Quad queens at the Wynn, a few hands after losing with quad jacks. Read below for the best bad beat jackpots in Vegas.

This is not a bad beat story, though it starts with one.

This is a story about bad beat jackpots, and the lack thereof.

Playing a 1-3NL game the other day, I raised to $12 in late position with JhJd.

An older man — here’s him as a younger man, seriously — called on the button, one of the blinds called and the limper directly to my right called.

The flop was a dream: Js5c7c. And it was checked to me, so I bet big, hoping to build it up with one of the suckers stupid enough to call my preflop raise.

To my delight, the button moved in for $150. The blind folded and the limper contemplated.

“Please call, please call, please call,” I thought.

And he shoved for $200.

Oh boy, dreams do come true.

I tossed a handful of chips over the line, indicating my insta-call confidence. Two all-ins and I had top set. How easy is this game?

The dealer flipped the 4c on the turn — crap, maybe one of them hit a flush, but I could still boat up — and the Jc on the river.

Oh yeah, quads!

“I have quads,” I said proudly, revealing all of the jacks.

The elation lasted only a split second. The guy to my right popped out of his seat and said, “Quads are no good. Straight flush.” And he revealed the 6c8c.

This was at Wynn, where there is no bad beat jackpot.

So I texted comrades about my miserable luck. I tweeted that I had lost with quads.

A Twitter follower replied that if I had been playing at Caesars Palace, I could have been $9,000 or $10,000 richer.

That got me thinking.

Another friend called the Beau Rivage in Biloxi, where I had played regularly for the past 5 years.

Their hold’em jackpot was at $66,000.

The bad beat jackpot might be common in Biloxi casinos and some in California. But it’s not really a Vegas thing. At least in some of the bigger poker rooms where I play the most, such as Aria, Bellagio, MGM, Venetian and Wynn.

I didn’t tilt off the rest of my money — actually made a little that day at Wynn — and won a nice $29 pot when I flopped quads on a QdQsTh board a few hands later.

So as I returned from a Pokerati meeting the next afternoon, I stopped by the Palace Station casino. Station casinos offer a bad beat that is distributed throughout all 8 properties.

Reminders of the bad beat jackpot flashed repeatedly on the wall-mounted TV inside the 9-table room. I jumped in a new limit hold’em table.

“Let’s get the cards in the air, in case the jackpot hits,” one of the grizzled regulars said.

“It’s jackpot time,” another man announced.

Jackpot this … jackpot that … jackpot up his sleeve … jackpot, jackpot, jackpot.

It’s the only word I could hear.

General poker theory goes that players shouldn’t be concerned about a jackpot when on the grind. But it certainly floods your mind after you hit a hand that could have been.

I checked with Vegas poker rooms and found the ones that pay for losing.

Here’s a breakdown:

• The rake at Caesars, with a bad beat jackpot for any quads losing, is 10 percent up to $5 plus $1 for the jackpot. Currently, the jackpot is at about $30,000. If it hits, 40 percent goes to the player who loses the hand, 20 percent goes to the winner and there’s a 40 percent table share.

• At any of the Station casinos, there’s a $4 rake with $1 taken for the jackpot, and the bad beat jackpot is broken down a little differently. The losing hand gets $30,000, the winning hand gets $20,000 and the rest of the jackpot is split up among all poker players at any of the 8 other Station properties. (That means the winner and loser would also get a player share.) Currently, the jackpot is about $100,000.

• Some of the smaller rooms in Vegas offer a variety of payouts for bad beats at different levels. Losing with aces full or better at Excalibur earns 40 percent of a small jackpot, while 20 percent goes to the winner of the hand and 40 percent is divided among the table. Excalibur takes a $4 rake plus $1 for the jackpot.

• Bally’s started a bad beat jackpot promotion April 1. To qualify for a chunk of the $10,000, a player must lose with quads or better. The loser of the hand receives $4,000, the winner receives $3,000 and the table splits up the remaining $3,000. Bally’s takes a $5 rake plus $1 for the jackpot.

• At the Flamingo, there’s a $2,000 bad beat jackpot if 4 of a kind or better is beaten, with $1,000 going to the player with the losing hand, $500 going to the winner and the table splitting $1,000. The Flamingo takes a $5 rake plus $1 for the promotion.

• To qualify for the progressive $50,000 bad beat jackpot at The Orleans a play must lose with 4 of a kind, using both hole cards. The loser of the hand receives 45 percent, the winner receives 27 percent, while the table shares the rest. Orleans takes a $3 max rake, plus $1 for the jackpot.

• Aces full of 10s beat by quads or better qualifies for the $2,000 jackpot at Riviera, where $599 is distributed to the losing hand, $401 is awarded to the winning hand and the table splits the remaining $1,000. The Riv takes a $4 rake, plus $2 for the jackpot, and their promotions can change from week to week.

• If you lose with aces full — again, using both hole cards — Harrah’s you qualify for a small bad beat jackpot. There, $500 goes to the player with the losing hand, $200 goes to the winning hand and everyone at the table receives $50. Harrah’s takes a $5 rake, with $1 for the jackpot.

So maybe I missed out on some extra coin. But if I had been playing elsewhere, I would never have been dealt that hand. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

The temporary poker room at IP during construction of the Linq project is currently enjoying Quad-a-Palooza.

In the weeks leading up to the World Series of Poker, grinders all over Vegas start making big plans. Even small-stakes guys like me and my friends want a piece of the action. But with the major online sites shuttered for US players, we must hunt for a way to qualify for a bracelet event.

WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart told reporters that Caesars properties would increase satellites leading up to the series.

Caesars Palace just launched its WSOP Warm-Up, running through May 20, with tournaments as low as $130 that have $20,000 guaranteed prize pools and $1,000 WSOP seats.

My friends and I decided to skip those tournaments for now — thinking we’d hit a few of the smaller Caesars properties to increase our chances of scoring a seat. These rooms wouldn’t be as packed with local grinders, we figured, and the games would be less volatile.

With the construction of the Caesars’ Linq project underway, the Imperial Palace poker room moved from the front of the casino, by which all the tourists would stumble, to a rather inconvenient spot up on the third floor.

“I don’t get it. They had such a great location,” said one of my poker buddies — an out-of-towner who takes most of his vacations to Vegas.

As we weaved our way through the slots and pit games, past a stretch of freshly hoisted dry wall toward the main elevators, a fire alarm was blaring, but no one seemed concerned.

“I would assume that they’re testing it because of the construction,” a bellhop assured us, “but don’t take my word for it. Be aware.”

We took our chances to get on one of the creaky elevators and survived the trip to the third floor, where some guy was hawking romance novels near a bank of slot machines roped off for tournament play. We eventually found the “new” IP poker room down the hall. The carpet was dark floral, the air musty Marlboro.

We spotted only two tables of 2-4FL with a half-kill.

It was 1:30 pm on a Wednesday, so we cut them some slack. “This is the busiest we’ve been in the last four days,” the poker room director tells us. Yikes.

Could you tell us how to win a $1,000 WSOP seat?

Oh that promo ended Monday, he said. So no seat, but there was a high hand jackpot that paid more than $1,000, and something called “Quad-A-Palooza,” with progressive payouts up to $599.

So we ducked out of IP and headed past the construction-site chain-link fences, through the particle dust and under the scaffolding, to Harrah’s, once the signature establishment of the Caesars empire, now home to a glass-encased poker room that’s something of a center-strip artifact.

Inside, with the likes of Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan and Stu Ungar glaring down at the felts from their bizarre technicolor portraits, we spotted two 1-2NL games running — standard stuff, with stacks between $50 and about $500.

Here they were giving away WSOP seats by raffle. For every hour at the table between midnight and 11:59 pm, every day through May 25, each player receives a ticket in a drawing for a $1,000 WSOP entry. At 6 pm the next day, one ticket is pulled. The winner must be present and he or she cannot exchange the buy-in for cash. No one player can win more than five seats. (A 6th prize to the same player would be distributed in cash, the 7th is forfeited.)

This year, there are seven WSOP events with a $1,000 buy-in, including a two-day tournament just before the main event.

“It’s a shot at winning a half-million bucks,” one dealer told us. “It’s a long shot, but it’s a shot.”

We decided our best shot was at Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall & Saloon, where they have the cheapest live poker on the strip: .50/$1NL. Minimum $20 buy-in.

There until May 25, they’re offering a $1,000 seat to anyone who makes the high hand of the day, minimum quads or better, using both hole cards.

No seat was awarded the day before, so the prize rolled over, and there were 2 seats available.

Low risk. Low variance. Big potential reward. Let’s gamble.

The felt at Bill's Gamblin' Hall & Saloon, possibly the cheapest way into the WSOP

My friend and I plopped down at one of the three booze-loosened tables.

I’ll just play pocket pairs, suited connectors, and anything that can make a high hand, I told myself.

So I opened my first pot in late position with KQo, which is none of that, and the drunk to my left promptly 3-bet. Sigh. I might need another 20 bucks.

I played a few more pairs and suited connectors and found myself stuck $100 in a couple hours.

So much for low risk.

My buddy won a few bucks, but alas, he didn’t win a WSOP seat either.

The entire day, only one hand qualified, which meant there was another rollover.

By the start of the series, there could be a pile of available spots.

Maybe we’ll head back before the WSOP starts on May 27 and give it another shot. We still have a couple weeks to sneak in. Otherwise, I might find myself grinding that slot tournament.

Me in Oceanside, CA

Ahhh, California...

My brother Chris and I, hiking Runyon Canyon above LA

If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably either a poker player or fan of the game in some fashion. You know that the games in Las Vegas are plentiful on any day of the week. The weekend crowd consists of tourists from all parts of the US escaping their routine lives for a few days in the desert. During the week, the player ratio skews more towards Europeans on extended holiday, mixed with the company conference crowd and conventioneers. There are always locals in the game and during the daytime, they can represent 50 percent or more of the table lineup, even at Strip properties.

At nighttime the ratio shifts more towards the out-of-towners, but where the tourists are, there will always be local regs scattered about.

It’s so fun playing a heads-up tournament. You get to play every hand… what more needs to be said?

As a poker player and/or fan, you might’ve heard that while Las Vegas is the gambling epicenter of the US, when it comes to poker, the true Mecca is actually located in Los Angeles. And after a recent return visit to my old stomping grounds, I was quickly reminded of that fact. The LA cardrooms are different in so many ways from their Vegas counterparts in everything from the atmosphere to the feel of the cards to the player makeup to what’s comped and what isn’t. At any one time in the Commerce, Bicycle, Hustler or any other casinos that occupy very non-glitzy East LA districts, you won’t find more than 1 percent of the player pool designated as “tourists”. No tourist is going to take time out of enjoying gorgeous Malibu or exploring the weirdness of Venice Beach to grind Commerce Casino. These places are packed with locals who love poker, love gambling, and very much love action. They absolutely have to… how else could you explain these folks braving horrific Los Angeles traffic to get to Bell Gardens to play $2/$3NL midweek? It’s true, you do get comped food from a rather impressive menu at the Bike, as opposed to free cocktails a la Las Vegas. But I have to assume it’s more than that. Poker has become a real part of several cultures that make up Los Angeles’ diverse demographics. It’s been that way for decades now, before the no-limit era and now well into it.

You might be thinking, why would I want to play amidst a sea of local regs? Aren’t the tourists the ones who make the games playable and beatable? In Vegas, yes. In other parts, that just isn’t the case. In fact, if I could replace all the tourists in Vegas with the current makeup of players in the LA cardrooms, I would probably do it. Of course, who knows if they would play the same way if they didn’t have to drive through LA traffic on their way to the poker room. (I’m serious, I think this has something to do with it. It’s impossible to travel two miles in LA without experiencing at least some level of tilt.) But in any case, there is unbelievable, inexplicable poker action in LA. I often wonder why my friends who play 5/10 regularly live in Vegas because if it were me, I’d probably spend the majority of my time elsewhere. The cost of living in Las Vegas is nearly unbeatable, but if I were earning enough to support a comfortable lifestyle in, say, Manhattan Beach, I would have to jump on it.

That all being said, you still have to run good. Not only that, there is an adjustment period when playing these manic California poker games coming from Las Vegas. I’m pretty sure you should be nitting it up, because when people finally arrive at their LA cardroom of choice, they aren’t in a folding mood. You should raise bigger for value and then just pound away for more value. After that, it’s in the gods’ hands as always. And the gods were not smiling upon me on this trip. I will spare you the bad beat stories (all in on the turn 3 ways 82% favorite $800 pot wtfffff!) and give the cliff noted summary of: it was a losing trip. However, it is always good to be back in LA. I absolutely love it there. I hiked Runyon Canyon with my brother, made it to some bars in Silverlake, and came back to Vegas recharged.

I drove back into the desert the night before St. Patrick’s Day. I really wanted to come back by then because I had an idea for one of my ChipTracker session reports, which you can find here. For me, especially lately, it’s been much more enjoyable playing with more of a purpose than simply winning money. Whether it’s writing one of the session reports, or doing longer write-ups in blog form, I’ve been a lot more inspired to work when I know there will be more to my efforts away from the grind itself. I’m starting to get more heavily into what I guess I could call “other project” mode. I’m really trying to find ways to use poker (both my playing and the time that my profession provides me) to fuel other endeavors, whether they are artistic or business minded.

I played a few sessions, did some writing, and mostly broke even in the cash games upon my return to Vegas. I played a PLO tournament with no results but I didn’t have high hopes, as I left my chips on the cash game table to return to post-bustout. There was another tournament I had my eye on: the $130 heads-up NL, 64 player max at Caesars. I had actually won this tournament before, and it stood as my only title on my official poker resume. So I bought my way in the night before the tournament to make sure I was in under the player cap.

It’s so fun playing a heads-up tournament. You get to play every hand… what more needs to be said? Each player starts with 15k in chips at the 100/200 level, which means not an incredible amount of play but not completely horrendous by any means. My first match went relatively smoothly. My opponent took an early lead and was actually ahead 2/1 in chips, but he found an unwillingness to fold QJo twice all-in preflop vs. my A10, and I was able to hold both times for the win. My second match was a blur, but my third match was interesting. Heads-up is easily, for me, the most interesting poker format. I’ve played more heads-up PLO hands online than any of my friends by far, and had pretty good results. You start out making small jabs to get your oppenent to reveal him or herself. Heads-up play forces your opponent’s poker soul to be on display, and the trick is to simply adjust accordingly vs. that player type. It’s very similar to ring games where you adjust to the table dynamics and then to your opponent(s) in a specific pot, but you have to try and find out what type of player you’re up against quickly and only with your own chips, whereas at a full table you can gather info by observing other players battling each other. Add to this the aspects of how your opponent is handling winning/losing, and then tells on top of that, and you have layers upon layers of a poker match.

The really fun part comes when trying to figure out how thinly to value bet and when to call off with A high. Some players make it extremely easy, bombing away with their strong hands and checking no-pair type hands. Such was my third opponent, raising to 500 preflop and c-betting 5000 on the flop for fear of getting outdrawn. My fourth opponent was the opposite type, playing far too weakly, limping in too often, never floating c-bets and allowing himself to get run over. My final two opponents were good players. They both played unpredictably and didn’t give too much away. I ran good in the semifinals, grinded my opponent down below 10bb’s, then shipped a suited connector and was able to get there for the win.

The final was best two-out-of-three. Earlier in the day, my buddy Jaymes thought it would be humorous to tweet his prediction that I would take second place in the event. I was feeling great after winning the first of our finals matches, and feeling pretty annoyed after losing the second when I flopped top two pair vs. my opponent’s flopped straight. I was pretty exhausted at that point. If you think playing poker for 10 straight hours is draining, try playing a heads-up tournament for that long where your attention is demanded every single hand. I forced myself to bear down and took an early lead in the third match, and committed myself to grinding my opponent down without giving anything away. I had a bigger than 2-1 chip advantage and had my opponent below 10 bb’s again when I limped A5 on the button to induce a shove. He had done so a couple of times previously where I probably shouldn’t have limped in the first place and was forced to fold. My opponent obliged with another shove from the big blind and the A5 held up for the tournament title.

It’s always gratifying to be the last man standing at the end of a tournament. This win was especially gratifying for me because of my previous HU tourney title. Any one person can win a single no limit tournament, and you only need to look at the countless number of amateurs to bink a bracelet or other big score and to never find another win on their resume. Having booked a second win in the same tournament format really felt like it legitimized my first win.

It’s a closed tournament open only to current MBA students and accredited MBA alumni (please show your proof of registration or diploma at the window?) … but with a few hundred chicks and dudes hoping to power-suit their way to the personal 1-percenthood coming to town for multiple days — and tourney instructions that say: “this event has traditionally attracted players who are familiar with Texas Hold-em (so we suggest you read up on the rules before you arrive)” — it might be worth checking out.

Competing with the cash games for their Business School interests are a bunch of “networking seminars” — which are supposedly what draw the MBAers here on this special (to them) pokery weekend.

Check out the vid of what the Caesars Empire currently has populating one poker corner of the Las Vegas Strip:

I went into a bit of a breakeven stretch over the following four sessions. I have only myself to blame for this because I failed to use any sort of anti-jinx methodology. For example, say you send a tweet talking about how hard you’re crushing a game or how amazing you’ve been running at the tables. I usually don’t like to write such tweets because over 50 percent of the time they carry the jinx-virus, which will abruptly halt any and all rungood and stop it dead in its tracks. That being said, it is possible to tweet such thoughts to the twittersphere, but it would be foolish to do so without using anti-jinx protection. You’re simply putting yourself and your bankroll at risk without strapping on a hashtag along the lines of #plsdontjinxitkthx at the end of your happy tweets.

I don’t know why we call the poker gods, Gods, but we do. They seem more like a bunch of high school dropout, weird uncle, goofball idiots to me. When they abandon you, it is the filthiest, loneliest feeling you can imagine. But when they reflect their light on you for any kind of extended stretch, you feel, well, enlightened. Chosen. So in tune with everything you can hear the hum of the earth.

I somehow managed to sneak a $117 victory past the jinx-bouncers playing $1/$3NL at the Rio on the 1st of the month. But the next day when I ventured into the Palace of Caesar, his games of $1 and $3 were not so kind. I left @CLVPoker $400 lighter in the pocket, and followed that with a small $85 loss on the 3rd. My spirits were quickly risen on the very next day, which was a Thursday. Thursday evenings, as you should know by now, means Pokerati game night. The PLO/NL mixed game has treated me really well since its incarnation @PalmsPokerRm (#nojinxnojinxnojinx) and this particular Thursday brought happiness in the form of a $520 win, erasing losses from the previous two sessions. Unfortunately the breakeven stretch continued another day; on Friday I played a long, 10-hour session at the Rio dropping about $700 in frustrating fashion. Actually there was a pretty interesting hand from said session…

It was early on, and I had noticed that the middle-aged man with a WPT hat and a beer in his cup holder directly to my left was playing every hand, and raising almost all of them. He also had a lot of chips. I decided to switch seats after he stacked a player and was sitting across the table from him when I raised to $18 with KQ after 3 limps. There were three callers including WPT guy and I had position on everybody. The flop came 643, and WPT guy led for $20. I had seen him donk-lead like this with a flush draw in a previous hand and this situation felt very similar in that he could have some sort of a straight draw. It folds to me and I decide to call. The turn is a 3 and he leads for $50. It feels like a good card as it doesn’t seem to change too much, and if it hasn’t then I think a lot of the time I have the best hand. I call again. The river is an A, and WPT guy pauses for a while. He starts eyeing me and saying things like “Hmmm, that’s not a good card,” and is really taking his time. He eventually bets $220. I tank and say, “You could be bluffing with the best hand” and he laughs. I’ll post the results in the comments below later and if anyone wants to give input on all streets, please feel free.

The next day I demoted myself to $1/$2 and hit Planet Hollywood, which I keep in my regular repertoire of offices. The games are insanely soft, which is partly due to the fact that if you self-park upon arrival, you have to walk all the way through the Miracle Mile shops. It’s insane far, and as a result, most locals/regs/nits don’t bother playing there. Trying to valet is a gamble in itself; the attendants can be pretty meh. One of them even took my car key home with him at the end of his shift! I had to wait 20 minutes for him to drive it back to the casino. Arguably worth the wait, I booked a $465 win at PH and followed that up with a similar sized win at @RedRockPoker two days later, erasing the Rio debacle. Things were really looking up when my next session earned me $710 at the Palms the next day. And $430 two days later, followed by $515 the following day.

It was around this time that I realized what was happening. I don’t know why we call the poker gods, Gods, but we do. They seem more like a bunch of high school dropout, weird uncle, goofball idiots to me, but the community has dubbed them gods and who am I to question the community. Anyway, when the poker “gods” abandon you in that dark corner of the room, it is the filthiest, loneliest feeling you can imagine. But when they use their watch they stole from Walgreens to reflect the light of the sun on you, for any kind of extended stretch, you feel, well, enlightened. Chosen. You are in tune with everything around you and you can hear the hum of the earth.

Everything was flowing naturally. I would make plays that were always correct and opponents would make plays that would have me texting my friends to tell them about it, OMG. I flat a bet with the nut flush draw, someone behind me raises, I shove, he calls off with a worse flush draw. I raise 99 on the button, get three callers, flop 9-2-2, someone donk-ships all-in with a flush draw. A guy misreads his hand and shoves into my made flush. It’s the type of stuff you wish could just always exist, as all the stress of poker would just fall into nothingness. Before I knew it I had racked up 13 straight wins for one of, if not my longest win streak ever. Now, as far as the stakes go, it’s nothing whatsoever to brag about. This is low-stakes grinding at its finest and I haven’t stepped back up the ladder. (Side note, Matt Marafioti aka ADZ aka @adzizzy has currently racked up 20+ straight wins playing high stakes NL. Sigh…) But it’s a beautiful thing nonetheless and a pretty sweet upswing to pad the bankroll.

If only it could last forever. Today at Caesars I played in what could possibly be the best $1/$3 game I’ve played all year, and that’s saying a lot. But I must’ve felt a need to pay that dark corner a visit to get reacquainted. The very first hand, I donated $400 to a guy that definitely does not need it, 3-betting with AQ, barreling the flop and barreling all in on a blank turn. I somehow found a way to leave with $800 less than I walked in with, which secures my last few sessions as another breakeven stretch or small downswing. If I could mirror the last sequence and go on another 13-game win streak that’d be, um, nice, but that’s asking a bit much I suppose. And so the small-stakes ride continues.

Guided by the gods, of all people.

All patched up and places to go ... Sengphet prepped for her shot at a hard-earned championship bracelet.

So cards just got in the air for the first televised event of the 2011 WSOP, and of the 10s of thousands of players who had a chance to be here, three of them are from Dallas (though one has since moved to Las Vegas), and one has been part of Team Pokerati since she got a lotta chips in the 2010 WSOP ladies event.

LIVE UPDATES here.

Go La Sengphet! Also go Josh Evans! And though for a while I wasn’t sure if I had first seen him at Jackie’s in Dallas or maybe was just confusing him with a guy seen once at the Venetian, go Charles “Woody” Moore! All three of these players and the others are anything but luckboxes in a sit-n-go … they are real grinders and rounders with skill … and a win here, my contention, is a ticket to the real big leagues … as the winner of today’s event will be known all around as a real real player, and will have the bankroll — $300k for first — to prove it for as long as they can hold as a true and successful pro.

You’ll have to forgive any Pokerati bias toward La … Not only is Sengphet ’11 our most successful Team Pokerati player since Tom Schneider ’07, but really, she’s just a good poker story in and of herself, with or without Pokerati:

• A 21st century rounder, almost old-school style, on the poker road with boyfriend.
• David Clark, the boyfriend, qualifies for the WSOP-Circuit National Championship, too.
• La shows she can dominate in ladies events, winning one in the same venue where she’s playing today.
• By winning two rings to become one of only two women to qualify for the 100-player million-dollar freeroll, she can crush it in open events, too.
• She has been playing her ass off, working hard, and seeing results, making this table the next-level culmination of a climb that began with $65 four-table tournaments in Texas several years ago.
• Though not sure whether or not it has anything to do with Laotian-ness, the poker-Valentine couple celebrates victory by chowing down on crawfish

Follow along on WSOP.com (or the Pokernews iphone app, which is also pretty good for this on the road, and consider how things start to see that once the poker gods decide to do whatever they will with Woody, the first big name of the 2011 WSOP is pretty much anybody’s game. (Though it really seems to me like La is gonna win … and I was sure not to post this until after cards went in the air, lest Pokerati mess with her head.)

Consider him my new favorite cousin I never knew I had and the newest member of Team Pokerati even though he hasn’t yet picked up his patch. Big props to William Michalski (I think he goes by Bill) from Syracuse, New York.

Michalski is the official winner of Event #15 in the WSOP-Circuit festival going on currently at Caesar’s Palace. In reality there was a 7-way chop. But Michalski did get credit for 1st place and $15k of tournament winnings — making Bill the top Michalski in poker. (The Hendon Mob really needs to include Dream Team in their standings.)

UPDATE: Turns out instead of living in Syracuse he now lives in Las Vegas, having moved here and turned pro just a couple months ago. Am I supposed to have him over for dinner?

More details on the event (and chop) itself in Nolan’s report from Caesars below.

Bill Michaelski Wins WSOP Circuit Tournament

New Poker Pro from Syracuse Collects First Gold Ring at Caesars Palace

Las Vegas, NV – Bill Michaelski won the most recent World Series of Poker Circuit event held at Caesars Palace Las Vegas. He was declared the champion after an unusual deal was reached between the top seven finishers. While dealmaking is very much a part of the tournament poker scene, it’s rare for so many players to agree to a split. Michaelski was officially paid $15,413 for first place and was awarded the symbolic prize commemorating victory – the WSOP Circuit gold ring. This was Michaelski first time to cash in a WSOP event and first major tournament victory.

Michaelski, age 28, is originally from Syracuse, NY. He worked as a senior accountant before recently making the move to Las Vegas to play poker professionally full-time. Michaelski has been living in Las Vegas for only about two months and now, has a victory which should inspire some confidence in the months and years ahead. Michaelski’s previous cashes include two wins in smaller tournaments held at the Turning Stone Casino in upstate New York.

The $230 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em tournament was the 15th of 19 events on this year’s Caesars schedule. The two-day competition was played on April 23rd and 24th. The tournament attracted a large field of 331 players, which created a prize pool totaling $64,214. The top 36 players collected prize money. After 321 players were eliminated on Day One, the final table was held on Day Two.

There were no former gold ring winners among the final nine players, which meant a first-time champion was guaranteed. Tony De Felice arrived at the Final Table with a slight chip lead. But at least five players were all within striking distance, which meant a wide open finale was expected. That’s exactly what happened, as players played conservatively during the early rounds. In fact, two hours passed before the first player was eliminated. After Neal Cooke went out in eighth place, the remaining players began discussing a deal, and with the stacks sizes very near even all around the table, an agreement was quickly made.

Will be double-checking on the spelling of his name with my Grandmother.

Nice!

Katkin bought in for a single $300 tax-deductible good-cause bullet, and with blinds rising quickly, maintained a 10-20 BB stack throughout to get to the final table. There, he knocked out Howard Lederer and outlasted Allen Cunningham to win $5,000, a week’s stay in a fancy-room suite at the Rio during the WSOP main event, and $1k in food comps at any of the restos there.

Read Katkin’s take on his own game as well as PokerGrump’s impromptu coverage of the event.

This was one of three (that I know of) big charity tourneys over the past week where FullTiltPoker.net sponsored the event and contributed a $10k WSOP main event buy-in to the prize pool for the winner. It was almost like a Full Tilt charity tournament series …

Tuesday, of course, was my ill-fated attempt at charity glory in Jen Harman’s Nevada SPCA tourney.

And Wednesday was the inaugural running of Ante Up for Africa-DC, hosted by Annie Duke, Don Cheadle, and the PPA. The fete raised $70k for Darfur relief and presumably helped convince at least a few federal types charged with determining our industry’s future that Full Tilt are the good guys:

Check it out … even though AUFA-DC was the one event with a field that didn’t include Carrot Top, the Philadelphia Inquirer took note — and found a curious subtext in members of Congress hootin’ it up with Lederer, who has been unabashedly trying to win support for anti-UIGEA efforts at the same time he may or may not be subject of a federal grand jury investigation …

Clubs/Spades Bracket:
Erik Seidel beat Peter Eastgate
Scotty Nguyen beat Jason Mercier

Hearts/Diamonds Bracket:
Dennis Phillips beat Doyle Brunson
Annie Duke beat Jerry Yang

Semifinals:
Erik Seidel beat Scotty Nguyen
Annike Duke beat Dennis Phillips

The finals commenced with Duke (1-5 lifetime before this year’s event) taking on Seidel (0-5 lifetime at the NBCHU) in the best of three final. Duke won the first match, Seidel would tie it up in the second and held the lead in the deciding match, and had Duke all-in while holding the best hand, but his AdKd was no good for Duke’s Qd9d when she made two pair to take the lead. Duke eventually sealed the deal when her pocket nines turned a straight against Seidel’s A-2. Seidel was left with two outs to a chop, but the river was a blank, with the second place winnings of $250,000. Duke picks up $500,000 for the win, her first major win since her 2004 victory in the WSOP Tournament of Champions.

Let the heads-up fun begin. Ali Nejad and Leann Tweeden called out the pairings at Pure in Caesars Palace last night. Here’s a print-outable PDF of the official bracket for the 2010 National Heads-Up Championship, which gets underway today at 1 pm pacific.

Make your own picks via Pokerati’s bracket-tracker to see how our various predictions compare. We’ve got about nine five hours to come up with some sort of contest … a T-shirt is always standard, but I have to admit we’re running low on Pokerati shirts for really-really large men.

Big ups to @JessWelman who kept us posted live on Twitter, and @BarryGreenstein who accidentally sent a private tweet to Phil Ivey for all the public to see. (Gavin Smith plays small-ball; should walk into Ivey’s wheelhouse.)

The matchups are below:

Clubs
Patrik Antonius vs. Chris Moneymaker
Leo Wolpert vs. Eric Baldwin
David Williams vs. Joe Cada
Erik Seidel vs. Huck Seed
Dan Ramirez (online qualifier) vs. Erick Lindgren
Peter Eastgate vs. Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier
Stephen Quinn (online qualifier) vs. Ted Forrest
Dario Minieri vs. Jamie Gold

Spades
Gavin Smith vs. Phil Ivey
Richard Edwards (Caesars qualifier) vs. Scotty Nguyen
Shawn Rice (Caesars qualifier) vs. Joe Hachem
Gabe Kaplan vs. Johnny Chan
Daniel Negreanu vs. Jason Mercier
Pieter de Korver vs. Mike Sexton
Phil Gordon vs. Tom Dwan
Phil Laak vs. John Juanda

Hearts
Jesper Hougaard vs. Allen Cunningham
Eli Elezra vs. Greg Mueller
Annette Dworski (online qualifier) vs. Chris Ferguson
Kara Scott vs. Dennis Phillips
Brock Parker vs. Doyle Brunson
JP Kelly vs. Don Cheadle
Howard Lederer vs. Phil Hellmuth
Annette Obrestad vs. Orel Hershiser

Diamonds
Barry Greenstein vs. Vanessa Rousso
Sam Farha vs. Antonio Esfandiari
Jennifer Harman vs. Jennifer Tilly
Jerry Yang vs. Mike Matusow
Darvin Moon vs. Bill Huntress (online qualifier)
Andy Bloch vs. Annie Duke
Andrew Wilson vs. Paul Wasicka
Gus Hansen vs. Greg Raymer

[via Bluff Magazine]

Headed your way for the weekend, was hoping at the last second to get your recommendations on 1) tournaments and 2) sushi places to take guest/client. As for tournaments, playing one Friday somewhere during the day, not sure where yet- thoughts? Used to play the Caesars noon $330, didn’t like it last time so thought I’d branch out.

A slightly embellished version of my response to The Antiscouse:

1) Tournaments (Friday day)

Venetian $150 nooner
7,500 starting chips and 30-minute levels. It’s actually a daily event that usually draws 75-or-so runners throughout the week, but on Fridays it has been running closer to 150 players with first-place payouts around $8k.

Since you don’t dig the Caesar’s $330, you might also wanna check out the Bellagio daily events, and if you’re willing to go up against a smaller field with fewer prize payouts, the Hard Rock is in the last few days of their inaugual MegaStacks series — where all the events have been turned into $340s.

For a complete and semi-regularly updated list of Las Vegas daily and weekly tournaments + special events, go here.

2) Sushi

Nobu (at Hard Rock) is my personal favorite. Tasty. Sexy. Fun.

Simon (at Palms Place) is also one of my favorite restaurants in town … though it’s not pure sushi … it’s like Asian fusion with homegrown American steaks and stuff, and it’s away from the casino, which may be more appealing to me than you and your client.

Sushi Roku in Caesar’s Forum Shoppes is great food … but the price-to-portions ratio makes you feel like you’re at more of a French restaurant, and the long walk through a shopping mall to get there may be unappealing to smokers.

The sneaky, ooh, wouldn’t have thought of that place … Koi at Planet Hollywood.

UPDATE: 143 runners at Venetian today — Tagg finished 22nd (18 got paid). Hopefully better results TK for sushi.

Follow his self-twittering action here.

UPDATE: Never mind.

First off, some props to some Pokerati peeps scoring in the Venetian Deeps Stacks. Today, Team Pokerati player Jerry Randack made it to Day 2 in the $500+50 HORSE. We’re trying to follow him on twitter today, but, you know … some people don’t quite get how that works yet.

Also, big kudos to La Sengphet and Chui Kim from Dallas. La took part in a three-way chop in a $300+30 last week that paid her $24k. Chui followed that up the next day with a 4th place finish for $17k.

The Venetian tournaments are setting record numbers — with field sizes ranging from 500+ players to more than 800 in both $300 and $500 NLHs. Not sure yet on the HORSE event …

Meanwhile, the competing smaller buy-in skill-based tourneys across Las Vegas Blvd. at Caesar’s — the MegaStacks — are seeing very different results. According to one of our spies on the ground, answering the question of how it’s going over there:

Horrible. They canceled their $1k on Sunday because of lack of entrants. A player at Venetian said he went over their first, and they had 9 entries as of 11:30, one of whom was Jerry Yang. I saw Yang sit down in the Venetian tourney as a late entry at about 1:15.

NOTE: Bellagio has also affected the non-WSOP summer tourney landscape, re-upping their nightly tourney buy-in to $1,000.

Poker players arriving in town for the WSOP (via delayed flights) are twittering about it.

@Ali_Nejad has a pic of the motorcade.

LOL: Evelyn Ng and Erica Schoenberg just got done with their bikini photo shoot (with Tiffany Michelle) for Knockout magazine, and they’re all pissy about being stuck in traffic on the Strip — presumably unaware of why things are extra-congested on a Tuesday afternoon.

UPDATE: @JeffreyPollack is off to meet @BarackObama right now. Pre-emptive conclusion: good for poker!

UPDATE: President now headed to the Caesar’s Palace poker room. (Seriously.) via @Andy_Bloch.

Most recently: Bonomo’s won a couple monster pots and it could be over soon.

Caesars Palace is hosting its World Series of Poker Circuit Event, which started April 11th and runs through April 29, 2009.  Registration for all events is underway.

The winner of the $5,150 World Series of Poker Circuit Main Event on April, 27th will receive 1st Place Prize Money plus entry into the 2009 World Series of Poker $10,000 Main Event.  For more information contact the Caesars Palace Poker Room at 702-785-6566.

Caesars Palace – 2009 WSOP Circuit Event Schedule:

Friday, April 10th
Satellites Begin

Event #1 – Saturday, April 11th at 12pm (2 Day)
$1,000 + $60 – No-Limit Hold’em – 10,000 starting chips, 60 minute levels

Event #2 – Sunday, April 12th at 12pm (2 Day)
$500 + $50 – No-Limit Hold’em – 8,000 starting chips, 50 minute levels

Event #3 – Monday, April 13th at 12pm (2 Day)
$300 + $40 – No-Limit Hold’em – 6,000 starting chips, 45 minute levels

Event #4 – Tuesday, April 14th at 12pm (2 Day)
$500 + $50 – 6 Handed No-Limit Hold’em – 8,000 starting chips, 50 minute levels

Event #5 – Tuesday, April 14th at 3pm (1 Day)
$300 + $40 – Limit Hold’em – 6,000 starting chips, 45 minute levels

Event #6 – Wednesday, April 15th at 12pm (2 Day)
$500 + $50 – No-Limit Hold’em – 8,000 starting chips, 50 minute levels

Event #7 – Thursday, April 16th at 12pm (2 Day)
$1,000 + $60 – No-Limit Hold’em – 10,000 starting chips, 60 minute levels

Event #8 – Thursday, April 16th at 3pm (2 Day)
$500 + $50 – Pot Limit Omaha – 8,000 starting chips, 50 minute levels

Event #9 – Friday, April 17th at 12pm (2 Day)
$500 + $50 – No-Limit Hold’em – 8,000 starting chips, 50 minute levels

Event #10 – Saturday, April 18th at 12pm (2 Day)
$1,620 – No-Limit Hold’em – 12,000 starting chips, 60 minute levels

Event #11 – Saturday, April 18th at 3pm (2 Day)
$300 + $40 – Double Stack Turbo NL Hold’em – 12,000 starting chips, 25 minute levels

Event #12 – Sunday, April 19th at 12pm (2 Day)
$1,000 + $60 – No-Limit Hold’em – 12,000 starting chips, 60 minute levels

Event #13 – Monday, April 20th at 12pm (2 Day)
$500 + $50 – No-Limit Hold’em – 8,000 starting chips, 50 minute levels

Event #14 – Monday, April 20th at 3pm (1 Day)
$300 + $40 – Omaha 8 or Better – 6,000 starting chips, 45 minute levels

Event #15 – Tuesday, April 21st at 12pm (2 Day)
$300 + $40 – No-Limit Hold’em – 6,000 starting chips, 45 minute levels

Event #16 – Wednesday, April 22nd at 12pm (2 Day 64 Player Max)
$1,000 + $60 – Heads-Up NL Hold’em – 10,000 starting chips, 15 minute levels

Event #17 – Wednesday, April 22nd at 3pm (2 Day)
$500 + $50 – No-Limit Hold’em – 8,000 starting chips, 50 minute levels

Event #18 – Thursday, April 23rd at 12pm (2 Day)
$300 + $40 – No-Limit Hold’em – 6,000 starting chips, 45 minute levels

Event #19 – Friday, April 24th at 12pm (2 Day)
$500 + $50 – No-Limit Hold’em – 8,000 starting chips, 50 minute levels

Friday, April 24th at 5pm
$500 + $50 – Mega Satellite – 5,000 starting chips, 30 minute levels

Event #20 – Saturday, April 25th at 12pm (2 Day)
$2,000 + $80 – No-Limit Hold’em – 15,000 starting chips, 60 minute levels

Event #21 – Saturday, April 25th at 3pm (2 Day)
$300 + $40 – Ladies Only NL Hold’em – 6,000 starting chips, 45 minute levels

Saturday, April 25th at 5pm
$500 + $50 – Mega Satellite – 5,000 starting chips, 30 minute levels

Sunday, April 26th at 10am
$50,000/40 Hour Free Roll Satellite – 5,000 starting chips, 25 minute levels

Sunday, April 26th at 12pm
$500 + $50 – Mega Satellite – 5,000 starting chips, 30 minute levels

Sunday, April 26th at 3pm
$300 + $40 – Mega Satellite – 3,000 starting chips, 30 minute levels

Sunday, April 26th at 9pm
$500 + $50 – Turbo Mega Satellite – 4,000 starting chips, 20 minute levels

Event #22 – Monday, April 27th at 12pm (Day 1)
$5,000 + $150 – WSOP Circuit Event Championship – 25,000 starting chips, 75 minute levels

Tuesday, April 28th at 12pm (Day 2)
Wednesday, April 29th at 12pm (Day 3)
Thursday, April 30th at 12pm (Final Day)

Caesars Palace
3570 S. Las Vegas Blvd.
Las Vegas, NV US
800-851-1703

Team Tao of Pokerati hits Caesar’s Palace (and Bellagio) for the first open-field running (second overall) of Dream Team Poker. Have a listen to join Pauly and Dan + Shaniac on our ventures to the registration and jersey-issue cocktail party … a pregame breakfast at Cafe Bellagio (where we declare ourselves the favorites, or at least a Top 10 team) … and then back to Caesar’s for the tournament itself. Along the way we analyze the intricacies of team play, formulate an alliance against TJ Cloutier, negotiate a deal to off Jerry Yang, and show you how big bets on March Madness might be the secret antidote to tilt. Intense strategy talk and hand breakdowns to boot …

Chapter 10: Go Team

Episode 10.1: Gel Time

Episode 10.2: Shirts vs. Skins

Episode 10.3: Spam and Eggs

Episode 10.4: Karma, Villanova, and Thor

Episode 10.5: Bustout Strategy

Episode 10.6: Better Luck Next Time

Likewise, over at Wicked Chops, they’ve got the Hottie Beat covered … and PokerListings has manhandled the actual tournament action.

Tao of Pokerati Dream Team teammate Shaniac has some great music to listen to while you’re waiting for more.

Meanwhile, Team Aced did their thing to keep Aced.com in the public eye as a potentially legitimate newfangled online poker room with celeb-pro representative Jamie Gold, LV poker-room man Houston Waldie, and Gold-girlfriend Ashley Nataupsky — who is still alive for the individual championship — locking up the team title earlier today.

The vibe on Day 2 (final three tables) was quite distinct from Day 1 (field of 444 playing down to 27). From an informed source on the ground at Caesar’s:

It was great. People really had to watch the standings when making plays. They might have had pot odds on a few calls, but people were laying down hands to hold. It turned into one big last longer prop bet.

Much to say about the WSOP Academy I attended last weekend at Caesar’s … about things I learned, how I performed, and, frankly, what kinda people are shelling out close to $2,000 for anything these days. For some of the 50-or-so poker players in attendance it was just a matter of a buy-in or two for the level they play at. And for others, it was more than half their annual poker budget in a way that doesn’t even account for flights to Las Vegas from Australia or Buffalo.

Prof. Seif: “He may think it’s the right move, but Dan stands to lose a stack of 20-dollar bills this big if he keeps playing that way.”

All in all it was a great class taught by Mark Seif, Mark Gregorich, Alex Outhred, and Michael Gracz — very engaging, informative, and often irreverent — didn’t feel like Saturday/Sunday detention at all. I lost pretty big in the one session of $1/$2 NL I’ve played since WSOP-Acad graduation … I guess they shoulda reminded us to take a nap after class, or they can only do so much with a guy who insists on misplaying KQ generally 8 out of 10 times. (Ah, the painful, humiliating schoolchild memories …) If I could just misplay the hand 4 out of 10 times, that would be some serious positive EV, saving me the theoretical cost of tuition in just a few orbits!

BTW, the next WSOP Academy is at WinStar, February 21-22 — a poker room near and dear to so many Texas player and longtime Pokeratizens. Outhred and Gracz will be part of the Thackerville faculty, along with Greg Raymer and Master Mindset (?) coach Sam Chauhan.

Click here for more info … and really, you should totally think about signing up. Your Pokerati-friendly friends will feed you and everything.