to the Rio (or any other casino) and pick it up to carry to the registration desk if you don’t want to carry that much cash through various airports.

As to choosing your starting day, that option is still available — and will be available until a specific day fills up. But, says WSOP guru Nolan Dalla, it is highly unlikely that any specific day will fill up until the day before the main event starts. So if you plan to get here a little early, you’re fine and dandy. But if you wanted to play Day 1c because you weren’t planning on making it out here until the end of Day 1b, then you might run into a few problems.

OK, so maybe he isn’t the first amateur online qualifier, nor will he be the last … But he is the first Rounder Clubber to make accomplish such a feat, and that’s pretty cool. So big congrats to Chris Como, the most accomplished Lodge Amateur Poker graduate and Rounder Club alum. He invested $24+2 in a 336-player event on Full Tilt, where the top 25 qualified for a $200 event … where the top 9 out of 552 won a $12,000 main-event package.

(Sorry Como, can’t Google- hide your name any more … When you register for the WSOP, that becomes a matter of semi-public record.)

UPDATE: Numbers corrected above. Interestingly enough, the first tourney was the last super-satellite into the last WSOP-qualifying satellite on Full Tilt. Como played both events back-to-back, from about 6 pm to 1:30 am.

So out of however many hundreds of pros and thousands of amateurs in the main event, he is now someone whose progress Pokerati will be following — and we couldn’t be happier. Go Como! Make the final table and maybe we can get you a jersey.

In addition to him, below are other the players we care about might possibly be watching in a couple weeks:

More…

DALLAS–It’s effectively Super Bowl week for me. While I will be there for the main event as well, this week marks our second annual pilgrimage to the WSOP (and fourth poker adventure). Tiny B Tulsa and Gentle Shane are heading out tomorrow, and I will be there by Thursday morning. All of us (assuming Shane can find a backer) plan on rolling the dice in Thursday’s $1,500 No Limit Uberdonkfest.

We’re all still basically dead money, though, collectively, we have been playing poker and tournament poker for several years, and each of us has made a final table in an event with a buy-in of $500 or more. Also, we’ve all played in the WSOP before, and for some of us, this will be at least our fourth event.

Last year, we had several batfaces in the $2,500 NL event (won by Max Pescatori), and our own Zac “Son of Sue” Ballenger cashed fairly deep, finishing 50th out of 1200 (and he probably would have gone deeper if he hadn’t given most of his chips to Scott Fischman).

This year, though we won’t have our tourney ace Son of S. in tow, I think we have another real good chance to send someone deep. The following are my off-the-top-of-my-head odds on how we’ll do:

Make it through Day 1: Only ten percent of the field will survive Day 1. If I were to average what I think each of our individual chances are to survive Day 1, it’s probably somewhere between 7 and 8 to 1. Mathematically, I think that means we have about a 66% chance of someone from our group surviving Day 1.

Make it to final table: Somewhere around 15 to 1.

Final 3: 40 to 1

Bracelet: 100 to 1.

LOS ANGELES–I just got back from The Bike … my first venture into a California poker room. Played some Little-Big Game … $2/$3 NLH…

Buy-in: $100
Cash out: $965

Tore that shee-it up! But I had to leave because it was no-limit after all, meaning it was only a matter of time before I might give a hefty portion back. And, I wanted to play in the $300 Stars & Stripes LIVE tourney. (Scroll down for coverage of yours truly.) There were 177 people competing for a first-place payout of about $20k. I finished 41st — 23 shy of the money, but not too bad, considering my tournament play has been shee-it in a bad way for the past couple years. Besides, with my near-bubble performance, I was just emulating Tom.

So anyhow, yes, The Bike. I found it quite pleasing — and I haven’t even begun to tell you about the food. Sadly, I will not be returning to The Bike on this trip … because while I was fighting to stay ahead of the blinds, Gonz (who was presumably on tilt from a bad-beat jackpot hand that got counterfeited on the river) was picking a fight with a member of the floor staff and eventually getting ejected from the casino. Good times!

I’ve been much better about keeping track of my bankroll this year, thanks to Pokercharts.com — even though, thus far, it hasn’t been a winning year. Kinda interesting.

Just tonight/last night … I had a pretty good session (ended up +$485 in $.50/$1 NLH) … though half of that came from the last hand of the night, where Fawcett flopped a mini-monster … which he played a little weakly trying to trap me … which fueled my bluff-draw, and in the end let me hit the nuts with a gutshot. Cool. Even cooler was getting Fawcett to push all-in once I got there. Anyhow … have a looksie at my current bankroll graph:

Read into it whatever you want. And while these are important figures for me to keep track of, here’s what I think is the more telling graph:

Either you know something or you don’t — there is no in-between when it comes to knowing. And I think this map of my average earnings per session reveals something I hadn’t come to hard-and-provable grips with … and that is that I am pretty much just a break-even player. Semi-bitter pill to swallow, but hey, there’s no room in winning poker for delusions. Here is some other relevant computer-generated analysis of my 2007 play, as logged by Pokercharts. Kinda funny:

More…

A Batface Rotisserie Poker update … Zach is in the lead, followed by TBR:

Ballenger
Michael Mizrachi 444
Joe Hachem 0
David Daneshgar 256
Anthony Reategui 0
Joe Tehan 0
Gioi Luong1138
An Tran 424
Ralph Perry 0

2262

Brown
Daniel Negraneu 1160
Nam Le 0
Roland DeWolfe 0
Alex Jacob 0
Nenad Medic 0
Can Kim Hua 0
Robert Mizrachi 755
Nick Shulman 0

1915

Michalski
John Juanda 0
Steve Wong 0
Eric Seidel 0
Huck Seed 0
Jeff Madsen 0
Harry Demitriou 0
Tom Schneider 0
1/15 Justin Bomono 0

0

A text message from Tiny B late Saturday night:

Just got knocked out in 37th of the 385 person ¿ 1000 tourney that paid 36. Knocked out by moneymaker on the river when he caught a J with KJagainst my 10s. Poker is awesome.

And before everyone laments the one-two bad beats that knocked Zach out, Tiny B reminds us that when you exit a tournament it’s not just about the hand that does you in, but also the hands that got you to that point in the first place:

________________________________________
From: Todd Phillips
Sent: Friday, January 12, 2007 1:35 PM
To: danm
Subject: Re: zach?

Yes, but he won 4-5 races to get that far including AJ vs QQ.

—–Original Message—–
From: dan michalski
To: Todd Phillips
Sent: Fri Jan 12 13:28:41 2007
Subject: RE: zach?

Wow. Those hold up and he wins the tourney.

We need a new rankings, just so zach can be voted ahead of TBR.

The Batfaces arrived in Tunica yesterday, and like the amateurs they are, they couldn’t resist buying right into a $500 event fresh off the plane/rental car. Very Freeze-like in a showing up ready to play blackjack kinda way.

Anyhow, no surprise … they got kinda clonked … except for Son of Sue, who is a Batface, Rounder Clubber, and former Lodge Amateur Poker player, who took 11th place out of a field of, I think, like 500 or so. (Anyone else wanna see him duke it out heads-up with deep stacks against Como?) Here’s how Zach didn’t make it to the final table, via Tiny B:

Paid around 1500. Had to make top 6 or so before money got good. Had AA lose to KK and then eliminated when his AK lost to KQ. Both all in pre flop.

Well done, Zach Ballenger! Not a bad start to the Batface year. I can tell you actually think about how you play (and when you play), unlike some of your contemporaries.

For those of you following the $1,500 NLH event in Tunica a few days ago, below is the official WSOP report. The hand Todd went out on really was a bummer — particularly since he is arguably one of the best set-floppers in Dallas. Skipping to the good part:

We were now playing with blinds of 4,000/8,000 and 1,000 antes. Two hands into the new level, Todd “Tiny B” Phillips suffered a heart-breaker. After Williams moved in, Phillips called for his last 48,000 with pocket aces and flopped a set. But the flop also contained two hearts. A third one turned, and Williams, with Ah-2h, broke Phillips’ heart and left him in fifth place, which paid $19,904. Phillips, a 35-year-old real estate broker from Dallas, learned poker in a “great home game” in his city.

Click below to read the full story of how everything shook down …

More…

Todd’s tourney is over. He got 5th place (out of 225) in the $1,500 NLH event. Still don’t have a payout yet, but estimate is 19k. (Over/under?)

Says he went out via cracked aces. That’s all I know … oh, and that by making a non-second-chance WSOP circuit final table, he’s the first Batface to get CardPlayer P.O.Y. points.

(Congratulations, Todd! Seriously, you were due — have been playing great. Getting big pairs busted never bothers you, either.)

NOTE: Just discovered some quality semi-live coverage over at the BFs. Missed it all day and night … for some reason, the page wouldn’t (and still won’t) update upon refresh in Firefox. No prob with IE, however.

So Todd is apparently playing some damn good poker. From what I understand, he’s never been too much more than an above-average stack … in fact, he’s been mostly low, but a little more than tiny, stackwise that is.

Anyhow, there are five players left, and he’s fourth in chips. Successfully made “the real money”. Here’s the payouts he’s competiting for:

Er … can’t find them anywhere. But when Todd was a “sorta short stack” with seven players left, we learned that 7th place paid out $13k. So my guess is that he’s already guaranteed about $20k, if not more. Will let you know.

They’re down to 17 in the $1,500 NLH event. Todd is sitting with 29k, compared to an average stack of 38k. He says: [emphasis added]

—–Original Message—–
From: Todd Phillips
Sent: Sun Oct 01 03:33:47 2006
Subject: Still Alive-ish

Thanks to Tulsa and TBRs reporting, you know I’m hanging in the tunica tourney. You have to finish in top 8 or so for any real money, so I’ll need to double up early tomorrow. My last double up came when I moved all-in with Q9(the comstock) on the button after it was folded around to me. The big blind made a very good and expensive call with KJ(the Shane). I felt relief as everyone knows that comstock always defeats Shane. So, after a jack flopped, I wasn’t surprised to see runner runner club to make my Q high flush. The qualility of play and the quality of people playing has been spectacular… Something I’m not used to in Dallas. We resume at 2PM tomorrow. I’m going to go to bed now. As always, go batfaces.

Just got a text message from Tiny B:

48 left in 1500. I have 15k in chips, a little above par. Top 27 get paid. I expect coverage.

So there you have it. Go Big Todd!

8400, coloring greens. 100-400-800 now. 34 left. Time to double up.Agoin … go Big Todd. (But how will he handle it if someone makes a “bad” play?

UPDATE: Nearing the bubble …

Doubled up with AQ vs. JJ. 17k now. 33 left

And indeed, looks like he crossed it. Todd texts:

in money, in decent shape.

By the way, I have to go out. Seriously … one of those drinky things that involves a guy who’s involved with the Native American casino interests — hopefully he’ll give me some inside scoop on the legendary Winstar Tribe’s role in Poker’s getting Double-Fristed. Anyhow, if you need Todd updates, you can find them here at my personal watchdog site. Kinda funny, especially looking at Todd’s pre-game posts:

from The Batfaces

1500
I’m at dinner break in the $1500 NL in tunica. 48 players remain of the original 225. The top 27 make the money. I have 15000 in chips, which is a little above par. Darling and Hong Kong played as well, but have not lasted. So unfortunately for some, I’m not offing myself. Winner takes home 101K.
posted by Tiny B at 7:31 PM | 0 comments

Tunica 2
Darling up.
Hong Kong up.
Tiny B… Fuck cards.
posted by Tiny B at 7:04 AM | 0 comments

Friday, September 29, 2006

Tunica live blog 1
Hammered. Go first class!

Honk Kong Sue, Darling and I just landed in Memphis. Aycock is waiting on us at The Grand. You fuckers will be sorry you missed this one. $1500 tomorrow at noon. If I don’t win the last-longer, I’m offing myself.
posted by Tiny B at 7:32 PM | 0 comments

Played good poker last night here at Danang — good in the way that my friends thought I was playing crappy, even thoug