A $2,250 Mega-Sat for the $50k HORSE breaks out right in front of us, where suddenly the seasoned pros are kicking it old-school — playing with jovial intensity and the hope that their real poker dreams can be bought at a bargain. It’s the poker economy, the regular economy, and backer variance in play … with satellite sponsorship deals, backing syndicates, and a question about what kinda team Russian backers will deploy. Special appearances by Michael Mizrachi, Allan Kessler, Bill Chen, et many medium-higher-rolling al.

presented by:

Tao of Pokerati at the 40th WSOP
Las Vegas, NV

Episode 11.21: HORSE Hunting
4:09

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Episode 11.22: The Satellite Economy
5:06

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

There’s an interesting little mini tourney taking shape right in front of the press box … it’s the $2,250 HORSE Mega-satellite (for tomorrow’s big $50k event).

It doesn’t look too different from many satellites or second-chance tourneys that get started in the eve, except there are a few more chips in play, and a lot more recognizable players.

27 entrants so far … cards are already in the air … 28. Alan Kessler showed up early. He’s wearing a Doyle’s Room patch. Mike Mizrachi is trying to get Bill Chen in a lasts-longest … there’s Michael Binger (wearing UB, No-Limit Management, and Deep Stacks University … a few other players that I kinda-sorta recognize, but not really. One guy hovering around who I can assume is a backer, but not sure who he’s behind …

29 entrants. Low-key, relaxed, but serious. Will find out if this is their only stab.

The recap of Tuesday activities…

Lisandro Goes for Bracelet #3

The $2,500 Razz has 13 players remaining with Jeff Lisandro the chip leader (438,000) in his quest for his 3rd bracelet and take first by himself in the WSOP Player of the Year race. Co-leader Ville Wahlbeck (55,000) will have some work to do to catch Lisandro, but it’s razz, anything can happen. Don Zewin, (300,000), Kenna James (284,000), Michael Craig (102,000) and Nikolay Evdakov (88,000) are the notables who also return to conclude the tournament, starting at 2pm.

The Mathematics of Poker = 3 Bracelets

Jerrod Ankenman finally joins co-author Bill Chen as a bracelet winner, taking down the $2,500 8-Game for $241,637 besting Sergey Altbregin in heads-up play. Chris Klodnicki finished in 3rd, Jeff Tims finished 4th, while Jon Turner got his second 5th place finish in mixed game events.

Thomas Tops Seniors

Tom Thomas of Amarillo, Texas is the chip leader (917,000) of the remaining 28 players in the $1,000 Seniors NL Holdem World Championship when play resumes at 1pm. Notable names are hard to find, but among them are Scott Buller (541,000), Ted McCollum (173,000) and Gioi Luong (100,000) are the most recognizable.

Schlein Spectacular at Split Game

Josh “Sdouble” Schlein will start Day 2 with the chip lead (60,700) with 196 players remaining in the $2,500 Omaha 8 or Better event. Thang Luu (56,200) is in second, Can Kim Hua (38,400), Pat Poels (36,900), Lee Watkinson (27,900), Paul Darden (26,400) and Shannon Shorr (22,400) among the notables returning at 2pm playing down to the final 9 or 3am deadline.

Wednesday’s Tournament

Only one tournament today, the debuting $2,500 Mixed Holdem event at 12 noon, featuring alternating 30-minute periods of no-limit holdem and limit holdem. The WSOP Staff Guide projects a field of 475 today for today’s event, check out www.wsop.com for updates, and more stuff from Pokerati during the day.

A WSOP record 7 bracelet events were underway on Wednesday afternoon, three of them eventually reaching their conclusions. As noted in my report last night, Jason Mercier got some success in the US, taking home a bracelet in the $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha event, my report is up on PokerNews now. The $1,000 NL Holdem Stimulus Special was won by Steve Sung, taking home over $770,000 and his first WSOP bracelet. The very occasional PokerRoad blogger was under 1m in chips when play was 7-handed but went on a rush to take the chip lead in just under a blind level. Final table chip leader and occasional web page designer Dan Heimiller would finish in 6th place, one of many to succumb to Sung’s success. “Pete the Greek” Valindos was the final victim denied a chance at this 2nd WSOP bracelet, when his pocket eights weren’t good enough for Sung’s pocket kings, but Vilandos does have over $470,000 to cushion that blow. More details on how that final table went down will be up on PokerNews later today.

The $10,000 7 Card Stud World Championship was a battle of the ages, literally. In what appears to be a record for a non-senior event, Freddie Ellis (74) bested Eric Drache (66) to take down the title as Ellis becomes the sixth African-American (Phil Ivey, David Williams, Walter Smiley and Carolyn Gardener being the other five) to win a WSOP bracelet. As Nolan Dalla noted in his tournament report, the distinction all six players have is that they each have won a bracelet in seven card stud. Here’s a bonus piece by Benjo on Eric Drache, from the Tao of Poker site.

The $1,500 NL Holdem event wasn’t able to reach their final table, as 33 players were left at 3am. They get to return at 1pm today to play down to a final table. This final table was scheduled to be streamed later this afternoon at bluffmagazine.com, but that’s definitely not happening at the scheduled 2pm start time. Follow them on Twitter for the latest updates on that situation. Notable names remaining: Michael Martin, Francois Safieddine, and Jeremy Joseph.

One final table that is known is the $2,500 NL 2-7 Lowball Single Draw event. When play began Tuesday afternoon, there were several big names among the 35 remaining. Those players all fell by the wayside, except for Phil Ivey, here’s how the final table will look when they come back at 2pm today.

Seat 1: Raphael Zimmerman – 238,000
Seat 2: Eric Kesselman – 119,400
Seat 3: John Monnette – 259,000
Seat 4: Rodeen Talebi – 94,500
Seat 5: Yan Chen – 159,000
Seat 6: Elia Ahmadian – 136,900
Seat 7: Phil Ivey – 106,300

Today’s other events on the next page:
More…

Once upon a time, poker books were everywhere and everything. Then we found that saturation point, right around the time the poker boom was coming to an end … and it became harder and harder to really care about the latest poker tome … poker books stopped selling, the bookstores took down their dedicated poker racks, and uber-poker geeks like yours truly built up a pile of literature still collecting dust while waiting to be read. I swear I’ll move beyond page 26 of Bill Chen’s The Mathematics of Poker one of these days!

But probably not before reading two books that we can expect later this year: Lost Vegas, by Dr. Pauly … and Check-Raising the Devil, by Mike Matusow (with Tim Lavalli and Amy Calistri). Lost Vegas will be based on much of what we’ve been reading over the years on Tao of Poker, though I personally know the book is what Pauly’s been saving his best, so-far untold stuff for … so I’m confident every poker-industry douche insider will be eager to read what he’s been holding back.

Likewise, Matusow’s tale promises to be the kind of interesting auto-bio that even my grandmother could enjoy — lots of sex, drugs, and crime that just so happens to be set in the world of high-stakes casino gambling and/or prison — by a guy who has seen up-close-and-personal the good, the bad, and the really bad side of it all. Judging both these books by their recently completed covers (click to enlarge), I gotta think there might be something to these pokery stories, even though neither promise to tell you anything about how to play Ace-King.

click to enlarge

Well whaddya know … Pokerati fave [name deleted] still plays poker … and last night he (”luvgamble”) won WCOOP event #24: $530 NL 2-7 Single Draw. (Which really is the best psychology-based poker game of all.)

308 runners, 49 in the money. First Place paid a nice $42k … glad to see [name deleted] finally book a noticeable win in 2008, which will make me feel better taking a chunk of it in our presidential election wager.

The one unfortunate thing … [name deleted] always liked to play anonymously, and wouldn’t even tell me his PokerStars screen name for fear that I’d publicize it. But now, as it goes in poker because I have no conscience he actually won a semi-public event, I get to out him, and the “Shmonkey Shmomber” is stuck playing a Googleable screen name into perpetuity. Ha ha, er, I mean congrats!

Other notable money finishers with trackable screen names:

newhizzle – Mark Newhouse
Bill Chen – Bill Chen
GavinGriffin – Gavin Griffin
KidPoker – Daniel Negreanu
BeL0WaB0Ve – Kevin Saul

Meanwhile, here’s a moment of Zen from 10th-place finisher Bill Chen, speaking on “The Power of Acceptance”, and even the necessity of embracing plausible death: