The recap of that eve has been lost in the old-old Pokerati archives, but I was able to dig up some pics from that eve:

(L to R) Lou D Phillips, Clonie, and The Big Randy in an intense hand of 50-cent-dollar no-limit hold’em at The Lodge.

LDP (as we called him before he became @LouDPhillips) was in town for the Deep Ellum Film Festival, so Robert Wilonsky invited him to a $.50/$1 Batface game at The Lodge. Clonie Gowen and Rick Fuller were there, as was David Williams I believe. Lou was actually running over the table … building his stack to about $700, which was very threatening in that game. Then Jerome Bettis showed up (out of nowhere and uninvited, btw) … The Bus was apparently at The Lodge on unrelated lap-lovin’ business, and couldn’t help but pull away when he heard there was a poker game going on in the champagne room.

Ahh, remember the good-ole-days of 2005, when poker was on its exponentially fast pop-cultural rise, and nights like these happened all the time?

But then things got kinda strange as Lou began playing shirtless and was flexing whenever he pushed all-in …

Bizarre, I know … but hey, it’s a small poker world.

TBR started the day with an M=73, dropped to M=55 after the first two levels, then down to M=46 after dinner break … but has since bounced back. With an hour-and-a-half left to play and blinds at 500/1000 + 100, his M is now back up to 63.

The goal, of course, is to get his M=∞.

Baggin chips for the night. 86,625. Avg around 45 or so.

@RobertGoldfarb not so much.

Well, for the first time this Series, our mascot pal Tom actually has something to say … because for the first time this WSOP, @DonkeyBomber has “bagged chips” — and sure enough, he credits his early donning of The Patch, if not our friendly encouragement and mixed games coaching, for this baby step toward success. Tom is playing in the $10k 7CS-HL, and with 110 of 164 players remaining, he’ll begin Day 2 near the top of the leaderboard, 8th in chips.

Follow his progress throughout the day here … and maybe here. (Though don’t count on it, as superstition seems to be part of his new plan.)

Congrats, Schneider. Hopefully yesterday will not be remembered as your best day of the 2009 WSOP!

Seriously, it was a strange prop bet offer … one deemed “unprofessional” by some, and made one other refer to Oliver as the Kim Jong Il of Poker. Though Oliver is Chinese, not Korean, the metaphor kinda sorta holds … because by all means he is sometimes an ostracized “player” in the industry, left to his own devices … and let’s face it: the guy would presumably love to get his hands on some nuclear weapons and wreak havoc on all who ever have tormented him since high school.

I’ll share with you more details of the wager itself as I learn to understand them. But basically – and these are the odds that just seemed too good to pass up on my end — if she’s still alive by the time I show up at the Rio, I’ll get my $10 back. If she makes it to the final table, I get $1,000. There are all sorts of other increased payment tiers along the way.

Though she probably doesn’t remember it, Gabriela Hill and I actually met last year — Oliver introduced us. At the time he told me (with extra emphasis on the rolled R’s) that she was a hot Latin American player. Good enough for me! This is her first ever WSOP bracelet event, apparently. Go Gabi Hill! You the girl!

(FYI, she has only like three followers on twitter, so click on over and become an “early adopter”.)

Meanwhile, as Gabriela’s working on building her stack in a way that makes Dan money! justifies her trip to another continent, we’ll also be following Gregg Merkow closely, as this longtime Pokerati fan — wielding a bankroll fueled at least in part by the high-roller contingent of Batfaces — has his best chance for a bracelet in as long as we can remember.

He’s the chip leader with 18 players left in $2,500 NLH. The short stack going in there, btw, is Phil Ivey … who hasn’t even showed up yet, but has already outlasted three players who started the day.

Click here to follow that action.

UPDATE: Merkow went out 9th. We swear his donning a Pokerati patch and the subsequent cooler effect was purely coincidental.

UPDATE: Supposedly Gabi is out, too. I hope you’re happy, Oliver!

Kinda fun … with action still grinding away at the big table, our boy Adam Schacter just won the nightly. Nice! (And making a final table is always a good way to become “our boy”, fyi.) Actually he chopped when they were down to three players … but as the chip leader in that situation, he gets credit for the win and takes home more than $3k. Second place got about $2,700 … with third getting about $2,000.

Schacter, of course, is an ancillary Batface (kinda like a “Friend of Full Tilt”) who made four final tables in Pokerati Invitationals and DSOP’s. He was in town for a wedding and hadn’t played poker since August when he bought into this $120 event on a whim.

Entertainment services, namely, organizing, conducting, producing and exhibiting poker events and tournaments rendered live and through the media of television and the Internet, and providing poker news and information via a global computer network

Now to be sure, just because someone applies for a trademark doesn’t mean the business is going to fly. I suspect “Poker Bowl” was registered back in the day before its collapse. The folks behind the forthcoming LSOP are Siete Dos Publications out of Carson City, NV. Hmm, I didn’t realize actual people even lived in Carson City. But I do like the idea of a media company with a namesake mission of gloriously spreading word of The Hammer to the non-English-speaking world.

I do, however, wonder what the folks at Harrah’s think of that. Not only is it interesting to see the ongoing and evolving convergence between digital poker media and actual tournament operations, but also … We ran into some similar trouble in Dallas back in the day … when two independent but eventually overlapping groups of rounders were both running an annual tournament called The DSOP. (In the end the Batfaces surrendered the name to the guys in McKinney, I was allowed to keep my 2003 co-champion title, and Desktop Solutions of Pennsylvania was allowed to keep the highly coveted DSOP.com web domain.)

UPDATE: The LSOP is apparently not that new of a venture, even though they just applied this month for trademark registration. Their website — www.lsop.com — is up and active, and has a $500k guaranteed main event scheduled for 110 days from now in Panama.

The above is episode 2. If you liked it, here’s episode 1.

A recent blog [sic.] on CardPlayer by a former guest on my “The Tournament Trail” show at Hold ‘Em Radio (http://www.holdemradio.com/), WPT champion Roy Winston, indicated that no one has contacted him regarding his offer of coaching for the Main Event.

Sorry, Roy, but I’m laughing. Because no one has contacted me, either, about my offer to put a Pokerati patch on them in exchange for guaranteed internet coverage! No offense, but whothefugk are you? A WPT champion? Big deal! The final nine — whether by luck or skill or some combination thereof — have outlasted 6,400 players to get to where they are. Have you ever done that? I didn’t think so.* Why would someone want to potentially mess their game up by receiving “coaching” from someone other than Phil Hellmuth (who clearly knows how to win WSOP final tables with any starting chip ratio) or maybe Erik Seidel? If I were one of the Nueve de Noviembre, I gotta say, I’d be feeling pretty good about my poker skills in general … and would be having many talks with the poker friends who helped get me there (The Arizona Posse, Batfaces, et al.) and probably just about any other poker player I ran into between July and November. But hire an outside coach? That would be like an athlete qualifying for the Olympics and hiring someone in the interim who happened to win a similar event in the Pan-Am games.

The story here isn’t on whether or not the final table delay was a right idea for the sake of marketing … it’s about how the remaining WSOP main event players are somehow smart enough not to fall for sales pitches from interlopers trying to get in on their action.

*Note: Roy “the Oracle” Winston has come close — outlasting more than 6,300 players in the 2007 main event, but going out early when it got down to three tables. So maybe it should be the other way around and he could get some coaching from one of them?

Roy’s website: www.OraclePoker.net

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.

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.

The Batfaces
These guys are idiots, so you can pretty much ignore them. But still, Tiny B may be the best Blackberry tournament reporter not in the business.

Official WSOP Website
As well it should be. Not only do you get to read Jeffrey Pollack’s blog and watch Jean-Robert Bellande’s efforts to make it as a poker pro with no money, but also they’ve got all the official info you need to know.

Wicked Chops
They love boobies and hate redheads (to a near-racist extent), and they actually happen to know a whole bunch about what’s going on in poker.

There are other sites, too, of course, that merit some of your WSOP-coverage time … but these are the six that Pokerati readers say should matter second-most.

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.

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!

Batfaces Have Arrived
It’s all downhill from here

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.

Remember seeing ads for 24/7poker shortly after the UIGEA? They have apparently gone out of business … and you can now pwn them for $25k.

Another defunct site wants $150k.

Poker domain names for sale for significantly less.

A new online poker room is looking for hot chicks to help them stand out among the better-established competitors at the WSOP.

And perhaps coincidentally, three presumably hot chicks have a room for WSOP players in a nice house for $200/wk.

Or for the same price, WSOP players can stay in this beautiful RV. Hey, if it could be parked in the Rio lot, might be tempting.

Or…

We are looking for 6 women age 18-25 for a cable/dvd reality show shooting in Vegas this summer. You will be living in an amazing house for two weeks along with 5 other girls and 6 guys. The show is a cross of World Series of Poker, Jackass, and The Real World. This is a cable/dvd show, it will be more “R” rated then most network shows (drinking, nudity, etc…)

PokerNews is looking for WSOP interns.

Rounder Magazine will also be at the WSOP … but they’re just looking for hotties.

A 37-year-old real estate broker-online college student-newbie poker pro sees sharing a Vegas high-rise with a model-like babe as a matter of good bankroll management.

One of the top play-chip players in the world/on MySpace — and he’s willing to sell his entire play-money bankroll for $800.

This guy is looking to sell real Full Tilt money, so he can pay his taxes. Kinda sums up the 2008 political debate about online poker, no? Would it or wouldn’t it be a better world if you could simply initiate a transfer on Full Tilt directly to “Uncle Sam”.

A guy is desperate for $300 — and thus is selling art, a poker table, and an ammo can.

Sweet stereo system, won in a poker game.

Hundreds and hundreds of baseballs, branded with Absolute Poker, in search of a good home.

Used poker books for sale.

Two pros seeking $20-200k worth of backing, just in time for the WSOP. This guy is looking for something similar, but for NBA betting.

A player wants a certain dealer.

A dealer wants a certain player.

Awesome …

ALL poker players are sore losers and the worst people and tokers (rude, no toking asswipe idiots)
I’ve been dealing 21 for a long time and every single time some idiot from the poker room finds his way to the pit there’s always a problem. They are all sore losers, rude to the dealers and the other players, shit tokers if they toke at all, and they always try and run all the shit they are allowed to do in the poker room past the 21 dealers. And they all do the most annoying thing known to man – every one of them shuffles their cheques…over…and over…and over again. Like it’s some badge of honor.

Listen up all you poker fucks – keep your rude, sore losing, no toking asses in the poker room where you belong. I’ve watched you assholes do little kid shit like spill drinks on purpose to get a new deck and bend the cards so they’re useless. You idiots should keep away from the pit. Oh yeah, and fuck you.

Awesomer …

Fat Slob – but very rich – seeks stunning knockout for Vegas Trip – 50

After suffering a bad beat at the tables, some like to shake off the tilt with a good-ole-fashioned gangbang. Others, when hitting a royal flush, want to celebrate with a bisexual threesome. And at least one “ultra high stakes amateur” (still) wants to have a baby.

Special use of the WSOP logo: “I am looking for a classy lady, wearing hot lingerie, heels and garter belt”.

Fun Female needed for a poker game. Nice tits a plus. Good Pay

Topless girls also needed just to pose on poker tables.

And this guy won’t charge you anything for his poker services … he’s just a lonely MWM looking for a way into the Batface home game.

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.

Level 1 (25/50 75 minute levels) was fairly uneventful for me. I probably played only 4-5 hands, winning 3 without any real decisions. I flopped a set of 3s and won about 2000 to get up to 12,300 at the first break. Tran, Racener, Newhouse and Seat 10 were playing a lot of pots, opening with a wide range of hands. Esposito and Lawson were playing it pretty close to the vest. Seat 8, an amateur calling station who took forever to act after getting clarification from the dealer for the bet or raise every single time managed to win a few pots and became any early target.

In Level 2 (50/100), I was again pretty card dead and played about 3 hands. I raised on the button with T9hh got called in two spots and check-folded a flop of AJx. Then I raised to 300 with QQ from MP and was called by seat 10 in the big blind. The flop came down 8s6s4h. He checked, I bet 600 into 800, and he check-raised to 2175. Given the board, his most likely holding here seemed to be a pair with some kind of straight draw and flush draw, something like 98, 87 or 65 of spades. I thought for over a minute before deciding that, with stacks this deep in level 2, I didn’t want to commit to the hand with a raise, or worse, have to consider folding to a push. I had a little over 11k at the time, so I finally called the other 1575. (Shannon Shorr recounts a similar position with an overpair during level 1 in his blog) I’m not sure it was the right move and may have actually been my worst option. Folding seems really weak-tight there, but with stacks this deep, I’m not sure it’s not better than calling. My final feeling for calling was that it seemed that many of the cards on the turn would either obviously help me or hurt me. As it turns out, the turn was an offsuit 9, he bet around 2200 and I folded. I think that is a pretty easy fold there. He showed 96s for two pair.

In level 3 (100/200) I went over 50 minutes without playing a single hand and dropped down to 8500. Then I opened from the lojack (one before the hijack) with QJoff. (Aside: Not sure if I’m making up the term “lojack” but if I am, let’s try and make it stick. Dario Minieri was moved to a table right next to me, and on his first hand he folded under the gun saying, ”tight is right” to much laughter. Pokerati deserves some credit for that.) The calling station called in the big blind and we saw a 9-high flop with two spades (I had the queen of spades). I c-bet 1200 and he called. The turn was the Ace of spades. Check, check. River was an offsuit 9. I checked and he won the pot with KsJh. Yucky. Queue raised eyebrows around the table, though I’m not sure who they thought played the hand worse.

I then called a raise from Tran in the SB with 55. Esposito called, too, and the flop came K45, one spade. We checked to Tran who bet 1200. I called and Esposito called. The turn was the As. Tran led out for 1600, and I moved in from around 4400 total. Esposito thought for a while with what I assume was probably AQ or AJ and folded. Tran went into the tank for about 2 minutes asking me if I had AK over and over. Not sure what he had here, I’m assuming AT or somesuch. He finally folded. That got me back to around 12000 heading into level 4.

Level 4 (100/200 25 ante) proved to be my last level. On the first hand of the level, I was in the SB with A5 and took the flop unraised and heads-up with the BB. The flop was 455. I check-called the flop. Turn was a 9. Check-check. River blank and I got the BB to call half pot. That got me to my high water mark around 12500. On the very next hand, one I’m still not sure about, I raised the button after two callers with KQdd to 600. Esposito made it 1400 to go, and I was the only caller. Flop came QJTr. He led out for 1700, and I called. Turn blanked, and he bet 2200. Seemed like a smallish bet that was either looking to trap with AK or scared with AA, most likely AA. I folded, but I’m not sure about this play. When I folded, Esposito said “I didn’t want to see a flop with that hand.” Given that when he made his raise there could have been up to three callers, I interpreted that to mean aces, but again, I’m not sure. I didn’t play another hand until my next button when Tran opened in the cutoff to 800. I looked down at two black kings and made it 2000 to go with 8500 behind. With my table image at this point, there is really only 3-4 hands I can have. It appeared as though Tran, who had about 15k was thinking about pushing but finally called. The flop came Q45r. He checked, and I bet 2500. He thought and called, though it looked like he almost pushed. Turn was an ace, and it went check-check. River blanked and I folded to a 2700 bet. He showed pocket queens and was sick he didn’t raise me on the flop. Not sure how I didn’t go broke there. At the time, I would have insta-called a shove on the flop, but in thinking through it afterwards, I’m not sure there is a single hand he could that I could beat there if he did shove on the flop. I think he knows I have a hand, and I don’t think there is any way he would do that with AQ (a hand I think he would bet-fold on the flop).

I bled down to around 3400 after calling a couple of raises and folding on the flop. Then Racener opened for 800 UTG, Lawson called and I stuck the rest in with AQo. Racener insta-mucked, but Lawson went into a very talky tank for almost 3 minutes, asking me over and over if I had AK (again). He had had over 20k in chips, around 2600 to call, and the pot was laying him almost exactly 2-to-1. He finally folded pocket fours face-up which shocked me. A couple of orbits later I busted somewhat insignificantly after again re-raising Racener all in with 55, getting called by Esposito with AKs and having Racener Re-shove with KK. Gotta win races.

Overall, it was a lot of fun and a very different experience from the WSOP Main Event. Even though the structure was virtually the same with 75 minute levels, it played very, very fast, and I wasn’t as prepared for that as I should have been. Hopefully, I can get a little of the 07 mojo back for June and July.

]]> http://pokerati.com/2008/05/02/wsop-ciruit-caesars-trip-report/feed/ 9 http://pokerati.com/2008/04/29/batvegas-update/ http://pokerati.com/2008/04/29/batvegas-update/#comments Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:14:23 +0000 Dan Michalski http://pokerati.com/?p=2916 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.

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.