Poker pros, poker media, WSOP execs, agents, and interns convened a couple days ago at the Sapphire Club for the Bluff Magazine party — a delightfully rancorous fête celebrating the end of regular WSOP season and kicking off the main event playoffs … and of course, Tao of Pokerati was there. In this episode, Pauly gets a lapdance, I miss my days in the strip-club biz, and Otis tries to arrange a $1,000 beer pong game with Doyle Brunson. All in all, the poker field trip to the industry’s favorite Vegas titty bar leads to lower-midstakes ballin’ at its most pathetic finest.

Episode 19: Topless Beer Pong (feat. Otis)

Methinks it is out of control.

It is a given that Harrah’s is always open for sponsors to buy their way into some Rio Convention Center space and a spot on the ESPN stage. That is the nature of business and the corporate world. Therefore, the 2008 WSOP has sponsors/partners like CardRunners, Bluff, and PokerNews, which are obvious choices. Everest Poker squeaked in there to get its name on every table felt and around the inner ring of the ESPN final table. There are even others like Hertz rental cars, Planters nuts, and Gamma-O testosterone booster. *chuckle*

The booth for All In Energy Drinks was not a surprise, and their push to sell their drinks in exchange for a “freeroll” tournament was nothing out of the ordinary, though questionable in its possibility for financial success. But a few weeks into the WSOP, the cocktail servers inside the tournament area began donning red All In shirts. And they were serving All In bottled water and energy drinks. Wonder how much it cost to take over the servers?

And the final table of the $50K HORSE surprised even me. At first, those final table players – competing center stage for a couple mil – were told that they couldn’t have anything but All In drinks during play because they were on camera. Huh? At the obvious protest of Scotty Nguyen, who wanted/needed his Michelob bottles, the staff finally agreed to bring him his drink of choice but to plaster tape around the labels so it looked like some generic, unlabeled brand. Really? Of course, I understand sponsorships, but it seemed like they tried to take it too far.

With that said, I’m headed to the All In Energy Drink party tonight at the Palms. Yep, color me a hypocrite if you like, except that I have nothing against the drinks or the company, only with their attempt to monopolize the drinking public at the WSOP. Dan, on the other hand, may be looking to buy stock in the company, if his newfound All In root beer addiction is any indication.

Teddy “The Iceman” Munroe: Watch out for this guy. Tough to play against.

Tom is was the chip leader in the $2k Omaha Hi-Lo. That’s pretty cool.

UPDATE: Tom is out. Not cool.

And that limit event he busted out of yesterday … Erick Lindgren just missed the final table, which is now set with some interesting players, including Teddy Munroe, Ali Eslami, and Vinny Vinh. (Teddy and I go way back — last year I’d be typing outside and “The Iceman” would fill me in on the $100-$200 cash action while taking a piss on the tournament tent air conditioners. “Makin’ money, baby!” he’d say before shaking himself dry and heading back to the table.)

Even the $10k 7-Stud World Championship is getting interesting … with Doyle still alive and both Bob and Maureen Feduniak with the potential to become the first ever husband-wife presumably non-collusive team at the final table. Never mind. Since typing this, all the above-mentioned have been eliminated.

I learned about this 7-Stud shape-up from the a WSOP-TV vid. And though I tend to detest any lack of imbeddability, I gotta say I like a lot of what this ESPN/WSOP/Bluff (?) crew has got going here. For example, Harmonie Krieger does a basic feature video interview set on the different jobs people come to the WSOP from. Nice enough, right? — but very real when one of the guys she talks with is Jay Columbo, who ran the legendary Mayfair and Playstation poker clubs in New York City, legally questionable status notwithstanding.

And then, perhaps most shocking to me, I enjoyed Jean-Robert Bellande’s “Surviving the WSOP” — where the young, aspiring Eskimo Clark chronicles his ups and downs at the World Series while his video-podcast editors comment Pop-up Video-style — follow along as he hustles high-rollers for buy-ins.

Even learned something from Phil Ivey’s less exciting V-log … and that is that he’s playing so many big-field, low-buy-in donkfests because he has a lot of side action pending on whether or not he’ll win a bracelet this year. We’ll see if we can’t find out more about this.

Speaking of donkfests, the Ladies Event has already lost 2/3 of its starting field, and of those still remaining, at least three of them are Pokerati MySpace friends: Lacey Jones, Kathy Liebert, and Mandy Baker are looking strong and pretty much representing the spectrum of all that is good about women. Go girls! I mean chicks … er babes .. uh bitches?

UPDATE: Lacey is nursing a short stack. Poker Roadie Amanda Leatherman has come on strong, however, and picked up the aggressive pace. Michele Lewis, Tiffany Michele, and PokerNews editrix Haley Hintze are all out.

In the meantime, primarily because it is awesomely embeddable, check out the debut episode of The Degenerate Report, from Neverwin Poker:

I’m about to head over to the Rio — I think I might actually play a bit today — but before I shut my computer lid (about as difficult for me as stepping away from a table when I’m still up) I wanted to share with you some blogs other than Pauly, LVV, and Wicked Chops that make for good reading during the WSOP. Most of these folks have real jobs here in the poker media, but that doesn’t mean they still don’t have interesting things to say:

Poker Shrink — he runs the show now at my old PokerBlog stomping grounds, and though I haven’t yet seen his shiny orb around these parts, he always has something informative to say, and a cutting way to say it.

Change100 — A friend with weed is a friend indeed … and this PokerNews reporter always has the good Hollywood insight to share.

Benjo — aka the Angry Frenchman; I have no idea what his blog says, but it’s often fun to read the Google translation of it.

Gary Wise — Gary knows everything about poker (just ask him) … but really, the Bluff/ESPN correspondo does know a lot, and has better player connections than anyone else in media row.

Snoopy — This limey mate has a great take on the game, and new hair to boot — capable of fourth-level thinking and comes up with hedlines like “Throw Juanda down the Well.”

Michele Lewis — Wicked Chops probably got the best of it in our trade of Fresh Princess and a blogger to be named later for, um, nothing … but that doesn’t mean we don’t still love her sassy-mom takes on the game.

Pokerfolio — Steve Hall doesn’t need a big camera to scope out the WSOP hotties, but he may need a new webhost.

Spaceman – Jason Kirk can’t seem to leave the poker world no matter how hard he tries, and while he’s not blogging for PokerListings this year, he occasionally keeps us posted on real life.

Hardboiled Poker – Short-stacked Shamus is an absolute must-read; he’s a rookie on the PokerNews WSOP reporting scene, but as he’s proved with his own blog since getting on the blogging train late in the game, sometimes new=fresh, and he gives more to really think about per word than just about anyone else out there.

Haley – The managing editrix of PokerNews is 0-and-1 on prop bets with Dan this year, but that doesn’t mean she’s still not a smartaholic; heck, she even knows who The Batfaces are.

Mean Gene — The most celebrated poker blogger in all of Pittsburgh makes the annual pilgrimage to the WSOP again, and nobody knows how to have more All-American fun while doing a top-quality job than this PokerNews tourney reporter.

I’m sure I’m missing a few — apologize for that — so send me an email and I will update accordingly. But these are the ones I have been checking out with the most semi-regularity, and often giving thought to.

And for a list of players who are also blogging their experiences, check out Up for Poker’s WSOP blog-guide.

That’s all for now. I’ll be back eventually. But this should keep you informed/entertained/busy for at least a little while.

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]

The final table of the $5k main event at the WSOP-New Orleans goes down tomorrow at 2 pm central. Semi-live video coverage at worldseriesofpoker.com.

Click below for all the official details after the jump. I’ll be paying attention to Marc Fratter, from Clonie’s hometown of Murphy, TX. (Kinda near where my folks live, too.) He seems to have his game on these days, and if so seems well-seated with a medium stack:

Fratter

SEAT 7: Marc Fratter
HOMETOWN: Murphy, TX
CHIP COUNT: 311,000
Marc Fratter is a 36-year-old attorney from Murphy, TX. He has a three-year-old daughter named Kate who loves to play poker with her dad. Fratter was the co-champion of the 2007 Caesars Indiana Poker Championship. He won $117,000 in that tournament. He also cashed in the 2007 Red River Roundup. This is his third time to cash in a major tournament.

Miles

Go Mark! I mean Marc!

He’s going up against Timothy “TK” Miles, who won a $1,000 WSOP-Circuit event in New Orleans this past winter and has the chip lead.

Drogba

The WSOP-Circuit final table, however, is in a tough time slot tomorrow — going up against the UEFA Cup finals, being broadcast live from Moscow. (Bluff Media video honcho and former Fox Football Fone-in host Nick Geber is presumably ocnflicted.) Honestly, the soccer game will probably get most of my attention even though I’m not sure whom to root for — Chelsea vs. Manchester Utd. — since I usually just root against those two teams. (Go Liverpool/Wigan/Blackburn Rovers!)

Rooney

Chelsea, of course, is are the bad-ass team from the yuppity side of London, loaded with great players, most notably Drogba from the Ivory Coast. Man-U are the working-class faves from Britain’s Second City, with bratty high-paid hotshot Wayne Rooney … who likes to gamble (badly) and used to play Texas Hold’em in a rough-and-tumble Man-U home game.

Again, click below for details on the poker event going up against what is essentially, worldwide, the Super Bowl:
More…

Matthew Kredell has a good article in the new old issue of Bluff that just went online about poker players’ increased political awareness/involvement. And I’m not just saying that because he references/quotes a highly credible source in ¶’s 6 and 7.

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.

So I’m kinda sorta enjoying the webcast of the WSOP Circuit Tunica final table. But I happen to be on a relatively low-bandwidth connection (courtesy of Las Vegas.net). Thus the stream is blipping out for five or ten seconds every 20 or so. Pesky to say the least. Here’s the thing … since the video is hardly exciting anyway (though it is mighty clear) … it would be nice to have an audio-only stream available of the Nick-and-Tom broadcast. I wanna be doing other things, ya know, while listening in the background.

Including an audio stream isn’t hard computer-wise, and it would make following the event more enjoyable for the readers viewers listeners.

There ya have it — take-it-or-leave-it-advice because Pokerati cares the internet happens to be slow today.

Two years ago, poker items were the hottest holiday shizznit in the retail stores. It didn’t matter if you were shopping at Oshman’s, Bed Bath & Beyond, Target, or CVS … the poker goodies were on prominent display and selling like proverbial hotcakes. Then last year, you saw some of these same items — only they were marked down on clearance, as their didn’t seem to be too much demand for the crappy variety of poker supplies. I’m guessing the real poker merchants still did fine, but don’t know for sure.

This year, I again took note of poker’s place amongst the Christmas merchandise … and here’s what I found:

Who knew that Popeye the Sailor Man played poker? This t-shirt did, and it was the only poker-related apparel I saw in the whole mall.

More…

Tom Schneider’s memorable 2007 is coming to an end — WSOP Player of the Year, 7th in CardPlayer’s POY, 96th in Bluff’s — oy, now he gets to start all over. But before he does, we get a sense of where this semi-regular blogger’s accomplishments fit into the bigger word beyond poker (or, as Scotty Nguyen says, “Poker Beyond!”) … as Tom has been chosen as a finalist — and poker’s only representative — for ESPN’s 2007 All-SportsNation Team.

Click here to vote, preferably for Tom.

The Top 5 get the Espy honors. Currently the leaders are Randy Couture, Floyd Mayweather, Jr., Tom Brady, Alex Rodriguez, and Brett Favre … with Tiger Woods following just a single percentage point behind. Yikes, tough competition for Tom — dare I say tougher than any he has seen at the poker table? — but kinda cool that he’s (at the time of this posting) right ahead of Dirk Nowitzki and tied with Kaká.

Seriously, click on over … for the sake of poker players everywhere to further boost the ego of everyone’s second-favorite Beyond the Table cohost.

CORRECTION: Tom is ranked 96th overall for the past two years by Bluff. For 2007 he finished 158th, compared to 76th in 2006.

Following a pattern established by arena faves Frampton, Kiss, and Cheap Trick, this episode of Beyond the Table captures the group in a rare live performance. With no edits, overdubs, or other studio gimmickry, “Live and Otherwise” finds BTT returning to its off-the-cuff, improvisational roots.

The set gets going with a raucous medley of blues-based numbers, including soon-to-be-classics “Queens Done Done Me In (Again)” — featuring a solo from Little Tommy Schneider — and the Askenasy-penned “I Think My Hair Has a Mind of Its Own.” The group then transitions into a surprisingly peppy version of “House Hoppin’ Blues” chronicling Dan’s recent move Vegas-ward.

From there the boys turn topical, with rockers “Flight of the Dragon” (noting David Pham’s having locked up Player of the Year), “Enjoying the Game” (an homage to Chip Reese), and “Guilt Trip” (regarding the Vaughn-Mizzi account-purchasing affair). As an encore, the group surprises the audience with a new title, “Fortune’s Steward,” a brief romp recognizing Falstaff, author of PokerStage and tireless organizer of the recent WPBT Winter Gathering.

Be sure to catch this important live document of the power trio’s development, circa late-2007. And be sure to email your feedback to theshow(at)beyondthetable(dot)com and/or call the listener line @ (888) 820-8091.

Per the Bluff Media website, Chris Vaughn has been fired from his position as the Bluff Magazine’s Managing Editor due to his role in the Full Tilt cheating scandal with online pro Sorel Mizzi.

Bluff Media, publisher of Bluff Magazine, has made the decision to terminate Chris Vaughn as Managing Editor. In light of Chris’ involvement, recently admitted facts and the feedback obtained from industry professionals, it became apparent that the credibility required to perform the job functions of Managing Editor of Bluff Magazine at our company’s level of standards have become severely diminished. While we regret having to make this decision, we believe that it is the best alternative for all parties involved, including Chris, Bluff Media and the poker playing community at large. We wish Chris the best of luck.

Sorel Mizzi

Chris “BluffMagCV” Vaughn, managing editor for Bluff, and online pro Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi have finally spoken out on the cheating incident on Full Tilt Poker.

They did an interview with PokerNews that was published in two parts: Part 1 described how Vaughn sold his account to Mizzi when he made it to the final three tables, and Part 2 is filled with apologies and regrets from both players.

Highlights (or lowlights, if you will):

• Both players have been banned from ever playing on Full Tilt Poker again.
• Vaughn admits to brazenly lying to Haralabos Voulgaris on the Big Poker Sundays radio program when asked about ghosting – allowing a backer to play for him.
• Bluff is displeased with Vaughn’s actions but will not fire him, only put him on probation.
• Vaughn and Mizzi are sorry.

The Absolute Poker scandal should have been enough. It remains unresolved, though most of the details of the cheating have been made clear, and the poker public still awaits the conclusion of the audit.

Back in early October, there was another mini-scandal on PokerStars. The winner of the WCOOP main event — the largest online poker tournament in history — was disqualified, and “TheV0id” was stripped of his title and $1,378,311 in winnings.

And we have another.

This time the allegations of nefarious online play revolve around Bluff Magazine’s managing editor Chris Vaughn. On 10/21, he took down the $1 Million Guarantee tournament on Full Tilt Poker for $197,984. The following Sunday, he won the Sunday Million tournament on PokerStars for $240,633. Well, it seems the first one didn’t stick.

According to the second place finisher in the Full Tilt event, Soren “Kongsgaard” Kongsgaard, he received an e-mail from FTP stating that Chris - screen name “BluffMagCV” - had been disqualified and “Kongsgaard” was awarded first place money.

Reportedly, though unconfirmed at this point, Chris’ backer, Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi, took over at some point in the tournament and played the remainder of it for him. Chris and Sorel have now been banned from Full Tilt. More details can be found on Sorel’s blog, though it’s not clear who is writing the posts.

Interestingly, Chris was just interviewed on 11/18 by Scott Huff and Haralabos Voulgaris on Big Poker Sundays, a radio show on PokerRoad.com. Haralabos asked him if he’s ever been accused of ghosting, where a person’s backer plays for them, and Chris said, “I’ve been accused of that. I think it’s going to come with the territory when someone relatively unknown wins two in a row… But as far as having someone take over, that’s ridiculous.”

I’ve been away from Pokerati for so long I thought Dan might have removed me as an author. Yet, I managed to login without any trouble and once inside it was like getting back on a bike. I’ve been busy at my other jobs…motherhood, wife, mistress of the house, managing my other blogs and restraining orders against stalkers. And really, I just needed a break from the poker world. But then again, don’t we all need that sometimes? So, I’m sorry.

And speaking of sorry and poker, on Wednesdays you can join the Bluff Poker League at Carbon Poker for a chance to win a 2008 WSOP seat. Eric Morris, publisher of Bluff Magazine, told me today that he plays on Carbon Poker when he’s not busy playing Sorry! or Chutes and Ladders.

Bluff Magazine is holding its annual Reader’s Choice awards … and Pokerati has been nominated as a candidate for Best Poker Blog. Bitchin’, no? It’s nice to know all our hard work has paid off. I’d like to thank the Academy, and Pokerati’s other contributors … because really, to receive this high-level industry acclaim, I could only suck on so many pee-pees myself, ya know?

Be sure to vote. I’d say vote often, but doing so more than once will allegedly disqualify you. So all I can say that is if you don’t vote for Pokerati, don’t waste your time we’ll block your IP address.

The other contenders who may or may not clearly don’t deserve your consideration include:

ThePokerBiz (which is how I found out about these awards)
Ship It Holla Ballas
Iggy
PokerWorks
Daniel Negreanu
Bodog Beat
Wicked Chops Poker
Rizen Poker
Brian Townsend (aka sbrugby)

ALT HED: Where’s Pauly?

I think I’m flummoxed. I mean sure, SEO is so 2006 … but Pokerati’s traffic has been growing, our content has been improving, other blogs continue to find reason to link us up, and we’re ready to bust nuts at the super-big frickin’ WSOP! Yet in the eyes of almighty Google, we are less than we once were — as Pokerati’s “page rank” has dropped from 5 to 4.

This may not mean much to most of you, but it’s kind of a bummer to poker web geeks, especially those of us who just finished reading Search Engine Optimization For Dummies. You see, we have long been a 5 here at Pokerati, and frankly, kinda felt like we should be a 6 … or at least wanted to become one because all my friends were 6s. But Big Brother Google must have recently recalibrated its algorithm or something, because their page ranks have dropped, too. Check it out:

Pauly dropped from 6 to 5
PokerProf — from 6 to 4 (LasVegasVegas dropped from 7 to 5)
Bill Rini — from 6 to 5
The Fat Guy — from 6 to 5
Iggy — from 7 to 5
PokerBlog (run by the SEO team at PartyPoker) — from 6 to 4
Wicked Chops — from 5 to 4
PokerWorks — from 6 to 5
CardPlayer — from 7 to 6
Bluff — from 6 to 5
worldseriesofpoker.com — from 7 to 6
PokerStars Blog — hanging tight at 6
Up for Poker — hanging tight at 5
The Poker Biz — from 4 to 3

More…

On a lighter note…Bluff Magazine and PokerNews announced today they would be partnering up at the WSOP. Bluff, who will be covering the action in the Amazon Room and future circuits, has PokerNews.com providing the live updates.

Also on Pokernews, our friend Amy has posted about the new Europe/Asia Neteller Debit Card. Who kept saying it’s all about Europe and Asia?

Episode 2.4.3

The Bluff Power Rankings vs. CardPlayer’s Player of the Year // Tom prepares for “Cash Poker,” a televised $25,000 buy-in ring game at Binion’s / Dan worries that Tom may lose because no-limit cash games aren’t his specialty // Psychoanalyzing Amarillo Slim’s mental state after his latest reported armed robbery / Tom’s childhood fondness for the 1972 champ // Reliable rumors on how the media set-up will work at the 2007 WSOP / Tonya Harding vs. Nancy Kerrigan on press row // Tom’s Winning Wisdom: Integrity is Key

Click to listen (23 min, 21 meg)

aired live on Hold’em Radio 1-31-07